Washington: A Life
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| Author | Ron Chernow |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Subject | George Washington |
| Genre | Non-fiction; biography |
| Publisher | Penguin Press |
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Publication date
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October 5, 2010 |
| Media type | Print, digital, audio |
| Pages | 904 (hardcover) |
| ISBN | |
| 973.4/1092 B | |
| LC Class | E312.C495 2010 |
Washington: A Life is a 2010 biography of George Washington, the first President of the United States, written by American historian and biographer Ron Chernow. The book is a "one-volume, cradle-to-grave narrative" that attempts to provide a fresh portrait of Washington as "real, credible, and charismatic in the same way he was perceived by his contemporaries".
Chernow, a former business journalist, was inspired to write the book while researching another biography on Washington's long-time aide Alexander Hamilton. Washington: A Life took six years to complete and makes extensive use of archival evidence. The book was released to wide acclaim from critics, several of whom called it the best biography of Washington ever written. In 2011, the book won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography, as well as the New-York Historical Society's American History Book Prize.
The book's author, Ron Chernow, is a former freelance business journalist who later became a self-described "self-made historian". His 1990 history of financier J.P. Morgan's family, The House of Morgan, won the National Book Award for Nonfiction. In 2004, he published a biography of American Founding Father Alexander Hamilton, for which he won the inaugural $50,000 George Washington Book Prize.
Chernow conceived the idea of a book on Washington while researching Hamilton's life; the two men had worked together closely, and Chernow had come to believe that "Hamilton is the protagonist of the book but Washington is the hero of the book". On discovering a letter about a quarrel between Hamilton and Washington, Chernow concluded that there was a more temperamental side to the president than had previously been portrayed. In a later C-SPAN interview, he said that he came to see Washington as "a man of many moods, of many passions, of fiery opinions. But because it was all covered by this immense self-control, people didn't see it." Despite what he estimated to be more than nine hundred books written on Washington, Chernow decided to write another, with the goal of providing a fresh portrait.
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