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His Excellency: George Washington (Random House Large Print Biography)

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His Excellency George Washington attempts to free Washington from the frozen icon/monument status that has gathered around his name, and presents him to the reader as an approachable, flesh and blood portrait. Joseph Ellis accomplishes this goal admirably. Most notably, he manages to steer cleanly between Charybdis and Scylla, avoiding the twin errors of portraying his subject as a saint, or its opposite, which he describes in his prefaces as "the deadest, whitest male in American history." He accomplishes this in a modest 275 pages, which makes this book an ideal introduction for someone beginning to study the life of Washington.
The central thesis of this work is that Washington's amazing career was driven by an enlightened self-interest, tempered by a hard-earned practical wisdom. Always sticking closely to the available evidence, Ellis shows us a young Washington full of unbounded ambition for wealth and social status that he learned to control and temper, but never eliminate. Ellis writes that, "ambition this gargantuan were only glorious if harnessed to a cause larger than oneself, which they most assuredly were after 1775." He shows us Washington as a self-educated man, not from books like his illustrious contemporary Ben Franklin, but from practical, visceral experiences of his youth fighting the French and Indians in the backcountry of Pennsylvania. He views Washington's inglorious defeat at the Great Meadows and his miraculous survival of the carnage of Braddock's massacre as critical events that freed him of illusions, and left him a man who viewed the world through practical realities rather than shimmering ideals. This practical education, working on his natural ambition, created the control mechanisms that allowed Washington to serve his nation so long and so well.
Ellis writes mainly of the public Washington. He begins the book not with Washington's birth, but at the point in his youth when he first appeared on the world stage. While the short length of the book limits the depth of its inquiry, it does manage to touch on most every important aspect of Washington's public life, including his positions on dealings with the American Indians, and his evolving ideas about the injustice of slavery. There are many other books that can provide more in depth and comprehensive accounts of Washington. This book serves as an outstanding, balanced introduction to the man we call the father of our country, and is an excellent place to begin.

Theo Logos

Mr. Ellis has written a succinct and fresh biography of our first President. A previous recipient of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for his American Revolutionary histories, he has expanded upon a brief essay of Washington included in his "Founding Brothers."

This is not an in-depth day-by-day account of Washington's life. For that pleasure, I refer the reader to the definitive four volume set (and 1,800+ pages) published over 30 years ago by James Thomas Flexner. Even Mr. Flexner's one volume abridgement is more detailed (at 400 + pages) than Mr. Ellis' new biography (only 275 pages of narrative).

The difference lies in Mr. Ellis' big picture approach and his interpretation of key events during Washington's lifetime. So Washington's love of Sally Fairfax is restricted to a mere two pages and his estate at Mount Vernon gathers more ink than his tranquil marriage to Martha. Instead "His Excellency" focuses upon the impact that Washington's decisions had upon the course of American history. Overall this is a well-written and thoughtful introduction to the life of George Washington.

In the preface to this ambitious and largely successful biography of George Washington, Joseph J. Ellis sets the tone by calling his subject "America's greatest secular saint" and "the Foundingest Father of them all."

That puts the biographer's problem nicely. Washington is so universally revered as well as so distant from us in time that he is more marble than human flesh. The biographer's task is to somehow breathe life back into a monument. Ellis has a good track record at this sort of thing. Most recently he did the trick with Thomas Jefferson in AMERICAN SPHINX. His work on Washington is in somewhat the same vein, and is equally accomplished.

Ellis's approach sails close to the dangerous shoals of psycho-biography but never quite runs aground on them. In trying to fathom Washington's true character and motives, he sticks fairly close to the written record without presuming to peer inside his subject's head.

His conclusions are not always those that today's schoolchildren find in their history texts. In the narrow tactical sense, for instance, Ellis judges Washington no great military genius. He points out that Washington lost more battles than he won, he was a control freak and a man very conscious of his place in history. Despite this "posing for posterity," however, Ellis is favorably inclined toward his subject because he had a career "devoted to getting the big things right."

That career, of course, had two separate parts: military commander and --- after four years in retirement --- our first President. Ellis links the two by stressing something not much emphasized by other historians: The job of establishing the new nation was made infinitely more complicated by the memory of British colonial rule, which had bred a general suspicion of any strong central authority. Washington knew that without a strong central government the new nation would probably fail, but he had somehow overcome the popular hatred of governmental "tyranny" and even the dread specter of "monarchy." He was able to accomplish this balancing act mainly through the sheer veneration in which he was held by the vast majority of people. In Ellis's apt phrase, Washington was able to "levitate" above the partisan battles of his time.

