He was a powerful and physically imposing man, too, and while he was devoted to his “amiable” wife, he enjoyed the adoration of women as much as he expected the loyalty of men.īut the ambitious young Virginia planter and frontier soldier didn’t become “George Washington” until he rose to prominence during the grueling eight-year war of attrition that brought independence to a quarreling collection of English colonies. Relatives tended to die at convenient times, and a steady infusion of inheritances elevated him socially and financially, as did a felicitous marriage to the wealthy widow Martha Custis. Washington’s early life, in Chernow’s telling, was marked both by misfortune and good luck, often as two sides of the same coin. Washington came to love these soldiers, Ron Chernow writes in his comprehensive new biography, and they in turn revered him for his honesty, his bravery, his loyalty and his compassion. A slave owner, land speculator and Indian fighter, Washington was transformed in fundamental ways by the experience of commanding men in battle whose lives were so unlike his own: free blacks, indentured servants, freehold farmers, urban tradesmen, artisans and landless laborers alike. If each generation of Americans deserves to have its own definitive biography of Washington, then Chernow’s masterpiece is our due.The noisy patriots clamoring to “take America back” might well wonder what traitorous voice would celebrate America as “an asylum for the poor and oppressed of all nations and religions”? It was George Washington, of course. Someone who experienced powerful emotions but publicly maintained an aloof and dignified demeanor a shrewd businessman who struggled in his quest for financial security a demanding slaveholder who became the only “founding father” to free those he held in servitude a public figure who exhibited keen political skills but is not generally regarded as a skilled politician a man of sound judgment who needed ample time to make decisions a warrior who steadfastly adhered to the principal of civilian control over the military a general who lost more battles than he won but ultimately emerged victorious a person who was not an intellectual but committed himself wholeheartedly to the pursuit of certain ideas and a leader with great power who knew when to relinquish it.
His Washington is an individual of driving ambition but modest public persona.
Reviewed by David Price, Washington Crossing Historic Park Historical InterpreterĪlthough Ron Chernow’s weighty tome is not for every reader, anyone wanting to discover the flesh-and-blood man behind the Washington legend need look no further than this Pulitzer Prize-winning account.Ĭhernow’s elegant prose brilliantly captures America’s elusive “First Hero.”
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