REED DESPERATE FOR IDENTITY. THERE COULD HAVE BEEN 7 OR 8 MEN, ALL DESCENDED FROM FIELDING JEFFERSON, WHO MIGHT HAVE FATHERED ESTON. ALL HERESAY, WHICH VERY CONVENIENTLY DISREGARDS THE TESTIMONY OF EDMUND BACON, THE CHAP WHO GAVE EYE WITNESS TACCOUNT TO WHO LEFT SALLYS ROOM IN THE WEE HOURS OF THE MORNING ON MANY OCCASIONS. GO READ THE THOMAS JEFFERSON HERITAGE SOCIETY BOOK CALLED THE JEFFERSON- HEMINGS MYTH AND GET INTELLIGENT INFO. REED'S BOOK IS ABSURD, AND MOST CERTAINLY A SHAM. NOT THE SCHOLARLY WORK ONE WOULD EXPECT FROM A PERSON IN HER POSITION.

Let say that for those interested in the communications of the founding fathers, this is one of the books needed to understand that communication.

This book focuses on Jefferson and Madison both intellectual giants in the founding the United States. Jefferson most for his ideas and Madison for his valued sounding board to Jefferson and his finesse taking those ideas and making them part of the way of life as we know them today.

It is always a pleasure to read the letters that transpired between these two people. Most of us do not have the privilege of reading these letters first hand and have to rely on others for their interpretation. I find that this author does a fine job of this and offers good background to the letters of the time that they were written.

Those that are studying the founding fathers and especially Jefferson and Madison will like this tome, I did and I recommend it.

The Constitution and the Bill of Rights, The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, and the heart warming chapter Take Care of Me When Dead were my favorites.

Again a must read for understanding these two men and the times they came from... I hope you enjoy as much as I did.

Although easy enough to read and laced with numerous Jeffersonian quotations, this book, on balance, is far more concerned with Professor Sheldon's appraisal of contemporary society than it is with the opinions of the nation's third president.

Sheldon's conservative Christian viewpoint is obvious throughout and gives rise to the legitimate concern that he may have been quite selective in his use of substantiating information, employing only those ideas which are consistent with his own stance on issues while creating the illusion that he is presenting the reader with an unbiased, factual perspective. Some of the supportive evidence for his conjectures is anecdotal at best and may well have little or no basis in fact.

For example, twice Sheldon mentions a comparison of surveys regarding educational problems in 1940 and 1990 in an attempt to prove a decline in educational and moral standards. These "surveys," however, are a fiction concocted by former Ft. Worth businessman T. Cullen Davis, an evangelical Christian who has openly admitted that he fabricated the polls years ago in order to advance his personal views.

Lack of precise documentation is the most disturbing feature of this book. Statistics are quoted and anecdotes are related, but virtually nowhere is it possible for the reader to easily verify much of what the author states. Given Sheldon's obvious bias, a reader who wants a more scholarly, objective, accurate overview of Thomas Jefferson's thoughts would do well to look elsewhere, for instance Joseph Ellis's "American Sphinx."

This work provides a good survey of Jefferson's political thought, as well as an excellent piece concerning the intellectual battle over the classical republican paradigm. This piece, by the way, is well worth the price of the book. Nevertheless, although this is a worthy work, it pales in comparison to David N. Mayer's "The Constitutional Thought of Thomas Jefferson." If you are truly interested in Jefferson's political thought, Mayer's is the foremost work on the subject.

This beautiful hard bound book with the picture of Thomas Jefferson on the cover is deceiving. It contains 18 essays on Thomas Jefferson and his views on citizenship, education, slavery,and religion. Of the 18 only about 4 essays are really fair and bereft of the political correctness that has infected the American history "profession". Douglas L. Wilson, on Jefferson's views on Literacy, David Mayers's of Jefferson's views on constitutional change ,Suzanne Morse on the "ward republics, and finally Liu Zuonchang's essay on the overall progrssivness of Jefferson are really the only good essays. The rest are libels on Jefferson using 20/21st century standards to judge an enlightened and progresive of the 18th/19th century. Overall, poor deconstruction scholarship.

