You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington

by Alexis Coe

We need to question and review everything—including presidential biographies—but there’s an expectation that women will write books about women; people of color will write about people of color.

With titles this stodgy, presidential biographies will always appear as if they are for men of a certain age, intended to be purchased on Presidents’ or Father’s Day.

In a young, monarchy-weary America, Washington’s lack of heirs gave him a distinct political advantage; it comforted people to know that he had no bloodline to preserve, no power-hungry scion to worry about.

Smallpox was rare in the Colonies, and his resistance to the virus would serve him well during the Revolution.

but Tanacharison, known to Europeans as the “Half-King,” would call him “Conotocarious.” In English, it translated to Town Taker, or Devourer of Villages.

If the American Revolution had not taken place, Washington would probably be remembered today as the instigator of humanity’s first world war, one that lasted seven years.

At 6'2", he towered half a foot over any rival.