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"American Sphinx: The character of Thomas Jefferson"
A book by Joseph J. Ellis.
Copyright 1997 Vintage.

Joseph J. Ellis, a historian who was educated at the College of William and Mary and Yale, is a Ford Foundation Professor of History at Mount Holyoke University. He has written four books on historical topics, centered on the time Jefferson was alive, dealing with issues and personalities Jefferson dealt with firsthand. After authoring a book on a politician such as John Adams, Ellis seems to have felt a need or want to focus on Jefferson, presumably because of his status as founding father and main contributor to the constitution.
Ellis's thesis in American Sphinx can be summed up by the quote in the prologue by James Parton: "If Jefferson was wrong, America is wrong. If America is right, Jefferson is right." However, Ellis gave the impression that he was brought reluctantly to the task of researching and writing so extensively on Jefferson. Perhaps he was......

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