When I began reading this book, primarily to sample the genre, I expected to become bogged down in technical details. What I didn't expect was that after the first couple of pages, I would be unable to stop until I had followed Ethan Hamilton and his family through a real crisis created in a virtual world.

The writing is crisp and refreshing, seasoned neatly with subtle humor. Never preachy, the Christian message shines through with clarity.

This was my first Jefferson Scott book. I look forward to reading the other two in the series.

I think I'll forever be partial to Terminal Logic because it was the first of the three that I read. The plot is just as tight as the first book in the series, and (wonder of wonders) a fair amount of time has passed...giving the changes in scenery and character more credence.

Jefferson Scott tackles the problem of artificial intelligence nicely in this book. Ethan Hamilton and his family are back, along with Special Agent Mike Gillette, and a few other secondary characters from Virtu@lly Eliminated. There is a murderous avatar out on Globenet...bots are escaping into cyberspace...and out of their gameworlds. Only mahem can follow.

There is no shortage of action and movement, that's for sure. And during it all, the grace of God shines through. I've heard it said that the cover art for Terminal Logic is uninspired...well please, don't judge the book by its cover (even though I happen to _like_ the cover :) ; you'd be missing a treasure.

"The encircling mountains now looked... more like the fangs of something immanently more medieval."

With a line like that, you know this book will take you places. Jefferson Scott once again creates new metaphors. The virtual reality world he crafts is consistent, logical, and satisfying, and with a writing talent far above the norm, he provides fiction for Christian readers that is fully as entertaining as mainstream bestselling technothrillers, but without the offensive junk we don't want. He has uncanny skill in developing tension and sustaining it to its last possible straining iteration, until it is resolved inevitably with a satisfying snap. In Terminal Logic, the stakes are high, the antagonist powerful, and the obstacles seemingly insurmountable-key ingredients for a good thriller, and Scott pulls it off well. His plotting and character development are more sophisticated in this, his second book, making it even more enjoyable than his first. Buy them both, along with the third in his series. Then write Multnomah Publishers asking them to get him back in front of the word processor.

This is the most incredible book i have ever read in my life. Barbra's ability to weave such an amamzing story around the life of Sally Hemmings, brings a complete picture of her family and times. I could not put this book down! I have since read its follow up, The President's Daughter which is the story of the children she had with Thomas Jefferson. That book is also 5 stars. DNA Test proved in 1998 that Sally's decendents are from her union with Thomas Jefferson. Why is America so affraid of parenting between masters and thier slaves? She had his children is for sure, the events of her life is what Barbra researched and brought together for us as a stunning 10 of a book!

When I was a young adolescent, my Illini-Germanic American and immigrant family and I went to Monticello. I inquired as to why there was a "trap door" into Jefferson's bedroom and was told that Mr. Jefferson used the space above his bedroom to store clothing, etc. I didn't believe it, Thanks be to God! Many years later, I learned of this book while living in Durham, NC. I found a copy in a used bookstore and read it and realized that my adolescent suspicions were grounded in hidden truths! Barbara Chase-Riboud charaturization of the Life of Jefferson is NOW something that the tour guides of Monticellio do reference. (Wonders never Cease!) The recent DNA studies and the fact that the some of the members of Thomas Jefferson's family have acknowledged the Hemmings as their Family members will no doubt bring this "long forgotten" historical-"fiction" novel into it's own. Hopefully, the re-publication of the work will benifit the Great-great-grand children of Sally Hemmings and will likewise recognize the other works of Barbara Chase-Riboud as well as other "Afro-American" Female writers who dared/dare to record American History NOT as "An American Controversy" but as This United State s of American History. Sally Hemmings is clearly in this work a Beacon of Light for the WOMEN of this Nation as Rosa Parks was/is. WOMEN of this Nation who dare to explore "where they came from" and "where their Strength" lies Embodied" will find in Sally Hemmings, as she speaks today from Barbara's novel, a Woman who lives more fully than she could enjoy herself when she was alive: in the world she was birthed into, she was not recognized as a Woman. Sally Hemmings today cannot escape the attention of any man or woman of Integrity. Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings are NOT "An American Contoversery". Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings are, for those of us of Integrity, Founders of THIS Unitied States of America -- now fighting against the "ethnic cleansing" elsewhere!

