Six on George Washington: Renowned presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin finally takes on George Washington; The First Presidential Pardon Pitted Alexander Hamilton Against George Washington; In Search of the Slave Who Defied George Washington;
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“Resilience and humility and empathy” were trademarks of Washington’s character, according to Goodwin. She was particularly drawn to the foresight of his farewell address in 1796 and his warnings about what she described as “the baneful effects of party spirit, of the spirit of revenge, of sectionalism, and the worry that if we endure such things it could lead to foreign influence and corruption” that would threaten the fragile experiment that was American democracy.
“You think about the partisan divide in the country and the fact that it seems at its worst edge now, but it was troubling in that second term of George Washington,” Goodwin said. The partisan newspapers were developing. It was the beginning of the big divide that still is there today. And yet somehow we managed to get through that.”
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Judge’s story, Ms. Dunbar said, explodes any notion of “privileged” house slaves, or of the benevolence of the Washingtons, whose far from passive role in perpetuating slavery — and in doling out sometimes brutal punishment to the rebellious — is described in detail.
Ms. Dunbar describes how the Washingtons quietly maneuvered around Pennsylvania’s 1780 gradual abolition law, rotating their slaves in and out of the state every six months. And she recounts their shock at the “ingratitude” of Judge, who fled “without any provocation,” the president wrote.
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"Even if you missed the colorful cover, you would know Alexis Coe’s “You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington” was different right from the preface, where she dryly takes on the hundreds of men who have written Washington biographies before she did. They seem a bit obsessed with his physical prowess, she writes, particularly, and disconcertingly, with his powerful thighs. She dubs these biographers the “Thigh Men of Dad History.”
Coe is only the third woman to write a complete Washington biography, and the first to do so in at least 40 years. And, she claims, the male gaze of other biographers has distorted our impressions of the first president into something that is both less accurate and less interesting.
“He’s recognizable by everyone, but what do you actually know about him?” she said in an interview with The Washington Post."
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