About this product: Product Description In 1695, Isaac Newton--already renowned as the greatest mind of his age--made a surprising career change. He left quiet Cambridge, where he had lived for thirty years and made his earth-shattering discoveries, and moved to London to take up the post of Warden of His Majesty's Mint. Newton was preceded to the city by a genius of another kind, the budding criminal William Chaloner. Thanks to his preternatural skills as a counterfeiter, Chaloner was rapidly rising in London's highly competitive underworld, at a time when organized law enforcement was all but unknown and money in the modern sense was just coming into being. Then he crossed paths with the formidable new warden. In the courts and streets of London--and amid the tremors of a world being transformed by the ideas Newton himself had set in motion--the two played out an epic game of cat and mouse.
A Q&A with Thomas Levenson, Author of Newton and the Counterfeiter
Q: Why did you decide to write Newton and the Counterfeiter?
A: I first encountered the connection at the heart of Newton and the Counterfeiter when I was working on a very different project in the mid '90s. A long out of print book quoted from one of the few letters between my counterfeiter, William Chaloner, and Isaac Newton--and on reading it I wondered: what on earth was such a scoundrel doing in correspondence with the greatest mind of the age? The question stuck with me for a decade, and finally I made the time to dig a little deeper. Once I did, I discovered two things that made this book both possible, and from a writer's point of view, inescapable. The first was a trove of original documents that chronicled Newton's involvement in the pursuit and prosecution of not just Chaloner, but dozens of other currency criminals. The second was the insight this one story gives into Newton himself--and of the real extent and impact of the revolutions (plural deliberate) which he so prominently led. Isaac Newton is best remembered, of course, as the man at the vanguard of the scientific revolution--a status established by his discoveries: the laws of motion, gravity, the calculus, and much more. But I found that this story gave me a sense of what it was like to live through that revolution at street level. It provided an example of Newton's mind at work, for one, and for another, it involved Newton in the second of the great 17th century transformations, the financial revolution that occurred in conjunction, and with some connection to the scientific one.
Newton, I found, was a bureaucrat, a man with a job running England's money supply at a time with surprising parallels to our own: new, poorly understood financial engineering to deal with what was a national currency and economic crisis. He was asked to think about money, and he did--and at the same time, he was given the job of Warden of the Mint, which among other duties put him charge of policing those who would fake or undermine the King's coins. So there I had it: a gripping true crime story, with life-and-death stakes and enough information to follow my leading characters through the bad streets and worse jails of London--and one that at the same time let me explore some of critical moves in the making of the world we inhabit through the mind and feelings of perhaps the greatest scientific thinker who ever lived. How could I resist that?
Q: Are there comparisons to be made to the financial times we are living in today in this country?
A: When I started writing this book, (c. 2005) the American and the global economy was seemingly in robust health. The American housing market was booming; financial markets the world over were trading happily back and forth, the Dow in June, when I started working in earnest on the project, stood comfortably over 10,000, with a 40% rise to come through the first and second drafts of the work. And then, of course, things changed--and by that time (too late to do my own financial situation any good) I realized that in the story of Newton's confrontation with Chaloner I could see many of the pathologies that define our current predicament. England's currency and its system of high finance--the big loans and big banks behind them needed to fund government--were both under increasing strain when Newton arrived at the Mint.
