Mead on Chernow on Hamilton
Political scientist Walter Russell Mead likes Ron Chernow's new biography of Alexander Hamilton very much and says so in this review in the new Foreign Affairs.
The Library of America series also has a volume on Hamilton. The volume includes:
"...more than 170 letters, speeches, essays, reports, and memoranda written between 1769 and 1804. Included are all 51 of Hamilton's contributions to The Federalist, as well as subsequent writing calling for a broad construction of federal power under the Constitution; his famous speech to the Constitutional Convention, which gave rise to accusations that he favored monarchy; early writings supporting the Revolutionary cause and a stronger central government; his visionary reports as Treasury secretary on the public credit, a national bank, and the encouragement of American manufactures; the Reynolds Pamphlet, in which Hamilton made a detailed confession of adultery in order to defend himself against charges of official misconduct; and his self-destructive attack on John Adams during the 1800 campaign. An extensive selection of private letters illuminate Hamilton's complex relationship with George Washington, his deep affection for his wife and children, his mounting fears during the 1790s regarding the Jeffersonian opposition and the French Revolution, and his profound distrust of Aaron Burr. Appendix includes conflicting eyewitness accounts of the Hamilton-Burr duel."
The Library of America series covers the revolutionary period and the early republic well, with volumes on Jefferson, Franklin, Washington, Madison, Paine, a volume of collected writings on the Revolution, and two volumes on the debates on the constitution. I'd love to see a volume on John Adams.
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