His Excellency

Mary surprised me with a gift perfect for me—a biography of George Washington by Joseph J. Ellis entitled His Excellency. While I've learned a great deal about Jefferson, Madison, and Adams, Washington has always been on the periphery of my knowledge. Now is a very good time to learn about him in a focused fashion.

The preface has given me a good feeling about Mr. Ellis, who is new to me.

For example, "[George Washington] is in our wallets but not in our hearts." Ellis cites Richard Brookhiser as the source of this quote. This immediately reminded of my friend's observation on how Turks commemorate Atatürk in contrast to how Americans remember Washington.

Well, as much as I admire Washington, I look forward to learning more about him, to anchor him deeper into my heart. I especially look forward to Ellis' scholarship in light of the context in which he writes. For example, in his preface, he reports:

...the reigning orthodoxy in the academy regards Washington as either taboo or an inappropriate subject, and any aspiring doctoral candidate who declares an interest in, say, Washington's career as a commander in chief, or president, has inadvertently confessed intellectual bankruptcy.

Properly, Ellis criticizes this orthodoxy as "thoroughly ahistorical and presentistic." At the same, Ellis writes that he seeks to avoid portraying Washington as a cartoon hero. In short, he says he seeks to portray Washington, the man free of myth.

To this end, he closes his preface with this astute observation:

It seemed to me that Benjamin Franklin was wiser than Washington; Alexander Hamilton was more brilliant; John Adams was better read; Thomas Jefferson was more intellectually sophisticated; James Madison was more politically astute. Yet each and all of these prominent figures acknowledged that Washington was their unquestioned superior. Within the gallery of greats so often mythologized and capitalized as Founding Fathers, Washington was recognized as primus inter pares, The Foundingest Father of them all. Why was that?

I look forward to seeing how Mr. Ellis tackles this question.