Washington: Unleashing America’s Entrepreneurial Spirit

This is a truly wondrous book, written by someone who ably serves as an expert guide to George Washington’s contribution to America. It evidences deep research and appreciation of a master entrepreneur from the author’s viewpoint as a master entrepreneur, one experienced in international law, finance, and education, as well as being a life-long student and admirer of George Washington. Indeed, it’s one of the best books I’ve ever read of very many books on George Washington.

Within the book you’ll find numerous “Wow, I didn’t know that’s!” For example, most everyone believes Washington got his start on the road to riches (at least assets) by marrying Martha Custis. The short version, as the author explains in depth, is that when George married Martha, yes, she was “rich,” but her estate was encumbered with lawsuits that could have quickly taken her to bankruptcy. Basically, it was only the fact that George parried the legalities for over twenty years and then won the Revolutionary War that saved her fortune and that of her children’s from adverse England-based judgments.

You will also find gems like (p 38): “Years later, a visitor to Mount Vernon would write that Washington could recite from memory ‘all the rivers, lakes, creeks and the means to procure a communication between these waters and Portsmouth in the province of Maine as far as the Mississippi.’” Such are the fascinating facts you’ll learn about our “Foundingest Father.”

While I can’t say enough in the way of positives about the book, there are a couple of items I’d like to cite, as I’m especially curious about them, with the hope that they might be addressed in future editions:

P 97 Washington rebuilt Mount Vernon with “a round banquet hall capable of handling dozens of guests seven days a week.” From Mount Vernon’s floor plans, I don’t see any round rooms. The New Room (aka Large Dining Room) is definitely rectangular.

P 130 Around 1772, Virginia and South Carolina tried to stop the importation of slaves, but King George foiled them and kept the trade going. Wow, but Jefferson wasn’t allowed to call out the King for this in the Declaration of Independence, foiled by an effort spearheaded by South Carolina?

P 135 “The most important colonies of Great Britain in the eighteenth century were India and America.” What about the West Indies, the protection of which caused England to siphon off a good number of soldiers and sailors from America and send them south to the Caribbean? Other authors have the West Indies at a multiple (sometimes 4x) of the value of the thirteen American colonies.

P 152 & 56 David Hume and George Washington biographer Woodrow Wilson refer to American colonies as being 3,000 miles away from England and/or markets. It turns out that Manhattan is around 3,400 miles away from London as the seagull flies, but that’s not the route that the quick-sailing packet ships took, which included a detour to Halifax. Furthermore, if one moves the American port further south, one quickly crosses the averaging-up 3500-mile point, and reaches 4,000 miles when one considers the path that took Mount Vernon’s Bastille Key from Paris to Mount Vernon. What’s an extra 1,000 miles?! Unless you’re talking nautical (not statute) miles, in which case multiply the above numbers by .869 and rest easy…but please say/think “nautical miles”!

P 271 Speaking of geography: “Madison, trying to capitalize on the President’s popularity, did not fail to note that the geographic midpoint of the north-south axis of the United States was not just the Potomac, but Mount Vernon itself.” I noticed this myself some time ago. My kudos to Mr. Madison for noticing it even earlier and to the author for including it!

P 328 For those thinking Jefferson, a frenemy to Washington, was our greatest president: Jefferson’s letter to Madison to the effect that Virginians cooperating with the Bank of the US should be prosecuted for treason and suffer death accordingly by the judgment of the state courts! Gulp! Who wants to start a national banking system?

P 367 [From context, presumably Friday, 13 December 1799] “He [GW] wrote his last letter to Alexander Hamilton, approving the plans for the establishment of the United States Military Academy at West Point, which had been the subject of much discussion between them. He ended his letter with an assurance of ‘very great esteem and regard.’”

However, the Founders Archives has Washington’s letter to Hamilton dated 12 December, not 13 December. Yes, this was apparently Washington’s last letter to Hamilton, but it wasn’t his last letter. His last letter was on 13 December 1799, discussing his farms with his farm manager from Scotland, James Anderson. In the Washington-Hamilton correspondence, neither of them mentioned West Point (which Washington referred to elsewhere as the “Key of America”) or named any location(s) for the military academy(ies). As a George Washington fan and a West Point graduate, I just had to check this out!

Bottom-line: My curious items aside, I found this to be an extraordinary book about George Washington, with many, many new reasons to continue believing he was our greatest president. Very highly recommended!

Of possible interest: George Washington’s Liberty Key: Mount Vernon’s Bastille Key – the Mystery and Magic of Its Body, Mind, and Soul, a best-seller at Mount Vernon. “Character is Key for Liberty!” and
Strategy Pure and Simple: Essential Moves for Winning in Competition and Cooperation

I wasn’t born in the USA, but I live here now. This book gave me an insight into how the great USA was chiseled into an entrepreneurial society that gave the world a new prospective into individual freedom and success!
A very different and new image of the greatest George Washington!!

It cover to cover. Excellent history story. All youngsters should put on your list to read cover to cover. You’ll then understand what it takes to make a successful country.

This is an awesome book! There was so much more to the American Revolution than what is taught in US history classes. I had no idea how tyrannical Britain was to its Colonies. I had no idea that both Thomas Jefferson and George Washington hated slaver so much that they petitioned the King of England to stop this barbaric trade in 1770 while Virginia legislators , six years before the Declaration of Independence. I had no idea that when George Washington was such an entrepreneur.

I love this book! I previously had a limited grade school knowledge of George Washington and this has been an amazing eye opener. The author presents an excellent account of the life and times of our first President. The book is well laid out for reading in sections if one is short on time. I thoroughly recommend this book to anyone who desires to learn more about President George Washington and his unwavering Entrepreneurial spirit.