re: Vermin going after George Washington

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There is nothing wrong with attempting a more objective analysis. He will still be a great man and patriot ... just more human.

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Absolutely. But I don't know if this is that book. The article mentioned that Chernow's book on Washington had no direct citations with regards to Washington's mother. If that is true, and the book does have citations which can complicate and explain that relationship, that is an ultimate good. But depending on what view the historian takes can color a lot of that relationship, which is where the predisposed ideology of the author comes into play. My view is that this book is attempting to make "history" fun, which is a terrible way of introducing people to the process by which history is written. There are multiple ways you can explore a historical topic, but if the aim is specifically with an ideology in mind, then it makes it difficult to approach any historical topic, as the lens by which the source documents are interpreted are colored by concerns which are fashionable for a period, but don't make for good works of history.

I've read many works by historians who do lots of good work pointing out the biases in source documentation, about how much we can trust that documentation, and to what degree a source is dependable in its point of view. From reading this article, this book doesn't give me the impression that it will be a dispassionate analysis of that documentation, but rather will attempt to paint a portrait which says more about the author and time period than it does about the historical artifact in question.