Alan Taylor is Thomas Jefferson Professor of History at the University of Virginia. He is the author of American Revolutions and other acclaimed works, and has twice won the Pulitzer Prize for History. His book, The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832, won the Pulitzer Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Award. He lives in Charlottesville, Virginia and Davis, California.
With characteristic eloquence, Alan Taylor chronicles the unlikely emergence of one of the most important experiments in American education: the University of Virginia. Caught between the promise of a new nation of freedom and the reality of a declining slave society, Thomas Jefferson and his allies forged an institution at once intellectually innovative and socially conservative. Taylor's rich, evocative book captures the surprising drama of that invention.--Edward L. Ayers, author of The Thin Light of Freedom Alan Taylor's extraordinary new book illuminates the limits of republican reform in a society built on slavery. It is a major contribution to our understanding of Thomas Jefferson's career as an educational reformer and to the history of democratic self-government in Virginia.--Peter S. Onuf, Thomas Jefferson Foundation Professor Emeritus of History, University of Virginia A highly illuminating account...a book that refreshingly adds real substance to the abundant literature on Jefferson. An account of Jefferson's home state and university...A complex but fascinating story.