ABSTRACT
Can a book change how a society sees itself and is seen by others? Historians and literary critics have argued in the affirmative for Notes on the State of Virginia (1787), Thomas Jefferson’s response to questions posed in 1781 by M. Barbé de Marbois, secretary of the French legation in Philadelphia. Jefferson’s Notes offered a comparative table of flora and fauna in the Old World and the New World – even the mastodon made its appearance – as Jefferson refuted Buffon’s depictions of North America as a place where Old World plants and animals reappeared in degenerate forms. 1
