Alexander Hamilton: A Life

I'm still reading this book. Because the author includes so much detail it isn't a fast reading book. Nonetheless, it full of information about Hamilton that you aren't likely to find in general history books. If you're willing to plow through all the details, it's a good source of info about one of the Nation's Founding Fathers.

Alexander Hamilton’s saga of an illegitimate Caribbean youth from a broken family who mastered several languages, learned business in island trading houses, relocated to New York, and obtained an education is inspiring enough. From there he became an aide to George Washington during the Revolution, promotor of the Constitution, and first Treasury Secretary who set the Federal government on the road to an independent financial basis and the America economy on the road toward industrialization before falling out of favor and ending his life on the dueling grounds at Weehawken, New Jersey.

Hamilton’s attachment to George Washington was his ticket to success and influence. His marriage to Elizabeth Schuyler, a daughter of one of the most prominent families in New York, drew him into the political elite. His unfailing hard work made him a success in the military, at law and in politics. Hamilton was a man of contradictions. Though a devoted family man he was likely duped into the first major sexual scandal in American politics. A self-made man of aristocratic pedigree but impoverished beginnings, he was publicly portrayed as a spokesman for privilege by men more privileged than himself. A Principal author of the Federalist Papers, he was suspected of harboring ambitions of establishing a military despotism. A skilled negotiator, a series of blunders removed him from the center of political action and led to his death.

There are other biographies of Alexander Hamilton, so why should a reader choose this one? One reason is that it is shorter than some others while remaining thorough. Each author brings his own perspective on his subject. I find that Willard Sterne Randall devotes less ink to the details of Hamilton’s early life and more to his service in the Revolutionary War Army than some other works. From this book I derived a better understanding of Hamilton’s time in the Continental Congress and how that experience convinced him of the need for a stronger national government without which the United States might not have survived. I also feel that this tome places Hamilton in the milieu of the development of his region, with particular emphasis of New York and the disputes that precipitated the admission of the State of Vermont to the Union than I have found in other works. Whether you are looking for an introduction or a new look Willard Sterne Randall’s “Alexander Hamilton: A Life” is a worthy read.

Review of Randall's "Alexander Hamilton: A life" by Paul F. Ross

One wonders what biographies will be like two centuries from now when biographers search for materials describing the figures of today that are to be biographized. Randall uses as his sources, almost exclusively, Hamilton's correspondence addressed to others. That correspondence, ink on paper, survived
____________________________________________________________________________________

Randall, Willard Sterne "Alexander Hamilton: A life" 2003, Harper Collins Publishers, New York NY, xiii + 475 pages
____________________________________________________________________________________

– although not all of it, some apparently having been destroyed by Hamilton's wife Betsy – first in its original form, then in published collections. Randall uses the material to describe Hamilton's life. Today, in 2017, essentially all correspondence we produce is in electronic form and almost certainly will not be stored for review in 2217. How will researching and writing biographies be done then?

Born in 1755 in a stable but unmarried household on a Caribbean island, experienced by age 17 as a supervisor and accountant for exporting-shipping operations in a slave-holding cotton economy, off to Boston and New York at age 17 in 1772, student at Kings College (predecessor to Columbia University) as the American Revolution began in 1775, Hamilton was soon in command of a small artillery unit in New York City and firing on British ships just off Manhattan in the Hudson River on 12 July 1776, Hamilton then 21years of age. His gun crew, inadequately trained, blew itself up (p 109). Performing better up the Hudson River after Manhattan had been abandoned to the British, Hamilton met George Washington for the first time. Washington and his army moved south through New Jersey, engaged the British at Princeton, and by January 1777, at age 22, Hamilton was promoted from Captain to Lieutenant Colonel as he became aide to George Washington, Commander in Chief of the American army. Randall allocates 140 pages to Hamilton's role in the American Revolution including Hamilton's unit's action at Yorktown in the final battle against Cornwallis in 1781. Hamilton married Betsy Schuyler in December, 1980, at age 25 in the midst of the war, she the daughter of a wealthy upstate New York landowner, farmer, and politician. By 1784, at age 29, Hamilton was a lawyer in Manhattan with an office on Wall Street and quickly becoming almost-wealthy.

