Patriotism and Profit

Every new nation needs a capital, a glorious seat of government, and Susan Nagel vividly explores why the Founding Fathers, intriguing and fighting and arguing all the way, plumped not for New York-for many, the natural choice-but for a foetid swamp on the Potomac River. Patriotism and Profit is a wonderful, character-driven study of how politics becomes policy, then just as much as now. -- Alexander Rose, Washington's Spies: The Story of America's First Spy Ring Praise for Susan Nagel's Marie-Therese, Child of Terror: Masterly and compelling. A triumph. -- Tina Brown, author of The Diana Chronicles The woman in these pages emerges as a veritable prototype of saintly Catholic forgiveness. * The Atlantic Monthly * In Marie-Therese, Child of Terror, Susan Nagel faces the challenge of turning this largely unknown and fairly unsympathetic historical figure into a lively biographical subject. Nagel does capture the peculiar humanity of her subject. * The New York Times Book Review * A fascinating, readable, and engrossing book that should interest general readers and scholars alike. * Library Journal (starred review) * This highly detailed, exhaustively researched, often riveting account will appeal especially to all those readers who've immersed themselves in the many recent books about Marie Antoinette. * Booklist (starred review) * Relates the dramatic highs and lows experienced by the woman known as Madame Royale. Highly detailed and sympathetic. * Publishers Weekly * Taking one of those fascinating lives that have remained too long untold, Susan Nagel's Marie-Therese is a well-researched, entertaining and often poignant biography that recreates royalty, terror, tragedy, revolution, and restoration with verve and vividness. * Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of Stalin: The Court of the Red Star * A new nation needs a capital which is no small choice: it will define America as it moves toward being the empire of the New World. Susan Nagel sets the whole vivid scene for the decision - the deals that made George Washington the first real estate magnate as President, the front men and lobbyists and insider information that shaped politics then as now, and Alexander Hamilton's prophecy that nothing could work that did not 'unite the interest and credit of rich individuals with those of the state.' Washington is chosen to keep the South on side, and also to keep George Washington's investors happy. But Nagel does much more than disentangle the story of power, land and cash at the start of a new nation: she remembers the loves and marriages and society power games as well. She has written the human history of heroic times. -- Michael Pye, author of THE EDGE OF THE WORLD and EUROPE'S BABYLON