“Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington”, by Richard Brookhiser

230 pages, Free Press, ISBN13: 978-0684822914

Richard Brookhiser, news-magazine editor, columnist, and author, realizes the emotional disconnect between modern Americans and George Washington. While other presidents (Jefferson, the Roosevelts, Lincoln) are more respected because of their emotional condor, George Washington is often thought of as a stone-faced enigma. His resume wouldn't indicate as much: he started the battle that started the French and Indian War; he was a wealthy Virginia farmer; served in the Virginia House of Burgess; he served as the head of the Continental Army; he served as the chairman of the Constitutional Convention; and he served as the first President of the United States. His personal gravitas caused even the greatest men of the Americas (Jefferson, Adams, Hamilton, Franklin) to stand in awe of him; one speech, powerfully delivered, turned soldiers from a desire to revolt to a desire to see their government succeed; even his enemies in foreign nations (Britain and France) marveled at the man. So, how could modern Americans be so disconnected from George Washington? Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington is a “moral biography, in the tradition of Plutarch”; that is to say, it does not so much examine the life of the subject (what he did), but the mental and emotional makeup of the subject (why he did it). He continues that “a moral biography has two purposes: to explain its subject, and to shape the hearts and minds of those who read it.” So Brookhiser’s lofty goal is to make you a better person by holding up Washington for your examination.

The first (and lengthiest) part of Founding Father is a sketch of Washington’s career. He shows what Washington did during the Revolutionary War, during the Constitutional Convention, and during his Presidency. During this time, the events are given brief, thumbnail treatments, and Washington's motivations are emphasized. The second part examines Washington’s personal character through analyzing his nature, his morals, and the ideas he entertained. The final part examines Washington in the light of fatherhood. How did the fact that he was childless influence him? How did the early death of his father influence him? How did the popular concept that a monarch is father of his country influence Washington? What is the relationship between Washington's morality and the fact that he owned slaves? The overall answer to why Washington is such an enigma to modern Americans (advanced by Brookhiser) is that he was a man of great passion who was prone to lash out in anger, and spent a lifetime counteracting that tendency through emotional distancing (holding his cards close" choosing his words carefully, and being deliberately slow in committing himself). Thus, Washington's constant (and successful) struggle to restrain his passions, his continuous efforts to improve himself (body, mind, and soul), and his genuine love for others makes him an inspirational figure the reader is moved to emulate.

Brookhiser has achieved his unique objectives in a unique way. Although modern readers may be unfamiliar with Roman figures (who were pop culture to the Founders), the way slavery suffocated the souls of both slaves and owners, and the details of 18^th Century warfare, Brookhiser does an outstanding job in explaining these foreign concepts in such a way as to make them understandable to the modern reader. Indeed, he does the same for Washington. While Brookhiser’s prose is a joy to read – high-minded yet accessible and witty – he does tend to contrast 18^th Century with 20^th Century culture in such a way as to distract. He takes subtle digs as President Clinton, expresses confusion at Newt Gingrich, and crudely comments on the fact that science has made intercourse unnecessary for procreation. Further, Brookhiser’s endnotes are sporadic, direct quotes are not properly cited, and other interesting facts are not referenced. The editor would do well to provide better footnotes (not endnotes) in future editions.

In all, this book comes highly recommended. The cultural distance between the late 1700s and early 2000s and the emotional distance Washington established make him an inaccessible man, but Brookhiser accomplishes his goal of making Washington both understandable and inspiring.

“The Lives of the Kings & Queens of France”, by Rene de La Croix, duc de Castries

272 pages, Alfred A. Knopf, ISBN-13: 978-0394507347

I have a few books about the kings and queens of Britain which I've really enjoyed so I thought I'd learn a little about the French kings and queens. The Lives of the Kings & Queens of France has a lot of information, but is a bit dry, concerning itself with a ritual recitation of facts as opposed to the occurrences of personality dynamics, and how they can affect history. it works best as a refresher in French history rather than for the novice. With that said, this book is informative, enlightening, and serves as an excellent companion to the lives of the monarchs of France; keep it close at hand when reading the history of Ancien Régime France. It is full of information that sheds a lot of information on a period where the actions of Kings and Queens formed what we now call France with a great guide that contains biological information along with accomplishments and the monarch's influence on the Kingdom. This is a very worthwhile resource to have on hand. It covers the rulers in enough detail, without being too shallow, but without overwhelming the reader.

