I have read the book 3 times, that I am the the first grandson of the author himself. It is very emotional and strong and at the same time can have you wondering what will be happening next later on in other chapters. Dr. Jefferson Wiggins has done an exceptional job writing about racial diversity in the '60's the book was also adopted by President William "Bill" Clinton for his committee on racial diversity.

The entire time I was reading this, I felt like I was reading a sequel to a book I never read. Something is missing. I will keep the book on the shelf, but as of yet, I just don't get it. Unless you have some secret knowledge, don't buy this book!

This is an important book because it gives one a very good idea of the spiritual principles of a brilliant American statesman and what might be behind secret organisations who seem to rule the world.

On the subject of the crucifixion similar or different theories are found in books such as the Nag Hammadi library and Secrets of Golgotha by Dr Ernest Lee Martin. In addition the claim of the archaeologist and anaesthetist Ron Wyatt, who apparently found the ark of the covenant in a rock chamber underneath the place of crucifixion on Golgotha, with dried blood on the mercy seat, offers another perspective. All this can become quite confusing. Unfortunately the statements in The Book of the Holy Grail about the double crucifixion of Simon of Cyrene and Jesus Christ, and Christ's faked death, that contradict evangelical reports, are not proved substantially with footnotes, which makes it harder to believe this alternative story.

Jesus is reported to have rebuked people who put too much value on their biological descent from Abraham, and the Cathars and Waldensians rather believed in a purified and individualized spirituality. One gets thus the impression that this book is about a rather strange mixture of Christianity and Judaism.
The descriptions of the spiritual world and references to Melchizedek, Lucifer and Michael are interesting, but does not reveal much more than what a reader of the Bible already knows.

Perhaps we are really living in the times of the fulfilment of prophecies that were predicted in the Book of the Holy Grail, which would leave one with the hope that peace on earth might become more part of everyday reality.

I found this book by doing a search on Thomas Jefferson, and when I read the description of the book I went, "Right, as if." I think I've seen every possible conspiracy theory somewhere on the web, so the idea that there could be an unpublished manuscript by Joseph of Arimathea which was translated by, of all people, Thomas Jefferson, seemed simply ridiculous on the face of it. But ever since I read Holy Blood, Holy Grail, I've been addicted to reading just about every book that has to do with the idea that there was a secret bloodline originating with Jesus, and I couldn't stand not reading this one. To my surprise, I found it fascinating. The idea that Joseph of Arimathea is Jesus' father is, in itself, remarkable. It explains the legends of Joseph taking the young Jesus to Glastonbury, which wouldn't be possible if Joseph of Arimathea was just another of Jesus' disciples. I also love the metaphysics, the idea that the reason our world is so screwed up is that the imperfections were deliberately put in to give us something to struggle against--a self-improvement therapy on a universal scale--the earth as an enormous Role Playing Game, and we're all gods who are playing the game. Fits in perfectly with the whole Matrix concept. And, what other book says that God was married to Goddess, and we are their sons and daughters? Much less sexist than the traditional Judeo-Christian creation myth where all comes from a patriarchal God. This book is hard going and it doesn't surprise me that some of the other readers get turned off by the historical claims, but once you get past that, this is a wonderful book of wisdom. Considering that there isn't any more scientific proof for the authenticity of the gospels than is offered for this one, maybe that's enough.

The author fails to see things with the eyes of the generation about which he is writing. That makes for bad history, merely the out-of-context attachment of situations, strung together into a book. How disappointing. However, he cannot be very lonesome. I'm afraid he has the company of a lot of clever, educated, useless historians (so-called) these days.

Thomas Jefferson wrote eloquently against slavery and in favor of a nation of small farmers. He also ran a large plantation worked by several hundred slaves. Traditionally, Americans have emphasized the former, and found excuses for the latter. Kennedy does exactly the opposite. In fact, he argues that Jefferson was in a real sense responsible for preserving and extending slavery--and the system of large estates owned by "planters" that went with it.

