The man on the $10 bill is probably the most overlooked Founding Father. This book--not a names-and-dates biography, but an appreciation and assessment in the tradition of Plutarch--should help change that. Richard Brookhiser is an outstanding writer well known for his previous books (especially the wonderful Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington) and journalism (in National Review and the New York Observer); Hamilton could not have asked for a better advocate. A signer of the Constitution and author of roughly two-thirds of the Federalist Papers, Hamilton became the first secretary of the treasury at the age of 32. In this capacity, Brookhiser argues that the scrappy Caribbean native gave birth to American capitalism by developing the country's financial system. Brookhiser also reveals the sex and violence of Hamilton's life: he survived personal scandal but was shot down by Aaron Burr in an 1804 duel. The end came too soon for Hamilton--and it also helped elevate the reputation of his nemesis, Thomas Jefferson. Alexander Hamilton: American is by turns learned, funny, and inspiring. A model of popular biography, it convinces us why we should care deeply about a remarkable man who lived two centuries ago.


From Publishers Weekly
Brookhiser (Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington) rediscovers another founding father. Hamilton was one of the epochal figures of the Revolutionary period?he collaborated with Madison on the Federalist papers, served as secretary of the treasury under Washington and, along with Jefferson, is largely responsible for the modern two-party system?but he was also one of the most controversial. John Adams called Hamilton a "bastard" and a "foreigner" (both charges held some degree of truth); Jefferson thought he was secretly "against the liberty of the country," an accusation Brookhiser emphatically disproves. Hamilton's death only increased his infamy; he fell in a duel with then Vice President Aaron Burr, an event that remains one of the most bizarre in American history. ("Imagine Al Gore shooting Donald Regan," Brookhiser writes.) In this slim but rewarding book, Brookhiser traces the entire course of Hamilton's professional and personal life. Though he doesn't shrink from the more unsavory episodes, such as Hamilton's adulterous affair with a married woman and her subsequent blackmail of him, the author clearly admires his subject. The only blemish is Brookhiser's occasional use of bubblegum psychology, as when he writes of Hamilton's desire to "be his father" as a driving force behind Hamilton's infidelity. Although he doesn't provide a substantive analysis of Hamilton's work (just four pages are given to the Federalist papers, arguably the most important contribution of Hamilton's career), Brookhiser gives us a valuable, incisive portrait both of Hamilton's character and of the character of young America. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Brookhiser is a senior editor at the National Review and an acolyte of conservative political commentators William F. Buckley Jr. and William Rusher. Given these credentials, it is not surprising to find that he admires Alexander Hamilton and other early Federalists. Even readers who do not share Brookhiser's political views, however, will find his new book authoritative and great fun to read. Brookhiser manages to make accessible even the most arcane financial policies of America's first secretary of the treasury. As in his earlier Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington (LJ 2/1/96), Brookhiser manages in relatively few pages to offer a persuasive portrait of a founding father. Avoiding hagiography, he demonstrates that Hamilton was not an evil agent of big money and big government but genuinely an American in his devotion to the interests of the entire nation rather than to particular states, regions, or classes. Highly recommended for all academic and public libraries.?Thomas J. Schaeper, St. Bonaventure Univ., NYCopyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The New York Times Book Review, Michael R. Beschloss
...a dramatic, compact biography that fairly gallops through Hamilton's picaresque life.


The Wall Street Journal, James Grant
...[a] wonderful portrait.... a model of amateur biography, a labor of love. As in his preceding volume on George Washington, Mr. Brookhiser has put his own intelligent stamp on the life of a great man.


From Booklist
Brookhiser, prominent among tastemakers of conservative opinion, ventures this reappraisal of American conservatism's icon. A figure who excites debate now as he did in life, Hamilton undoubtedly has a sympathetic advocate in Brookhiser. Not challenging the standard biography (Alexander Hamilton by Forrest McDonald, 1979), Brookhiser compacts the highlights of Hamilton's career into a bright, interesting narrative, the approach taken in his successful Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington (1996). Unlike other founders to the plantation born, Hamilton rose from penury on the outlands of empire. Having made his own money (as a lawyer), Hamilton, argues the author, valued it as the means of personal advancement and as the sinew of nascent American nationalism. His convictions about government finance conflicted with Jefferson's national vision, providing Brookhiser's account of their polemics and those of their political supporters with its dramatic peak. Criticizing aspects of Hamilton's rhetoric, Brookhiser displays his independent judgment in a generally admiring work. Its felicitous composition and insights about Hamilton's adopted American identity make it eminently readable for buffs and historians alike. Gilbert Taylor


