His Excellency: George Washington

( 100 )

Overview

National Bestseller

To this landmark biography of our first president, Joseph J. Ellis brings the exacting scholarship, shrewd analysis, and lyric prose that have made him one of the premier historians of the Revolutionary era. Training his lens on a figure who sometimes seems as remote as his effigy on Mount Rushmore, Ellis assesses George Washington as a military and political leader and a man whose ...

See more details below
Paperback (Reprint)
$10.68
BN.com price
(Save 33%)$16.00 List Price
Pick Up In Store

Pick Up In Store

Reserve and pick up in 60 minutes at your local store

Other sellers (Paperback)
  • All (193) from $1.99   
  • New (27) from $5.84   
  • Used (166) from $1.99   
His Excellency: George Washington

Available on NOOK devices and apps  
  • NOOK Devices
  • Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 NOOK
  • NOOK HD/HD+ Tablet
  • NOOK
  • NOOK Color
  • NOOK Tablet
  • Tablet/Phone
  • NOOK for Windows 8 Tablet
  • NOOK for iOS
  • NOOK for Android
  • NOOK Kids for iPad
  • PC/Mac
  • NOOK for Windows 8
  • NOOK for PC
  • NOOK for Mac
  • NOOK for Web

Want a NOOK? Explore Now

NOOK Book (eBook)
$11.99
BN.com price

More About This Book

Overview

National Bestseller

To this landmark biography of our first president, Joseph J. Ellis brings the exacting scholarship, shrewd analysis, and lyric prose that have made him one of the premier historians of the Revolutionary era. Training his lens on a figure who sometimes seems as remote as his effigy on Mount Rushmore, Ellis assesses George Washington as a military and political leader and a man whose “statue-like solidity” concealed volcanic energies and emotions.

Here is the impetuous young officer whose miraculous survival in combat half-convinced him that he could not be killed. Here is the free-spending landowner whose debts to English merchants instilled him with a prickly resentment of imperial power. We see the general who lost more battles than he won and the reluctant president who tried to float above the partisan feuding of his cabinet. His Excellency is a magnificent work, indispensable to an understanding not only of its subject but also of the nation he brought into being.

Read More Show Less

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher
" [Ellis has done it again. This is an important and challenging work: beautifully written, lively, serious and engaging.” —The Boston Globe
 

“Absorbing. . . . An incisive portrait [that] eloquently conveys the magnitude of Washington’s accomplishments.” —The New York Times
 

“Absolutely fascinating. . . . Underscores how extraordinary Washington’s accomplishments really were.” —The Christian Science Monitor

“Lively and engaging. . . . An accessible portrait. . . . Ellis writes simply but eloquently. His prose is lucid, graceful and witty, his book is hard to put down. . . . Should be required reading.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review

