Raymond Seitz
A Realistic Visionary
‘First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.’ So did Henry Lee elegantly eulogise George Washington when the great man died two weeks before the close of the eighteenth century. The summation is hard to dispute even today.
Washington was different from the rest of that remarkable coterie of colonials who rebelled against Great Britain and created the United States. He wasn’t a garrulous New England intellectual such as John Adams or Benjamin Franklin. His formal education was basic, nothing more. Before the Constitutional Convention of 1787, which
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'Walk down your supermarket pet food aisle and you’ll be hard pressed to find a single brand that claims to be made with high-welfare meat. More expensive pet food should not be about spoiling our cats but about sparing the farmed beasts we feed them.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/meattoo
'Two things prevent [this book] from collapsing under the weight of its own wayward ambition. Colin Jones, one of the finest living scholars of early modern France, is no ordinary historian. And the day in question, 27 July 1794, was no ordinary day'.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/night-of-the-guillotine
The Anatomy of Melancholy 'has never quite become a widely recognised, bona fide "classic". For long stretches, the bulk of its readership has been restricted to bibliophiles and scholars. It has had an air of murkiness and desuetude'.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/phantoms-of-the-mind