Yes, it's the worst title ever, but Henry Adams could not write a dull book or a clumsy sentence. It is remarkable that this scion of the legendary Adams clan chose to study the leader who drove his great-grandfather from the White House, yet the book mostly gives Jefferson a fair shake. Adams scoured domestic and foreign archives, and his research stands up more than a century later. Best of all, he produced dozens of nuggets like his description of Luther Martin, a

—David O. Stewart