With so many biographies of George Washington available, it is not so much a matter of having something new to say but approaching the subject from a singular perspective: a biography with a thesis. David O. Stewart, the author of well-received biographical studies of Aaron Burr...

Alexis Coe, trained as a historian, and employed at various times by the Brooklyn Historical Society and as a research curator for the New York Public Library, levels her witty, iconoclastic book not only at George Washington but also at those legions of male biographers...