# Confounding Father: Thomas Jefferson’s Image in His Own Time

**URL:** <https://www.libertarianism.org/podcasts/free-thoughts/confounding-father-thomas-jeffersons-image-in-his-own-time>

**By** Robert M.S. McDonald, Trevor Burrus, Aaron Ross Powell

**Published:** September 9, 2016

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Robert McDonald joins us for a discussion about the life of author, musician, inventor, architect, philosopher and statesman Thomas Jefferson.

Why are Americans so fascinated with our third President? What did Jefferson's contemporaries think of him?  
  
Robert McDonald joins us this week to talk about the life and ideas of Thomas Jefferson.  
  
**Show Notes and Further Reading**  
  
McDonald's book is [_Confounding Father: Thomas Jefferson's Image in His Own Time_ (2016)](https://www.amazon.com/Confounding-Father-Jeffersons-Jeffersonian-America/dp/0813938961) .  
  
There is a conception that politics was more civil at the turn of the 19th century; [this Reason.tv video proves otherwise](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_zTN4BXvYI).