Volume 31, Number 15 · October 11, 1984
Gorgeous George
By Marcus Cunliffe
George Washington: A Biography
by John R. Alden
Louisiana State University Press, 326 pp., $19.95
Cincinnatus: George Washington and the Enlightenment
by Garry Wills
Doubleday, 272 pp., $18.95
Two more books about George Washington. Two more books? It is tempting to argue that the Washington theme is exhausted. Indeed, even his more candid or cranky contemporaries suggested as much. In a truculent 'Open Letter' of 1796, Tom Paine had denounced the President as a cold, hypocritical figure, extolled far beyond his merits. And shortly after Washington's death at the end of 1799, the young editor-novelist Charles Brockden Brown parodied the current mass of funeral tributes in an anonymous article. Washington orators must obviously, he said, summon up 'all the sages, and soldiers, and statesmen of history.' Fabius, Newton, Hannibal, Socrates, Cincinnatus, Cicero must be assembled to 'cast their garlands at the feet' of Washington's statue, and acknowledge his primacy.
Review, 3513 words
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