Started: 4/28/2020
Completed: 4/30/2020
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: New York Times?
Review:
This is a quick biography which does some gap filling for other biographies. Mostly, it focuses on Washington's relationship with slaves. His expressed desire to free them and his actual actions which did not (until after both his and Martha's deaths, which left Martha worried for her life in the presence of slaves whose freedom only awaited her demise after Washington's death). It is good at identifying some of the other issues in other biographies (particularly an obsession with Washington's thighs and generally his Adonis-like proportions). This biography does not spend a lot of time talking about battles nor does it address the intricacies of his presidential policies, but Coe does spend a good deal of time talking about how his contemporaries saw him. I think that is refreshing.
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