During the Revolutionary War, a number of Virginians felt that slavery would eventually have to be ended. Jefferson did not support them, and slavery became more firmly established. In 1784, the government set up by the Articles of Confederation began to decide what to do with the new territories outside the 13 original states. A number of people felt that slavery should not be allowed there. Jefferson did not support them, and slavery was extended. In 1802, Jefferson, now president, bought the giant Louisiana Territory from France. A number of Americans felt that slavery should not be allowed there. Jefferson did not support them, and slavery was further extended.

Why would Jefferson do this, especially since slavery made impossible a country of small farmers? Kennedy has several answers. First, Jefferson wasn't really that fond of small farmers. He considered many of them to be uncivilized bumpkins. But he positively hated industrialization, and felt especially bad about free black "mechanics." He thought that the only proper way to treat freed slaves was the bring them back to Africa (or maybe Haiti). Until that would happen, it was "not yet" time for emancipation. Jefferson was a planter himself and felt that other planters were his peers. He wanted them to like him, and he relied on them politically. Kennedy also seems to say that Jefferson was an unwitting stooge of British merchants. They wanted to lend the planters money, buy their cotton, and sell them English manufactured goods. Had the South developed like the North, with towns and workshops constantly springing up amidst the family farms, this "neo-colonialism" (or "colonial-imperialism") couldn't have happened.

Kennedy thinks slavery was especially environmentally destructive. Compared to owner-worked small farms, slave-worked plantations killed the soil. This is a difficult argument to make. No landowner deliberately exhausts his land in ten years if he can keep it productive for 20 or 30 or more. There was new land in the west that one could move to, but you didn't have to be a plantation-owner to sell and move (and if your land is ruined, why will anyone pay you much money for it?). However, says Kennedy, more small-holders were too poor to move, and out of necessity, they took better care of their land. Besides, caring for the land required initiative and local knowledge or complex procedures or special tools. Slave-owners would not permit their slaves to do much besides follow simple orders and use simple tools.

And Kennedy is heart-broken at what could have been. Maybe free soil outside the old slave south, maybe freed slaves as yeoman, maybe decent treatment of the Indians, maybe well-cared for land. The second half of the book might be summarized: merchants sell individual Indians money on credit, then with the US Army at their back, force Indian nations to give up vast tracts of land to discharge the debt. Slave-owners move in and ruin the land. Americans settle beyond the boundaries of the United States. Then when the local Indians, escaped slaves, "maroons" (mixed Indian and African), and European colonial governments resist, get the US armed forces to enforce their stealing. Slave-owners move in and ruin the land. I was unclear exactly how this related to Jefferson. Kennedy seems to be saying, "He knew about a lot about it; he was happy about it; sometimes he took positive action to bring it about; even when he was no longer president, he did nothing to stop it."

I liked the way this book takes on hypocrisy, pretension, and myth, e.g., the myth of the "independence" of southern plantations. Planters borrowed money every year, and every year had to sell their crop on the world market. Prices and interests rates were never the same from one year to the next, and planters see-sawed between boom and bust. Yet Kennedy then buys into an equally ridiculous myth: that English merchants just decided on their own what prices and interst rates would be. He can't seem to comprehend that in these markets, everyone had "exposure" and no one was "in control." A major flaw of the book is the idea that after the Revolution the South became part of "an invisible empire manipulated from London and the [English] Midlands."

I feel like I should have liked this book but I didn't. Why? The book has some beautiful phrases and sentences but too often they were like raisins in a poorly cooked pudding. Sometimes it's hard to tease out exactly what Kennedy is saying and sometimes he just sounds silly. Along with the raisins are some awful jellied currants (a failed metaphor? now you know how this reader felt).