Ellis finds Washington's military experience on what was then America's western frontier (western Pennsylvania and the nearby "Ohio Country") during the French and Indian War a crucial experience in forming his world-view. It gave him a grand vision of an American western-oriented destiny that stayed with him into his Presidency. He even thought erroneously that the Potomac River, which flowed placidly past his estate at Mount Vernon, might be the water gateway to the riches of the American interior.

Another issue that Ellis illuminates is that of Washington's attitude toward slavery. His letters show that he was in favor of eventual emancipation by slow and easy stages --- but also that he needed slaves to keep Mount Vernon from sliding into bankruptcy and ruin. There was an uneasy balance of morality and economics in his thinking.

Ellis is also interesting --- if obviously partisan --- in assessing the infighting among Washington, John Adams, Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton during his presidency. Jefferson in particular comes off badly here.

One minor cavil: Ellis is so concerned with Washington's public career that he largely slights his private life. Martha Washington, for instance, is merely an offstage shadow in this book. Ellis is, however, a vivid and engaging writer. The Washington he recreates seems almost like a normal human being in many respects. That is about all we can ask for at this distance in time.

--- Reviewed by Robert Finn (Robertfinn@aol.com)

I was fortunate to review an advanced copy of this book, and was captivated by its straightforward and accessible descriptions of George Washington. While we all remember what we learned in school, because I was overseas I think what I learned had very little to do with the actual person.

What this book does exceptionally well is capture the emotions and convictions Washington held. Too often he is viewed as a caricature or an icon, as opposed to a great leader of people who had his own doubts, fears and journey. This is the side of George Washington we need to see more of.

While not as detailed as recent works on John Adams and Ben Franklin, the letters and commentary are worth the effort. If you are at all interested in American history, then this is a wonderful introduction to one of the founding fathers of this great nation. Well done, highly recommended.

What I found most impressive about this book was not just what Mr. Ellis said, its what he *didn't* say. The book is well-written and very concise -- 285 pages. It is perfect for a casual reader with interest in the founding of the United States of America and the one man who did the most to bring that founding about. It is not a massive, thorough, meticulously footnoted tome. It is a great read.

I particularly enjoyed the way Mr. Ellis looks at Washington with a modern eye while remaining grounded in the knowledge and culture of Washington's time. Ellis treats Washington's relationship with slavery and and native Americans critically but fairly. He shows Washington's growing realization of the immoral nature of slavery, and his conversion from a pro-settler position as a plantation owner to a policy of creading homelands for native Americans (which was, of course, undone by the evil hand of Andrew Jackson).

Ellis brings the view of modern historians to the much-studied first president, when interesting. My favorite passage in the book is from page 86: "Historians have long known that more than two-thirds of the American casualties in the war were the result of disease. But only recently -- and this is rather remarkable -- have they recognized that the American Revolution occurred within a virulent smallpox epidemic of continental scope that claimed about 100,000 lives. . . A compelling case can be made that [Washington's] swift response to the smallpox epidemic and to a policy of inoculation was the most important strategic decision of his military career."

This is a very accessible and insightful book that should be read by every American, and indeed anyone, with interest in this nation's founding father.

When it is seen that popular historian Joseph J. Ellis has written another book about a personality from the Revolutionary War era, excitement fills the publishing world. When it is seen, though, that the subject of his book is George Washington, the question comes quickly to mind, "Do we need another book about George Washington?"

After having read Ellis's book, the answer would seem to be a less ambiguous than you would think, "Well, no." There is no "new" information about Washington here and very little noteworthy insight.

From the introduction, we learn that there have been many biographies of Washington. Some of them, like the tales of an early nineteenth century parson, were pretty fanciful (the "cherry tree incident", the dollar across the Potomac), while others were quite factual and scholarly. The only thing that could be said against this second group seems to have been that they were exceedingly long and, possibly, dry of read.

Such cannot be said of Ellis's work. Ellis is an excellent and engaging writer who could write a book on the local city council's discussion of noise abatement and leave you hoping there's a second volume. He writes with warmth and humor and all those other buzzwords so frequently misapplied to writers and I can truly say I enjoyed reading the book.

With so many other works on Washington already out there, it was left to Ellis to try to find some new angle with which to chronicle the Father of Our Country. With all the facts recorded (almost ad nauseum), what angle could he use? Ellis has chosen to explore the "character" of George Washington.

It takes Ellis 274 pages (plus some end notes) to determine that Washington was aloof. Or, at least, his personal correspondence (of which there are apparently reams and reams) is rarely ever personal. From this is drawn the assumption that Washington was a distant fellow. Added to this impression are those things written about him by his contemporaries, who still seem to keep him (or allow him to keep himself) at arm's length.