This was a wonderful book! The story was very clear and exact. The thought of a US President being in love with a woman of a different race scares and frightens some people, but to me it proves that we(African-Americans) are here to stay and we have a part in this country's history. Maybe not a happy one, but still, a place indeed. Thomas Jefferson, I believe was a selfish man in some sense that he used Sally Hemings to some extent. I do believe that he loved her in some odd way, and I do not doubt that she loved him. Maybe one day, the world will be able to accept the fact that a white man can love a black woman. I also pray that his descendants will learn to accept their African-American family.

Very rarely does a book come along that can discuss something like race in a realistic manner... but, somehow this book does it. by being both tongue-in-cheek ("items in a chinese person's house not worth stealing") and deadly serious (listing various race incidents accross america from colonial times to the present on a state by state basis) this book actually delivers what it promises: a complete encyclopedia on race. By constantly mixing up it's tone and presentation (from dense factually based text to humorous cartoons), it manages to encompass so many viewpoints. Some of the things listed ("why hispanics steal?")are on that fine edge between parody and truth: are they kidding or are these the type of things that people may think but only say when drunk in the company of friends? As someone who is always glad to see the unspeakable said, I believe Ego Trip is operating in the tradition of Lenny Bruce: by speaking these thoughts and words, you are bringing them out into the open and thus demystifying them. Basically, race in america is a COMPLICATED issue to say the least. By coming at it from so many angles (and by always keeping a sense of humor), the authors may just come close to the truth.

I, like many other watchers (not really active participants anymore) of cool, cutting edge culture, pride myself on staying in the loop on underground and mainstream happenings. And little truly impresses me, especially attempts at documenting the history of modern cultural trends. But, ..., this book blows me away. Not only is it smart, biting, and thick but it is also more thorough than Israeli airport security. I am amazed at the work and effort put into this book. This is some definitive work right here-- a modern day history book. You must have this. Morons will like the easy listsand graphics. Smarties will like that stuff too but, oh, so much more

I went from Harry Potter to the "Big Book of Racism." As far as I'm concerned, the Slitherins are punks compared to the Ego Trip guys. I read this book for hours on end. It's better than Cracked and Mad magazines combined.

One look at this book and I was intrigued. Then, a moment of doubt clouded my purchasing-decision-mode--could I judge this book by its cover? I've been wrong before. I purchased it anyway, and no, I wasn't disappointed. WYSIWYG...I've come to count on Scott's novels for cyber-action, leavened with humor, sprinkled with a pinch of Christian lessons, and full of likeable characters. Gillette and Hamilton's interaction is always enjoyable, as is Hamilton's relationship with his family. Like Tom Clancy's character, Jack Ryan, Ethan Hamilton keeps climbing the professional ladder, finding greater demand for his skills in each novel. I hope their are more rungs to this ladder. It's not everyday I find well-written Christian fiction, but Jefferson Scott's novels are worth it. If you can't locate them, keep looking. Blame me if you're disappointed.

A worthy continuation in the Ethan Hamilton Saga with one marked difference: more of an emphasis on genetics. Now the director of his own counter-cyberterrorism team, Ethan discovers something about a cutting-edge company in the genetic manipulation sector. GeneSys is creating an airborn version of botulism -- for a terrorist group...and they've disappeared from GlobeNet. The only hope of stopping the terrorists from obtaining it is through an inside person - gene-splicing technician Tamara Mack, a new Christian struggling to reconcile her faith with her job.

The book is full of action, as in the previous two, but the scenes are mostly played out in the 'real world'. There are still the wonderful moments when Ethan can cyber-kick the bad guys...and there's plenty of humor for all.

There is more than one antagonist; one in reality as well as one in cyberspace...which makes for quite thrilling reading. The story is solid and the concepts well researched -- I'd love to see this one made into a movie. If nothing else, get it for its jacket -- the cover art is truly creative.

