Washington: A Life

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Penguin Publishing Group, Sep 27, 2011 - Biography & Autobiography - 928 pages

A gripping portrait of the first president of the United States from the author of Alexander Hamilton, the New York Times bestselling biography that inspired the musical.

Celebrated biographer Ron Chernow provides a richly nuanced portrait of the father of our nation and the first president of the United States. With a breadth and depth matched by no other one volume biography of George Washington, this crisply paced narrative carries the reader through his adventurous early years, his heroic exploits with the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, his presiding over the Constitutional Convention, and his magnificent performance as America's first president. In this groundbreaking work, based on massive research, Chernow shatters forever the stereotype of George Washington as a stolid, unemotional figure and brings to vivid life a dashing, passionate man of fiery opinions and many moods.

Winner of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Biography

"Truly magnificent... a] well-researched, well-written and absolutely definitive biography"--Andrew Roberts, The Wall Street Journal

"Superb... the best, most comprehensive, and most balanced single-volume biography of Washington ever written."--Gordon S. Wood, The New York Review of Books

"A truly gripping biography of George Washington... I can't recommend it highly enough--as history, as epic, and, not least, as entertainment. It's as luxuriantly pleasurable as one of those great big sprawling, sweeping Victorian novels."--Hendrik Hertzberg, The New Yorker

Lin-Manuel Miranda's smash Broadway musical Hamilton has sparked new interest in the Revolutionary War and the Founding Fathers. In addition to Alexander Hamilton, the production also features George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Aaron Burr, Lafayette, and many more.

Ron Chernow's latest biography, Grant, is now available in paperback.

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About the author (2011)

Educated at Yale and Cambridge University in England, Ron Chernow is a biographer who specializes in hard-hitting exposes on historical business figures. Among Chernow's early accomplishments was his unmasking of corruption in Chinatown for New York magazine in 1973. In the book The House of Morgan, winner of the National Book Award in 1990, Chernow outlines the extraordinary path of J.P. Morgan's empire and its influence on the American banking industry. Chernow is also the author of Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, which chronicles the life and times of the richest man in the United States in the early 1900s. His other work includes The Warburgs, The Death of a Banker, Alexander Hamilton, Washington: A Life, and Grant. Chernow is regular guest on the National Public Radio programs Fresh Air with Terry Gross and All Things Considered.