First response: Ellis pontificates beyond my comfort level. I enjoy grand sentences, but this is way to much. His flourishing, over-bloated style does little to represent Washington (who, Ellis admits, was not a high intellectual.)

He definitely covers the highs and lows, but he offers an incredible amount of personal opinion and unsubstantiated analysis, and even second-guesses motives. I am glad to know about Washington's life, and to have insight about him, but I have enjoyed very little of this book. Unfortunately, I am reading directly after finishing John Adams and Team of Rivals, and it does not compare.

The ultimate sweetener is history. Incidents, men, women and happenings all achieve a sheen of brilliance after a few decades. When I was a kid and eagerly reading up about historical heroes, there was this admiration on my mind ’Wow, I wish I could be more like them. I wish I could do no wrong, be right and just…’ As growing-up would have it, such naïve notions were soon beaten out of me and were replaced by an understanding that not many heroes had a clear notion of where things were heading during their times. Not all of them were children of destiny or heroic figures who strode forward with the entire future planned out in their head. They lived out every single hour, day, month and year amidst struggle and became icons for others to look up to in the process. Not everything was planned and all that they had was a goal to look forward to and the difference between others and them was the uncompromising struggle to reach that goal.

Even with a minimal understanding of American history, George Washington was a man who to me was always a colossally large figure. Someone who was always right, someone who never wavered and went forth with the might and awesomeness of a storm and so on and on. When all I heard were hero-worshipping biographical accounts in my youth, an image took shape in my mind of a perfectly sculpted bust of Washington. Many an article and documentary later, the bust is still magnificent and yet there are places were the paint has chipped and the plaster has fallen off. But from a strictly logical POV, this is also the more realistic portrait of him as a human being. It is beyond doubt that George Washington was a legend but he was also completely human. On the legend, Joseph Ellis writes :

He was that rarest of men : a supremely realistic visionary, a prudent prophet whose final position on slavery served as a capstone to a career devoted to getting the big things right. His genius was his judgement.

The biography is a very short and concise one and while it does not elaborate on a lot of things, it does touch upon almost all the key aspects of the life of this one man who became synonymous with America. It was not for nothing that Jefferson once remarked that Washington on horseback can trump anything we choose to come up with. From the beginning of his career as a soldier to his stint in the French-Indian wars is when Ellis begins his biography. To me it was a matter of fascination that for being such a famed general, Washington lost more battles than what he ever won. Ellis does not let his biography slip into the realm of becoming a blue eyed gaze at a hero but gives us a more comprehensive picture of Washington, warts and all. So we are treated to his defeat after defeat at multiple battles and skirmishes, the dispassionate and utterly disciplined face that Washington maintained through all of it and finally the decisive win at Yorktown. Beyond the military air, the general was also an expert at maintaining his own finances as well as his farms and real estate. The one thing that Washington mastered most according to Ellis was the art of silence. The magisterial air and the silence he maintained always ensured that people deferred to Washington as and when he spoke. To my mind, he is that rare man of class who will come out of the woodwork to become a figurehead for everyone to look up at and once the job is done he withdraws into the quiet life that he held so dear. Even amidst the whirlwinds of the American revolution, taking full charge of the nation as a dictator never appealed too much to him. If he chose to, the history of the US of A would have been a totally different one.

The book says :

Whereas Cromwell and later Napoleon made themselves synonymous with the revolution in order to justify the assumption of dictatorial power, Washington made himself synonymous with the American revolution in order to declare that it was incompatible with dictatorial power.

For all his virtues, Washington was also a straight arrow and was too naïve to understand the crooked undercurrents of the budding nature of politics. The two terms he served as the President of the newly formed American union did more to scar him than the war ever did. His relationships with Jefferson and Hamilton which led to the rise of the two party system in America is also an interesting point to note. His views on slavery and slaves in particular also did not win him too many friends during his time as the President. Even as the dawn was breaking over the new nation of America, the media was not too far away in pouring slanderous libel over the icon whom Henry Lee called ’First in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen.’ Not too much has changed in the world over the years ! It is also ironic that the man who spent his life fighting the aristocratic British was referred to by the same name the British reserved for their high ranking officials - Your Excellency.

A befitting closing note for this review is also from the book :

If you aspire to live forever in the memory of future generations, you must demonstrate the ultimate self-confidence to leave the final judgement to them. And he did.

Recommended as a fantastic starting point to understand American history.

Wowie!!! If anyone has read this book down to chat about it

Amazing book! Gives the reader a different perspective about historical politics vs today’s happenings. It opened my eyes. There is always hope!!

I listened to the audio version of this. I really enjoyed learning about Washington and his life. my main take always from this were:

1. Thomas Jefferson was not a nice person
2. Washington was acutely aware of his place in history
3. Washington's change in thinking in terms of slavery (not shared by Martha)
4. Washington was agnostic at best possible atheist?

Joseph Ellis' "His Excellency: George Washington" is a well done brief biography of George Washington. Washington, surely, could be the subject of one of those massive bios, such as Chernow's "Alexander Hamilton" or "Titan" or Nasaw's "Andrew Carnegie" or Cannadine's "Mellon." On the other hand, not all biographies need to be so massive. Ellis' work is insightful, provides a sense of Washington the person, and outlines the growth of his character, as he controls his ambitions. In 275 pages, we get a pretty good perspective on "the father of our country."

