George Washington

Description

George Washington is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by William Roscoe Thayer is in the English language. If you enjoy the works of William Roscoe Thayer then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection.

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Customer Reviews

Good and informative read!
This is a very good read, informative and in-depth. Good start for info and research on the "Great One!"

2010-08-14 | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 4

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G. Washington bio.
Interesting if you're really into learning more about George Washington. It is, however, a difficult and slow read due to the language used in quotes by Washington and others of the 18th century but also by the author himself.

2010-06-28 | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 3

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short in depth biography
This volume gives a short factual bio of the great man. The author dispels some of the myths of the generals childhood and paints a picture of a man who was greater than life. Published in 1922 the book is somewhat dated in language but I believe that the story is told better than it would be by modern revisionist historians.

2010-03-28 | Helpful Votes: 18 | Rating: 4

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George Washington's Sacred Fire

Description

What sets "George Washington's Sacred Fire" apart from all previous works on this man for the ages, is the exhaustive fifteen years of Dr. Peter Lillback's research, revealing a unique icon driven by the highest of ideals. Only do George Washington's own writings, journals, letters, manuscripts, and those of his closest family and confidants reveal the truth of this awe-inspiring role model for all generations. Dr. Lillback paints a picture of a man, who, faced with unprecedented challenges and circumstances, ultimately drew upon his persistent qualities of character - honesty, justice, equity, perseverence, piety, forgiveness, humility, and servant leadership, to become one of the most revered figures in world history. George Washington set the cornerstone for what would become one of the most prosperous, free nations in the history of civilization. Through this book, Dr. Lillback, assisted by Jerry Newcombe, will reveal to the reader a newly inspirational image of General and President George Washington.

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Customer Reviews

Washington : Christian or Deist
As a conservative Christian I believe this book is very well written, however in the larger scheme of things it only matters to George Washington whether or not he was a Christian. I know conservative christians have a stake in showing some of our founding fathers to be Christian but when you get down to it George needs Jesus far more than Jesus needs George.

2010-08-29 | RMJ (United States) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Biography of a hero, George Washington
Sacred Fire was very well researched and documented and also has a very readable quality. I had a hard time putting the book down. I thought I knew a lot about George Washington until I read this book and found out that some of what I have learned has been inaccurate.

2010-08-25 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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If Washington was religious I'm glad I'm not
I haven't read this book and don't intend to. I'd suggest, however, that everybody reads Simon Sharma's "Rough Crossings", a history of the (shameful) treatment of African Americans by both British and proto-American governments during and after the war of independence. One thing it makes clear is that Washington's principal reason for moving towards independence for America was that the British were about to abolish slavery, and as a Virginia plantation owner...

2010-08-21 | Steve George (UK) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 3

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Don't order in paperback
The contents of the book are wonderful and so informative and inspiring. However, I ordered the paperback version of this book for Father's Day along with Overton Window (in hardcover). The first time my husband started reading Sacred Fire, the pages started coming lose and falling out. The book was never handled roughly, but for whatever reason, the pages kept coming out so he eventually set it aside because it was too difficult putting pages back in place, etc. We do want to read this great book, and are hoping to get a hardback version from Amazon. We are very disappointed in the quality of this paperback.

2010-08-19 | Helpful Votes: 4 | Rating: 2

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Great book overall but.
But still as well developed and proofed ..its still irrelevant as to washingtons faith.

Washington himself often stated what he believed and also much of Jeffersons writings also state what it its...and it wasnt christianity, but neither was it deist.

Unlike Jefferson who was proven deist, Washington was a bheliever in a higher power, but it wasnt the christian view.

Note that a belief in a higher power is not soley christian btw.

I am agnostic myself, and believe in a nonbiblical possiblity of a god similar to christian but reject the bible as mostly superstition and partly inaccurate as does Jefferson.

2010-08-18 | pjc (Oklahoma) | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 2

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His Excellency: George Washington

Product Details

• ISBN13: 9781400032532
• Working order: New
• Notes: BUY WITH Assurance, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and waiting to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed

Description

National Bestseller

To this landmark biography of our first president, Joseph J. Ellis brings the exacting scholarship, shrewd analysis, and lyric prose that have made him one of the premier historians of the Revolutionary era. Training his lens on a figure who sometimes seems as remote as his effigy on Mount Rushmore, Ellis assesses George Washington as a military and political leader and a man whose “statue-like solidity” concealed volcanic energies and emotions.

 

Here is the impetuous young officer whose miraculous survival in combat half-convinced him that he could not be killed. Here is the free-spending landowner whose debts to English merchants instilled him with a prickly resentment of imperial power. We see the general who lost more battles than he won and the reluctant president who tried to float above the partisan feuding of his cabinet. His Excellency is a magnificent work, indispensable to an understanding not only of its subject but also of the nation he brought into being.