As aide to George Washington, Hamilton saw first hand the Continental Congress' inability to raise funds to supply and pay the soldiers of the American army. He became convinced that the Continental Congress, the Confederation, needed reinvention. Thus Hamilton is known for his activity as a pamphleteer writing (particularly the Federalist Papers with Madison and Jay) in support of the calling of the Constitutional Congress, the formation of the US Constitution, the campaign to ratify the Constitution, and the formation of the first US Bank as Secretary of the Treasury under President Washington in Washington's first term. Hamilton is known as a Federalist, seeking a strong central federal government. Jefferson and Madison from Virginia as well as Clinton from New York were Anti-Federalists, opposing centralization of power. The Federalists and Anti-Federalists are presented as the ancestors of political parties in the US, political parties then being regarded as bad for government and society. Having accomplished the US Constitution and its ratification, Hamilton as Secretary of the Treasury and a most trusted adviser in George Washington's Cabinet, Hamilton advocated the consolidation of all the state debts and the Confederation's debts into one national debt along with the creation of a US Bank. Randall's account gives important and deserved attention to this process and its objectives. To win southern state support for the creation of the US Bank, a dinner table agreement proposed that the nation's capital be located on the Potomac River (it had recently been located in New York City, then in Philadelphia, requiring the southerners to travel many miles to the north to attend sessions of Congress) and that the specific spot be chosen by President Washington. The southerners accepted the nod in their direction and gave their support to the bank and the US assumption of the debts of the states and of the Confederacy. Thus in 1790 it was agreed that what became Washington D.C. would become our nation's capital, the debts of the Confederate states would be assumed as a part of the US national debt. Washington D.C. was not ready as the physical location for the capital, the place Congress met and the President lived, until 1800.

Randall essentially sees Hamilton's biography and life accomplishments as complete by 1790, Hamilton then age 35. Hamilton died as a consequence of a duel with Aaron Burr in 1804 at age 49. Randall relates those last fourteen years of Hamilton's life in a mere 30 pages. Hamilton's wife, Betsy, preferred life in the comfort of her father's estate on the Hudson, not in dirty New York or summer-hot Philadelphia where Hamilton spent his lawyerly and political life. They had several children. However, for whatever reasons, Hamilton engaged in an adulterous relationship with Betsy's sister as well as in another adulterous relationship. The political in-fighting of those days rivals in ferocity and complexity anything we see in 2017. While outlawed, dueling was a part of the male culture of those days. Many years of rivalry and hatred between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton resulted, Hamilton having been insulted, in Hamilton's challenge to Burr for a duel. This biography reports that Burr and Hamilton fired essentially simultaneously, Hamilton firing into the air and Burr firing so that the bullet shattered Hamilton's kidney. Hamilton died several days later, his wife's sister at his side.

Randall pursues many sources, particularly Hamilton's letters to others, to construct his biography. Biographers, we often assume, are sympathetic recorders of the life they are describing. Surely this is the case for Randall. We see Hamilton's strengths and his errors, but Hamilton stands as a hero for his biographer. This reader, for the first time, understands Hamilton to be a major architect of the US government and its Constitution. He also sees the political infighting of today as not different from the political infighting of Hamilton's time ... a sharp disappointment for the hope that cultures learn from their errors and improve, however slowly. If you want to get a more balanced view of Hamilton, you may want to try Chernow's biography (Chernow, 2004).

Copyright © 2017 by Paul F. Ross All rights reserved.

Bellevue, Washington
9 July 2017

References

Chernow, Ron "Alexander Hamilton" 2004, Penguin Books, New York NY

Randall, Willard Sterne "Alexander Hamilton: A life" 2003, Harper Collins Publishers, New York NY

Willard Sterne Randall's biography of Alexander Hamilton joins the recent glut of books covering America's colonial period that have either focused on Hamilton or featured him prominently. Randall's highly readable account of Hamilton's life brings into sharp focus the man who was Thomas Jefferson's ideological counterpoint in the two competeing governing philosopys that emerged from the American Revolution. Ironically, while the aristocratic Jefferson became the champion of the "common man," it was the "commoner" Hamilton who came to favor a strong central government at the expense of individual (and state's) rights.
Hamilton's rise from the illegitimate son of a West Indies merchant to the very heights of power at a time when such avenues were normally reserved for nobility make him America's first great self-made man. Most of the other founding fathers were from either the aristocrat or merchantile classes. Hamilton, whose family's entire modest estate was confiscated at the time of his mother's death when he was a boy, was possessed of the unique ambition of an insecure man who spent his life trying to overcome his humble origins. As Randall demonstrates, Hamilton's close relationship with George Washington, who recognized his junior's incredible organizational and intellectual gifts, was of key importance to the latter's success.
The text of the book is quite sympathetic its subject, perhaps overly so at times. Though Randall does not ignore the less noble aspects of Hamilton's character, he strives whenever possible to show him in the best possible light. Thus Aaron Burr, who actually made his own important contributions to the nation, comes off mostly as a despicable villian. Burr will always be infamous for firing the bullet that ended Hamilton's life, but Hamilton was equally at fault for the feud that ended so tragically.
Oveall, Randall's book is an enjoyable and enlightening work that will most appeal to history buffs.

To read and understand how the " Founding Fathers " interacted with each other, and performed their official duties, as well as their private relationships with each other, is to better understand and appreciate our American history.

