Overview

The United States was conceived in business, founded on business, and operated as a business-all because of the entrepreneurial mind of the greatest American businessman of any generation: George Washington. Using Washington's extensive but often overlooked financial papers, Edward G. Lengel chronicles the fascinating and inspiring story of how this self-educated man built the Mount Vernon estate into a vast multilayered enterprise and prudently managed meager resources to win the war of independence. Later, as president, he helped establish the national economy on a solid footing and favorably positioned the nation for the Industrial Revolution. Washington's steadfast commitment to the core economic principles of probity, transparency, careful management, and calculated boldness are timeless lessons that should inspire and instruct investors even today. First Entrepreneur will transform how ordinary Americans think about George Washington and how his success in commercial enterprise influenced and guided the emerging nation.

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9780306823473

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Reviews

Praise for First Entrepreneur First Entrepreneur is an almost magical book. It deftly tells the little known story of George Washington s life as a man of business and simultaneously convinces us that his vision of a commercial nation creating a community of interests between all parts of America was (and still is) the key to our survival as a nation. Edward Lengel has added a new dimension to Washington s greatness. Thomas Fleming, author of The Great Divide Kirkus Reviews, 12/15/15 [Lengel] organically traces the evolution of Washington's free market thinking through his first and second presidential terms: building a national economy, encouraging domestic manufacturing, establishing a central bank, and developing a sense of unity of purpose. A deeply researched and nicely handled biography.

Praise for First Entrepreneur First Entrepreneur is an almost magical book. It deftly tells the little known story of George Washington s life as a man of business and simultaneously convinces us that his vision of a commercial nation creating a community of interests between all parts of America was (and still is) the key to our survival as a nation. Edward Lengel has added a new dimension to Washington s greatness. Thomas Fleming, author of The Great Divide

Author Information

Edward G. Lengel is an American military historian and professor at the University of Virginia. He is the director of the Washington Papers documentary editing project in Charlottesville, Virginia, and is the author of General George Washington: A Military Life, which was a finalist for the 2006 George Washington Book Prize, and Inventing George Washington: America's Founder, in Myth and Memory.

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