Thomas Jefferson Westward the Course of Empire

He served as a member of the Continental Congress, governor of Virginia, minister to France, secretary of state, vice president and president of the United States. Yet his effort in molding American foreign policy was one of his most important contributions. This new biography of one of America's greatest political figures focuses on Thomas Jefferson's role as a maker of foreign policy, from his formative years to his last days as a senior statesman. Although he was not the sole formulator of American diplomacy, Jefferson's voice was the most pervasive in the first generation of the republic's history. It may also have been the most paradoxical. Jefferson was an eloquent defender of non-entanglement with European powers, yet he advocated, it seemed, an informal alliance with France in the embargo of 1807 and with Britain on the eve of the Monroe Doctrine in 1823. He was an articulate spokesman for an agrarian republic in the 1790s, yet he supported manufacturers during Iris presidency to ensure independence from European economic control. He was a believer in the efficacy of peaceful coercion, yet he employed military force against the Barbary powers in 1804 and advocated war against Britain in 1812. In this volume, Kaplan reconciles these contradictions in Jefferson's views and positions over a period of almost half a century. He also explores how the concept of the United States' westward expansion worked as the moving force in forming Jefferson's judgments and actions in foreign relations. In completing the Louisiana Purchase, Jefferson nearly doubled the territory of the young nation. Kaplan describes how Jefferson's fascination with the West led him to dispatch the Lewis andClark expedition to explore the newly acquired land. Although much has been written about Jefferson, this volume is one of the few that explores the full range of his positions on foreign relations. Readable and authoritative, Thomas Jefferson: Westward the Count of Empire offers new insight into the man who shaped American foreign policy.

Lawrence S. Kaplan (Ph.D., Yale, 1951) is University Professor Emeritus at Kent State University and Adjunct Professor of History at Georgetown University