Why read Inventing George Washington?

Book cover of Inventing George Washington: America's Founder, in Myth and Memory

Book description

“Lengel’s Washington is the archetypal American soldier—an amateur citizen in arms who struggles to learn an unfamiliar and demanding craft on the job....Outstanding.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) on The Glorious Struggle

Editor-in-Chief of the Washington Papers Project Edward G. Lengel delivers an entertaining and erudite history of America's Founding Father.…

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American history

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Why read it?

1 author picked Inventing George Washington as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Don Glickstein

Author

If there’s a common trait of Republican and Democratic politicians, it’s that George Washington is always fair game to hijack. We’re told that Washington was devoutly religious or that he was a deist; that he was a true democrat or a slave-holding aristocrat; that he single-handedly smote the British; that he believed in states’ rights or supported a strong federal government. Washington is anything you want him to be. Lengel, who helped edit the Washington papers, begs to differ. His short book tackles many of the Washington myths with an easy writing style for general readers and endnotes for those…

From Don's list on political biographies that are well written.