By George, A New Look at Washington

Frontiersman, surveyor, Revolutionary war hero, Founding Father, first President of the United States…some of the many roles that George Washington played in life.   Lauded as the “Father of our country” and upheld as a mythic figure, Washington has, over time, become a god-like figure, an image burnished in statues, portraits, monuments and history books.

So when it comes to a new Washington biography, there cannot be much new to tell, can there?   Readers will be presently surprised by Ron Chernow’s Washington: A Life,  a 900 page opus that peels back the layers of legend that have been built over the last two centuries.  Seeking to bring focus back to the man, not the legend, Chernow brings freshness to the familiar and the resulting portrait is of a shrewd, hard worker, who, through both coincidence and tenacity, rose from rather modest beginnings to become the pinnacle figure in American independence and the shaping of the presidency.  

Chernow doesn’t dodge the unseemly and less than saintly episodes in Washington’s life, such as the long vexing issue of slavery –which Washington handled more as a matter of business than morality.  Land rich, but cash poor, Washington struggled throughout life with financial issues and strained to maintain an amicable relationship with his mother.   Renowned today as a war hero, he lost more campaigns than he won.   All of these elements are explored with remarkable clarity, helping restore humanity to a figure who has been elevated to mythic status.

Obsessed with appearance, Washington carefully and skillfully managed his image, whether it be staging his entry into towns on horseback (when he frequently traveled by coach only to assume a mount upon approach to the settlement), convincing a cash-strapped Continental Congress to pay for a staff of secretaries to carefully and copiously record all of his wartime correspondence, or ensuring he was always meticulously dressed.

Washington’s strengths are fully on display in this book.  Whether it be his remarkable ability to inspire his unpaid, poorly equipped soldiers, his political acumen at forging alliances and relationships in the early days of the presidency, or being a patriarch of an extended family that included no actual offspring, it are these well known facts, colored with vivid detail and placed in counterpoint to his foibles, that make this a treat to read.

While Washington the legend will remain a fixture in American life, those seeking Washington the man are highly encouraged to seek out this fresh and remarkable portrait of a man who, despite incalculable odds, led a generation and helped set the course for so many of the freedoms and library that we as Americans enjoy today.
-Michael