San Antonio College Library

A "distillation" of the author's four volume work on the life of the first president of the United States.

A biography of the surveyor, militia major, and aide to the British General Braddock who became leader of the American forces during the Revolution and first President of the new nation.

Washington's own accounts, observations by his contemporaries, narratives by the first generation of Washington biographers, decorative objects, and visual images, which were assembled for a major exhibition sponsored by the Virginia Historical Society, the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association, and Washington and Lee University, invite a fresh evaluation of Washington. William M.S. Rasmussen and Robert S. Tilton trace the ways in which Washington's origins...

Drawing from the newly catalogued Washington papers at the University of Virginia, the author paints a full portrait of Washington's life and career in the context of eighteenth-century America, richly detailing his private life and illustrating the ways in which it influenced his public persona. When Washington died in 1799, Ellis tells us, he was eulogized as "first in the hearts of his countrymen." Since then, however, his image has been chiseled...

George Washington, says Barry Schwartz, was "neither brilliant nor self-confident, and his experience (which did not include leadership of large armies) was not precisely suited to the needs of his time... other leaders of the Revolution were at least as well endowed with talent and charm as he." Yet before a single shot was fired under Washington's command, America had begun to transform the man into a unifying, larger-than-life legend. How can this...