Michiko Kakutani
Mr. Ellis refuses to judge Washington by "our own superior standards of political and racial justice" but instead tries to show how Washington was seen in his day. In doing so he gives us a visceral understanding of the era in which the first President came of age, and he shows how Washington's thinking (about the war for independence, the shape of the infant nation and the emerging role of the federal government) was shaped by his own experiences as a young soldier in the French and Indian War and as a member of the Virginia planter class. The resulting book yields an incisive portrait of the man, not the marble statue.
— The New York Times
Jonathan Yardley
His Excellency: George Washington immediately calls to mind, and deserves favorable comparison with, Edmund S. Morgan's Benjamin Franklin … when Ellis says that "we do not need another epic [Washington biography], but rather a fresh portrait focused tightly on Washington's character," he declares in effect that he is doing what Morgan did. It is a pleasure to report that he has succeeded. The Father of His Country, Ellis correctly observes at the outset, "poses what we might call the Patriarchal Problem in its most virulent form: on Mount Rushmore, the Mall, the dollar bill and the quarter, but always an icon -- distant, cold, intimidating." Ellis's aim is to get beyond the monument into the man, and he does so in a convincing, plausible way.
— The Wahington Post
Publishers Weekly
In this follow-up to his bestselling Founding Brothers, Ellis offers a magisterial account of the life and times of George Washington, celebrating the heroic image of the president whom peers like Jefferson and Madison recognized as "their unquestioned superior" while acknowledging his all-too-human qualities. Ellis recreates the cultural and political context into which Washington strode to provide leadership to the incipient American republic. But more importantly, the letters and other documents Ellis draws on bring the aloof legend alive as a young soldier who sought to rise through the ranks of the British army during the French and Indian War, convinced he knew the wilderness terrain better than his commanding officers; as a Virginia plantation owner (thanks to his marriage) who watched over his accounts with a ruthless eye; as the commander of an outmatched rebel army who, after losing many of his major battles, still managed to catch the British in an indefensible position. Following Washington from the battlefield to the presidency, Ellis elegantly points out how he steered a group of bickering states toward national unity; Ellis also elaborates on Washington's complex stances on issues like slavery and expansion into Native American territory. The Washington who emerges from these pages is similar to the one portrayed in a biographical study by James MacGregor Burns and Susan Dunn published earlier this year, but Ellis's richer version leaves readers with a deeper sense of the man's humanity. 16 pages of photos not seen by PW. (Nov. 1) Forecast: The 500,000 first printing seems steep but could be justified by Ellis's record and the current popularity of the Founders. First serial to American Heritage magazine. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
To the dismay of generations of historians, George Washington's personal papers offer little insight into his thinking and emotions. Using Washington's correspondence, reports of others, significant historical events, and his own creative insight, Ellis (Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation) offers a unique, personal look at America's premier Founding Father, revealing a man with incredible energy, stamina, integrity, and vision as well as one who could be quite insecure, controlling, and shortsighted. Ellis examines the evolution of Washington's personality and challenges conventional scholarship (arguing, e.g., that his greatest military move was the inoculation of his troops against smallpox). He also determines that Washington's decisions on slavery were driven more by economics and posterity than purely by morality. Like Henry Wiencek's An Imperfect God, this well-researched and -written book is fresh but not revisionist and will appeal to both lay readers and scholars. Recommended for academic libraries and larger public libraries. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 6/1/04.] Robert Flatley, Kutztown Univ. Lib., PA Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
School Library Journal
Adult/High School-As Ellis indicates in his well-documented acknowledgments and endnotes, this book relies heavily on the "Papers of George Washington" series, which provides access to the president's correspondence. Since no new documentary evidence is available, the attraction is Ellis's assessment of Washington's character and impeccable judgment. He keeps Washington on his pedestal while pointing out just a few flaws in the president's personality: ambition from an early age (yet how American!), slaveholding (although he came to regret this, and ordered in his will that upon Martha's death the slaves were to be freed), and no great military talent. These defects were vastly outweighed by his character and practical wisdom. Ellis notes that, even among that group of brilliant men known as our Founding Fathers, Washington was recognized by every one of them as "the Foundingest Father of them all." This book does offer new insights regarding Washington's disposition of his wealth and property in his will. Ellis does an excellent job of infusing a sometimes remote national icon with breath and life, so that readers are able to see the human Washington operating in his tumultuous period of history while towering above it-no mean authorial feat.-Edward Redmond, Library of Congress, Washington, DC Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
A revisionist life of the Founding Father, motes and warts and all. No stranger to scandal himself, Ellis (Founding Brothers, 2000, etc.) begins by addressing George Washington's education in the school of hard knocks with tomahawks. Having lost his father early and having attained only a grade-school education, Washington was pressed into work on Virginia's western frontier, "the far edge of civilization's progress," beyond which "anything that Europeans called civilization ceased to exist altogether." Exploring the territory along the Ohio River apparently taught him a thing or two about Indian fighting, though, as Ellis notes, the documentary evidence for this period is scant; whatever the case, by the time he reached his early 20s, Washington was serving in the Virginia militia and found himself overseeing the first engagement of the French and Indian War-unhappily, a massacre of French soldiers attempting to surrender. Other debacles followed, after which Washington, by Ellis's account, came both to disdain the British officer class and to believe that he himself could not be killed. Retiring from service, he returned to Virginia and married Martha Custis-even though, Ellis writes, he was in love with Sally Fairfax, the wife of a friend. As a slaveholding plantation owner, he soon worked his way through much of Martha's inherited wealth and took to borrowing money, which caught him "in the trap that was snaring other Virginia planters and that Thomas Jefferson, another victim, described as the chronic condition of indebtedness." Ever litigious and ready to blame others, Washington attributed his economic woes to the misdoings of the British Empire in America, and a revolutionary wasborn. So, too, was the regal general who insisted on being called "His Excellency" and who "lost more battles than any victorious general in modern history," but who also "surrounded himself with the most intellectually sophisticated collection of statesmen in American presidential history" and forged a republic. "A modest-sized book about a massive historical subject," Ellis calls it. Well done, too, though admirers of Washington may find in it more-or less-than they bargained for. First printing of 500,000; first serial to American Heritage. Agent: Ike Williams/Kneerim & Williams
Read More Show Less