Part of the damage was being done through imbalances of trade, as silver flowed out of England to the European continent and ultimately to India and China. (Sound familiar?) That loss of metal had huge economic consequences when you remember that money itself was made of silver back then. No silver, no coins. No coins--and how are you going to buy a loaf of bread, a pound of beef, a barrel of beer (which was a staple, and not a luxury given the state of London’s drinking (sic) water). At the same time, England was waging a war it could not pay for. (Sound familiar?) The Treasury was broke. Financial engineering got its start in the ever more desperate attempts by the government to raise the money it needed to keep its army in the field against France. Newton and his counterfeiting nemesis William Chaloner both found themselves operating on unfamiliar territory, with paper abstractions standing in for what used to be literally hard cash. This was when bank notes were invented--and Chaloner forged some. This was when the government began to issue what were in essence bonds--and Chaloner forged some of those too. Personal cheques were coming in, and--you guessed it--Chaloner passed a couple of duds. Most significantly, the Bank of England invented fractional reserve lending--lending out a multiple of the actual cash reserves it held at any one time. This was the birth of leverage. Put it all together and you have most of the crucial ideas in modern finance appearing at almost the same instant. These are fantastically useful tools; the enormous expansion of wealth, of material comfort, of human well being that we’ve seen over the last three centuries, derives in part from the fact that the English and their trading counterparties were so impressively inventive in those decades. But at the same time, as we know now all too well, each and every one of those financial ideas are capable of abuse. Now add to the usual temptations to financial sin the besetting danger of ignorance, of the sheer unfamiliarity of the new instruments, and you have the makings of an almost inevitable disaster.
In 2009, we are dealing with that double trouble: deliberate frauds combining with the larger problem that the complexity and sheer deep strangeness of new financial products allowed a lot of so-called smart money to make big bets they didn’t understand. Exactly the same kinds of pressures were building in Newton's day, and the financial crisis that Newton helped resolve in the 1690s kept spawning sequels, until in the 1720s, Newton himself got caught up in a disaster that in many ways eerily anticipates the one we are living through now. The South Sea Bubble of 1720 was born of a good idea--what we would now call a debt-for-equity swap--but rapidly turned into a fraud and then at the last a Madoff-style Ponzi scheme. What I found most striking is that Newton, who of all men had the mathematical chops to figure out that the South Sea promises couldn't possibly be met, still got sucked in by the promise of outsize returns. Avarice, desire, or perhaps in Newton's case just the agony of the thought that others were getting richer while he was not, propelled him into investing in the bubble at its very peak. According to his niece, he lost 20,000 pounds in a matter of months--which in today’s money would be roughly three million pounds, or close to five million dollars. The moral, at least the lesson I took from this personally? No one, not even Newton, and certainly not me, is smart enough to be smarter than one's own emotions. And that grim fact, as much as any specific financial innovation, lies behind our current economic woes, and surely caught that great thinker Isaac Newton in its grip as well.
Q: Tell us about your research.
A: I was fortunate in this project--in fact, I only took on the book--because there was a rich lode of little-known documents that told the story of the clash between Newton and Chaloner. Five large folders survive of Newton's own notes, drafts and memos covering his official duties at the Mint. Examining them, especially drafts of replies to some of Chaloner's most audacious attacks on him at Parliamentary hearings, it is possible to see across time to Newton's mounting frustration and anger at his antagonist: his handwriting gets worse, more cramped, swift, and in general ticked off as he works through his responses. I was also able to find the handful of documents that can be unequivocally attributed to Chaloner: a couple of pamphlets he had printed to display his expertise in the making and manipulation of coin, and to allege incompetence, or worse at Newton's Mint. To that I added a marvelous, if not entirely reliable, moralizing biography of Chaloner, hastily written and published within days of his execution. That was one of the early examples of what became a staple pulp genre--edifying and titillating accounts of the wicked, in which any admiration for the rascals being chronicled were carefully wrapped up through the appropriate bad ends to which all the subjects of such works were doomed.
