• Address: Chantilly, VA 20153 (map)
• Date Posted: 11/04/09

George Washington by John R. Alden (copyright 1984). This edition (copyright 1993) is part of The Library of Great Lives series from Easton Press. This book, which is no longer available from the publisher, is in near mint condition.
Easton Press volumes are among the most beautiful and durable books available today. Each volume is bound in genuine leather with a hubbed spine and accented with 22-karat gold, and printed on acid-neutral paper. The Smyth-sewn pages have gilded edges and are complemented by a sewn-in satin ribbon page marker and distinctive endleaves.
When first published in 1984, this book was boldly labeled the “best single-volume biography of Washington ever written” by Library Journal. Alden is “judicious in his judgment, balanced in his presentation, and always interesting in his portrayal.”
Kirkus Reviews calls this “a biography that has a lot in common with its subject – great authority, appealing restraint, unswerving moderation, and an utter lack of depth. Duke historian Alden has a dozen-odd books on the Revolutionary period to his credit, and this is surely one of his best. There is a nice balance of public and private, of personal and circumstantial. The first third of Alden’s 300 pages cover Washington’s Virginia childhood, his ill-managed campaign for a commission in the British army, and his gradual achievement of respectability and prosperity as a land-speculating tobacco planter. The middle third, beginning with his appointment as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army at the age of 43, follows Washington through the eight years of military campaigns and political intrigues that transformed him into a genuine national hero. The final third of Alden’s book takes Washington from the end of the war in 1783 to his death in 1799 – 16 difficult years, in which the aging general was drawn out of retirement, thrust into the Presidency, and worn down by the sectarian squabbling that plagued the new republic.
“If no surprises emerge from any of this…Alden does make a convincing case for Washington’s greatness.”
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