This biography tries to steer a middle course between two different approaches to Washington. As Ellis says (page xi): "In Washington's case the arc moves from Parson Weems' fabrications about a saintly lad who could not tell a lie to dismissive verdicts about the deadest, whitest male in American history." In placing him among other of the Founders, Ellis makes, I think, an insightful point (page xiv): "It seems to me that Benjamin Franklin was wiser than Washington; Alexander Hamilton was more brilliant; John Adams was better read; James Madison was more politically astute. Yet each and all of these prominent figures acknowledged that Washington was their unquestioned superior." By the way, lines such as these make me scratch my head as to the critics of this book who attack the author for denigrating Washington. Parson Weems and his fantasies should not guide our consideration of Washington. He was a human being, not a demigod. And this book demonstrates why we should hold him in high esteem (while also realizing his human foibles and weaknesses).

In his death and afterwards, Washington also demonstrated why he stood apart from other Founders. Jefferson was uncomfortable with slavery, but did nothing about his discomfort. Washington was uncomfortable, and worked to free his slaves upon his death. His will represented (page 263) ". . .his personal rejection of slavery. As we have seen, he had been groping toward this position for many reasons and for more than thirty years, more gradually than we might prefer, more steadily than most of his fellow slave owners in Virginia. He was, in fact, the only politically prominent member of the Virginia dynasty to act on Jefferson's famous words in the Declaration of Independence by freeing his slaves."

The book provides a straightforward narrative of Washington's life. From the travails of his youth, to his efforts at developing a trade (e.g., as a surveyor), to his effort to becoming a military officer (culminating in both disaster and reputation in the French and Indian War), to his involvement in debates over independence in his own colony (Virginia), to his accession to general in the Continental Army, to his holding the army together under straitened circumstances, to his role in moving toward a Constitutional Convention, to his service as the first President. Noteworthy is the treatment of his learning to be the primary military commander during the Revolutionary War. Early on, his instincts told him to be aggressive; a number of defeats followed from this. Given the context of the war, this was not a winning strategy. He learned to be more careful and, following a more Fabian strategy, grew as commander and ended up triumphant at Yorktown.

In his conclusion, Ellis notes that Washington had a towering ambition, a foul temper, and, understanding this, Washington fought to contain both of these characteristics with his single minded strength. He left office after two terms as president when he could have stayed on. He stepped down as General after the Revolutionary War when he need not necessarily have behaved as Cincinnatus. As a result, he set an example that reverberated through the next century of American history.

This is a nice, although brief, rendering of Washington's life. The author makes nuanced judgments of Washington as a person and his legacy. As a result, he comes across as more than a cardboard caricature and as someone who genuinely deserves our respect and appreciation. As Ellis concludes (page 275), ". . .he understood that the greater glory resided in posterity's judgment." Unlike Napoleon, Caesar, Mao, and Cromwell, he did not hold on to the end, thus eroding his historical reputation and his ultimate effectiveness to the country that he had helped found.

Ellis' biography of Washington was refreshing after being immersed in two immense biographies that spare no details.

The beauty of Ellis' book, beyond its accessibility, was that his intent was not to describe what Washington did, but rather to examine who Washington was. There was, then, no mandate to examine every event in pristine detail, but rather to use events and information as supporting facts around what kind of man Washington was.

Disciplined, ambitious, keenly aware of his reputation, and, as it turned out, weary of the bipartisan political fracas leading up to the election of 1800.

And even more fascinating read coming on the heels of having read Chernow's Hamilton last year. I found the lack of painstaking detail refreshing, as I've read a dozen books on the events, but nothing that examined the psyche of Washington as its sole intent.

Well worth the read.

I found this to be an unusually good biography where the author's work would have stand out even on an ordinary subject. Combine the timeless imminence of Washington with the Ellis ability to research and boil down a massive historical record and the kind of astuteness at finding psychological patterns that one would expect from a therapist rather than a biographer, and this book is special. The reader genuinely feels as though he could extract with some certainty how Washington would react to a new situation and what his thought processes would be in so doing. Ellis pointed out in one of his previous books that Americans tend to have an attitude toward our Founders that rings of adolescents – swinging between worship and total dismissal. As one would expect of the author who points out our own pattern, he avoids both of these extremes in looking at Washington as a man of his times.

I really enjoyed the fact that the author tried very hard to give a fair and accurate portrayal of George Washington. It was not hero worship, yet it appreciated Washington's strengths and accomplishments. It wasn't a bashing of his character, while still being honest about his weaknesses and failings. In all, I felt like it was an honest assessment of the man based on the evidence we still have. I appreciated that he avoided speculation that couldn't be proven by hard evidence when possible, and when he did he was careful to mention that it was the best guess based on what we have. I also appreciated the author's willingness to look at the decisions made through the lens of the time in which Washington lived instead of through our modern lens. It was definitely an "academic" read, and not an easy read, but it was enjoyable.

I really enjoyed reading this. The history was fascinating and told so much of his story that I’ve never known before. I highly recommend reading if you’re into history!

His Excellency is a very well written biography. I've read several biographies of Washington, but this one was a little more insightful. It opens GW's life like an oyster in a shell and exposes attributes that have been hidden from moderns by glorification and hyperbole. Ellis shows us concisely how GW and his contemporaries viewed each other. Some of these revelations are quite surprising: Jefferson, GW's slaves, British politicians, Gen. Light Horse Harry Lee, Adams, Hamilton, Burr, etc. One will be surprised by his boundless ambition and how he hid that from people who admired his calmness and Cincinnatus-like relinquishing of power while gaining it, like a reptile swallowing its prey. This should be read by anyone who likes presidential biographies then compare it to Ellis' book on Jefferson. I hope to read more of his works.

A fascinating, offbeat portrait of George Washington looks past the hagiography to find much to admire.