The third novel by Jefferson Scott is a winner. Ethan Hamilton and FBI Agent Mike Gillette, along with an elite group of anti-cyberterrorist warriors from every security department of the government match wits with an unholy alliance of bioengineers, mideast terrorists, and the mysterious White Corporation. The story heats up when the hero, Ethan Hamilton, finds himself trapped on a remote Pacific island when terrorists take over. Then, armed only with his computer savvy and faith in God's guidance and shelter, he must do everything in his power to keep biological weapons from ever leaving the island. This book is gripping from the opening offensive against an organization bombing nursing homes to the final headlong rush through the eye of a hurricane and the battle against heavily armed fanatics. Amid all of the excitement runs the current of the power of trust in God and the internal battles that cause questions in both the newly saved and the lifelong faithful. ! {On a side note: It's refreshing to read a book where the author is able to keep obscenity and extreme violence implied rather than printed and still make you aware of its ugliness. The vilest characters were rendered believable without the writing having to sink into the gutter.} This is Jefferson Scott's best work to date and makes one eager for his next. He has created wonderfully developed characters; some of whom you would love to have as friends and others that you pray to God you will never meet. Worth the time if you want to read it as a cyberthriller, an action thriller, a wholesome adventure or all three. For the last third of the book, I couldn't put it down.

The cover of this book says it is about "Jefferson, Adams and the Revolutionary Election of 1800," but it is really about the period from 1787 to 1800. Only 50 pages are directly about the election; the other 260 pages are mostly about the period leading up to the election. Still, Weisberger gives a good overview of the crucial period in our country's history from when the national government was created by the constitution until the election of 1800 threatened to undo the Republic. Given the broad scope of the book, Weisberger can't give us a lot of detail in the room allotted. But I would recommend the book as a first step before delving into the details. To those who like hardbacks, the binding is fair and mine has come unglued.

This is a wonderful book. It isn't a "scholarly tome", but it is reliable. The author draws on many secondary sources (scholarly tomes) to weave together this surprising story. Everybody should know this stuff. Nobody does.

For example, how many Americans think that the Constitution established a "democracy?" It did not. The framers were much divided about the concept, and most were initially distrustful of it. The horrors of the French Revolution didn't help matters. American democracy emerged during the decade prior to the 1800 election as a political movement that morphed into a political party. And it wasn't even a coherent political movement. It was as much about personalities as about principles.

How many Americans know that the bitter partisan politics of our own day, which culminated in the remarkable election of 2000, has been ever with us? It has. If anything, the politics of 1800 were more bilious and hateful than today's.

As to that, how many Americans know that our "Founding Fathers" pretty much despised each other? They did. Adams and Washington against Jefferson and Madison. Adams was bad-tempered, jealous, and resentful. He was also brilliant, shrewd and as indispensible in his own less than conspicuous way as Washington was very publicly. Washington and Adams were personally appalled by Ben Franklin, whom they regarded as an atheist and a womanizer (which he was), and everybody hated Hamilton. Of course Hamilton was a hard man to love. Perhaps the most effectively influential of all the Founders, he had nothing but contempt for democracy, but practically invented American capitalism and almost single-handedly set the U.S. on course to its future status as international super-power.

Everybody knows that Jefferson wrote "all men are created equal" in the Declaration of Independence, but what most people don't know is that almost nobody, including Jefferson, actually believed this. Still, during the 1790's a political coalition, featuring James Madison, James Monroe, and Charles Pinkney (not to be confused with Charles Cotesworth Pinkney, the former's first cousin and an avid Federalist) formed around this remarkable idea. These early democrats called themselves Republicans, Republican-Democrats and, later, just Democrats. Their willingness to ride on what Jefferson called "the boistrous sea of liberty" and what we might less colorfully call "negative" campaigning probably saved the nation from, at the very least, reverting back to another British banana republic. Their opponents, the "Federalists", on the other hand, probably saved the nation from becoming another bloodbath like France before Napoleon.

The partisan clash of great men who were also ruthless politicians is the story of this book. This book portrays these events, and the men who shaped them, in a swift-paced and fascinating narrative. I highly recommend it.

Here's the perfect book for this election season, and one which sets our minds at ease knowing this wasn't the only closely contested election in American history.

More than that, however, is the brilliant portrait Weisberger paints of our Founding Fathers. While they came together in Philadelphia to proclaim independence, they would come together later in Philadelphia to participate in political machinations against each other concerning the future direction of the young republic. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson would suffer a rupture in their friendship that would last over ten years, not only over the course the Adams presidency took, but the mud that was slung in the campaign of 1800.

