Alexander Hamilton

Hamilton (AH) was born in Nevis, a British West Indian island near St. Kitts; his year of birth is somewhat debatable but it was most likely 1755. His mother died when he was 14, and his father had deserted the family years earlier; he and his older brother (by two years) were left without family, friends, and money. For the next few years he was raised by neighbors, and did bookkeeping for a shipping company. At the age of 18 or so, Hamilton sailed to America, stopping first in Boston but settling soon after in New York. AH had little if any formal education during his Nevis years, but he likely was tutored by the elderly ladies in the community; he became bilingual learning French from his mother and he read and re-read the small collection of English classics his mother had accumulated. He gained admission to Kings College (later renamed Columbia University) but dropped out to fight in the Revolutionary War. Hamilton came to General George Washington's attention early on in New York and was chosen to join Washington's staff. Now in his early 20's, he was drafting the bulk of Washington's correspondence from reports for Congress to orders from Washington to his Generals. Washington quickly gave AH more and more responsibility. And the rest is history.....finally gaining a command and playing a key role in Cornwallis's surrender at Yorktown effectively ending the Revolutionary War, penning the Federalist papers with Madison, contributing to the framing of the Constitution, serving as Washington's Treasury Secretary, becoming a successful New York lawyer, and together with wife Eliza raising eight children. Hamilton had many successes in his brief life, and author Ron Chernow does not restrain himself in his accolades. "If Washington was the father of the country.....then Alexander Hamilton was the father of American government." Hamilton's many accomplishments included establishing the Federal Bank, funding public debt, creating the tax system, the Customs Service, the Coast Guard. Also AH "....laid the groundwork for both liberal democracy and capitalism and helped transform the role of the president from passive administrator to active policy maker......and helped to weld the states irreversibly into one nation." Yet Chernow is not reticent to include AH's shortcomings. He shows that at times AH could be hypocritical and had a chronic tendency to magnify problems. He sometimes tried to do too much at the same time, launching too many initiatives at once. Toward the end, AH and Adams detested each other: "Both were hasty, erratic, impulsive men and capable of atrocious judgment." Chernow includes, with perhaps too much detail, AH's shameful, embarrassing and long-lasting affair with Mrs. Mariah Reynolds. There is an additional story told in this marvelous book - the critical events in the founding of the United States, particularly the creation of our Constitution and the major issues facing our first president. To lay the groundwork for the ratification of the Constitution, Hamilton conceived the idea of "The Federalist Papers"(FP) , drawing together the contributors, writing most of the eighty-three essays and seeing to their publication; AH wrote twenty-one of them in a mere two months . "Hamilton's mind always worked with preternatural speed. His collected papers are so stupefying in length that it is hard to believe that one man created them in fewer than five decades." Chernow does an excellent job of summarizing the FP's groupings. It is amazing for the reader to see how many issues of those days still resonate today and illiustrate how passionately citizens of the 1790's felt about matters such as Federal v. State responsibilities. It is also very interesting to read the history and debate concerning so many precedent setting events. Fortunately, Chernow goes far beyond the typical biographer's practice of paying the most minimal attention to those events in which his subject played a minor role. And so we are treated to many pages devoted to all the major events of the times. These include how we elected our first President (no campaigning!), why many of our early presidents were from Virginia, how the Constitution was agreed to by a disparate group of 39, how its ratification process played out, how political parties came to be, the XYZ affair, passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts, creating the USA's first currency and coinage. Even how the stock exchange was created. ! While AH had many incredible successes, great satisfaction, and happy moments, there are many moments of gloom and foreboding throughout the book. From the earliest of its 731 pages, "Alexander Hamilton" details how closely Aaron Burr's life was interwoven with Hamilton's. Burr pops up continuously, with details of his career advancement, family life, personal habits, and characteristics. The subject of dueling also arises frequently. Dueling was an unfortunate part of many gentlemen's lives and Hamilton had several occasions where he was involved as a third party with the duels of others. Two of the last chapters, about 30 pages, deal with the Hamilton-Burr duel in Weehauken, NJ. Sadly, less than three years before his own death in that duel, Hamilton's oldest son Philip was killed at the very same site. He was only 20, defending his father's honor, attacked in a July 4th speech. This is an excellent bio, one of the two or three best I have ever read. (I found it far superior to Chernow's book on Washington). I recommend it highly. This is my 500th review !