But of all the wellsprings of this book, none were more important than the file it took me over a year to find. I knew that some of the records Isaac Newton's criminal interrogations survived, because I found reference to them in a couple of the older biographies and other secondary sources. But in the reorganization of British official records that took place in the decades after World War II, the cataloguing systems for Mint files had undergone enough changes that this crucial set of documents had slipped out of sight of the contemporary Newton scholarly community. I managed to track it down to its current location in the Public Records Office, and then I had writer's gold: more than four hundred separate documents, most countersigned by Newton himself, that allowed me to retrace his steps as a criminal investigator informer by informer. Most fortunately--Newton’s nephew-in-law reported that he helped his wife's uncle burn many of his Mint interrogation records. But the entire Chaloner case remained in the one surviving folder, and it made for fascinating, gripping reading. Once Newton realized how formidable an opponent he had in Chaloner, he proved relentless in reconstructing not just particular crimes, but the whole architecture of counterfeiting and coining as it was practiced in London in the 1690s. You get to see, smell, hear how the bad guys worked, in their own words, as elicited by a man who (surprise!) proved to be exceptionally good at extracting the evidence he needed to solve a problem.
About this product: Journey of Souls is a controversial yet inspiring investigation of the big question we all face at one point or another: "What happens after we die?" To find the answer, Newton opens cases from his private practice in which he hypnotically regressed his clients to a point between lives--after death, but before birth. Not only does Newton grapple with reincarnation, the spirit world, and the nature of the human soul, he also tackles equally sticky questions such as "Is there a Heaven and Hell?" and "What are ghosts?" Readers with a penchant for skepticism will balk at the lack of physical evidence to back up the claims in Journey of Souls, but the book remains a reassuring voice, affirming that our existence is not limited to the boundaries of our mortal flesh. --Brian Patterson
About this product: The biggest, most lavish book production of the 20th century is back!
SUMO was a titanic book in every respect: a 480-page tribute to the 20th century's most influential, intriguing and controversial photographer, breaking records for weight and dimensions. Fifty people worked with Helmut and June Newton for three years to complete a book that weighed 30kg (66lbs). But size wasn't everything. Control and quality - printing, paper, binding - were all critical in making SUMO a worldwide publishing sensation, which is in many famous collections all around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Now, 10 years after the original publication, SUMO is back in a more economical edition, but one with the same DNA as its unique progenitor.
The original SUMO, edited by June Newton, featured over 350 pictures, most published for the first time, covering every aspect of Newton's outstanding career: from the stunning fashion images that influenced generations of younger photographers, to his powerful, erotic nudes and celebrity portraits. Also included is a booklet with a 'making of' section, detailing the meticulous selection process, and the trial and error, experiment and innovation that went into creating the original SUMO, the book that redefined the photographic monograph.
However, proud owners of the new edition won't wrestle with their copy of SUMO. It comes with a unique stand for displaying the book at home:
Dr. Michael Newton, best-selling author of Journey of Souls and Destiny of Souls, returns with a series of case studies that highlight the profound impact of spiritual regression on people’s everyday lives.
Edited by Dr. Newton, these fascinating true accounts from around the world are handpicked and presented by Life Between Lives hypnotherapists certified by the Newton Institute. After recalling memories of their afterlife, the people in these studies embarked on life-changing spiritual journeys—reuniting with soul mates and spirit guides, and discovering the ramifications of life andbody choices, love relationships, and dreams by communing with their immortal souls. As gems of self-knowledge are revealed, dramatic epiphanies result, enabling these ordinary people to understand adversity in their lives, find emotional healing, realize their true purpose, and forever enrich their lives with new meaning.
About this product: Past life regressions are fascinating to consider, but have you ever wondered what happens between lives? In Destiny of Souls hypnotherapist Michael Newton asks dozens of his own patients to describe their lives from the moment of death right up until reincarnation into this world. Newton described this journey in his first book, Journey of Souls, and now takes us back for a second trip that is described in infinitely more detail. Of therapeutic interest is how spirits contact the living to help loved ones they've left behind deal with their grief. Newton assures readers that they will reconnect with those who have gone before them, even their pets. He answers the full range of questions one could ever think to ask about life after death: How can a soul be in heaven and reincarnate at the same time? How are new souls created? How are souls who've done evil on earth punished? These and many other questions are answered with surprising congruity between respondents.