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9781400032532
  • Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
  • Publication date: 11/8/2005
  • Edition description: Reprint
  • Pages: 352
  • Sales rank: 107646
  • Product dimensions: 5.14 (w) x 7.99 (h) x 0.72 (d)

Meet the Author

Joseph Ellis is the Pulitzer Prize_winning author of Founding Brothers. His portrait of Thomas Jefferson, American Sphinx, won the National Book Award.He lives in Amherst, Massachusetts, with his wife, Ellen, and their youngest son, Alex.

From the Hardcover edition.

Read More Show Less

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One

Interior Regions

History first noticed George Washington in 1753, as a daring and resourceful twenty-one-year-old messenger sent on a dangerous mission into the American wilderness. He carried a letter from the governor of Virginia, Robert Dinwiddie, addressed to the commander of French troops in that vast region west of the Blue Ridge Mountains and south of the Great Lakes that Virginians called the Ohio Country. He was ordered to lead a small party over the Blue Ridge, then across the Allegheny Mountains, there to rendezvous with an influential Indian chief called the Half-King. He was then to proceed to the French outpost at Presque Isle (present-day Erie, Pennsylvania), where he would deliver his message “in the Name of His Britanic Majesty.” The key passage in the letter he was carrying, so it turned out, represented the opening verbal shot in what American colonists would call the French and Indian War: “The Lands upon the river Ohio, in the Western Parts of the Colony of Virginia, are so notoriously known to be the Property of the Crown of Great Britain, that it is a Matter of equal Concern & Surprize to me, to hear that a Body of French Forces are erecting Fortresses, & making Settlements upon that River within his Majesty’s Dominions.”

The world first became aware of young Washington at this moment, and we get our first extended look at him, because, at Dinwiddie’s urging, he published an account of his adventures, The Journal of Major George Washington, which appeared in several colonial newspapers and was then reprinted by magazines in England and Scotland. Though he was only an emissary—the kind of valiant and agile youth sent forward against difficult odds to perform a hazardous mission—Washington’s Journal provided readers with a firsthand report on the mountain ranges, wild rivers, and exotic indigenous peoples within the interior regions that appeared on most European maps as dark and vacant spaces. His report foreshadowed the more magisterial account of the American West provided by Lewis and Clark more than fifty years later. It also, if inadvertently, exposed the somewhat ludicrous character of any claim by “His Britanic Majesty,” or any European power, for that matter, to control such an expansive frontier that simply swallowed up and spit out European presumptions of civilization.

Although Washington is both the narrator and the central character in the story he tells, he says little about himself and nothing about what he thinks. “I have been particularly cautious,” he notes in the preface, “not to augment.” The focus, instead, is on the knee-deep snow in the passes through the Alleghenies, and the icy and often impassably swollen rivers, where he and his companions are forced to wade alongside their canoes while their coats freeze stiff as boards. Their horses collapse from exhaustion and have to be abandoned. He and fellow adventurer Christopher Gist come upon a lone warrior outside an Indian village ominously named Murdering Town. The Indian appears to befriend them, then suddenly wheels around at nearly point-blank range and fires his musket, but inexplicably misses. “Are you shot?” Washington asks Gist, who responds that he is not. Gist rushes the Indian and wants to kill him, but Washington will not permit it, preferring to let him escape. They come upon an isolated farmhouse on the banks of the Monongahela where two adults and five children have been killed and scalped. The decaying corpses are being eaten by hogs.

In stark contrast to the brutal conditions and casual savagery of the frontier environment, the French officers whom Washington encounters at Fort Le Boeuf and Presque Isle resemble pieces of polite Parisian furniture plopped down in an alien landscape. “They received us with a great deal of complaisance,” Washington observes, the French offering flattering pleasantries about the difficult trek Washington’s party had endured over the mountains. But they also explained that the claims of the English king to the Ohio Country were demonstrably inferior to those of the French king, which were based on Lasalle’s exploration of the American interior nearly a century earlier. To solidify their claim of sovereignty, a French expedition had recently sailed down the Ohio River, burying a series of lead plates inscribed with their sovereign’s seal that obviously clinched the question forever.

