Help me better understand how any one in the past can have their exact words known. I am sure I am not the only doubter that thinks this way. In this case just how does one know these are the words Lincoln said.

Washington Adams Witherspoon anyone

Any reading that agrees with me?

It‘s not a book, but Bret Deveraux‘ history blog is so comprehensive I‘ve probably read several books‘ worth of pages on it: https://acoup.blog/ Also, it pointed me to a number of the „real“ books I read this year.

Aside from that, the book that I enjoyed the most was probably Chernow‘s „Washington“.

> Washington: A life, by Ron Chernow

Most programs in America, most paintings and all that is apocryphal about Washington always paints him as a humorless, rigid, God-like character. Chernow does a wonderful job of going through the recently released letters of Washington and painting a portrait of a family man, husband, and a man in occasional worry. Love it.

You learn from history and what other people did well and didn't do well. Leadership is a combination of your own innate abilities combined with self-awareness and feedback. From this, you can apply historical knowledge (understand you may not have Washington's height and strength, but may be a better tactical decision maker).

Read biographies on others:

Washington: A Life

Hamilton

Grant

Fighter Pilot (Robin Olds)

Boyd

Anyone you admire - read about them - find out what was good and what was bad.

Mattis's new book is good: Call Sign Chaos.

I wouldn't read Washington Post for technology: I read it for politics. I don't read Bloomberg for technology news, I read it for investment news.

Well, there's certainly a problem with Bloomberg's technology / cyber-attack division. But Bloomberg as a whole is one of the better investment newspapers. IMO, Bloomberg probably should just stop writing about cyber-attacks. They're clearly incompetent at that and its causing people to lose trust in the greater newspaper.

But I won't go to Ars Technica to read about insider Washington politics. Its a matter of recognizing what these papers are "good" in.

Starting Washington by Paul Johnson and rereading a lot of favorites: John Boyd's biography by Coram & Seneca's Letters from a Stoic.

On the side, I am trying to finish Eisenhower's biography - 500/700 pages.

Slight self promotion, but Standard Ebooks has a few of the classics, and a few more of the classic fiction available as nicely formatted and accessible PD ebooks (epub, Kobo variant epub, and Kindle formats for each):

- The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/benjamin-franklin/the-auto...

- Meditations by Marcus Aurelius: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/marcus-aurelius/meditation...

- Don Quixote by Cervantes: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/miguel-de-cervantes-saaved...

- Pride and Predudice by Jane Austen: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/jane-austen/pride-and-prej...

- Vanity Fair by William Thackeray: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/william-makepeace-thackera...

- David Copperfield by Charles Dickens: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/charles-dickens/david-copp...

- Washington Irving collection: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/washington-irving/the-sket...

- Father Goriot by Balzac: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/honore-de-balzac/father-go...

- The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/j-w-von-goethe/the-sorrows...

- Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/fyodor-dostoevsky/crime-an...

These are nearly always taken from the Gutenberg source transcriptions, but tidied up typographically and marked up using modern technologies. If you notice any problems with any of these we’ll happily take PRs!

Washington Mutual for Bank, Quickbooks for Accounting