The plays in the History's Project's "Character in Time: The US Presidents" series are interesting and informative and, above all, very readable. People unfamiliar with reading plays should not be put off by the format -- after a few minutes time, it seems perfectly natural to read dialogue instead of normal prose. Students, especially, will appreciate the playwright's artful distillation of the subject's ideas and philosophy, as well as the lively presentation of his character -- there's really a lot of information packed into these small volumes.

After reading this brief one-act play, I envy today's high school and college students whose teachers elect to use this gem as a teaching strategy. Cox adroitly weaves the many complex facets of Jefferson through the warp of late 18th century and early 19th century American political history and sets the stage for subsequent history. He grabs adolescent prurient interest and attention by kicking off the drama with a hearty ditty that satirizes Jefferson's relationship with his slave Sally Hemings. What student could nap after that?

The play covers a time frame of a few hours between House of Representatives debate about selection of a president to break an electoral tie between Jefferson and Burr and Jefferson's ultimate victory. However, the dialog covers a wealth of concepts from which the teacher can select to base his/her focus for one class session or a series of sessions.

For many if not most high school and college students, history is a necessary evil, an ordeal to be lived through with no expectation that it will be fascinating or that it will leave a lasting impression beyond a grade on a transcript. Through this deceptively simple dramatization, Cox raises the possibility that interest in history can be stimulated early and form the basis for continued lifelong interest.

Reviewed by Pauline Ellen Lee, EdD., RN

As a 1995 graduate of UVA, I found this book to be extremely educational. I only wish I had purchased it as an undergrad so I could have wandered the Grounds finding the areas Mr. Dabney wrote of. Mr. Dabney was an expert on UVA and Mr. Jefferson. I look forward to reading more of his work.

As a faculty brat in the 1930s,I literally grew up on the UVA grounds. On reading my first copy of Mr. Dabney's book (he was a close personal friend of my parents) I was struck by the rich lode of information verifying much that had been rumor during my teens. My dad, Dr. James C.Bardin a medical doctor, opted to teach Romance Languages. He is mentiond in the book. Mr. Jefferson's University sparkles with vivid memories of a delightful time in my youth. It is a wonderful historical document written so as to interest just about anyone who likes Virginia, and especially the UVA.

This book recounts Jefferson's travels and passions for wine. It is a fact that many of his favorites are still famous today. (Hermitage La Chappelle, Yquem, Lafite) Seeing these names through his eyes is fascinating, and reading about his difficulty with storage and shipping sounds all too familiar. The book gets off to a very slow start; too much statistical detail on each dinner. But it gradually becomes absorbing, and charming. A quaint historical document.

Author Jim Gabler does Jefferson wine evenings at Monticello on occasion. I have yet to catch him there, but not for trying. It is my understanding that he has a passionate hobby in the historical antecedents for wines and from this standpoint, this book succeeds remarkably. Extremely well documented - he has found items as obscure as the inventories of not only the wines Jefferson ordered during his travels, but sometimes the exact foods he ordered for specific evenings....(50 oysters and a half bottle of wine at the Amsterdam Arms...and repeated the feat the next night with a friend). There are maps, engravings, modern photographs, historical details.....a wonderful book detailing a great wine connoisseur's travels in search of the meticulous details of the art. And it's all laid out for you to enjoy or replicate as you may....or imagine what it would be like to travel, explore, dine, and taste as Jefferson or Gabler.

This book includes color photographs of the current gardens at Monticello and black & white reproductions of Thomas Jefferson's own sketched plans for the gardens. There is an annotated list of the flowers and "woody ornamentals," such as roses and shrubs, grown by Jefferson. There are many excerpts from his writing and letters which give the reader a greater sense of Jefferson's broad intellect and love of nature as it relates to his gardens. I was hoping to find a list of flowers native to Virginia cultivated by Jefferson but, while the origins of many of the flowers are indicated, there is no separate list of the native plants as I had hoped.

