Rating: 
Summary: A balanced view about Washington and slavery.
Review: As much as is possible for any person, the author gives a fair and balanced analysis of a national icon. But this book is about more than George Washington. I learned more about slavery in the late 1700's from this book than from all the years of history I had in school. Its a fascinating look at a great man and a deep treatise on slavery and the reasons for the system remaining for so long after the creation of our country.
Rating: 
Summary: Disjointed & hypothetical
Review: Clearly the author has an ax to grind. This book is full of "could have, should have, must have known," etc. Very poor scholasticism. The author feels that the Founding Fathers could have manipulated or dictated slavery away. If they had, we would have had a number of states refusing to joint the union and most importantly, we would not have had laws made by the consent of the people governed...exactly what the people were fighting against. Am glad I read a library copy instead of wasting my own money.
Rating:
Summary: An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Cre
Review: Having won the National Book Critics Circle Award for The Hairstons: An American Family in Black and White, Wiencek here tracks Washington's change in attitude regarding slavery.
Rating: 
Summary: Engaging, Informative, Imperfect
Review: I enjoyed An Imperfect God because the writing itself was excellent. Although the author veered back and forth between first person observations to a more biographical stance, he managed to engage my attention with his well woven historical references and his ancedotal stories which had a very personal feel. There were places where the author seemed to rehash stories told by others without adding anything new, and other places where his scholarship was fresh and his conclusions provoke conversation. Wiencek shows us repeatedly the paradox of a man who benefited by owning slaves and their labor, who came to a point of understand the the corrupting influence of absolute power slavery geve owners over the lives of others. Washington allowed arrangements between slaves and their owner/relatives within his own household which we would find untenable at best, and the subject of offensive jokes at worst. The story of Martha Washington's slave sister and Martha's son from her first marriage, which produced a child, is one which would be considered unpalatable in these days but was commonplace in the 17th century until the end of legal slavery. Yet, at the end of his life, he provided for the manumission of his slaves. Clearly, Wiencek is not a revisionist historian, in the way that most traditional historians use the term. He is a revisionist in the best sense of the word, adding to our knowledge as well as encouraging us to look at viewpoints we might not have considered. In the end, however, Wiencek's book provides a fresh look at a difficult time and convoluted relationships which have had scant acknowledgement outside the African American community. As our nation finally comes to grips with recent revelations that 20th century segregationist Strom Thurmon fathered a daughter with a black house maid in the early 20th century, we see that Thurmon's behavior is merely an extention of the behavior exhibited in the 1700s by other leaders. Timely, indeed.
Rating:
Summary: Neither a hit-piece nor a whitewash
Review: I expected a politically correct hit-piece on Washington, but was pleasantly surprised by what was a really helpful and honest look at the human being on the dollar. I'm just a high school history teacher in Eastern Kentucky, so I guess I'm not really qualified to judge historical accuracy, but it seemed like a pretty good book to me. I especially appreciated how Wiencek made Washington's background understandable. One can better understand Washington when you see how far he had to move from his contemporaries--priveleged Virginia slaveowners--to even consider freeing his slaves. His growth and his blindness are both clearly and fairly presented. Washington seems more like a real human being, with good and bad like the rest of us. As for hagiography, I saw none. I suppose if you are a Washington hater you will be disappointed--likewise if you really think that he never told a lie. But if you want to meet a real human being who, almost alone among his contemporaries, struggled greatly to rise above much (but not all) of their racism, this is a great book. The author's first person accounts were a nice touch for all but those who prefer strict dry-as-dust history writing. There was much here that will help me to better teach American history.
Rating:
Summary: Neither a hit-piece nor a whitewash
Review: I expected a politically correct hit-piece on Washington, but was pleasantly surprised by what was a really helpful and honest look at the human being on the dollar. I'm just a high school history teacher in Eastern Kentucky, so I guess I'm not really qualified to judge historical accuracy, but it seemed like a pretty good book to me. I especially appreciated how Wiencek made Washington's background understandable. One can better understand Washington when you see how far he had to move from his contemporaries--priveleged Virginia slaveowners--to even consider freeing his slaves. His growth and his blindness are both clearly and fairly presented. Washington seems more like a real human being, with good and bad like the rest of us. As for hagiography, I saw none. I suppose if you are a Washington hater you will be disappointed--likewise if you really think that he never told a lie. But if you want to meet a real human being who, almost alone among his contemporaries, struggled greatly to rise above much (but not all) of their racism, this is a great book. The author's first person accounts were a nice touch for all but those who prefer strict dry-as-dust history writing. There was much here that will help me to better teach American history.
