Publisher's Synopsis
This study supplies extensive material making it possible for the reader to understand how Thomas Jefferson's mind spanned the vast distance separating antiquity from writers like William James and Sigmund Freud, analyzing his studies in economics, moral philosophy (including "the theory of liberty"),history law and aesthetics. That done, it is possible to peel off layer upon layer of alien varnish from Jefferson's portrait. He is seen to be a great, if sometimes unscrupulous, leader whose monumental talents were efficiently harnessed to his commanding goal of combating "every form of tyranny over the mind of man".;Principal subjects include 18th-century aesthetics, economic analyses of Hamilton's "Reports", American "agrarianism", the system of Sir Robert Walpole, whig myths about David Hume and Adam Smith, the French Revolution (so that de Tocquevill is supported against Edmund Burke) and studies in the theory of liberty, the shibboleth of Jefferson's fame. Other works by Burstein include "Modern Monetary Theory", "Open-Economy Monetary Economics" and "Studies in Banking Theory, Financial History and Vertical Control".
