George Washington achieved what nearly all his chief executive successors attempted and failed to do: He held himself above the rough-and-tumble of politics. Until now, most of us assumed that the Father of Our Country was a selfless leader whose rise to power was the result of general acclamation, not cunning. John Ferling's The Ascent of George Washington argues persuasively that, contrary to this mythic narrative, our first president was an adroit master of the very political machinations that he seemed to disdain. Throughout the book, the author of Almost a Miracle and Adams vs. Jefferson displays his own mastery of this complicated historical period.