The French listened politely to Washington’s rebuttal, which derived its authority from the original charter of the Virginia Company in 1606. It had set the western boundary of that colony either at the Mississippi River or, even more expansively, at the Pacific Ocean. In either case, it included the Ohio Country and predated Lasalle’s claim by sixty years. However persuasive this rather sweeping argument might sound in Williamsburg or London, it made little impression on the French officers. “They told me,” Washington wrote in his Journal, “it was their absolute Design to take Possession of the Ohio, & by G     they wou’d do it.” The French commander at Fort Le Boeuf, Jacques Le Gardner, sieur de Saint Pierre, concluded the negotiations by drafting a cordial letter for Washington to carry back to Governor Dinwiddie that sustained the diplomatic affectations: “I have made it a particular duty to receive Mr. Washington with the distinction owing to your dignity, his position, and his own great merit. I trust that he will do me justice in that regard to you, and that he will make known to you the profound respect with which I am, Sir, your most humble and most obedient servant.”

But the person whom Washington quotes more than any other in his Journal represented yet a third imperial power with its own exclusive claim of sovereignty over the Ohio Country. That was the Half-King, the Seneca chief whose Indian name was Tanacharison. In addition to being a local tribal leader, the Half-King had received his quasi-regal English name because he was the diplomatic representative of the Iroquois Confederation, also called the Six Nations, with its headquarters in Onondaga, New York. When they had first met at the Indian village called Logstown, Tanacharison had declared that Washington’s Indian name was Conotocarius, which meant “town taker” or “devourer of villages,” because this was the name originally given to Washington’s great-grandfather, John Washington, nearly a century earlier. The persistence of that memory in Indian oral history was a dramatic reminder of the long-standing domination of the Iroquois Confederation over the region. They had planted no lead plates, knew nothing of some English king’s presumptive claims to own a continent. But they had been ruling over this land for about three hundred years.

In the present circumstance, Tanacharison regarded the French as a greater threat to Indian sovereignty. “If you had come in a peaceable Manner like our Brethren the English,” he told the French commander at Presque Isle, “We shou’d not have been against your trading with us as they do, but to come, Fathers, & build great houses upon our Land, & to take it by Force, is what we cannot submit to.” On the other hand, Tanacharison also made it clear that all Indian alliances with European powers and their colonial kinfolk were temporary expediencies: “Both you & the English are White. We live in a Country between, therefore the Land does not belong either to one or the other; but the GREAT BEING above allow’d it to be a Place of Residence for us.”

Washington dutifully recorded Tanacharison’s words, fully aware that they exposed the competing, indeed contradictory, imperatives that defined his diplomatic mission into the American wilderness. For on the one hand he represented a British ministry and a colonial government that fully intended to occupy the Ohio Country with Anglo-American settlers whose presence was ultimately incompatible with the Indian version of divine providence. But on the other hand, given the sheer size of the Indian population in the region, plus their indisputable mastery of the kind of forest-fighting tactics demanded by wilderness conditions, the balance of power in the looming conflict between France and England for European domination of the American interior belonged to the very people whom Washington’s superiors intended to displace.

For several reasons, this story of young Washington’s first American adventure is a good place to begin our quest for the famously elusive personality of the mature man-who-became-a-monument. First, the story reveals how early his personal life became caught up in larger public causes, in this case nothing less grand than the global struggle between the contending world powers for supremacy over half a continent. Second, it forces us to notice the most obvious chronological fact, namely that Washington was one of the few prominent members of America’s founding generation—Benjamin Franklin was another—who were born early enough to develop their basic convictions about America’s role in the British Empire within the context of the French and Indian War. Third, it offers the first example of the interpretive dilemma posed by a man of action who seems determined to tell us what he did, but equally determined not to tell us what he thought about it. Finally, and most importantly, it establishes a connection between Washington’s character in the most formative stage of its development and the raw, often savage, conditions in that expansive area called the Ohio Country. The interior regions of Washington’s personality began to take shape within the interior regions of the colonial frontier. Neither of these places, it turned out, was as vacant as it first appeared. And both of them put a premium on achieving mastery over elemental forces that often defied the most cherished civilized expectations.

