On discovering a letter about a quarrel between Hamilton and Washington, Chernow concluded that there was a more temperamental side to the president than had previously been portrayed.

Ĭhernow conceived the idea of a book on Washington while researching Hamilton's life the two men had worked together closely, and Chernow had come to believe that 'Hamilton is the protagonist of the book but Washington is the hero of the book'. In 2004, he published a biography of American Founding Father Alexander Hamilton, for which he won the inaugural $50,000 George Washington Book Prize. Morgan's family, The House of Morgan, won the National Book Award for Nonfiction. The book's author, Ron Chernow, is a former freelance business journalist who later fashioned himself as a 'self-made historian'. In 2011, the book won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography, as well as the New-York Historical Society's American History Book Prize. The book was released to wide acclaim from critics, several of whom called it the best biography of Washington ever written.

Washington: A Life took six years to complete and makes extensive use of archival evidence.

Ĭhernow, a former business journalist, was inspired to write the book while researching another biography on Washington's long-time aide Alexander Hamilton. The book is a 'one-volume, cradle-to-grave narrative' that attempts to provide a fresh portrait of Washington as 'real, credible, and charismatic in the same way he was perceived by his contemporaries'. Washington: A Life is a biography of George Washington, the first president of the United States, written by American historian and biographer Ron Chernow and published in 2010.

Washington a life chernow