Book review: 'The Ascent of George Washington'

June 30, 5:00 PMDallas Business Commentary ExaminerRobert Morris

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The Ascent of George Washington: The Hidden Political Genius of an American Icon

John Ferling

Bloomsbury Press (2009)

According to Ferling, Washington possessed a “hidden political genius” that “heretofore has escaped penetrating scrutiny.” Ferling challenges any portrayal of Washington that suggests he was nonpolitical and steadfastly seeking to stay above politics. On the contrary, he was highly political. Indeed, he “was so good at politics that he alone of all American officials in the past two centuries succeeded in convincing others that he was not a politician.” In other words, he knew how to let others have it his way. Ferling focuses specifically and almost entirely “on matters that somehow or other involved Washington in political activities.” He also helps his reader to understand “what shaped and drove Washington and how his character influenced his political choices.” With regard to the book’s title, it refers to the process by which achieved his position in his nation’s “pantheon of heroes.”

Readers will appreciate Ferling’s brilliant analysis of how Washington’s leadership style changed in response to the process by which thirteen separate colonies became a new nation. In his own biography of Washington (written with Susan Dunn), James MacGregor Burns cites Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick’s comment that, “he had in a certain sense been acting as the President of the United States since 1775,” and then observes,  “In orchestrating the affairs of the executive branch, President Washington was a [begin italics] transactional [end italics] leader – managing supervising, delegating, compromising, mastering the centrifugal forces in the government. But he was more than that, too, for leading in the creation of an entirely new political structure. Indeed, to provide strength, coherence, purpose, and personality to the executive branch, he became a  transformational leader – for he was giving strong institutional shape to an enhanced philosophy of executive leadership as well as inspiring and cementing citizens’ commitment to the federal government.”