Glimpses

Before 1753 we have only glimpses of Washington as a boy and young man. These sparsely documented early years have subsequently been littered with legends and lore, all designed to align Washington’s childhood with either the dramatic achievements of his later career or the mythological imperatives of America’s preeminent national hero. John Marshall, his first serious biographer, even entitled the chapter on Washington’s arrival in the world “The Birth of Mr. Washington,” suggesting that he was born fully clothed and ready to assume the presidency. The most celebrated story about Washington’s childhood—the Parson Weems tale about chopping down the cherry tree (“Father, I cannot tell a lie”)—is a complete fabrication. The truth is, we know virtually nothing about Washington’s relationship with his father, Augustine Washington, except that it ended early, when Washington was eleven years old. In all his voluminous correspondence, Washington mentioned his father on only three occasions, and then only cryptically. As for his mother, Mary Ball Washington, we know that she was a quite tall and physically strong woman who lived long enough to see him elected president but never extolled or even acknowledged his public triumphs. Their relationship, estranged in those later years, remains a mystery during his childhood and adolescence. Given this frustrating combination of misinformation and ignorance, we can only establish the irrefutable facts about Washington’s earliest years, then sketch as best we can the murkier patterns of influence on his early development.

We know beyond any doubt that George Washington was born in Westmoreland County, Virginia, near the banks of the Potomac River, on February 22, 1732 (New Style). He was a fourth-generation Virginian. The patriarch of the family, John Washington, had come over from England in 1657 and established the Washingtons as respectable, if not quite prominent, members of Virginia society. The Indians had named him “town taker,” not because of his military prowess, but because he had manipulated the law to swindle them out of their land.

The bloodline that John Washington bequeathed to his descendants exhibited three distinctive tendencies: first, a passion for acreage, the more of it the better; second, tall and physically strong males; and third, despite the physical strength, a male line that died relatively young, all before reaching fifty. A quick scan of the genealogy on both sides of young George’s ancestry suggested another ominous pattern. The founder of the Washington line had three wives, the last of whom had been widowed three times. Washington’s father had lost his first wife in 1729, and Mary Ball Washington, his second wife, was herself an orphan whose own mother had been widowed twice. The Virginian world into which George Washington was born was a decidedly precarious place where neither domestic stability nor life itself could be taken for granted. This harsh reality was driven home in April 1743, when Augustine Washington died, leaving his widow and seven children an estate that included ten thousand acres divided into several disparate parcels and forty-nine slaves.

Washington spent his early adolescence living with his mother at Ferry Farm in a six-room farmhouse across the Rappahannock from Fredericksburg. He received the modern equivalent of a grade-school education, but was never exposed to the classical curriculum or encouraged to attend college at William and Mary, a deficiency that haunted him throughout his subsequent career among American statesmen with more robust educational credentials. Several biographers have called attention to his hand-copied list of 110 precepts from The Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour in Company and Conversation, which was based on rules of etiquette originally composed by Jesuit scholars in 1595. Several of the rules are hilarious (#9, “Spit not into the fire . . . especially if there be meat before it”; #13, “Kill no vermin, or fleas, lice, ticks, etc. in the sight of others”); but the first rule also seems to have had resonance for Washington’s later obsession with deportment: “Every action done in company ought to be done with some sign of respect to those that are present.” As a reminder of an earlier era’s conviction that character was not just who you were but also what others thought you were, this is a useful point that foreshadows Washington’s flair for disappearing within his public persona. But the more prosaic truth is that Rules of Civility has attracted so much attention from biographers because it is one of the few documents of Washington’s youth that has survived. It is quite possible that he copied out the list as a mere exercise in penmanship.

The two major influences on Washington’s youthful development were his half brother, Lawrence, fourteen years his senior, and the Fairfax family. Lawrence became a surrogate father, responsible for managing the career options of his young protégé, who as a younger son had little hope of inheriting enough land to permit easy entrance into the planter class of Chesapeake society. In 1746, Lawrence proposed that young George enlist as a midshipman in the British navy. His mother opposed the suggestion, as did his uncle in England, who clinched the negative verdict by observing that the navy would “cut him and staple him and use him like a Negro, or rather, like a dog.”

From the Hardcover edition.

Read More Show Less

Customer Reviews

Average Rating 4
( 100 )
Rating Distribution

5 Star

(37)

4 Star

(43)

3 Star

(13)

2 Star

(6)

1 Star

(1)
See All Sort by: Showing 1 – 20 of 101 Customer Reviews

  • Anonymous

    Posted Mon Feb 11 00:00:00 EST 2008

    Only the Best for th Best

    'His Excellency' is a biography that allows the reader to visualize the life of George Washington as if they were experiencing his life right beside him. There isn't a better time than now to read about how our Presidency was shaped. This should be a recommended read for all who are running as well as the everyday American who wonders about the current political struggles.