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As commander of the Continental army, George Washington united the American colonies, defeated the British army, and became the world's most famous man. But how much do Americans really know about their first president? Today, as Pulitzer Prize-winner Joseph J. Ellis says in this crackling biography, Americans see their first president on dollar bills, quarters, and Mount Rushmore, but only as "an icon--distant, cold, intimidating." In truth, Washington was a deeply emotional man, but one who prized and practiced self-control (an attribute reinforced during his years on the battlefield).

Washington first gained recognition as a 21-year-old emissary for the governor of Virginia, braving savage conditions to confront encroaching French forces. As the de facto leader of the American Revolution, he not only won the country's independence, but helped shape its political personality and "topple the monarchical and aristocratic dynasties of the Old World." When the Congress unanimously elected him president, Washington accepted reluctantly, driven by his belief that the union's very viability depended on a powerful central government. In fact, keeping the country together in the face of regional allegiances and the rise of political parties may be his greatest presidential achievement.

Based on Washington's personal letters and papers, His Excellency is smart and accessible--not to mention relatively brief, in comparison to other encyclopedic presidential tomes. Ellis's short, succinct sentences speak volumes, allowing readers to glimpse the man behind the myth. --Andy Boynton

Amazon.com Exclusive Content
Curious about George?
Amazon.com reveals a few facts about the legendary first president of the United States.

Washington bust by Jean Antoine Houdon. Courtesy of the Mt. Vernon Ladies' Assoc.

1. The famous tale about Washington chopping down the cherry tree ("Father, I cannot tell a lie") is a complete fabrication.

2. George Washington never threw a silver dollar across the Potomac River--in fact, to do so from the shore of his Mount Vernon home would have been physically impossible.

3. George Washington did not wear wooden teeth. His poorly fitting false teeth were in fact made of cow's teeth, human teeth, and elephant ivory set in a lead base.

4. Early in his life, Washington was himself a slave owner. His opinions changed after he commanded a multiracial army in the Revolutionary War. He eventually came to recognize slavery as "a massive American anomaly."

5. In 1759, having resigned as Virginia's military commander to become a planter, Washington married Martha Dandridge Custis. Washington’s marriage to the colony's wealthiest widow dramatically changed his life, catapulting him into Virginia aristocracy.

6. Scholars have discredited suggestions that Washington's marriage to Martha lacked passion, as well as the provocative implications of the well-worn phrase "George Washington slept here."

7. Washington held his first public office when he was 17 years old, as surveyor of Culpeper County, Virginia.

8. At age 20, despite no prior military experience, Washington was appointed an adjutant in the Virginia militia, in which he oversaw several militia companies, and was assigned the rank of major.

9. As a Virginia aristocrat, Washington ordered all his coats, shirts, pants, and shoes from London. However, most likely due to the misleading instructions he gave his tailor, the suits almost never fit. Perhaps this is why he appears in an old military uniform in his 1772 portrait.

10. In 1751, during a trip to Barbados with his half-brother Lawrence, Washington was stricken with smallpox and permanently scarred. Fortunately, this early exposure made him immune to the disease that would wipe out colonial troops during the Revolutionary War.

Timeline
Important dates in George Washington's life.

Engraving of Mount Vernon, 1804. Courtesy of the Mt. Vernon Ladies' Assoc.

1732: George Washington is born at his father's estate in Westmoreland County, Virginia.

1743: George’s father, Augustine Washington, dies.

1752: At age 20, despite the fact that he has never served in the military, Washington is appointed adjutant in the Virginia militia, with the rank of major.

1753: As an emissary to Virginia Lieutenant Governor Robert Dinwiddie, he travels to the Ohio River Valley to confront French forces--the first of a series of encounters that would lead to the French and Indian War.

1755: Washington is appointed commander-in-chief of Virginia's militia.

1759: He marries wealthy widow Martha Dandridge Custis.

1774: Washington is elected to the First Continental Congress.

1775: He is unanimously elected by the Continental Congress as its army's commander-in-chief. Start of the American Revolution.

1776: On Christmas Day, Washington leads his army across the Delaware River and launches a successful attack against Hessian troops in Trenton, New Jersey.

1781: With the French, he defeats British troops in Yorktown, Virginia, precipitating the end of the war.

1783: The Revolutionary War officially ends.

1788: The Constitution is ratified.

1789: Washington is elected president.

1797: He fulfills his last term as president.

1799: Washington dies on December 14, sparking a period of national mourning.

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Customer Reviews

His Excellency George Washington
Blah,blah,blah fact after fact after fact. Slow, boring. The writer is definitely a master of the historical facts but his story telling, or lack thereof, left me wishing my book club had chosen another title.

2010-08-30 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 1

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A well balanced portrayal of Washington...
All of us grew with the myths built around our Founding Fathers, especially of George Washington. Yet who is the man and what did he believe in and stand for? Ellis does a wonderful job in not only explaining the myths but in also showing the real Washington. The real farmer, land owner, officer, rebel and, eventually, President.

