I'm looking for a good read on my favorite man, Thomas Jefferson. There are a lot of choices out there. Does any one have a suggestion?

You'll find his words have been twisted quite a bit over the ages. I guess the better question is, which Thomas Jefferson do you want to read about?

 

Would you like to read about Deist / Enlightenment / "tree of liberty" era author Thomas Jefferson? Or the more watered-down version of him?

I suppose the first description of him.

from working at a book warehouse, I know this one is popular. The Road to Monticello: The Life and Mind of Thomas Jefferson

 

I looked at the wiki and found an interesting quote that Jefferson had in a notepad:

 

Jefferson copied many excerpts from the various books he read into his "Legal Commonplace Book."[67] One passage he copied which touches on gun control was from Cesare Beccaria's Essay on Crimes and Punishments. The passage, which is written in Italian, discusses the "false idea of utility” (false idee di utilità) which Beccaria saw as underlying some laws. It can be translated, in part, as:

 

A principal source of errors and injustice are false ideas of utility. For example: that legislator has false ideas of utility … who would deprive men of the use of fire for fear of their being burnt, and of water for fear of their being drowned; and who knows of no means of preventing evil but by destroying it.

The laws of this nature are those which forbid to wear arms, disarming those only who are not disposed to commit the crime which the laws mean to prevent. ... It certainly makes the situation of the assaulted worse, and of the assailants better, and rather encourages than prevents murder, as it requires less courage to attack unarmed than armed persons.

 

Jefferson's only notation was, "False idee di utilità." It isn't known whether Jefferson agreed with the example Beccaria used, or with the general idea, or if he had some other reason for copying the passage.

 

I'm looking for a good read on my favorite man, Thomas Jefferson. There are a lot of choices out there. Does any one have a suggestion?

 

The Real Thomas Jeffersonby Allison, Maxfield, Cook, and Skousen printed by the National Center for Constitutional Studies. I am reading that now, and just finished reading The Real George Washingtonby the same publisher. Very well done, and seems very accurate and fairly written without an aggenda to change history.