Chernow writes, was “powerfully rough-hewn and endowed with matchless strength. All of his biographers are obsessed with his body Ron Chernow’s “Washington: A Life,” to take just one example, sometimes reads like a romance novel: Washington, Mr.
My own preoccupation with Washington began with an attempt to read between the lines of his major biographies. When female historians have managed to elbow their way in, however, they often remind us that we don’t always know what we think we know. I’d gotten used to a certain male skew, but I hadn’t quite realized how persistent it was until I ran my observation by experts at Mount Vernon, Washington’s historic home, and the University of Virginia’s George Washington papers: No woman had written a biography of George Washington for adults in more than 40 years, and no woman trained as a historian had written one in far longer.įor nearly two and a half centuries, most of the stories Americans have told themselves about their country’s past have been by and for white men - and it shows, particularly when it comes to presidential history. In addition to Alexander Hamilton, the production also features George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Aaron Burr, Lafayette, and many more.Years into writing a book on George Washington, I noticed something curious about my collection of the popular biographies already written about our first president: All of them were written by white men. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s smash Broadway musical Hamilton has sparked new interest in the Revolutionary War and the Founding Fathers. In this groundbreaking work, based on massive research, Chernow shatters forever the stereotype of George Washington as a stolid, unemotional figure and brings to vivid life a dashing, passionate man of fiery opinions and many moods. With a breadth and depth matched by no other one volume biography of George Washington, this crisply paced narrative carries the reader through his adventurous early years, his heroic exploits with the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, his presiding over the Constitutional Convention, and his magnificent performance as America's first president. I can’t recommend it highly enough-as history, as epic, and, not least, as entertainment.” -Hendrik Hertzberg, The New YorkerĬelebrated biographer Ron Chernow provides a richly nuanced portrait of the father of our nation and the first president of the United States. “Until recently, I’d never believed that there could be such a thing as a truly gripping biography of George Washington. well-researched, well-written and absolutely definitive biography” -Andrew Roberts, The Wall Street Journal Winner of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Biography From the author of Alexander Hamilton, the New York Times bestselling biography that inspired the musical, comes a gripping portrait of the first president of the United States.
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