A Wilderness So Immense: The Louisiana Purchase and the Destiny of America

History

Kukla, Jon

Americas

Anchor

The remarkable story of the land purchase that doubled the size of our young nation, set the stage for its expansion across the continent, and confronted Americans with new challenges of ethnic and religious diversity. In a saga that stretches from Paris and Madrid to Haiti, Virginia, New York, and New Orleans, Jon Kukla shows how rivalries over the Mississippi River and its vast watershed brought France, Spain, Great Britain, and the United States to the brink of war and shaped the destiny of the new American republic. We encounter American leaders--Jefferson and Jay, Monroe and Pickering among them--clashing over the opening of the West and its implications for sectional balance of power. We see these disagreements nearly derailing the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and spawning a series of separatist conspiracies long before the dispute over slavery in the territory set the stage for the Missouri Compromise and the Civil War. Kukla makes it clear that as the French Revolution and Napoleon’s empire-building rocked the Atlantic community, Spain’s New World empire grew increasingly vulnerable to American and European rivals. Jefferson hoped to take Spain’s territories--piece by piece,--while Napoleon schemed to reestablish a French colonial empire in the Caribbean and North America. Interweaving the stories of ordinary settlers and imperial decision-makers, Kukla depicts a world of revolutionary intrigue that transformed a small and precarious union into a world power--all without bloodshed and for about four cents an acre.

KNOPF

In A Wilderness so Immense, historian Jon Kukla recounts the fascinating tale of the personal maneuverings, political posturing, and international intrigue that culminated in the greatest land deal in history. Spanning nearly two decades, Kukla’s book brings to life a pageant of characters from Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, and John Jay, to Napoleon and Carlos III of Spain and other colorful figures. Employing letters, memoirs, contemporary documents, and a host of other sources, Kukla creates a complete and compelling account of the Louisiana Purchase. From the hinterlands in Kentucky to the courts of Spain, France, and England to the halls of Congress, he re-creates the forces and personalities that turned a struggle for navigation rights on the Mississippi into an event that doubled the size of the country and altered the destiny of the United States forever.

Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Speakers and clerks of the Virginia House of Burgesses, 1643-1776

Virginia State Library

Capitol of Virginia: A Landmark of American Architecture

The Library of Virginia's 1989 Edition of Fiske Kimball's Capitol of Virginia reaffirmed the reputation of this remarkable work as a "landmark in the developing field of architectural history." The 2002 edition demonstrates how Kimball's groundbreaking scholarship on Thomas Jefferson the architect inspired the next generation of architectural historians to reexamine this seminal building, its conception, and its influence on American architecture. Charles Brownell's new introduction recognizes Kimball's important contribution while also showing how recent research about the Virginia State Capitol has fundamentally changed our understanding of the building's sources and Jefferson's vision. Likewise, and eight-year project to conserve and research the architectural model of Virginia's Capitol that Jefferson commissioned while in France offers fresh insights into the building's origins and evolution, as summarized in F. Carey Howlett's essay. These new insights are supported by sixty-nine illustrations, many in full color, visually documenting one of America's most important architectural achievements.

Driggs, Sarah Shields

Kimball, Fiske

Vick, Martha C.

Richmond, Virginia, U.S.A.: Library of Virginia

Book by Kimball, Fiske, Kukla, Jon, Vick, Martha C., Driggs, Sarah Shields

The Library of Virginia

A pioneering study of Thomas Jefferson’s relationships with women in his personal life and in American society and politics. The author of the Declaration of Independence, who wrote the words “all men are created equal,” was surprisingly hostile toward women. In eight chapters based on fresh research in little-used sources, Jon Kukla offers the first comprehensive study of Jefferson and women since the controversies of his presidency. Educated with other boys at a neighborhood boarding school, young Jefferson learned early that homemaking was the realm of his mother and six sisters. From adolescence through maturity, his views about domesticity scarcely wavered, while his discomfort around women brought a succession of embarrassments as he sought to control his emotions. After Rebecca Burwell declined his awkward proposal of marriage, Jefferson reacted first with despondence, then with predatory misogyny, and finally with the attempted seduction of Elizabeth Moore Walker, the wife of a boyhood friend. His marriage at twenty-nine to Martha Wayles Skelton brought a decade of genuine happiness, but ended in despair with her death from complications of childbirth. In Paris a few years later, Maria Cosway rekindled his capacity for romantic friendship but ultimately disappointed his hopes. Against the background of these relationships, Kukla offers a fresh and cogent account of Jefferson’s liaison with Sally Hemings. Jefferson’s individual relationships with these women are examined in depth in five chapters. Abigail Adams, the women of Paris, and the wife of a British ambassador figure in the first of two closing chapters that examine Jefferson’s attitudes toward women in public life. In the last chapter, Kukla draws connections between Jefferson’s life experiences and his role in defining the subordination of women in law, culture, and education during and after the American Revolution.

Mr. Jefferson's Women

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

Alfred.A. Knopf

From the acclaimed author of A Wilderness So Immense comes a pioneering study of Thomas Jefferson's relationships with women, both personal and political. The author of the Declaration of Independence, who wrote the words “all men are created equal,” was surprisingly uncomfortable with woman. In eight chapters, Kukla examines the evidence for the founding father's youthful misogyny, beginning with his awkward courtship of Rebecca Burwell, who declined Jefferson's marriage proposal, and his unwelcome advances toward the wife of a boyhood friend. Subsequent chapters describe his decade-long marriage to Martha Wayles Skelton, his flirtation with Maria Cosway, and the still controversial relationship with Sally Hemings. A riveting study of a complex man, Mr. Jefferson's Women is sure to spark debate.

Historical

Vintage

As a lawyer, Thomas Jefferson was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses and sent to the Second Continental Congress. He supported America's independence from Britain. Though he drafted America's egalitarian Declaration of Independence, Jefferson maintained his Monticello plantation with slave labor. As the nation's first secretary of state and third president he advocated the rights of individuals. During his presidency, the $15 million purchase of the Louisiana Territory doubled the size of America's landholdings.

Thomas Jefferson: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness (The Library of American Lives & Times, 4)

Children's Books

Kukla, Amy

Biographies

Powerkids Pr

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Books by Kukla, Jon