A Revolutionary Friendship: Washington, Jefferson, and the American Republic

by Francis D. Cogliano

Overview

Francis Cogliano revisits the relationship between Washington and Jefferson, arguing that their vaunted differences mask mutual investments in the Revolution itself. Their later divergence demonstrates how wartime unity gave way to competing visions for the new nation, making clear that there was no single founding ideal—only compromise.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674304994
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	06/30/2026
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x 0.94(d)

About the Author

Francis D. Cogliano is the author of Emperor of Liberty: Thomas Jefferson’s Foreign Policy. A Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and cohost of the American history podcast The Whiskey Rebellion, he is Professor of American History at the University of Edinburgh and Acting Director of the International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello.

Editorial Reviews

A fantastic work of comparative history. Washington and Jefferson’s collaboration endured for three highly productive decades, but then, as now, even the warmest friendships sometimes got pulverized by politics. Cogliano’s poignant reminder that Washington and Jefferson never reconciled inspires me, as it may you, to try to rebuild bridges.

Woody Holton

Cogliano considers the relationship between George Washington and Thomas Jefferson in this measured and clarifying account…This deeply researched and accessible narrative sheds new light on a consequential friendship.

Publishers Weekly

A persuasively argued, well-written biography that illuminates and enlivens its subjects and their relationship. Avoiding the pitfalls of both the celebratory national narrative and its revisionist counterpoint, Cogliano enables readers to make better sense of the complicated circumstances—and complicated people—who revolutionized America, for better and for worse.

Peter S. Onuf

It is hard to believe no one has written a detailed account of the difficult friendship between the two Virginian revolutionaries George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. We now have Cogliano’s meticulously researched, insightful, and fluidly written account of their history with each other. This book is just what we need as we approach the 250th anniversary of what these two men helped put in motion, the American Revolution.

Annette Gordon-Reed

Takes the reader through the early years of Washington and Jefferson’s interactions, their many similarities, their differences, how they eventually met, and how the American Revolution brought them together in a way that never would have happened without the military conflict.

Epoch Times - Dustin Bass

[This] lively book offers a brilliant introduction to two superstars of the founding of America, to the dramatic events they lived through and to the conflicts that shaped their interactions.

History Today - Max Edling

Looks at the evolving nature of the friendship between George Washington and Thomas Jefferson…reminds readers that, unfortunately, bitter partisanship can break even the strongest bonds.

Journal of Southern History - William K. Bolt

Perhaps the most profound feature of Mr. Cogliano’s book is his treatment of how Washington and Jefferson developed their anti-slavery positions without ever, in fact, freeing their slaves while the two men were alive…[his] method is another vindication of Plutarch’s understanding of what is to be gained by juxtaposing one biography against another. The balance Mr. Cogliano maintains between the personalities and politics of Washington and Jefferson is pitch perfect.

New York Sun - Carl Rollyson

Shows how [Washington and Jefferson] in different ways, struggled with moral hypocrisy—the conflict between their lofty ideals and the fact that their elevated social positions depended on slave labor. They both sought a republic of liberty in America but disagreed over what it should look like. As we know too well today, friendships become fragile when political differences are unbridgeable.

Wall Street Journal - William Anthony Hay

Superb, compelling history. Deftly interweaving the personal and the political, Cogliano shows that Washington and Jefferson had a much closer relationship than is typically acknowledged, first as political allies, then as trusted friends and confidants, but the party strife of the young republic made them bitter opponents.

Eliga H. Gould

Superb, compelling history. Deftly interweaving the personal and the political, Cogliano shows that Washington and Jefferson had a much closer relationship than is typically acknowledged, first as political allies, then as trusted friends and confidants, but the party strife of the young republic made them bitter opponents.

Eliga Gould