I found the book to be quite intersting and a valuable resource for the gardener. Thomas Jefferson is well known for his gardening efforts, both as ornamental and practical for food stuffs.

The book has excellent photographs of the gardens of Monticello as well as Jefferson's drawings of how he wanted to landscape the area of his "Little Mountain." There is great pride in the book to document over one hundred species of plants cultivated by Jefferson while living at Monticello.

Jefferson was a champion of cultivating indigenous plant life to Virginia and that of North America, but he had plants comming from thoughout the world also.

Cultivating a mountain top graden presented problems for Jefferson in both climate and the proper hydration of the plants themselves. Without all of the modern conviences that we have today, Jefferson managed to have some of the most beautiful gardens in Virginia.

This is a must book if you are looking for gardening proportion and scale. As Jefferson said, "There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me." Well said...

In the book you will find very good descriptions of the plants grown at Monticello, this is a must volume for reference.

This book is written for a broad audience and aimed at exploring one of the oldest and most persistent problems in American history; the proper role of the Federal Government. Simon frames this book as a conflict between Jefferson, representing those who supported a weaker central government and emphasized the importance of individual states, and John Marshall, the great Chief Justice who led the Supreme Court to establish its critical role as arbiter of constitutional questions. The Marshall court's work strengthened the importance not only of the Supreme Court but of the Federal Government in general. This is not a new story, indeed, most of what Simon describes is the standard understanding of this period of our history. Simon is a good writer who describes the politics and legal issues quite well. His description and analysis of the behavior of the Marshall court is shrewd, emphasizing Marshall's careful attention to both politics and crucial legal issues. For example, it is clear that Marshall worked very hard to maintain unanimity among the justices, even for difficult decisions. Similarly, many of his important decisions were crafted to simultaneously achieve the goal of establishing his brand of moderate Federalism while avoiding inflammatory political consequences. Readers will finish this book with an increased appreciation for Marshall's considerable intellect and remarkable political skills. Beyond this, the book is disappointing in terms of explaining the wellsprings of these conflicts and important aspects of the debate. I think the emphasis on the rivalry between Jefferson and Marshall, which Simon probably chose as a framing device, actually tends to limit understanding of the nature of this conflict. While I respect Simon's desire to produce a relatively concise and accessible book, some aspects deserve enlargement. For example, Jefferson found the Court's tendency to rely on Common Law traditions irksome, believing the Court should have been more deferential to the wished of state legislatures. Does this represent a conflict between individuals like Jefferson whose primary intellectual influences came from the British Enlightenment versus a legal culture that grew up in the shadow of the great British Common Law theorists? To what extent did individual experience of the Revolution influence subsequent political positions? Jefferson spent the war as governor of Virginia or abroad. Marshall, in contrast, was an officer in the Continental Army and experienced in very concrete ways the inadequacies of the confederation government that preceded the establishment of our present constitution. This book is a good point of departure for individuals unfamiliar with this period of our history but further reading will be needed for anyone who really wishes to understand our early history. I recommend the The Age of Federalism by Elkins and McKitrick, a superb treatment of the Federalist period, as a starting point.

The world needs a book about John Marshall's contribution to America. In my opinion, "What Kind Of Nation" by James F. Simon is it. Though the nature of the subject almost guarantees that the reading will be somewhat dry, scholarly, and lawyerlike, the author did a nice job with it. As a scholar myself, I recommend it. If you're looking for an easy read on Thomas Jefferson, I also recommend Norman Thomas Remick's excellent book "West Point: Character Leadership Education, A Book Developed From Thomas Jefferson's Readings And Writings", in which West Point is posited as a metaphor for Jefferson's worldview of the way America ought to be.

On a recent vacation to Colonial Williamsburg and Monticello, my 14-year-old nephew commented that Thomas Jefferson didn't get along with Alexander Hamilton. The four adults accompanying him replied patronizingly that Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr certainly didn't get along, but didn't remember anything between Hamilton and Jefferson...

