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Title: Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow, Scott Brick ISBN: 0-14-280044-9 Publisher: Penguin Audiobooks Pub. Date: 22 April, 2004 Format: Audio Cassette Volumes: 25 List Price(USD): $59.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.28 (25 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Best book I have read in years
Comment: This is the best book I've read in years, literally the kind that will make you laugh and cry. After reading this, I feel Alexander Hamilton's premature death ranks as the most tragic in American history while being the least appreciated as such by today's Americans. Ron Chernow amply shows you why. In this masterpiece of a biography, Chernow makes you 'know' and identify with Hamilton and the other characters the way a powerful movie drama makes you feel that the fictional characters are actually real. Of course, the characters in this story ARE real, but it's usually a challenge for non-historians reading about events so different from their own lives to get this feeling. Most books writing about the distant past are impersonal, and the historical figures within them rarely come across as genuine, real-live people with thoughts, passions, and insecurities just like ours. Chernow's greatest strength is his ability to draw this out so that you relate to them as if they were living and breathing today. He does an even better job in this book than in 'Titan', his bio of John D. Rockefeller. I think this is partly because Hamilton's own emotional intensity during his life was much greater than, say, Rockefeller's, or the vast majority of people dead or alive. Whatever it is, the effect is there: I was disappointed in Hamilton for his foibles, was happy when he triumphed, became disgusted by his enemies, and had tears in my eyes when he died.
Apart from Chernow's considerable literary prowess, this book makes for a thorough and objective historical record of just how extraordinary this man was from any objective standpoint. Asked to name the founding fathers before hearing of this book, I would have cited the usual figures: Jefferson, Washington, Franklin, and Madison. I wouldn't even have thought of Hamilton. Having read the book, however, it's a defensible argument that while Hamilton (unfortunately) basks in the shadows of the others as far as the popular imagination goes (possible owing only to his relatively short life), he may have been the greatest mind and the most instrumental of all of them. He certainly was, as Chernow puts it, the "father of the American government" (in the sense of actual administration) even if he was not the father of the system of government or of the American identity, per se.
Lastly, apart from telling Hamilton's story, Chernow has written an outstanding book that is a real contribution to the copious general literature on the birth and genesis of America. I learned more about how our country came to be in this period than from any of my sterile high-school history classes. The most wonderful thing is that despite my more-than occasional-lack-of-confidence in today's politics and politicians, this book has actually made me proud to be an American again and appreciate this great national experiment that has managed to triumph above all odds because of these men. I have not read any of the other recent books on the great men of the constitutional era, such as 'Founding Brothers' or 'John Adams' (both of which Chernow quotes from frequently), but I now feel inspired to do so.
I know I have to think of SOMETHING negative to say. Any weaknesses of this bio are pitifully minor compared with its strengths, but if forced to find a few, I would name the following:
(1) In my opinion, Chernow over-attributes beliefs and insecurities of the adult Hamilton to childhood influences in various side comments. I happen to think biographers overinterpret the effect of childhood events on adult personality and can be quite gullible in swallowing their own psychobabble.
(2) The least interesting part of the book concerned Hamilton's childhood, and especially the confusing and jumpy life of his parents and grandparents. This could have been shortened somewhat, although if Chernow really wanted to create a full and thorough historical record of the man and his life, he may have felt this necessary, especially because Hamilton's illegitimate birth and unstable childhood form a thematic that is elaborated elsewhere in the book at various points by Chernow.
