OSHER 318 - George Washington: An Ethical Biography

For most, George Washington is the forbidding and aloof elderly man who stares at us from the dollar bill, as cold and hard as the Washington monument itself. The question is, who was he really? Was George Washington really a great man, and if so why? More importantly, does the life of this 18th Century southern planter, this man from a vanished world, have anything to say to those living in the 21st Century? The premise of the class will be that studying the life, personality, and above all the character of George Washington has a great deal to say to us, perhaps especially so in the often confusing and disheartening times in which we live.