    8 out of 8 people found this review helpful.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Anonymous

    Posted Fri Jun 13 00:00:00 EDT 2008

    Washington & Religion

    One reviewer lambasted Mr. Ellis¿ work because ¿historical documents prove that George Washington was a devout Christian and based the belief of God on everything he did.¿ Historical documents prove no such thing. And wishing doesn¿t make it so. Washington gives us little in his writings to indicate his personal religious beliefs and asserted no beliefs in any specific traditional religious dogma. His own writings never refer to Jesus Christ. Franklin Steiner in The Religious Beliefs Of Our Presidents '1936'¿highly recommended¿states that Washington commented on sermons only twice, joking that he had enjoyed a German Reformed service because he hadn¿t understood a single word. Washington was certainly not anti-religious and indeed spoke out against religious intolerance, banning in 1775 a Protestant celebration called Pope's Day 'mocking of the Catholic leader' by the Continental Army. In the Revolutionary War, Washington supported troops selecting their own chaplains. He reportedly did not take communion, though his wife did, and supported no particular theology, while complimenting all sorts of religious groups. He attended church irregularly but did attend and praise Quaker, German Reformed, and Roman Catholic services. In securing workmen in 1784 at Mount Vernon, Washington said he would welcome ¿Mohometans, Jews or Christians of any Sect, or they may be Atheists.¿ Washington rejected the notion that there should be any narrow religious test for officeholders, and he never advocated the superiority of one religious sect over another. In Washington's replies to messages from Jews and Swedenborgians, he demonstrates not a mere tolerance for those who had not chosen the ¿correct path,¿ but an endorsement of what Jefferson later called the 'wall of separation between church and state.¿ It might be best to read Washington¿s own words: ¿To the General Committee Representing the United Baptist Churches of Virginia¿ and ¿To the Hebrew Congregation of Savannah, May, 1790.' Some of the inaccuracies about Washington¿s religious piety come from the famously silly fabrications in The Life of Washington, 1800, by Mason Locke `Parson¿ Weems, the source of the invented tale about the cherry tree. Many writers have tried to project their own biases and agendas onto Washington's image. Perhaps this is where we get such phrases as ¿historical documents prove¿ without the understanding that ¿historical documents¿ need to be questioned for credibility and are indeed subject to scholarly review. If some of us want to believe in that the earth is flat, that the founders made this an exclusively Christian Nation, that the world is suspended on a stack of turtles, that due process is ¿quaint,¿ or that recognition of universal human rights did not have the historical context of the Enlightenment, we should just say so. But don¿t claim things that are not true. And don¿t criticize good scholarship simply because it¿s not bad scholarship. Which brings us back to Ellis¿ work. It is well researched, well written¿enjoyably so for this reader¿and provides valuable scholarship.

    7 out of 19 people found this review helpful.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Anonymous

    Posted Fri Feb 03 00:00:00 EST 2006

    The man behind the monument

    This is an interesting insight into the life of one of the most important figures in American history. The book attempts to show you the human side of the myth and monument that is Washington to modern America. He is shown not as the perfect, honest, legend but as the human man trying to make a name for himself in his early adulthood. The mistakes of his life are laid out before you and the lessons he learned from them. How his great judgment lead history to select him for the roles he would play as the Commander in Chief for the Continental Army, Chair of the Constitutional convention, and ultimately First President. Each time he reluctantly at first, then with an enthusiastic sense of fate, returned to public life, all the time yearning to return to his beloved Mount Vernon. The Washington monument does represent a human being and here he is. There is not a lot of military information in the book which I like it is more an insight into the man and his thinking processes as a biography should be. The book is recommended if you have an interest in learning about Washington and the founding of the nation but the language can be a bit tangled and high brow at times. I found myself more than once wishing I had a dictionary handy.

    4 out of 5 people found this review helpful.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Anonymous

    Posted Sun Jan 21 00:00:00 EST 2007

    Insightful, but was it truly truthful?

