THE UNEXPECTED WASHINGTON
By Harlow Unger
John Wiley & Sons (NYP)

For a variety of reasons, historians and artists portray him as cold, stern and distant, with a face--and teeth--as wooden as the portrait on the one-dollar bill. But the real George Washington. THE UNEXPECTED WASHINGTON was human to the core: laughing, loving and living life to the fullest, from earliest childhood to his last hours at his beloved home in Mount Vernon, Virginia. A rollicking, dashing giant of a man, Washington galloped across the Virginia landscape in war and peace, chasing Redcoats and red foxes with equal passion. He loved ladies, children, flowers, dogs, horses, and fine wines; he slept on forest floors as soundly as in mansion beds. A loving husband, father and friend, his goodness evoked reciprocal love and loyalty from all who knew him--family, friends, soldiers and slaves. His social graces left ladies swooning as he spun them 'round the ballroom; his silly, funny tales sent children convulsing with giggles as they bounced on his knee. His intellect, generosity, hospitality and deep concern for others left all who knew or met him in awe. He was hardly the "mysterious abstraction" that one historian called him recently and certainly not distant or cold. THE UNEXPECTED WASHINGTON will focus on the man's private life, thoughts and emotions, drawing on original letters, diaries and other documents to portray the inner man as he steps in and out of some of the most cataclysmic historic events in world history: the exploration and conquest of the American West; the frontier war that exploded into the world's first true global conflict; the American Revolutionary War. By revealing his private life, THE UNEXPECTED WASHINGTON will provide dramatic new insights into his public life and his role in the American Revolution and the creation of the new nation.

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