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“If he does that, he will be the Greatest Man in the World”
Those were the words of an astonished
King George III, when he heard that General George Washington was returning his
military commission to the Confederation Congress following the American
victory in the Revolutionary War. The
British monarch was not alone in viewing with awe Washington’s decision to
surrender power and return home to his farm at Mount Vernon. The Virginian was widely looked upon as an
eighteenth-century Cincinnatus.
As one would expect of Ron
Chernow, his treatment of this pivotal episode in Washington: A Life is sure-handed, reflecting his
consummate skill as a biographer. Chernow is best known for his work about Alexander Hamilton that spawned
the famed Lin-Manual Miranda musical. Written six years afterward, Chernow’s book on the First President is
every bit the equal of its predecessor; indeed, it earned the author the
Pulitzer Prize for Biography.
To contemporary audiences,
Washington is a distant figure; in the author’s words, he seems “composed of
too much marble to be quite human.” In
Chernow’s capable hands, however, the humanity of the “Father of our Country” is
revealed as much as it is ever likely to be: through his ambition, his frailties, his mistakes, in addition to his rare
gift for leadership. Balanced and
fair-minded in his appraisal, Chernow rightly exalts Washington for his heroic traits
such as bravery under fire and astute political judgment. At the same time, he appropriately takes
Washington to task for, among other things, his ownership of slaves (while not
losing sight of his posthumous emancipation of those he had held in
bondage).
At 905 pages, the book is no
small undertaking. But those who read Chernow’s
work will be richly rewarded, coming away with a heightened understanding of
both Washington himself and the profound challenges both he and the United
States faced during the nation’s formative years.
Recommended by Roy E. Brownell II, co-author of The U.S. Senate and the Commonwealth (University Press of Kentucky, 2019).
Brownell has been a past lecturer for the McConnell Center's Strategic Broadening Seminar for the U.S. Army.
Views
expressed here are those of the author and not necessarily those of the
McConnell Center. This recommendation is part of the McConnell Center's
Meditations publication series for soldiers and students in our
Strategic Broadening Seminar. SUBSCRIBE to our newsletter.