From Kirkus Reviews
A compact, compelling biography of one of the greatest, though comparatively overlooked, of the nation's founders. While Brookhiser (Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington, 1996), an editor at the National Review and a contributor to the New York Observer, is dead wrong that ``there is nothing else by or about'' Alexander Hamilton (what of biographies by Jacob Cooke, Broadus Mitchell, and Nathan Schachner?), his biography will quickly take its place as vastly more discerning than any of its predecessors. While Hamilton lacked the range, learning, and prudence of the other founders, he arguably possessed the most powerful intelligence of any of them. Moreover, foreign-born and illegitimate, his identity as an American, rather than as a Virginian or New Yorker, was deeper and more emotional than that of his great contemporaries. Brookhiser's achievement is to capture the full nature of this flawed but great manand to characterize him as nationalist, idealist, and visionaryin a lively and insightful biography. Along the way, the author gives us deft portraits of Hamilton's contemporaries and analyses of the events in which Hamilton played a major role. Brookhiser also breaks new ground in portraying his subject as a masterful journalist and writer and raises him into the ranks of the nation's greatest newspaper essayistsnot only for his brilliant contributions to The Federalist but also for countless other works. Hamilton's ``relationship with words,'' writes the author, ``was intimate and inexhaustible.'' Brookhiser is especially good at concise explanation of the young nation's finances and at descriptions of the bitter political violence of the 1790spassionate battles that make our own political squabbles seem like tea-party talk. Trying to strengthen Hamilton's reputation, Brookhiser occasionally goes overboard in speculating about his subject's psychological needs and extracting contemporary lessons from Hamilton's behavior and ideas, but the results of his efforts are always plausible. Hamilton has gained a fair, sympathetic, and always objective biographerand a biography for our time. (History Book Club selection) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Review
Michael R. Beschloss The New York Times Book Review A dramatic, compact biography that fairly gallops through Hamilton's picaresque life. Alexander Hamilton, American brilliantly succeeds in arguing that Hamilton deserves greater credit than he usually gets for his brainpower, idealism, and vision.


Book Description
Alexander Hamilton is one of the least understood, most important, and most impassioned and inspiring of the founding fathers. At last Hamilton has found a modern biographer who can bring him to full-blooded life; Richard Brookhiser. In these pages, Alexander Hamilton sheds his skewed image as the "bastard brat of a Scotch peddler," sex scandal survivor, and notoriously doomed dueling partner of Aaron Burr. Examined up close, throughout his meteoric and ever-fascinating (if tragically brief) life, Hamilton can at last be seen as one of the most crucial of the founders. Here, thanks to Brookhiser's accustomed wit and grace, this quintessential American lives again.


About the Author
Richard Brookhiser is the author of Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington and The Way of the WASP. He has also edited and annotated Washington's Rules of Civility. He is a Senior Editor at National Review and a New York Observer columnist. He lives in New York City.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Alexander Hamilton is one of the least understood, most important, and most impassioned and inspiring of the founding fathers. At last Hamilton has found a modern biographer who can bring him to full-blooded life; Richard Brookhiser. In these pages, Alexander Hamilton sheds his skewed image as the "bastard brat of a Scotch peddler," sex scandal survivor, and notoriously doomed dueling partner of Aaron Burr. Examined up close, throughout his meteoric and ever-fascinating (if tragically brief) life, Hamilton can at last be seen as one of the most crucial of the founders. Here, thanks to Brookhiser's accustomed wit and grace, this quintessential American lives again.

FROM THE CRITICS

Michael R. Beschloss - The New York Times Book Review

A dramatic, compact biography that fairly gallops through Hamilton's picaresque life. Alexander Hamilton, American brilliantly succeeds in arguing that Hamilton deserves greater credit than he usually gets for his brain power, idealism, and vision.

Orlando Patterson - National Review

Richard Brookhiser's splendid biography￯﾿ﾽsucceeds in doing what no other work has quite done before: provide a portrait of Hamilton that brings out the true genius of the man in a volume that is both elegantly written and accessible to a mass audience.

James Grant - The Wall Street Journal

[A] wonderful portrait￯﾿ﾽ.Mr. Brookhiser has put his own intelligent stamp on the life of a great man.

Gary Rawlins - USA Today