The capper to all this, and it should come as no surprise, was the role of the media (newspapers) in exploiting and encouraging the slander, the accusations and the tension between the Federalists of Adams and the Republicans of Jefferson. The media of today has nothing on the writers of the late Eighteenth Century who made absolutely no pretense about where their loyalties were. Weisberger makes it into a fascinating backdrop to the election, showing the passion and the tenor of the times.

As to the principals of 1796 and 1800, Adams is portrayed as a brilliant man, caught in the middle between England and France, while trying to steer America on a neutral course. All the while in the background is the figure of Alexander Hamilton, pulling strings to replace Adams with a friendlier Federalist candidate and almost costing Adams the 1796 election as a result.

Jefferson comes across as a consummate politican, accepting the Vice-Presidency in 1796 with a hostile Adams as President, waiting his chance in 1800 when he saw the time as being right. Adams will suffer through numerous foreign policy errors concerning France, some of his making and others the result of his Republican opponents. The Republican newspapers would cause Adams to make the biggest blunder of his Presidency over the opposition of such Federalists as John Marshall, The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1898, ostensibly designed to deport hostile foreign-born residents (mostly French) who were wont to side the Republicans and to make it a crime to criticize the Government of the United States. It was a mistake that would have disastrous consequences for him in the next election.

And yet, all of this wonderful history could turn to the dullest lead in the wrong hands. Weisberger takes the facts of America's early years and makes them come alive for the reader. By employing a clear, concise style that eschews both bombast and the tendency to lose the narrative in an ocean of information, Weisberger keeps us on the edge of our seats throughout the book, even though we already know how it comes out.

I read this because I've read other works by Cooper and think he's a first-rate historian. I also didn't know much about Jefferson Davis, except the things that get repeated in history books. This is a well-researched and well-written biography, and I learned a lot. Like one of the other reviewers, I wish there'd been an epilogue; Davis dies, the end. When I finished the book I thought of a line from a poem by Robert Lowell about another famous figure: "He was one of us only, pure prose." I don't know if that's because of the way Cooper presented Davis, or because Davis was, when it all comes down to it, "one of us"--no great hero, but someone who did the best he could.

The person who struck me as the most interesting was Davis's wife Varina, who captivated men as different as John C. Calhoun and Oscar Wilde and was an intelligent, educated, and strong woman. I hope somebody's working on a new biography of Varina!

The book is well researched and well written, and the style is highly readable. Having said that, it's not an engrossing book that's hard to put down either. Nonetheless, I plodded through it over a month and I am glad I did. Jefferson Davis remains an enigma to most Americans; how could someone who had studied at West Point, served in our military, been a Senator and a Cabinet officer lead a rebellion against the very nation he professed to love for so long? The book reveals the answer and makes a convincing argument that Davis neither hated The United States of America nor loved the vile institution of slavery. In his view, and perhaps in the view of many if not most of his Southern contemporaries, the largest viable sovereign political entity was the State, not the Union. Put simply, Davis was a Mississippian, and as long as Mississippi chose to associate itself with the other states of the Union, so too would Davis. But he believed very deeply in the Jeffersonian principle of decentralized government, and Federal mandates were an affront to his interpretation of the Constitution. The book makes his case admirably and tells the story of that period from an interesting perspective. It will not disappoint the reader whose views may be different than those of Mr. Davis.

I have always enjoyed reading historical biographies; in the past few months, I've read about such interesting figures as Thomas Paine, Henry Clay, John Adams and Daniel Webster. Now Jefferson Davis joins this group.

A common trait in these biographies (as well as others I've read) is that the writer, while usually objective, in general looks favorably upon his subject. To some degree, this makes sense, as the writer would not spend years of his life on a subject he really didn't like. With Jefferson Davis, a person who is often considered one of the villains in American history, this presents more of a challenge.

In this work, Davis comes off as neither a hero or a Hitler, but somewhere between: a strongly principled man who unfortunately had some majorly incorrect principles, especially when it came to slavery. It is a very interesting read, and though I disagree with the basis for the Southern cause, it was fascinating to read another point of view.

Although well-written, this book does have some flaws. Although reasonably objective, Cooper occasionally allows his pro-Davis bias to distort or omit certain facts. In addition, at times he skips around a bit in the chronology, which is a bit confusing. Nonetheless, there is enough good material here to rate it around four-and-a-half stars, which I round up here to five. To enjoy reading this book does not mean to agree with Davis; it just means you have an opportunity to broaden your knowledge of the Civil War era.

