“It’s not in our interest to pay much attention to the struggles and the squabbles and the chaos and the madness and the insanity and the superstitions and the corruptions of Europe.”
Tune in to your local public radio or join the 1776 Club to hear this episode of What Would Thomas Jefferson Do?
"Understand him for his flaws as well as for his greatness."
— Joe Ellis
We welcome historian Joseph Ellis to the program this week to talk about his book American Creation. In the book, Ellis notes a series of five contributions the founding fathers made and Clay Jenkinson asks how those contributions are holding up during our time.
"This book reveals [Washington] as a man of emotion, raw emotion."
— Clay S. Jenkinson
In anticipation of our conversation next week with Peter Stark, the author of Young Washington, we speak with Jefferson about our first president. Jefferson also comments on the time change, and the importance of using available daylight.
"He was part of the extension of slavery that made the Civil War inevitable, and that led to almost 800,000 deaths."
— Clay S. Jenkinson
This week President Thomas Jefferson speaks about the political mistakes he made.
"Paine refused to take proceeds from this book."
— Clay S. Jenkinson
This week, we present another of our Jefferson Hour Book Club episodes and discuss Thomas Paine’s Common Sense.