Book Review: First Entrepreneur by Edward G. Lengel
Edward G. Lengel, First Entrepreneur: How George Washington Built His – and the Nation’s – Prosperity. Boston: Da Capo Press, 2016. Vii + 280 pp. $26 (hardcover), ISBN: 978-0-306-82347-3.
Bibliographical Information
Bibliographical Information: Edward "Ed" G. Lengel is an American writer and a Military Historian who was born by the year 1968, August 9th in Washington D.C. Lengel has a Bachelor of Arts Degree in History from George Mason University and a Masters of Arts in History from the University of Virginia. He is pursuing a Ph.D. from the same University. He is a distinguished award winner of the National Humanities Medal as a result of his notable work on George Washington Project Papers. He received honors from the Army Historical Foundation.
About the Book
His previously published books focused on George Washington’s life and legacy, and World War I. Lengel was a Director and Professor of Washington Papers Project that oversaw the establishment of different writing projects especially the papers of George Washington. Majorly, he wanted to link George Washington’s entrepreneurial successes to his political and military occupation in his book First Entrepreneur.
Target Audience
The publication is indented to advance entrepreneurial, business, innovations, history, and link the current with the past. The target audience for the book includes entrepreneurs, the business community, students of research and higher learning institutions.
George Washington's Entrepreneurial Success
Lengel Edward suggests Presidents George Washington had potential resources and equipment required to enable entrepreneurial reality. Washington was fortunate to be born from a class of planters who had amassed enough land and assets. He was likewise lucky for getting married to a rich widow. Furthermore, Washington wasted no time, he was not just fortunate but took advantage of available opportunities like; he was a professional quality surveyor where he saved a lot of litigation fees as an investor. Surveying profession was a foundation of his entrepreneurship. Nonetheless, Washington used his surveying fees at the age of 18 to establish his first investment in land. He was an expert in soil quality, water navigation, and properly understood land economics.
Washington's Business Leadership
Furthermore, Washington had attributes that supported his business leadership; go-getter, business mindset, calculating entrepreneurial moves, he was an effective natural leader, and never wasted an opportunity. Washington key to Success was close devotion to detail and a passion for running his business investments.
Challenges Faced and Solutions
Lengel observes that when Washington was an aid for General Edward Braddock during the seven years war, he studied crucial leadership in managing money, organization, time, and people; these skills were important for entrepreneurship. Washington faced serious challenges associated with poor economic predictions. He had Tobacco plantations which exhausted the soils. His cash resources deteriorated. He engaged in extravagant spending on politics, guests, irrelevant importation, and parties. When he was 30 years old, he owed creditors 1800 sterling pounds which at the time was 25 times the annual earning of South Atlantic free laborers. This frustrated Washington prompting him to seek the solutions. His exit came through the war and politics which was also marred by tough economic choices.
Washington's Career in Entrepreneurship
Washington’s career in entrepreneurship came to the pick in the mid-1760s. After carefully analyzing the benefits and costs to transform from Tobacco to a spread plantation economy majoring on the production of wheat. By the year 1764, the estate he owned yielded 257 wheat bushels, estimated 23331 bushels in 1766 and 6241 wheat bushels in 1769, this prompted him to do away with Tobacco. He established varied shifts from one crop to another crop with some of the Custis farms he owned and managed with his wife. The shifts enabled Washington’s slave labor force to be freed as he ventured to different non-agricultural tasks working brilliantly for many projects to employ his slaves fully. Nonetheless, he tested different experiments like a grist mill turning his wheat into flour. He went ahead to include his brand name “G. Washington” on biscuits and flour. He was a practical aiming for high-quality standard goods and services. He ensured that his slaves were ever busy building ships, boats, running ferries and doing widespread fishing. Mount Venom became so busy. Washington’s challenge of sizing up, regular changes, and grabbing up every available opportunity illustrates that he was a hawk-eyed economist and a systematic entrepreneur.
Interference of War and Business Growth
His business growth and expansion was interfered by the war as he was asked to lead a Continental Army. The idea of growing enterprises to include the whole United States came to his mind when he was leading the army because he had already expanded his estates. As a result, Washington appointed effective and strong leaders to pioneer enterprises development. Purchasing extensive land was his sole investment strategy although his land plantations drained a lot of water as those mandated to lead were little experience on management (p. 69).
Evaluation of the Book
First Entrepreneur by Lengel relies heavily on primary sources of Data, it is engagingly authored and tightly organized. More weight can be added through discovering extra secondary activities more so those economic historians. Doing this will create a formidable base to put Washington struggles, plans, achievements and strategies into a wider context. Furthermore, irregular missteps are seen especially when Lengel inscribes that the “productivity of Washington’s multiplied by twenty-five times”, likely, he suggested that the output increased twenty-five times and not productivity per laborer (P. 64).
Conclusion
Conclusively, the First Entrepreneur has prospered commendably in its overall goal of analytically highlighting and discovering George Washington’s substantial entrepreneurship.