About this product: Dr. Michael Newton is world-famous for his spiritual regression techniques that take hypnotic subjects back to their time in the spirit world. His two best-selling books of client case studies, Journey of Souls and Destiny of Souls, have left thousands of readers eager to discover their own afterlife adventures, their soul companions and guides, and their purpose in this lifetime.
Now, for the first time in print, Dr. Newton reveals his step-by-step methods. His experiential approach to the spiritual realms sheds light on the age-old questions of who we are, where we came from, and why we are here. This groundbreaking guidebook, designed for both hypnosis professionals and the general public, completes the afterlife trilogy by Dr. Newton.
About this product: As a schoolbook figure, Isaac Newton is most often pictured sitting under an apple tree, about to discover the secrets of gravity. In this short biography, James Gleick reveals the life of a man whose contributions to science and math included far more than the laws of motion for which he is generally famous. Gleick's always-accessible style is hampered somewhat by the need to describe Newton's esoteric thinking processes. After all, the man invented calculus. But readers who stick with the book will discover the amazing story of a scientist obsessively determined to find out how things worked. Working alone, thinking alone, and experimenting alone, Newton often resorted to strange methods, as when he risked his sight to find out how the eye processed images:
.... Newton, experimental philosopher, slid a bodkin into his eye socket between eyeball and bone. He pressed with the tip until he saw 'severall white darke & coloured circles'.... Almost as recklessly, he stared with one eye at the sun, reflected in a looking glass, for as long as he could bear.
From poor beginnings, Newton rose to prominence and wealth, and Gleick uses contemporary accounts and notebooks to track the genius's arc, much as Newton tracked the paths of comets. Without a single padded sentence or useless fact, Gleick portrays a complicated man whose inspirations required no falling apples. --Therese Littleton
About this product: In "Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John," one of humanity's greatest minds is brought to bear on Prophecy. The mastermind of Sir Isaac Newton yields results just as brilliant when studying Bible prophecy as when his attention was turned to the physical universe! There is in this book a consistency of interpretation in "Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John" that is seldom seen in the works of modern-day scholars. Isaac Newton seems to be completely true to the message of the Bible when providing his own thoughts on the Antichrist, the Beast, the Woman called "Babylon", and the "Great Tribulation". The integrity of Newton's scholarship and skills of exegesis give the reader a distinct impression that, unlike most writers on end-times prophecy today, Newton would have gladly give up his prejudices in exchange for something better: the Truth. In "Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John," Isaac presents an excellent example of Premillennial Historicism. This is essentially the same view held by H. Grattan Guinness, E.B. Elliott, Matthew Henry, and Charles Spurgeon. Every pastor or teacher who preaches or teaches on the subject of the Last Days should have a copy of "Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John" on his desk.
About this product: Newton's Cannon is an alternate history set primarily in the court of Louis XIV. This might sound familiar to readers of Vonda McIntyre's Nebula-winning The Moon and the Sun. Keyes, like McIntyre, blends alchemy, history, and fantasy in his novel.
Keyes's characters are expertly drawn: Louis XIV, the aging King of France who seeks a return to international preeminence, young Ben Franklin of Boston, a printer's apprentice who yearns to master alchemy, and Adrienne de Montchevreuil, a lovely, impoverished noblewoman who secretly pursues mathematics, but attracts Louis's lustful attention. The many secondary characters are also believable personalities, and the plot is original and suspenseful. Keyes's writing is precise and witty. "It was, Adrienne reflected, impossible not to be impressed by the Grand Canal. More like a cruciform inland sea with banks of polished marble, it summed up many things about Versailles. It was monumental in proportion, insanely expensive, impossible to overlook, and entirely frivolous."
Though the ending of Newton's Cannon leaves much unresolved--setting up book two of The Age of Unreason, A Calculus of Angels--it's fine entertainment all by itself. --Nona Vero
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Q: Why did you decide to write Newton and the Counterfeiter?
