Washington, Ron Chernow
Washington, Ron Chernow
97 Rating(s)
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Washington
A Life (Pulitzer Prize Winner)

Author: Ron Chernow

Narrator: Edward Herrmann

Abridged: 14 hr 19 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Published: 10/05/2010


Synopsis

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. 


About The Author

Ron Chernow’s bestselling books include The House of Morgan, winner of the National Book Award; The Warburgs, which won the George S. Eccles Prize; The Death of the BankerTitan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award; Washington: A Life, which received the Pulitzer Prize for Biography; and Alexander Hamilton, nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award and adapted into the award-winning Broadway musical Hamilton. Chernow has served as president of PEN American Center, has received six honorary doctoral degrees, and was awarded the 2015 National Humanities Medal. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.Edward Herrmann was an Emmy Award–winning and Tony Award–winning actor. His theater credits include The Philadelphia Story and Love Letters. His film and television credits include Intolerable CrueltyThe AviatorGilmore Girls, and The Practice. He passed away in December 2014.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Tim on July 10, 2023

Ron Chernow does a great job uncovering the man from the legend. I now have a firmer understanding of what is accomplishments were, as well as his failures. Chernow also paints a vivid picture of what he was like as a person and what drove him, which was especially challenging given Washington’s qui......more

Goodreads review by Paul on July 17, 2021

This was a vast life and this is a vast book. You get to feel that every dinner GW ate is itemised and every outfit he ever wore is lovingly described. There are long stretches of GW’s life during which he was a middling-prosperous gentleman farmer. These months and years get just as much attention......more

Goodreads review by ShirleyS on December 03, 2018

In early 2017, in an effort to numb myself to the clown show, I began a quest to read a biography of each President .... in order, one through 44. I wanted to immerse myself in Presidential history by selecting a good, well reviewed biography on each one. So, after extensive research I selected this......more

Goodreads review by Anthony on February 10, 2025

First of His Name. Ron Chernow has established himself as one of the great modern historians. His books are well written, full of remarkable detail and stray away from irrational opinions. Chernow is best known for his biography on Alexander Hamilton and has taken a similarly comprehensive approach t......more


Quotes

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


Awards

  • New York Historical Society American History Book Prize
  • Pulitzer Prize (Biography)