Book Reviewed: The Founders' Fortunes: How Money Shaped the Birth of America by Willard Sterne

The U.S. Constitution and economic self-interest of Founding Fathers The death of George Floyd and several young Black men in confrontation with the law-enforcement in the past couple of years sparked anger, and protest the American political system, and the Founders of the U.S. Constitution themselves. Their legacy was unchallenged for two centuries came under attack from academics, media, and the left. Monuments of the Founding Fathers have been defaced and toppled in violent protests across America. In 1913, historian Charles A. Beard of Columbia University argued, in an economic interpretation of the U.S. Constitution argued that the Founding Fathers were more interested in promoting their individual economic and financial interests in the new nation. Since then, many constitutional and historical scholars have challenged this analysis as too narrow, because he did not have the much needed economic and financial data of the Founders. Many scholars including the author of this book have shown that the principles and political philosophies motivated them. They were patriots interested in freedom from the colonial rule and offered their wisdom to a nation that was deeply divided. George Washington was poor when he was growing up. He refused a salary and sought reimbursement for expenses. During the eight-year-long struggle, he lost half his wealth, largely because he neglected his farms. He received no pension. Like some of the Founders, Washington was rich in land and slaves but cash poor. In a long postwar depression, he couldn’t sell or rent his lands. Some of the Founders like Samuel Adams was not rich, and John Hancock crammed the family fortune into a carriage to invest in the American Revolution. James Madison, son of a wealthy Virginia planter, took his seat in Congress, but his widow, Dolly Madison became penniless later in life and had to seek help form one of her former slaves during her difficult economic circumstances. Alexander Hamilton, who created the financial system of the U.S., was so broke when he died in a duel that his friends had to accept a collection for his funeral. This book discusses on the difficulties the Founders faced during the formative years. Fighting the formidable English colonists when they had enormous political and economic superiority over the American colony. The author discusses the events in the history leading up to the American revolution and immediately after that in some detail. A vast amount of material has been covered and it is interesting to note that the Founders of American constitution had good intentions and sought prosperity for its citizens.

Book Reviewed: Poor Richard's Women: Deborah Read Franklin and the Other Women Behind the Founding Father by Nancy Stuart

A struggle with prudence and passion There are little-known facts about the life of Benjamin Franklin that has been neglected by historians. Some of them would reveal the voices of women he loved and lost during his lifelong struggle between prudence and passion. Deborah Read Franklin was his common-law wife over forty-four years, and in this book, the author assesses their relationship in the first few chapters and finds that she was not an illiterate woman as many historians thought but equaled the Founding Father in many ways. In fact, she was like a modern-day feminist, who raised two of his children and ran family business and protected his interest during his long absences from their home in Philadelphia, away in Paris and London. This book illustrates that she was an independent woman who successfully managed his finances, even though Ben Franklin's Autobiography mentions her briefly and with little feelings expressed. The author also addresses Ben Franklin’s humor, resiliency, intelligence, and his faith. This book relies on the selections from Claude-Anne Lopez’s research on his life that includes nearly thirty thousand documents assembled at Yale University. They include his years in Paris and his numerous liaisons & sexual affairs with French aristocratic women. These women played an important social and possibly political role in Benjamin Franklin's life during the Revolutionary War. In fact, his associations with French helped to bring the strong support for American cause during the revolution. This book also briefly includes his romances with Madame Brillon, the beautiful French musician, the witty Madame Helvetius, Margaret Stevenson, the widowed landlady in London and a young American named Catherine Ray. Franklin suffered from obesity throughout his middle-aged and later years, which resulted in multiple health problems, particularly gout, which worsened as he aged. Despite his health problems he had cravings for sexual intimacies with ladies. Ben Franklin believed that organized religion was necessary to keep men good to their fellow men, but he rarely attended religious services himself. But his parents were Puritans, and the family attended the Old South Church, a liberal Puritan congregation in Boston. He once wrote the charismatic preacher George Whitfield, "That Being who gave me existence ... and has been continually showering his favors upon me ... can I doubt that he loves me? And if he loves me, can I doubt that he will go on to take care of me, not only here, but hereafter?" In 1758, Ben Franklin advocated the opening of a school for the education of black slaves in Philadelphia, and later became notable abolitionist denouncing the practice of slavery leading to the establishment of Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery in 1774. There are two earlier books on Ben Franklin’s female friends, one entitled “Mon Cher Papa: Franklin and the Ladies of Paris” by Claude-Anne Lopez, and later “The Private Franklin: The Man and His Family, by Claude-Anne Lopez and Eugenia W. Herbert. The Papers of Benjamin Franklin project is available at the Yale University, and at the Library of Congress and the National Archives websites. The author’s efforts to illustrate Deborah Read was an independent woman who contributed to the success of Ben Franklin despite his infidelity. She narrates the story wonderfully and feels great to read especially the first few chapters. The readers get a close look at the life of Deborah in the 18th century Philadelphia. With limited rights for a woman those days, her life demonstrates that you can still be good wife, good mother, a good friend, and a great business partner, and can lead your life that best suits you.

