Jefferson's Demons

"[Beran] is such a lively writer, and such a risk-taking thinker, that the sparks he promiscuously strikes from his literary flint are, cumulatively, illuminating. " —George F. Will, The New York Times Book Review A fascinating new book about Jefferson’s lifelong struggle to overcome despair. In Jefferson’s Demons, Beran examines episodes of melancholia in Jefferson's life. In particular, he focuses on the journey Jefferson made to Europe in 1787 to escape the depression that set in due to his tumultuous experience as governor of Virginia following the Revolution and his wife Martha's death. Like Gary Wills' Lincoln at Gettysburg, Beran’s revelatory narrative weaves together intellectual history with biography to show how Jefferson embraced the idea of classicism. In the end, the author offers a new assessment of Jefferson that demonstrates that this enigmatically cool and collected intellectual was also a man of great passion.