You may want to clear your calendar and prepare to lock yourself up in a private room for the duration of the reading of Ron Chernow's ALEXANDER HAMILTON. Not only is this 800 + pg. book meticulously researched and extremely well written, but it seems as if the author did his groundwork thoroughly, and then moved out of the way, allowing the full force, brilliance, and (on occasion) astounding naivete of the central character, Alexander Hamilton himself, to drive the riveting story of his extraordinary life and person. And even more important, in addition to a myriad of details about his personal life and, often, tumultuous relationships, the book carefully chronicles the essential role Hamilton played in the Revolutionary War, as George Washington's right hand man and most trusted advisor, as well as the construction and establishment of the federal government and banking system of the United States of America. Chernow's rendition of Hamilton's life is not just another biography, but rather a full bodied feast of narratives; a soaring, inspiring drama filled with a stunning array of characters, interactions, romance and intrigues; a triumph of the human spirit; and moreover, the rise, fall, restoration, redemption, and ultimate demise of one of the great men of human history. In the entitled and litigious world we live in today, its hard to believe that Hamilton survived his difficult childhood and questionable parentage growing up and roaming in the rough streets of the British West Indies in tact. And that in subsequent years, he was able to excel with relative ease in his university studies, and then display the most remarkable courage on the battlefield during the Revolutionary War, eventually becoming one of the most powerful men in the early formation of what would become the United States of America. Chernow does an excellent job of conveying Hamilton's genius; that is to say how his prodigious abilities to think, learn, speak, write, manage, and charm with immediate eloquence and erudition enabled his rapid ascent to positions of social, intellectual, and political superiority. You get a real sense that Alexander Hamilton was not only essential in the formation of the U.S., but a man without peers. In the personal realm, the tenderness of Hamilton's sincere love and devotion to his wife Eliza and his children is clearly expressed in letters exchanged throughout his married life, and yet he failed to remain faithful, and then failed again to realize the folly and consequence of his insatiable need to write a public confession, provoking further scandal and embarrassment for his family and friends. In addition, this strange contradictory element was also made manifest in financial matters. On the one hand, Hamilton, as the first Treasury Secretary of the United States of America, was enormously successfully in creating a financial system, including the first Central Bank, that would remain the economic foundation of what was destined to be the greatest country on earth, for many decades, and even centuries, to come. And yet, when his own resources were in question, at least in the end, Alexander Hamilton was deficient, even shockingly derelict in his duties and responsibilities. Bottom line, Chernow does a marvelous job of weaving all the many aspects of Alexander Hamilton's life; his character, relationships, accomplishments, and shortcomings together in a most enjoyable and educational read. And I haven't even mentioned his relationship with Aaron Burr, which, appropriately, holds the reader in suspense to the end of the book. Highly Recommended for history and drama loving adults and precocious high school and college students. Enjoy!

This is a wondrous book, complete with the richness of the history of the early United States and the answer to a mystery: who was Alexander Hamilton? And well may we ask. Early on, Mr. Chernow points out that having died relatively young, Mr. Hamilton provided Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe with many years in which to blacken Hamilton's name for Posterity. We don't know nearly so much about Hamilton as we do many of the other founding fathers and what we know the most about him is, of course, his infamous and ignoble death at the hands of Aaron Burr. This is actually tragic because the life of Hamilton held enormous scope from his birth in the West Indies through to his tenure as the first Secretary of the Treasury of the United States and encompassed some of the liveliest times in human history. And all along this journey, the autodidact that was Hamilton never ceased to voraciously learn and forcefully shape his situation in life. One of Chernow's great gifts is his ability to explain the processes of forming a new constitution and federal government without taking the humanity out of the study. The blazing intellects who blasted a new country out of 13 completely self-interested colonies and formed a structure and balance that is virtually unchanged to this very day were driven, prickly, egotistical individuals who only barely subverted their respective self-interests for the good of a united country, e.g., how do you persuade the almost completely wealthy and autonomous Virginia to share power with the tiny, war-ravaged Delaware? It is a riveting story and the genesis for our bicameral form of representation. It is also interesting to see how Chernow does not shy away from the historically tricky subject of slavery. He clearly demonstrates the unconformity between the language of the constitution and the actuality of slave ownership by many of the founding fathers. In a world where slavery was on the wane and had been completely banished in much of Europe, the Southern colonies refused to budge on the subject, considering slavery to be no less than a total economic necessity. And Hamilton was at the heart of these tumultuous times. Having started life as a Royalist, he came under the spell of independence while a college student in the colony of New York; he threw himself completely into the fight with all the brilliance and energy of an idealistic youth. As the principal author of the Federalist Papers, he honed his opinions and persuasive powers and started a lifelong advocacy for the strength of the federal government. And as one of George Washington's lifelong friends and closest advisers, he was one of the few in their circle who didn't hesitate to take Washington on in an argument. Their debates and nearly violent disagreements take on an epic, but believable, quality in this book. And his fierce war of ideas and words with Thomas Jefferson take on a real sense of urgency when you consider that no less than the stability of the newly formed nation was at stake. And the inevitable arguments with Burr that lead to Hamilton's death are foreshadowed beautifully through the book - these two men knew each other for all of their adult lives! Which leads me to my final comments. Chernow has written such believably intelligent and human characters that you really do understand how such people assembled at a single point in time could arrive at the Great Experiment that is still the United States. And one of the greatest and least understood of these (until this book) was Alexander Hamilton. Next time I pull out a $10 bill, I'm going to gaze a little more fondly at his likeness.