George apparently wrote many letters to his beloved wife Martha but she, as was deemed appropriate for the time, burned all those letters after his death. Is it possible that other letters, those deemed more personal than public, were treated similarly by other people George wrote to? Martha's fire makes the news because a] she was his wife and b] there was so much fuel for the conflagration; but perhaps there were many other such personal letters that met the same fate but have not made the news because they were scattered singly among many friends. (This may be a completely unwarranted and unfounded guess on my part.) Only Lafayette seems to have kept anything like personal letters from Washington, so we need to ask whether he was the only one to receive them or just the only one to preserve them (if Ellis asked this question and received an answer, it's not in the book.)

This is just one illustration of what I see as the overall problem with this book (and, indeed, with almost all works about people dead more than a century): judging a person's life back then by today's standards. Perhaps Washington was aloof and distant, or maybe that was just the public persona and in more intimate settings he was quite different (he was known, after all, as an excellent dancer and frequent attendee of balls). The mores of the time, however, would have precluded anyone he didn't volunteer the information to from asking.

Early or even contemporary, biographers may not have had the sheer volume of material to peruse that the modern historian has, but they also had-for good or bad-a sense of the times that the modern historian can only guess at. Washington's treatment of slaves, makes a good for instance. We look at slavery from our modern perspective as an unquestioned evil and can't imagine how anyone-a Christian especially-could put up with it. I admit I find the subject so horrible as to be unfathomable-rather like permissive murder (oh, wait, we have that in our society). So it becomes easy to look at things from our perspective and see Washington's possession of slaves as barbaric when, by the standards of his times, he was way out in left field because he treated his slaves so much better than what was common among Virginia's landed gentry. Maybe Washington-who was an extremely astute businessman who died wealthy (unlike Jefferson and some of the others)-just took care of his slaves because it was good business to keep one's business assets in fine working order (as Ellis suggests), or maybe he was beginning to see the Negro as a person but had not yet made the leap past his times to set them free (until his death). From our perch two centuries later, it's hard to say with anything like certainty what the man truly thought about slavery and the worth of people with different colored skin and it may be folly to try. Still, his actions, even Ellis seems to grudgingly admit, were progressive for the times, if not progressive enough for our times.

Ellis also assumes from the fact that Washington eschews the name "God" in favor of terms like "Providence" that Washington was not a particularly reverent person and maybe not even a Christian (owing that he didn't often go to church). This is at odds with other biographers who see, in Washington's hand-written prayer book especially, a deep and abiding reverence for God and his word. Again, it is possible we are trying to look backward from our century in which worship of God is mentioned by every candidate and determine whether a man in an age when even the ministers hesitated to invoke God's name in a sermon for fear of accidentally violating Exodus 20:7 were agnostic or extremely reverent.

If you are looking for a detailed biography, go to your local library and pick up one of the probably two dozen offerings they have. If you are looking for a primer on the life of George Washington that can be read (and enjoyed) in a couple sittings, "His Excellency" by Joseph J. Ellis is a good place to start. Just don't stop there.

Joseph Ellis' "His Excellency: George Washington" is a well done brief biography of George Washington. Washington, surely, could be the subject of one of those massive bios, such as Chernow's "Alexander Hamilton" or "Titan" or Nasaw's "Andrew Carnegie" or Cannadine's "Mellon." On the other hand, not all biographies need to be so massive. Ellis' work is insightful, provides a sense of Washington the person, and outlines the growth of his character, as he controls his ambitions. In 275 pages, we get a pretty good perspective on "the father of our country."

This biography tries to steer a middle course between two different approaches to Washington. As Ellis says (page xi): "In Washington's case the arc moves from Parson Weems' fabrications about a saintly lad who could not tell a lie to dismissive verdicts about the deadest, whitest male in American history." In placing him among other of the Founders, Ellis makes, I think, an insightful point (page xiv): "It seems to me that Benjamin Franklin was wiser than Washington; Alexander Hamilton was more brilliant; John Adams was better read; James Madison was more politically astute. Yet each and all of these prominent figures acknowledged that Washington was their unquestioned superior." By the way, lines such as these make me scratch my head as to the critics of this book who attack the author for denigrating Washington. Parson Weems and his fantasies should not guide our consideration of Washington. He was a human being, not a demigod. And this book demonstrates why we should hold him in high esteem (while also realizing his human foibles and weaknesses).

