A renowned biographer explores the life and times of an American founding father, who grew from an impoverished immigrant to a patriot, war hero, Secretary of the Treasury, and a man whose vision helped shape America as we know it today. 35,000 first printing. Tour. 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. --John Miller 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., NY Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. 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 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