Garry Wills' Inventing America is clearly a labor of love. Its learned, precise, and passionate scholarship effectively skewers much of the scholarship that preceded it. Wills forcefully repudiates the common assertion (derived largely from Carl Becker's important work) that the Declaration of Independence is an utterly Lockean document. Instead, Wills shows that Thomas Jefferson was only slightly influenced by Locke, and was instead completely a product of the Scottish Enlightenment. By placing key terms and phrases in the context of 18th century America, Wills brings the meaning of the Declaration to life, and alters its existence from a vague philosophical statement that we merely "see" rather than "read" into a specific political document with very particular meanings and functions.
It is a shame that this book is out of print; it should be required reading to students of the history of American Independence.

While being an intellectual tour-de-force, the book is at the same time something of a detective novel, as Wills traces Jeffeson's ideas expessed in the Declaration of Independence back to the Scottish Enlightment. Not only is it intellectually exciting, it also explains what Jeffferson probably meant by such terms as "all men are born equal" and "the pursuit of happiness." Without this understanding, I doubt if we can honestly make sense of one of the most important documents in American, and perhaps one should say, Scottish, history.

The plays in the History's Project's "Character in Time: The US Presidents" series are interesting and informative and, above all, very readable. People unfamiliar with reading plays should not be put off by the format -- after a few minutes time, it seems perfectly natural to read dialogue instead of normal prose. Students, especially, will appreciate the playwright's artful distillation of the subject's ideas and philosophy, as well as the lively presentation of his character -- there's really a lot of information packed into these small volumes.

After reading this brief one-act play, I envy today's high school and college students whose teachers elect to use this gem as a teaching strategy. Cox adroitly weaves the many complex facets of Jefferson through the warp of late 18th century and early 19th century American political history and sets the stage for subsequent history. He grabs adolescent prurient interest and attention by kicking off the drama with a hearty ditty that satirizes Jefferson's relationship with his slave Sally Hemings. What student could nap after that?

The play covers a time frame of a few hours between House of Representatives debate about selection of a president to break an electoral tie between Jefferson and Burr and Jefferson's ultimate victory. However, the dialog covers a wealth of concepts from which the teacher can select to base his/her focus for one class session or a series of sessions.

For many if not most high school and college students, history is a necessary evil, an ordeal to be lived through with no expectation that it will be fascinating or that it will leave a lasting impression beyond a grade on a transcript. Through this deceptively simple dramatization, Cox raises the possibility that interest in history can be stimulated early and form the basis for continued lifelong interest.

Reviewed by Pauline Ellen Lee, EdD., RN

Murder. Intrigue. Tragedy. This is a little known book, but it is the true story of a branch of Thomas Jefferson's family which moved to frontier Kentucky at about the turn of the 19th Century, 200 years ago. The book is a marvelous exposition of late 18th Century plantation life in Virginia, of the sort that Jefferson and his peers enjoyed. But a branch of Jefferson's family fell into deep debt and sought to rebuild their fortunes on the frontier. The story of their travel with furniture and household goods to Kentucky is fascinating, and even more fascinating is the story of what happened once they got there. Suffice to say that a horrendous murder took place. Its backdrop was the devastating earthquake of 1812 which actually caused the Mississippi River to run backward. The earthquake also revealed the murder in a most bizarre manner. Tragedy ensues on a lonesome Kentucky hilltop with two men killing each other It's all true. A friend of mine found the hilltop and the graves during a recent summer vacation. Thomas Jefferson was alive during this period and must have known about the horrible crime his relatives committed. A real page-turner of a book. Compelling picture of early frontier life in the wilderness by an author (now deceased) who lived in the immediate neighborhood where this story takes place. Too bad it's out of print. If you get a copy, hang on to it.

Boynton Merrill, Jr.'s book Jefferson's Nephews: A Frontier Tragedy is a compelling story about the Lewis family and their move from Virginia gentry to the hard forntier life of Western Kentucky. This story is engaging and a real page turner, not only from the historical stand point, but a powerfull story as well. This book has all of the components of a real life Greek tragedy set in Kentucky in the early 1800's.

The author gives us a real look into life in early Kentucky frontier and the society with social status of the time. Fraught with hardness of life and little pleasures, families seemed destined for struggle.

Lilburne and Isham Lewis are brothers and are the nephews of the President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, but even at that the Lewis's life still takes a downfall as mounting debt and land disputes keeps the family desperate and in moral decline.

