New Alexander Hamilton Biography
"By the time Alexander Hamilton was my age he'd been dead for three years." (to paraphrase an old Tom Lehrer joke). In that time he'd been a successful businessman, chief aide to General Washington in the revolution, served in the constitutional convention, written his share of the Federalist papers, served as Secretary of the Treasury and laid the foundation for U.S. commercial greatness, practiced law in New York, and more. His new biographer, Ron Chernow, describes his life as a "a case study in the profitable use of time."
David Brooks gives this new biography, Alexander Hamilton a good review in tomorrow's New York Times.
The pivotal point in Hamilton's civic biography came at Valley Forge:
"At Valley Forge, Hamilton saw how fundamentally weak the nation was, how lacking in the sort of productive capacity one needs to wage a war or survive as an independent nation. This was the formative insight that shaped his career."
This led to his achievements as Treasury Secretary:
"His greatest achievements came as Treasury secretary. He was confronted by an economically weak and fractious nation. He nationalized the debt, binding the states together and creating the fluid capital markets that are today the engine of world capitalism. He was working at a time when many around him had an entirely static view of economics. They scorned credit, banks and stock markets, and considered manufacturing the least productive form of economic activity..."
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