Historians Andrew Browning, author of Schools for Statesmen: The Divergent Educations of the Constitutional Framers; Nancy Isenberg, author of Madison and Jefferson; and Thomas Kidd, author of Thomas Jefferson: A Biography of Spirit and Flesh, explore Thomas Jefferson’s life and legacy through the lens of his own education and what he read—and how those influences shaped the American idea. Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, moderates.
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Andrew Browning is the author of Schools for Statesmen: The Divergent Educations of the Constitutional Framers. He is also the author of The Panic of 1819: The First Great Depression as well as numerous articles in scholarly journals and is currently working on his third book, a study of the 1786 Annapolis Convention. Browning has held teaching positions in Washington, DC; Portland, Oregon; and Honolulu, Hawaii.
Nancy Isenberg is the T. Harry Williams Professor of history at Louisiana State University. She is the co-author with Andrew Burstein of Madison and Jefferson and The Problem of Democracy: The Presidents Adams Confront the Cult of Personality. Isenberg is also the author of White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America and Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr, among other books.
Thomas Kidd serves as research professor of church history at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is the author of several books, including Who Is an Evangelical? The History of a Movement in Crisis, Benjamin Franklin: The Religious Life of a Founding Father, and George Whitefield: America’s Spiritual Founding Father. His most recent book is Thomas Jefferson: A Biography of Spirit and Flesh.
Jeffrey Rosen is the president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization devoted to educating the public about the U.S. Constitution. Rosen is also professor of law at The George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor of The Atlantic.
Additional Resources
- Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Robert Skipwith (1771)
- Andrew Browning, Schools for Statesmen: The Divergent Educations of the Constitutional Framers
- Thomas Kidd, Thomas Jefferson: A Biography of Spirit and Flesh
- The Septuagint: LXX
- Andrew Burstein and Nancy Isenberg, Madison and Jefferson
- Thomas Jefferson, Literary Commonplace Book (1758-1772)
- Thomas Jefferson, "original Rough draught" of the Declaration of Independence
- Thomas Jefferson et al., The Declaration of Independence (1776)
- John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)
- Francis Hutcheson, A Short Introduction to Moral Philosophy (1747)
- Francis Hutcheson, Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue (1725)
- Cicero, The Tusculan Disputations (ca. 45 BC)
- Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Bernard Moore (1773)
- John Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration (1689) and Two Treatises on Government (1690)
- Thomas Jefferson's Monticello
- Thomas Jefferson, Selections from Notes on the State of Virginia
- Nancy Isenberg, White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America
- National Constitution Center, Historic Documents Library
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