This book offers a new look at physiocracy, a branch of economic thought whose most prolific and staunchest advocate was Du Pont. Physiocracy was characterized chiefly by the beliefs that land (natural resources) is the source of all wealth and that government policy should not interfere.

One of America s greatest houses, the unequaled home of Gilded Age philanthropist Alfred I. duPont, has been newly restored to national acclaim. Nemours Mansion and Gardens is the 222-acre estate and onetime home of Alfred I. duPont-photographer, manufacturer, musician, politician, banker, inventor, suffragist, newspaper owner, businessman, and philanthropist. Designed and built in the Louis XIV style in 1909 by Carrere and Hastings, it is one of the largest and most opulent houses in America, to be compared only with the likes of the Biltmore Estate, the White House, The Breakers, and Hearst Castle. With seventy rooms spread out over 46,000 square feet, it is capacious, yet an intimacy of detail and graciousness of proportion give the visitor a feeling of serenity and a special sense of place that is unique to Nemours. Newly and painstakingly renovated, the house-now a museum that can be toured-glows with the finish of its original splendor, captured at long last in a volume that sumptuously reflects the magnificence of a masterpiece. "

In 1935, American industrialist Alfred I. duPont sparked what would become a model of pediatric medical and research excellence. With an endowed trust, his widow, Jessie Ball duPont, established the Nemours Foundation. In 1940, the foundation opened the Alfred I. duPont Institute, a small pediatric orthopedic hospital on the duPont estate in Wilmington, Delaware. Today, duPont's legacy lives on at Nemours Children's Health, the nation's only multistate pediatric health care network. With two children's hospitals in Delaware and Florida, nearly 100 pediatric care locations, an office of policy and prevention in Washington, DC, and award-winning patient education initiatives such as KidsHealth.org, Nemours has touched the lives of millions worldwide.