Sep 22, 2026 · 1 hr 5 min · 13 segments
Andrew Burstein recently retired as a professor of history at Louisiana State University. "Being Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History" is his 16th book about the early years of the United States. In…
Andrew BursteinGuest
Brian LambHost
As I said to you before we started, I was going to be all over the lot because we've talked a lot about Jefferson, and there are new things in here I want you to talk about.
The first thing you didn't write about, and I want to ask you about it, if you go to the Monticello home of Thomas Jefferson, it costs you $42.
It's the most expensive of all presidential sites in the United States, including the George Washington site.
My business, I want Monticello and I retired to, well, I live 15 minutes from Monticello now, and I walk the Monticello trail, which is four miles.
It's open to the public and it's, You get the bang for the buck when you visit Monticello.
It's not just the guides that take you around or the character of the tours.
And there is, and if one looks at the landscape of Monticello and how it's maintained, the gardens, studying doing their best to reconstitute the Monticello that exists.
Now, obviously, you don't see the scuff marks that were there, or the mice that used to run around and you can't, no matter how much money you spend, you're not going to go back in time, but they have maintained the grounds and maintained the mansion in a way that's truly impressive.
And this work began when Dan Jordan, whom you and I both know very well, and I dedicated this book to Dan's memory.
He was the director of Monticello who did the most to introduce a more honest, a complete holistic understanding of Jefferson's world and made Monticello into the kind of, um, international site for visitors around the world.
And maybe what you're paying for at Monticello is the history of all those who have maintained it both on a scholarly and on a physical landscape level.
So I've never encountered anyone who walked away from Monticello from a tour feeling that they'd gotten ripped off.
As I said to you before we started, I was going to be all over the lot because we've talked a lot about Jefferson, and there are new things in here I want you to talk about.
The first thing you didn't write about, and I want to ask you about it, if you go to the Monticello home of Thomas Jefferson, it costs you $42.
It's the most expensive of all presidential sites in the United States, including the George Washington site.
My business, I want Monticello and I retired to, well, I live 15 minutes from Monticello now, and I walk the Monticello trail, which is four miles.
It's open to the public and it's, You get the bang for the buck when you visit Monticello.
It's not just the guides that take you around or the character of the tours.
And there is, and if one looks at the landscape of Monticello and how it's maintained, the gardens, studying doing their best to reconstitute the Monticello that exists.
Now, obviously, you don't see the scuff marks that were there, or the mice that used to run around and you can't, no matter how much money you spend, you're not going to go back in time, but they have maintained the grounds and maintained the mansion in a way that's truly impressive.
And this work began when Dan Jordan, whom you and I both know very well, and I dedicated this book to Dan's memory.
He was the director of Monticello who did the most to introduce a more honest, a complete holistic understanding of Jefferson's world and made Monticello into the kind of, um, international site for visitors around the world.
And maybe what you're paying for at Monticello is the history of all those who have maintained it both on a scholarly and on a physical landscape level.
So I've never encountered anyone who walked away from Monticello from a tour feeling that they'd gotten ripped off.
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