Hands down, one of the greatest books I’ve ever read. To be fair, I’ve always been a big fan of Washington’s so I was eager to know every detail of his life from his farms to his correspondence to his teeth. At over 900 pages, Chernow’s writing may not be considered concise, but when considering he fit the long and full life of arguably the most important man in American history within so many words, it feels shorter than it is. Don’t be afraid—the only reason it took me a year to finish was because I stalled for something like six months in the middle, and read slowly. Too slowly.
With a book of this size, I know now, it’s rather important to set reading goals. I cruised through hundreds of pages at a time when I was invested, but once in awhile could barely finish a chapter (okay, fine, a single page) in a sitting. Setting a daily page goal or reserving twenty minutes in bed each or every other night just for reading makes a big impact on your progress.
I imagine it’s tough to write a biography without being biased—if you’re going to spend ten years researching and writing about someone, you must like them, and Chernow clearly does Washington. While the General was certainly an upstanding and magnanimous person, he had his flaws, and Chernow doesn’t shy away from them. As an example, although slavery wasn’t abolished for another hundred years, abolition was beginning to gather steam in the late 1700s, but Washington was not in a hurry to free any of his slaves. Chernow goes into detail about how much Washington cared for his slaves and treated many of them like family, but at the same time specifies that is no excuse for such an abhorrent practice.
However, the most common words to describe Washington are these: honest, commanding, regal, noble, heroic…all large and imposing words to describe a large and imposing man. You always hear about the way people reacted when he walked into a room—that’s one use I would find for a time machine. I imagine breathing the same air as this man would be somewhat of an out-of-body experience, especially knowing how highly regarded he's come to be hundreds of years later.
As a big fan of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton, it was familiar and exciting to me to read about all the “characters from the show” (I quote because they are real people in history), especially in the context of Washington’s life rather than Alexander Hamilton’s, which I’m now quite familiar with. Chernow provides several pages of back story for each key figure in Washington’s life—Martha, Hamilton, Lafayette, Jefferson, and more—that gives the reader a better understanding of their interactions without becoming a biography of anyone else.
Washington has always been my favorite president, and reading about him only solidified my love for the man. I’m very interested to read about the other dynamic characters in the presidential line-up, but for now, Washington is the man to beat, and will be for a long time to come.