Alexander Hamilton was amongst the important of the Founding Fathers of the United States. His contribution to the beginning and establishment of the American Republic is indisputable, although Thomas Jefferson's hard-core supporters would claim that it was more deleterious than positive. Even so, Hamilton was pushed into the back row of the Founding Fathers, behind Jefferson, Adams, and Washington. In this book, Chernow comes to repair the injustice done and protect Hamilton's legacy that, according to Chernow, was responsible for the great success of the United States over the years. Hamilton was born in the West Indies, the son of a Scottish father and French mother who, at the time of his birth was still married to someone else. Hamilton was abandoned by his father and his mother died when he was still quite young. After this traumatic event he began working as a clerk in a commercial firm. Hamilton excelled at his work and after a short time was awarded the opportunity for an education at King's College (now Columbia) in New York. Hamilton was very talented, studious, diligent, sharp, ambitious, and above all, had a great capacity for work. His success wasn't long in coming. After not many years, he became an artillery commander, continuing on as Washington's personal aide during the American Revolution After the Revolution, Hamilton established his reputation as a lawyer in New York earned mainly through his punchy debates and speeches. His next impressive achievement was the writing of the Federalist Papers, a series of brilliant political essays that was published in New York newspapers to persuade people to support the Constitution. His achievements and his importance to the beginning of the Republic are too numerous to list them all here. There is no doubt that Chernow is an ardent fan of Hamilton and sees him as the man to whom credit is due for the financial system Americans have so enjoyed (perhaps less recently) since it was implemented. This is where the strength and the weakness of this book lies. Its strength is expressed through Chernow's passionate writing about his subject throughout the book. With that he tends to paint Hamilton's accomplishments in too much of a rosy light. As Jefferson's supporters love to point out, Hamilton supported the idea that the presidency be for life, though not inherited. He also supported the idea that members of the Senate will also serve a lifetime term. For this reason, many have seen Hamilton as a traitor to the idea of the Revolution and as interested in restoring the British monarchy. I think there is truth in Chernow's words stating that this claim is unreasonable when taking into consideration that Hamilton fought the British all through the war. Alongside that, I also think that Chernow lets Hamilton off the hook too easily. The idea of lifetime terms does oppose the spirit of the Revolution and the author barely relates to it.He dismisses it by writing that it was a prevalent opinion at that time. Chernow's writing is rich and compelling. Despite the idealization, "Alexander Hamilton" is, without a doubt, one of the better biographies written about him.

