Who will win? I’m not sure, and I’m half through the book! Gripping! Suspenseful! Terrifying! (More so than Stephen King!) The book: Historian David McCullough’s new 1776. It’s the blow-by-every-blow account of Washington and his troops during that amazing year. We (few & ill & ragged & undisciplined Americans) don’t seem to have a chance, with the whole power of earth’s greatest superpower lined up against us—and Washington untested in battle. (Those who think the British were distracted by other affairs are flatly wrong.)
McCullough is at his brilliant best. (Two Pulitzers already.) I’ll report back when I know the outcome …
NB: Washington is known as a fighting general, majestic aboard his great steed. Surely he was that, but he was also the epitome of the sometimes dismissed “political general.” He plays the prickly Continental Congress like a First Violinist! (Brings to mind Eisenhower.) We flock to the Pattons and Stonewall Jacksons, but more often than not it’s the political generals who deliver the larger & final victories. I bring this up, because I’ve run into so many holier-than-thou managers who visibly cringe from “politics” as “beneath them.” WRONG! (At least if you want to succeed.)