Of course, my nephew was absolutely correct. In an effort to rectify my obvious educational deficiency, I immediately embarked on a reading plan which led me to "What Kind of Nation", where I discovered that Thomas Jefferson also didn't along with John Marshall, the fourth Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

By the time I got to this book I had a pretty good feel for the politics of the period, having read "Founding Brothers" by Joseph Ellis, "Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington" by Richard Brookhiser, "Alexander Hamilton: American" by Richard Brookhiser and "James Madison" by Garry Wills. I believe this background helped me to maximize my enjoyment of "What Kind of Nation" because I was able to focus on Marshall's brilliance and perseverance in establishing the authority of the Supreme Court on an equal footing with the executive and legislative branches of the federal government. Jefferson's antics were amusing, but old news. The way that Marshall dealt with Jefferson who was, after all, the President of the United States during the first 8 years of Marshall's 34 years as Chief Justice, is fascinating.

James Simon does a great job of telling the story without getting overly technical with the legal side of things. I think he strikes just the right balance, so that the lay reader (i.e., non-lawyer) can appreciate the significance of Marshall's extraordinary accomplishments.

My comments are from a Jefferson Family Historian and assistant to Dr Foster, DNA Study standpoint. The book OMITS any reference to Jefferson's brother, Randolph, and sons, very prominent contenders as a father of Eston Hemings. My research indicates Randolph is the father, her research indicates it is Thomas. She does NOT tell you that Randolph was between wives, Sally had her first child, Harriet I, shortly after the death of Randolph's 1st wife and continued thru her last child, Eston (1808). Randolph would be married the next year (1809) and a son, John, was born about 1810. Jefferson invited Randolph to Monticello to come for a visit (Randolph's twin sister had arrived from a distance)EXACTLY 9 months prior to Eston's birth. Randolph visited Monticello EXAXTLY 6 days after Eston's birth. Dr Foster and Nature DID NOT tell you the above. The DNA tests DID NOT indicate just Thomas BUT 7 other Jeffersons. Since the Carr brothers had been prominent suspects in earlier books, and as well in Gordon-Reed's book, the DNA eleminated them, so who remains to suspect...OF COURSE.......TOM. (What science.....I call this the process of elemination)? Check Nature (Jan 7th), Science (Jan 8th), USNWR (Jan 18th), NY Times (Jan 7th), USA Today (Jan 7th). THE DNA RESULTS DID NOT SHOW THOMAS JEFFERSON AS THE FATHER OF ESTON, ONLY "SOME" Jeffersonm! I had given Dr Foster the evidence he needed to present to Nature......he DID NOT give it to them.....THUS, you the reader of the Jefferson/Hemings DNA Study, have been DENIED crutial information with which to make judjement. Nature and Dr Foster will tell you THIS ALSO.

Yes, Annette does have some excellent research invested in her book, however.......THERE IS MORE TO THE STORY! Enjoy the book, BUT don't forget the "rest of the story", I KNOW, I WAS THERE and I have the information and much more.

The Jeffersons'/Randolphs'/Coolidges' response to stories about their patriarch's relationship with Miss Hemings long had been to say that the Carr brothers actually had fathered the Hemings children. Sally Hemings, the typical account said, had (to borrow an image Gordon-Reed shows a famous historian using) lied about her children's parentage in much the manner that a nag's owner might lie about its being the offspring of a famous thoroughbred. Comes now the DNA evidence to back Gordon-Reed's strong proof that the Carrs were innocent of any such adultery, and the Jefferson family seems to want to blame yet another of its male forebears, Thomas Jefferson's brother. Why do they have such an emotional investment in Thomas's not having had black children? This is one of many interesting questions Gordon-Reed's book prompts one to consider. (For the history of historians' defense of Jefferson against this charge, see the essay by Ayers and French in _Jeffersonian Legacies_, edited by Peter S. Onuf.) Virginius Dabney, who was related to Jefferson on both sides of his family, is the outstanding example of a Jefferson flack in this regard, but there have been others. Kudos to Gordon-Reed for not losing her cool in wading through the insulting, demeaning, degrading things that historians have said about Sally Hemings -- whose personality remains obscure. Even those who detest Gordon-Reed must admit that the appendices to this book, which present the main primary sources regarding this question, are worth the book's price. If you care about Jefferson, race, public "education"/propaganda, or America, buy this book.

