The Permanent Resident - (Early American Histories) by Philip Levy (Hardcover)

About the Book

"This archaeological biography of George Washington uncovers the physical remains of the major sites he lived at or visited--from his childhood home near Fredericksburg to Barbados and Mount Vernon--while also narrating their many, and shifting, afterlives in American popular memory"--

Book Synopsis

No figure in American history has generated more public interest or sustained more scholarly research around his various homes and habitations than has George Washington. The Permanent Resident is the first book to bring the principal archaeological sites of Washington's life together under one cover, revealing what they say individually and collectively about Washington's life and career and how Americans have continued to invest these places with meaning.

Philip Levy begins with Washington's birthplace in Westmoreland County, Virginia, then moves to Ferry Farm--site of the mythical cherry tree--before following Washington to Barbados to examine how his only trip outside the continental United States both shaped him and lingered in local memory. The book then profiles the site of Washington's first military engagement and his nation-making stay in Philadelphia. From archaeological study of Mount Vernon, Levy also derives fascinating insights about how slavery changed and was debated at Washington's famous home. Levy considers the fates of Washington statues and commemorations to understand how they have functioned as objects of veneration--and sometimes vandalism--for more than a century and a half.

Two hundred years after his death, at the sites of his many abodes, Washington remains an inescapable presence. The Permanent Resident guides us through the places where Washington lived and in which Americans have memorialized him, speaking to issues that have defined and challenged America from his time to our own.

Review Quotes

Levy's reframing of . . . Washington adds new perspectives and detail to this ubiquitous embodiment of the national identity. Especially sharp is his tracing of how slavery so often figures in the warp, the woof, and the patterns of life for Washington, his contemporaries, and the nation still struggling to unravel this legacy. We do need to talk about Washington, as Levy concludes, and his book is an important contribution to that necessary conversation.--Journal of American History

Levy offers readers a meditation on the process of interpretation itself. . . The Permanent Resident may find a home in courses on historical methods and public history, spaces where historians grapple with the process of crafting and conveying historical narratives to broader publics in a constantly changing world. Readers working outside early American history will still find many useful provocations in Levy's use of Washington as a "meta-topic," one whose rich material record provides ample opportunities for considering the work of public history from new angles-- "Journal of Southern History"

Levy's book succeeds in closely examining the type of factual details that fascinate historians (When exactly did Washington's childhood home burn down? Why did Washington choose to build Fort Necessity in the round?) and then taking a step back to ask, Why does it matter? . . . [it] tells a fascinating historiographical story of the United States. --H-Environment

An innovative and compelling book from a historian with grounding in several camps taking on an iconic figure in American history. Engaging, full of insight, and an important contribution, this book is quietly breathtaking in its scope.

--Julia A. King, St. Mary's College of Maryland, author of Archaeology, Narrative, and the Politics of the Past: The View from Southern Maryland

Born in obscurity near the Potomac River at Pope's Creek, George Washington died seven decades later just seventy miles upstream at Mount Vernon. Armed with an archaeologist's trowel and a historian's notebook, Philip Levy has retraced Washington's odyssey - from youthful experiences at Ferry Farm and Barbados, the battlefields of revolution, through nation-making at Philadelphia. Levy's sharp eye and clear prose introduce readers to places Washington inhabited and where his legacy poses thorny challenges and others where a sign could read: George Washington Triumphed Here.

--Jon Kukla, author of Mr. Jefferson's Women and Patrick Henry: Champion of Liberty

In The Permanent Resident, Philip Levy is concerned with the ways our understanding of who Washington was have been shaped by who we have wanted him to be. It is a complex tale in which scholarly research became entangled with popular mythology, public relations, and even a bit of fraud, in ways that even scholars have had difficulty unraveling. This lively, engagingly written book offers a fresh take on Washington, much of it drawn from the most recent archaeological findings, that will fascinate anyone interested in this most famous of American founders.

--Dell Upton, University of California, Los Angeles

About the Author

Philip Levy is Professor of History at the University of South Florida and the author of George Washington Written on the Land: Nature, Memory, Myth, and Landscape.