It's unusual for people to have been so active in their golden years that they should merit a full-length biography focused solely on their achievements during retirement. Such is the case with Thomas Jefferson, who spent his post-presidential years managing (often badly) the affairs of his grand estate, corresponding with dignitaries and dealing with wayward relatives. Crawford is a careful, even micromanagerial, historian, prone to tangents about details that are often more interesting than the main narrative.