The Architecture of Jefferson Country


Book Description

"But what is less well known are the many important examples of other architectural idioms built in this Piedmont Virginia county, many by nationally renowned architects.".







Jefferson's Sons


Book Description

This story of Thomas Jefferson's children by one of his slaves, Sally Hemings, tells a darker piece of America's history from an often unseen perspective-that of three of Jefferson's slaves-including two of his own children. As each child grows up and tells his story, the contradiction between slavery and freedom becomes starker, calliing into question the real meaning of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." This poignant story sheds light on what life was like as one of Jefferson's invisible offspring.




Thomas Jefferson's Qur'an


Book Description

In this original and illuminating book, Denise A. Spellberg reveals a little-known but crucial dimension of the story of American religious freedom—a drama in which Islam played a surprising role. In 1765, eleven years before composing the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson bought a Qur’an. This marked only the beginning of his lifelong interest in Islam, and he would go on to acquire numerous books on Middle Eastern languages, history, and travel, taking extensive notes on Islam as it relates to English common law. Jefferson sought to understand Islam notwithstanding his personal disdain for the faith, a sentiment prevalent among his Protestant contemporaries in England and America. But unlike most of them, by 1776 Jefferson could imagine Muslims as future citizens of his new country. Based on groundbreaking research, Spellberg compellingly recounts how a handful of the Founders, Jefferson foremost among them, drew upon Enlightenment ideas about the toleration of Muslims (then deemed the ultimate outsiders in Western society) to fashion out of what had been a purely speculative debate a practical foundation for governance in America. In this way, Muslims, who were not even known to exist in the colonies, became the imaginary outer limit for an unprecedented, uniquely American religious pluralism that would also encompass the actual despised minorities of Jews and Catholics. The rancorous public dispute concerning the inclusion of Muslims, for which principle Jefferson’s political foes would vilify him to the end of his life, thus became decisive in the Founders’ ultimate judgment not to establish a Protestant nation, as they might well have done. As popular suspicions about Islam persist and the numbers of American Muslim citizenry grow into the millions, Spellberg’s revelatory understanding of this radical notion of the Founders is more urgent than ever. Thomas Jefferson’s Qur’an is a timely look at the ideals that existed at our country’s creation, and their fundamental implications for our present and future.




Alice in Dreamland


Book Description

It's been 5 years since the Trump inspired insurrection of January 6. But the seeds of rebellion have continued to fester in a divided country that sits on the brink of anarchy . The issue isn't if the re will be another atte mpt to overthrow our democracy . But simply a matter of when? And in what form will it be? In Los Angeles a black prostitute PEPPER has stolen a USB flash drive from the laptop of an influential white nationalist politician because he refused pay her for sex. But unknown to Pepper, the flash drive is encrypted with a detailed outline for an other insurrection designed by a group of ultra conservative white supremacist politicians in an effort to salvage dwindling white influence and political power. Known as the Alice Plan, it sets forth the protocols for the establishment of a new 'whites English speaking republic to be located on foreign soil . The Alice Plan calls for US corporations to divest themselves of any and all financial interes ts in America, and to redirect tho se resources to finance the building of the new republic while gradually relocating the entire white population out of America by the end of 2050. Pepper's efforts to blackmail the politician for money are met with death threats . So she hires a white disabled ex cop TERRY C. TAYLOR as her bodyguard for $5,000 until she can find out what's on the flash drive. But Taylor is a bigoted racist ex detective who takes her money but doesn't take Pepper's fears seriously ------ Until she turn s up dead in the L.A. River. A month later CARMEN Pepper's white half sister who lives in New Jersey notifies Taylor she received a letter and small package from Pepper stating in the event of her death she was instructed to give the ex detective the flash drive and another $5,000 to pursue her killers. Back in Washington DC treasonous Kansas Senator METHIAS CRANDAL has called a clandestine meeting with the thirteen white supremacist politicians to bring them up to date on the missing flash drive and the death of the prostitute. Not knowing where the prostitute hid the flash drive, they decide to hire NATHAN HANDLER a brutal ex Marine and veteran Psych Ops interrogator at the infamous Abu Grib prison to try and find where Pepper hid the flash drive and to liquidate the person she left it with. But when Handler shows up unannounced on Taylor's doorstep and offers to pay him $20,000 to help find the flash drive, Taylor realizes Pepper s fear was real and that someone high up in the government is willing to kill to retrieve it. Tayl or doesn't tell the Kandahar veteran he already has the flash drive. Instead he sets out to locate someone who can crack open the encrypted information. And when he does, it sets in motion a deadly cat and mouse chase that takes them across two continents and 9000 miles of ocean that ends up in the corridors of power in the Oval Office. And the only question that remains........Is the president a part of it?




The Jefferson Bible


Book Description

Jefferson regarded Jesus as a moral guide rather than a divinity. In his unique interpretation of the Bible, he highlights Christ's ethical teachings, discarding the scriptures' supernatural elements, to reflect the deist view of religion.




American Sphinx


Book Description

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER Following Thomas Jefferson from the drafting of the Declaration of Independence to his retirement in Monticello, Joseph J. Ellis unravels the contradictions of the Jeffersonian character. He gives us the slaveholding libertarian who was capable of decrying mescegenation while maintaing an intimate relationship with his slave, Sally Hemmings; the enemy of government power who exercisdd it audaciously as president; the visionarty who remained curiously blind to the inconsistencies in his nature. American Sphinx is a marvel of scholarship, a delight to read, and an essential gloss on the Jeffersonian legacy.




Religious Freedom


Book Description

For over one hundred years, Thomas Jefferson and his Statute for Establishing Religious Freedom have stood at the center of our understanding of religious liberty and the First Amendment. Jefferson’s expansive vision—including his insistence that political freedom and free thought would be at risk if we did not keep government out of the church and church out of government—enjoyed a near consensus of support at the Supreme Court and among historians, until Justice William Rehnquist called reliance on Jefferson "demonstrably incorrect." Since then, Rehnquist’s call has been taken up by a bevy of jurists and academics anxious to encourage renewed government involvement with religion. In Religious Freedom: Jefferson’s Legacy, America’s Creed, the historian and lawyer John Ragosta offers a vigorous defense of Jefferson’s advocacy for a strict separation of church and state. Beginning with a close look at Jefferson’s own religious evolution, Ragosta shows that deep religious beliefs were at the heart of Jefferson’s views on religious freedom. Basing his analysis on that Jeffersonian vision, Ragosta redefines our understanding of how and why the First Amendment was adopted. He shows how the amendment’s focus on maintaining the authority of states to regulate religious freedom demonstrates that a very strict restriction on federal action was intended. Ultimately revealing that the great sage demanded a firm separation of church and state but never sought a wholly secular public square, Ragosta provides a new perspective on Jefferson, the First Amendment, and religious liberty within the United States.




Thomas Jefferson


Book Description

Dumas Malone wrote his first 15,000 word essay about Jefferson for the scholarly Dictionary of American Biography. This reprint is Malone's own revision of that essay, made after his decades of study of a remarkable American.




Jefferson and Hamilton


Book Description

One of America's foremost historians brilliantly brings to life the fierce struggle - both public and, ultimately, bitterly personal - between Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton - two rivals whose opposing visions of what the United States should be continue to shape our country to this day.