George Washington’s “Yelp Reviews”
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George Washington’s “Yelp Reviews”
1–10 of 23 posts
Re: George Washington’s “Yelp Reviews”
#2That was an entertaining read. Thanks for the link.
Re: George Washington’s “Yelp Reviews”
#3 This was an interesting endeavour and I have to say a good initiative by someone who could have just stayed in luxury and not seen the realities of most poor travellers.
Re: George Washington’s “Yelp Reviews”
#4This was an interesting endeavour and I have to say a good initiative by someone who could have just stayed in luxury and not seen the realities of most poor travellers.
Washington was an exceptional man who walked away from near-total power. It’s only been done a few times in human history.
Re: George Washington’s “Yelp Reviews”
#5This was an interesting endeavour and I have to say a good initiative by someone who could have just stayed in luxury and not seen the realities of most poor travellers.
Washington was an exceptional man who walked away from near-total power. It’s only been done a few times in human history.
What would the best book be on him? I'm an Australian and my grasp of U.S. history is, to be frank, almost non-existent.
Re: George Washington’s “Yelp Reviews”
#6Earlier quoted context omitted.
Washington was an exceptional man who walked away from near-total power. It’s only been done a few times in human history.
What would the best book be on him? I'm an Australian and my grasp of U.S. history is, to be frank, almost non-existent.
I haven't read it yet (will soon), but I've heard nothing but good things about the Ron Chernow biography. I'm reading his biography of Hamilton right now, and I'm really impressed. I think he strikes just the right balance between academic rigor and narrative storytelling.
Re: George Washington’s “Yelp Reviews”
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
What would the best book be on him? I'm an Australian and my grasp of U.S. history is, to be frank, almost non-existent.
I haven't read it yet (will soon), but I've heard nothing but good things about the Ron Chernow biography. I'm reading his biography of Hamilton right now, and I'm really impressed. I think he strikes just the right balance between academic rigor and narrative storytelling.
Can confirm. I read them both last summer. Amazing people, fantastic writing.
Re: George Washington’s “Yelp Reviews”
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
I haven't read it yet (will soon), but I've heard nothing but good things about the Ron Chernow biography. I'm reading his biography of Hamilton right now, and I'm really impressed. I think he strikes just the right balance between academic rigor and narrative storytelling.
Can confirm. I read them both last summer. Amazing people, fantastic writing.
Thanks, appreciate the info, I'll get the book and have a read.
Re: George Washington’s “Yelp Reviews”
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
Washington was an exceptional man who walked away from near-total power. It’s only been done a few times in human history.
What would the best book be on him? I'm an Australian and my grasp of U.S. history is, to be frank, almost non-existent.
His Excellency, by Joseph J. Ellis, is very good. I strongly recommend it. Founding Brothers, by Ellis, is also very good (and short).
David McCullough has several tremendous US history books, including John Adams, 1776, The Wright Brothers, The Path Between the Seas.
Re: George Washington’s “Yelp Reviews”
#10(I have a comment that may be relevant to some other observations here, but mostly unrelated to the piece itself, amusing as it is.)
To understand the USA, and modern politics in general, I find it very helpful to know a little bit of Roman history. The US were deliberately moulded by the very knowledgeable founders as a revised and improved version of the classical Roman republic. The attempt was wildly successful, and measured by most any metric it widely beats the performance of the original system.
There is one crucial point to the original Roman republic: it was founded by aristocrats who were fiercely jealous of their liberty and equality to each other. Their collegial Senate ruled since they killed their king around 509 BC, until they killed Julius Caesar some 465 years later - republicans have this 'sic semper tyrannis' thing for assassinating monarchs.
A second point is that republicans have a tight lock on the perception of the advertised virtue of their system. Whether it is actually better for the plebs, or the whole of society, to be ruled by a senate or a monarch is never to be left in doubt.
Augustus craftily shoved the monarchical empire down the aristocrats' throats by claiming the whole time that he was merely making the republic function as intended. However the immediate successors had a tougher time, and were quite probably historically smeared by senators who resorted to pens instead of swords.