The Essential George Washington

Why did Thomas Paine turn against him? Why did Elizabeth Powel call him “impudent”? What is the truth about the cherry tree story? What was his single most important quality? These and many more questions about the man called “the father of his country” are answered in this collection. The reader meets Washington’s contemporaries, followed by famous Americans from the many decades between then and now and, finally, well-known modern-day Americans. Included are Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Abigail Adams, Martha Washington, Parson Weems, Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman, Woodrow Wilson, George McGovern, Bob Dole, Eugene McCarthy, Letitia Baldrige, Newt Gingrich, Ronald Reagan–and many more. Read in small doses or straight through . . .either way, the book gives a full portrait of the man who — more than any other — made the United States of America possible.