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The Grand Idea: George Washington's Potomac and the Race to the WestBy Joel Achenbach
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The war had been won. Now what? This was the pressing political question for the United States in 1784, and a consuming one for George Washington. He had laid down his sword and returned home to Mount Vernon after eight and a half years as commander of the Continental Army. He vowed that he had retired forever, that he would be a farmer on the bank of the Potomac River, under his own "vine and fig tree." But history was not done with him, and he was not done with history.
Within a year, as Joel Achenbach relates in this stunning narrative, Washington saddled up and rode away on one of the most daring journeys of his rich and adventurous life: a trek across the Appalachian mountains to the frontier, where he would inspect his long-neglected western property and try to collect rent.
The Grand Idea is the story of Washington's ambitions for the brand-new republic that he had fought so hard to create. His western journey culminates in a breathtaking scheme: Washington, with the help of Thomas Jefferson, will transform the Potomac River into a commercial artery that will link the new West to the old East. Worried that the newborn country was so fragmented that it might literally split into two separate and rival nations, he uses the skills he learned as a young backwoods surveyor to come up with his river plan. The future of the Union, Washington believes, depends on the Potomac route to the West, which will bind the country to one enterprise.
Achenbach's sympathetic and wry portrait of General Washington is not the stiff figure of official portraits, but that of a bold man who plunges into uncharted forest and sleeps in a downpour with only his cloak for shelter. He is an inventor, entrepreneur, and land speculator. He loves the West. This Washington is someone who understands that the fledgling republic clinging to the Atlantic seaboard will become a great and booming nation.
Achenbach tracks Washington's river plan from the choosing of the site for the national capital, which led to his being elected as the first president, to its link, decades after his death, to various grandiose plans for a canal that would run hundreds of miles. Ultimately the dream of a Potomac route to the West is abandoned. The nation splits not East and West but North and South, and the river becomes a boundary between warring sides in the Civil War.
Like such classics as Undaunted Courage and Founding Brothers, Achenbach's The Grand Idea is a large narrative of a great man and his grand plan that captures the uncertainties and conflicts of the new country, the passions of an ambitious people, and the seemingly endless beauty of the American landscape.
- Sales Rank: #889550 in Books
- Published on: 2004-06-01
- Format: Deckle Edge
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 1.19" h x 6.58" w x 9.66" l,
- Binding: Hardcover
- 384 pages
From Publishers Weekly
A snappy book about a river and horseback trip more than two centuries ago? Hard to pull off, but Achenbach (Captured by Aliens, etc.) has done so with enough authority to satisfy historians and in a lively style sure to please general readers. His tale is about George Washington's fixation with the West-not today's Far West but the lands inland of the Appalachians-and about what that single-minded interest came to mean for the nation. One wouldn't think that chapters devoted to a single horseback trip that Washington, the nation's first great westerner, took inland in 1784 could be of much interest. But the author uses that trip to unroll a large canvas of subjects, chief among them how a single man's "personal issues had a way of becoming national ones." Fleshing out a day-to-day itinerary with lively excursions into the land's geography, politics, farmers and backwoodsmen, Indians and slaves, Achenbach also unwraps Washington's personality, at once magisterial and rough, obsessive yet realistic, accepting of the people but disdainful of those who got in his way. The Potomac, whose successful development as grand route to the interior would greatly benefit Washington, also plays a central role. Achenbach explains how the river's intractable geography kept the nation's capital from becoming the great metropolis of Washington's dreams. Toward the end, the book wanders off into the Civil War and such subjects as today's Potomac and its landscape. Achenbach ought to have stuck close to his opening intent. The story of Washington's fixity on a dream impossible to realize is a good enough tale on its own. 6 maps.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Thomas Jefferson, with his dream of an "empire of liberty" extending to the Pacific, is generally thought of as the Founding Father most devoted to western expansion. Yet, as this revealing and often fascinating book illustrates, Jefferson was not alone in his hopes and plans for the vast regions beyond the Appalachians. Achenbach, a staff writer for the Washington Post and a monthly columnist for National Geographic, credibly asserts that Washington, from his young manhood, had shown consistent interest, perhaps even an obsession, with the latent promise and possibilities of the West. As a young officer in the Virginia militia, Washington had traversed the frontier to dispute French claims to the Ohio country. Before the American War of Independence began, he had engaged intensely in land speculation there. After independence, Washington claimed his fondest hope was to return to the life of a gentlemen farmer at his beloved Mt. Vernon, but his restless spirit led him to plan an epic journey westward. This is an interesting perspective on Washington's views and personality. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
"A book so delightfully written that it makes me wish all history were told with such clarity and wit." -- San Jose Mercury News (Charles Matthews)
"A fine book. . . . The portrait of Washington that emerges . . . is not what you find in most history books." -- Seattle Times, David B. Williams
"A magnificent display of impeccable scholarship blended with incomparable storytelling. . . . Do not miss this book. A+" -- Fort Worth Star Telegram, Jeff Guinn
"Achenbach has done his homwork. This is history as storytelling, driven by personalities and ideas." -- USA Today
"Engaging and solidly researched." -- Washington Post Book World, Henry Wiencek
"Revealing. . . . An interesting perspective on Washington's views and personality." -- Booklist
"Reveals a dimension of the man not often seen--that of Washington as a dreamer." -- Washington Monthly
"Truly riveting. . . . One of the most illuminating and enjoyable popular histories I’ve read in a long while." -- Douglas Brinkley, The Boston Globe
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