Inventing George Washington: America's Founder, in Myth and Memory

by Edward G. Lengel

Overview

“Lengel’s Washington is the archetypal American soldier—an amateur citizen in arms who struggles to learn an unfamiliar and demanding craft on the job....Outstanding.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) on The Glorious Struggle

Editor-in-Chief of the Washington Papers Project  Edward G. Lengel delivers an entertaining and erudite history of America's Founding Father. In Inventing George Washington, a captivating counterpart to Lengel’s General George Washington: A Military Life, the historian looks at Washington’s life and writings, at the creation of his mythos, and at what his legacy means for our nation and ourselves.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780061662584
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	01/18/2011
Pages:	249
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Edward G. LengeL is editor in chief of the Papers of George Washington and a professor at the University of Virginia. He is the author of several books, including General George Washington and This Glorious Struggle. A lecturer on Washington and the Revolutionary War, Lengel is also a historical consultant, advising on such works as the History Channel's own comprehensive documentary. He is a frequent radio and television guest—appearing on C-SPAN, CBS, and NPR, among others—and is a regular contributor to newspapers and magazines in the vein of military history and American heritage. He lives with his family in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Editorial Reviews

Lengel, editor in chief of the Washington Papers project and author of General George Washington: A Military Life, contributes a worthy addition to the plentiful scholarship of George Washington, if for no other reason than his naysayer approach to that very scholarship; Lengel wants to set the record straight, and he takes on the "cheats and phonies in addition to the well-meaning storytellers have capitalized on the American public's insatiable and ever-changing demand for information about" Washington. It's time to forget the cherry tree mythologies of our schoolbooks. Besides dismissing that tale (and the tellers who perpetrated it) outright, Lengel explores the surprisingly seedy underbelly of Washington biographers. For instance, one of the men who hopped on the George Washington myth-making bandwagon was no less than showman P.T. Barnum. Lengel's account of Barnum acquiring (for ) and then parading elderly African-American Joice Heth around the East Coast as "the 161-year-old slave mammy" to George Washington is equally disturbing and gripping; put on display 14 hours a day for a paying public, Heth soon died, and Barnum held a public autopsy—charging 50 cents a head. Lengel's end-of-book rant, when he tries to settle a score with filmmakers making a project for the Washington estate is a rare misstep in an otherwise fascinating, dryly humorous book. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

In this engaging examination of the many facets of George Washington's character—both real and fictional—Lengel (editor in chief, The Papers of George Washington; General George Washington) reveals as much about the American people as he does about our Founding Father. With his distinct approach here, Lengel addresses the ways in which authors, researchers, charlatans, and the general public have invented and reinvented perceptions of Washington, ever since his own lifetime, to serve their own purposes. Much of what we have heard about the man is based on legend, conjecture, and fable, such as the famous (but false) tale of the child who could not tell a lie about chopping down a cherry tree. Washington has variously been described as a cold, impersonal military strategist, a devoutly religious family man, and a flawed and reluctant leader. Lengel details how these often contradictory characterizations responded to Americans' changing needs to relate to Washington.Verdict Lengel uses meticulous research—and lively wit—to separate the myths from the reality. Along the way, he reveals our competing desires to glorify and humanize one of the most important and complex figures in our nation's history. Highly recommended.—Michele Martin, Sonoma Acad. Lib., Santa Rosa, CA

Library Journal

Not a biography but a frothy history of the many energetic, often wacky efforts to turn George Washington into a godlike national icon whose life provides lessons in moral uplift.

Few deny that Washington did not cut down the cherry tree or throw a dollar across the Potomac, but historian Lengel (This Glorious Struggle: George Washington's Revolutionary War Letters, 2008, etc.), editor in chief of the Washington Papers project, points out that a PBS documentary examined his indignant refusal to make himself king in 1783 after leading the Continental Army to victory—an event that also never happened. The author stresses that every generation invents a Washington that agrees with its beliefs. Soon after his 1799 death, writers (including Parson Weems, of cherry-tree fame) produced a classical Washington—restrained, solemn and honorable. Victorian times required a romantic figure, passionately pursuing women as he agonized over his nation's fate, regularly appealing to God for guidance. Twentieth-century materialism converted him into a cold-hearted businessman, but a resurgence of nationalistic patriotism after Ronald Reagan's election revived the old-school father figure. Good 18th-century rationalists, our founding fathers were not notably pious, Washington included. However, by the following century this became unacceptable, and Lengel devotes a fascinating section to the torrent of sermons, invented quotations, anecdotes (everyone seemed to stumble upon Washington kneeling in prayer) and even a forged prayer diary designed to illustrate his evangelical Christian fervor. That these are fiction has not discouraged today's political leaders, religious and conservative websites, TV commentators and documentaries from presenting them as truth.

Readers will chuckle at this well-presented avalanche of nonsense, but squirm to realize that our leaders, media, journalists and even historians regularly accept it.

Kirkus Reviews