Ford Book Talk: Edward G. Lengel

About the Book

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 multi-layered enterprise, prudently managed meager resources to win the war of independence, and, as president, helped establish the national economy on a solid footing. 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 their history.

About the Author

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