Rating:
Summary: Reviewer
Review: I found the chapter on West Ford very interesting, but not original. It seems the author based his information from another book, I Cannot Tell a Lie: The True Story of George Washington's African American Descendants. The story did however give some new insights about George and Slavery.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating, not cynical, appraisal of American Patriarch
Review: I received this book as a Christmas gift, and was afraid it might be a cynical and politically-correct portrait of George Washington. Far from it.
Washington was probably the only man who could have steered us between the rock of tyranny and the whirlpool of anarchy. And when his second term was up, "the man who refused to be king" got on his horse and returned to his beloved farm. Mount Vernon, however, was a house divided when it came to dealing with the corrupting institution of slavery. Martha Washington and the extended family had radically different views from the patriarch, who wanted to begin educating the slaves.
It is soul-wrenching to read of the missed opportunities to stymie slavery. The Founding Fathers had the power to bring our way of life into greater consonance with our sublime rhetoric of liberty. If George Washington had freed his slaves while in office, rather than after his death, it would have created an implacable precedent for his successors.
Thomas Jefferson was a genius (George Will called him the "Man of the Millenium"), but it's appropriate that his stock should go down a bit in recent years -- and Founding Fathers such as John Adams and George Washington should be re-discovered and re-treasured. Henry Wiencek has a fascinating section about Phillis Wheatley, poet and slave. The reader can only be stunned by Jefferson's hostility toward her, contrasted with Washington's openness.
The chapter on Williamsburg is superb. Jefferson called the colonial capital "the finest school of manners and morals that ever existed in America." Williamsburg had the first theater in the British colonies. The same royal governor who designed Williamsburg, earlier had laid out Annapolis. The author makes you feel like you're walking the broad expanse of Duke of Gloucester Street and "looking down the vistas of the past."
One learns many things from Henry Wiencek. For instance, President Washington told Secretary of State Randolph that if the Union ever split, "he had made up his mind to remove and be of the Northern [side]." (As the fiery clouds of secession rolled in, and Lincoln tried to convince Robert E. Lee -- married to the Washingtons' great-granddaughter -- to take command of the Northern armies, was either man aware of the Founder's remark?)
The book's frontispiece map of "Washington's Virginia" is the only off-key note. The editors overlooked the fact that Mount Vernon and Alexandria have been magically transplanted from the west bank of the Potomac to the east bank.
I loved this book! I tip my hat to Mr. Wiencek, who penned these words in the acknowledgments: "I close with an old Virginia toast, heartfelt: 'God bless General Washington.'"
Rating: 
Summary: I Just Don't Buy It!
Review: I simply just don't buy Wiencek's argument that Washington was the ultimate emancipator, while he makes several references to Jefferson's slanted racial views on slavery which I feel are not only misrepresented, but untrue. Fact of the matter is that none of these noble and honorable individuals had the courage to do what should have been done. The book does show some insight to a humiliating chapter in American history, I would just like to ask Wiencek a few questions about his opinion.
Rating:
Summary: An Imperfect God
Review: In An Imperfect God, author Henry Weincek succeeds in his portrayal of Washington, among other things, as a soldier, statesman, planter and slaveholder. Along with being a biography of Washington, emphasis is also placed on the black presence from late 17th century to the present in America. We see Washington's views on slavery develop, from childhood up until his death, when he wrote in his will that upon his wife Martha's death, all African slaves held at Mount Vernon were to be freed. Thus we see the paradox, both of the Revolution and the fight for liberty, and that of Washington, champion of that liberty.
In addition, Wiencek also writes of the relationhips between slave and master. These include a relationship between Martha Washington's father-in-law and a slave, as well as the unlikely one between Washington himself and Venus, a slave at one of his sibling's plantations. As pointed out before, Washington was most likey sterile, and at the time the child reputed to be Washington and Venus's son was conceived, Washington was not in Virginia (we know this due to evidence in his diary and other sources). In actuality, Bushrod Washington, George's nephew, was in residence at the plantation nine months before the child, West Ford's birth, and therefore is a likey candidate for father of the child. Lastly, the famous story of Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson is also introduced. However, the author writes with certainty that we know Jefferson fathered one, if not all, of Hemings's children. Though it may be true, we will never know. This due to the fact that while a male Jefferson X chromosome was found in modern day Jefferson-Hemings descendants, the source of it cannot be found. In addition, evidence also points to the fact that nine months before the birth of some of the children said to be born of Hemings and Jefferson, Jefferson's two nephews, known to be of seedy character, were at Monticello, pointing to perhaps the answer of who really fathered at least some of the ancestors of today's Jefferson-Hemingses. The same goes for modern day descendants of West Ford. While it was attempted to do DNA testing on Washington's hair, kept in a locket and given to Martha, the Washington X chromosome, would be the same as that of descendants of West Ford, as would Bushrod Washington's, and other male Washingtons. Therefore, we have only records of where people were and at what time to solve this puzzle.
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