Over the process greater than six a long time as an writer, journalist, and professor, Max Lerner studied and assessed many presidents, but Thomas Jefferson acquired his so much sustained awareness. To Lerner, Jefferson got here closest within the American context to Plato's "philosopher-king," the best philosopher and chief. as a result of his willing feel of Jefferson's virtues and his special position in usa heritage, Lerner begun paintings on a ebook approximately Jefferson in 1957, rewriting it numerous occasions all through his existence, continually with the purpose of introducing basic readers to "a philosopher and public determine of tolerating pertinence."

In this quantity, Lerner makes use of the evidence of Jefferson's lifestyles and paintings because the springboard to insightful research and expert evaluate. In contemplating Jefferson, Lerner combines biographical details, old heritage, and analytical remark. the result's a biographical-interpretive quantity, a primer approximately Jefferson that not just describes his accomplishments, yet discusses his difficulties and failures.

As political figures have declined in esteem in contemporary many years, the media has probed deeper into formerly deepest lives. Historians, biographers, and others have printed own information about deceased famous figures. centuries after he helped create the USA, Jefferson is still a determine of putting up with fascination inside educational circles and past. Max Lerner is helping clarify and make clear not just this never-ending fascination, however the undying relevance of the nation's devoutly democratic but singularly genuine "philosopher-king."