The Real Story Behind West Point: Character, Leadership, Education

REMICK, NORMAN THOMAS

ISBN 10: 0967487919 / ISBN 13: 9780967487915

Published by RPR, 2003

Minor wear on the covers, corners, and the edges. Like shelf wear. Seller Inventory # mon0002333840

Synopsis:

UNDERSTANDING WEST POINT is author Norman Thomas Remick's successor to his pioneering book, Mr. Jefferson's Academy: The Real Story Behind West Point, which is the one and only work that identifies and proves the heretofore secret Thomas Jefferson-West Point connection. This book, which also includes that pioneering information, gives the penetrating results of the ten year search by Norman Thomas Remick, four years at West Point that tells you the way it is inside those fabled gray granite walls, and six years inside the research halls of libraries to uncover and decipher the code of archival facts that have brought to light a special historic relationship between Thomas Jefferson and West Point. Remick also details how this historic college produces leaders, why it does so the way it does, why America has a West Point to produce Officers when there are easier and cheaper ways to do so, and why Thomas Jefferson founded West Point in the first place. The secret behind why Jefferson founded West Point informs the contemporary controversy over whether America still needs a West Point at a cost of hundreds of millions per year in taxpayer dollars.

The book is not only unique in breaking new historical ground but it is also unique in its innovative presentation of true and accurate history. By employing creative nonfiction and the choice of a dramatic dialogue as narrative vehicle, the author gives us something here that is quite different and refreshing as he takes us on a journey through history and philosophy that winds its way from Ancient times to post American Revolution times to show us how the great moral stories of the world shaped Thomas Jefferson, and in turn, shaped America and West Point.

The book is also an education, a special kind of education. Because the journey through history uses as its sources the same books Thomas Jefferson himself read that are in his famous library, when you read this book you are learning the same things that he learned. By cleverly converting the difficult history and philosophy contained in Jefferson's books into ordinary language and modern American vernacular, and weaving together hundreds of wonderful poems, anecdotes, and unusual scenarios, Remick has produced a timeless gem on West Point and Thomas Jefferson and leadership and character that will be an enjoyable and engaging and educational experience for years to come for people of all ages and educational levels, not just scholars.

As an added bonus: Those who cannot visit West Point will enjoy the sixteen pages that the author has nicely blended into the storyline, including 24 full color pictures, that takes you on a virtual tour of West Point, the place.

About the Author: UNDERSTANDING WEST POINT, whose original version, Mr. Jefferson's Academy: The Real Story Behind West Point, was officially granted copyright protection by The Library of Congress in April 1998, is the product of ten years of labor (over 10,000 hours) by author and publisher Norman Thomas Remick. For Remick, whose college work was for a B.S. Engineering at Rutgers College and A.B. Management, and a M.S. Business Studies at Montclair College, it all began in 1989 when West Point gave his son a surprise Christmas gift --- an Offer of Admission. But his son also received acceptances from MIT, Dartmouth, and others, with ROTC scholarships to go along with them. So, what to do? They needed an answer to the question, 'WHY WEST POINT?' His son did a lot of soul searching. He did a lot of researching. What they sought, they never got. There was no book with the answer.

When his son decided to give West Point a shot anyway, Remick plunged into reading everything, and stopped at nothing to find the answers, a trait that had propelled him to a VP level position with a NYSE listed corporation years ago at age 32, before he started his own company. He followed his son and classmates through their four years at West Point, observing and talking with them strictly just as a cadet's Dad, not as an author being paid to do research and write a book. As an outsider (non-grad, non-staff, etc) who was not given any special privileges by West Point to do a book on them, he got the real off-the-record 'poop' on daily life inside West Point, AS TOLD BY THE CADETS! It would become part of a future book, though, as a Rutgers graduate, he had no thoughts at the time of writing a book on West Point. Paying attention to the details, something he had meticulously done in order to start from scratch and build The Nortda Co. and Packages For Semiconductors Co., his 19-year successful microwave components manufacturing companies in the USA and England, he soon saw that daily life at West Point was only part of the story. The rest of the story was still, 'WHY WEST POINT?' By the time his son graduated in 1994, he knew his research was leading to where no historian had gone before. If he were to go on, he would be blazing new trails. Now bitten by the history bug, he decided to go on.

Remick had never written on history before (only technical subjects), but, having sold his Company in 1991 in favor of becoming an investor, he now had the flexibility to do the massive research that would be required. From 1994 to 1999, he read hundreds of books and thousands of Jefferson's letters at West Point, the Library of Congress, the National Archives, and Rutgers Library. When he uncovered breaking new evidence of a heretofore unknown West Point-Thomas Jefferson connection, he knew he had the makings of a book that would revolutionize thinking on West Point.

Bibliographic Details

Title: The Real Story Behind West Point: Character,...
Publisher: RPR
Publication Date: 2003
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: Very Good
Dust Jacket Condition: Includes dust jacket.