Saving Monticello: The Levy Family's Epic Quest to Rescue the House That Jefferson Built

New York, NY: The Free Press, 2001. First edition. First printing [stated]. Hardcover. Very good in very good dust jacket. Signed by author.. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. [12], 303, [5] p. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. The dramatic, untold story of how two generations of an American family fought to save one of our nation's greatest treasures--Thomas Jefferson's elegant mansion Monticello. From Wikipedia: "Marc Leepson (born June 20, 1945 in Newark, New Jersey) is an American journalist, historian, and author. His books include What So Proudly We Hailed: Francis Scott Key, A Life (Palgave Macmillan, 2014; Lafayette: Lessons in Leadership from the Idealist General (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011); Desperate Engagement: How a Little Known Civil War Battle Saved Washington, D.C. and Changed American History (Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Press, 2007); Flag: An American Biography (Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Press, 2005); Saving Monticello (Free Press/Simon & Schuster, 2001, hardcover; University of Virginia Press, 2003, paperback); and Webster's New World Dictionary of the Vietnam War(Macmillan, 1998). Leepson was educated at Hillside High School in Hillside, New Jersey (Class of 1963) and George Washington University where he received his Bachelor of Arts degree in history in 1967 and his Master's degree in European History in 1971. He was drafted into the United States Army in 1967 and served for two years, including a year (December 1967-December 1968) in the Vietnam War with the 527th Personnel Service Company in Qui Nhon. He received his honorable discharge in 1969. Leepson was a staff writer at Congressional Quarterly in Washington, D.C. from 1976 to 1986. He has been a full-time freelance writer since 1986. He is Senior Writer, Arts Editor and columnist for The VVA Veteran, the magazine published by Vietnam Veterans of America since 1986. His work has appeared in many magazines and newspapers, including The Washington Post, The New York Times, The New York Times Book Review, Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun, and Smithsonian, Preservation, and Military History magazines. He has been interviewed many times on radio and television, including on The Today Show, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, The History Channel, The Discovery Channel, PBS-TV's History Detectives, All Things Considered, Talk of the Nation, Studio 360, To The Point, Morning Edition, The Diane Rehm Show, The BBC Newshour, Russian Channel 1 TV (RTV), Irish Radio, and CBC (Canada). Since the early 1990s he has been active in many non-profit groups. That includes board memberships on the Middleburg (Virginia) Library Advisory Board (President and Vice President), the Loudoun County (Virginia) Library Board of Trustees, the Library of Virginia Foundation (Treasurer), the Virginia State Library Board, the Friends of Thomas Balch Library, the YMCA of Loudoun County (Virginia), the Goose Creek Association (Secretary), and the Mosby Heritage Area Association (Secretary, Vice President, President). He teaches U.S. history at Lord Fairfax Community College in Warrenton, Virginia. In 2013, he was elected to a two-year term on the Board of Directors of the Biographers International Organization (BIO)." From Wikipedia: "Monticello was the primary plantation of Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States, who, after inheriting quite a large amount of land from his father, started building Monticello when he was 26 years old. Located just outside Charlottesville, Virginia, in the Piedmont region, the plantation was originally 5, 000 acres (2, 000 ha), with extensive cultivation of tobacco and mixed crops, with labor by slaves. What started as a mainly tobacco plantation switched over to a wheat plantation later in Jefferson's life. The house, which Jefferson designed, was based on the neoclassical principles described in the books of the Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio. He reworked it through much of his presidency to include design elements popular in late 18th-century Europe. It contains many of his own design solutions. The house is situated on the summit of an 850-foot (260 m)-high peak in the Southwest Mountains south of the Rivanna Gap. Its name comes from the.