George Washington: The Founding Father (Eminent Lives)

I really really LOVED this book. Johnson's short biography format just feels so right and it reads so easily, as soon as I finished it I instantly put it on my 12 yr old daughter's bed because I knew she'd love it. The treatment of the greatest and first (sorry, Franklin!) American, Washington, is done so well that I truly feel like I know this man far better than from years of studying him in primary school, high school, and later casual study of the Revolutionary period. I think every American should be acquainted with the material in this book.

Overall I found this a very interesting book. I read it mainly to update my own book, “George Washington’s Liberty Key.” The things I enjoyed in Johnson’s work included: 1. his intriguing (and generally ameliorating for Washington) perspectives on slavery (to include how the cotton gin revived the previously declining profitability of slavery); 2. his quantifications of the time Washington spent on various activities; 3. his listings of events I had been curious about (eg, where Washington spent his winters during the war); 4. the effort Washington made to create and preserve excellent, detailed, and understandable records, even to the extent of carrying them around with him; 5. the importance of Washington's training as a surveyor (one interesting aspect: Washington laid out the town of Alexandria). Johnson also, I believe correctly, mentions Washington’s great-grandfather’s ship ran aground in the Potomac River [Mattox Creek tributary]. Others have him running aground on the Rappahannock River. On the downside, however, are a number of items (and I list these only in the hopes that there might be a new edition coming out) I’d beg to differ with: 1. Johnson lists Washington’s height variously as 6 foot three and 6 foot two without reconciliation. 2. He lists Martha Washington as 9 months older than George; she was 8 months, 9 days older (usually one would say 8 months older) and 4 feet 11 inches tall. I could only find sources saying she was 5 (or about 5) feet tall. 3. He mentions grooved granite in the construction of the Mansion. On a quick survey, I could find no other source mentioning granite of any kind. 4. Johnson generally categorizes George III as stupid; however, many scholars rate him as showing signs of intelligence, albeit misguided as far as his American colonies. 5. For the most part, Johnson denigrates Washington’s capabilities as a battlefield tactician, whereas a number of military scholar-practitioners rate him highly in all aspects of military skill (battlefield commander, tactician, and strategist). 6. Johnson writes that George III said that, given Washington was to give up his military command, “If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.” Actually, George III is reputed to say that Washington would be the "most distinguished of any man living"; and the “greatest character of the age.” 7. Finally, Johnson generates confusion with his mention on the final pages that Washington went out on horseback to inspect his farms, the last being 13 December. Actually, the last time he went out on horseback was 12 December, when he did return home wet and cold from snow. 8. No index to find all those interesting and correct facts Johnson includes in his book, but then again, this supposed to be a brief book. Again, however, the book overall is very well done! Check out one of William J. Bahr’s books: George Washington's Liberty Key: Mount Vernon's Bastille Key – the Mystery and Magic of Its Body, Mind, and Soul , a best seller at Mount Vernon.

I enjoyed this biography of our first President. You read about General Washington's love for the land and his desire to care for it, but his skill as a strategist brought him into the French and Indian War, where he successfully defended against the French. After the war, Washington was disappointed in England's attempts to levy heavy taxes on the colonies without allowing them appropriate representation in Parliament. The Stamp Act, the Townshend Acts, and the Intolerable Acts led to war, and Washington felt patriotic pride in defending his country. He lost some tough battles (Long Island, New York), and endured some tough winters (New Jersey, Valley Forge), but his average tactical skills were overshadow by his great ability to strategize the big picture. it was his idea to move the troops south and block Lord Cornwallis on the peninsula, leading to his surrender and to American freedom. It was remarkable to see how well Washington could do with limited troops and funds and resources. Washington would retire to his farm in Mt Vernon, even though there were frequent calls for him to be the leader of the country. Washington reluctantly agreed to be the nation's first leader if they could draft a constitution that would be agreeable to the states, which they did in 1789, and Washington became the first President of the United States. He supported the building of turnpikes, canals, and railroads, and the education of the young, and the forgiving of states' debts. He took a lot of heat from those who supported a more centralized government and from those who demanded more states' rights (Jefferson). He took a lot of heat, and on more than one occasion, Washington expressed his distaste for the Presidency. His two biggest failures were not supporting a check and balance for the Judiciary and not manumitting the slaves. Once cotton became King of the South, it became almost impossible to convince the South to go along with it. But Washington did free his own slaves upon his death. This is a good sketch of the first President's life, but you'll want to read a more substantial biography after whetting your appetite with this slender volume.

