Documentaries about George Washington: I am embarrassed as an American to have learned so little so far about him, but am rectifying the gaffe.

Last week I watched a movie about George Washington. It prompted me to watch a few documentaries on him. Five so far.

I can’t believe I haven’t learned more about him. I’m downright embarrassed. No one else is called the father of this country. He is. I study leadership. I’m studying the founding of this nation. He’s widely considered the greatest President of the nation. His picture is on coins and bills. His name is on states, cities, buildings, and more. I could go on.

How have I not read one biography of him? How did I not watch one documentary?

Just from these documentaries I’ve seen his humanity, his struggles, his challenges, his failures, successes, and more. I see parts of leadership I’ve neglected: boots on the ground, leading from the front, risking your life, inspiring love and loyalty from men, I could go on.

I’ve read biographies and watched documentaries about American people, events, and documents including

• Abraham Lincoln
• Thomas Jefferson
• John Adams
• Harriet Tubman
• The Civil War
• The Revolutionary War
• James Madison
• Martin Luther King
• Frederick Douglass
• The Constitution
• The Declaration of Independence
• Malcolm X
• Abolitionism
• Benjamin Franklin
• Ulysses Grant
• Henry Thoreau

I could go on, but I hope I’ve conveyed that I’ve studied plenty. How have I skipped GEORGE WASHINGTON?

My new book and my vision and mission are about changing culture. I’m looking for role models. How about the most important figure in creating the first constitutional democracy?

I started Ron Chernow’s Washington: A Life. According to Wikipedia:

a “one-volume, cradle-to-grave narrative” that attempts to provide a fresh portrait of Washington as “real, credible, and charismatic in the same way he was perceived by his contemporaries”… The book was released to wide acclaim from critics, several of whom called it the best biography of Washington ever written. In 2011, the book won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography, as well as the New-York Historical Society’s American History Book Prize.

Here are the documentaries: