Good things come from those who hustle

Today’s Wall Street Journal has an interview with a U Penn historian, whose image of the Founding Fathers is similar to what I formed and tried to convey in my research on modern day entrepreneurs.

In other words, Mr. McDougall doesn’t flinch from acknowledging the fallenness of the founders—but in contrast with the woke, he attributes it to their being human, not white or male or wealthy. He also celebrates the power and success of the institutions they created, but unlike the Whigs, he chalks it up to the fortuitous result of crafty self-interest, not “American exceptionalism.

• The Weekend Interview

The ‘Hustlers’ Who Started America

Historian Walter McDougall admires the founders’ ideals—but with a wink rather than a woke scowl or a reverent gaze.