The Great Experiment: George Washington and the American Republic

A catalog for a traveling exhibition of art and artifacts from the life of George Washington, this elegant volume also provides an excellent overview history of Washington's life. The biography of Washington is, as would be expected, positive, yet the author, John Rhodehamel, a curator of American History at the Huntington Library in Los Angeles, does not ignore some often overlooked aspects of Washington's personality, specifically his temper, pride, and ambition. Indeed, the "Great Experiment" of the title applies as much to Washington's efforts to transform his own personality as to his enormous contributions to the founding of the United States. Rhodehamel documents how Washington, as he matured, subjugated the fierce ambition that had brought him to international repute during the French and Indian War and eventually made perhaps his greatest contribution to the newly independent colonies by modestly emphasizing the primacy of civilian rule. The text presents Washington's story, up through his stormy second term as president and his death soon after, in readable and often entertaining terms, and the visual component of the book deserves special mention. Besides the many photographs of Washington artifacts and contemporaneous artistic depictions of him, the fine photographic reproduction of letters and journal entries in Washington's own hand does much to humanize a person all too often regarded as a distant and incomprehensible icon. --Robert McNamara