Washington: A Life
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Average rating4.4
The celebrated Ron Chernow provides a richly nuanced portrait of the father of America. With a breadth and depth matched by no other one-volume life, he carries the reader through Washington's troubled boyhood, his precocious feats in the French and Indian Wars, his creation of Mount Vernon, his heroic exploits with the Continental Army, his presiding over the Constitutional Convention and his magnificent performance as America's first president. Despite the reverence his name inspires Washington remains a waxwork to many readers, worthy but dull, a laconic man of remarkable self-control. But in this groundbreaking work Chernow revises forever the uninspiring stereotype. He portrays Washington as a strapping, celebrated horseman, elegant dancer and tireless hunter, who guarded his emotional life with intriguing ferocity. Not only did Washington gather around himself the foremost figures of the age, including James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson, he orchestrated their actions to help realise his vision for the new federal government, define the separation of powers, and establish the office of the presidency. Ron Chernow takes us on a page-turning journey through all the formative events of America's founding. This is a magisterial work from one of America's foremost writers and historians.
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2.5 stars. The problem with biographies about “great men” is that their stories are actually far less great than legends have made them out to be. Chernow is an overrated biographer.
Highlights: He started the 7 Years War!
What I Took Away:
Poor; terrible weird relationship to mother
Hung out with his social superiors, learned from them - manners, self-control - schmoozed quite a bit as a young man
all his life felt he had missed out on getting a proper education (unlike Jefferson/Hamilton/Madison/Adams etc)
QUITE the ladies' man (very flirtatious)
Not adaptable - if a battle plan went awry, he didn't quite know what to do. Not good at off-the-cuff speeches.
Extremely good at hearing what everybody had to say, didn't surround himself with “yes-men” - listened to all the point of view and then came to a conclusion. But once conclusion was reached, was very difficult to change his mind.
His value as a general was not as a tactician, but as a figurehead - everybody looked up to him, he held the army together for 8 years.
Was greatly concerned with his reputation, with his contemporaries and with “posterity” (e.g. great care he took in preserving his letters)
Was very conscious that what he did as President was precedent-setting - formation of cabinet, State of the Union address, down to little details of how he was to be addressed in conversation. As a consequence, was very careful and methodical about those precedent-setting actions.
Selection of future capital on Potomac (in Chernow's view) opened Washington to criticism for the first time - broke the dam.
Support of Hamiltonian national bank was a great step in keeping the new country going - possibly the single most important?
When did idea of being “an American” take shape? GW's disgust at war profiteers and others who sold food/goods to British instead of to Continental Army was very great - why did people do that? At what point did a Virginian or a Pennsylvanian begin to consider himself an American? (did it take until after the Civil War?)
(must look up history of money/credit/finances - how did people function being in debt their whole lives?)
(must also read Federalist Papers)
This must be the longest book I've ever read.
A stunningly in depth chronicle of the first u.s. president which examines every aspect of his life in compiling a full profile of this mythical figure. I feel rather like I could psychoanalyze him frankly, that's how much this book seems to get inside his head. By the end though, I was rather wishing he would just die already; easily a hundred pages could have been excised from this weighty tome without effecting it's quality in the slightest.
