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Title: Not worth the trouble
Review: This "history" of Martha Washington could use a lot more in the way of scholarly research. It uses a lot of anecdotal material found in letters and diaries, but, quite frankly fails to give us a convincing picture. Also, one gets the feeling as one reads this book that the author has very little sympathy for early American history. Perhaps Ms. Bryan has lived a little too long in Britain, but for this American her touchiness on social issues of the 18th century seem totally removed from the events of that period. There is a sort of creeping left wing bigotry and latent feminism that keeps percolating up from the bowels of this book, rendering any scholarly point of view totally impotent. I wonder if any of the men and women of the present day would come off any better if they were subjected to this kind of scholarly Stalinism.
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