Why am I passionate about this?

I am a historian of early America who previously practiced law for 20 years. I have both my PhD and JD from the University of Virginia. I have taught at the University of Virginia, George Washington University, Hamilton, Oberlin, and Randolph Colleges. I have also worked at Jefferson’s Monticello for many years. While American history is often misused for narrow political ends, I am convinced that good history is not only fascinating but can assist us in understanding our world and current challenges.


I wrote

For the People, For the Country: Patrick Henry's Final Political Battle

By John A. Ragosta,

Book cover of For the People, For the Country: Patrick Henry's Final Political Battle

What is my book about?

In 1799, George Washington begged Patrick Henry to come out of retirement to defend the U.S. Constitution against the radical…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of Measuring America: How the United States Was Shaped By the Greatest Land Sale in History

John A. Ragosta Why did I love this book?

I love learning about the seemingly mundane but so very important parts of the United States' becoming a nation. One critical piece was how the millions of new settlers could own their own land, which meant surveying.

I was also fascinated by how we almost became a metric country (which Thomas Jefferson would have loved); that story involves the French Revolution, privateers, an unlucky school teacher, and the origins of Enlightenment science.

By Andro Linklater,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Measuring America as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In 1790, America was in enormous debt, having depleted what little money and supplies the country had during its victorious fight for independence. Before the nation's greatest asset, the land west of the Ohio River, could be sold it had to be measured out and mapped. And before that could be done, a uniform set of measurements had to be chosen for the new republic out of the morass of roughly 100,000 different units that were in use in daily life.

Measuring America tells the fascinating story of how we ultimately gained the American Customary System-the last traditional system in…


Book cover of A Revolutionary Friendship: Washington, Jefferson, and the American Republic

John A. Ragosta Why did I love this book?

Like many of us who read a lot of history, I can easily forget that the founders were very human, with their likes and dislikes, friends and enemies,

Cogliano explores for the first time the personal relationship between two of the most well-known Virginians, the first and third presidents. It turns out that they were close friends,… until they weren’t.

By Francis D. Cogliano,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A Revolutionary Friendship as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The first full account of the relationship between George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, countering the legend of their enmity while drawing vital historical lessons from the differences that arose between them.

Martha Washington's worst memory was the death of her husband. Her second worst was Thomas Jefferson's awkward visit to pay his respects subsequently. Indeed, by the time George Washington had died in 1799, the two founders were estranged. But that estrangement has obscured the fact that for most of their thirty-year acquaintance they enjoyed a productive relationship. Precisely because they shared so much, their disagreements have something important to…


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Book cover of Benghazi! A New History of the Fiasco that Pushed America and its World to the Brink

Benghazi! A New History of the Fiasco that Pushed America and its World to the Brink by Ethan Chorin,

Benghazi: A New History is a look back at the enigmatic 2012 attack on the US mission in Benghazi, Libya, its long-tail causes, and devastating (and largely unexamined) consequences for US domestic politics and foreign policy. It contains information not found elsewhere, and is backed up by 40 pages of…

Book cover of The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution

John A. Ragosta Why did I love this book?

Some things seem so embedded in our understanding of the nation that they must have existed forever. I was fascinated by Chervinsky’s story about how the president’s Cabinet came about: It’s not really called for in the Constitution, and, as with so many other things, George Washington had to make it up as he went along.

I am always interested in stories that show so much of what we think of as our nation was not a given but a matter of careful (and changeable) choices.

By Lindsay M. Chervinsky,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Cabinet as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Winner of the Daughters of the American Revolution's Excellence in American History Book Award
Winner of the Thomas J. Wilson Memorial Prize

"Cogent, lucid, and concise, Lindsay Chervinsky's book gives us an indispensable guide to the creation of the cabinet. With her groundbreaking study, we can now have a much greater appreciation of this essential American institution, one of the major legacies of George Washington's enlightened statecraft."-Ron Chernow, author of Washington: A Life

The US Constitution never established a presidential cabinet-the delegates to the Constitutional Convention explicitly rejected the idea. So how did George Washington create one of the most…


Book cover of A Madman's Will: John Randolph, Four Hundred Slaves, and the Mirage of Freedom

John A. Ragosta Why did I love this book?

