Jefferson's Memorandum Books

Rating:
Summary: A Marvel of Editing!
Review: Jefferson's Memorandum Books are a marvel in themselves, but even more so with the editing work of Bear and Stanton. The Memorandum Books are transcribed to offer the reader Jefferson's records on money spent travelling from DC back to Monticello (p. 1094), the efficiency of one- vs. two-wheeled wheelbarrows (p. 282), or his early legal notations. But what makes this work invluable is the wealth of information that the editors have packed into the footnotes about everything from Jefferson's personal relationships at the time of an entry, to the location of a road or river he mentions, to whatever can be known about a slave paid for running an errand. To make the 1419 page (with footnotes) Jefferson document usable, the editors constructed a 203 page index to make the Memorandum Books as useful a tool as they could be. The scholarly apparatus here makes this publication a source for historians of just about anything, from the local to the national economy, slave life at Monticello and Virginia, the environment, and, of course, Thomas Jefferson. The only problem with the books is the price tag, which will inhibit many who don't have institutional support for their research tools.

Rating:
Summary: A Marvel of Editing!
Review: Jefferson's Memorandum Books are a marvel in themselves, but even more so with the editing work of Bear and Stanton. The Memorandum Books are transcribed to offer the reader Jefferson's records on money spent travelling from DC back to Monticello (p. 1094), the efficiency of one- vs. two-wheeled wheelbarrows (p. 282), or his early legal notations. But what makes this work invluable is the wealth of information that the editors have packed into the footnotes about everything from Jefferson's personal relationships at the time of an entry, to the location of a road or river he mentions, to whatever can be known about a slave paid for running an errand. To make the 1419 page (with footnotes) Jefferson document usable, the editors constructed a 203 page index to make the Memorandum Books as useful a tool as they could be. The scholarly apparatus here makes this publication a source for historians of just about anything, from the local to the national economy, slave life at Monticello and Virginia, the environment, and, of course, Thomas Jefferson. The only problem with the books is the price tag, which will inhibit many who don't have institutional support for their research tools.