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Title: Alexander Hamilton
ISBN: B000UENRQU
Author:
Ron Chernow
Publicate Date: 2004-04-26
Publish: 2004-04-26
List Price: $35.00
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
Format: Hardcover
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $5.70
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $4.97
Amazon Merchant Price: $8.99
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1: An amazing book that I know I will read again someday!
I absolutely loved this book. The research and detail was amazing, and I found it to be well balanced. It's not a short book by any means and is in no way a "quick read." It took me a few weeks to finish. The biggest obstacle for me was the language used in the 18th century that is no longer used today. I am an avid reader and a college graduate, but I found many words I had not seen before (such as "hegemony" and "shibboleth"). I ended up buying a small Merriam-Webster Dictionary that I kept handy while reading this book.
I have a much greater respect and understanding of Hamilton than I did before, despite his many flaws. Also, I am much more disappointed and not overly fond of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson after reading this biography. After I read "American Sphinx" by Joseph Ellis, I wasn't that enamored of Jefferson. Now I understand why in more detail.
You'll be amazed at Hamilton's abilities and accomplishments after reading this book.
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2: Hamilton's Vision.
This is a terrific biography of a fascinating founding father, largely overlooked in history books. The NYC vs VA perspective of Chernow is particularly insightful and refreshing. One of the best history books I have read.
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3: The Single Most Important Founding Father
And he wasn't even born here. This is the amazing story of an incredible intellect. Arriving on the shores of this country, and immediately putting his past behind him, this wunderkind went on to do some truly remarkable things. Here are the main things that truly amazed me about Hamilton:
Our constitution was not a done deal.
The Republicans, led by Jefferson preferred that powers be vested in states: foreign policy, currency and they viewed states' economies as agrarian based.
The Federalists, led by Hamilton believed in a strong central government which subordinated states. They believed in a manufacturing base to the economy. The federal government would determine foreign policy; create a single currency etc. to wit, the Constitution. In order to explain this document to the lay person, Hamilton, Madison and Jay undertook the writing of the Federalist Papers, probably 75% of which were written by Hamilton. The Federalist Papers were published in the newspapers of the day. They worked and the Constitution was ratified. If he had stopped there, Hamilton's contributions to the cause would have been some of the greatest, and I haven't even mentioned his valiant performance at George Washington's right hand during the Revolutionary War.
Hamilton read and studied voraciously and learned everything he could on the subjects of economics and international finance and with great foresight set about to create the American banking system and was appointed as first treasury secretary. This man, almost single-handedly, bequeathed to us the greatest financial/capitalist system the world has ever known.
These two things: defending the Constitution through the Federalist Papers, and the creation of this new financial system seem to me to be so vastly different, require such different skills, that it doesn't seem possible, and yet they come from the mind of one man. That was what blew me away.
We would not be the country we are today, if not for Hamilton.
In his telling of this tale, Chernow paints the revered Jefferson in a less than flattering light. Fearing direct confrontation Jefferson almost always acted through a proxy, most often Madison. He allowed Madison to do all his dirty work, and for years the two heaped bitter and vile criticism upon Hamilton, yet Hamilton never missed a beat. Hamilton won, and they lost, and we are all better off for it.
I won't say anymore except to say that this is one of the best, most complete books on the subject of our nation's founding, that I have read and I highly recommend it. Happy reading.
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4: 6 stars - I didn't want it to end
From what I learned of American history as a schoolboy, Hamilton was certainly considered as one of the founding fathers, but he was relegated to the periphery among the founders; and he and the Federalists, according to this teaching, needed to be constantly restrained by the wisdom of Thomas Jefferson or else they would have reverted the country back to a monarchy. After reading this book, I still think there is truth to the need for Jefferson's restraint, but overall, I think that my education was prejudiced and myopic. As the author notes, because Jefferson, Madison and Adams all became President (along with another Virginian James Monroe) and they had many more years to write about events, their legacy gained the upper hand and history has probably skewed their importance relative to Hamilton.
This really outstanding book tips the balance of viewpoint in the other direction. Some have criticized the book because they maintain that it habitually depicts Jefferson, Madison, and Adams in the worst of ways, such as only showing the worst of what they wrote. They may have a point, but the author is showing what Hamilton was up against - sometimes unreasoning opposition; and he makes a very strong case that Hamilton more than any of the founders was responsible for setting up the American government as we know it today. Hamilton recognized, with a force that no one else could exert, that a strong union was the best hope to avoid all the evils and conflicts of Balkanization. No doubt that Jefferson and Madison provided a much needed counterbalance, especially since Hamilton did not recognize the importance of the Bill of Rights; and Washington also provided a needed check to his military proclivities. But Jefferson and Madison in their Virginian politics that favored a sectionalized state-empowered confederacy molded from a slave-based agrarian economy held views that have fallen by the wayside, whereas Hamilton set in motion the means whereby the United States could get a grip on itself and move into the modern age.
It is a fascinating story of a life that leads to a well-known tragic conclusion. It starts in one of most beautiful of places but also one of the worst scenes of human degradation - the sugar trade in the West Indies. The fact that Hamilton's relatives could never succeed in such a place was probably a credit to them, for it must have taken an extraordinary brutality to keep a majority population of slave labor at bay. Hamilton left the place at the first available opportunity, and took advantage of the time and his abilities to make a continuing success of himself during the Revolution and its aftermath. Beside being blessed with a brilliant mind (John Marshall said that beside him he felt like a candle to the midday sun) and being a relentless worker, he showed that he was a man of principle, and all through his life he hardly deviated from that sense of principle. His enemies did not want to separate his personal life from his private life, but there is every indication that he hardly ever wavered in that regard, despite the folly of the Maria Reynolds scandal. Despite all the investigations, no one was able to find a shred of evidence that showed that while he was Secretary of Treasury and setting up the banking system - or any other time for that matter - that he did anything untoward or for his own benefit. In fact, he had to quit his post because he became too deeply in debt to support his family. Yet, the slander followed him everywhere, and a lack of restraint on his part encouraged the attacks. In the end, the need to clear his name and a strong sense of honor - so important to his politics - had set him on an irrevocable course.
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5: Absolutely Magnificent
It was my ambition in college to someday write a biography of the most neglected of the Founding Fathers, Alexander Hamilton. I talked about it, read a few of the biographies out there. Forrest McDonald's was the best, I thought.
Then last spring I borrowed from the Meredith, NH, public library this book by the incomparable Ron Chernow. I read it on the our family trip to Virginia. Visiting Redoubt 10 at Yorktown, horribly neglected by Americans, was an intense emotional experience for me.
I've learned from Dennis Prager that the best way to learn history is through biographies. None are better, I've found, than this. In fact, after reading it, I had to purchase my own copy.
That's how much I value Ron Chernow's absolutely magnificent biography. Embracing Christianity at the end of Hamilton's life shows me what side he'd take in the cultural war. How we could use his exemplary industry and brilliance now! Only he could overshadow Mr. Jefferson, whom I've always adored.
But Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Chernow, you are the best.
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