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  • Valiant Ambition

  • George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and the Fate of the American Revolution
  • Written by: Nathaniel Philbrick
  • Narrated by: Scott Brick
  • Length: 13 hrs and 18 mins

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Valiant Ambition

Written by: Nathaniel Philbrick
Narrated by: Scott Brick
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Publisher's Summary

A New York Times best seller

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 the New York Times best-selling author of In the Heart of the Sea, Mayflower, and In 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, near the Canadian border, 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 within.

Complex, controversial, and dramatic, Valiant Ambition is a portrait of a people in crisis and the war that gave birth to a nation. 

©2016 Nathaniel Philbrick (P)2016 Penguin Audio

Critic Reviews

"Benedict Arnold takes center stage in Nathaniel Philbrick’s vivid and in some ways cautionary tale of the Revolutionary War. The near-tragic nature of the drama hinges not on any military secrets Arnold gave to the British but on an open secret: the weakness of the patriot cause.... Arnold’s betrayal still makes for great drama, proving once again that the supposed villains of a story are usually the most interesting." (New York Times Book Review)

"Philbrick's deep scholarship, nuanced analysis, and novelistic storytelling add up to another triumph." (Publishers Weekly, starred review)

“A lively account of our Revolutions’ most reviled figure.” (Kirkus Reviews)   

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