Most Helpful Customer Reviews
66 of 67 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The standard, June 27, 2005
This review is from: George Washington: The Founding Father (Eminent Lives) (Hardcover)
This last weekend, viewers of a cable TV miniseries voted Ronald Reagan history's "Greatest American." George Washington finished fourth, behind the Gipper, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Whatever this may say about the Americans who participate in television phone-in polls, it certainly shows the esteem in which Washington continues to be held by the nation he did so much to create. Personally, I would argue that George Washington is the standard against which American greatness has to be judged. And similarly, this thin volume by Paul Johnson has set a standard against which future portraits of the man should be measured.
Washington's life was a monumental one, and so it naturally attracts monumental biographies -- from Freeman's seven volume work, Clark's two-volume All Cloudless Glory: the Life of George Washington or Joseph Ellis' recent and hefty His Excellency: George Washington. Summing up the man in barely 100 pages, as Johnson (himself no stranger to weighty tomes) has done, is a far more challenging, and necessarily more selective, undertaking. It would be easy to come up with a list of things Johnson "should have" included or "ought to have" covered in more depth. But within the confines of the Eminent Lives series, Johnson has done a magnificent job focusing on the essentials of the man and his impact on his world and ours.
Despite the brevity of the book, Washington comes through strongly as a flesh and blood man, not an ivory god. Far from the Olympian reserve Washington himself cultivated, Johnson shows how the man was clever, opinionated, sometimes self-seeking, sometimes hypocritical, and simultaneously revered and underestimated by those around him. I found the latter stages of the book especially interesting, as Johnson charted Washington's influence on the new government under the Constitution, and Washington's own efforts in promotion of a strong, centralized government. The American presidency, today and for some time the most powerful post in the world, is an office shaped for, indeed designed in the image of, George Washington. Johnson makes a case that the strong powers later exercised by presidents like Jackson and Lincoln were not usurpations, but rather honest interpretations of powers the Framers intended Washington to have.
In my experience, pocket-sized biographies like this series and the similar Penguin Lives series can vary greatly in quality from volume to volume. This is the first Eminent Lives edition I've read ( Thomas Jefferson: Author of America (Eminent Lives) by Christopher Hitchens comes next), and the series is, for me, off to a wonderful start. Johnson has packed an awful lot into one slim book, and has put to shame many more verbose but less instructive views of the same subject. It won't take you long to read this, but it will more than repay the time.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
52 of 54 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Paragon of Paradox, July 31, 2005
This review is from: George Washington: The Founding Father (Eminent Lives) (Hardcover)
This is one of several volumes in the HarperCollins Eminent Lives series. Each offers a concise rather than comprehensive, much less definitive biography. However, just as Al Hirschfeld's illustrations of various celebrities capture their defining physical characteristics, the authors of books in this series focus on the defining influences and developments during the lives and careers of their respective subjects. In this instance, George Washington.
Johnson observes that "As the central actor in the American Revolution, George Washington was one of the most important figures in world history. As America's commander in chief throughout the eight-year struggle against Britain he effectively liberated the thirteen colonies from imperial rule. He then presided over the process whereby the new nation drafted, ratified, and enacted its Federal Constitution. Finally, for eight years he directed the administration that put the Constitution to work, with such success that, suitably updated and amended, it has lasted for nearly a quarter of a millennium."
That said, Johnson goes on to point out that Washington remains a remote and mysterious figure. "He puzzled those who knew and worked with him, and who often disagreed violently about his merits and abilities. He puzzles us. No man's mind is so hard to enter and dwell within. Everyone agreed, and agrees, he was a paragon. But a rich or empty one? A titan of flesh and blood or a clockwork figure programmed to do wisely?" Within only 123 pages, Johnson responds to these and other questions.
