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Title: Alexander Hamilton: A Biography by Forrest McDonald ISBN: 0-393-30048-X Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: October, 1982 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.9 (21 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: Lack of objectivity overshadows any good points
Comment: The author of this book is so enamored of Hamilton that is completely blinds him to any faults Hamilton may have had. Furthermore, anyone who showed any opposition at all to anything Hamilton proposed is deemed either delusional or a traitor. His treatment of Jefferson and Adams is amazing. Even Washington comes accross as feeble at times without the constant support and advice of his most trusted advisor Hamilton.
As the book progresses, the bias gets worse and almost preachy.
Shockingly, the famous duel with Aaron Burr gets only about 3 pages worth of description.....probably since it was not exactly a high point in his life.
Avoid this book if you want a well-balanced biography.
Rating: 4
Summary: A Brilliant But Unbalanced Account
Comment: This is a well-written and thought-provoking book, but at the same time one that I found unsatisfactory on certain levels. For one thing, as a biography, it's limited in scope, providing little information about Hamilton's life beyond his administrative and political affairs. His childhood and youth are dispensed with in about 15 pages, and the American Revolution - in which Hamilton participated as an senior aid to Washington and as combat officer - is already over by page 25, bypassing what one assumes should have been a wealth of fascinating material. His wife is mentioned no more that the few times, his children hardly at all, and we learn very little about his personal relationships with the other leading figures of his era. A life-and-times style biography was obviously not part of the author's design in the first place, and this criticism may thus be irrelevant, but a more substantive problem is the bias that pervades his book. While it's common enough for biographers to fall in love with their protagonists, Professor McDonald to carries his enthusiasm to an extreme. I'm not a historian by any means, but I've read enough to know that the men surrounding Alexander Hamilton were a prodigiously gifted array of politicians. Yet a reader who knew nothing of the period beyond the contents of this book would have the impression that they were a collection of relative mediocrities who paled in the light of Hamilton's genius. Even Washington, who comes off better than most, seems to have achieved success only through his willingness to acquiesce, most of the time, to Hamilton's unerring behind-the-scenes guidance. Hamilton's enemies are portrayed as conniving villains, and the arch-villain, Thomas Jefferson, appears to have had no purpose to his life other than to foil Hamilton's otherwise infallible blueprint for a happy and prosperous nation. The fact that Hamilton himself probably more-or-less saw his world in this light is more understandable than how a historian two centuries later could succumb the this same lack of objectivity. Despite these failings, Professor McDonald has nonetheless produced a remarkable study here, and I learned a great deal from it. What emerges is the portrait of a man who, even allowing for the author's partiality, was indeed probably the most forward-looking of his peers in his understanding of what the United States was to become. Modern Americans take for granted their colossal economic might and geopolitical dominance. Yet post-revolutionary America was a weak, divided country run by agrarians generally hostile to the formation of the finance capital and industrial enterprise. The essence of the Federalist vision for America was that establishment of a strong central government was necessary to facilitate economic development. And Hamilton's unique contribution to this vision was his understanding of the critical importance that a dynamic system of national credit and currency would play in bringing about prosperity. Hamilton was a supremely ambitious man, yet his aspirations propelled him not to be a king or a president or a conquering general. When the new American government formed following the revolution, the only post he desired - easily granted to him by Washington - was Treasury Secretary. It was from this position that he believed he could establish the monetary foundations critical to the fledging economic powerhouse he sought to nurture. His political opponents, led by Jefferson, understood this vision only too well as one that would result in a tumultuous transfer of wealth and power to industrialists and bankers, at the expense of the agrarian order they hoped to perpetuate. One insight implicit in this story, even though the author doesn't draw it for us, is the obvious nature of the link between this post-revolutionary conflict and the great civil war what was to ignite half a century later. It couldn't be clearer that it was the Federalist dream for America, well-rooted by the mid-nineteenth century, that drove the Southern Confederacy to revolt. That same dream finally emerged in full flower in the following century as Yankee industrialism triumphed and Hamilton's Dollar achieved preeminence. Hamilton's death in 1805 following a duel with Aaron Burr has to have been one of the weirdest and most dramatic incidents in American history. Yet it is characteristic of this biography that the event is described only briefly and dryly in the epilogue. Hamilton was a brilliant man, but one whose personal arrogance probably contributed unnecessarily to the partisan hatred of the post-war years and no doubt as well to his own premature demise. For me it was interesting to learn that Hamilton's son also died in a dual, three years before his father, at a time when this violent custom had become rare. This remarkable co-incidence suggests a fiery dynamic in the Hamilton family which this book leaves us totally in the dark about, as it does about many other dimensions of his life and character. To the extent Professor McDonald sought to trace Hamilton's development as a political thinker and the practical impact of his work on the nation's founding, this well-written biography succeeds admirably. However, readers seeking a balanced and full account of the man's life will have to look to other sources.
Rating: 3
Summary: An Administrator Who Does No Wrong
Comment: There are times when I read this book and threw up my hands, threw the book on the floor, and cursed. Some paragaphs in the book are total insansity. Not that they are factually wrong but that they defend Hamilton no matter what he does and when he does something wrong it isn't his fault. For instance he cheats on his wife - but it is because he was niave and duped. But the book is a useful piece if you want to understand Hamilton's debt and banking programs.
The problems I had with the book is the authors obssesive and depressingly consistent program of praising Hamilton and putting down everyone else. Apparently just about everything good that happened in the formative and early years of our Republic Hamilton was responsbile for and anyone who opposed any of his policies was living in fantasies or was totally selfish. When people oppose Hamilton's policies they do so for financial gain - but Hamilton always has pure motives. At least that is the way this author portrays things!
The only person besides Hamilton who comes off good is George Washington and that is because he listened to Hamilton over Thomas Jefferson when it came to banking and the French Revolution. If it wasn't for Hamilton poor Old George would have been lost it seems.
Hamilton may have been right on many of these issues - but the authors tendency to prop him on a pedestal makes the reader miss out and the history of the time deserves better. The founders were a diverse group of people with varied economic interests and opinions on what paths the nation should take. This gets lost here. A great exposition of these themes is John Ellis's Founding Brothers - which is a great book and I'd recommend as an introduction in the founding fathers.
Many of the problems in McDonald's book are common to biographies of the founding fathers. One could make similar complaints about David McCollough's recent work on John Adams.
The strength of this book is that it gives you a nice detailed understanding of Hamilton's policies and how he tried to centralize the government and create a nation through laws and debt - which he thought could be used to meld the states together. It is worth reading for this. I wouldn't recommend it as an introduction to the founding fathers though. If you have a hard wood floor don't read the book while others are asleep. If you are like me you'll wake them up from the noise of the book periodically hitting the ground.
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Title: ALEXANDER HAMILTON, American by Richard Brookhiser ISBN: 0684863316 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 12 April, 2000 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson by Joseph J. Ellis ISBN: 0679764410 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 07 April, 1998 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: James Madison: A Biography by Ralph Louis Ketcham ISBN: 0813912652 Publisher: University of Virginia Press Pub. Date: May, 1990 List Price(USD): $22.50 |
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Title: Washington: The Indispensable Man by James Thomas Flexner ISBN: 0316286168 Publisher: Back Bay Books Pub. Date: 22 February, 1994 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: Novus Ordo Seclorum: The Intellectual Origins of the Constitution by Forrest McDonald ISBN: 0700603115 Publisher: Univ Pr of Kansas Pub. Date: November, 1986 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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