The Hemingses of Monticello
An American Family

This is an extremely well written and thought provoking boook. Gordon-Reed addresses the history of the Hemings family, the slaves whose live were so completely intertwined with the life of Thomas Jefferson. She focuses on them and their individual lives, not just as extensions of Jefferson, althoug......more

I will not finish this book. For a non-fiction work there is too much conjecture and speculation about the character's feelings without sources to back it up. I also felt manipulated while reading. I do not need to be reminded over and over again about how morally wrong, cruel and degrading slavery......more

This was difficult to get into at first. At first, I felt like I was hacking my way through a thicket of speculation and scholarly argument. But Gordon-Reed faced a daunting challenge--how to tell the story of a family that has in many cases been intentionally erased from the record. We never hear f......more

I admit, I chose this book to read because I was looking for details of the affair between Thomas Jefferson and his slave, Sally Hemings. For someone who is interested in learning more about Thomas Jefferson, there are a lot of award-winning biographies to peruse. Interestingly, all of these books t......more

I just cannot finish this book. I found parts of this book to be excellent. When the author presented a narrative about what the people did based on primary sources (and some secondary sources), I was hooked. It was well written and incredibly interesting. I would easily have given those parts 4 star......more