    I've read this book by Joseph Ellis with the intent to learn more about our Founding Fathers and what they believed in to make the United States such a great country. To start, 'His Excellency' was a complete let-down to me. I don't like sounding like a Christian, but historical documents prove that George Washington was a devout Christian and based the belief of God on everything he did from the time he lived on Mount Vernon till the moment he first saw blood. I am somewhat disgusted at how Ellis portrayed Washington in this 'biography'. He referred to him as a 'prideful man/slave-owner/blood-thirsty brigand' and other things. But what bewildered me was the little given information on Washington's religious background. The only time I saw mention on this topic was when, 'when Washington prayed, he stood up and was never seen bowing his head.' Thats it. The overall biography was insightful, but I have to remain skeptical at its validity. In post-modern America, biased people, and, to no offense, liberals and atheists, tend to swath American history with made-up lies and to tell incorrectly what made our founding fathers, and any given key character in our nations history, persist to act upon what they truly and spiritually believed. I find this book lacking in the latter. If you are looking for a more foundational approach on the life/or lives of our Founding Fathers, I recommend David McCullough's books on American Biographies. He, I find it more evident, strikes the truth more accurately than Ellis.

    3 out of 16 people found this review helpful.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Anonymous

    Posted Fri Apr 20 00:00:00 EDT 2012

    Great read

    Very well written book. It was very enjoyable.

    1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Anonymous

    Posted Tue Dec 27 00:00:00 EST 2011

    Recommend it to all my friends..

    This book is a great read. Not only is it an in depth picture of our first President, but it is an entertaining read, which can not be said about most historical non-fiction books. I recommend this book to anyone interested in history.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Anonymous

    Posted Tue Feb 22 00:00:00 EST 2011

    An excellent biography

    I just finished reading this last night and am thrilled with it. I have read many biographies on Washington and am in fact a collector of his portraits, etc. This is the best yet! Here is Washington as he was, not, perhaps, how we might wish him to be. (Hear that, the reviewer who criticized Ellis for not showing a more fervently Christian side of Washington.) Through it all, I remain a staunch Washington supporter and in awe of all he was able to accomplish. His ability and willingness (and, more than once, sheer luck) to persevere despite odds stacked high against him is mind-boggling. No, he wasn't a perfect man, but he said what he meant and did what he said. Whether you agree with all his actions or not, his personal integrity is rock solid - a model that will continue to serve for future generations.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Posted Fri Jan 21 00:00:00 EST 2011

    more from this reviewer

    A superb insight into the Father of Our Country.

    Joseph Ellis wrote an excellent book that will give you a superb insight into the Father of Our Country. There can only be one man to fit those shoes and George Washington is that man. Mr. Ellis enlightens the story of Washington in an engaging, easily understanding way, that non-historians will appreciate. He doesn't get bogged down in trivial details, but gives the reader amble details to get a thorough understanding of George Washington.

    In his book you will learn a great deal about Washington; his greatness and how he had to overcome so many criticisms and failures to become the sole beacon for the fledging United States. Ellis lets you know that Washington was not perfect by any means. In fact he wasn't a great general. But, what he did have was persistence, courage and the ability to take advice from his staff of officers and even the French. Highly recommend.

    1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Anonymous

    Posted Tue Mar 25 00:00:00 EDT 2008

    An Enjoyable Read

    As much as I admire Mr. Ellis' knowledge and love hearing him speak, his writing style is not the most compelling. That said, this is a very worthwhile book and it is certainly worth anyone's time to learn more about General Washington. Buy it, read it, enjoy it, just don't expect the world.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Anonymous

    Posted Tue Aug 09 00:00:00 EDT 2005

    A Great Extened Essay, But Not a Narrative

    I recommend Ellis's book, though feel it is important to understand that this is less of an account of Washington's life and more of 1) a rexamination of other biogrophies 2) a correcting of false but popular myths 3) and an effective presentation of Ellis's own interpretation of Washington's Actions and Motives. While I enjoyed this book, and went through it rather quickly, I was disopointed in a few respects. Firstly, although I had read Ellis before (being aware of his essayist style), I was still expecting a fuller presentation of the facts of Washington's life, in the narrative style of David McCullough (An admittedly unfair expectation on my part). This is less of an Authoritative Biography in that, as a previous reviewer has indicated, it leavs out much detail and breezes through the parts of the Founder's life with which Ellis does not choose to make a point. I also was disapointed that Ellis used this biography to make comparisons to future, and even current events--drawing his own political conclusions instead of allowing the reader to make their own conclusions based on the facts in full. There is much to praise in this book, it excells in scholarship and review. It gives insightful interpretation and is well worth reading. But this is not a detailed narrative biography which covers all the events of Washington's life.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Posted Fri Sep 26 00:00:00 EDT 2014

