The man in the mirror

In this illuminating biography of America's notorious traitor, Clare Brandt brings alive the times and the life of Benedict Arnold, one of history's most complex and confounding figures. Benedict Arnold has long been portrayed as an American Judas, the embodiment of hypocrisy and betrayal. In Clare Brandt's "masterful" and "eminently readable" biography, we discover the man behind the legend - a driven and often brilliant military leader whose social and personal insecurities, ambitions, and longings for material wealth undermined his superior qualities and talents. In the early months of the Revolutionary War, Arnold's dramatic march to Quebec made him a public hero. His conduct at the Battle of Saratoga two years later confirmed his reputation as America's greatest fighting general. But even though he was hailed as a hero and a patriot, Arnold yearned for more - including the status and wealth his family had lost during his childhood. Clare Brandt shows how Arnold's contradictory impulses and volatile personality alienated his contemporaries, including his champion, George Washington. She describes his love affair with a beautiful young woman from Philadelphia's aristocracy, a relationship that ultimately contributed to Arnold's decision to commit one of the most treacherous acts in American history . A superb work of biography and history, The Man in the Mirror is full of surprising insights not only into a man but also into a fascinating time, the period of the Revolutionary War in America.