The "Education of a Citizen" is probably the best compilation of critcal essays and reviews on Jefferson's educational theory in bookstores today. Gilreath has selected writings that in and of themselves stand out with high merit, and when read together, they blend with one another and make for a truly enlightening experience. Those who wish to learn more about Jefferson's stance on education in a young America should look to this text for knowledge, and I can personally say hat they will not be sorry.

yet another broad look at jefferson, from political career, near-romantic encounters, family life, friends & correspondences. the writing is crystal clear & fast-paced. you get a snippet of tj's sharp epistolary hand. no huge controversies being discussed here altho i think there were some defenses made for the slavery issue. pick up this book. it's one of the better ones for introducing yourself to tj. good b&w photos of his favorite haunts & some skeletons in the closet.

yeah this is an interesting, and staunchly Anti-Jeffersonian Biography from 1883. His vantage point makes this book a pretty groovy read, though maybe not the best for facts

I had to read this book for my AP U.S. History class. I like history, but it was hard to follow the political points of the book because they weren't fully dicussed. It skipped around a lot.

This book was excellant for a report I did on Jefferson. It is a pretty simple biography, easy to read. It gives basic information on Jefferson, but is not extremely in depth. Still,it was informative and worth reading.

Kaplan clearly likes Jefferson. His recounting of Jefferson's foreign policy tend to give Jefferson the benefit of the doubt. This book is very informational and fairly short at around 200 pages. I harbor many Jeffersonian ideological thoughts, however, I'd have preferred Kaplan to be a bit more critical of some of Jefferson's actions. Even so, the book still stands out as a good survey of Jefferson's foreign policy. 3 stars for a good book- but not exceptional.

When I first picked up Understanding Thomas Jefferson to read, I was most aware of E.M. Halliday's credentials as a writer, and I had very high expectations. In a few respects the book delivered, especially in its attack upon best-selling historian Joseph J. Ellis for his implication that Jefferson opted for celibacy after his wife died. Jefferson was then not yet 40, in remarkable physical condition, and enjoyed being among women.

However, Mr. Halliday pushed his Freudian analysis a bit far and made that and his forays into existentialist behavior the principal bases for our supposed "understanding" of the complex Thomas Jefferson. The narrowness of the author's approach to judgment was a letdown.

So long as the author was entering the realm of reasonable speculation, I would have thought he might pay considerably more attention to the influence of Jefferson's father, Peter, and that of other strong males, mentors, and intellectual companions of both sexes in Jefferson's life.

Surprisingly, though, Mr. Halliday was not quite so thorough in his examination of the available Jefferson literature as one could hope. As a result, he made a few important factual missteps and left several doors unopened.

I happened to catch an interview of the author on C-Span after I read his book and heard him compound errors by tossing an 1815 Jefferson observation into the mix of factors leading him to Sally Hemings in the late 1780s.

On the whole this book was a disappointing treatment of Jefferson which left me no more understanding of the Sage of Monticello at the finish than I was at the beginning.

...I bought the title, "Understanding Thomas Jefferson" ... to use this book as my first real human introduction to Jefferson. Had I put down [money] or [money] instead of an arrogant [money]the publisher asked, I probably wouldn't be here writing this.

It's not terrible in my opinion. He got depressed, spent time doing nothing at all productive, and spent time chasing women. Reading this book was not a waste of my time since it did reveal a human side to a man often portrayed as a god-like figure.

However, it's this last part that gets to me about this book (and many other reviewers, it seems). One chapter, maybe two, about his love and sex life would have been fine for me to get the idea. Instead, everytime we start learning something interesting about the man, we get dragged back into a speculation that he masturbated as a teenager and a description of some 15 year old's succulent breasts and figure, making "urges" for a healthy older man nearly irresistible.

So while I chose to read the book primarily to learn that he was human like me, maybe in the end I realized I just didn't care that much about his sexuality.

Understanding Thomas Jefferson by E.M. Halliday is a book mainly about the rumor of an amorous relationship between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings. Sally Hemings was a half sister to Jefferson's wife. She was fathered by Jefferson's Father-In-Law.

But more importantly, this book is about the mores of that time. Remember that it is very hard to compare mores of today with those of that time... things and life were vastly different. Jefferson believed that slavery was a product from a corupt King of England and the colonists had to endue this evil via the proxies of that government.

