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Washington
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Washington (2010) (edit title/settings)

A Life

by Ron Chernow (Author) (edit contributors)

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From National Book Award winner Ron Chernow, a landmark biography of George Washington.

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In Washington: A Life celebrated biographer Ron Chernow provides a richly nuanced portrait of the father of our nation. With a breadth and depth matched by no other one-volume life of Washington, this crisply paced narrative carries the reader through his troubled boyhood, his precocious... read more (warning: may contain spoilers)

In Washington: A Life celebrated biographer Ron Chernow provides a richly nuanced portrait of the father of our nation. With a breadth and depth matched by no other one-volume life of Washington, this crisply paced narrative carries the reader through his troubled boyhood, his precocious feats in the French and Indian War, 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 lifeless waxwork for many Americans, worthy but dull. A laconic man of granite self-control, he often arouses more respect than affection. In this groundbreaking work, based on massive research, Chernow dashes forever the stereotype of a stolid, unemotional man. A strapping six feet, Washington was a celebrated horseman, elegant dancer, and tireless hunter, with a fiercely guarded emotional life. Chernow brings to vivid life a dashing, passionate man of fiery opinions and many moods. Probing his private life, he explores his fraught relationship with his crusty mother, his youthful infatuation with the married Sally Fairfax, and his often conflicted feelings toward his adopted children and grandchildren. He also provides a lavishly detailed portrait of his marriage to Martha and his complex behavior as a slave master. At the same time, Washington is an astute and surprising portrait of a canny political genius who knew how to inspire people. Not only did Washington gather around himself the foremost figures of the age, including James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson, but he also brilliantly orchestrated their actions to shape the new federal government, define the separation of powers, and establish the office of the presidency. In this unique biography, Ron Chernow takes us on a page-turning journey through all the formative events of America's founding. With a dramatic sweep worthy of its giant subject, Washington is a magisterial work from one of our most elegant storytellers.

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  • “Where other founders gloried in their displays of intellect, Washington's strategy was the opposite: the less people knew about him, the more he thought he could accomplish.”
    Ron Chernow
  • “People felt the inner force of his nature, even if they didn't exactly hear it or see it; they sensed his moods without being told.”
    Ron Chernow
  • “Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbit it, Almighty God! I know what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”
    Patrick Henry
  • “An American planter was chosen by us to command our troops and continued during the whole war. This man sent home to you, one after another, five of your best generals, baffled, their heads bare of laurels, disgraced even in the opinion of their employers.”
    Benjamin Franklin
  • “The entire wonder of the American Revolution was visible for all to see. It wasn't the well-dressed French Army who were the true victors of the day, but the weather-beaten, half-clad American Troops.”
    Ron Chernow
  • “While such groups "may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines by which cunning, ambitious and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people."”
    George Washington
  • Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers
  • “Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”49
    Highlighted by 178 Kindle customers
  • “These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”11
    Highlighted by 168 Kindle customers
  • “every hour misspent is lost forever” and that “future years cannot compensate for lost days at this period of your life.”15
    Highlighted by 167 Kindle customers
  • Unlike the French Revolution, the American Revolution started with a series of measured protests by men schooled in self-government, a long, exhaustive search for a diplomatic solution, before moving toward open rebellion.
    Highlighted by 165 Kindle customers
  • “Be courteous to all but intimate with few,” he advised his nephew, “and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence. True friendship is a plant of slow growth.”14
    Highlighted by 149 Kindle customers
  • Great Britain was simply bad for local business, a fact that would soon foster the historical anomaly of a revolution inaugurated by affluent, conservative leaders.
    Highlighted by 128 Kindle customers
  • The Americans are a curious, original people. They know how to govern themselves, but nobody else can govern them.”9
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  • Benjamin Franklin’s maxim “Let all men know thee, but no man know thee thoroughly.”
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  • Washington was always reluctant to assume responsibility without the requisite powers to acquit himself honorably. As he put it, “No person who regards his character will undertake a command without the means of preserving it, since his conduct is culpable for all misfortunes and never right but when successful.”2
    Highlighted by 111 Kindle customers
  • Destiny had now conferred upon Washington a pivotal place in colonial, and even global, affairs, for the Jumonville incident was recognized as the opening shot that precipitated the French and Indian War, known in Europe as the Seven Years’ War. In the words of Sir Horace Walpole in London, “The volley fired by a young Virginian in the backwoods of America set the world on fire.”24
    Highlighted by 101 Kindle customers
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  • Free Masons: Masonic Lodge opened in Fredericksburg in September 1752. George had joined and raised to the ranks of a Master Mason in a year's time.

First Sentence edit see section history

The crowded career of George Washington afforded him little leisure to indulge his vanity or gratify his curiosity by conducting genealogical research into his family.

Table of Contents edit see section history

Author's note
Prelude: The portrait artist
Part One: The Frontiersman
1. A short-lived family
2. Fortune's favorite
3. Wilderness mission
4. Bloodbath
5. Shades of death
6. The soul of an army
7. A votary to love
8. Darling of a grateful country

Part Two: The Planter
9. The man of mode
10. A certain species of property
11. The prodigy
12. Providence
13. A world of his own
14. The Asiatic prince
15. A shock of electricity

Part Three: The General
16. The glorious cause
17. Magnificent bluff
18. Land of freedom
19. The heights
20. All London afloat
21. Disaster
22. An indecisive mind
23. The crossing
24. The busy scenes of a camp
25. Darkness visible
26. Rapping a demigod over the knuckles
27. A dreary kind of place
28. The long retreat
29. Pests of society
30. The storm thickens
31. The traitor
32. Mutiny
33. Plundering scoundrels
34. The world turned upside down
35. Man of moderation
36. Closing the drama with applause
37. Cincinnatus

Part Four: The Statesman
38. American celebrity
39. Gentleman farmer
40. Devil's bargain
41. The ruins of the past
42. A masterly hand
43. A house on fire
44. Rising sun
45. Mounting the seat

Part Five: The President
46. The place of execution
47. Acting the presidency
48. The cares of office
49. Rays of genius
50. The traveling presidency
51. The state of the president
52. Capital matters
53. Southern exposure
54. Running into extremes
55. A tissue of machinations
56. Citizen Genet
57. Bring out your dead
58. Hercules in the field
59. Crowns and coronets
60. Mad dog
61. The colossus of the people
62. The master of farewells
63. Exiting the stage

Part Six: The Legend
64. Samson and Solomon
65. A mind on the stretch
66. Freedom
67. Homecoming

Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Books
Articles
Index

Series & Lists edit see section history

This is book 2011 of 96 in Pultizer Prize Winners - Biography or Autobiography. (authoritative list)
This book is in Big Fat Books. (community list)

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

  1. Ron Chernow (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Original Language: English
Publisher: Penguin Press
Country: USA
Publication Date: 2010
ISBN: 9781594202667
Page Count: 904

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