Alexander Hamilton - Ron Chernow
Alexander Hamilton - Ron Chernow
Non-Fiction
Pages: 818
Fiction is easy to re-read. We all have favourites books we go back to again and again. But it's a rare non-fiction book I can return to just a scant few years after reading it for the first time. Of course, it helps when the subject is someone as fascinating and endearing as Alexander Hamilton.
Before reading this book for the first time I knew little more of Alexander Hamilton than the passing references I had come across in biographies of other members of the Founding Generation. I ended it in tears, utterly distressed at his untimely death at the hands of Aaron Burr over two hundred years ago, and indignant on his behalf at his relative lack of historical renown, compared to other figures such as Jefferson, Washington and Adams. And that still holds true now the second time around.
Alexander Hamilton perhaps more than any other man created the America we know today. If George Washington won the war for America, then Hamilton won the peace and ushered in a modern progressive nation-state. Chief aide to Washington during the War, secretary of the Treasury, author of the The Federalist Papers, architect of the Constitution, creator of the national bank, proponent of abolition, it was Hamilton's vision more than any other that shaped America's future.
To quote Chernow, "He was the clear-eyed apostle of America’s economic future, setting forth a vision that many found enthralling, others unsettling, but that would ultimately prevail. He stood squarely on the modern side of a historical divide that seemed to separate him from other founders. Small wonder he aroused such fear and confusion."
Perhaps this is why his historical reputation has suffered so much in comparison to the other Founding Fathers - history may have proved him right, but to his contemporaries the future he advocated with a far remove from the rural, agrarian, laissez-faire society they had known until then. Then too, Hamilton had the misfortune to be slandered by some of the greatest men of the age (I'm talking about you, Thomas Jefferson, you insufferable cock), who outlived him by some decades - plenty of time to compose calumnies and dwell on slights.
This biography goes a long way to rectifying that historical injustice, highlighting him for the remarkable man he was, in all his genius and complexity. I came away from this book an absolute partisan of Alexander Hamilton.
Non-Fiction
Pages: 818
Fiction is easy to re-read. We all have favourites books we go back to again and again. But it's a rare non-fiction book I can return to just a scant few years after reading it for the first time. Of course, it helps when the subject is someone as fascinating and endearing as Alexander Hamilton.
Before reading this book for the first time I knew little more of Alexander Hamilton than the passing references I had come across in biographies of other members of the Founding Generation. I ended it in tears, utterly distressed at his untimely death at the hands of Aaron Burr over two hundred years ago, and indignant on his behalf at his relative lack of historical renown, compared to other figures such as Jefferson, Washington and Adams. And that still holds true now the second time around.
Alexander Hamilton perhaps more than any other man created the America we know today. If George Washington won the war for America, then Hamilton won the peace and ushered in a modern progressive nation-state. Chief aide to Washington during the War, secretary of the Treasury, author of the The Federalist Papers, architect of the Constitution, creator of the national bank, proponent of abolition, it was Hamilton's vision more than any other that shaped America's future.
To quote Chernow, "He was the clear-eyed apostle of America’s economic future, setting forth a vision that many found enthralling, others unsettling, but that would ultimately prevail. He stood squarely on the modern side of a historical divide that seemed to separate him from other founders. Small wonder he aroused such fear and confusion."
Perhaps this is why his historical reputation has suffered so much in comparison to the other Founding Fathers - history may have proved him right, but to his contemporaries the future he advocated with a far remove from the rural, agrarian, laissez-faire society they had known until then. Then too, Hamilton had the misfortune to be slandered by some of the greatest men of the age (I'm talking about you, Thomas Jefferson, you insufferable cock), who outlived him by some decades - plenty of time to compose calumnies and dwell on slights.
This biography goes a long way to rectifying that historical injustice, highlighting him for the remarkable man he was, in all his genius and complexity. I came away from this book an absolute partisan of Alexander Hamilton.