I knew a bit about John Randolph of Roanoke, and I have read many books on the problem of slavery. But this book had me absolutely hooked.

Randolph was a powerful politician in the early republic but so contrarian as to be “mad.” Listening to his own conscience, he freed four hundred slaves and provided land for their settling. While the family fought his will to the bitter end, the four hundred previously enslaved seemed to have triumphed.

But I was aghast when the newly freed people met a mob that would not allow them on their own land in Ohio. What a story of courage.

By Gregory May,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A Madman's Will as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Few legal cases in American history are as riveting as the controversy surrounding the will of Virginia Senator John Randolph (1773-1833), which-almost inexplicably-freed all 383 of his slaves in one of the largest and most publicised manumissions in American history. So famous is the case that Ta-Nehisi Coates has used it to condemn Randolph's cousin, Thomas Jefferson, for failing to free his own slaves. With this ground-breaking investigation, historian Gregory May now reveals a more surprising story, showing how madness and scandal shaped John Randolph's wildly shifting attitudes toward his slaves-and how endemic prejudice in the North ultimately deprived the…


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Book cover of Why We Hate: Understanding the Roots of Human Conflict

Why We Hate by Michael Ruse,

Why We Hate asks why a social animal like Homo sapiens shows such hostility to fellow species members. The invasion of the Ukraine by Russia? The antisemitism found on US campuses in the last year? The answer and solution lies in the Darwinian theory of evolution through natural selection.

Being…

Book cover of The Illimitable Freedom of the Human Mind: Thomas Jefferson's Idea of a University

John A. Ragosta Why did I love this book?

As a double UVA grad, I knew that Jefferson was the founder and that the school had been built largely by enslaved laborers. This book uplifted and depressed me: I was uplifted by the ferocity with which Jefferson pursued the importance of a secular university (owned by the state and without religious affiliation) and the revolutionary flexibility of its curriculum.

I was depressed by how much of the structure and the University’s early life were completely intertwined with slavery. Some of the stories are shocking.

By Andrew J. O'Shaughnessy,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Illimitable Freedom of the Human Mind as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Already renowned as a statesman, Thomas Jefferson in his retirement from government turned his attention to the founding of an institution of higher learning. Never merely a patron, the former president oversaw every aspect of the creation of what would become the University of Virginia. Along with the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, he regarded it as one of the three greatest achievements in his life. Nonetheless, historians often treat this period as an epilogue to Jefferson's career.

In The Illimitable Freedom of the Human Mind, Andrew O'Shaughnessy offers a twin biography of Jefferson in…


Explore my book 😀

For the People, For the Country: Patrick Henry's Final Political Battle

By John A. Ragosta,

Book cover of For the People, For the Country: Patrick Henry's Final Political Battle

What is my book about?

In 1799, George Washington begged Patrick Henry to come out of retirement to defend the U.S. Constitution against the radical states’ rights agenda of Thomas Jefferson’s and James Madison’s Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions and the idea that states could “nullify” federal laws. Henry, who opposed the Constitution's ratification for fear that it would create a government too powerful and distant from the people, insisted that since “we the people” had adopted it, reforms must be sought “in a constitutional way;” monarchy was the only alternative. Henry defined a loyal opposition.

The first rule in a democracy is the majority rule. Henry saw that the second rule was equally important: The minority must accept the first rule, at least until the next election.

Book cover of Measuring America: How the United States Was Shaped By the Greatest Land Sale in History
Book cover of A Revolutionary Friendship: Washington, Jefferson, and the American Republic
Book cover of The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution

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