A New York Times Bestseller
Winner of the George Washington Prize
A surprising account of the middle years of the American Revolution and
the tragic relationship between George Washington and Benedict Arnold,
from the New York Times bestselling author of In The Heart of the
Sea, Mayflower, and In the Hurricane's Eye.
"May be one of the greatest what-if books of the age--a volume that
turns one of America's best-known narratives on its head."--Boston
Globe
"Clear and insightful, [Valiant Ambition] consolidates Philbrick's
reputation as one of America's foremost practitioners of narrative
nonfiction."--Wall Street Journal**
In the second book of his acclaimed American Revolution series,
Nathaniel Philbrick turns to the tragic relationship between George
Washington and Benedict Arnold. In September 1776, the vulnerable
Continental army under an unsure George Washington evacuated New York
after a devastating defeat by the British army. Three weeks later, one
of his favorite generals, Benedict Arnold, miraculously succeeded in
postponing the British naval advance down Lake Champlain that might have
lost the war. As this book ends, four years later Washington has
vanquished his demons, and Arnold has fled to the enemy. America was
forced at last to realize that the real threat to its liberties might
not come from without but from withinComplex, controversial, and
dramatic, Valiant Ambition is a portrait of a people in crisis and the
war that gave birth to a nation.
