Stephen Brumwell's new biography focuses on the side of Washington that is so often overlooked. The feisty young frontier officer and the tough forty-something commander of the Continental army, not the venerated elder statesman of the Republic, champing self-consciously on his hippo teeth. It examines Washington's long and varied military career, tracing his evolution as a soldier, and his changing attitude to the waging of war. Ironically, it shows how Washington's reliance upon English models of 'gentlemanly' behaviour, and on British military organisation, was crucial in forging the army that won American independence.