Description
Book SynopsisIn Hamilton: The Energetic Founder, R. B. Bernstein provides a thorough history that reveals Hamilton''s status as one of the key founding fathers of the United States.Hamilton: The Energetic Founder is a brief introduction to the life, thought, work, and legacy of Alexander Hamilton (1755-1804), but it is not a traditional biography. Public curiosity about Hamilton, his life, and his work has swelled, particularly among those intrigued by popular-culture portrayals in the Broadway musical Hamilton: An American Musical. This book presents a summary of Hamilton''s life and explores his role in revolution, constitutionalism, economics, diplomacy, and war, as well as his relationship to honor culture and duelling. The epilogue considers Hamilton''s legacies.The book considers Hamilton as a key founding father, focusing on his work as a politician, a constitutional thinker, and the nation''s first secretary of the treasury. In that role, Hamilton was perhaps the leading American domestic p
Trade ReviewThis concise, elegant, and erudite presentation of the life of Alexander Hamilton is just what we need. As Americans look to the past to answer questions about our present and future, Bernstein has given us an excellent history of the life and times of a man who did so much to set the course of the early United States. * Annette Gordon-Reed, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family *
Yet again, R. B. Bernstein demonstrates his mastery of the lives and legacies of the men who made America. His concise and illuminating pen portrait of Alexander Hamilton: The Energetic Founder is a welcome addition to the founders' bookshelf, an appropriate pendant to the author's excellent brief biography of Thomas Jefferson, Hamilton's nemesis. * Peter S. Onuf, Thomas Jefferson Foundation Professor, University of Virginia *
Alexander Hamilton was the most consistent and insistent nationalist among the founding fathers. R. B. Bernstein's admirably concise and clear book presents an excellent guide to Hamilton's constitutional and political thought and activities. Bernstein introduces us to Hamilton's lifetime of energetic advocacy, and he shows us why Hamilton mattered then and still matters now. * William E. Nelson, Edward Weinfeld Professor of Law, New York University School of Law *
...offers a fine, concise case for seeing Alexander Hamilton as the father of the US government. * The Guardian *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction 1. Life 2. Revolution 3. Politics 4. Law and Constitutionalism 5. Economy 6. Diplomacy and War 7. Honor and Dueling Epilogue: Legacies Notes Further Reading Index