Now, a black slave of Lilburn's is murdered, and the tale that ensues is very compelling. The reconstruction of the crime as told in the book is excellent, aborbing, and tragic. I found the book to be impressive, and historically correct. The scholarship is of first quality and is eminently readable.

A book worth reading more than once... audacious, and fascinating with real life characters... better than fiction.

This guide is a great book. It offers off the beaten track places, and always includes places for the budget traveler. Seemingly geared toward the student traveler, I found it great for the young-at-heart as well.

In my travels around eastern U.S. over the last year I have been amazed at the unusual, off the beaten path things Let's Go USA consistently includes. Unlike other travel guides I've seen, this guide bypasses the ordinary tourist traps in favor of the spots only longtime residents of the area would seemingly be aware of. Also, using the guide for months, rarely did I spend more than $10-15 a day. This guide caters to the low-budget traveler, offering such suggestions as getting a college dorm for $15/night, eating huge $2 BBQ dinners and seeing impressive, but free (or dirt-cheap) sights. I was also very impressed with the accuracy of the guide. Very rarely did I find misinformation, which meant I did not have to make endless calls shopping around for the cheapest place to stay or ask around for a good place to eat--it was all right there in the guide. Within all of this, the guide is enjoyable to read. I would often find myself reading sections in the guide that I had no intention of going to, just for a fun read. For anyone traveling in the US on a tight budget or not, young or old, as a rambling backpacker or with the family, Let's Go is an invaluable companion.

As a 1995 graduate of UVA, I found this book to be extremely educational. I only wish I had purchased it as an undergrad so I could have wandered the Grounds finding the areas Mr. Dabney wrote of. Mr. Dabney was an expert on UVA and Mr. Jefferson. I look forward to reading more of his work.

As a faculty brat in the 1930s,I literally grew up on the UVA grounds. On reading my first copy of Mr. Dabney's book (he was a close personal friend of my parents) I was struck by the rich lode of information verifying much that had been rumor during my teens. My dad, Dr. James C.Bardin a medical doctor, opted to teach Romance Languages. He is mentiond in the book. Mr. Jefferson's University sparkles with vivid memories of a delightful time in my youth. It is a wonderful historical document written so as to interest just about anyone who likes Virginia, and especially the UVA.

Resistence trough rituals is fundamental to culture and identity studies in A-level sociology, gread for exam and coursework references,and also a good read

This book is a must read for students of fashion, subculture, identity, and pop culture. Although the style of writing and some of the conclusions read as somewhat "old-fashioned", it was ground-breaking work at the time, one of the first serious scholarly treatments of youth and pop culture. More importantly, many of its arguments are still very relevant and need to be reconsidered in contemporary literature. The collection also discusses many styles which are all but forgotten to a younger audience and the variety British styles in the 60s is an education in itself for people who often think of past decades as having a particular "look". Excellent sociological analysis blended with ethnographic description.

This book presents traditional and non-traditional Caribbean foods in a simple and clear manner. It is an excellent choice for anyone interested in the new, fresh and exuberant Caribbean cooking. Many of the recipes can be reduced in calories by the substitution of simple ingredients. If you like this book, you'll love Angela Spenceley's "A Taste of the Caribbean Cookbook" which also includes a chapter on Bartending in the Islands. Her other cookbooks, "A Taste of the Virgin Islands" and "Just Add Rum! Cookbook" are fabulous and well worth the addition to any good cookbook library.

We have fond memories of our honeymoon at the restaurant and inn owned by the authors in the British Virgin Islands. Our memories of the wonderful "dining experiences" rank high among those of our blessed honeymoon. The cookbook lets us "taste" a few of those memories here at home!

This book includes color photographs of the current gardens at Monticello and black & white reproductions of Thomas Jefferson's own sketched plans for the gardens. There is an annotated list of the flowers and "woody ornamentals," such as roses and shrubs, grown by Jefferson. There are many excerpts from his writing and letters which give the reader a greater sense of Jefferson's broad intellect and love of nature as it relates to his gardens. I was hoping to find a list of flowers native to Virginia cultivated by Jefferson but, while the origins of many of the flowers are indicated, there is no separate list of the native plants as I had hoped.

I found the book to be quite intersting and a valuable resource for the gardener. Thomas Jefferson is well known for his gardening efforts, both as ornamental and practical for food stuffs.

The book has excellent photographs of the gardens of Monticello as well as Jefferson's drawings of how he wanted to landscape the area of his "Little Mountain." There is great pride in the book to document over one hundred species of plants cultivated by Jefferson while living at Monticello.

Jefferson was a champion of cultivating indigenous plant life to Virginia and that of North America, but he had plants comming from thoughout the world also.

