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Alexander Hamilton, by Ron Chernow
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A�New York Times�Bestseller, and�the inspiration for the hit Broadway musical�Hamilton!
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ron Chernow presents a landmark biography of Alexander Hamilton, the Founding Father who galvanized, inspired, scandalized, and shaped the newborn nation.
In the first full-length biography of Alexander Hamilton in decades, Ron Chernow tells the riveting story of a man who overcame all odds to shape, inspire, and scandalize the newborn America. According to historian Joseph Ellis,�Alexander Hamilton�is “a robust full-length portrait, in my view the best ever written, of the most brilliant, charismatic and dangerous founder of them all.”
Few figures in American history have been more hotly debated or more grossly misunderstood than Alexander Hamilton. Chernow’s biography gives Hamilton his due and sets the record straight, deftly illustrating that the political and economic greatness of today’s America is the result of Hamilton’s countless sacrifices to champion ideas that were often wildly disputed during his time. “To repudiate his legacy,” Chernow writes, “is, in many ways, to repudiate the modern world.” Chernow here recounts Hamilton’s turbulent life: an illegitimate, largely self-taught orphan from the Caribbean, he came out of nowhere to take America by storm, rising to become George Washington’s aide-de-camp in the Continental Army, coauthoring The Federalist Papers, founding the Bank of New York, leading the Federalist Party, and becoming the first Treasury Secretary of the United States.Historians have long told the story of America’s birth as the triumph of Jefferson’s democratic ideals over the aristocratic intentions of Hamilton. Chernow presents an entirely different man, whose legendary ambitions were motivated not merely by self-interest but by passionate patriotism and a stubborn will to build the foundations of American prosperity and power. His is a Hamilton far more human than we’ve encountered before—from his shame about his birth to his fiery aspirations, from his intimate relationships with childhood friends to his titanic feuds with Jefferson, Madison, Adams, Monroe, and Burr, and from his highly public affair with Maria Reynolds to his loving marriage to his loyal wife Eliza. And never before has there been a more vivid account of Hamilton’s famous and mysterious death in a duel with Aaron Burr in July of 1804.
Chernow’s biography is not just a portrait of Hamilton, but the story of America’s birth seen through its most central figure. At a critical time to look back to our roots,�Alexander Hamilton�will remind readers of the purpose of our institutions and our heritage as Americans.
“Nobody has captured Hamilton better than Chernow”�—The New York Times Book Review�
From the Trade Paperback edition.
- Sales Rank: #624 in eBooks
- Published on: 2005-03-29
- Released on: 2005-03-29
- Format: Kindle eBook
Amazon.com Review
Building on biographies by Richard Brookhiser and Willard Sterne Randall, Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton provides what may be the most comprehensive modern examination of the often overlooked Founding Father. From the start, Chernow argues that Hamilton’s premature death at age 49 left his record to be reinterpreted and even re-written by his more long-lived enemies, among them: Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and James Monroe. Hamilton’s achievements as first Secretary of the Treasury, co-author of The Federalist Papers, and member of the Constitutional Convention were clouded after his death by strident claims that he was an arrogant, self-serving monarchist. Chernow delves into the almost 22,000 pages of letters, manuscripts, and articles that make up Hamilton’s legacy to reveal a man with a sophisticated intellect, a romantic spirit, and a late-blooming religiosity.
One fault of the book, is that Chernow is so convinced of Hamilton’s excellence that his narrative sometimes becomes hagiographic. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Chernow’s account of the infamous duel between Hamilton and Aaron Burr in 1804. He describes Hamilton’s final hours as pious, while Burr, Jefferson, and Adams achieve an almost cartoonish villainy at the news of Hamilton’s passing.
