Released two weeks ago, H.W. Brands’s “American Patriarch: The Life of George Washington” is the most significant biography of our first president to appear in more than a decade. Brands is a professor of history at the University of Texas and the author of more than three dozen books including biographies of Ronald Reagan, Andrew Jackson, Ulysses Grant, Teddy Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

With 577 pages organized into 100 chapters, the narrative flows far faster than the book’s length would suggest.  But with an average of just five or six pages, chapters feel more like ‘mini-stories’ than comprehensive reviews of any particular topic. Nevertheless, Brands successfully weaves together a coherent, relatively concise and reasonably interesting storyline focused on the major events of Washington’s (mostly public) life.

Because George Washington has been so thoroughly dissected by previous biographers, it is unsurprising that nothing revelatory is found in these pages. Instead, Brands’s strategy seems to have been analyzing Washington primarily through the lens of his journal entries, speeches and written letters.

One might expect this would imbue the narrative with Washington’s “inner voice” – providing texture and color to his often pallid image – sadly, this is not the case. These sources do not convey unguarded thoughts and opinions; instead, they reinforce the stale image of Washington as hopelessly punctilious and stiff.

At times, “American Patriarch” feels like a character study – though one handicapped with too narrow a range of sources.  In other moments it reads more like a fast-paced history of Washington’s public life. But the narrative consistently exudes a “facts only” feel, betraying its author’s primary profession as a history professor. Nowhere in these pages will readers encounter the literary magic or immersive scene-setting found, for example, in Ron Chernow’s “Washington: A Life.”

As one would expect from a notable and prolific author, Brands’s biography does have its high points. Among them are interesting observations regarding the early governance and social framework of Virginia, a good succinct review of the root causes of the American Revolution, a relatively thorough discussion of smallpox, and a helpful overview of the Constitutional Convention of 1787.

In addition, readers focused on Washington’s presidency will find comparatively well-paced focus on topics such as relations with Native Americans, foreign affairs (including the Jay Treaty) and, finally, fiscal matters (primarily relating to the establishment of a national bank).

But anyone who hopes to really know Washington will find his early life is dispatched with unfortunate speed (and virtually no color), his family and personal lives are almost entirely absent, and important characters within Washington’s orbit often appear with no introduction or context whatsoever.

Curiously, historical events often receive coverage disproportionate to their importance in the nation’s history … or to Washington’s life. And equally disappointing is that readers miss most of the fascinating interpersonal dynamics between Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton.

Overall, H.W. Brands’s “American Patriarch: The Life of George Washington“ is a good, but regrettably unexceptional, addition to the panoply of Washington biographies. Readers already acquainted with the broad contours of early American history may find this book adds a new perspective to familiar events. But for anyone seeking an exceptional survey of Washington’s life – thorough in coverage and penetrating in personality – Brands’s “American Patriarch” falls short.

Overall Rating: 3 stars