In 1784 Thomas Jefferson moved to the sophisticated and exhilarating city of Paris, where he spent the next five years as minister from the new United States of America. These were formative years for France, for the United States, and for Jefferson's cultural and intellectual development. This engaging book recreates in word and illustration the atmosphere and personalities of prerevolutionary Paris, and it reveals the profound impact they had on one of America's first transatlantic citizens.

William Howard Adams discusses how the provincial Virginian became a cosmopolitan connoisseur in the rarefied intellectual, political, scientific, and artistic circles of the city. He describes Jefferson's relationships with such luminaries as Lafayette, Condorcet, Lavoisier, Baron Grimm, La Rochefoucauld, John and Abigail Adams, Gouverneur Morris, and J.-L. David, as well as his involvement with the English painter Maria Cosway. His alleged affair with his slave Sally Hemings is critically examined in the context of all available evidence.

Adams's principal focus is on Jefferson's role as the preeminent American envoy in Europe after the departure of Franklin, his participation in the cultural and political life of the city, and his private intrigues to help his friends bring the Bourbon monarchy to heel. Finally, he places the author of the Declaration of Independence in the middle of his second revolution and chronicles the dramatic events leading up to the upheaval of 1788-1789.

The book is richly illustrated with art of the period and with specially commissioned photographs of Parisian sites by Adelaide de Menil.

Reviews
"Adams has presented a superbly colourful portrait." Raymond Seitz, The London Times "Elegantly sythesises the historical wisdom on Jefferson's tenure in Paris...Adams deftly illustrates both the scope and importance of the Parisian context in all its splendour." Linzy Brekke, Chicago Tribune "In this wonderfully engaging book, Adams provides historians with a new and better context in which to reexamine Jefferson's role as a political partisan and ideological propagandist during the 1790s." C. Bradley Thompson, Journal of American History "The Paris Years of Thomas Jefferson intelligently explores the critical formative experience of that thought-filled, mild-mannered Virginian in the tumult of Paris society from 1784 to 1789. It takes the reader on an authoritative journey through the streets of the city and among the provocative characters in whose company the American diplomat thrived." Andrew Burstein, Virginia Quartely Review Auth biog: William Howard Adams is a fellow at the International Center for Jefferson Studies. A historian, writer, lecturer, and filmmaker, he was the curator of the National Gallery's exhibition The Eye of Thomas Jefferson and the editor of the catalogue of the same name.



Book Information
ISBN 9780300082616
Author William Howard Adams
Format Paperback
Page Count 368
Imprint Yale University Press
Publisher Yale University Press
Weight(grams) 522g