In a curious way, the grandeur of George Washington’s reputation can obscure how great he actually was. A splendid reminder of Washington’s true stature, David McCullough’s 1776 (Simon & Schuster, 400 pages, $32.00) follows him through that momentous year. The book opens with the American army driving the British out of Boston and quickly brings that army down to New York, where calamity upon calamity awaits it. Full of the sound and color of the era and deeply suspenseful even though we know how the story ends, this swift, bracing book reminds Americans that while our founding myth is as full of daring and impossibilities as that of Rome, it isn’t a myth at all.