Being George Washington by Glenn Beck

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I have many reasons why I should support this book. Glenn Beck and I hold a great deal of the same beliefs involving our government and politics is just one. I’ve been involved with the program involving my editorial cartoons since 2001. I could write much, much more. Despite all this,I really can’t recommend this book.

The intent is noble and a great idea for a book and for people to practice-to be like George Washington. If only the book focused on that goal and not wandered off into so many other directions. Seems the idea of the book was to provide supporting reasons as to why George Washington should be a model to follow. Instead there are Gore Vidal turns of recreating the world around Washington in various snippets of Washington’s life. Seems to me, the historical points were badly selected. Each is more of reflection than of action, thus written more from a viewpoint of opinion than actual historical documentation. If only the reflection could have been better tied to the actions and then results of Washington’s decisions. That would have made the history more thorough and better illustrate not only Washington’s mindsets but also the results.

Worse, the historical vignettes are badly written. Silly melodramatic phrasing really stands out. That can be a trap of interspersing fiction with fact. Bad fiction really stands out. I’d suggest mining the William Johnstone ghost writers. Most are excellent at writing historical action and weave in the reasons why and results.

The layout of the book is very confusing. There’s too much jumping around in time, which further gets in the way of supporting the goal of the book. A real plus is the effort to state the date of occurances. Way too many current histories rarely state the year or place in time.

The best part is the end chapter that works to point by point layout the importance of Washignton’s final address. What’s confounding is that the final address is not even included in the book. What follows the last chapter Is an odd glossary, list of people in Washington’s life and a chronology. Seems to me the last three could have been dropped in favor of the final address.

I believe the bookis a result of having too many cooks in the kitchen, pitching in too many ingredients and forgetting what entrée the team was trying to make.

Bottom line: I do not recommend this book. 4 of 10.

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