Book Review: George Washington by Hourly History

What a great find this series is! I was contacted about this book/Hourly History by the Director of the series, and asked if I’d be interested in doing a review. I’m a long-time fan of American History (thanks to my dad) and of biographies, and the idea of condensing a life like Washington’s into a one-hour read was curiously compelling. I didn’t quite know what to expect – I rather thought I knew a fair amount about our first President; turns out I was wrong, and an hour’s worth of reading provided me with rather more new information than I imagined it would!

With a larger emphasis on early life than I had previously experienced (relatively, that is, given the length of the book), I found myself lost in this one quickly. I suspect I read it in rather less than an hour; it certainly felt shorter. In a clear, concise voice, the book presents the life and accomplishments (which were many and varied) of Washington in a way that is informative, interesting and engaging.

This is a marvelous idea for a series, and I’m pleased to report that there are a slew of titles on a very broad range of topics encompassing global history. I suspect will be a great way to develop a working knowledge base about a lot of subjects that have always interested me but that I’ve feared were too large or involved to do justice to without a major time commitment, like the actual, non-Starz, experience of the Vikings, the Renaissance, or the Middle Ages. There are also biographies of the famous and infamous and histories of world wars. It’s a brilliant collection that seems to be ever-expanding, and I’m delighted to have been introduced to it!