George Washington: The Man Behind Myths. Edited by William M. S. Rasmussen and Robert S. Tilton. (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1999. Pp. xv, 328. Illustrations. $24.95.) George Washington: Music for President. Companion Music Book by Kate Van Winkle Keller. Compact Disc Recording by David and Ginger Hildebrand. (Sandy Hook, CT: The Hendrickson Group, 1999. Pp. 32. Illustrations. Compact Disc, 47:22. Music book, $7.99.) For much of twentieth century, George Washington's stock fell. Abraham Lincoln, whose suffering in midst of civil war made him seem more human, supplanted colder Washington in Americans' affection. Thomas Jefferson, whose writings welcome multiple interpretations and whose life embodies America's paradoxes, remains controversial to this day. Meanwhile, nineteenth-century veneration of Washington gave way to twentieth-century debunking, and scholars and novelists alike tried to penetrate figure of Gilbert Stuart's portrait and Jean-Antoine Houdon's statue. After high school, many Americans probably never gave Washington another thought, even when looking at his face on dollar bill or quarter. Thanks to 1999 bicentennial of his death, George Washington is once again present in minds-if not first in hearts-of his countrymen and women. Mount organized several traveling exhibitions about Washington's life that appeared from New York to California. Other exhibitions focused on nineteenth- and twentieth-century images of Washington, Martha Washington's place in American culture (at Daughters of American Revolution Museum), and portraits of George and Martha from presidential years (at National Portrait Gallery, with a catalogue by Ellen Gross Miles). At Washington's home, a series of events culminated in a re-creation of Washington's funeral, covered live on C-SPAN. The beautifully illustrated George Washington: The Man Behind Myths is far more than catalogue of Virginia Historical Society's Washington exhibition. William M. S. Rasmussen and Robert S. Tilton use Washington's own writings, early biographies (from 1780s to 1850s), visual representations, account books and other records of purchase, material artifacts, and archaeological remains to tell Washington's life story. The chapters' chronology is familiar: Washington's youth, his early military career (ended for want of a commission in British army), his first retirement at Mount Vernon, Revolution, his second retirement, presidency, and his final retirement. As this list suggests, however, authors weigh retirements more heavily than most Washington scholars have. Even chapters on public life discuss renovations at Mount and purchases of fine household furnishings. As Rasmussen and Tilton argue throughout, getting to know Washington behind myths means understanding how private concerns were often at heart of his national policies (xi). A clear-cut product of Virginia's peculiar colonial society, Washington would inherit westward orientation of a colony that stretched to Great Lakes and would devote much of his public life to riparian expansion (xi). Growing up near Belvoir, Fairfaxes' plantation estate, Washington developed an appreciation for fine furnishings and their role in displaying genteel status. (He would buy many of those same accoutrements when Fairfaxes departed for England.) At his presidential levees, his success with the less-gentrified but well-traveled Adamses and Murrays of New England, as well as with aristocrats from Europe and South, resulted from this early social training at Belvoir and years of practice at Mount Vernon (219). Above all, Mount was never far from Washington's thoughts-and not just in Cincinnatus-like idealization that began in his own lifetime. …