Thanks Kevin for your information. Looks like you have not been
persuaded as some history professors have been that TJ was guilty and
you use good judgment in your selections. I had two granddaughters
graduated from JMU and they very much enjoyed their studies there. One
went on to gain her masters there also.........the other to Radford.

Herb

Herb--

In answer to your question:  no, I do not use anything by Annette
Gordon-Reed in my courses on Virginia History.  In a course that surveys
Virginia History over 400 years, I don't view the Sally Hemings affair
(in either sense of the word) as sufficiently important to merit class
attention.

I have my students read Waldstreicher's edition of Jefferson's Notes on
the State of Virginia, in the excellent Bedford/St Martin's "brief
history with documents" series, and I usually also assign the Jan Lewis
essay on Jefferson's relations with his daughters, which Warren Hofstra
and I reprinted in our edited collection Virginia Reconsidered.

Annette Gordon-Reed's books are simply too large and focused to warrant
the class time to read and discuss them, given the themes of the course
as I currently teach it.  They are also too expensive, given their
(relatively speaking) narrow focus.  

When I have my students read biographical material on the Virginia
Founders, I usually prefer one of the excellent Washington biographies,
rather than something on Jefferson.  Last time I taught the class, I
used the excellent Longmore biography on the early years of Washington's
life.  I also really like the Tilden and Rasmussen biography published
by the VHS.

When I teach miscegenation in Virginia for the period, I use the super
essay by Peter Wood, which is both considerably broader in its coverage
than anything that focuses exclusively on TJ and SH, and considerably
shorter in length than most of the books about the issue.

I hope that clarifies things.

All best,
Kevin
Kevin R. Hardwick, Ph.D.
Department of History
James Madison University

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