Showing results by author "William Hyland" in All Categories

George Mason was a short, bookish man who was a friend and neighbor of athletic, broad-shouldered George Washington. Unlike Washington, Mason has been virtually forgotten by history. But this new biography of patriot George Mason makes a convincing case that Mason belongs in the pantheon of honored Founding Fathers. Trained in the law, Mason was also a farmer, philosopher, botanist, and musician. He was one of the architects of the Declaration of Independence, an author of the Bill of Rights, and one of the strogest proponents of religious liberty in American history.

Author William G. Hyland Jr. pierces Jefferson's private family veil and reveals poignant little-known scenes of the relatives closest to Jefferson in his last years. Thomas Jefferson: Family Secrets is the first biography to uncover the dynamic relationship Jefferson had with his adult grandchildren. With a novelist’s skill and a scholar’s meticulous detail, Thomas Jefferson: Family Secrets explores new ground in Jefferson’s autumn years as a waning patriarch, enduring physical illness and family strife.

The belief that Thomas Jefferson had an affair and fathered a child (or children) with slave Sally Hemings has become so pervasive in American popular culture that it is not only widely accepted but taught to students as historical fact. But as William G. Hyland Jr. demonstrates, this "fact" is nothing more than the accumulation of salacious rumors and irresponsible scholarship over the years, much of it inspired by political grudges, academic opportunism, and the trend of historical revisionism that seeks to drag the reputation of the Founding Fathers through the mud.