Jefferson's Complex Legacy on Race and Slavery

In the past we’ve had entire conversations on Historically Thinking–indeed, many conversations, a whole series of conversations–on intellectual humility and historical thinking, often asking “how have you changed your mind?” Today’s guest makes me confront the fact that there is probably no person in the historical past about whom I have had a greater change of mind than Thomas Jefferson.

This somewhat uncomfortable reflection has been prompted by Cara Rogers Stevens book Thomas Jefferson and the Fight Against Slavery. In it she builds a foundation of deep engagement with the entire textual history of Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia. Atop that she does what it says on the box, and traces the development not only of Jefferson’s views on slavery, but on how he wished to influence the next generation of Virginians in whom he placed so much hope.

Cara Rogers Stevens is an associate professor of history at Ashland University. Thomas Jefferson and the Fight Against Slavery is her first book. It won the Herbert J. Storing Book Prize, was a finalist for the Center for Presidential History Book Prize, and runner-up for the Journal of American History Book of the Year Award. She is also co-host of the podcast The American Idea.