A defender of the union against New England secession and an opponent of slavery, Hamilton has a special appeal to modern sensibilities. Chernow argues that in contrast to Jefferson and Washington’s now outmoded agrarian idealism, Hamilton was "the prophet of the capitalist revolution" and the true forebear of modern America. In his Prologue, he writes: "In all probability, Alexander Hamilton is the foremost figure in American history who never attained the presidency, yet he probably had a much deeper and more lasting impact than many who did." With Alexander Hamilton, this impact can now be more widely appreciated. --Patrick O'Kelley
From Publishers Weekly
After hulking works on J.P. Morgan, the Warburgs and John D. Rockefeller, what other grandee of American finance was left for Chernow's overflowing pen than the one who puts the others in the shade? Alexander Hamilton (1755–1804) created public finance in the United States. In fact, it's arguable that without Hamilton's political and financial strategic brilliance, the United States might not have survived beyond its early years. Chernow's achievement is to give us a biography commensurate with Hamilton's character, as well as the full, complex context of his unflaggingly active life. Possessing the most powerful (though not the most profound) intelligence of his gifted contemporaries, Hamilton rose from Caribbean bastardy through military service in Washington's circle to historic importance at an early age and then, in a new era of partisan politics, gradually lost his political bearings. Chernow makes fresh contributions to Hamiltoniana: no one has discovered so much about Hamilton's illegitimate origins and harrowed youth; few have been so taken by Hamilton's long-suffering, loving wife, Eliza. Yet it's hard not to cringe at some of Hamilton's hotheaded words and behavior, especially sacrificing the well-being of his family on the altar of misplaced honor. This is a fine work that captures Hamilton's life with judiciousness and verve. Illus.
Copyright � Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
*Starred Review* Washington is revered as the "father of his country" and the "indispensable man." Jefferson is the "apostle of liberty," the author of our most sacred national document, and his idealism, though flawed, continues to inspire us. And Alexander Hamilton? He inspires admiration for his financial acumen and respect for his drive to rise above the genteel poverty of his youth. Yet he seldom is accorded the affection reserved for some of our national icons. But as Chernow's comprehensive and superbly written biography makes clear, Hamilton was at least as influential as any of our Founding Fathers in shaping our national institutions and political culture. He was the driving force behind the calling of the Constitutional Convention, and he was instrumental in overcoming opposition to ratification. In Washington's cabinet, he consistently promoted a national perspective while placing our economy on a sound financial footing. Chernow, who has previously written biographies of J. P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller, acknowledges Hamilton's arrogance, his bouts of self-pity, and his penchant for cynical manipulation. But this self-made man was capable of great compassion and was consistently outraged by the institution of slavery. Although his understanding of human limitations made him suspicious of unrestrained democracy, his devotion to individual liberty did not falter. Jay Freeman
Copyright � American Library Association. All rights reserved
Most helpful customer reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
Full and well-drawn portrait of Hamilton; less so for his opponents
By Daniel Putman
This book is a beautifully rendered portrait of Hamilton, both his public life and his private life. As so many other reviewers have noted, the book is an example of first-rate biographical research and most of the book is well-written.
Up to chapter 16, “Dr. Pangloss,” the story is superbly told. But, when Thomas Jefferson enters Hamilton’s life, much of the book becomes a contrast between Hamilton, who had his own well-documented personal failings, with Jefferson who, if the text is to be believed, had nothing but personal failings. Jefferson is variously described as hypocritical, duplicitous and conniving. Undoubtedly, Jefferson fit much of this description but so did Hamilton in their Federalist-Republican (anti-Federalist) feud in the 1790’s. What bothered me was the unrelenting negative portrayal of Jefferson, Madison (after 1790) and John Adams. Hamilton is portrayed accurately and fully as a brilliant and decent man with some major flaws. Jefferson and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Madison and Adams, are portrayed as deeply flawed individuals who happened to have a few good points. The language reinforces this. If one were to count the negatively loaded adjectives and verbs accorded to Hamilton’s three main opponents, they would vastly outnumber any positive linguistic connotations. In order to sharpen Hamilton’s character portrayal, the image that Chernow gives of Hamilton’s opponents is, given other biographies of these men, less than just.
The name-calling, smear campaigns and character assassinations in the 1790’s are appalling (but less so given the 2016 Presidential campaign). However, a dozen years after independence and only a few years after the Constitution was ratified, the fears of the anti-Federalists were real ones. Jefferson’s and Madison’s hypocrisy and the foibles of John Adam’s personality notwithstanding, the concerns expressed were often genuine ones at that time about what kind of country the United States would be and how the Constitution should be interpreted. The possibility that the Jeffersonians may have had a point gets lost in Chernow’s constant barrage of claims about duplicity, hypocrisy and malevolent intentions.
So I thought this was a brilliant portrayal of the man who founded our economic and, to a large extent, our political system. The portrayal of Aaron Burr is excellent and the factors leading up to the duel are gripping. But the mid-section of the book would have been even stronger if Chernow had presented Hamilton’s foes in a fuller, less negatively charged light.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
how we were given hard-fought liberties which today we have all but lost
By Ron Housley
A short Book Report by Ron Housley
When I was a teenaged Wall Street messenger boy, I discovered Alexander Hamilton’s tombstone in the Trinity Church graveyard. I had heard about Aaron Burr and the shooting over in Weehawken. And I knew that Hamilton was Secretary of Treasury and that he was some kind of advocate for a national bank. I didn’t know in those days what a “Federalist” was.
