George Washington
A concise, compelling biography of Washington and the forces that drove him
What drove George Washington to become the preeminent man of his time and to secure a lasting reputation as one of history’s great leaders? In this concise and engaging profile, Peter Henriques—a renowned Washington expert—recounts how Washington possessed a desperate desire to be seen, admired, honored, and above all to be remembered. Over the course of his life, Washington deliberately and self-consciously shaped his public image. Even his decision, dictated in his last will and testament, to emancipate the men and women he had held in slavery during his lifetime related directly to his desire to be perceived as honorable after his death and to safeguard his posthumous reputation. The complicated and controversial question of Washington and slavery is examined in an afterword. Written with a clarity that comes only from deep understanding, this biography goes right to the heart of what made Washington live, and succeed, as the greatest of America's founding fathers.
Peter Henriques has devoted much of his professional career to a study of the life and character of George Washington. Here he gives us his digested wisdom on the man behind the monument, emphasizing his obsession with how he would be remembered by posterity, which is to say, us.- Joseph J. Ellis, Pulitzer-prize winning author of The Great Contradiction: The Tragic Side of the American Founding
- National ReviewHenriques proposes an interpretative key to understanding this guarded, complex figure: from a young age he was preternaturally driven and ambitious and longed for recognition and glory. . . Henriques does not suggest that Washington’s many virtues were not real, or that he sought to amass power for its own sake: 'Rather his glory was to be obtained by serving the greater good.' In a thoughtful coda to the book, Henriques takes up the question of Washington’s relationship to slavery. His treatment of that thorny topic is as illuminating as the rest of this compelling account of Washington’s remarkable rise.
In easily accessible prose, Henriques puts George Washington in motion as a real person with aspirations and worries. The great man is neither a stony statue nor an emotionless monument but a living soul comprehensible at a human level in his ardent desire to be admired and remembered. This book probes the many dimensions of Washington’s fascinating and important life and is an achievement that rests on a career of wonderful scholarship.- William M. Ferraro, Senior Associate Editor, The Washington Papers
Henriques, a leading scholar of Washington and his time, argues persuasively that Washington’s desire for acclaim and approbation was what guided him throughout his life. Very well written; this is a fitting completion of his Washington trilogy.- Francis D. Cogliano, University of Edinburgh, author of A Revolutionary Friendship: Washington, Jefferson, and the American Republic
The result of a career's worth of research and thinking. Readers will be taken with Henriques' approach.- Mary V. Thompson, Research Historian at George Washington’s Mount Vernon, is the author of "The Only Unavoidable Subject of Regret": George Washington, Slavery, and the Enslaved Community at Mount Vernon., Mary V. Thompson, Research Historian at George Washington’s Mount Vernon, author of "The Only Unavoidable Subject of Regret": George Washington, Slavery, and the Enslaved Community at Mount Vernon.