Kennedy has been head of the Smithsonian's American history museum and of the National Park Service. This book left me with the impression that Kennedy feels, "Once I had to uphold the icons. But now I may indulge myself. In an oh-so-civilized way, I will skewer those who are unjustly worshipped and elevate those unjustly scorned." All too often it sounded bureaucratic and snide.

The book just doesn't flow well. It was exceedingly difficult to keep all the people and places straight. And THIS was maddening: three quarters of the way through the book I turned the page and found 8 glossy pages of prints and rudimentary maps. They would have been some help. Yet nowhere, NOWHERE in the book are these pages mentioned, not when the people shown are introduced, not when places are mentioned, not in the table of contents, not anywhere.

Toward the end I began to feel like I was reading some of the anti-Clinton investigative journalism that blossomed at the end of his presidency. I was glad someone had the energy and the commitment to do it but I was overwhelmed by the minutiae. And I knew that I was getting a one-sided picture.

I give it four stars for content, two for presentation.

Don't believe reviewers who rachet this book down on grounds of its being "revisionist history." Sometimes the truth hurts, especially when one of the Founding Fathers is shown to have, at the least, feet of clay.
If you are willing to accept heroes with feet of clay, or even see them toppled from pedestals, don't flinch from this book.
More than any other early president except Washington, Thomas Jefferson had a large moral bankroll to spend. And yet, he consistently and repeatedly kept his wad of cash in his pocket on the slavery issue.
Author Robert Kennedy documents several points in early American history -- namely, in the first few years of independence (more at the Virginia level than nationally), in dealing with the settlement of the trans-Appalachian west, with the aquisition and settlement of the Old Southwest, and finally with the Lousiana Purchase -- where Jefferson could have at least checked the spread of slavery. But he did not. In fact, many of his actions at these points in time actually promoted the growth of slavery. Kennedy details his connection to freebooting expeditions against Spanish Florida and his connection to unsavory characters such as Gen. James Wilkenson, along with his aching desire to be liked and accepted by fellow members of his planter class, as background to this.
Jefferson is not being scored for not being an abolitionist. Rather, the idealistic author of the Declaration of Independence is being faulted for not even lifting a moral finger, let alone a whole hand.
Kennedy also includes discussions on matters such as Southern cotton and tobacco monocrop soil depletion as part of the price of Mr. Jefferson's lost cause.
Though some would fault this as revisionist history, they can't attack Kennedy's credentials, as he is both former director of the National Park Service and director emeritus of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.
That said, this book is not perfect. I had three major editorial dislikes.
One is explanatory endnotes. Endnotes are fine for citations, but I feel explanatory material should either be in footnotes or worked into the body of the text.
The second is the relative lack of maps, primarily for the Gulf Coast, to illustrate the provenance of some of the freebooting.
The third is a desire for more charts and other illustrative material for information such as soil depletion, if applicable.
That said, this is a must read.

This is pretty sad really. I started out as a believer in the Woodson story and Woodson has obviously done a lot of research on his family history. Certainly, there are many distinguished people in Woodson's family...sadly, Thomas Jefferson has been pretty definitely proven by DNA (no match after testing 6 Woodson lines!) not to be one of them! Since Woodson was the Hemings child with the strongest "oral history"/family lore--the fact that there was no link to Jefferson really calls into question the whole story since obviously Sally got pregnant by somebody else in Paris. And the allegations started about a "Black Tom"....Still and all, with irrefutable evidence that someone in Woodson's family lied to create a link that science has proven doesn't exist, Woodson still can't give it up, claiming the 'no match" was the result of illegitimacy later in the line...which Woodson still doesn't seem to get would still mean he is not related to the Great Man. Bottom line: Don't waste your money.

