H.W. Brands on the Making of George Washington

You're always interested in the first of the first of anything, and including the the first president, the the first victorious general, the person, I mean, quite arguably, Washington is more responsible for the creation of the American Republic than any other person. And now the good fight with Yasha Monk. America, as many of you will know, is about to celebrate its 250th birthday, and so I thought this was A great opportunity to examine the life and times of perhaps the most important American founder, George Washington. I invited onto the podcast to do this H.W.

Brands, the Jack S. Blanton senior chair in history at the University of Texas at Austin and Pulitzer Prize finalist for many of his biographies, who has a new book out called American Patriarch, The Life of George Washington. I was particularly interested in finding out the early upbringing of Washington, how he fit into the social structure of the time, how he uh went from being a loyal British subject to an American revolutionary leader, how an originally small rebellion uh spiraled and spiraled into a much more ambitious undertaking, and how Washington's choice to relinquish power twice shaped the norms of the early American Republic.

In the last part of this week's conversation, we talk not about Washington's presidency, but how he relinquished his presidency, how that set the norm for future American presidents, by and large, with one notable exception, leaving office after two terms. How Washington thought about the rise of political partisanship, which was happening as he became president and really took center stage in the first election to succeed him and what Oliver teaches us about the fragility of American political institutions today. To listen to this part of the conversation, to support this patriotic publication on this 250th anniversary of America, please go to writing.yashamunk.com slash 2026.

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