George Washington
Washington leads his troops to victory in the Battle of Trenton.
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- This might be a bit more on the national zeitgeist than the others mentioned so far, but I recently finished Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow and am now halfway through Chernow's George Washington. They're very dense, but very readable. I'm enjoying them thoroughly.
I also recently finished Beneath The Scarlet Sky by Mark Sullivan. He's normally an epic fantasy author, but he wrote a narrative account of a true story about a young boy in Milan who spied on the Nazis. I highly enjoyed it.
To hijack this thread a bit, though, I'm interested in reading more about the Cuban Missile Crisis. Can anyone recommend a good book on it? (Something digestible yet info-rich, like Chernow's books, preferably.)
- Isn't Chernow a bit too referential towards his subject?
Gore Vidal for example has much more cynical view of George Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton and Aaron Burr.
I recommend Gore Vidal's "Burr", an account a lot of the early days of the US with Burr as the focal point.
"Burr (1973) portrays the eponymous anti-hero as a fascinating and honorable gentleman, and portrays his contemporary opponents as mortal men; thus, George Washington is an incompetent military officer, a general who lost most of his battles; Thomas Jefferson is a fey, especially dark and pedantic hypocrite who schemed and bribed witnesses in support of a false charge of treason against Burr, to whom he almost lost the presidency in the 1800 United States presidential election; and Alexander Hamilton is an over-ambitious opportunist whose rise in high politics was by General Washington's hand." -- from Wikipedia