Annette Gordon-Reed's book should be required reading in graduate history programs across the country. Not because of its topic, but because it is one of the finest, most careful and critical reading of documentary evidence I've ever encountered. By providing an outstanding example of how professional historians should operate, it also exposes one of the tragic weaknesses of the discipline of History--it has for too long been among the least intellectually rigorous of all the disciplines. The recent publication by the "scholar's commission," sponsored by the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society is a classic example of the problem. In finding Jefferson "innocent" of the charges, the commission ignores the most powerful arguments put forward in Gordon-Reed's book, and builds its authority mainly on the commission member's own pedigree (mostly aging white scholars from prestigious institutions). While the commission points out the real limitations of the DNA evidence, by ignoring Gordon-Reed's work, it fails to understand what an intelligent, open-minded reader of Gordon-Reed's work will quickly grasp: credible evidence pointing to Thomas Jefferson as the likely father of Sally Heming's children has been around for more than a century, but was until recently blithely dismissed by generations of historians who were prisoners of their own racist, and guild-protecting assumptions. Gordon-Reed raises the bar for serious historical inquiry in this book, and I beleive its importance will outlast the controversy it explores.

I have always been interested in Thomas Jefferson. He is one of the most enigmatic of American heroes. All the ambiguity of Jefferson is well documented so I will not go into that here. I also have to state that I have a curiosity about religion and spirituality without embracing any denomination or sect. This made the Jefferson Bible doubly appealing to me. It was an opportunity to get a glimpse of Jeffersons thoughts and beliefs as well as seeing Jesus in a different light. I greatly appreciate being able to read about Jesus removed from the rest of the Bible. This secularizing of Jesus will probably be viewed as blasphemous by some Christians but I found it to be most rewarding. It was great to just view Jesus as the wonderful moral teacher that he was without having some overbearing, self righteous religious fanatic screaming and ranting incoherently. This book brought me closer to Jesus simply by not having to listen to all the negatives trappings many of his so-called followers have tacked on to his message. This is a valuable book on both the philosophical and historical level. It should be read in colleges around the country. I gained a greater appreciation of both Jesus and Jefferson through reading this book.

How many of us have read the Bible in its entirety? I dare say, not many of us. Imagine how serious a thinker Jefferson must have been for him to make the effort to do that. On the other hand, imagine how objective a thinker he must have been to fashion, straight from the Bible, the world's first ever bible of morals, ethics, and character. That is one of his little known, most important contributions to humanity. No less than that, my dear fellow Americans, is the true enormity of his Biblical analysis and editing. The only other book I have ever found that recognizes Jefferson as the first to "write" a book on morals, ethics, and character, and in that sense a pioneer itself, is "West Point" by Norman Thomas Remick. To gain more insight into the religious/philosophical side of Jefferson, I recommend you go on to reading that book after reading the "Jefferson Bible".

Thomas Jefferson didn't necessarily believe in miracles. But he certainly believed in morals, ethics, and character. His detractors on the Sally Hemmings farce, like author Joseph Ellis, have since been proven to be all wet. Like the other book of the same name, I enjoyed "Jefferson Bible" very much. But, it's only half the story, unfortunately. The other half involves Jefferson's values from the secular point of view. The best, perhaps only, book to read for that is (and don't be misled by the title) "West Point", by Norman Thomas Remick. It perfectly compliments "Jefferson Bible". In any event, This book by Forrest Church is well presented and certainly well worth reading. It's a great read on TJ's religious beliefs, and a five-star effort.

There is some legitimacy for questioning Joseph Ellis' scholarship of Jefferson independently of his personal veracity. Does his analysis itself hold up to scrutiny?

