Before Ron Chernow’s new multi-dimensional portrait of WASHINGTON (Penguin Press, $40), the first president’s character, as portrayed in the standard accounts, was as lifeless as that of a waxworks figure. Chernow’s wide-ranging research, including newly found diaries and letters, rescues Washington from the mausoleum where historians have heretofore placed him, and establishes his rightful place in American history as a complex man of deep emotions and strong opinions. In the French and Indian War he was an insecure young colonel, but as General Washington he went on to lead the Continental Army to victory; in his first inaugural address his voice and hand trembled, but his mastery of political skills and his growing self-assurance and self-control elevated him to a status that earned the admiration and trust of the new American nation. To Chernow, he was the greatest president in our history.