The existence of 'Black Tom' is highly questionable, though Woodson is quite right about the erasure in Jefferson's records, I've seen it too in a holograph edition of his Farm Book.
Unfortunately for Mr. Woodson's thesis 'Tom's' name should certainly have appeared more than once. His 'mother' and 'brothers and sister' are listed not only on Jefferson's Slave Census but in distributions of rations and clothing as well. 'Black Tom' supposedly lived at Monticello till 1802, his name most certainly should have appeared in those records just as the rest of the Hemmings family's names did.
However the even if the existence of 'Black Tom' were proven it would do the Woodsons no good. The famous DNA tests that proved the Eston Jeffersons are indeed descended from *A* Jefferson male, (possibly Thomas but his brother or nephew is equally probable) also proved that though Thomas Woodson was undoubtedly sired by a white man that man was *not* a Jefferson.
The Woodson family has chosen to ignore this incontrovertable scientific evidence and cling to their family myth. Frankly I find it pitiable that this extraordinarily accomplished and successful family should be so fixated on a fictitious illegitimate descent from a Founding Father. The achievements of generations of Woodsons, against unbelievable odds, is in itself a heritage to be proud of, they don't need Jefferson's blood to validate their role in American history.

As a "roots" like story of a family's rise from slavery to the present day, this book is a pleasant read. However, for elucidating any ties to Thomas Jefferson, it is a tremendous disappointment. Having been greatly impressed by the poise, strength of character, and intelligence of Robert Cooley, the father one of the authors, I always hoped that his boast of being decended from Thomas Jefferson was true. However, the historic record left me in doubt. I bought "A President in the Family" with hopes that reading the Woodson family story would dispel some of that doubt, providing substance to the strong oral history. Sadly, I have been left hanging.

I give the book two stars only because, if you can get through it, it does a reasonable job of providing basic definitions of statistical terms. I was looking for a review of the subject and it does accomplish that.

I cannot recommend the book at all, however, for anyone trying to learn statistics, even at an elementary level. The author tries way too hard to be funny, presumably to make the subject less intimidating to the mathematically-challenged. Unfortunately, the humorous examples do nothing to enhance understanding, but instead just get in the way. The worst fault is that the stories go on for so long that the reader gets impatient to find anything of value relating to the subject matter.

Finally, I found the book to be condescending towards the reader by failing to include any formulas or diagrams. Again, this is presumably to avoid being indimidating to the general reader, but it ends up making things more confusing with long narrative descriptions of what should be fairly easy topics.

I agree entirely with the point made by the other reviewer - actually Weaver's "What Are the Odds?" is far worse. There are ten pages of jokes for every page of useful data.

I read this book not for enlightenment but for entertainment. It's a fun way to waste time.

Let me say right up front that I was disappointed in this book. Maybe I am too stuck in my ways, but when I pick up a history like this I was looking for an well-organized book. I want each President with his own chapter, some details that are presented for each person i.e. year of terms, Vice President etc, and then a nice review of what took place while in office, the good and the bad. The book just did not provide this; the presidents were grouped into chapters on what seemed to be on a basis as to total average chapter page length not by political or situational similarities. The basic facts that I wanted were not there for every President, and if they were there you needed to hunt for them. And if you are going to give me pictures then at least give me a picture of every President covered in the book, what we got were pictures of a few Presidents, a few campaign adds or jokes, and unbelievably to me pictures of city political bosses.

The book was positive; I give the author that. When there were negative issues they were glossed over if even mentioned. I new based on the size of the book that it was not going to be an exhaustive history, but even this brief look at each President left me disappointed. Also I kept thinking that the author wanted to write a history of the Democratic party and the publisher wanted a history of the Democratic Presidents and what came out was a compromise that did not serve either cause very well. I would have much rather had a few more pages on FDR (then the 15 offered) and less about the Kansas City and Chicago political bosses and the third party candidates on some elections. I do not want to be all-negative, there were a number of interesting facts and he hit the high notes on each man. I was interested enough to finish the book. I am just going to have to keep looking for a better effort at this topic.

