Customer Reviews

All Cloudless Glory: The Life of George Washington

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

During his life, and for 100 years afterward, George Washington stood on a plane above all his contempories, loved and honored. Recently, his stature has been diminished, and the impression has been left that Washington was not much of a general or president, and dim-witted to boot. In "All Cloudless Glory," Harrison Clark blows away all the dust and cobwebs and reveals Washington once more as the great man he was. Like a restorer who strips away the dirt and grime of centuries and reveals the bright colors of the painting beneath, Clark, quoting freely from the great mass of original Washington documents, makes Washington come alive. Did you know that Washington had a tremendous sense of humor, and liked to tell puns? This is just one of the little facts that Clark use to make his subject come alive. Similarly, Washington's whole life is illuminated to create a fascinating panorama. Every American should read this book!

The first of Harrison Clark's two-parter on George Washington focuses on Washington's life and career up through 1781, and this volume closes with the victory at Yorktown that effectively ended the American Revolution.

I would take issue with the Book Description (above) which describes the main character in this book as the "youthful Washingon, one not transformed into the dignified figure we associate with our first president." While Washington does not become president at any point in these pages, all the traits that we look for in Washington -- the dignified figure, master politician and diplomat, and inspirational leader -- are already in well in place by the final third of this book. One factor that practically leaps off the pages is the all-out adoration that men and women alike, regardless of their place in society, felt for the man. Clark lets those who saw and interacted with Washington do the talking through their letters or diaries, and Washington's charisma shines brightly from these pages.

Clark has chosen to let Washington and his contemporaries tell the story of Washington's life and career through their own writings, and it would be a welcome choice but for one thing -- the book is organized so clumsily as to become disjointed. Rather than edit and organize the various writings into a narrative, Clark instead divides each chapter up into what I can only think to describe as a series of short vignettes.

For example, chapter 19, "Cambridge and Boston," is broken up into 11 smaller parts, some of them only half a page long. It makes progress rather like reading a college textbook, with each section broken into smaller subsections, separated by its own little bold-faced headline ("The Vanishing Army"). Clark does tend to group events into short pieces that make sense on their own, but lack the context of the larger story.

Clark wisely spends most of his time in this book outlining Washington's career in the Continental Army, but it is sometimes difficult to get an appreciation for the battles and skirmishes Washington fought because the maps of the battle sites are almost completely useless. The map of the 1776 New York Campaign, for example, is difficult to align with almost anything in the text.

It's a shame that Clark has chosen such a floppy format in which to present his information, because there's some really first-rate stuff in here (the chapter on Benedict Arnold's treason is a highlight of the book, although it, too, gets bogged down in some disjointed narration). If you've not had the opportunity to read Washington's own letters from this period, Clark provides you with lots of samples of Washington's writings which, by themselves, make this volume worth owning. But if you're looking for an easily accessible, readable biography, this one probably isn't for you.

Five stars for wealth of information presented, but only one star for the format, bringing this one down to a three.

In every respect, except for the subject, this book fails to earn your hard earned dollars. Poor editing, dull writing, and a lack of insightful analysis combine to eliminate this work from my suggested reading list. If it were not for a commitment of mine to finish every book I begin, then I would have stopped slogging through Clark's book around page twenty. My suffering reached its zenith when I read the subtitle he chose for a section, "General Howe Funks Out." This subtitle was only slightly worse than, "Washington is liked." With subtitles like these I seriously considered breaking my rule of completing every book I read. Nevertheless, the numerous passages Clark quotes from Washington's papers and diary entries give the book some merit; Washington himself could redeem the worst of books. But, why wade through Harrison's tiresome prose when you could simply read George Washington's diaries and gain all the merit while losing all the dross?

Not only did I read this book, Vol 1 of 2, but I read Vol 2, as well. The first is "From youth to Yorktown" the second is "Making a Nation." This is not just a read, but a study of Washington with a vast quantity of verbatim correspondence from and to the man himself. Great insight into the inner man, how he thought, the deeds, the challenges he and his peers faced. Read these two volumes, cross-reference with other works, and you'll have a much enriched appreciation for the father of our country. Great Read/Study. If you like factual history, Enjoy!

I found this author to be a very cumbersome writer. He delivers a lot of great information, but often in a scattered, non grammatically correct format. This has caused me to reread sections of the book and make assessments about what the author is attempting to convey. For example, the author could be telling a story about 3 men and then continue talking only about one of them - but never tells the reader about which man he is speaking....he only refers to the man as "him". For a man of his credentials, I am really disappointed.

This is a great book. It is (obviously) centered around Gearge Washington rather than the events of his time. I learned alot about the person and the early history of America. George comes as alive as much as one can from strictly written sources. The two heros of the book are Washington and LaFayette, everyone else does something that is not favorable to the eyes of Washington or the author. John Adams, John Hancock, Gates and others are seen as obstacles to Washington's success. I would like to learn more about these individuals . This book opened my eyes to The American Revolution and how truly great a struggle it was.

I am under the belief that the people that wrote favorable reviews for this book were related to Harrison Clark (the author).

Although the book contains a lot of great information, the format, the grammar, and the lack of good maps limits the readers understanding.

format - there were times when the text was so disjointed that I had to reread sections several times and sit down with pen an paper to map out his ideas.

grammar - the author, for example, will tell a story about several men. When continuing the story about one man specifically Harrison will refer to the person as "him" without letting the reader know which of the men to whom he is making the reference.

maps - The author refers to a lot of places, but doesn't map them out so it is hard to gain an understanding of what is happening in the book.

If you haven't purchased this book - don't. Given Harrison's creditials this book is a disappointment.

I bought this, my first book on George Washington. When I began to read it, I quickly began to get bored. The book is disjointed and, although letters are nice, he seems to rely too much on the letters. Clark doesn't tell the story of his subject matter with any ease or flow. Washington came across to me as very dry and wooden, in which I don't think he really was in real life. Don't waste your money on this one!