Valiant Ambition: George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and the Fate of the American Revolution

From the New York Times bestselling historian comes a surprising account of the messy middle years of the Revolution and the tragic relationship of George Washington and Benedict Arnold.

A New York Times Bestseller Winner of the George Washington Prize

A surprising account of the middle years of the American Revolution and the tragic relationship between George Washington and Benedict Arnold, from theNew York Timesbestselling author ofIn The Heart of the Sea,Mayflower,andIn the Hurricane’s Eye.

May be one of the greatest what-if books of the age-a volume that turns one of America’s best-known narratives on its head. -Boston Globe

Clear and insightful, Valiant Ambition consolidates Philbrick’s reputation as one of America’s foremost practitioners of narrative nonfiction. -Wall Street Journal

In the second book of his acclaimed American Revolution series, Nathaniel Philbrick turns to the tragic relationship between George Washington and Benedict Arnold. In September 1776, the vulnerable Continental army under an unsure George Washington evacuated New York after a devastating defeat by the British army. Three weeks later, one of his favorite generals, Benedict Arnold, miraculously succeeded in postponing the British naval advance down Lake Champlain that might have lost the war. As this book ends, four years later Washington has vanquished his demons, and Arnold has fled to the enemy. America was forced at last to realize that the real threat to its liberties might not come from without but from withinComplex, controversial, and dramatic, Valiant Ambition is a portrait of a people in crisis and the war that gave birth to a nation.