Since I had read Chernow’s biographies of Rockefeller and Morgan, I couldn’t resist this one.
What is it that all these notable figures do to distinguish themselves? What do they have in common? Why is it such a value to learn about these men?! How was Alexander Hamilton a giant among men? Chernow spells out meaningful answers to each of these.
Chernow offers us a glimpse into the fundamental conflicts that comprised the embryology of our country:
(*) we see men creating the first nation in world history to recognize individual rights as the foundational principle;
(*) we see how they laid the intellectual and legal groundwork for America to become the first Western nation to abolish slavery, even though they had to temporarily allow its continuance as the price of forming a union;
(*) we see how they struggled over issues of repaying the war debt and how a banking system could be set up to assure national survival. I sometimes get lost in my imagination over what a Hamilton treatise would look like if he had ever turned his vast intellectual talents to the challenge of setting up a free banking system like America flirted with in the 19th century.
(*) We see a rich assembly of detail, tracing Hamilton’s contributions to America from his post at George Washington’s side during the Revolutionary War, to the sordid detail of his extra-marital affair(s), to his stunning accomplishments as the first Secretary of Treasury, to his role behind the scenes in the John Adams administration.
(*) but we miss learning anything about the most important question of all: whether anybody will ever reconcile the disconnect between individual self-interest which the Founding Fathers’ new form of government supported and nurtured vs. the deep-seeded Christian morality which told them that self-interest was fundamentally evil (think: Sermon on the Mount).
Hamilton would have been a perfect choice to address this question, since his religiosity was only superficial for the majority of his life. But the failure of any of our Founders to even articulate the problem parallels today’s failure to “name the enemy” in America’s war with Islamic jihad. From one failure we lost capitalism itself; from the other we stand on the brink of losing our national sovereignty.
The obstacles set down in front of The Founders were truly overwhelming: (*)slavery; (*)war debt; (*)revenue needs; (*)national defense needs; (*)banking; (*)currency; (*)the concept of a Federal government to unite the independent states.
There was no certainty that a union could be set up to last. The new union was fragile; its survival was not guaranteed. But a unified nation was the precarious vision that galvanized The Founders.
It is astonishing how today’s voters have so completely lost sight of what had to take place before an individual rights-embracing government could be born. Equally astonishing is how thoroughly the causal connection between individual rights and the resulting prosperity has been excised from the minds of today’s average citizen. The last thing Alexander Hamilton would have imagined is that 240 years after the nation’s founding, the new republic would be lurching headlong into tyrannical statism(!).
Chernow’s biography is a great vehicle for developing an understanding of the hard-fought liberties which today we have all but lost, possibly forever(!).
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
Historical Perspective and Compelling Style
By Plumeria
Current political debates, ubiquitous in the news, are put into historical perspective by reading this book. Documents like the Constitution, and federal government powers to tax and regulate, were not taken for granted at the outset; and political differences of opinion were not merely debated but were settled by means as extreme as dueling to the death.
Alexander Hamilton was probably the most significant Founding Father who was never elected to the Presidency (all right, maybe Franklin too). His life, while truncated, put him at the forefront of all the issues of early day America. Perhaps the reason this book is fascinates me is because it presents each issue both from Hamilton’s viewpoint and from his opponents’ viewpoints; and often there was compelling logic on both sides. For example, should the debts incurred by the individual states in fighting the Revolutionary War be paid off by the federal government? On the one hand, the victory benefitted the whole country, and individual state taxes would conflict with federal taxing powers; but on the other, some of the states had already done a good job of paying down their debts on their own. Also of interest was the difference in perspective between Hamilton’s dream of America as a manufacturing powerhouse and a strong united nation, versus Jefferson’s as an agrarian society with emphasis on states’ rights. Hamilton set up a logical monetary system that would be a foundation for long-term economic strength to the nation, but there were reasons for people to mistrust it (and him, as a result). Disputes between major players were often philosophical, but sometimes personal events got entangled too. This book really fills in the gaps in understanding American history but manages to be much more interesting than the history books I was required to read as a young student. It is jam-packed with historical content but remarkably readable as a story.
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