George Washington: The Founding Father (Eminent Lives Series)
Author: Paul Johnson
George Washington is by far the most important figure in the history of the United States. Against all military odds, he liberated the thirteen colonies from the superior forces of the British Empire and presided over the process to produce and ratify a Constitution that (suitably amended) has lasted for more than two hundred years. In two terms as president, he set that Constitution to work with such success that, by the time he finally retired, America was well on its way to becoming the richest and most powerful nation on earth.
Despite his importance, Washington remains today a distant figure to many Americans. Previous books about him are immensely long, multivolume, and complicated. Paul Johnson has now produced a brief life that presents a vivid portrait of the great man as young warrior, masterly commander-in-chief, patient Constitution maker, and exceptionally wise president. He also shows Washington as a farmer of unusual skill and an entrepreneur of foresight, patriarch of an extended family, and proprietor of one of the most beautiful homes in America, which he largely built and adorned.
Trenchant and original as ever, Johnson has given us a brilliant, sharply etched portrait of this iconic figure—both as a hero and as a man.
Publishers Weekly
In this masterful addition to the Eminent Lives series, acclaimed historian Johnson (A History of the Jews; Art: A New History) concisely yet vividly portrays the life and legacy of our first president. Johnson traces Washington's life from his early manhood as a surveyor falling in love with the uncharted territory west of Virginia to his later, cunning military exploits. More than anything, according to Johnson, Washington loved property and sought to expand the boundaries not only of the colonies but also of his own land holdings. Washington's skills as a surveyor and a manager established him as a military leader in the French and Indian Wars and the Revolution, and helped him establish a strong executive office and an enduring constitution for the new republic. Johnson points out that Washington's deep moral conviction about the rightness of the war helped him to defeat King George III, who lacked any moral passion about the lands he was supposed to protect. While books like Joseph Ellis's His Excellency offer more detail, Johnson captures the key images of Washington's life and work in this sharply focused snapshot. (June 2) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Steve Forbes - Forbes Magazine
Historian and FORBES columnist Paul Johnson has just penned, as part of HarperCollins' Eminent Lives series, an excellent, brief biography of America's first Commander-in-Chief. This wee volume quickly makes us appreciate again what an extraordinary man George Washington was. He had amazing self-discipline. He mastered surveying and geography, critical subjects for living in the frontier country that America was then. "Like Bonaparte, he became an expert map reader, an accomplishment few senior officers in any country possessed." Washington honed his military skills early in his career, fighting with the British against the French and their Indian allies. In fact, he helped precipitate the Seven Years War (1756-63) when he attacked an armed French camp near modern-day Pittsburgh. (17 Oct 2005)
School Library Journal
Adult/High School-This biography, written from the vantage point of a respected, conservative British historian, provides a new and fascinating picture of the first U.S. President. Johnson doesn't have Americans' natural inclination to deify Washington, but he does have a great deal of respect for his subject, delineating the man's merits and deficiencies. The author also brings the situation in Britain at the time-the backdrop against which Washington reached the heights of his fame-into perspective. These well-written and well-thought-out interpretations will benefit anyone interested in the man or his times.-Ted Westervelt, Library of Congress, Washington, DC Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
A slender, interpretation-laden biography of the first president. George Washington poses certain contradictions for a historian, as the prolific Johnson (Art: A New History, 2003, etc.) very gamely allows. For one thing, though he kept virtually every scrap of paper that came under his eye, carting a sizable archive with him even in the thick of the Revolutionary War, and was as careful a self-chronicler as any subsequent chief executive, Washington was also famously guarded about what he revealed of himself. An august and confident leader, he was also responsible for a disastrous episode that led directly to the worldwide Seven Years War. He despised slavery but did not press the point while he was in a position to do so. Some of his contemporaries-his vice president, John Adams, among them-thought him thick and unpresidential, to which Johnson responds that Washington was a fine actor: he knew how to by-God a lieutenant into submission, and "he liked to play the Old Man card when needed." He professed a little false modesty, lived a little better than he could afford to and was perhaps a little too wedded to his time's what's-in-for-me ethic. But, Johnson writes, Washington was also indisputably if not entirely selflessly devoted to the cause of an independent American nation. Johnson is sometimes unconvincing when he confronts contradiction head-on and attempts to reconcile it; he notes, for instance, that Washington was a deist, disinclined to pay much attention to matters of God ("In his twenty volumes of correspondence there is not a single mention of Christ"), yet asserts, in keeping with his conservative bent, that "the notion that the First Amendment would be twisted into aninstrument to prohibit the traditional practices of Christianity would have horrified him"-though probably not to the point, given what we know of him, that Washington would have inserted an "under God" clause into the national pledge. Slight, sometimes debatable but thoroughly well written: a good starting point for those who want to brush up on why Washington matters all these years later.
See also: Le Lecteur du Costa Rica :l'Histoire, la Culture, la Politique
Presidential Anecdotes
Author: Paul F Boller
This is a collection of humorous stories about U.S. Presidents throughout history. Originally published in 1981, this edition is updated to include anecdotes on George Bush and Bill Clinton.
Booknews
A collection of presidential anecdotes from Washington to Clinton revealing much about the character of each, their successes and failures, and the brilliant or silly ways in which they handled the office. Culled from autobiographies, letters, journals, and interviews with family and friends, the quips are both apocryphal and based on fact. Washington did hatch away at his father's cherry tree, but didn't actually cut it down, Harding had a way with words that made H.L. Mencken apoplectic, Eleanor Roosevelt appears funnier than Franklin D., and Reagan was, like Henny Youngman, the king of the one-liner. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
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