I feel I've finally read a well balanced account of our first President. Ellis starts with the earliest known times of Washington, mostly about his interaction with the French and Indians that ultimately were the first shots of the French and Indian War. Throughout Ellis's bio we are shown the man as he lived and breathed, his thoughts and inclinations, his aura and power that he had over others. Although a bit short and perhaps could have been in more detail in some places, I couldn't help be fascinated with Washington the man, and not the man of myth. Ellis has done Washington justice and left us with a well balanced bio. A definite recommend.

5 stars.

2010-08-17 (San Jose, CA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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George Washington Light
When I decided to embark on a presidential biography reading journey, I decided to start with numero uno. The thing is, in less than 250 pages, you get the "George Washington for Dummies" version. It's a well written book. Mr. Ellis cannot be described as a poor author, but I wish he had written this book for the more hardcore biography and history buff. There was very little written about the relationship between President Washington and his wife, very little on the tense environment in the cabinet etc. Put it this way, I'm waiting for Chernow's Washington biography to come out in October for I feel that I cannot continue reading all the biographies without having a more solid read on George Washington. If you have never read a Washington biography, wait for Chernow's to come out. Trust me.

2010-07-25 | Ferinha (DC) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 3

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GOOD INFORMATION
Well there is definitely no doubt this book was written like a "Academic Scholar". I had to read it in stages.This book does have alot of good information and things I can see why people who think Washington was a "Saint" would not like. Oh he was the greatest President and one of the greatest patriots we ever had hands down. I would recommend this book for anyones library on Washington.

2010-07-02 (HUNTINGTON, TEXAS, US) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

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Shaping Washington the President
Insightful book regarding Washington's life experiences and how they contributed to his actions as our first President. Great read.

2010-05-21 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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George Washington's World

Description

1942 Newbery Honor Title

The period measured by the life of George Washington 1732 to 1799 was one of revolution and change in many parts of the world as Enlightenment thinking took hold in the minds of men. When George was a young man, Benjamin Franklin was the most well-known American, Louis XV was on the throne of France, and George II was king of England. Father Junipero Serra had just arrived in Mexico to work with the Panes Indians. Mozart and Bach were writing their immortal music and Voltaire warred with his pen against Ignorance, Injustice and Superstition. The young nobleman Lafayette watched the feisty American colonies with fascinated interest as they stood up to Mother England when she sought to tax them unfairly. James Cook was sent by the Royal Society of London to Tahiti where their team of astronomers might observe a total eclipse of the sun and thereby accurately measure the distance between the earth and the sun. These are just a few of the wonderful narratives explored by Foster in her Newbery Honor Book of 1940. Prolifically illustrated with intriguing line drawings and detailed timelines, Foster's telling of the life story of George Washington does justice to the man it celebrates.

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Customer Reviews

Love the book....miss the hard cover!
We fell in love with this book while reading through it as part of our history class. The library book had a hardcover and felt very substantial. While the information is the same, the paperback version isn't quite the same. Still, I would HIGHLY recommend this book....a great read!

2009-11-04 | MissyB (Minnetonka, MN) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 4

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George Washington's World
This was an informative book of the history of George Washington. My son loved seeing our first president as a rambunctious little boy like him and following along as he grew. It made learning history an absolute joy. Genevieve Foster writes to keep the interest of the child while learning is taking place and allows for the child to place himself or herself into the pages of history.

2009-07-19 | living history lover (usa) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 4

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Great way to learn history
My son is using this book as part of his 8th grade history class. It is a testiment to the writer's style that he complained that it was not fair that he was only allowed to read so much in a day. He didn't think it was fair that he should have to stop reading when it got to the "good parts". I love the fact that it puts events around the world in context. I missed that in school.

2009-03-01 (New Hampshire) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

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A Journey Into the 1700's
This book is not a biography on George Washington, but rather history told in time slices using the life of George Washington. This author is a great story teller who is easy and fun to read. The tone and feel is that of a journey through the 18th century. The people that are covered include George Washington, Daniel Boone, John Adams, John Hancock, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, Marie Antoinette, Louis XIV and XV, Napoleon, King George III and many more. There are also events such as the French Indian War, Revolutionary War, the French Revolution, and Napoleonic Wars. Important inventions such as the hot air balloon and others are also discussed. Also included are pictures and diagrams that make the book even more interesting. If you are looking for a book that opens up the world view of the 1700's then this is your book.

2009-02-05 | DarrenGJohnson (Georgia, USA) | Helpful Votes: 7 | Rating: 5

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Lots of information!
Once again, a Genevieve Foster book chock-full of information, people, and events. I love the way she gives depth to the historical facts, reminding us that many things in history tend to happen at the same time in different areas of the world. The kids tend to think the chapter sections are too long, and the book is slightly tedious as a read-aloud, but you can't beat the amount of information given.

2008-12-26 | datmama (USA) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 4

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Life of George Washington - Volume 01

Description

The book has no illustrations or index. Purchasers are entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Subjects: Presidents/ United States/ Biography; Generals/ United States/ Biography; Presidents - United States; United States - Politics and government - 1775-1783; United States - Politics and government - 1783-1809; United States - History - Revolution, 1775-1783 - Campaigns; Washington, George; Generals - United States; Presidents; Generals; United States; Biography

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