The new edition of Warren Throckmorton’s Getting Jefferson Right is here!
Current managing editor Jay Green offers a blurb:
In Getting Jefferson Right, Throckmorton and Coulter provide a valuable public service to readers in at least two important respects. First, they expose some of the tactics increasingly employed by so-called Christian leaders to obfuscate and manipulate the facts of the past to advance various social and political agendas. And second, they supply us with a model of patient, nuanced truth-seeking that should be the unwavering standard of every historian and of every Christian.
And here is my blurb from the first edition:
Getting Jefferson Right is an intellectual and historical takedown of David Barton’s pseudo-history of Thomas Jefferson by two Christian professors who teach at a conservative Christian college. Michael Coulter and Warren Throckmorton have done their homework. Anyone who reads this book must come to grips with the untruths and suspect historical interpretations that Barton regularly peddles in his books, speaking engagements, and on his radio program. I have yet to read a more thorough refutation of Barton’s claims.
Here is a blurb from Brenda Schoolfield, the chair of the Bob Jones University history department:
In Getting Jefferson Right, Throckmorton and Coulter plead for good historical thinking because “history done right will lead to an accurate account.” The historian’s job, regardless of religious persuasion, is to tell the truth, not making a case for a client but rather making an account of the evidence from the past. Through their examination of Christian nationalists’ historical claims, Throckmorton and Coulter exhibit sound historical reasoning. They test the conclusions of historians as they consider the full context of the events and people. Their work continues to be necessary as the battle for telling the truth about the American past continues with assaults from all sides. Letting go of current political agendas and allowing the evidence from the past to speak reveals a powerful story of how the United States has changed over time.
As part of the release of the second edition, Throckmorton started a podcast titled “Telling Jefferson Lies.” Listen to the trailer here.