Might have been the greatest thought provoker at the beginning of America. Very entitled but always looking out for the rights of citizens and the poor. Unless, of course, you were a debtor.
"All the delegates (Constitutional Convention) struggled over the best way to elect a President. Popular election would be difficult. Mason reasoned, given the great size of the country. The people couldn't know the candidate well enough to judge him. Mason wanted to have the President elected by the legislature. The Convention decided instead to have a special group of electors choose their chief executive, the origin of our Electoral College system for presidential elections."
Yes, without George Mason the US would probably never have had the Electoral College system.
In 1933, at the age of 18, Patrick Leigh Fermor set out on an extraordinary journey by foot—from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople. A Time of Giftsis the first volume in a trilogy recounting the trip, and takes the reader with him as far as Hungary. It is a book of compelling glimpses—not only of the events which were curdling Europe at that time, but also of its resplendent domes and monasteries, its great rivers, the sun on the Bavarian snow, the storks and frogs, the hospitable burgomasters who welcomed him, and that world's grandeurs and courtesies. His powers of recollection have astonishing sweep and verve, and the scope is majestic. First published to enormous acclaim, it confirmed Fermor's reputation as the greatest living travel writer, and has, together with its sequel Between the Woods and the Water (the third volume is famously yet to be published), been a perennial seller for 25 years.
Time's Echo by Jeremy Eichler, a look at how music (e.g Britten's War Requiem) may be the longstanding way we remember 2nd World War and the Holocaust as we get further away from it. A challenging read but very moving.