Book Reviewed: Gravity: How the Weakest Force in the Universe Shaped Our Lives by Brian Clegg

A historical account of spacetime warping This book offers a historical account of gravity, one of the four fundamental forces of nature, and how it eludes our understanding. This is a concise narrative that is engaging without any equations or too much physics. It is explained in a very simple language. But some of the recent and relevant discussions have not been included here. The Newtonian physics describes the behavior of matter and energy in space and time. According to Isaac Newton, time flows equably without relation to anything external, and absolute space is also its own thing, always similar and immovable. Events of physical reality performed independently on a neutral stage where actors strutted and fretted without influencing the rest of the theater. This pretty much explains physical reality we see and experience in our daily life. But Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity turned Newton’s absolute space and time into a relativistic mash-up. According to him, spacetime is completely amalgamated into a malleable fabric and the two do not exist independently as Newton predicted. This is a new arena in which the players altered the space of the playing field. It was a physics game changer. Einstein also showed in his general theory of relativity that matter and energy warped the spacetime surrounding it. In fact, that is called gravity, which Newton thought was a force. Newton’s apparent force of attraction became a sort of illusion perpetrated by spacetime geometry. The shape of spacetime dictated the motion of massive bodies, and in turn massive bodies determined spacetime’s shape. With our understanding of quantum physics where matter at the most fundamental state is known to have wave-particle duality, that is it exists as both particle and a wave simultaneously. If that is the case, then how does matter exert gravity when it is in a wave-state? Quantum physicists suggested that spacetime at the most fundamental state also exists in discrete quanta, that in bits and pieces, qubits. In fact, the treatment of gravity with quantum physics has led to thorny issues that is largely derived from the black hole physics where spacetime is curved to an extreme extent. To understand the quantum properties of space and time, it is realized that information plays an important role in quantum reality, because it gives the observer a role who becomes an integral part of the physical reality. Recent advances in quantum Information have shown that information naturally describe evolution of quantum geometry. There seems to be a deep connection between information and the nature of space and time, and space and time are losing their role as grounds for an objective physical reality. The observer or the consciousness is an integral part. It may also mean that gravity may be an emergent phenomenon in quantum physics, or gravity and quantum physics are different approximations of a more fundamental theory that is still out there but not yet discovered.

Book Reviewed: The Man Behind the Curtain: Inside the Secret Network of George Soros by Matt Palumbo

Soros: The man in the ‘hood' George Soros is a modern-day ‘hood who funds anarchists, and radical leftists who will take to the streets and agitate with threats and violence. Soros has no national boundaries, he works globally and tries to destabilize democratically elected governments, political parties and organizations that believe in conservative values that are deemed harmful for racial and ethnic minorities. He has spent nearly 32 billion dollars using his personal charity, the Open Society fund. He has emerged as the biggest supporter of Islamists worldwide promoting antisemitism, and Hinduphobia. He uses the political action committee (PAC) in United States that pools campaign contributions from members and donates them to campaigns for or against specific candidates, ballot initiatives, or legislation. PACs are formed to represent business, labor, or ideological interests to privately spend for a political campaign. Much of Soros funds has gone to promote the values of democratic party in the United States, and in fact, he became the biggest individual benefactor of Biden in the 2020 U.S. Presidential race. He has become a modern-day bogeyman for the funding leftists who want to burn American Constitution. They seek to undermine the war on terror, destabilize America, and effect radical "regime change" at every level of the democratic system. Soros's Open Society Foundation has challenged the democratic policies of Israel in international forums. He has funded non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that are critical of Israeli policies including groups that campaign for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel, and supporting terrorist activities of Palestinians. In India, George Soros is not just a philanthropist or a savvy investor, but he is the 21st century avatar of capitalism, wealth-creation, and benevolence leading to economic dependence and cultural decimation by funding Islamists and leftists who are openly advocating to revolt against a democratically elected government. Matt Palumbo is a conservative journalist who has chronicled the life and work of Soros beautifully and addresses his involvement in Hungary, Poland, and Ukraine. How he has infiltrated the higher education, the media, and the local governments with his ill-gotten money. This book is well-researched and reader-friendly.