内容简介
After more than two decades, this dramatic and concise single-volume distillation of James Thomas Flexner's definitive four-volume biography George Washington, which received a Pulitzer Prize citation and a National Book Award for the fourth volume,has itself become an American classic. Now in a new trade paper-back edition, this masterful work explores the Father of Our Country -- sometimes an unpopular hero, a man of great contra-dictions, but always a towering historical figurel who remains, as Flexner writes in these pages, "a fallible human being made of flesh and blood and spirit -- not a statue of marble and wood...a great and good man." The author unflinchingly paints a por-trait of Washington: slave owner, brave leader, man of passion, reluctant politician, and fierce general. His complex character and career are neither glorified nor vilified here; rather, Flexnersets up a brilliant counterpoint between Washington's public and private lives and gives us a challenging look at the man who has become as much a national symbol as the American flag.