Product Description: On July 4, 1826, the U.S. celebrated its 50th birthday with parades & speeches across the country. But what ultimately sanctified the national jubilee in the minds of the celebrants was an extraordinary coincidence in the nation's history: the nearly simultaneous deaths of Thomas Jefferson & John Adams, the last pillars of the original republic...read more

The author of Sentimental Democracy describes how the United States celebrated fifty years of independence in 1826, describing the events and personalities of the time, America's political culture, the nation's attempt to reconcile its past and future, and the lives of America's ordinary men and women. Reprint. 15,000 first printing. (view table of contents)

The author of Sentimental Democracy describes how the United States celebrated fifty years of independence in 1826, describing the events and personalities of the time, America's political culture, the nation's attempt to reconcile its past and future, and the lives of America's ordinary men and women. 12,500 first printing. (view table of contents)

Product Description: Thomas Jefferson's personal life has always been a puzzle to biographers. Even his contemporaries found him difficult to know. In Jefferson's correspondence, however, Andrew Burstein has found a key to the inner man...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: "Burstein's Jefferson's Secrets takes a different tack [than recent Jefferson biographers], one that is more subtle, more penetrating and ultimately more rewarding." (Washington Post) When Thomas Jefferson died on July 4, 1826, he left behind a series of mysteries that have captured the imaginations of historical investigators for generations...read more

Product Description: In this moving and intimate look at the final days of our most enigmatic president, Andrew Burstein sheds new light on what Thomas Jefferson actually thought about sexuality, race, gender, and politics.

A powerful portrait of Thomas Jefferson focuses on Jefferson's final days and uncovers the president's thoughts about his own legacy, his predictions for American democracy, and his feelings regarding women and children. 50,000 first printing.

Product Description: The letters of a person . . . form the only full and genuine journal of his life, noted Thomas Jefferson, who wrote nearly 20,000 letters in his own lifetime. Andrew Burstein invites readers to rediscover Jefferson through an exploration of his most enduring public and private writings...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: Mortal Remains introduces new methods of analyzing death and its crucial meanings over a 240-year period, from 1620 to 1860, untangling its influence on other forms of cultural expression, from religion and politics to race relations and the nature of war...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: Washington Irving--author, ambassador, Manhattanite, and international celebrity--has largely slipped from America's memory, and yet, his creations are still very well known. With a historian's eye for scope and significance, Andrew Burstein returns Irving to the context of his native nineteenth century where he was a major celebrity--both a colorful comic genius and the first name in our national literature...read more

A richly textured portrait of Andrew Jackson examines his diverse roles as frontiersman, man of the people, Indian fighter, military leader, and politician to explain how Jackson became an enduring symbol of democracy. 25,000 first printing. (view table of contents)

Product Description: The provocative interpretation of American political rhetoric. Americans like to use words of sentiment and sympathy, passion and power to explain their democracy. Here the noted Jefferson scholar Andrew Burstein examines the metaphorically rich language that Americans developed two centuries ago to express their guiding principle: that the New World would improve upon the Old...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Using letters, journals, and other primary sources to plum the roots of American self-confidence and optimism, the author reveals how American commitment to Enlightenment principles led to such ideas as Manifest Destiny and a global society. (view table of contents)