    Reads like a textbook

    While the author has a great deal of information, it is not written smoothly. I got the impression the author had all this information he dumped on his dek, put in chronological order, then tried to figure out how to string it together.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Posted Sun Dec 15 00:00:00 EST 2013

    Enlightening

    Most everyone knows the historical George Washington but this book goes deeper. Washington though doesn't cooperate. He saw himself as a man for posterity so he and his wife took grain care to hide their real selves from the world. However, that Washington comes across as a self centered control freak is as bold as the light of day. He calculated and made moves throughout his life to enhance his stature and create a demi deity persona. Yet even he was not immune to the poison pens of the day. Washington saw himself first as a military hero, a Virginian of the planter class and a political leader last. His foresight and strength as a political leader helped hold the country together during the transition from the Articles of Confederation to the US Constitution. He saw first hand that a weak federal government was unworkable. Those who supported it wanted all the benefits yet didn't share in the support. His continental army was ill fed, ill equipped and mostly unpaid because the states failed to do their part. Only unification through a strong Federal government could keep out European powers from playing the divide and conquer game. Also, of interest to me was his foresight in the future of American lay not in the 13 colonies but in westward expansion.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Anonymous

    Posted Wed Oct 16 00:00:00 EDT 2013

    Not Ellis's best, but still a strong biography. The book convey

    Not Ellis's best, but still a strong biography. The book conveys numerous aspects of our first president, but he still comes off as a bit stiff.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Posted Fri Sep 13 00:00:00 EDT 2013

    Things I didn't know about George Washington

    A very enlightening read to say the least. Ellis' approach to writing is excellent as he sets out at the beginning what he hopes to accomplish in the book. He also researched the book and lets the reader know what is fact and what is supposition. This is the first Ellis book that I've read as I've relied on other notable historians to fill me in on the history of our country, but it will not be my last as he scribes an easily readable look at history.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Posted Thu Aug 22 00:00:00 EDT 2013

    I Also Recommend:

    Revolutionary Summer: The Birth of American Independence
    American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson

    Excellent overview of our first president!

    Dr. Ellis is one of the best historians I have read. He combines factual and anecdotal information to present the life of General Washington in a clear, succinct and entertaining way. I have read most of his books and have thoroughly enjoyed every one. This book is a "must read" for both the history novice as well the devout scholar.

    0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Anonymous

    Posted Sat Nov 03 00:00:00 EDT 2012

    What a intresting man :abraham lincoln!

    If you was abraham lincoln you would be 3things like:intrested,smart,and defently proud. Like in1763 he went to a mind and found gold in the mind then his friends help him carry the gold back home but some thiefs took it and they threw the pacth of gold into the river. So when he went back home for dinner her wife was sad people took all the heavy gold because that family was poor and they had to work for money and all they get is $1 a day and that's is half of what I lean in the story

    0 out of 6 people found this review helpful.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Posted Sun Aug 14 00:00:00 EDT 2011

    His Excellency is the Man!!

    A fantastic example of what we should all aspire to be like.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Posted Sat Jun 04 00:00:00 EDT 2011

    Best of Ellis' works

    Although pretty much anything this US Historian writes is gold, this work of our greatest President is a great read. Without the need to write 1000 page works of history, Ellis again proves why he is Gordon Wood are the best at what they do.

    0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Posted Sat Sep 25 00:00:00 EDT 2010

    Awesome

    Joseph J. Ellis presents the "foundingest father of them all" in a way that we can understand and almost relate to him .
    Instead of holding Washington to the litmus tests of todays political correctness Ellis shows a man living in his time who rose to the occaion and helped forge the most unique republic in history.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Anonymous

    Posted Wed Dec 21 00:00:00 EST 2005

    Acutally a page turner

    I bought this book along with a history of the American Revolution, thinking I would dip into this one while reading the battle history. But in the end I did the reverse. This book is such good reading I couldn't put it down, it almost reads like a novel. I do agree with one reviewer that this book is a bit short on details - especially the great military moments like the crossing of the Delaware, or Valley Forge, etc. But what more than makes up for it are the insights into Washington's inner life. This all the more precious because Washington was notoriously guarded, and clues are hard to obtain from the archives. Another great merit of this book is that it is free of the sanctimonious and derogatory tone that comes from so much academic work these days. This book has the legitimacy and polish of good scholarship without the cruelty of it.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.
See All Sort by: Showing 1 – 20 of 101 Customer Reviews
If you find inappropriate content, please report it to Barnes & Noble
Why is this product inappropriate?
Comments (optional)