GREAT book. I feel like I lived it. It will take me quite a while to fully digest. Perhaps it was the same for the colleagues or legislators that were presented with overwhelming arguments by Hamilton himself when building the foundation of what has become the American government and its constitution. You just sit with your mouth open for awhile. Chernow has yet again (I equally loved "Titan" and "House of Morgan") written a thoroughly researched and gripping biography. Thank you. Hamilton's energy, intellect and ambition seep through practically every page. As do his contradictions, impatience, sensitivities occasional hypocrisy. Like others I was put off by the length (and small point size) and weight of the book. I actually found it easier to read on Kindle. I can't say I found any slow parts and the drama leading up to and through the duel with Burr is captivating. Some commentators think Chernow was too much of a fan of Hamilton's. I think to write a book of such depth you need to be truly interested if not obsessed with your subject. But where he compares Hamilton to Jefferson, Adams, Washington, Burr or others I think he brings enough evidence and directly quoted source material to back up his descriptions and accounts both good and bad. I think Chernow gives very rich descriptions of the main characters in Hamilton's life. His descriptions of his wife Eliza and her family are as fully rounded and deep as those of the Founding Fathers. Where Hamilton's actions were inexplicable, stupid, arrogant or misguided I believe the readers were equally treated to Hamilton's flaws. Jefferson does come across rather badly. But maybe he should. The evidence of his "relationship" with Sally Hemmings raises deep questions about his moral compass. He was a callous slave owner whose lifestyle was completely subsidized by their work and suffering. Some may argue that "that was the times" but I think there's plenty of evidence that other leaders of the time were realizing how evil slavery was and doing something about it. Hamilton was one of them. At the core I appreciated and learned so much about how the Revolution was fought. The aftermath of uncertainty that lead to the Constitutional Congress and the critical role the Federalist Papers played in explaining the government to the people along with Hamilton's leadership of the US Treasury to truly construct a durable government. Chernow's "real time" descriptions add to the drama. You feel the uncertainty of events and the perilousness of the times as they must have felt. I always reflect on some of the great people on history on how they are able to do so much. Aside from not watching tv I think the biggest contributor is the neglect of their families. For all of Hamilton's professed love of family he really is an absentee father as were both Roosevelts and many others. I think it gets glossed over that in an earlier time fathers had a nice put option on family obligations. The duel with Burr was the ultimate selfish act which cannot be forgiven. As his son had already died by the same route why couldn't Hamilton have written something reflective to Burr in response to the challenge? He has a wife and seven children, the youngest was 2. It was pride ahead of family in my view. Chernow captures it well and puts you at the scene. Well its a great book. I am intimated by the amount of source material which was obviously very thoroughly read. Like any great book it should lead a reader to seek out other books. I cannot wait for Chernow's biography on George Washington due in October!

Like most who have ever had a course in American history in high school or college, I was somewhat familiar with the broad outlines of Alexander Hamilton's life. The problem is that those courses generally have a very Jeffersonian bias and that tells only half the story. Ron Chernow set out to balance the books a bit. He succeeded admirably. "If Washington was the father of the country and Madison the father of the Constitution, then Alexander Hamilton was surely the father of the American government." - Ron Chernow Chernow's book read like a novel; something from Dickens, perhaps. His mother in the West Indies left the man she was married to and tried to get a divorce. Eventually, the divorce was obtained by her husband, but its terms prevented her from marrying anyone else. She had a lover named James Hamilton with whom she lived. They presented themselves as husband and wife and in time two sons were born to them. The older was Alexander. While the children were still young, Mr. Hamilton abandoned them, and, only a couple of years after that, their mother died, leaving them essentially as orphans in the world. They were taken in to be raised by different families. Chernow engages in some speculation here. The man who took in Alexander had a son about Alexander's age who became his best friend, and according to Chernow, the two could have passed as twins, they looked so much alike. There is some suspicion that this foster father may in fact have been Alexander's natural father. His mother had had a rather checkered sexual history, it seems. But we'll probably never know. Alexander's intelligence quickly brought him to the attention of people who were interested in furthering his education, and, in time, money was raised to send him to school in America. He arrived at a time of turbulence, just when the colonies were growing restless under British rule, and there he found his calling in life. What a life! He became aide-de-camp to George Washington in the Continental Army. Through all their ups and downs, he was close to Washington throughout the great man's life and the two greatly esteemed each other. He was the primary author of The Federalist Papers, which outlined how an American government could work. He became the leader of the Federalist faction in politics. He founded the Bank of New York. He married Elizabeth (Eliza) Schuyler, with whom he had eight children. He was the first Treasury Secretary of the United States and set up the financial system that rescued the new country and is the one which we still operate under today. He engaged in titanic feuds with Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and Burr. He had a short and squalid sexual affair with a married woman named Maria Reynolds which became public and the notoriety followed him throughout the rest of his life. He was a prolific writer of pamphlets and essays for newspapers that explained his perspective on the issues of the day. He was a successful lawyer who often took on unpopular cases and frequently won them. He was an uncompromising abolitionist and argued throughout to get rid of slavery in the new country. He was a scrupulously