For whatever reason, George Washington had never come "alive" for me. Sure: the leader of our troops during the Revolutionary War, our first President, "Father of our Country," and the man on the one-dollar bill. But who exactly was he, and why was he so admired? This had eluded me, until I read Paul Johnson's superb short biography. The short answer is that George Washington was a great man --- great in leadership and also pretty big physically. (De Tocqueville remarked that he had never seen a man with a larger pair of hands.) It is fairly accurate to say that, wherever he went, he dominated, mostly through his moral and ethical qualities. He did not desire political power, but he desired with all his soul and all his being a happy future for America and the American people. He was a genius, and he worked harder than most of us can imagine. Here's one point that really impressed me: Washington's conduct of the Revolutionary War. Gore Vidal, in one of his "historical" novels, absolutely flays Washington alive as a nincompoop and a loser, a "general" who couldn't win a single battle. It is surprising (and educational) to learn from Paul Johnson that Washington was, on the contrary, a brilliant strategist. His strategy was simply to outlast the British by fighting a war of attrition. (Note well: this is something like the strategy employed by Ho Chi Minh against US!) He calculated, accurately, that within 4-5 years the British would tire of the "quagmire" and sue for "negotiations." Which happened, and the USA won the war in the negotiations. (Gore Vidal, of course, omits to mention the tiny detail of George Washington actually winning the war.) Washington was an impressive man, on many different levels, and this book is a masterpiece at revealing the multiple facets of one of the greatest men America ever produced. I must also say that I really appreciate a SHORT biography. I would never read seven volumes of anyone's life, and I am thoroughly fed up with the biographers who feel they must devote a thousand pages to the life of (say) LBJ. "Brevity is the soul of wit," gentlemen! A very high recommendation! I will add, uselessly, that all Americans should read this book.

Paul Johnson has written one superb book, The Birth of the Modern, one monstrosity, Intellectuals, and quite a shelf of books well worth reading even when they are blinkered by ideology. This chapbook biography of George Washington, unfortunately, is one of his shallower efforts. Johnson declares his intention of portraying Washington as less of "a remote and mysterious figure" than others have. The Washington that he gives us, however, is such a paragon that I for one long for a little flesh to contain all that noble blood. Johnson's Washington is above all an English land-owner of the early 18th C, a properly insular squire, a gentleman of much Whiggish convictions but Tory instincts, much like Johnson himself. It's not an inconsistent portrayal. However, Johnson is dead wrong about some very significant aspects of Washington's thought and about pre-revolutionary America. Johnson correctly focuses on Washington's self-interest in westward expansion of Virginia into the Ohio Valley as a prime reason for the rebellion against English rule. But with his ever-present British chauvinism, Johnson completely misrepresents the situations of the French and the Indians in the 1760s, and fails to grasp the important conflicts that already separated Americans of the seacoast like Washington from Americans of the interior. For a thorough and intelligent examination of these matters, I strongly recommend: The Middle Ground, by Richard White. Johnson is quite far from the mark on the question of the role of slavery among the causes of the revolution. His is the old-fashioned apologetic position, that slavery was already on the wane at the time of Washington, that the Founding Fathers foresaw its gradual extinction, and that only the cotton gin made later events tragic. In fact, the defense of slavery as an economic institution and the fear of British emancipationism were significant motivators for Southern participation in the Revolution. See: Forced Founders, by Woody Holton Johnson is also altogether too willing to credit Washington with sincere humantitarian impulses toward his own slaves. The truth is that Washington took less-than-kindly steps to retrieve runaways, was outraged by the efforts of the English to recruit slaves to run away and fight against their 'masters', and made every possible effort to seize runaways and free Blacks from their English protectors, after the end of fighting, before such 'property' could be carried beyond his reach. For a powerful account of the Revolutionaries' hypocrisy toward the rights of man, see: Rough Crossing, by Simon Schama, which also tells the story of the fate of the expatriated African-Americans in Canada and eventually in Sierra Leone. One amusing aspect of Johnson's book, by the way, is his hardly-concealed contempt for Thomas Jefferson -- another of those "Intellectuals" Johnson so thoroughly detests. Washington apparently developed quite an open scorn for Jefferson also, in his later years, a scorn I've come to share with both the author and his subject. The title to read on this matter: Jefferson's Secrets, by Michael Burstein.

I heard the author on radio. . The author is a well known historian from England. Worth reading and only 150 pages. So many facts I have never read or heard of before. Mary C. Campbell

I expected a thicker volume than the 123 small pages in this comprehensive biography. There is no index, but I suppose one could argue that such a small book doesn't need one. The writing has the flavor of an unbiased account of George Washington's life and dispels a number of falsehoods propagated by bebunkers. The author could have added some critical remarks about Washington's military blunders in the battle of Long Island while balancing those remarks with a description of his remarkable tenacity in maintaining favor and position with the Second Continental Congress. I would have appreciated more detail about how he kept his loose cannon Alexander Hamilton pointed in wise directions, but the element I missed most was a description of how Washington achieved the highest pinnacle of power in the rough new country without acquiring a hunger for more than what the later Constitution intended. The author points out some significant words from King George III: when told that Washington intended to go back to farming after the end of the war, George III said that if Washington does that, he will be the greatest man in the world. I would also have appreciated some explanation of how Washington recognized the unmatched heroics of energy that John Knox had at his disposal for getting Fort Ticonderoga's guns moved to a Boston overlook and how he recognized and utilized Nathaniel Green's pivotal capabilities.

So enjoy all of this man’s work! Highly recommend anything with his name on the cover. Well researched. Well written. Always something new/not covered by others.