Happy Birthday, George!

On this, the birthday of our first (and, I believe greatest) president, I have been persuing a book that I received as a Christmas present:

The Grand Idea: George Washington's Potomac and the Race to the West, by Joel Achenbach, Simon & Schuster, New York, 2004. [ISBN 0-684-84857-0]

It's been laying woefully neglected in my study for nearly two months, so it's about time I cracked it open.

Achenbach's work asks what was going thru Washington's mind after he won the Revolution? How could he fashion a nation out of a bunch of former colonies? What could he do to bind them together in a common purpose after defeating the British?

His premise was that the father of our country saw westward expansion (initially along the route of the Potomac) as a grand enterprise that might distract the disparate colonists from their many differences. Get them to set those aside to achieve a new collective goal, and the states might actually be united.

Interesting premise.

And, since there's nothing good on tv tonight, I might make it thru a chapter or two . . .