honest public servant who never took the opportunity to enrich himself from that service and who was in debt when he died. His widow and children were rescued from poverty by the efforts of his friends and admirers. This is just a very short list of his lifetime of accomplishment. "Give all power to the many, they will oppress the few. Give all power to the few, they will oppress the many. " - Alexander Hamilton Hamilton was all about checks and balances in government. He feared the domination of the few by the many and of the many by the few. He argued for a strong executive branch as a balance to the excesses of legislatures, and for an independent judiciary as a check on both. Hamilton was an outspoken man who made friends - like Washington - who stayed loyal to him to the end, but he also made powerful enemies like Jefferson, John Adams, and Madison who excoriated him through surrogates who wrote terrible outright lies about him in the press of the day, lies which many in the public believed. "Through the years, Hamilton was to exhaust himself in efforts to refute lies that grew up around him like choking vines. No matter how hard he tried to hack away at these myths, they continued to sprout deadly new shoots. These myths were perhaps the inevitable reaction to a man so brilliant, so outspoken, and so sure of himself." - Ron Chernow Thus we see that a media which promulgates lies about people in the public eye is not a new invention in our country. This is a fascinating book. I ended it with a new and enhanced appreciation of Hamilton as perhaps, with Washington, the most indispensable of the founding fathers. Moreover, I learned a greater appreciation of George and Martha Washington as human beings and of the remarkable Eliza Hamilton who was Hamilton's anchor in the world and who stood by him through all of his difficulties, some of which he brought on himself. One story, perhaps, illustrates the relationship of the Washingtons and the Hamiltons. After the notorious Reynolds affair became public and Hamilton was at his lowest ebb in the public eye, George Washington, who was already retired from the presidency, sent Hamilton a gift of a fine wine cooler along with a note that assured him of his continuing esteem. It was a gift and a note that Eliza Hamilton treasured all the long years of her life until she died at 97, fifty years after her beloved Alexander had fought that ill-considered duel with Aaron Burr.

TL;DR: This is brilliant. What more can be said? Most of us, if we're lucky, know the following about Alexander Hamilton on our graduation from High School: 1. He's on the $10 bill. 2. He was killed in a duel by Aaron Burr (who, if we're lucky, we remember was Vice President at the time). 3. Above and beyond would be to know he was the first Secretary of the Treasury under George Washington. 4. Some might remember he was on Washington's staff during the Revolutionary War, which makes point 3 more sensible. Everything else we know about Alexander Hamilton, we learned from Hamilton: An American Musical. That play was based on this book, which Lin Manuel Miranda chose to read on a vacation. There was so much more to Hamilton than either the education system or the play showed us. Burr, in one of the songs in Hamilton, calls him "protean". It's a good description of the man in that he changed from one thing to another as needed. A better, though, would be polymath. Hamilton had a brain that would not let go. When he was interested in something, he read EVERYTHING he could find on it. He was one of the first trial lawyers in New York City after the end of the British Justice System. But, he also read extensively on medicine and often left advice which was shockingly good, for his wife, Eliza, when she or one of their eight (!) children was sick. When he needed to tie the states together as a country, he read everything he could about finance and set up a system so hated, but brilliant, that Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and others who opposed it, couldn't dismantle it for the damage that would be done by doing so. In the Federalist Papers, which he and Madison wrote, with assistance from John Jay, he argued so persuasively for the Constitution of the United States of America, that the two men are largely credited with forming the federal government before their falling out and differences of opinion. Hamilton wasn't always a good man. While he trumpeted his own virtue, he had at least one long-term affair. He was forced to admit to that to prevent worse things from happening. That essentially ended his political career. So, instead, he and Washington were called upon to form the first standing Army of the United States. Hamilton was Inspector General, second in command to Washington, and essentially led that Army, which was really only used to stall the Whiskey Rebellion in Western Pennsylvania. Hamilton was a brilliant lawyer, and among other things, is responsible for the first truly modern libel law, passed in New York State. His speech in the New York Supreme Court on the topic is still referred to as one of the brilliant legal performances in American history. It was quoted, at times verbatim, in the law that was passed by New York after he lost the case, because the previous law did not consider the truth of the statements being made. His mercurial personality, inability to ignore a slight, and depressions caused him to act rashly at times and make ill considered decisions. Although he had found faith in God at the end of his life and become certain that dueling was a great sin, he could not ignore the things that Burr accused him of, some of which he could not recall having said, but as he had made similar statement could not just deny. Burr, in the process of losing everything he had, forced Hamilton, whom he knew well, into the duel. Hamilton tried to "throw away his shot," and told many of his friends that he would, including in writing. Burr shot him anyway. One of the things Miranda did in the play was reverse the two men's levels of skill, or at least reduce Burr's. Burr was a marksman, and had killed several men with a pistol during the war. And so, the Lt. Colonel killed the Major General. As Hamilton had also written, that act ended Burr's relevance and career. When his term as Vice President passed, he wandered the world looking for something to do with his life until the time of his death. In all, Hamilton's is a sad story of a man capable of almost anything who threw away his greatest opportunities through ill-considered actions. It's a tragedy of sorts. He deserves to be remembered for more than he is. Chernow draws a "warts and all" picture of him, but I highly recommend it.

