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Historical person

George Washington

1732–1799

George Washington commanded the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War and served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. His leadership helped hold together an often underfunded army, while his voluntary resignation of military command and later transfer of presidential power established important precedents. Washington was also a wealthy Virginia planter who enslaved more than a hundred people, a central fact in assessing his public commitment to liberty.

Washington appears in Gore Vidal’s Burr and in Jeff Shaara’s Rise to Rebellion and The Glorious Cause, among many other novels of the Revolution. Fiction ranges from reverential national founder to distant, calculating commander. Recent portrayals more often include the enslaved community at Mount Vernon and the contradictions between revolutionary language and Washington’s economic and social world.

In non-fiction, George Washington is discussed in Gore Vidal’s Inventing a Nation. In Gore Vidal’s Inventing a Nation, in this work of political history, Gore Vidal examines the revolutionary generation through George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, while also considering Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison.

Historical context

Historical periods linked to George Washington

American Revolutionary War 1775–1783 CE

Series

Series featuring George Washington (7 series)

Outlander in Order

by Diana Gabaldon 9 books 4.6

The Outlander series follows twentieth-century physician Claire Randall after she travels through time to eighteenth-century Scotland and forms a life with Highlander Jamie Fraser. The novels move through the Jacobite rising, its aftermath, the Caribbean, colonial North America and the American Revolution, combining family saga, historical adventure, romance…

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Outlander

4.5

Dragonfly in Amber

4.6

Voyager

4.6

Drums of Autumn

4.6

The Fiery Cross

4.6

A Breath of Snow and Ashes

4.7

An Echo in the Bone

4.6

Written in My Own Heart’s Blood

4.7

Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone

4.7

The American Revolutionary War in Order

by Jeff Shaara 2 books 4.6

Jeff Shaara’s two-volume American Revolution sequence follows the colonies from the Boston Massacre and political resistance of the early 1770s through the British surrender at Yorktown. Rise to Rebellion concentrates on the transformation of lawyers, merchants and provincial leaders into revolutionaries; The Glorious Cause follows the Continental Army…

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Rise to Rebellion

4.6

The Glorious Cause

4.7

The Culper Ring in Order

by Roseanna M. White 3 books 4.7

The Culper Ring series traces a fictional family legacy of espionage across three American conflicts: the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812 and the Civil War. Secret correspondence, divided loyalties and inherited codes connect generations of spies who must decide what they are prepared to sacrifice for country,…

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Ring of Secrets (the Culper Ring)

4.6

Whispers from the Shadows

4.7

Circle of Spies (the Culper Ring)

4.6

Birds of Prey Sequence in Order

by Wilbur Smith 10 books 4.4

The extended Birds of Prey sequence follows successive Courtney generations from the Second Anglo-Dutch War and the Indian Ocean trading world through the French and Indian War, the American Revolution, the Napoleonic era and the rise of the Zulu kingdom. Its ten books connect maritime commerce, piracy, colonial…

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Birds of Prey

4.6

Golden Lion

4.0

Monsoon

4.6

The Tiger’s Prey

4.4

Blue Horizon

4.6

Ghost Fire

4.4

Storm Tide

4.5

Nemesis

4.4

Warrior King

4.4

Vengeance

4.5

Seeds of America in Order

by Laurie Halse Anderson 3 books 4.2

The Seeds of America trilogy follows Isabel and Curzon, two young people fighting enslavement while Britain’s North American colonies fight for independence. Beginning in New York in 1776, continuing through Saratoga and the Valley Forge encampment, and ending at Yorktown in 1781, the novels connect their search for…

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Chains

4.1

Forge

4.2

Ashes

4.4

The New World Saga in Order

by Tim Holden 3 books 4.3

The New World Saga follows the Washington family and a wider cast of soldiers, traders, settlers, Indigenous diplomats, servants and political agents through the imperial wars that reshaped eighteenth-century North America. It begins with Lawrence Washington’s service in the War of Jenkins’ Ear, then turns to the young…

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Rule Britannia

4.3

Rivers Run Deep

4.2

New World Order

4.4

The Kent Family Chronicles in Order

by John Jakes 8 books 4.2

The Kent Family Chronicles trace successive generations of one family from the eve of the American Revolution to the early 1890s. The saga begins with Phillipe Charboneau, the unrecognised son of an English duke, who becomes Philip Kent in America, and follows his descendants as they build, lose…

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