Join the VMHC for the 2026 Hazel and Fulton Chauncey Lecture.

Perhaps no founding father is as mysterious as Thomas Jefferson. The author of the Declaration of Independence was both a gifted wordsmith and a bundle of nerves. His superior knowledge of the human heart is captured in the impassioned appeal he brought to the Declaration. But as a champion of the common man who lived a life of privilege on a mountaintop plantation of his own design, he has eluded biographers who have sought to make sense of his inner life. In Being Thomas Jefferson, acclaimed Jefferson scholar Andrew Burstein peels away layers of obfuscation, taking us past the veneer of the animated letter-writer to describe a confused lover and a misguided humanist, too timid to embrace antislavery. Presenting a society that encouraged separation between public and private, appearance and essence, Burstein paints a dramatic picture of early American culture and brings us closer to Jefferson's life and thought than ever before.

Dr. Andrew Burstein recently retired as the Charles P. Manship Professor of History at Louisiana State University. He is the author and coauthor of several book, including Jefferson's Secrets: Death and Desire at Monticello, The Inner Jefferson: Portrait of a Grieving Optimist, Being Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History, and several other books on early American politics and culture. He is the coauthor (with Nancy Isenberg) of Madison and Jefferson and The Problem of Democracy. Burstein’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Salon.com. He advised Ken Burns’s production Thomas Jefferson, and was featured on C-SPAN’s American Presidents Series and Booknotes, and numerous NPR programs.