Ken Burns, America's most popular and successful documentarian of history, has called Thomas Jefferson "the most important human being born in the last 500 years." It is with this passionate admiration, tempered as always by a blunt acknowledgement of Jefferson's flaws, that Burns approaches his subject. Following the brilliant, fiery young revolutionary from his writing of the Declaration of Independence to his love affair with France and his extraordinary political career, this compelling film delves into the classic Burns-ian themes: unquenchable hope, agonizing loss, and how men and women throughout history have negotiated the two in creating the quintessential American experience.