First in Peace: How George Washington Set the Course for America - Hardcover

O'Brien, Conor Cruise

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0306816199 ISBN 13: 9780306816192

Publisher: Da Capo Press, 2009

Synopsis

Just before he died after a long and distinguished international career as a politician, commentator, and author, Conor Cruise O'Brien completed a study of George Washington's presidency. Cruise O'Brien has been described as “a man who so persistently asks the right questions” (The Economist), and in this, his last book, he explores the question of how early America's future was determined.

First in Peace considers the dissension between Washington and Jefferson during the first U.S. presidency, and reveals Washington's clear-sighted political wisdom while exposing Jefferson's dangerous ideology. Cruise O'Brien makes the case that Washington, not Jefferson, was the true democrat, and commends his clarity of vision in restoring good relations with Britain, his preference for order and pragmatism, and his aversion to French political extremism.

About this title

About the Author

Conor Cruise O'Brien (1917–2008) was a pre-eminent author and one of Ireland's leading intellectuals. His magisterial work about Jefferson's presidency, The Long Affair, was published to international acclaim in 1996.

Reviews

These posthumously published essays by Irish historian O’Brien, who died in 2008, explore President George Washington’s foreign policies of the 1790s. O’Brien’s conversational essays incorporate the commentary of other historians and biographers on particular writings or actions of Washington. Wary of France and the support its revolution enjoyed in America, Washington set course in 1789 toward a rapprochement with Britain. When his letter authorizing soundings to this effect reached Jefferson, the secretary of state protested. All that did, in O’Brien’s view, was deepen Washington’s distrust of Jefferson’s pro-French tendencies, so he tended to cut Jefferson out of the foreign-policy loop, and let him compromise himself by too close an association with the Genêt affair of 1793 (in which the French ambassador armed privateers in American ports). Washington’s decisive peace-seeking gesture toward Britain, the controversial Jay Treaty of 1795, elicits O’Brien’s assessment of Washington’s importance in keeping America at peace amid the war between Britain and France. Introduced by Christopher Hitchens, O’Brien’s valediction should intrigue in-depth history readers. --Gilbert Taylor

Edition details

• Publisher: Da Capo Press
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0306816199
• ISBN 13: 9780306816192
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 184