“Memoirs of General William T. Sherman”, by William Tecumseh Sherman

832 pages, Da Capo Press, ISBN13: 978-0306802133

There’s the example of Julius Caesar, of course; and in America there was Ulysses Grant, whose orders and dispatches were so concise and unequivocal that they were credited by his subordinates for many of his victories. Grant’s Memoirs are widely recognized as a classic of autobiography, as much for their literary merit as for their content. And then there is “Cump” Sherman, whose Memoirs must surely rate as high as either of the preceding two. Utterly unadorned yet vividly descriptive, witty(!), forthright, modest, down-to-earth, as thoroughly planned as any of his campaigns, which I find may be explained in part by his frequent assignment of logistic tasks in his early military career. He knew how to move supplies and keep account of where things were.

Like any 19^th Century memoirist or Viking skald, Sherman feels obliged to trace his ancestry for a few pages, which I confess didn't immediately stir my interest. Then, however, when he begins his narrative of his military service in Florida, against the Seminoles, suddenly the saga comes to life. I learned more from this one chapter, as a primary source, about the early Americanization of Florida than from anything I've read elsewhere. I could feel the rash from the palmetto on my skin. Likewise, the two chapters on his years in California just after the invasion of Mexico, took me to Monterey, to Yerba Buena before it became San Francisco, and up the river to Sutter's Mill and the Gold Rush Country more vividly, more "virtually" in the game-boy sense of the word, than any historian's account of those years. Sherman was, in his blunt style, as fine a writer as Twain. No wonder he was so effective as a general: good writers (evidently) make good generals.

It's worth noting that Sherman was only slightly more successful during the 1850’s than Grant. Despite his intrepid energy, probity, and obvious business skills, he found himself in 1858 with no significant wealth, no stable occupation, and a family of a wife and four daughters. Perhaps it wasn't so easy, after all, for a person without deep pockets to achieve success in antebellum America, except by luck, dishonesty, or slavery. Sherman's last job before the election of Lincoln was as the superintendent of a "military seminary," that is, a school for the sons of planters, in Louisiana. Knowing that his moderate criticisms of the slave system would get him fired anyway, Sherman resigned as soon as Lincoln was elected. No one around him in Louisiana expressed any doubt that the preservation of slavery was the "fighting issue" behind secession.

As Sherman left his youth behind and entered the fray of the Civil War, he shifts his tone from that of an adventurous raconteur to an earnest historian, and I've found that I need to read him differently also, less for pleasure than for historical knowledge. I've slowed down and taken time to evaluate his reportage in comparison to what I already “know” of Civil War historiography. Sherman's manner of constructing his narrative also changed; he began to incorporate documents (his field reports and letters, the field reports of other officers, etc.). By the mid 1870’s when Sherman wrote these memoirs, the true course of events and the soundest interpretation of them were already afire with controversy.

Sherman the man (and his memoirs) stands in vivid contrast to his contemporary and close friend U.S. Grant. Where Grant was modest and reserved, Sherman comes across as all nervous energy, talking up a storm and hardly able to sit still doing it. His memoirs are reflective of his personality, passionate and argumentative in between inserted copies of key correspondence. While less polished than Grant's, they are in many ways more entertaining and certainly more revealing of Sherman's feelings and personality. And he expresses an opinion on practically everything: his battles with newspaper reporters (whom he despised) date from an alleged nervous breakdown in the first year of the war; his exchange of correspondence with Confederate General John Bell Hood over the forced evacuation of Atlanta are a maelstrom in miniature of the passions behind the war itself. Sherman is more than frank about the politics within the Union Army, and its sometimes troubled relations with civilian authority. Above all, Sherman recognized the cruelty of the war, and was unwilling to sugarcoat that reality for anyone. Sherman and Grant each understood the grim arithmetic that the Confederate Armies must be bled to death in order for the Confederacy to be defeated and were prepared to carry out that strategy.

This book is highly recommended to students of the Civil War, who will find Sherman to be an instructive and even at times entertaining guide through those portions that he personally experienced.