Delanceyplace

I have been receiving daily emails from Delanceyplace for about a year now and, while I don’t always have time to read them, they have proven to be more than just entertaining.  They are often enlightening and can lead me to invest some serious effort following up on ideas, facts, and books presented.  These are especially good for readers of non-fiction hence I recomment subscribing (it's free) to our friends in Auburn who produce the GBSF Gold Country Mini-Retreat every year in Springtime with non-fiction selections.  Here is a brief description from the Delanceyplace web page:

“Delanceyplace is a brief daily email with an excerpt or quote we view as interesting or noteworthy, offered with commentary to provide context.  There is no theme, except that most excerpts will come from a non-fiction work, mainly works of history, are occasionally controversial, and we hope will have a more universal relevance than simply the subject of the book from which they came.”

One of the more interesting excerpts to me was from Financial Founding Fathers: The Men Who Made America Rich by Robert E. Wright and David J. Cowen about the Louisiana Purchase.  Here is part of the excerpt:

“To pay the purchase price and acquire good title, Gallatin (Secretary of the Treasury) had to pay Napoleon the full price in cash up front.  As a distressed dictator desperate for cash, the little Corsican was not about to ‘hold the mortgage.’  And Gallatin had on hand only about one quarter of the cash needed to make the purchase.  He therefore floated a bond issue through the Dutch banking house of Hope and Company, which promptly sold it to Baring Brothers, a British investment bank.  Alexander Baring worked closely with Gallatin for five months in Washington to finalize the details.  Although the two financiers formed a friendship, the price tag on the bond issue bothered Gallatin.  He realized, however, that the port of New Orleans would increase federal revenues some $200,000 a year.  Moreover, Gallatin and other Republicans must have savored the irony of British investors lending money to vastly increase the power of their former colonies and to replenish the coffers of Britain’s arch enemy, Napoleon Bonaparte.”  So British bankers indirectly financed Napoleon’s war against the British Crown. 

If you wish to buy a book from which an excerpt is featured there is a link to Amazon to do so.  Any profits of Delanceyplace are donated to charity.  It is easy to unsubscribe if you decide you do not want the emails after trying them for awhile.  They use the same e-newsletter service we do, Constant Contact.  For more information and to subscribe click here.