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highly recommended |
amazing 
In 1834 a naval officer named Uriah Levy bought Monticello, the former home of Thomas Jefferson. Levy was part playboy, part crusader and a passionate lover of beauty. He was also Jewish and for this reason he was not popular with the neighbors. Later his nephew Thomas Jefferson Levy owned the place until 1923. The Levy family saved Monticello from ruin, made great efforts to preserve and restore the estate, especially the grave site but instead of being thanked for their efforts they were criticized. Disaster struck when Jefferson Levy invited a woman named Maude Littleton to dinner. She was horrified by the decor and apparently, the Levy's themselves and launched a national campaign to wrest Monticello from them. Levy fought back and when he did sell the estate it was to a private foundation that runs the living history site today.
The Levy's presence was ignored or mentioned briefly and in offensive ways until the 80s but it's only with the publication of this amazing and highly entertaining book that they have really gotten their full due.
If you are fascinated by the life of Jefferson and are curious about what happened after his death or if you love history, architecture or simply want to read a good story get yourself a copy of Saving Monticello.
Title is Reversed 
The title really should have been "An Exhaustive Look at the Levy Family & a Little About Monticello. I'm a huge fan Thomas Jefferson and admirer of Jefferson's work on Monticello. I had hoped the book would be more focused on Monticello. Instead, it focused on a detailed history of the Levy family and occasionally steered back to Monticello. If you want to know everything there is about the Levy family, this book is for you.
Forgotten History
This is an excellent book that details a forgotten piece of history - that another family owned this famous house longer than Jefferson did. The author has done an excellent job detailing that history that was at one time completely forgotten. If you are a history buff you will love this story.
History brought to life....
Saving Monticello was a history-lover's dream. The author made it easy to become intimate with the real-life characters, enabling this wonderful story to unfold without becoming just a recitation of historical facts. It was also obvious that the author went to great pains to accurately depict the sequence of events. Great read!
reviews: 1, page 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
saving monticello, monticello, saving
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based on 31 reviews
