George Mason and George Washington: The Power of Principle

Bought this book to learn about George Mason as my grandson will be starting school at GMU this Spring semester. Very interesting man George Mason, as was his neighbor George Washington. Really enjoyed reading the personal correspondence that the two exchanged on a variety of topics. Clearly, Mason preferred to keep much of his life private and was clearly frustrated by politics, whereas Washington was a very public man and an astute politician skilled at achieving his goals through the political process. When Mason refused to endorse The Constitution and listed a number of objections to it, the friendship between Mason and Washington began to fray and was never the same as Mason refused to budge.

it's an okay

An excellent introduction to a nearly forgotten founding father and his life-long relationship with our first president, Gerard Gawalt's George Mason and George Washington: The Power of Principle is a well written and mostly enjoyable read. If you are looking for a "scholarly" book with copious footnotes and citations, this is probably not the book for you, as Gewalt provides only a list of sources at the end of the volume. However, if you enjoy reading about the founding of our country and the people who made it possible, you will enjoy this book. The only complaint I have, and the reason that I gave the book only four stars, is that there are typographical errors throughout the entire first portion of the book. Missing words, grammatical errors and punctuation errors abound, which for me, was quite distracting. A simple spelling and grammar check in whatever word processor was used would have corrected a major portion of the errors.

As an avid reader of books about the Founding Fathers and Founding Mothers, I have been for years a great fan of Mr. Gawalt's books. I loved his two books on Presidential letters to their wives and daughters and, most recently, found his book on Jefferson, "Circle of Friends", to be a fascinating and absorbing read. His style of telling history, through the primary documents of various personal, professional and political relationships throughout history is, quite simply, history at its best. His books focus on what makes these people tick and what makes them human. His latest work on Washington and George Mason -- one well-known Founding Father, one not so well-known -- is a fascinating examination of a complex and intriguing relationship. I anxiously look forward to Mr. Gawalt's next endeavor in history.

Another very readable, interesting historical narrative by Gerald Gawalt. Glad I bought it. His books always open new windows on under-discussed people and events of early American history.

The material is fascinating, and the book is well-written, but the plethora of typos is distracting. Did the publisher not proofread the book at all?

Interesting read

Gerard Gawalt's "George Mason and George Washington: The Power of Principle" reminds us that a significant weakness of using "original intent" to justify ideological commitments in American law means relying on "divided intent." Working from words written by Washington and Mason, Mr. Gawalt's well-written book suggests that the division of opinion of America's founding fathers about where government power should lie fails to support original intent as an overwhelming consensus that made the Federal Government. That nascent division persists to this day in the midst of enduring, fundamental disagreements about the purpose, scope, and use of that government. Gawalt's book also provides a clear sense of how the personalities of Washington and Mason influenced the political and governmental views that ended the long and close friendship of the two Founding Fathers. That influence serves as a useful notion to keep in mind, given the current discord among persons of extreme political views and the difficulty of making coherent local, state, and federal policies.