In his death and afterwards, Washington also demonstrated why he stood apart from other Founders. Jefferson was uncomfortable with slavery, but did nothing about his discomfort. Washington was uncomfortable, and worked to free his slaves upon his death. His will represented (page 263) ". . .his personal rejection of slavery. As we have seen, he had been groping toward this position for many reasons and for more than thirty years, more gradually than we might prefer, more steadily than most of his fellow slave owners in Virginia. He was, in fact, the only politically prominent member of the Virginia dynasty to act on Jefferson's famous words in the Declaration of Independence by freeing his slaves."

The book provides a straightforward narrative of Washington's life. From the travails of his youth, to his efforts at developing a trade (e.g., as a surveyor), to his effort to becoming a military officer (culminating in both disaster and reputation in the French and Indian War), to his involvement in debates over independence in his own colony (Virginia), to his accession to general in the Continental Army, to his holding the army together under straitened circumstances, to his role in moving toward a Constitutional Convention, to his service as the first President. Noteworthy is the treatment of his learning to be the primary military commander during the Revolutionary War. Early on, his instincts told him to be aggressive; a number of defeats followed from this. Given the context of the war, this was not a winning strategy. He learned to be more careful and, following a more Fabian strategy, grew as commander and ended up triumphant at Yorktown.

In his conclusion, Ellis notes that Washington had a towering ambition, a foul temper, and, understanding this, Washington fought to contain both of these characteristics with his single minded strength. He left office after two terms as president when he could have stayed on. He stepped down as General after the Revolutionary War when he need not necessarily have behaved as Cincinnatus. As a result, he set an example that reverberated through the next century of American history.

This is a nice, although brief, rendering of Washington's life. The author makes nuanced judgments of Washington as a person and his legacy. As a result, he comes across as more than a cardboard caricature and as someone who genuinely deserves our respect and appreciation. As Ellis concludes (page 275), ". . .he understood that the greater glory resided in posterity's judgment." Unlike Napoleon, Caesar, Mao, and Cromwell, he did not hold on to the end, thus eroding his historical reputation and his ultimate effectiveness to the country that he had helped found.

Joe Ellis has written another book on par with American Sphinx (his Jefferson biography) and Founding Brothers (history of the events and men who created the Constitution). Ellis's best feature is ability to condense great amounts of historical material and reduce it to an interesting and managably sized book that gets across certain major points.

Ellis answers questions that I hadn't known the answers too. Here are a few he deals with:

1. When and why did Washington become convinced a Revolution against Britain was necessary?

2. Why was Washington picked to head the Continental Army.

3. Why did Washington join with the federalists and support a stronger federal government than the one created by the Articles of Confederation?

4. What did Washington think of his contemporaries such as Hamilton and Jefferson?

5. Why did Washington free his slaves in his will?

Its an insightful book and some of the things one learns are quite a surprise. One example is the fact that colonial forces almost lost the Revolutionary War and were on the verge of being defeated almost up until the time of Washington's victory over General Cornwallis at Yorktown in 1781. Washington was quite conscious during his life he would be a very famous man after his death and took many actions to protect his historical reputation. Washington deliberately said and wrote little because he felt he could lead more by appearing to be neutral and non-committed on many issues.

This is not a detailed comprehensive biography. Its a medium length book designed to hold the reader's interest and educate him/her about a number of significant historical points. A good choice to get a good overview of George Washington and his most significant accomplishments.

This is an entertaining and enjoyable book, but the psychoanalysis of George Washington left something to be desired. At several places, the author relies on tidbits of information to making sweeping generalizations regarding Washington, why he succeeded, or his motivations. This would not have so severely affected my rating, but for the fact that on more than one occasion, the author quickly reversed course.

For example, when trying to explain why, near the beginning of the Revolution, George Washington was better situated than any of his peers to lead the Americans to victory, Joseph Ellis tells us that George Washington was a realist who fully recognized that Divine Providence did not guarantee victory. Only a few pages later, commenting on George Washington's forbearance in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, Joseph Ellis tells us that the George Washington's internally sustaining force was his belief in, yep, Divine Providence.

It may be a quibble, but this example early in the book, left me doubtful of Mr. Ellis's explanations for other aspects of George Washington's character and the underlying rationale for some of his actions. At times, Mr. Ellis may have pressed too hard to generalize from single letters or comments. Perhaps Washington was uniquely realistic in assessing the chances for success and also believed in Divine Providence, but Mr. Ellis did a poor job of acknolwedging both these aspects and, presumably, the tension even within Washington.

I also thought Ellis went a bit far with his "Fabian" and "Cinncinatus" analogies. The repetition towards the end of the book became irksome and, again, seemed Ellis was trying too hard to fit evidence into preconceived categories.