After years without a one-volume biography on Hamilton, it was quite exciting to learn that Randall had written this book. Randall is an accessible and supremely entertaining author, and he does right by his subject. He never blows him out of proportion or resorts to distortions; he presents the subject in a fair and balanced way, while understanding his central importance in our nation's history. I learned quite a bit from the book, even though I have read several other less comprehensive works. As far as detail regarding Hamilton's early life and critical years as aide-de-camp to George Washington, few books measure up to Randall's volume. Still, I was left wanting more in terms of Hamilton's later years (primarily 1794-1804). There is little on the Hamilton/Jefferson rivalry, nor is there much of substance regarding the Burr relationship. True, other books have covered these matters in greater depth (and the "duel" is a vast subject on its own), but it seemed a bit irresponsible to devote so much to Hamilton's early years yet resolve the last ten years of his life in less than 100 pages. Because of this, I felt the book was "rushed" near the end, almost as if the author felt compelled to finish while maintaining a marketable length. The books could have easily been 150-200 more pages, I believe.
Still, the book is a fine read and even the economic discussions are treated with care, never becoming too difficult or out of reach for the layman. Still, all lovers of American history should combine readings of McCullough's "John Adams" and Ellis' "Founding Brothers" to get a more complete picture of the times.

Willard Sterne Randall has given readers the first single-volume biography of Alexander Hamilton in many years. As a whole, the book hiccoughs along under uneven structuring and sequence, and the compressed, rushed pace of the last 100+ pages is disappointing. Randall�s work might have been a magnificent 750+ page effort like H.W. Brands� treatment of Benjamin Franklin, but like Hamilton himself, this biography is cut down in its prime. Still, it is a very accessible book with much to recommend it.
Randall�s portrait of the foremost Federalist is at times stunning, leaping with the athletic energy and enthusiasm of Hamilton�s early life until the end of the Revolutionary War �then inexplicably fades over 100 or so hurried pages that cover some of the most interesting years of Hamilton�s life, and America�s.
Nonetheless, this book is absolutely worth the read, if for no other reason than Randall�s superb portrait of Hamilton from his birth, and apprenticeship in a West Indies counting house, to the seldom seen or examined man-of-action throughout the Revolutionary War. Moreover, it is a compassionate look at an American who, by most accounts, was as vain, self-serving and egotistic as he was brilliant, dynamic and circumspect. In any case, if a reader was ever unsure about how important a part Alexander Hamilton played in the birthing of America, or doubted his loyalty and determination, this biography shows how absolutely indispensable he was in giving form to the new republic, and that while the means used by Hamilton and others may have been the cause of many petty problems, the goal was the same: A fierce love and concern for the infant United States. Hamilton simply proved to be more visionary in some respects than most of his contemporaries. Of course, there were times when he was mistaken, too, and Hamilton seldom made small mistakes; he failed on a large, grand stage and in dramatic ways, whether it was his poor judgment of the character of others, his extramarital affairs, or simply his inability to compromise and get along with his peers.
Being a bastard child, Hamilton actually had no �peers� by Colonial standards, and that was only one demon preying on the mind of the �Little Lion,� as he was dubbed. Hamilton fought many demons, real and imagined, and Randall gives the reader insight into the early psychological development of Hamilton as a boy, abandoned by his father (throughout his life Hamilton would instinctively seek out surrogate father figures, including George Washington), then left an orphan by his mother�s untimely death. Faced with poverty, then his apprenticeship in St. Croix where he honed his early financial acumen, Hamilton was at once deeply insecure but also willing to take risks; extremely sensitive to criticism, he channeled his energies into molding himself into the kind of person he wanted to be, or how he wanted to be perceived.
The reader of this biography may indeed find his or her view of Hamilton as a pretentious, preening coxcomb, changed. There is no doubt that his shortcomings were real, but so were his accomplishments, not only as a financial genius who helped stabilize and make solvent young America, but his contributions in shaping the Constitution cannot be overstated.
It is disappointing that Randall breezes through the last 10-15 years of Hamilton�s life, mentioning almost in passing the development and impact of his contribution to The Federalist, and scarcely diving into his complex relationships with James Madison, Jefferson; his role in helping to stymie the presidency of John Adams, and, of course, the turbulent dynamics between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, festering for a decade, that led to the fateful �interview� between the two men in 1804. There is much more to Hamilton�s story, and to help flesh out what Randall omits, one would benefit from reading McCullough�s recent biography of John Adams, and Ellis� �Founding Brothers.�
To Randall�s credit, he has rendered Hamilton�s economic philosophy and development of the Treasury Department in a manner easy to understand and interesting to read. It�s a pity the author did not �for unknown reasons�pursue other aspects and episodes of Hamilton�s life with the same apparent enthusiasm and attention.
The greatest service rendered Hamilton �and the reader�in this biography, is an acute insight into a controversial, mercurial figure in American history who, in spite of his many human flaws, stands firmly cemented in a new light of understanding as one of the foremost Americans of the Revolutionary Generation. A worthwhile read, Randall may disappoint at turns, but Hamilton stands perhaps a little taller.

