Valiant Ambition is , a complex, controversial, and dramatic portrait of a people in crisis and the war that gave birth to a nation. The focus is on loyalty and personal integrity, evoking a Shakespearean tragedy that unfolds in the key relationship of Washington and Arnold, who is an impulsive but sympathetic hero whose misfortunes at the hands of self-serving politicians fatally destroy his faith in the legitimacy of the rebellion. As a country wary of tyrants suddenly must figure out how it should be led, Washington’s unmatched ability to rise above the petty politics of his time enables him to win the war that really matters.
Nathaniel Philbrick was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He earned a BA in English from Brown University and an MA in America Literature from Duke University, where he was a James B. Duke Fellow. He was Brown University’s first Intercollegiate All-American sailor in 1978, the same year he won the Sunfish North Americans in Barrington, RI. After working as an editor at Sailing World magazine, he wrote and edited several books about sailing, including The Passionate Sailor, Second Wind, and Yaahting: A Parody.
He was the founding director of Nantucket’s Egan Maritime Institute and is still a research fellow at the Nantucket Historical Association.
Philbrick has written numerous highly acclaimed and award winning books, including: In the Heart of the Sea (2000), which won the National Book Award for nonfiction was the basis of the 2015 movie directed by Ron Howard, and inspired a 2001 Dateline special on NBC as well as the 2010 PBS American Experience film Into the Deep by Ric Burns; award-winning Sea of Glory (2003); Mayflower (2006), which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History, winner of the Massachusetts Book Award, and is currently development as a miniseries on FX; The Last Stand (2010), currently being adapted for a ten hour, multi-part television series; and Why Read Moby-Dick? (2011) was a finalist for the New England Society Book Award.
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