This story is catalogued as a book for teens and young adults,
but I found it great reading for an older audience. It was
written as a result of research done by twenty-year-old Shannon
Lanier, a direct descendant of Thomas Jefferson and his slave
Sally Hemings. With slavery as the backdrop, this book is an
attempt to combine the history of one American family. Amidst
the controversy surrounding the biography of Thomas Jefferson
and his offspring, Shannon shares his family's story.

Many descendants of Martha Jefferson and several generations of
historians have resisted the claims of kinship to Jefferson by
Hemings' offspring, and they feel these claims will tarnish his
legacy. But the information collected by Shannon is not a myth,
and it is his belief that he has found the final piece of puzzle
to complete the search for the the Hemings' family tree. Shannon
never intended to bring shame to Jefferson's legacy, but he is
aware that his research will show an unveiled look at a man many
feel is beyond reproach.

The story is told with a collection of historical essays,
interviews and family photographs, and is wonderfully illustrated
by Jane Feldman. This is not the Thomas Jefferson we studied in
school and there is the strong possibility that this particular
information may never appear in history books. Since there are no
written records of the slaves' birth, and of the period after
slavery was abolished, to substantiate Shannon's claims. The
history during these periods was memorized and told by oral
historians. But in 1998 DNA tests produced evidence that there
is a link between the Jefferson and Hemings families.

If nothing else, this story should produce sensitive discussions
on how we define our country based on the color of our skin. The
introduction by Lucian K. Truscott IV, a fifth generation great-
grandson of Jefferson through their daughter Martha
Jefferson-Randolph, shares his hope that this story will show us
that the worth of a person should not be determined only by what
we see.

Reviewed by aNN Brown
of The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers

In a dignified manner this book offers true accounts of lives that were lived in the shadows of an uncertain heritage. With more and more Americans embracing the Thomas Jefferson-Sally Hemings romantic relationship for the reality (I have longed believed) it was, we are free to enjoy--and to learn from--this mixed-race, talented, loving family.

Few literary efforts make race seem so indistinct and unimportant today as this work by a remarkable young Jefferson-Hemings descendant. Everyone who has felt cheated by historians while attempting to learn the full story of Americans' mixed heritage can make up for that in part by reading Jefferson's Children.

By the way--it's not just a children's book. It's for everyone. It also provides a good historical perspective of Sally Hemings as the half-sister of Jefferson's late wife, Martha, who died 19 years before he became President.

Some people's sense of reality will conclude, rightly I believe, that Sally Hemings was, in his heart, the First Lady of President Thomas Jefferson. I regret the time was not right for open acknowledgment of that. It certainly is now.

I have just finished reading Jefferson's Children:The Story of One American Family, and the stories included here of the Hemings and Jefferson families have given me renewed hope that someday we all will treat each other as cousins and family. I realize that all families don't love each other, but these stories encourage me to believe that we can be more loving toward all people.

While this is catalogued as a children's book (ages 9-12), I believe it is a family book. Parents should read and discuss it with their children and teachers will develop lesson plans around it. I believe that this book will bring us all closer together.

Reading and discussing Hubbard's small classic, "A Message To Garcia" should be a pre-requisite for anyone about to work anywhere for a boss. Much is written about leaders, and this book helps to fill the huge gap in what is written for and about followers. The few minutes it takes to read this book could change the rest of your life. I first read it back in 1985 and I re-read it frequently.

Hubbard's inspiration for his "preachment" was an obscure but important event in the 1898 Spanish-American War. President McKinley needed someone to quickly deliver a message to an insurgent general somewhere in the jungles of Cuba. An army officer was recommended and McKinley personally handed the message to this officer with the mission to deliver the "message to Garcia." This officer's unhesitating acceptance of his mission with no superfluous questions and his subsequent completion of the mission is Hubbard's definition of an invaluable subordinate.

Hubbard's lessons of initiative (doing the right thing without being told) and loyalty to yourself, your boss, and your organization (doing the right thing when told only once) are timeless and well told. Hubbard spoke to all leaders and subordinates when he wrote, "It is not book-learning young men need, nor instruction about this and that, but a stiffening of the vertebrae which will cause them to be loyal to a trust, to act promptly, concentrate their energies: do the thing -- "Carry a message to Garcia.""

