A perfectly fine, but not all that overly interesting, history of Washington myth-building and debunking. ( )

quick read, not much new

Excellent work. The author goes about dealing with the myths that have grown up around George Washington in a very thorough and easy to read way. He has done even more here though,showing how social, political, economic and other factors drive the rise of mythologies surrounding popular figures. He also shows how once those mythologies take hold, no amount of evidence debunking them can completely eliminate them from the public mind.

In addition to debunking the many myths surrounding Washington, he also does a great job of debunking the debunkers - those people determined to destroy any semblance of Washington as a great person.

Some of what he goes through has been thoroughly dealt with by historians before; Washington and the cherry tree, Washington kneeling in prayer at Valley Forge etc etc. However, some even surprised me. For example I had always accepted that Washington, on his own, added the phrase "so help me God" at the end of the presidential oath. Even David McCullough repeats this uncritically in his book on John Adams. Turns out there is no evidence for this whatsoever. It is believed Chester Arthur was the first to use that phrase.

Other myths, such as the authenticity of the Washington Prayer Book or his views on firearms, despite clear evidence that they are untrue, continue to be used by unscrupulous religious and political leaders .

If you have any interest in Washington, or are an inveterate skeptic....this is the book for you!!! ( )

George Washington never chopped down a cherry tree as a boy. He probably never chopped down a cherry tree in his life. But you probably already knew that. Why would anyone chop down a perfectly good cherry tree?

Edward G. Lengel's book, Inventing George Washington looks at the history of Washington mythology, how the American public's vision of it's most renowned founding father has changed over time and how competing powers have tried to control the public perception of our first president.

It's interesting reading. For example, I never believed that Betsy Ross designed and sewed the first American flag. The story never rang true for me. Why would all these educated landowners leave the design of the first flag to a simple seamstress. The story of Bets. Ross first appears near the first centennial. After the Civil War interest in Washington grew enough that descendants of the Ross family were moved to make the claim. Their evidence, stories passed down by their ancestors of the day Washington and a small delegation of congressmen appeared in Betsy Ross's home asking her to sew the flag. "Why not use five pointed stars," she suggested.

No one thought to ask why no records were ever kept of this meeting or this particular order. Like a good business woman, Betsy Ross kept meticulous records of everything else. A contract for a new flag with George Washington's signature on it would have been worth a small fortune. There was already a tremendous market for every scrap of paper the first president had put pen to. His own family had torn his letters into pieces, selling each fragment off one by one.

Once Mr. Lengel lays out the evidence it's clear that Betsy Ross didn't sew the first flag, that George Washington didn't say "So help me, God," at the close of the first inauguration, that he didn't pray publicly for deliverance in Valley Forge and that he didn't have a family with a slave mistress. So how is it that there is a statue of General Washington praying at Valley Forge today, that contemporary presidents claim they say "So help me, God," because George Washington did and that even Oprah Winfrey believes Washington had children with a slave mistress?

The answers makes for interesting, breezy reading in Mr. Lengel's capable hands. Inventing George Washington is a useful book for it's examination of how history is manipulated, it's meaning changed over time to suit the needs of those who seek to control it. When one considers how obsessed some of our current supreme court justices are with the original intent of the men who wrote the constitution, it's alarming to discover just how easy it has been to change history throughout America's 200 plus years. Original intent isn't what is used to be. ( )

Edward G. Lengel is editor in chief of the Washington Papers Project and thus has spent hours and hours “in the company” of George Washington. As someone who therefore has had the truth in hand, he has marveled over the tenacity of falsehoods about Washington. The purpose of this book is to explore both the myths and the mythmakers to determine what purposes these distorted memories of “The Father of Our Country” have served for Americans.

The study of collective memory is incredibly interesting, because, as Yael Zerubavel points out:

"[It] continuously negotiates between available historical records and current social and political agendas. In this process of referring back to history, collective memory shifts its interpretation, selectively emphasizing, suppressing, and elaborating different aspects of those records. History and memory, therefore, do not operate in totally detached, opposite directions; their relationships are underlined by conflict as well as by interdependence.” In Representations 45 (Winter 1994), at 73.

Lengel presents various examples of the metamorphosis of Washington’s memory, arguing that the changes reflected whatever contemporary collective self-image Americans wanted to reinforce. I should emphasize that Lengel is not talking about the “horizon of understanding” of different eras, nor about the inevitable influence of a historian’s own conceptual lenses. Rather, he refers to intentional manipulation in the interest of serving social and political agendas.

He starts with The Life and Memorable Actions of George Washington by “Parson” Mason Locke Weems, first published in 1800, averring “it contained some of the most beloved lies of American history, including the famous cherry tree myth, and spawned scores of imitators.”

As he takes us on a tour of the historical representation of Washington through the ages, he also comments on the cultural factors that probably contributed to the ways in which Washington was portrayed. Perhaps most interesting to readers will be his analysis of the current situation, in which “spurious Washington quotations, disseminated in the name of politics and religion, have also gained renewed popularity at the beginning of the twenty-first century.” He cites misquotations by gun rights advocates, by Senator John McCain, by former Vice President Al Gore, and in the most egregious example, by Congresswoman Michele Bachmann. He also recounts anecdotes of stories about Washington and marijuana, Washington and ghosts, and of course, Washington and aliens.

He concludes by noting:

"History is always in danger of growing stale through repetition. No one wants to hear the same old tale repeated over again. … Unfortunately, the temptation to veer from the straight and narrow in the search for historical truth is well-nigh overwhelming, and nowhere more so than in the search for the truth about George Washington.”

Evaluation: Lengel has written a very readable book that dispels some of the most popular, and erroneous, myths about George Washington. He also offers insights into why the historical representation of our first president has been deemed too important to be left to just the truth. ( )