The first Excellency, analyzed

In his latest book, His Excellency:George Washington, historian Joseph Ellis paints a vivid and exciting story of arguably the most aloof president in American history. Unlike presidents of the recent past, George Washington stands as an untouchable icon for liberty and democracy in most Americans’ hearts. Ellis chips away at this façade to expose the inner struggles and obsessive behaviors of Washington’s private life until the marble shell is removed to reveal a neurotic man.

Ellis tells an engaging story featuring Washington’s early experiences in the French and Indian War of 1754-63, his love life, his obsession with control and his repulsion towards slavery. Washington’s increasing bitterness toward the British is explored in spirited detail, beginning with the French and Indian War and accelerating as Great Britain’s suppression of the markets for American goods caused massive debts for Washington and his family.

This tale, however, should be read more as a novel than a biography. Ironically, this book about one of the most moralistic figures in history is written by one of the present’s most notorious liars. Ellis is known for lying to his students about his own past as a star athlete, civil rights activist and Vietnam vet. While the book is beautifully crafted and animated, a lot of the content seems too far-fetched to be true. Ellis attempts to conduct a Freudian psychoanalysis of Washington, often with little evidence.

He concludes, for example, that slavery increasingly troubled Washington in his later years, simply based on Washington’s unwillingness to write about the subject. Ellis also tries a little too hard to portray Washington as a patient with deep-rooted neuroses. In Ellis’s mind, nearly every experience in the president’s life illustrates a “near-obsession with self control.”

Although the author’s words should not be taken completely at face value, his creative ability to postulate truth results in a probing look into the private life of one of the most interesting public figures in American history.