Travels with George
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Travels with George by Nathaniel Philbrick
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER"Travels with George . . . is quintessential Philbrick--a lively, courageous, and masterful achievement." --The Boston Globe
Does George Washington still matter? Bestselling author Nathaniel Philbrick argues for Washington's unique contribution to the forging of America by retracing his journey as a new president through all thirteen former colonies, which were now an unsure nation. Travels with George marks a new first-person voice for Philbrick, weaving history and personal reflection into a single narrative.
When George Washington became president in 1789, the United States of America was still a loose and quarrelsome confederation and a tentative political experiment. Washington undertook a tour of the ex-colonies to talk to ordinary citizens about his new government, and to imbue in them the idea of being one thing--Americans.
In the fall of 2018, Nathaniel Philbrick embarked on his own journey into what Washington called "the infant woody country" to see for himself what America had become in the 229 years since. Writing in a thoughtful first person about his own adventures with his wife, Melissa, and their dog, Dora, Philbrick follows Washington's presidential excursions: from Mount Vernon to the new capital in New York; a monthlong tour of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island; a venture onto Long Island and eventually across Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. The narrative moves smoothly between the eighteenth and twenty-first centuries as we see the country through both Washington's and Philbrick's eyes.
Written at a moment when America's founding figures are under increasing scrutiny, Travels with George grapples bluntly and honestly with Washington's legacy as a man of the people, a reluctant president, and a plantation owner who held people in slavery. At historic houses and landmarks, Philbrick reports on the reinterpretations at work as he meets reenactors, tour guides, and other keepers of history's flame. He paints a picture of eighteenth-century America as divided and fraught as it is today, and he comes to understand how Washington compelled, enticed, stood up to, and listened to the many different people he met along the way--and how his all-consuming belief in the union helped to forge a nation.
Nathaniel Philbrick grew raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and graduated from Brown University with a BA in English and Duke University with an MA in American Literature, where he was a James B. Duke Scholar. Fellow at Duke University. In 1978, he won the Sunfish North Americans in Barrington, Rhode Island, and became Brown University's first Intercollegiate All-American sailor. He wrote and edited several books about sailing after working as an editor at Sailing World magazine, including The Passionate Sailor, Second Wind, and Yaahting: A Parody. At the Heart of the Sea, a New York Times bestseller that received the National Book Award for nonfiction, was released by Philbrick in 2000.
The Warner Bros. film is based on the book. Chris Hemsworth, Cillian Murphy, Brendan Gleeson, Benjamin Walker, Ben Wishaw, and Tom Holland feature in the film Heart of the Sea, directed by Ron Howard. The book was also the inspiration for an NBC Dateline broadcast in 2001 and Ric Burns' two-hour PBS American Experience film Into the Deep in 2010. Vanity Fair, The New York Times Book Review, The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Boston Globe have all published Philbrick's work.
On the Today show, The Morning Show, Dateline, PBS's American Experience, C-SPAN, and NPR, he has appeared. He and his wife reside on the island of Nantucket.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780525562191 |
| ISBN 10 | 0525562192 |
| Title | Travels with George |
| Author | Nathaniel Philbrick |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Penguin Putnam Inc |
| Year published | 2022-05-31 |
| Number of pages | 400 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |