Self-Evident: Discovering the Ideas and Events That Made the Declaration of Independence Possible

America's Declaration of Independence is one of the most important statements on human freedom ever published. We laud Thomas Jefferson for penning the document's flowing prose, but most of its lofty themes did not spring anew from his mind. Instead, he relied on the powerful concepts evoked by the Enlightenment, ancient Greek and Latin writings, and what he termed the "harmonizing sentiments of the day." There is much less harmonizing in twenty-first century America. Although united in nam...