The Scientist Turned Spy with Patrick Spero

Join the American Philosophical Society in welcoming incoming CEO Patrick Spero back to the Society with the launch of his new book, The Scientist Turned Spy: André Michaux, Thomas Jefferson, and the Conspiracy of 1793 (University of Virginia Press). 

The book has deep ties to the Society's history. Intrigued by a treasure in the library's collections—a 1793 list of supporters pledging support for an expedition by botanist André Michaux seeking a route to the Pacific Ocean (the only known document to contain the signatures of the first four American presidents), Spero followed threads in the archival record to discover what became of the expedition. He uncovered Michaux’s unlikely turn to espionage as an agent of the revolutionary French government, enlisted to attract American frontiersmen to gain control of Spanish-held New Orleans and Louisiana. 

Patrick Spero is the incoming CEO of the American Philosophical Society. He was Librarian and Director of the Society's Library and Museum from 2015 to 2023. Spero is the author of Frontier Rebels: The Fight for Independence in the American West, 1765–1776 and Frontier Country: The Politics of War in Early Pennsylvania.