In many ways, Hitchens said, the project was much more than simply a study of the life of a solitary historical figure. military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq.įollowing the compact biography format established by publisher James Atlas last fall when when he launched the Eminent Lives series, Hitchens takes on Jefferson in a mere 188 pages. Once an aggressive leftist who made his name criticizing the Vietnam War, American foreign policy in South America and Central America and the first Gulf War, Hitchens is known today as a neo-conservative who enthusiastically supported U.S.

It’s an interesting premise coming from Hitchens, who is himself a bit of a political contradiction. Jefferson was a contradiction, and this will be found at every step of the narrative that goes to make up his life.” “It would be infinitely more surprising to strike upon a historic figure, or indeed a nation, that was not subject to this law. “This is true of everybody and everything,” Hitchens writes at the beginning of his book. And, perhaps most notably, Jefferson, the craftsman of the Declaration of Independence and author of the phrase “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal,” was also a lifelong slaveholder.īut for journalist, author and political commentator Christopher Hitchens - whose new book “Thomas Jefferson: Author of America” came out earlier this month as part of Harper Collins and Atlas Books’ “Eminent Lives” series - to say that Jefferson’s life simply contained paradoxes would be “lazy” and “obvious.” Navy, sent American troops to the shores of North Africa and spent most of his later years in office preparing for war against European powers. A patriot who decried standing armies as one of the most tyrannical forms of control of the British crown, Jefferson also helped create a new U.S.

Throughout his lifetime and in the nearly two centuries since his death, so much has been made of the contradictions that pervaded the life of Thomas Jefferson that entire libraries could be filled with books devoted to just this subject.Īn avowed champion of the American agrarian tradition, Jefferson also spent two terms as president forging the new United States into an economic and industrial power that could take a seat at the table of international affairs alongside France and Great Britain.

Hitchens thomas jefferson