Reading time: 2 minutes

Historian and author Nathaniel Philbrick will discuss his latest book, Valiant Ambition, at 7 p.m. on Friday, June 3, at the Ethical Society of St. Louis, 9001 Clayton Road, as part of the Maryville Talks Books series.

This event is free and open to the public, but RSVPs are requested. Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis.

The presentation will be followed by a book signing. Proof of purchase of Valiant Ambition from Left Bank Books will be required to enter the signing line at the event.

From the New York Times bestselling author of “In The Heart of the Sea”—soon to be a major motion picture starring Chris Hemsworth and directed by Ron Howard—comes a surprising account of the middle years of the American Revolution, and the tragic relationship between George Washington and Benedict Arnold.

In September 1776, the vulnerable Continental Army under an unsure George Washington (who had never commanded a large force in battle) evacuates 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 succeeds in postponing the British naval advance down Lake Champlain that might have ended the war. Four years later, as the book ends, Washington has vanquished his demons and Arnold has fled to the enemy after a foiled attempt to surrender the American fortress at West Point to the British. After four years of war, America is forced to realize that the real threat to its liberties might not come from without but from within.

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.”