From the start one thing needs to be made very clear about this book. It is a nice read for a Democrat, especially a partisan Democrat like myself. My Republican friends on the other hand would, I'm afraid find very little interesting about this book. Simply put, this is a very one sided view of history. Democrats tend to be pictured in the best possible light from page one. This is not to say that Mr. Rutland has not done his homework for he has. I don't think he ever set out to write an impartial historical epic. What he seems to have intended is basicly a survey type textbook for Democrats. If that was his goal he has accomplished it. Someone looking for a quick political history of the United States told from the Democratic point of view will find it here.

The simple fact is that Mr. Rutland took upon himself a rather large task in writing a history of the Democratic party. To do this task justice one would have to turn out a work that would rival in length the volumes written by Shelby Foote on the Civil War. In fact, this subject would probably require even more volumes since the subject covers over two hundred years of history. As it is the book in its 241 pages is only able to deal in the most superficial way with its subject.

Still this book does a fair job of following America's oldest party from its roots as Jefferson looks to a nation of farmers to today's urban America. Along the way we see the Democrats changing to become the party of the common man and the underdog. We see the party begin to take its present form in 1896 as William Jennings Bryan and his populists take control of the convention. We see more change in 1912 with the nomination of the progressive Woodrow Wilson. Then in 1932 FDR comes along and the Democratic party is forever changed. Old Democratic issues like tariffs and free silver give way to civil rights and labor relations. The direction of the party continues on the course set by Roosevelt as Harry Truman takes over and then LBJ sets off an a path of sweeping social change that for good or bad forever changes the United States. Oddly, the book gives little credit for the present positions of the Democratic party to JFK.

There are also a few places in the book where Mr. Rutland's facts are wrong. For example he states that in the election of 1896 William McKinley took T. Roosevelt with him to Washington as his Vice President when in fact T.R. wasn't on the ticket until 1900. For the most part however his facts do seem straight and he covers the subject as well as could be expected in such a short book.

Overall, the book could have been more in depth and such a large subject should probably never have been undertaken. I remember in high school english I always tried to choose a very broad topic for any paper I had to write because I figured it would be easy to turn out twenty pages that way. My teacher always called me on my plan though and I had to narrow it down. Maybe Mr. Rutland needed a good high school english teacher to make him do the same here.

On the other hand it is hard to study American history without a study of the Democrats. The party of Jefferson has been here through most of our history. So while this book gives one a quick look at the history of one party it also for the most part does the same for American history. Its not a waste of time to read this book by any means but it is more gravy than meat.

This book was not what I was looking for. My teacher assigned us a Biography/Autobiography book report (like every month), and I checked this book out in the library. Yeah, maybe its ok for 4-8 year olds, this book is really boring for children like me. This book had stuff I already knew about, and I didn't learn anything. It was really boring and had no interesting facts. So, if you are looking for a book with a detailed scope about Thomas Jefferson, read another book.

This is a great book for older remedial students as well as grades 1-4. The primary facts are here with some illustrations. The text is simple and easily understood.

While the description indicates that the third edition of this book was revised in 1999, much of the "information" is hopelessly out of date. This book, if relied upon by a clinician, would result in inferior care for patients.

Like all the books of this fabulous series, you get the relevant and usable information (minus the excess) with excellent clinical applications and cases, plus those golden mnemonics to ease the pain of rote learning. Only about 90 pages, so you can read it a couple of times and gain a good basic understanding of psychiatry; it probably lacks a bit of the necessary detail that med school demands, although you can always add this later after gaining the essentials. And of course, the classic style of the text makes it quite enjoyable to read.

