Volume 43, Number 4 · February 29, 1996
The Genuine Article
By Edmund S. Morgan
OTHER RECENT BOOKS ABOUT GEORGE WASHINGTON
Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington
by Richard Brookhiser
Free Press, 230 pp., $25.00
The Invention of George Washington
by Paul K. Longmore
University of California Press, 337 pp., $42.50
Cincinnatus: George Washington and the Enlightenment
by Garry Wills
Doubleday, 272 pp., (out of print)
George Washington: The Making of an American Symbol
by Barry Schwartz
Free Press, 250 pp., $24.95
It is hard for anyone who discovers George Washington not to write about him, perhaps because he is so hard to discover and such a surprise when you do. That featureless face peering harmlessly from the dollar bill and a thousand other places becomes hardly noticeable, protected like the purloined letter by its meaningless visibility. To discover him, moreover, requires persevering beyond the bare record of his achievements, for what did he actually do, when you come right down to it?
Review, 4630 words
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