Joseph J. Ellis
George Washington is an enigma, the essential founding father who seems to lack a personality. Joseph Ellis rectifies that in “His Excellency: George Washington”, revealing Washington’s character in this brief biography. Ellis portrays Washington as an ambitious man whose ambition was firmly under control and as a man more motivated, even in his support for revolution, by regard for his station and legacy than by intellectually arrived at conclusions. The book is short, so it lacks detail, but it succeeds in what it sets out to do.