Rating: 4
Summary: Excellent Biography
Comment: This is an excellent and very sympathetic biography of Alexander Hamilton, arguably the lest known of the great Founding Fathers. Hamilton's reputation suffered, particularly in the 19th century, because he was an opponent of the Jeffersonian Democrats who triumphed at the beginning of the 19th century, His premature death in a duel prevented his defense against the rather nasty polemics which continued for decades after this death. Chernow shows well that Hamilton was a major architect of the American state. Indeed, Hamilton really anticipated what the USA would become by the end of the 19th century; a mercantile and industrial power with a strong agricultural economy and a meritocratic social/political system. Chernow traces Hamilton's origins from his origin as an illegitimate child in the West Indies to his prominence in New York legal circles and his career as an officer in the Continental Army. Hamilton was a brilliant individual who mastered a broad range of subjects with remarkable facility and a supremely efficient administrator. For a long period, he was essentially Washington's Chief of Staff in the Continental Army and performed prodigious work as the first Secretary of the Treasury. Chernow treats Hamilton's personal qualities with considerable sympathy and includes a very warm treatment of his family life. This is not, however, a hagiogpraphy. Chernow is equally good on Hamilton's failings, notably his impulsivity, excessive pride, and penchant for disastrous political (and sometimes personal) decisions. As Chernow shows, Hamilton achieved most when he was yoked to someone who exerted a steadying influence. This is certainly the case for his relationship with Washington but is also true for another important episode of Hamilton's career, his advocacy of constitutional revision. Here he had a fruitful partnership with Madison, who later became a bitter political enemy.
While I am sure this is best modern biography of Hamilton, it falls a bit short of being a really first-rate biography. The best biographies not only reveal their subject but also provide insights about the time in which the subject lived. Here Chernow does reasonably well but falls a bit short of being outstanding. For example, he is very good on the remarkably vicious character of politics in the first decades of the Republic. He is less good on other important aspects of Hamilton's life and time. As co-author of the Federalist papers, Hamilton is an important political theorist. Chernow doesn't provide any insight into where Hamilton lies in the development of Anglo-American political theory. Similarly, where does Hamilton fit into the contemporary range of economic thought, a subject that clearly occupied his mind considerably. Its interesting that many of the notable Federalists, like Hamilton, were officers in the Continental Army. The latter was the first real national institution in American life. Was this experience crucial for forming Federalism?
A final interesting aspect of this biography is that it seems to part of a recurrence of interest in Federalist figures. The past few years have seen important books on John Adams, and a superb one volume history/analysis of the Federalist period by Elkins and McKitrick. There has been a simultaneous decline in the reputation of the major opponent of Federalism, Thomas Jefferson. Is it possible that Americans are once again becoming attracted by the idea of vigorous and progressive central governments?
Rating: 5
Summary: One of America's Shining Stars
Comment: There have NOT been enough biographies of Alexander Hamilton, and Ron Chernow has restored this often maligned founding father into his deserved spotlight. The marvelous opening passage describes the longings of Hamilton's widow, Elizabeth, for her husband who had died nearly 50 years previously. This romantic image sets the tone for this brilliant book, as it explores the heart as well as the mind of Alexander Hamilton.
For those who do not know, Hamilton was not merely a capitalist and economist who happened to die in a duel with Aaron Burr. True, he was the founder of The Bank of New York and was America's first Secretary of the Treasury. But Hamilton was also a tireless abolitionist, a brilliant lawyer and writer, General Washington's right-hand-man, a war hero, founder of the New York Post, and a swash-buckling romantic. Taken on their own, these achievements are amazing enough, but given the enormous obstacles and tragedies he had to overcome during his youth, it's just mindboggling. To take it a step further, he accomplished all this in just 49 years, which was his age at the time of his death.
A life as full, as dramatic, as IMPORTANT as Alexander Hamilton's deserves volumes. Ron Chernow's extensive biography is a long book but, even so, the amazing life he is describing requires such length. And, to Chernow's credit, the book achieves just the right balance of admiration and criticism, romanticism and realism, speculation and fact. Hamilton's life swung between often contradictory ideas and emotions, and Chernow presents them all to us, rather than sticking with one overriding image. ALEXANDER HAMILTON by Ron Chernow is perhaps the most important book written about the nascent years of our country since Ellis' FOUNDING BROTHERS, which would make an excellent companion to this book. I would also strongly recommend McCullough's JOHN ADAMS, as well.
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