LANCASTER—Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Alan Taylor will discuss his new book Thomas Jefferson’s Education at 7 p.m. February 20 at Historic Christ Church & Museum.
A beautifully written and thought-provoking work, Taylor’s study explores Jefferson’s campaign to transform Virginia through education and the dilemmas slavery posed for such an ambitious goal, reported education director and curator Robert J. Teagle.
Describing the University of Virginia as Jefferson’s “great legacy project,” Taylor argues that Jefferson’s “noble aspirations became entangled in the inequalities of Virginia.”
Taylor won his first Pulitzer Prize in 1996 for William Cooper’s Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic. In 2014, he earned his second Pulitzer with The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia: 1772-1832, a study that features prominently the enslaved community at the Carter family’s Corotoman plantation in Lancaster County.
Tickets are $25 for Taylor’s presentation and a reception and book signing that follow, or $45 for the presentation, reception and a copy of the book, which may be picked up in advance at the Historic Christ Church & Museum, 420 Christ Church Road, Weems. For tickets, visit christchurch1735.ticketleap.com.
