Books of Interest

Martha Jefferson: An Intimate Life with Thomas Jefferson

Martha Jefferson is the first and only biography of Thomas Jefferson's greatest love and true kindred spirit, who died an untimely death at the young age of 33 in 1782...Read more 

by William G. Hyland Jr., Rowman & Littlefield, 2014

See the advance reviews for Martha Jefferson, An Intimate Life with Thomas Jefferson.


Long Journey with Mr. Jefferson

Few biographers can boast of spending nearly all of their professional lives writing a comprehensive biography of one of America's most complex subjects...Read more

by William G Hyland Jr., Potomac Books Inc., 2013

Reviewed by Kathryn Moore


William Hyland has provided an interesting and provocative look into the Jefferson family. His other contributions can be found on his website https://www.williamghyland.com/


Dutiful Correspondent: Philosophical Essays on Thomas Jefferson

"This book began, harmlessly enough, as a series of philosophical essays on Thomas Jefferson that were intended to be independently published in selected scholarly journals. I had no intention of binding them together in a book. Yet as I proceeded with the first essay, I began another and then another, without finishing the first. Before long, I had a collection of some five or six incomplete essays on distinct philosophical topics. In each distinct paper, I kept putting forth similar points, because I was making significant discoveries about Jefferson the philosopher-viz., I was finding unexpectedly considerable philosophical content in his numerous writings." (From the Preface of Dutiful Correspondent) 

by M. Andrew Holowchak, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2012

Testimonials on Dutiful Correspondent


The Road to Monticello: The Life and Mind of Thomas Jefferson

If you are unfamiliar with the basic details of the life of Thomas Jefferson, this should not be your first book. It is better that you read a biography first, such as Merrill Peterson's Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation.. Read more

by Kevin J. Hayes, Oxford University Press, 2008

Reviewed by Richard E. Dixon


Thomas Jefferson's Scrapbooks

This is a book you keep on your night stand or on the corner of your desk so that you can pick it up from time to time. Read more...

by Jonathan Gross, Steelforth Press, 2006

Reviewed by Richard E. Dixon


Liberty, State, & Union: The Political Theory of Thomas Jefferson

It has become a conventional exercise in recent years to see Thomas Jefferson through the prism of slavery, as though that were the cornerstone on which his political and social philosophy should be examined. It has become almost mandatory for historians to pronounce Jefferson as ambivalent...Read more

by Luigi Marco Bassani, Mercer University Press, 2010

Reviewed by Richard E. Dixon


Flight from Monticello: Thomas Jefferson at War

flight from monticello.jpg

After the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson returned to Monticello and remained there for the greater part of the Revolutionary War. Read more...

by Michael Kranish, Oxford University Press (2010) 


Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy

It is clear the author is troubled by the legal insufficiency of the evidence that Thomas Jefferson was the father to any of Sally Hemings children. 

by Annette Gordon-Reed, University Press of Virginia (1997)

Reviewed by Richard E. Dixon


Understanding Thomas Jefferson

Despite the puff reviews on the jacket, this is not the book to read to "get to know" Thomas Jefferson. Read more...

by E. M. Halliday, HarperCollins (2001)

 


Negro President

The 3/5ths clause was adopted by the Second Continental Congress in the Articles of Confederation as means of counting the slaves for two purposes...Read more...

by Garry Wills, Houghton Mifflin company (2003)

Reviewed by Richard E. Dixon


Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson's long and accomplished life resists compression into a one volume treatment. Professor R. B Bernstein almost meets the challenge but not without some lapses. Read more...

by R. B. Bernstein, Oxford University Press (2003)

Reviewed by Richard E. Dixon


Siting Jefferson: Contemporary Artists Interpret Thomas Jefferson's Legacy

This book preserves a site-specific exhibition sponsored by the University of Virginia Art Museum in 2000 called "Hindsight/Fore-site: Art for the New Millennium." Read more...

by Jill Hartz, University Press of Virginia (2003)

Reviewed by Herbert Barger


Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson: History, Memory and Civic Culture

HistoryMemoryandCivicCulture.jpg

I had requested to be present at a panel discussion of this book and was invited by Professor Peter Onuf, one of the authors. Upon arrival, I was denied a seat on the panel...Read more...

Edited by Jan Ellen Lewis and Peter S. Onuf, University Press of Virginia (1999)

Reviewed by Herbert Barger


Jeffersonian Legacies

Edited by Peter S. Onuf, University Press of Virginia (1993)

 


Thomas Jefferson: Reputation and Legacy

ReputationandLegacy.png

Francis D. Cogliano suggests his Thomas Jefferson: Reputation and Legacy can be a successor to The Jefferson Image in the American Mind by Merrill D. Peterson. That's quite a stretch, but Reputation and Legacy is well worth the reader's time.

by Francis D. Cogliano, University of Virginia Press (2006)

Reviewed by Richard E. Dixon


Twilight at Monticello: The Final Years of Thomas Jefferson

Once James Madison was inaugurated as president, it was time for Thomas Jefferson to return to Monticello. Read more...

by Alan Pell, Crawford Random House (2008)

Reviewed by Richard E. Dixon

 

 

“Those Who Labor for My Happiness”: Slavery at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello

thosewholabor

The title is in quotation marks, as if Jefferson actually wrote such a thing, but in fact he did not. The title completely changes the meaning of what Jefferson actually wrote to the very opposite of what Jefferson meant. Read more…

by Lucia Stanton, University of Virginia Press (2012)

Reviewed by Vivienne Kelley


Thomas Jefferson’s Enlightenment: Paris 1785

Why Jefferson left Monticello in 1784 and went to Paris is somewhat of an unanswered mystery. Read more...

by James Thompson, Commonwealth Book Publishers of Virginia (2013)

Reviewed by Richard Dixon