There are good books and bad books about the Revolution. This one is terrible. O'Brien goes on for 200 pages about Jefferson's support of the French Revolution (so what else is new?) before getting to his real point: Jefferson was a white supremacist because he didn't free his slaves and didn't support the revolution in Haiti. In O'Brien's drunken fantasy, there is something called the "American civil religion" which is going to split and Jefferson will become the patron saint of the white supremacist nutcases like those of Oklahoma City. (there, there, Con, put the bottle down and come to bed) It's a shame, because I recall that years ago O'Brien played a worthwhile--if strongly Anglophile--role in Irish politics. But now he has alighted on our shores to grind several of his European axes and savage a man who has seen worse and as ever emerges unbowed: a great, if complex, inconsistent and highly ambitious, father of our country. If you want to understand the many contradictions in Jefferson's writings and actions, simply read the essay on him in Professor Bailyn's "To Begin the World Anew". Twenty pages with more wisdom than any number of O'Brien's fulminations.

I would give this book a "0" if it were possible. This book by Conor Cruise O' Brien is a postmodernist/deconstructionist
"history" if it can be even called that. O' Brien, a socialist and Burkean, claims Thomas Jefferson was "high on the wild gas of liberty" because he supported the cause of Revolutionary France against the armies of the monarchies of Europe. This book was written to destroy the American people's connection to their great tradition of liberty and republicanism. O' Brien compares Jefferson to the communist butcher Pol Pot because he supported the actions of the Jacobins in the " Reign of Terror". O' Brien of course leaves out the brutality of the ancien regime, and the murders and slaughter metted out by the "holy alliance". Jefferson did believe in dying for liberty, a concept abandoned today by most plugged in Americans. Next O' Brien relates Jefferson is the father of the KKK, the militia movement, and white supremecy. All utter nonsense. If you want a good history of Jefferson and the French Revolution this is not it.

While researching Edmund Burke and the French Revolution, this book offered wonderful and unique insights into the debate through the eyes of Thomas Jefferson during the heat of the French Revolution (and even some things I did not know about Burke). Instead of just giving a personal interpretation, O'Brien relies heavily on primary sources, letting the reader read what the particular person had to say instead of summarizing (or as some authors do, reinterpreting). This book is essential to understanding either Jefferson or the French Revolution.

A student five years above me did not like this book. A student four years above me also did not like this book. A student two years above me did not like it either. A student a year above me hated this book. And what a surprise, I didn't like it either. See the pattern?

There are several reasons why so many people dislike this book. First of all, the style of the writing is very roundabout and philosophical. If you're reading this book out of interest, it can be interesting. But when you actually have to solve the problems in the back of the chapter by the next day, this indirect approach can be annoying, since you never really know what you really need to know.

The first few chapters based on the First and Second Law are written well, compared to the rest of the book. Chapter 9 is a horrible chapter (on Mixtures) with 200+ Equations in the chapter. Not that having 200+ equations is bad in itself, but the way the chapter is written, you have no idea what equations are important.

Chapter 10 on Classical Stat Mech is also very difficult to read. If you've studied Stat Mech before, it may not be too bad. For someone who's never seen Stat Mech, the chapter takes hours to read, and after you've read it, you still have absolutely no idea what the book is trying to say.

As for buying this book, if you're really into thermodynamics and you really love and understand it, you might like this book. For a professor, it might be a refreshing read. For normal people who have to buy this book, since it's required for a class -- I feel your pain. Do the world a favor -- once you're done with the book, give it away to someone younger who also needs to suffer through it. I guarantee you that once you're done with it, you'll never pick it up again (and find yourself picking up Smith and Van Ness instead).

I found this book to be almost worthless in my efforts to learn thermodynamics at a graduate level. Even concepts that I understood were not clear to me after reading this text. Only buy this book if it is required for your course, and even then do not expect it to be useful.

I am in the process of reading this book. I like the way the concepts are intoduced from scratch using the basic postulates of thermodynamics. This is very different from the way the subject was taught to me in college. The postulatory approach really helps to link all the aspects together and looks at thermodynamics like other branches of physics like mechanics or quantum mechanics which start from a basic set of postulates. The other aspect of the book I like is the large number and variety of probelms that comes with the book. I would like to know if it possible to get the solutions to the problems? Thanks