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Washington

A Life

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Washington

By: Ron Chernow
Narrated by: Scott Brick
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Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and a New York Times Bestseller, a landmark biography of George Washington.

In Washington: A Life celebrated biographer Ron Chernow provides a richly nuanced portrait of the father of our nation. With a breadth and depth matched by no other one-volume life of Washington, this crisply paced narrative carries the reader through his troubled boyhood, his precocious feats in the French and Indian War, his creation of Mount Vernon, his heroic exploits with the Continental Army, his presiding over the Constitutional Convention, and his magnificent performance as America's first president.

Despite the reverence his name inspires, Washington remains a lifeless waxwork for many Americans, worthy but dull. A laconic man of granite self-control, he often arouses more respect than affection. In this groundbreaking work, based on massive research, Chernow dashes forever the stereotype of a stolid, unemotional man. A strapping six feet, Washington was a celebrated horseman, elegant dancer, and tireless hunter, with a fiercely guarded emotional life. Chernow brings to vivid life a dashing, passionate man of fiery opinions and many moods. Probing his private life, he explores his fraught relationship with his crusty mother, his youthful infatuation with the married Sally Fairfax, and his often conflicted feelings toward his adopted children and grandchildren. He also provides a lavishly detailed portrait of his marriage to Martha and his complex behavior as a slave master.

At the same time, Washington is an astute and surprising portrait of a canny political genius who knew how to inspire people. Not only did Washington gather around himself the foremost figures of the age, including James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson, but he also brilliantly orchestrated their actions to shape the new federal government, define the separation of powers, and establish the office of the presidency.

In this unique biography, Ron Chernow takes us on a page-turning journey through all the formative events of America's founding. With a dramatic sweep worthy of its giant subject, Washington is a magisterial work from one of our most elegant storytellers.

Ron Chernow's new biography, Grant, will be published by Penguin Press in October 2017.

Accolades & Awards

Pulitzer Prize
2011
Americas Biographies & Memoirs Historical Politicians Politics & Activism Presidents & Heads of State Pulitzer Prize Revolution & Founding United States Biography War of 1812 Funny Witty Inspiring Suspenseful War Boston
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Critic reviews

“Truly magnificent… [a] well-researched, well-written and absolutely definitive biography” –Andrew Roberts, The Wall Street Journal

“Superb… the best, most comprehensive, and most balanced single-volume biography of Washington ever written. [Chernow’s] understanding of human nature is extraordinary and that is what makes his biography so powerful.” –Gordon S. Wood, The New York Review of Books

“Chernow displays a breadth of knowledge about Washington that is nothing short of phenomenal… never before has Washington been rendered so tangibly in such a smart, tenaciously researched volume as Chernow's opus… a riveting read...” –Douglas Brinkley, The Los Angeles Times

“Until recently, I’d never believed that there could be such a thing as a truly gripping biography of George Washington…Well, I was wrong. Ron Chernow’s huge (900 pages) Washington: A Life, which I’ve just finished, does all that and more. I can’t recommend it highly enough—as history, as epic, and, not least, as entertainment. It’s as luxuriantly pleasurable as one of those great big sprawling, sweeping Victorian novels.” –Hendrik Hertzberg, The New Yorker

“[Ron Chernow] has done justice to the solid flesh, the human frailty and the dental miseries of his subject—and also to his immense historical importance… This is a magnificently fair, full-scale biography.” –The Economist
Comprehensive Biography • Humanized Portrayal • Excellent Narration • Rich Historical Detail • Pleasant Voice

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Let me first get this comment out of the way: For me at least, and I suspect most others, the narrator can make or break the listening experience. Indeed they can utterly ruin it, as I am now experiencing with another title that I am absolutely cringing through. That said, Scott Brick is my favorite, hands down. He has a pleasant voice and while he uses little emotion in it (as it should be), you get the feeling that he is enjoying the story as much as you are. My first experience with him was with "Sinatra," and now that I've spent this 20+ hours with him, I'm still impressed.

Now on to this excellent book:

General Washington was THE man. It has occurred to me that, all things considered, he may well have been not human in the sense that most of us are. When we consider how close we came to not having a nation at all, and the number of times even Washington considered the turning of events as divine intervention, well, we should all count ourselves very, very fortunate.

Washington: A Life in and of itself is superbly researched and written. The General's blind and often self-serving acceptance of slavery and his thirst of land ownership by sometimes questionable means are not overlooked or glossed over, nor is he maligned for them. It simply presented the facts and let the listener draw their own conclusions from them. In the end, it is the story of a fabulous man. What a life.

Seldom, if ever, have I enjoyed a listening experience more. Well worth the cost -- I know I'll go back to it again and again.

A sad day when my book was done!

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At first, I was concerned that a book of such great length would too quickly loose my attention. I was surprised how interesting the book remained throughout the many chapters. Washington was such an interesting person. The author takes us through his life, exploring both his many accomplishments and the man himself. I have to admit that after listening to this book, my admiration for our first president grew quite a bit. The narrator has a clear and pleasant voice. I highly recommend this book.

Great book!

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Washington: A Life, By Ron Chernow. This is a complete, and I do mean comprehensive retelling of George Washington’s life. No iota of detail is ignored. Yet, while wide-ranging minutia does not necessarily mean a great biography, this prodigious work is enlightening and a magnificent read or listen. This story was brilliantly told, read and kept one’s interest for the astounding length of 41+ hours.

We have here a key to understanding Washington the man: his frailties and perfections, and how they made him the right man for the thirteen colonies, the presidency and perhaps the singular reason the United States was able to continue notwithstanding its embryonic troubles.

The book takes us through Washington’s youth, his days in the wilderness, his adoration of women, his desire for acceptance into the gentry, his ability (or inability) as a general, his mystic status with the colonists, his all-important presence as our first president, his disputes with Jefferson, Madison and Monroe, and his friendship and the importance of Hamilton. No matter what Washington’s personal needs were he always considered the need of the nation first.

Surprisingly, he was not such a successful General and if it were not for the French, managing on his behalf we may not have prevailed in the Revolutionary War. Further, although he knew the atrocity of slavery, he never had the courage to undo it but always let that tragedy lay for some later resolution. He was insightful as a businessman/farmer but because of his outsized dedication to our Union first, he was a failure in his management of Mount Vernon. We also see him as a fierce tyrant as an officer. Was that a virtue or a failing?

Most interesting we learn he had little compassion for individuals but broad humanitarianism for the whole. He was limited with an understanding of democracy but knew to rely on Jefferson for theory and Hamilton for implementation. This is a read worth the undertaking.

Most of all, and notwithstanding his deficiencies, we are who we are today because of his strengths.

A Listen Worth the Undertaking

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An excellent account of Washington as a complete person covering all aspects of his life and affairs, public and private. It is a great lesson in leadership and character on one of the greatest people in western history. I too was sad when I was done and look forward to reading more by Chernow.

Excellent

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Ron Chernow is a respected biographer. He has written biographies of J.P. Morgan, The Warburgs, John D. Rockefeller, Alexander Hamilton, and now ???Washington: A Life???, a 2011 Pulitzer Prize winner for biography.

Chernow provides fascinating glimpses of George Washington, the surveyor, the slave holder, the Virginia Scion, the first President of the United States. Information about America???s great revolution is worth a near 42 hour listen. Like Schiff???s biography of ???Cleopatra???, a reader/listener does learn a great deal about documented facts of a great historical figure. But Washington, like Cleopatra to this reviewer, remains a mystery.

BIOGRAPHIC MYSTERY

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