Fundamentals of Prosperity: What They Are and Whence They Came [NOOK Book]

Prosperity.

Wealth.

Abundance.

Financial freedom.

NOTE: This book is new edition of the original classic. It contains new, original commentary. The Table of Contents if fully linked.

We all want these things. We've all read books and listened to CDs. We've all heard of The Secret and the Law of Attraction. We've studied Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.

We've all meditated, repeated affirmations until we were blue in the face and visualized our success, making sure to feel so good we had these things.

And we're still waiting for them to show up.

Why do they seem so elusive?

These issues are not new. Early in the last century many gifted thinkers grappled with these issues.

After all, it was in the late 1890s ("The Gilded Age") and early years of the 20th century that the United States transformed itself from a frontier land into an industrial giant that would soon challenge the traditional world powers of Europe for world supremacy.

"Robber barons" started up some of the world's greatest companies.

Great inventors such as Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell were bringing the world such marvels as the electric light bulb, moving pictures and the telephone.

Andrew Carnegie challenged a young reporter named Napoleon Hill to interview the most successful men of his time to learn the secrets to success.

Yet he wasn't the only one on this quest.

A businessman, speaker, and author named Roger Ward Babson also interviewed many of the top industrialists of his time.

Unlike many prosperity gurus, Babson was successful in his own right for something besides teaching others how to get rich.

He pioneered the field of economic analysis and forecasting. The statistical organization he founded still exists. He also founded one of the longest running investments newsletters.

Oh, and two of the colleges he founded still exist, and are still educating students to be successful, practical business people.

He believed religion was the foundation of wealth, but not in any airy-fairy mystical sense.

He believed first of all in Integrity, without which societies could not establish permanant prosperity.

Then in Faith, including the imagination and vision to see things not as they are, but as they could be.

And he then he adds a factor missing from The Secret.

He calls it the "woodshed," because so many of the men running America's industries were the sons of poor preachers and farmers. Not the well-educated children of privilege, but men who'd grown up chopping wood to keep the fire burning.