American Synecdoche: Thomas Jefferson as Image, Icon, Character, and Self Author(s): Jan Lewis and Peter S. Onuf Source: The American Historical Review, Vol. 103, No. 1 (Feb., 1998), pp. 125-136 Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2650780 Accessed: 01-06-2017 19:18 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact
[email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms Oxford University Press, American Historical Association are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The American Historical Review This content downloaded from 76.3.249.195 on Thu, 01 Jun 2017 19:18:02 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Review Essay American Synecdoche: Thomas Jefferson as Image, Icon, Character, and Self JAN LEWIS and PETER S. ONUF GREAT MEN STRIDE ACROSS THE PAGES of popular history, determining the fate of nations. In the modern era, the lives of revolutionary leaders have been inextricably linked with the histories of the states they founded. America's Thomas Jefferson was neither Russia's Lenin nor China's Mao, nor, he himself would have assured us, was he Europe's Napoleon Bonaparte, the founder and destroyer of countless states.