"A monumental, canon-defining anthology of four centuries of American essays, from Cotton Mather and Benjamin Franklin to David Foster Wallace and Zadie Smith. Many of the essays Phillip Lopate has gathered here address themselves--sometimes critically--to American values, but even in those that don't, one can detect a subtext about being American. The Founding Fathers and early American writers self-consciously struggle to establish a recognizable...

A simple, well rounded portrait of Thomas Jefferson's life which should appeal to junior readers; the text is accompanied by beautiful oil paintings which heighten the reality of the narrative.

A fictionalized look at the last twenty years of Thomas Jefferson's life at Monticello through the eyes of three of his slaves, two of whom were his sons by his slave, Sally Hemings.

Two hundred years after Thomas Jefferson's inauguration, a serial killer stalks Monticello Thomas Jefferson is in trouble. Two centuries after he became America's third President, the nation's historians have ganged up on him, intent on shattering the reputation of a man they once idolized. It's Fern Fisher's job to set the record straight. A hotshot young historian, she has been hired by the people at Monticello to repair Jefferson's tattered reputation....

The Constitution was two years old and the United States was in serious danger. Bitter political rivalry between former allies and two surging issues that inflamed the nation led to grim talk of breaking up the union. Then a single great evening achieved compromises that led to America's great expansion. This book celebrates Thomas Jefferson and his two guests, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, and the meal that saved the republic. In Dinner at...

A real-life thriller—the true story of the unheralded American who brought the Barbary Pirates to their knees

After Tripoli declared war on the United States in 1801, Barbary pirates captured three hundred US sailors and marines. President Jefferson sent out navy squadrons, but he also authorized a secret mission to overthrow the government of Tripoli. He chose an unlikely diplomat, William Eaton, to lead the mission. But before Eaton

...

Examines how the educations of America's first four presidents, and in particular their scholarly devotion to ancient Greek and Roman classics, informed the beliefs and ideals that shaped the nation's constitution and government.

Examines the life of Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States and author of the Declaration of Independence.