In at least one significant sense, no, it doesn't. The genetic connection between Jefferson and Sally Hemings of which Ellis is assured is anything but, which Professor Ellis surely knows himself since one of his co-authors on the inflammatory 1998 report "Jefferson Fathered Slave's Last Child" was the author of the DNA study itself, and who publicly stated as much himself.

Eugene Foster told the journal Nature that his study found only that Thomas Jefferson *could* have been the father of Eston Hemings, not that he was. He pointed out that in fact the type of testing done was incapable of proving such a thing. All the DNA analysis revealed was that *some* Jefferson male very likely fathered a child by Sally Hemings. Since DNA comparisons were made with regard to Jefferson's uncle, not Jefferson himself, over two dozen Jefferson males living at the time were possible candidates, several of whom were present at Monticello during the time Hemings conceived her last son.

Contemporary evidence points strongly to Randolph Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson's brother, who had such a close acquaintance with the slave community at Monticello that they referred to him as "Uncle Randolph." Some of the same evidence can be seen to point to Thomas Jefferson as the father, but such an interpretation requires one to believe that the forty-four-year-old U.S. ambassador to France chose to have an affair with the teenaged slave half-sister of his wife who by more than one account was incapable of taking herself, much less the ambassador's daughters to whom she was charged. You be the judge.

So what does this say about Joseph Ellis' scholarship? Clearly for him to declare as he has that "Now we know," concerning the truth of the Jefferson/Hemings relationship, is irresponsible and injudicious at best, since such an assertion is factually incorrect. When combined with his own personal prevarications and embellishments, such a willingness to bend facts to support a purely subjective opinion makes trusting his judgement in accurately reporting and adjudging history and historical figures much more difficult. I, for one, am now deeply skeptical of his work, and believe others should be, too. That he writes well isn't in question. That he's right, is.

Joseph Ellis deserves the Pulitzer Prize! As a Jefferson researcher who has been through everything written about, and more important, by Thomas Jefferson, I don't always agree with the author's subjective opinions on topics for which I believe objective conclusions must be found, as I did in my book "WEST POINT" about Thomas Jefferson & West Point. Nevertheless, that is always debatable. Not debatable is the fact that the author and his editors have done a stellar job.

I enjoyed reading "American Sphinx" by Joseph J. Ellis. It's a well written description of Thomas Jefferson as an enigmatic, sphinx-like figure of American history. I recommend it. I also recommend "West Point: Character, .... Thomas Jefferson" by Norman Thomas Remick. It brings Thomas Jefferson into clear focus.

This book could have been better organized. The flow was circular and repetitious. Randall focuses too much on the things that influenced Jefferson, and not enough on his life. At every major (and sometimes minor) milestone in Jefferson's life, Randall takes us back to the passing of some law, or event that happened in the past that had an impact and explains it all in detail. It made it hard stay focused on the flow of time. The sections of the book that involved Jefferson's vacation were the most detailed and best to read. Jefferson's campaign for the 1800 election is given more attention than his time as part of the cabinet and as President. Randall improves over time -- I purchased Jefferson after reading "Washington: A Life".

If one can get past the fact that Willard Sterne Randall's prose is ponderous, uneven and repetitive (he shows improvement in his latest biography of Alexander Hamilton), a reader will certainly be able to appreciate the diligent research, remarkable detail and exploration of Thomas Jefferson's early life as given us by the author. The early life and formative years of America's third president has never been rendered better or in greater detail, and the first few hundred pages of this book --up to Jefferson's first years in France-- are absolutely worth reading.

Randall strikes one as somewhat prudish when it comes to exploring the more human frailties of his mighty subject, almost smugly downplaying Jefferson's sexual relationships throughout his life, and dismissing, with a scholarly sniff, the notion that Thomas Jefferson might have had an intimate relationship with his slave Sally Hemings. Scientific tests performed after the publication of this almost epic biography have raised some relevant questions, and though certainly not the centerpiece of Jefferson's life and myriad accomplishments, it is evidence of the author's almost protective prose.

