The Unexpected George Washington: His Private Life Hardcover - 2006

From the rear cover

Here, at last, is an engaging close-up look at the private George Washington. Acclaimed as "America's most readable historian," Harlow Giles Unger reveals the humor, warmth, and genius of the intensely human man behind the stern presidential portraits and the stone face at Mount Rushmore. Washington was a passionate man who laughed, loved, and lived life to the full; he adored women, children, plants and flowers, hunting, gambling, fine wines, and luxuries of every kind. A dashing giant of a man, he was the greatest horseman of his day, yet his social graces left ladies swooning as he spun them around the ballroom--and his funny tales left children convulsing with giggles as he bounced them gently on his knee.

More than Franklin, more than Jefferson, Washington was a genius--a scientist, inventor, architect, scholar, and entrepreneur. His brilliant intellect and ingenuity pioneered advances in agriculture, botany, animal husbandry, architecture, and mechanics that revolutionized American farming for the next century--and left us the uniquely American architectural masterpiece that stands at Mount Vernon.

Left fatherless at eleven, Washington instinctively reached out to children in the same strait, befriending, harboring, often raising as his own the nieces, nephews, and children of relatives or friends, including his wife Martha's two children by her first husband and two of her grandchildren. Even in war, he nurtured the young, encouraging and training junior officers for leadership--and all but adopting the young Marquis de Lafayette as "my own son."

Drawing on private letters, diaries, and neglected primary sources, Unger introduces the Father of Our Country as a glorious, thoroughly human person few Americans know existed: a man who bellowed at the misbehavior of his spoiled grandson, but shed uncontrollable tears at the death of Martha's two children--and embraced Lafayette's sixteen-year-old son as his own when the boy fled bloodthirsty French revolutionaries to seek safe haven at Mount Vernon.

The Unexpected George Washington is also a thrilling love story--a deep, lifelong romance marked by tragedy and danger, but filled with boundless happiness and mutual understanding. Martha shared George's love of dancing, theater, concerts, expensive clothes, fine furnishings, and lavish dinners--and she put up with his passions for drink, cards, horse racing, hunting, and bawdy jokes. Both reveled in the society of relatives, friends, and small children, and Martha filled their mansion with all three. Generous, hospitable, concerned for others, Washington left all who knew or met him in awe. Then, as now, he inspired trust, loyalty, love, and reverence.

From the jacket flap

Here, at last, is an engaging close-up look at the private George Washington. Acclaimed as "America's most readable historian," Harlow Giles Unger reveals the humor, warmth, and genius of the intensely human man behind the stern presidential portraits and the stone face at Mount Rushmore. Washington was a passionate man who laughed, loved, and lived life to the full; he adored women, children, plants and flowers, hunting, gambling, fine wines, and luxuries of every kind. A dashing giant of a man, he was the greatest horseman of his day, yet his social graces left ladies swooning as he spun them around the ballroom--and his funny tales left children convulsing with giggles as he bounced them gently on his knee.

More than Franklin, more than Jefferson, Washington was a genius--a scientist, inventor, architect, scholar, and entrepreneur. His brilliant intellect and ingenuity pioneered advances in agriculture, botany, animal husbandry, architecture, and mechanics that revolutionized American farming for the next century--and left us the uniquely American architectural masterpiece that stands at Mount Vernon.

Left fatherless at eleven, Washington instinctively reached out to children in the same strait, befriending, harboring, often raising as his own the nieces, nephews, and children of relatives or friends, including his wife Martha's two children by her first husband and two of her grandchildren. Even in war, he nurtured the young, encouraging and training junior officers for leadership--and all but adopting the young Marquis de Lafayette as "my own son."

Drawing on private letters, diaries, and neglected primary sources, Unger introduces the Father of Our Country as a glorious, thoroughly human person few Americans know existed: a man who bellowed at the misbehavior of his spoiled grandson, but shed uncontrollable tears at the death of Martha's two children--and embraced Lafayette's sixteen-year-old son as his own when the boy fled bloodthirsty French revolutionaries to seek safe haven at Mount Vernon.

The Unexpected George Washington is also a thrilling love story--a deep, lifelong romance marked by tragedy and danger, but filled with boundless happiness and mutual understanding. Martha shared George's love of dancing, theater, concerts, expensive clothes, fine furnishings, and lavish dinners--and she put up with his passions for drink, cards, horse racing, hunting, and bawdy jokes. Both reveled in the society of relatives, friends, and small children, and Martha filled their mansion with all three. Generous, hospitable, concerned for others, Washington left all who knew or met him in awe. Then, as now, he inspired trust, loyalty, love, and reverence.

Media reviews

Citations

• Booklist, 09/01/2006, Page 42
• Library Journal, 09/04/2006, Page 0