William E. Dodd, historian, author, and diplomat, wrote a three-part book on Southern statesmanship in 1911. This first portion on Thomas Jefferson examines the former President as a populist democrat (in the original meaning), who trusted common men.
Dodd himself was the first professor at any university fully devoted to the American South's history, and in his twenty-five year career as a Professor of American History he wrote this and many other works before being appointed Ambassador to Germany in 1937. This diplomatic position and his academic responsibilities prevented him from writing a planned multi-volume history of the South. One volume was ultimately published in 1938, but no further volumes were completed as Dodd died of pneumonia in 1940.