Nonetheless, the complex Thomas Jefferson, a pixilated, self-absorbed genius who was also voraciously patriotic and far-sighted, is clearly painted for the reader. His ability to compartmentalize his many desires and inner conflicts is fascinating --apparently, the many facets of Jefferson seldom, if ever, communicated with each other. Yet, to watch Jefferson studying law, natural science and the classics (to name but a few fields in which he would become an authority), molding himself (with a good deal of generous patronage and good fortune) into an indisputable man for all seasons, is marvelous. No recent biographer has brought this much life to Jefferson's early days, through his tenure in the House of Burgesses to budding revolutionary; from the crafting of the Declaration of Independence to his role in France.

It is a shame Randall does not give us more balance in presenting the whole of Jefferson's life, but the founder of the University of Virginia was more than complex.

In his book, "American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson," Joseph J. Ellis rightly describes Jefferson as such, and Randall's earlier effort offers the reader an even grander panorama --indeed, Jefferson's entire life-- through which to observe this eccentric, frustrating and frustrated champion of an American agrarian utopia.

Thomas Jefferson cannot be praised highly enough, and Randall needn't have put Jefferson's overall image on a modest pedestal. But enough of the essential Jefferson, if any parts of him can be truly known, are shown here to the reader through Randall's minute research and sweeping presentation (Randall's stinting on Jefferson's life after about 1790 not withstanding).

The book isn't without faults (it isn't exactly a page-turner), but the observations offered equal or outweigh Randall's sometimes brilliant, often bumbling, prosaic narrative. Jefferson outshines the author, and like a Sphinx, raises more questions than are answered. Still, this may be the closest modern readers of a single volume biography will get to Jefferson's many worlds. Five stars for Jefferson, less two for Randall's uneven effort.

This is a well written book containing a personalized account of pre-revolutionary to post-revolutionary America. Randall does a good job of discussing the intellectual sources (e.g. John Locke) of Jefferson's essential documents (e.g. Declaration of Independence). Randall also is strong in his explication of Jefferson's private and diplomatic life in France. Interestingly, Randall shows both the personal and political events of Jefferson's lifetime.

However, Randall is very sparse and fairly week in details after Thomas Jefferson returned from France and became Secretary of State. The author only devotes one fifty page chapter (in a 600 page book) on Jefferson's presidency. It seems as if the editor or author had a deadline to meet and therefore could not devote the same time and effort on the end of this book as was put on the begining.

I didn't care for this book very much primarily because the book's thesis, that Thomas Jefferson suffered from Asperger's Syndrome or high-functioning autism, and written by a man whose son has Aspergers, seemed contrived and forced. Throughout the book I felt the author was searching for facts to feed his thesis rather than letting the facts speak for themselves. I don't think Thomas Jefferson's admittedly rigorous and scrupulous record keeping and so-called "bizarre behavior" rose anywhere near the standard the author of this book would have us believe it does. Jefferson was an introvert but he was nothing of the disheveled, socially awkward, odd duck, that Mr. Ledgin wants or needs him to be to fit his argument.

The very publication of this book is from an odd source: Future Horizons, Inc. The web address for this publisher is listed as FutureHorizons-autism.com and I could not help but feel that this is a case of an autism-related organization claiming someone famous (in this case Thomas Jefferson) as one of their own. As history, Diagnosing Jefferson is poor and surely would have been rejected by any academic press and most trade publishing houses. There is precious little "research" in the scholarly sense; rather the footnotes are a patchwork of all of the best-known Jefferson biographies, Time Magazine, New York Times articles, and the like.

The writing is not bad but is pedestrian and the author seems blinded by his own theory as he struggles to align even the most off hand contemporary observations about Jefferson's behavior with his (Ledgin's) trusty list of Asperger traits. Nevertheless, no matter how forced the diagnosis, Ledgin taunts his detractors, saying flatly that "no other conclusion" can explain Jefferson's "strange behavior." He states boastfully, "I challenge anyone to advance a better solution to the puzzle of his idiosyncratic behavior."

