BOOKS: Washington: The Indispensable Man

When I was a child on Washington's Birthday my uncle would give me a cardboard hatchet with candy cherrys inside. Then I was told the story of how Washington chopped down a cherry tree and then fessed up to his crime because he was incapable of lying. In his great biography, Washington: The Indispensable Man, James Flexner attempts and succeeds at dispelling these and other simplest notions about Washington . The first line reads: "No American is more completely misunderstood than George Washington." Washington is believed to have been a rich, conservative, pro British, Virginia aristocrat. Flexner says nothing could be further from the truth_He actually was an uneducated backwoods man who rose to prominence along the Virginia frontier as an Indian fighter. Flexnor's book paints a Washington who rose to power not because of his education or political connections, but because of his inner strength and character. This book is a monument to the potential of one man and how he used that potential and shaped a nation. There was a reason men like Jefferson, Adams and Hamilton deferred to Washington. Flexnor sets out to explain why. He states:" In all history few men possessed with unassailable power have used that power so gently and self-effacingly for what best instincts told them was the welfare of their neighbors and all mankind." But Flexner says he also was a man who struggled with himself, a man who became great in spite of himself. This particular volume is a distillation of Flexner's massive 4 volume biography on Washington__ as such in this version it is probably the best biography written about Washington if not one of the best biographies ever written. This is biography as literature. It is clear, precise and accurate.