An Imperfect God - George Washington (Record no. 3985)
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| 000 -LEADER | |
|---|---|
| fixed length control field | 02256nam a2200181 4500 |
| 010 ## - LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CONTROL NUMBER | |
| LC control number | 2003063398 |
| 020 ## - INTERNATIONAL STANDARD BOOK NUMBER | |
| International Standard Book Number | 9780374175269 |
| 024 ## - OTHER STANDARD IDENTIFIER | |
| Standard number or code | 51942552 |
| 050 ## - LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CALL NUMBER | |
| Classification number | E312.17 |
| 082 ## - DEWEY DECIMAL CLASSIFICATION NUMBER | |
| Classification number | 973.41092 |
| 100 1# - MAIN ENTRY--PERSONAL NAME | |
| Personal name | Henry Wiencek |
| 245 1# - TITLE STATEMENT | |
| Title | An Imperfect God - George Washington |
| 260 ## - PUBLICATION, DISTRIBUTION, ETC. | |
| Name of publisher, distributor, etc. | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| Date of publication, distribution, etc. | 2003 |
| 300 ## - PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION | |
| Extent | 416 pages |
| 520 ## - SUMMARY, ETC. | |
| Summary, etc. | A major new biography of Washington, and the first to explore his engagement with American slaveryWhen George Washington wrote his will, he made the startling decision to set his slaves free; earlier he had said that holding slaves was his "only unavoidable subject of regret." In this groundbreaking work, Henry Wiencek explores the founding father's engagement with slavery at every stage of his life--as a Virginia planter, soldier, politician, president and statesman. Washington was born and raised among blacks and mixed-race people; he and his wife had blood ties to the slave community. Yet as a young man he bought and sold slaves without scruple, even raffled off children to collect debts (an incident ignored by earlier biographers). Then, on the Revolutionary battlefields where he commanded both black and white troops, Washington's attitudes began to change. He and the other framers enshrined slavery in the Constitution, but, Wiencek shows, even before he became president Washington had begun to see the system's evil. Wiencek's revelatory narrative, based on a meticulous examination of private papers, court records, and the voluminous Washington archives, documents for the first time the moral transformation culminating in Washington's determination to emancipate his slaves. He acted too late to keep the new republic from perpetuating slavery, but his repentance was genuine. And it was perhaps related to the possibility--as the oral history of Mount Vernon's slave descendants has long asserted--that a slave named West Ford was the son of George and a woman named Venus; Wiencek has new evidence that this could indeed have been true.George Washington's heroic stature as Father of Our Country is not diminished in this superb, nuanced portrait: now we see Washington in full as a man of his time and ahead of his time. |
| 650 ## - SUBJECT ADDED ENTRY--TOPICAL TERM | |
| Topical term or geographic name entry element | History - U.S. |
| Withdrawn status | Lost status | Damaged status | Not for loan | Home library | Current library | Date acquired | Total checkouts | Full call number | Barcode | Date last seen | Copy number | Price effective from | Koha item type |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lake Chapala Society | Lake Chapala Society | 07/17/2024 | 973.4 WIEN | 40092 | 07/17/2024 | 1 | 07/17/2024 | Book |