Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings
An American Controversy

There was so much I didn't know about Thomas Jefferson prior to reading this book. Just a few examples: Reading became a necessity for Jefferson (as it is for me), like music and gardening. The number of children he had with his black mistress Sally Hemings- who were so white in appearance that they......more

Continuing my trek through presidential biographies, I chose this one for Jefferson for two reasons. First, not much is actually known about Jefferson's life, for reasons I'll get into in a moment, and Brodie's book is an attempt to apply psychology to what we do have to deduce the parts we don't kn......more

Having just read an "intimate" biography of Franklin and feeling a need to brush up on American revolutionary history, I pulled this thing off the shelves some months after picking it up at a used bookstore in Evanston. Although a professor of history, Brodie's academic background was in English--may......more

This book is absolutely atrocious as a biography, full of unsupported claims and leaps of logic, not to mention all the pop psychoanalysis. That said, Brodie is a pretty good storyteller, so I give her an extra star for that.......more

If you like you're biography with some history then pass this one up, but if you're in the mood for some long winded overreaching supposition, have I got a book for you. Brodie does an admirable job of taking a spotlight to small details so that they cast long shadows. Jefferson left so little in th......more