Forget the flawless marble statue. This deep dive into the life of America’s first president reveals a messy, ambitious, and deeply human figure: a fatherless teenager who taught himself manners from a French guidebook, a young militia officer who unknowingly signed a confession to assassination, and a planter trapped in debt to London merchants.

We trace George Washington from surveyor and frontier officer through the French and Indian War, his frustration with the British military class system, and his economic break from the mercantile system. Then we follow him into the Revolution, his remarkable decision to resign his commission, the invention of the presidency, and the farewell address warning against the dangers of political parties.

• How surveying put a teenage Washington at the center of colonial Virginia’s land-based economy
• The Jumonville Glen skirmish and the mistranslated Fort Necessity surrender that helped spark the French and Indian War
• How British tobacco debts pushed him to switch to wheat, build a grist mill, and diversify his estate
• Why his Fabian strategy of keeping the Continental Army alive mattered more than winning every battle
• The precedents he set: resigning his commission, the title Mr. President, neutrality, and his final warning on factionalism