One of my favorite biographies of all time is Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow. He is an amazing biographer and I love the way he composes his thoughts. It seemed to me that I was reading Prose rather than just plain history.
As anyone who knows me can attest, my favorite subject of history is George Washington. I love and revere this man so much. I an a bit defensive when I hear criticism of him in fact.
One more preliminary point..
I made a promise to myself that I would not not buy another book from Costco until I had read more of the ones I already have.
So much to my surprise when shopping there yesterday, I saw a brand new book, over 800 pages long written by one of my favorite biographers on my favorite subject. The binding is wonderful and it was just calling me, "Buy me! One more book will not hurt. You are going on a long trip next week. I will be your companion!" It all made sense to me.
Then I opened the jacket and began to read about this volume. I was disturbed at what I read. It seems to be a psycho-biography where a person comes along many years later and peels back the cranium to seen what was going in there... (ala Fawn Brody and her biography of Joseph Smith - "No Man Knows My History")
I think I want to be open to all information but prefer to read biographies written by fans of the subject matter, not just critics. If you want to read a well-written biography of Washington, Joseph Ellis's "His Excellency" will fill the bill.
So what to do?
I decided to download the audiobook and give that a try. The reader is Scott Brick, the same narrator that did Alexander Hamilton. He has a terrific voice.
Stay tuned. Maybe after over 40 hours of listening, I can come back and recommend or not recommend this book.
2 comments:
My ethics teacher and I have recently held some heated debates about Washington. I've done some research to disprove some of her "facts" or at least prove they are in contention by scholars. I'm a fan of Washington and want to learn more. I'll read "His Exellency" now that you've recommended it and I'm interested to find out what you think of this one as well.
Well, I am 80% done with the audio book and did go out and buy the hardback version as well.
Washington is not a perfect individual. But he approaches perfection more closely than nearly any other man.
And to think what our country would look without this singular, indispensable man is impossible for me.
The book does him credit. Does it point out flaws? Yes. But like all of my favorite biographers, Chernow loves his subject and uses superlatives to try to capture this man. First in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his country. Amen and Amen!
I did post a review on Amazon if anyone is interested in reading it.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A2P01BO1YOQ3GC/ref=cm_cr_pr_auth_rev?ie=UTF8&sort_by=MostRecentReview
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