The book was well written, I like Ellis, objective and informative without being text bookish -- I hammered through the book much more quickly than I thought I would and was further motivated to read about the subsequent 43 Presidents (or is it 42? I don't know if Grover Cleveland is counted twice, or once...I have seen conflicting reports. Sure this would be easy to find out with an on-line check, but I'm not sure that I want to know....I don't avoid learning things about Presidents I haven't yet read about -- I am currently on #10 -- but at the same time I'm somewhat fascinated by learning things in sequential order, so...don't tell me, unless you really feel like it). GW really was the perfect choice to be President #1 and I'll say no more about him specifically as I wouldn't know where to begin or end, without researching and trying to write a book of my own...Ellis did a good job and I think anyone with any interest would enjoy his book. That stated, of course I learned many things that were shocking to me...I'll list a few now:
- Apparently he didn't have wooden teeth, or so says Ellis. The cherry tree story also was not true, per Ellis.
- George was a war hero before the Revolutionary War, but not really because he had a real impressive battle record...he didn't, but he wasn't scared, which gained him great respect -- he also wasn't very chatty and I think that gave him the stoic leader aura, which he capitalized on quite well.
- Martha had all the money, or rather her family did.
- He was a real frontiersman, having covered more ground than most as a land surveyor and then a soldier in the French and Indian War.
- The Vice President used to just be the Presidential candidate who received the second most votes....like right now we would have Obama as Pres and McCain as VP, which would be a bit odd wouldn't it?
- Early American's didn't really know how to react to a President as their experience was either as subjects to King George (in England) or as kids visiting a place without parents (N. America). Washington probably could've declared himself King and gotten away with it...well, it may have ended like Napoleon declaring himself Emperor, but whatever, it was all up in the air there for a while. By all accounts good ole George (ours, not theirs) hit a 7 RBI home run choosing to step down as President when he did and regularly default to democratic views as opposed to monarchistic (that's not a word) practices. Pretty amazing stuff.
- Washington died on Case's birthday.
OK, that's all for now on GW and this book.
6 comments:
Great summary! This post actually makes me interested in reading this book. Congrats.
That's a great point about the 7-RBI home run George Washington hit. It's a rare event in history that a leader voluntarily limits his power by stepping down at his zenith.
In my opinion, Washington is the best president of all time if only for the 2-term precedent he set. If only congressmen had done the same back then…
I'm with Craig. Good post, and I wish our congress had some term limits. Keep it up, Bob.
Bobby, I'm in the process of reading "The Guinea Pig Diaries" - a book written by a journalist who tries a variety of experiments on himself, mostly social behavior. Chapter 7 is "What Would George Washington Do?" He read a lot about GW, and set a goal to follow his rules. You would enjoy reading it. And I think you should try doing it to. You can start blogging about how you actually acted like each president. :)
Laura, that is a GREAT IDEA, though I feel I need to read more about each President in order to know how they may act before starting such a practice. I'm hopeful that I'll live for many more years though, so I'll keep this as a goal :). Thanks again NEL!
Bobby, make sure you get Becca's approval before acting like some certain presidents.
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