Along these lines of thought, Jefferson was not the only Founding Father to have a fancy for the ladies. Washington, Franklin, Hamilton were known for their love of the ladies. These men were like rock stars today with the expected groupies and all of the trapings. Of course, what you do with these trapings is a matter of your moral standards.

Remember, around the world, women were treated maybe, just maybe a little better then cattle. I know... your saying what has this to do with the book. Well, my answer is that Jefferson being a well dressed man with striking appearance also traveled Europe and was exposed to this practice. So, the women involved with Jefferson throughout the book knew what they were doing. Just as Jefferson knew how the game was played.

As to the Sally Hemings claims, it could be any of the male Jefferson extended family that MAY have impregnated Sally Hemings... there is NO concrete evidence that it was Thomas Jefferson. The book is full of conjecture, heresay and second hand information. The only way we will know for sure is more DNA testing. So, discretion being the better part of valor, to whom do we believe. Jefferson was a man, not a celibate monk and if we go by his word he abhored miscegenation, but he professed that "all men are created equal."

So, the debate goes on and on, only Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings know for sure what transpired. All we have is conjecture.

As for the writing in the book and the storytelling it moves shrewdly and you keep reading. Whether you believe what is written is not for me to say, but I took it with a grain of salt. The dichotomy of Jefferson still continues, as one of the most human of the Founding Fathers, Jefferson will be forever elicit adamant opinions.

The entire time I was reading this, I felt like I was reading a sequel to a book I never read. Something is missing. I will keep the book on the shelf, but as of yet, I just don't get it. Unless you have some secret knowledge, don't buy this book!

This is an important book because it gives one a very good idea of the spiritual principles of a brilliant American statesman and what might be behind secret organisations who seem to rule the world.

On the subject of the crucifixion similar or different theories are found in books such as the Nag Hammadi library and Secrets of Golgotha by Dr Ernest Lee Martin. In addition the claim of the archaeologist and anaesthetist Ron Wyatt, who apparently found the ark of the covenant in a rock chamber underneath the place of crucifixion on Golgotha, with dried blood on the mercy seat, offers another perspective. All this can become quite confusing. Unfortunately the statements in The Book of the Holy Grail about the double crucifixion of Simon of Cyrene and Jesus Christ, and Christ's faked death, that contradict evangelical reports, are not proved substantially with footnotes, which makes it harder to believe this alternative story.

Jesus is reported to have rebuked people who put too much value on their biological descent from Abraham, and the Cathars and Waldensians rather believed in a purified and individualized spirituality. One gets thus the impression that this book is about a rather strange mixture of Christianity and Judaism.
The descriptions of the spiritual world and references to Melchizedek, Lucifer and Michael are interesting, but does not reveal much more than what a reader of the Bible already knows.

Perhaps we are really living in the times of the fulfilment of prophecies that were predicted in the Book of the Holy Grail, which would leave one with the hope that peace on earth might become more part of everyday reality.

I found this book by doing a search on Thomas Jefferson, and when I read the description of the book I went, "Right, as if." I think I've seen every possible conspiracy theory somewhere on the web, so the idea that there could be an unpublished manuscript by Joseph of Arimathea which was translated by, of all people, Thomas Jefferson, seemed simply ridiculous on the face of it. But ever since I read Holy Blood, Holy Grail, I've been addicted to reading just about every book that has to do with the idea that there was a secret bloodline originating with Jesus, and I couldn't stand not reading this one. To my surprise, I found it fascinating. The idea that Joseph of Arimathea is Jesus' father is, in itself, remarkable. It explains the legends of Joseph taking the young Jesus to Glastonbury, which wouldn't be possible if Joseph of Arimathea was just another of Jesus' disciples. I also love the metaphysics, the idea that the reason our world is so screwed up is that the imperfections were deliberately put in to give us something to struggle against--a self-improvement therapy on a universal scale--the earth as an enormous Role Playing Game, and we're all gods who are playing the game. Fits in perfectly with the whole Matrix concept. And, what other book says that God was married to Goddess, and we are their sons and daughters? Much less sexist than the traditional Judeo-Christian creation myth where all comes from a patriarchal God. This book is hard going and it doesn't surprise me that some of the other readers get turned off by the historical claims, but once you get past that, this is a wonderful book of wisdom. Considering that there isn't any more scientific proof for the authenticity of the gospels than is offered for this one, maybe that's enough.