This is a lament that people cannot be counted on to get a job done. One man could; and he did deliver a message to Garcia, no matter what. The whole book was written in a matter of an hour or so and has sold tens of millions of copies. I have used it to inspire a weak employee and am considering giving it as a present to my best 150 clients.

It's one of the inspire book i ever read. I strongly believe it's not outdated, in fact the clear message is very relevant in today world. I.e. Good manager give a clear Objective (E.g. Send a message to Garcia), and the person in charge should not giving excuse, no delay, and no "blaming why me". Ask question if there is any thing you need further explaination. (In Rowan's case, no) Then Figure it out on how to accomplish it.
Now day, there are too many people like to say this is not accomplishable and that not workable without having a try, without even "a Think". Many are giving too many excuses.

In addition, personally i think, this book is not only should be given by employer to employee, employer himself also should learn the lesson. I.e. One of the reason that Rowan can successfully deliver the message is because, His "employer", after given the objective, They fully delegate the task to Rowan, They did not care for the detail, They did not pretend to be smart to teach Roman on how to do it, They did not interfere, They trust Rowan, and give Rowan all the neccessary authority to make decision. Just imagine if all the important decision that Rowan make have to get approval first then only can respond. Do you think The Message can be successafully delivered?
I hope Employer also have to bear this in mind before blaming your employee for not that responsible and self-motivate as Rowan. Think first. Think do you really trust your staff, Think do they have all the neccessary authotiry to make decison, think that did you did your job good enough as a employer...?

Furthermore, ensure the Objective that you give is meaningful to your employee, let your employee have that kind of feeling of important. Sure when Rowan recieve the task, in his mind he would say this :" WOW, this seem chanllenging, this task is important, i must accomplish it otherwise we would lose the battle. And they are giving this such a important task to me, they trust me, I must do it RIGHT!"
Right?

Finally, Don't forget Positive feedback or recognising that President give to Rowan. Remember, People will only doing things for two main simplified reason, i.e. pain and pleasure. This also a part which should we learn. Off cause i doesn't mean Rowan doing all this just for his own pleasure, but at least it's a part of it.

This extraordinary volume shares the virtues of the men that provide its focus. It has the steady, right-thinking leadership of Washington. It has the learning and driving intensity of Madison. It has the cantankerous insistence on truthfulness of Mason. And it surely has much of the crafty elegance of Jefferson. With charity toward all and malice toward none, Wilkins manages the nearly impossible - a fully adult reflection on race and the American project.

The issue of slavery and the founding fathers here is not the occasion for simple-minded evaluation and homiletics. It is the setting off point for a deep, careful, and powerful examination of the practical nature of political progress in the face of genuine human failing. Unflinching and realistic, mature and balanced, this book shames the shallowness of most public discourse and private apathy today, even as it honors the founding fathers with the respect of honest recognition.

In one of the many extraordinary and too little known original writings this book reveals, George Mason wrote of slavery: "By an inevitable chain of causes and effects, providence punishes national sins, by national calamities." Breaking slavery's chain of national calamity certainly requires today - as it did then - more than words. Yet through the words in this carefully crafted reflection, Wilkins opens the opportunity for us to own our own past as a nation - and that must certainly help compel and direct action.

In an age when Americans either lionize the founders and perform idolatry on them (see David McCullough) or disparage these men as hopelessly racist and dysfunctional, Wilkins performs another great service for his fellow Americans- he sees these men clearly for what they were and still are. Studying four Virginians (Jefferson, Mason, Madison and Washington), Wilkins looks at their writings and their culture and draws out their views on freedom and slavery. Comparing these views with their acts toward black Americans and the culture of 18th century slave-holding Virginia, he sees this quartet as both shaping and shaped by the world in which they live. They are Americans after all, with all the complexity and idealism that comes with being a thoughtful American. Of the four, Jefferson perhaps gets knocked around the most, but then he deserves such treatment more than his fellows. But Wilkins is not interested in scoring points against these men; rather, he seeks to understand why such educated and thoughtful men could build a nation with a great and wicked contradiction at its heart- the existence of slavery in a land devoted, on its face, to freedom. As usual, Wilkins does not remain in the 18th century but draws parallels to our own day. His subjects remain models for liberals (in the eighteenth century meaning of the word) all around the world today, fighting for basic human liberties in both awful and wealthy places. Americans cannot help but be products of these men on some level, for all that we think of as American has in part been passed down through the hands and minds of these men. To understand his four Virginians is to begin to understand our own times, in both its marvelous ideals and its unfulfilled promises.

