any recommendations?

I'm not sure what exactly would interest you, but Washington Irving wrote a five volume biography of George Washington, which I gather was a pretty decent account of his years as a general, although it was also a hagiography and Irving didn't live long enough to do Washington's years as president much justice.

I'll let you know what I think if I ever read it.

I just want to read about heroic and courageous George Washington stories.

Can't go wrong with a hagiography then.

Anyone who considers Whitney Houston and Roxette good pop doesn't need any challenges.

haha nice. you don't like roxette!? what's wrong with you man

I have good taste. It's a burden.

Try this:



It's semi-fictional but all of the public events are factual and the thing was exhaustively researched. It's a fascinating insight into all those old fogeys, including Washington (who insisted people address him as, "Your Excellency").

That whole series is great but Burr and Lincoln are particularly awesome.

That's odd. The story I heard was that congress wanted to refer to the president as something like "his excellency" and it was Washington who insisted on "Mr. President."

Miss Crabtree: Mary Ann Jackson,what did George Washington say when he crossed the Delaware?

Mary Ann: Boop-boopy-doop,boop-boopy-doop!

It's been a few years since I read it, you may be right. But I came away feeling like Washington was primarily a dick.

There is this book from the Folio Society called "The Fire Of Liberty". It details the revolutionary war not by some one who has been studying it and giving thier opinion but by collecting private letters and newpaper clippings of the time and put them in chronological order. It gives you a GREAT sense of what people were going through. The stand outs in the book (if I remember correctly) are the stories about how young the soldiers were willing to die for an ideal while getting hit by musket balls (these things were huge), the accounts of George Washington and other generals and the whole Bennedict Arnold thing. You can get a copy pretty cheap from ebay. Easy and fun to read with a great insight to what the time was like.

I see no reason to doubt this.

Flexner's four volume George Washington and Freeman's seven volume George Washington: A Biography are considered the definitive works. There is a single volume abridgment of the Freeman, and Willard Sterne Randall's George Washington: A Life is probably the best published within the past 20 years.

As there seem to be some Washington scholars here, I have a question. I've read that especially as a younger man, Washington had one of the filthiest mouths in the colonies. Is that true? I love the idea our first president was given to expletive-laden tirades.