description: A fascinating new audiobook about Thomas Jefferson's lifelong struggle to overcome despair. How many Americans know that a few weeks before Jefferson composed the Declaration of Independence, he lay in a dark room paralyzed by a mysterious malaise, unable to act? Jefferson has long been regarded as a confident optimist whose faith in the future gave Americans the right, in the Declaration of Independence, to pursue happiness. Jefferson's Demons shows how complicated Jefferson's own efforts to pursue happiness were. Beran reveals the hidden life of a man who suffered through periods of headache and morbid horror, shadowed intervals in which he was filled with "gloomy forebodings" about what lay ahead. In a beautiful and revelatory narrative, Beran describes how Jefferson overcame his fears and transformed anxiety into action, the powerful labors that created Monticello and the Declaration of Independence, a new republic and a lasting political party. Beran uncovers the heretofore unexamined maps Jefferson used to find his way out of dejection and fight the battles of his public career--as well as his battles with himself. This pathbreaking audiobook gives us a Jefferson for our time, a sage who can speak to our own chaotic and uncertain age. The hero of Jefferson's Demons is a human Jefferson, a man who turned to the past to learn how to make productive use of his demons. It will force many to rethink the meaning of his exemplary journey.
language: English
title: Jefferson's Demons: Portrait of a Restless Mind
titlecomplete: Jefferson's Demons: Portrait of a Restless Mind
genres: American History, Biography, Nonfiction, Politics, History
ratings_count: 67
publisher: New Millennium (GB)