One does not necessarily need formal credentials to write good history, and examples abound of unlettered men and women who have done so, but Norm Ledgin is not one of them. The author earned a bachelors degree in journalism and a masters in political science in the early 1950s, and lists among his occupations: editor of a weekly newspaper in Kansas, and a "traffic safety specialist" in Louisiana. All terribly interesting, but something short of the usual background for one who sets out to write a learned book about an 18th century thinker and political figure.

Ledgin's portrait of Jefferson is simply unrecognizable to me as it has been to most Jefferson scholars; and as far as I know, none have endorsed his thesis. Ledgin's tone is that of a crusader not a detached historian. Like many amateur historians he exhibits a zeal and single mindedness for his subject but lacks the breadth of knowledge and training to give his passions context and balance. This isn't so much a book about Jefferson at all; it is a book about Asperger's Syndrome; therefore, if you want to understand Jefferson you will find Ledgin's polemic tedious and irrelevant.

I've read Mr. Ledgin's book, and I've read several Jefferson biographies. Obviously the critics of this author have not read Diagnosing Jefferson through, and they have admitted as much. Intellectual integrity requires more.

The author has examined and exploited helpfully something all other biographers have missed--the opportunity to identify whatever the basis may have been for Jefferson's many idiosyncrasies and so-called contradictions. Had the biographers simply assembled the quirks puzzling them and discussed them with a neuroscientist or developmental pediatrician or psychologist, they would have arrived at the same conclusion Mr. Ledgin has given us.

A staff member for the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, Dianne Swann-Wright, admitted on the Today show last year, "there was a personal side of Thomas Jefferson that many of us just simply haven't been able to understand." Mr. Ledgin explains that personal side in order to help us understand. Does intellectual curiosity extend only so far as scratching one's head, or are historians ready to listen to well-reasoned answers based in careful research?

I heard Mr. Ledgin speak in Charlottesville, Va., at the Festival of the Book this year. He is more knowledgeable about the very personal side of Thomas Jefferson than most, if not all, the biographers whose works I've read. It should be obvious to a reader of his entire work, including his bibliography and footnotes, that he has examined the Jefferson literature thoroughly, which is what he wrote was the basis for his assembling the eccentricities. His placing of Jefferson on the autism/Asperger's continuum as a result has been backed by at least four experts in that field and another in the behavioral sciences.

This is a landmark work. We must understand that autism and its high-functioning feature, Asperger's Syndrome, are parts of a spectrum condition; some people are disabled by it, some are enhanced by it. The author explains all of that extraordinarily well. One can be both productively brilliant and a high-functioning autistic--like Jefferson, quirky as can be, but a great achiever and mental giant nonetheless.

The reader can learn as much about Asperger's from this book as he or she can about Jefferson. For understanding what made Jefferson tick, this is the book to read.

The Harrisonburg, Va., reviewer Randall See's statements about the author of Diagnosing Jefferson don't match the facts. First, Norm Ledgin was frank to admit at the start of his book that he was drawing on secondary sources (the works of respected historians) for all observations about Thomas Jefferson's idiosyncrasies, which Mr. Ledgin said match no other explanation but Asperger's Syndrome.

Second, I learned by interviewing Mr. Ledgin several years ago that his book was contracted for publication by Carol Publishing, a mainstream New York area trade publisher, and that it had been edited by one of the most respected editors in the business, Hillel Black. Carol went belly-up while preparing Diagnosing Jefferson for print. Rather than start the process of recontacting other trade houses, Mr. Ledgin turned to the specialty publisher, Future Horizons, whose president, Wayne Gilpin, had previously expressed very strong interest.

What has bothered a few people about Mr. Ledgin's book deep-down is his ready acceptance of the Sally Hemings liaison as a 38-year love affair. That acceptance is seemingly understandable to Mr. Ledgin (and now, it appears, to the Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello) on the strength of known facts, but to others it is the basis for a mental and emotional block.