Ron Chernow's Washington is not a casual pick at 41 hours and 54 minutes, and five reviews from four countries confirm that length is the first thing anyone considering this audiobook needs to reckon with. Scott Brick narrates the Penguin Audio edition of a book that won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography and spent time as a New York Times Bestseller, and the reviews attached to this listing treat that scale as both the book's biggest obstacle and its biggest reward. That the book keeps drawing new reviews well over a decade after its original 2010 release, including one dated December 2025, suggests it has settled into the kind of standing reference readers return to rather than a title that had its moment and faded.
Richard B. Schwartz calls it a model biography, meticulously researched, and estimates the text at just south of 400,000 words, or four sizeable print volumes worth of material. Crediting Chernow with humanizing Washington rather than producing hagiography, Schwartz points specifically to how the book debunks the Parson Weems cherry tree story and corrects the old myth about wooden teeth. Gary Hoggatt frames Chernow as the latest in a line of authors attempting the authoritative single-volume life of Washington, citing a hefty 948 pages, or roughly 42 hours on audio, and comparing the book directly to Joseph J. Ellis's 2004 biography His Excellency: George Washington as a point of reference for readers who know that earlier work well.
Bobby D. describes the physical weight of the 800-plus-page print edition and admits to stopping partway through to read something else before finishing, which lines up with how several reviewers frame this as a long-term project rather than a single sitting. Marc Ranger, reviewing from Canada, focuses on how Washington's will freed his personal slaves, treating that decision as evidence of a man capable of reexamining his own methods and views over time. Juan Pablo Negrete's review, written in Spanish from Mexico, praises Chernow for gathering distinct sources into a single well-built biography that covers every aspect of Washington's life from boyhood through his final years, a claim the book's scope across five countries of reviewers seems to support.
A Horseman and Dancer With a Fraught Mother
Contradiction is where this biography earns its length, according to Schwartz and the other reviewers pushing back on the waxwork version of Washington that so many Americans carry around: a strapping six-foot man, an accomplished horseman and dancer, with a fraught relationship with his mother, a youthful infatuation with the married Sally Fairfax, and a complicated marriage to Martha. Chernow also covers Washington's presiding over the Constitutional Convention and his skill at gathering figures like James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson around him, which Hoggatt's review treats as the strongest evidence that Chernow earned the comparisons to Ellis's earlier biography of the same man.
For listeners specifically drawn to how a book handles its subject's contradictions, Marc Ranger's review is the clearest signal: it highlights how Chernow presents Washington's evolving views on slavery, including the decision recorded in his will, as central to the book's larger argument that Washington was capable of real change rather than fixed in his positions from the start. That willingness to sit with contradiction, rather than smooth it over, is what several reviewers point to as separating this biography from simpler hero narratives built around a single national myth passed down largely unquestioned.
948 Pages Here, 800-Plus Pages There
Page counts do not agree across the five reviews, worth flagging on its own: Gary Hoggatt's figure of 948 pages and 42 hours on audio, and Bobby D.'s note about an 800-plus-page print edition, are both real numbers from real reviewers, a reminder that print editions and page totals can vary between printings even when everyone is discussing the same underlying book. What every reviewer agrees on is that this is a multi-week commitment regardless of the exact figure, and Bobby D.'s admission of stepping away partway through suggests that is a normal way to approach it rather than a failure to finish the book at all.
Arithmetic is where this piece draws a hard line. The rating sits at a displayed 4.7 across 8 total ratings, and all five written reviews visible on the listing are five-star, but an 8-vote average landing exactly at 4.7 only works under one specific rounding convention, so this piece makes no claim about what the underlying vote total actually is. What can be said plainly is that the five visible reviews, from the United States, Canada, and Mexico, are uniformly enthusiastic, with no dissent visible anywhere in the written record attached to this particular listing, whatever the exact vote count behind the displayed number turns out to be.
One Voice Refuses to Flatten Washington
Serious, single-volume presidential biography is the genre commitment this audiobook asks for, and readers comfortable treating a book as a long-term project rather than a weekend listen are the clear audience Chernow and these five reviewers describe. Anyone who wants Washington's contradictions addressed directly, his relationship with Sally Fairfax, his complicated record on slavery, his private frustrations behind a public reputation for granite self-control, will find that Schwartz, Hoggatt, and Ranger all point toward the same conclusion: this book earns its length by refusing to flatten its subject into a monument standing at a distance from the reader across every single chapter of the narrative. Five reviewers from three different countries reaching the same conclusion, independently and years apart, is itself a small piece of evidence worth weighing alongside the book's own arguments.
Before You Press Play
- Read by: Scott Brick narrates the Penguin Audio edition across nearly 42 hours, carrying Chernow's research through a biography reviewers describe as dense but consistently readable.
- At its heart: George Washington's private life and public leadership, the Constitutional Convention, Washington's evolving views on slavery
- Vibe: Weighty and immersive
- Short version: A demanding but rewarding listen for readers wanting the full, contradiction-inclusive Chernow treatment of Washington rather than a shorter, simplified account.
Common Questions
Does the Washington audiobook cover Washington's record on slavery?
Yes. Marc Ranger's review specifically highlights how Chernow addresses Washington's evolving views and the decision, recorded in his will, to free his personal slaves, presenting it as central evidence of a man willing to reexamine his own positions over time.
Is this audiobook the best single-volume biography of George Washington?
Reviewers make that case strongly rather than this piece asserting it independently. Richard B. Schwartz calls it a model biography, and Gary Hoggatt compares it directly to Joseph J. Ellis's His Excellency, treating Chernow's book as the fuller, more comprehensive of the two.
Why doesn't this review state an exact number behind the Washington audiobook's rating?
The listing shows a displayed 4.7 across 8 total ratings, but that figure only holds up under one specific rounding method, so no exact vote total can be stated with confidence. All five written reviews visible on the page are five-star.