Ron Chernow’s biography seeks to fill the scholastic void concerning the life and motivations of the titular founding father, as well as rescue his reputation from decades of abuse at the hands of his enemies’ admirers. Chernow pours through a dizzyingly large collection of contemporary histories, historical documents and extensive historical records to construct the narrative of Hamilton’s life. He cuts through past depictions of Hamilton as a conniving bureaucrat and secret monarchist to depict the man as both a heroic trailblazer in American political history and truly human figure of both extreme merit and deep personal flaws. Chernow’s story begins well before Hamilton’s birth with a history of his maternal family in the sweltering slave society of St. Croix in the Caribbean. Hamilton was born the natural son of a Scottish noble and a socially disgraced divorcee. His natural talents evident from a young age, Hamilton nonetheless suffered a tragic childhood that left him a penniless yet hot-blooded orphan with a dismal view of human nature and hunger for glory and prestige. Despite these miserable origins, Hamilton migrated north to college in an America poised to explode into rebellion. Hamilton’s remarkable oratory and writing skills along with his impressive work ethic and organizational talent allowed him to insert himself into the nascent uprising. A rising star, he caught the eye of a certain General Washington and became the central cog of his wartime staff and began perhaps the most impactful partnership in the fledgling nation. Though frustrated with riding a desk as others rode into battle, the ambition Hamilton nonetheless proves himself vocal and talented enough to win glory at Yorktown before the war’s end. After settling in New York with a wife and children, the firmly principled and stubborn Hamilton entered the roiling world of New York politics. Quickly becoming frustrated with the incompetence of the Articles of Confederation and frustrated with George Clinton’s stranglehold on New York, Hamilton conspired with a young James Madison to call the Constitutional Convention. Though he expressed some decidedly undemocratic sentiments that would haunt him the rest of his life. Hamilton’ fifty-nine contributions to the eighty-seven essays of the Federalist Papers made Hamilton the preeminent voice of the Federalists and poised him to aid in the new government’s construction. Washington’s appointment of him as Secretary of the Treasury made him more responsible than any other man in actualizing the Constitution. Washington’s auspices allowed Hamilton, sensitive to attack and unskilled at subtle political intrigue, to steamroll the Jeffersonian opposition to his expansive and powerful centralized government. In doing so, Hamilton won near-total success but sowed the seeds of this later fall with his inability to answer a challenge with silence. His political fortunes waned as his sexual infidelities came to light and his many political enemies broke his poise and dismantled his support. Chernow’s extensive construction of Hamilton’s character and principles explains exactly how forty-nine-year-old Hamilton came to meet his end in a duel with Aaron Burr. Chernow expertly crafts Hamilton as an ambitious, talented and pugnacious man with much to prove through his letters and actions. He also depicts Hamilton as principled and deeply spiritual as well as a flirtatious man possessing a large sexual appetite. Though the biography succeeds spectacularly in establishing Hamilton’s importance as well as his historical merit, Chernow’s chronicle still falls prey to a small but noticeable set of shortcomings. Most prominent among the shortcomings is his sometimes-anachronistic word choice, such as his repeated description of Hamilton as an “abolitionist” despite the nonexistence of abolitionism until at least fifteen years after his death. Chernow also frequently closes sections with speculation without the proper backing of historical evidence. These flaws do little derail this otherwise exemplary biography as Chernow more than makes up for his occasional flaws in historical writing in some areas with overwhelming success in almost all others. Chernow's biography proves itself a remarkable summation of the life and character of one of America’s, both contemporarily and historically, most important and polarizing figures. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in learning about the founding fathers and the genesis of America’s governmental and economic success.