In writing both economical and eloquent, Roger Wilkins reclaims the founders and patriotism for all Americans. Looking at the Virginia founders -- Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Mason -- Wilkins probes the the tension they lived between "earned guilt and aspiration to honor," between living privileged lives built on the horror of slavery, and calling forth a nation based on the proposition that "all men are created equal" and endowed with inalienable rights. Wilkins shows how blacks -- free and unfree -- played a major role in the revolution. With the perspective of a life devoted to making America better, he praises the founders for "their greatest legacy": a government "wrapped in the aura of freedom and limited by a devotion to rights" that created the field that allows each generation to work to extend freedom and equality. Wilkins probes the founders, neither airbrushing their flaws nor ignoring their genius. This is the testament of an honest and wise patriot. I recommend it highly.

This is only volume I. There has to be a volume II out there somewhere.

I strongly feel that it does matter a great deal whether Davis or Lincoln was correct. And I don't think that correctness is 'determined' by who has the biggest sword. In other words, 'might doesn't make right'. And it is sad that one of the issues over which state sovereignty was argued was the slavery issue. It is also sad that northerners weren't so sympathetic with abolitionists until after slavery became either outlawed or unprofitable - when it was, they were fine with it.

Anyone who enjoyed this book MUST also read 'America's Caesar' by Durand .... His book goes into much more detail over the question of state sovereignty. The right to secede wasn't questioned until all of the founding fathers had passed away and their personal reactions and testimony could no longer be given. Also, one much remember that in 1830, the transcripts of the debates at the constitutional convention were still 'locked' and were not available to the public. The right of secession was not only acknowledged prior to the 1830's, but it was one of the most sacred rights. William Rawle's (a Federalist even) textbook 'A View to the Constitution of the US' even held that states had the right to secede and this book was used as a textbook at West Point up until the early 1840's and is still in the West Point library to this day.

What changed things was when a man named Story wrote another opinion (again after all the founding fathers were dead and could no longer speak) that the Union was perpertual and that states 'drew their very breath from the Union who created them'. Even Lincoln himself, in 1850 acknowledged in a speech that states had the right to secede. But after succombing to Story's distorted and incorrect logic, he because a 'perpetualist' following the theory that 'once in there is no way out' (of the Union). This would be akin to marrying someone and there being no divorce or even separation available no matter how horrid the circumstances.

It is sad that this issue cannot receive national debate even in this day and time so that all can be aired - now that we have the advantage of TV and internet and all could hear and participate.

Read this book and the one I have referenced if truth matters to you at all. Jefferson Davis was Right. It is just sad that slavery was made the issue of whether or not to sustain state sovereignty.

This book should be required reading in all classrooms, and should further be owned by anyone who would like to understand the truth behind the Confederacy, and the unconstitutional war that followed the secession of the Southern states.

President Davis shows himself to be a preeminent constitutional scholar with his in-depth analysis of the 10th Amendment and the inherent right of the states to secede from the union into which they voluntarily entered. While this book was difficult for President Davis to write, due to the hardships he endured during and after the war, we should all be thankful that he took the time and conducted the research that went into this well-written and very informative book.

There are a great deal of insights into the inner workings of the Confederate government, but this book is worth far more than the price of admission for the constitutional analysis, and for the way he explains how the war started, and the duplicity of the Lincoln cabinet during the critical months prior to the first shots being fired.

The only blemish on this edition is the ridiculous "introduction" by James McPhearson. Why someone was chosen to write an "introduction" to a book of this magnitude who has no understanding of the issues discussed by President Davis, and who wants only to make petty comments about the man and the cause that he fought for is a question to which there is no answer. This book would have been a far better package without the apologist nonsense that hides under the title of "introduction", and it's recommended that this part of the book be ignored by serious students of history and the Constitution.

This is an eye-opening book that will forever alter your perceptions of the events that gave rise to the events of 1860-1865.