Of special interest to me is the interdependence of Washington's ambitions with those of the thirteen colonies which he led to military victory and then to constitutional federation. Throughout his adult life, Washington was driven by "the paramountcy of land" and his notion of "interest." He wanted to own, manage, and develop as much acreage as possible. This would increase his net worth, of course, but also establish for him important connections (i.e. through family ties, friendship, local ties, or clan) "which put a man ahead of his immediate competitors in getting something he wanted -- a place, a promotion, a contract, a favor." Although Washington had hoped to avoid it, he eventually realized that the separation of America from Britain served both his own and the colonies' best interests. "To Washington, the sealing of the open frontier to the west was the fundamental reason for resisting Britain, but was also symptomatic of the conflict of rights between colonial assemblies and Westminster." Hence the significance of the Stamp Act (1765) and then the Declaratory Act (1766).
I was also interested in what Johnson has to say about another aspect of Washington's multi-faceted personality. "It is true that he was a bit of an actor. He liked to play the Old Man card when needed. He did his little scenes, as when addressing officers at Newburgh, of fumbling for his glasses and repeating: `I have already grown grey in the service of my country -- now I am growing blind.' He also pretended to lose his temper. Jefferson, who was taken in, said he was `tremendous in his wrath.' If ever his character was impugned in cabinet he would `By God them,' saying `he would rather be on his farm than be made Emperor of the World, by God!'"
Washington owned as many as 300 slaves at one time but hated chattel slavery and when writing his will as death approached, he provided for the liberation of all of his slaves. He was passionately committed to the strict separation of church and state as specified by the First Amendment even as all "of his codes of morals, order, and propriety were rooted in Christianity, which he saw as the greatest civilizing force the world had ever known." Washington was by all accounts a patrician who, when he died, owned $530,000 in land and stock alone, making him one of the richest men in America. Nonetheless, he was determined to improve the standard of living and quality of life for those less fortunate. Hence the importance to him of "fast, extensive, cheap, safe, and reliable travel" by which to accelerate the settlement and development of the rich agricultural land he had once surveyed on the far side of the mountains, "and to work it with modern English farming methods." Washington was a devout believer in what was later characterized, in the 1840s, as Manifest Destiny.
I hope the provision of excerpts in this brief commentary will help those who read it to gain at least a sense of Johnson's crisp, concise, and eloquent discussion of someone who was indeed a paragon of paradox.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Superb short biography, November 15, 2005
This review is from: George Washington: The Founding Father (Eminent Lives) (Hardcover)
Paul Johnson is a British historian who admires the United States and wrote a lengthy history of the United States. Now, he has written a very short biography of George Washington. Mr. Johnson is clearly an admirer of his subject, particularly of his military record. In just 123 pages, Johnson covers Washington's entire career, from his days as a surveyer, to his early military career in the French and Indian war, to his Revolutionary War generalship, to his chairing the constitutional convention and to his presidency. Naturally, Johnson cannot go into much detail but he certainly provides a good overview.
An example of the inability to go into detail is the discussion of the Jay Treaty with Great Britain. Among the issues were territory in North America and impressment of American sailors on the high seas. The treaty was very controversial and many in Congress felt that John Jay had sold out the United States in negotiating the treaty. Johnson feels that the treaty was a fair one but we never really understand the controversy since the brevity of the book prevents an in depth analysis.
The book also makes some interesting blanket statements. For example, prior to the French and Indian War, Washington was involved in a skirmish with the French which resulted in a number of deaths. Johnson credits Washington with having started the French and Indian War by virtue of this conflict. Perhaps due to the short length of the book, a little exageration helps make the point.
There was another short biography of Washington that was recently written by James MacGregor Burns and which is part of a series of short presidential biographies. Since that book is slightly longer and tends to concentrate a little more on washington's presidential years, issues are explored in a little more depth. Nonetheless, I give Johnson's effort 5 stars because it purports to be an overview. For waht it sets out to do, it does it well. Still, as in the Jay Treaty example, this overview cannot give the reader a full understanding of the issues.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
