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George Mason: Reluctant Statesman
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Plot Summary of George Mason: Reluctant Statesman
"    George Mason was the author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, which was adopted three weeks before the national Declaration of Independence. Other states used Mason's document as an example when they began drawing up similar documents and creating similar safeguards of individual liberties in their own state constitutions. Mason's declaration directly affected the French Declaration of the Rights of Man, and the Citizen of 1789. George Mason even has influence in the modern world, for the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights echoes Mason's Virginia Declaration of Rights.
    Raised by an uncle after the death of his father, most of Mason's early education came from his uncle's 1500 volume personal library, a full one-third of those books being law books. Mason inherited Gunston Hall, one of the richest plantations in Virginia, and he acquired an interest in the Ohio Company, which was an organization that speculated in western lands by equipping settlers and accepting a portion of their crops and furs as payment on the loans. In 1773, however, the British government revoked the rights of colonists to settle in Ohio, reserving those lands for the Native Americans and destroying the wealth of the Ohio Company."

Nathaniel Ford, Resident Scholar

Review Analysis of George Mason: Reluctant Statesman
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Job/profession/poverty story Yes
Politician story? - Politician trying to reform
Period of greatest activity? - 1700's

Subject of Biography
Gender - Male
Profession/status: - politician/elected ruler
Age: - 40's-50's
Biography of famous person? Yes
Ethnicity - White
Nationality - American (!)
How sensitive is this person? - middling sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor - Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence - Very much smarter than other people
Physique - average physique

Setting
How much descriptions of surroundings? - 7 (a good amount)
United States Yes
The US: - Southeast
Century: - 18th century

Style
Person - mostly 3rd
Accounts of torture and death? - generic/vague references to death/punishment
Book makes you feel? - thoughtful
Commentary on society? Yes
Commentary on - war
Writer's slant towards subject: - very favorable
Story of entire life, or part? - story of nearly entire life
Pictures/Illustrations? - A lot 11-15 B&W
How much dialogue in bio? - significantly more descript than dialog
How much of bio focuses on most famous period of life? - 51%-75% of book
How much is philosophy rather than life story? - 0-25% of book
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Robert Rutland Resident Scholar Profiles

TOP SCHOLAR:
  
Nathaniel Ford  

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