The Invention of George Washington

Cover
University of Virginia Press, 1999 - 337 Seiten

BY TRACING George Washington's deliberate development from colonial planter and soldier to republican icon, Paul Longmore answers the riddle of Washington's simultaneous fame and aloofness, arriving at a portrait of Washington as a self-fashioning representative of his turbulent time. As a young Virginia planter, Washington aspired to virtues associated with the colonial gentry, but as the British system of patronage threatened his own ambitions, he adopted the radical Whig patriotism that would lead him to take up arms. As a national hero of the Revolutionary War, and in accepting the presidency, Washington defended civilian control of the military and other ideals of republican government because his own image was inextricably tied to their success. The Invention of George Washington, first published in hardcover in 1988, explores the character of our first president in modern terms, but as Longmore shows, Washington's assiduous cultivation of his own public image does not ultimately diminish his extraordinary achievements as general and statesman.

Im Buch

Inhalt

The Country of His Fathers
1
Honour and Glory
17
The chief part of my happiness
25
The service done merits reward
34
Be distinguished from the common run
46
I deal little in Politics
56
A free mind
68
Some thing shoud be done
86
To excite others by our Example
137
Can a virtuous Man hesitate in his choice?
147
Partiallity assisted by a political motive
160
Something charming in the conduct of Washington
171
God Save Great Washington God Damn the King
184
The hearts of his countrymen
202
The foundations of useful knowledge
213
Abbreviations
227

A rising Empire
101
Is anything to be expected from petitioning?
111
There is no relief but in their distress
123
Selected Bibliography
305
Acknowledgments
319
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Autoren-Profil (1999)

Paul K. Longmore is Professor of History at San Francisco State University.

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