Most Blessed of the Patriarchs
Presented in partnership with the Wisconsin Historical Society, Annette Gordon-Reed presents the 2017 James Madison Lecture: The Hemings Family of Monticello in Madison. Hailed by critics and embraced by readers, Most Blessed of the Patriarchs is one of the richest and most insightful accounts of Thomas Jefferson in a generation. Following her Pulitzer Prize-winning The Hemingses of Monticello, Annette Gordon-Reed has teamed with Peter S. Onuf to present a provocative and absorbing character study that reveals our third president. Gordon-Reed and Onuf fundamentally challenge much of what we thought we knew, and through their painstaking research and vivid prose create a portrait of Jefferson, as he might have painted himself.
Annette Gordon-Reed
Professor Annette Gordon-Reed is the Charles Warren Professor of American Legal History at Harvard Law School. She won the Pulitzer Prize in History in 2009 for “The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family”. Her most recently published book (with Peter S. Onuf) is “‘Most Blessed of the Patriarchs’: Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination”. Her honors include a fellowship from the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library, a Guggenheim Fellowship in the humanities, a MacArthur Fellowship, the National Humanities Medal, the National Book Award and the Woman of Power; Influence Award from the National Organization for Women in New York City.