Washington & Jefferson:
A Revolutionary Friendship (2024)
Martha Washington’s worst memory was the death of her husband. Her second worst was Thomas Jefferson’s awkward visit to pay his respects subsequently. Indeed, by the time George Washington had died in 1799, the two founders were estranged. But that estrangement has obscured the fact that for most of their thirty-year acquaintance they enjoyed a productive relationship. Precisely because they shared so much, their disagreements have something important to teach us.
"It is hard to believe no one has written a detailed account of the difficult friendship between the two Virginian revolutionaries George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. We now have Cogliano's meticulously researched, insightful, and fluidly written account of their history with each other. This book is just what we need as we approach the 25oth anniversary of what these two men helped put in motion, the American Revolution."
ANNETTE GORDON-REED, author of The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family
"Mr. Cogliano makes a strong case that Washington and Jefferson, though dissimilar as individuals, possessed similarities that 'reflected their class and society.' They both sought a republic of liberty in America but disagreed over what it should look like. As we know too well today, friendships become fragile when political differences are unbridgeable."
The Wall Street Journal (March 2024)
The Wall Street Journal (July 2024)
About the author
Francis D. Cogliano is the author of A Revolutionary Friendship: Washington, Jefferson, and the American Republican and Emperor of Liberty: Thomas Jefferson’s Foreign Policy. A Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and cohost of the American history podcast The Whiskey Rebellion. He is Professor of American History at the University of Edinburgh.
Dr Francis (Frank) Cogliano
