Summary: Thomas Jefferson, the man who drafted the Declaration of Independence, which severed the 13 American colonies’ ties to the most powerful empire in the mid-to-late 18th-century world, had strong views about empire. Jefferson wanted the United States to become a great and vast “Empire of Liberty.” Frank Cogliano, author of Emperor of Liberty: Thomas Jefferson’s Foreign Policy, joins us to explore how Thomas Jefferson came to be a supporter and promoter of empires.
