James Thomas Flexner

James Thomas Flexner (1908–2003) was a prizewinning historian and the author of twenty-six books. Born and raised in New York City, he graduated from Harvard University with honors. He began his career as a reporter for the New York Herald Tribune and published his first book, Doctors on Horseback: Pioneers of American Medicine, in 1937. Best known for his four-volume biography of George Washington, Flexner won a special Pulitzer Prize citation for the series and a National Book Award for its final installment, Anguish and Farewell (1972). His single-volume distillation, Washington: The Indispensable Man (1974), has been heralded as “the most convincing evocation of the man and his deeds written within the compass of one book” (Los Angeles Times). Flexner’s other books include America’s Old Masters: First Artists of the New World (1939), The Traitor and the Spy: Benedict Arnold and John André (1953), Mohawk Baronet: Sir William Johnson of New York (1959), The Young Hamilton: A Biography (1978), and An America Saga: The Story of Helen Thomas and Simon Flexner (1984).