The book was quite informative and engaging. It is clear that Joseph Ellis reveres the man, but this usually did not cause him to shy from recounting Washington's failings, including those of character. Importantly, I think Ellis does a good job of providing enough factual context to let the reader make some judgments. Some other reviewers appear to claim this is a hatchet job, but my view is that it is anything but. Unflattering facts are revealed, but Ellis was, in my view, more quick to explain them away than he needed to be. George Washington was a man, not a god. Ellis's portrait captures that distinction without denigrating Washington or his considerable influence on the making of the United States of America.

In short, Ellis paints a convincing portrait of an ambitious man with a tremendous ability both to lead men and to persevere in the face of adversity. Washington does seem to have had enormous concern regarding his legacy, but this is not a bad thing. As an example, if Mr. Ellis's portrayal is accurate, George Washington's concern for legacy was a driving factor in his decision to free his slaves in his will. Likewise, while Mr. Ellis seems to indicate that George Washington tried to burnish his reputation for high character by revising certain details of his early life, his desire to be revered also led him to act in conformance with the image he strove to create. In other words, while Washington did not always act with honor while young, his growing concern for legacy provided additional pressure, if not motivation, for his rightly renowned decision to relinquish power and, too, smaller acts of honor. Washington, to some degree, became the man he wished to be perceived to be. Joseph Ellis did not paint a flat caricature of the man, but provided a three-dimensional, if sometimes flawed, portrait of one of the most important men in the history of the United States.

I recommend this book.

I was extremely disappointed in this book. This book was purchased as a gift for me, and I looked forward to reading it. From the beginning, I was disappointed by the tone of the book, which casts a subtle negative tone on the life of someone who I revere greatly. As I researched some of Ellis' sources, I found that in several parts of his book, he stated items as facts that were completely false.

Ellis, following a popular trend of today, insinuates that George Washington was in love with his friend's wife, Sally Fairfax, and that he felt passionately in love with her throughout his life.

Ellis admits that all we do know is based primarily on three letters Washington wrote to Sally (Fairfax). The last letter he cites was one Washington wrote near the end of his life. Mr. Ellis states that "in this letter, he confessed to an elderly Sally that she had been the passion of his youth, that he had never been able to forget her, 'nor been able to eradicate from my mind those happy moments, the happiest in my life, which have enjoyed in your company."

I decided to research his references, and look up the text of Washington's letter on the Library of Congress website. They have actual images of all of the original letters of George Washington. What I found relieved me greatly and set my mind at ease. It also made me feel disgusted than an author who claims to accurately represent the life of such a noble man could be so purposely deceptive.

The actual letter was written by Washington in his later years, with his wife. He talked about how he was remembering the times of harmony and friendship that he and his wife spent with Sally and her husband at their home. He describes these times as some of the happiest of his life. At the end of his part of the letter he says "Mrs. Washington is about to give you an account of the changes which have happened in the neighbourhood and in our own family."

Mr. Ellis said that in this letter he confessed that she had been the passion of his youth. That is simply a blatant falsehood.

Ellis also states that there is no evidence to show whether the relationship between Washington and Fairfax ever crossed the sexual threshold or not. I ask, why even include such a ridiculous statement that makes people wonder? It is akin to saying that although someone spends some time at the local bank, we don't have evidence to show whether they were a bank robber or not.

There is a popular trend in our country to try to insinuate that the framers of our Constitution such as Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin were immoral men.

In an excellent book "The Rewriting of America's History", I found an example of how deceitful this influence can be. The book explained how in an earlier edition of a school history textbook it stated that George Washington had a hot temper that he kept masterfully controlled. In a later edition of the same textbook, it simply said: "George Washington had a hot temper." I think that is a powerful example of how a subtle adjustment can completely change our thinking of his character.

I have found that this is happening more and more frequently in our world today as I have studied the founding father's lives including Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and others.

I could continue on with how my research contradicts the opinions of Mr. Ellis, but I will simply recommend a much better book. "The Real George Washington", published by The National Center for Constitutional Studies.

A favorite quote of mine, from LDS President Gordon B. Hinckley is: "We recognize that our forefathers were human. They doubtless made mistakes. Some of them acknowledged making mistakes. But the mistakes were minor when compared with the marvelous work which they accomplished. To highlight mistakes and cover over the greater good is to draw a caricature. Caricatures are amusing, but they are often ugly and dishonest. A man may have a wart on his cheek and still have a face of beauty and strength, but if the wart is over emphasized in comparison to his other features, the portrait is lacking in integrity."

That sums up how I feel about this book. It attempts to cast a negative representation on the father of our country.

You can look up the other "one-star" reviews of this book for more information.