Cultivating a mountain top graden presented problems for Jefferson in both climate and the proper hydration of the plants themselves. Without all of the modern conviences that we have today, Jefferson managed to have some of the most beautiful gardens in Virginia.

This is a must book if you are looking for gardening proportion and scale. As Jefferson said, "There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me." Well said...

In the book you will find very good descriptions of the plants grown at Monticello, this is a must volume for reference.

This book is a simple introduction to the eschatological position known as Historic Postmillennialism, as opposed to the secular and liberal varieties. It's a quick, easy read that:

(1) corrects common misconceptions about this view of eschatology (or, rather, view of history),

(2) shows that this view is not one uncommon to the church, as it has been espoused by some of the greatest theologians that have ever influenced the church to date, and

(3) surveys the Old and New Testamental witness to this system with

(4) offers brief rebuttals to common objections.

Parts 1-3 are excellent and, while brief, bring out the salient elements of the Postmillennial argument. While believing this millennial outlook to be biblical and defensible, I don't find his arguments against the common critiques of Postmillennialism very compelling. Thus, my 4 star rating. If this portion were more convincing, I wouldn't hesitate to give this book a full 5 stars.

This is certainly not one of the most detailed expositions of Postmillennial thought, and it was not intended to be. But for someone who hasn't the time to read a 200+ page book on the subject, this is the book for you. Given a good afternoon, you could easily polish it off...

At the dawning of a new millennium, many Christians are reevaluating their eschatology. If you are open to do this, I encourage you to check out this book.

In the early 1980s, I heard a lot about the coming end-times and I was sure it would occur sometime by the end of the next decade. Most evangelicals, if you asked them 10, 15, or 20, years ago, would have doubted that we would be here on the eve of a new millennium still debating end-time events. It is still generally true that most evangelicals believe that these are the end-times and that Jesus will return in their life-time. The idea that we are in the end-times is pervasive. Even many non-Christians see the future as holding a disaster that could destroy human life on planet earth.

The Christian ought to have a hope of redemption and restoration in the end-times. This is clear from the prophecies of the Bible. Like many Christians I have tried with difficulty to reconcile the biblical promises of great increase for the kingdom of God in the Last Days with the traditional dispensationalist view of the Great Tribulation being an end-time event. How can Satan be alive and well on the planet earth and the Church be victorious at the same time? I began struggling with this tension shortly after my conversion about 14 years ago.

For instance, in my missions endeavors in Russia, I have heard preachers saying that the openness in Russia is just for a time and that we have ony six months (then they said a year, then two years at the outside) until the door slams shut again. Now in 1999, Communism is at its lowest ebb of the last 100 years in Russia. The Russian parliament has a lower communist representation than most of the governments of Europe.

One missions expert said that the Great Commission must be fulfilled by 2000. Now that his prophecy has failed, he is predicting judgment on the church in America for its failure to bring revival. IÕve heard famous preachers saying that we only have a few more years until the rapture, the Antichrist and the Great Tribulation comes.

Thankfully, about 11 years ago, I read a very interesting book that helped me readjust my view of the end-times:

The Victory of ChristÔs Kingdom: an introduction to postmillennialism by John Jefferson Davis.

It is 100 pages of dynamite. I first read this book in 1989. Through this slim volume, I became a postmillennialist in one afternoon at the beach. Thankfully, the book has been reprinted (after a few years out of print) as an paperback and you should waste no time to order it right now

As a Christian publisher, I have since circulated many articles promoting the victorious ecclesiology of postmillennialism. John Jefferson DavisÕ book is among the best available.

Postmillennialism sees a gradual long-term expansion of the kingdom of God through outpourings of the Holy Spirit fostering Revival within the Church, and also the transformation of entire nations through Spiritual Awakening. This process may take many centuries to complete.

In contrast, the premillennial doctrine puts ChristÕs Kingdom in a retreat mode, although sometimes it forbodes brief victory for the Church just before the return of Christ.

Postmillennialism is the exact opposite: it puts Satan in a retreat mode (Satan is bound according to Rev. 20) for many generations hence (perhaps even for many more centuries or maybe even millennia!) and forbodes a brief apostacy in the Church at the very end of history.

We are talking here about the difference between an eschatology of victory and an eschatology of defeat.

IÕd like to write a longer review, but right now I am busy with my Y2K Manifesto: 00 Reasons Why Jesus Will Return in 00. So far it is a slim tome. :-)

Also, check out the newly released video: The Beast of Revelation: IDENTIFED --