Randall's biography is eminently readable, but curiously organized. It starts well. Randall does a nice job of subtly suggesting how Hamilton's early life traumas, the death of his mother, abandonment by his alcoholic father, and impoverishment, drove his restless ambition and questing for surrogate fathers, such as Washington and Philip Schuyler. After this, about half the book is devoted to Hamilton's military career in the Revolutionary War, as propagandist, artillery officer, aide-de-camp of Washington, and hero of the battle of Yorktown. It is refreshing to see this side of Hamilton, the man of action; other biographers tend to portray him as a horny financial and legal wizard. This section of the book feels most complete. The rest of the book feels compressed and strangely truncated; only about a hundred pages are devoted to Hamilton's mammoth contributions to the constitutional debate and the development of the US Treasury, and a mere ten pages to the tumults, enigmas and disasters of the last ten years of Hamilton's life! It seems as if Randall had originally intended to write a 700-800 page biography, then had to scale back his conception due to boredom or publisher's deadlines.

If one studies American history, particularly the years leading to the Revolution, one is struck at the concentration of genius at a single point in time. The American Revolution was totally unique in that it was guided by ideas and ideals. There were no hated Jews or bourgeois or Hutus or "infidels". It was an event inspired by unique individuals, one of whom this book is about.

I agree with other reviewers that the last few years are rushed. (Perhaps a two-volume series would have been preferable.) But, if this is supposed to be about the man, his origins, his ideas and his actions - it succeeds brilliantly.

ALexander Hamilton, the self-made man of illigetimate origins, made so many monumental contributions that simply stating them is breathtaking. He was a brave fighter, he created the current financial system of debt, credit, sound money and banking, he was an abolitionist who fought slavery his entire life, his moderate views on treatment of prisoners was advanced. His legal writings were mandatory reading for New York law students; His authorship of the Federalist Papers secured his place in history as did his organization of the finances of the country.

He practically instituted the idea of judicial review, his memo to Washington on the decorum of the Presidency remains relevant today. The book is detailed (vast research) with quotes from letters of the times. Hamilton excelled at both theoretical and practical subject. He was a master of organization, a speaker so powerful that opponents prevented him from presentin in person his plans for handling debt and organizing Treasury.

His marriage proved unhappy and he had affairs, yet his wife remained loyal for 50 years after his death. A great read, the only drawback being the abbreviated later years.

"...and, however generally this maxim has been quoted and believed, it is not true to fact. The people are turbulent and changing, they seldom judge or determine right. "

"The nation is hemorrhaging" and needs to be sent to an ER staffed with advanced degrees and state of the art equipment. There are those golden minutes with heart attack patients and brain injuries within which medical intervention is crucial. Hopefully, the nation will not have socialized medicine as in Canada as the Redgrave family knows. "The nation is hemorrhaging," Alexander Hamilton exclaimed during those crucial years of the revolutionary war. I cannot find the quote or context found in this book, but, OH, so relevant today.

A few of our founding fathers crafted our fledgling government and the constitution to give voting rights, not to all, but to an enlightened few. I'm beginning to understand now the wisdom of their logic. I was always taken aback and even insulted by such a saying, but it is nevertheless true. Leave it to the experts. Otherwise we might be ruled by folks who rally people to peace concerts, with females fainting and screaming as if it were a Beatles concert during a terrorist attack.

OY VEY! What have we chosen, what have we voted for?

This book was recommended to me by an Irish professor from Northern Ireland in 2004. Randall's book was published in 2003 and I ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT! I would recommend this be read before Forrest McDonald's book. This book is not as detailed, but it is more readable and distills the most important details of Hamilton's life. Both authors are noted historians and both used as primary sources the Syrett Papers which contains many original writings, letters of Alexander Hamilton. I have so many pages bookmarked. Hamilton's field manual for the army is still used by the military today and he wrote another law manual for lawyers practicing in New York state also used today, 250 years later.

Hamilton was 34 years old when he became the nation's first Treasury Secretary. The nation's finances were in a shambles. Some states' debts were drowning for lack of credit, the continental currency was totally worthless, foreign debt was astronomical, etc. etc. "The nation is hemorrhaging". Hamilton took 110 days to come up with a plan to save the union. When it was presented to congress, a clerk read the whole document which took one hour and a half to read. How long would it take to hear the "stimulus plan"?

Go to Americansolutions.com and sign up for a tea party on April 15 at a city near you! Sounds like a grand time! I hope they have lady Grey tea! My fav!

Was the King really to blame, or was it really some scumbags in Parliament who were the true causes of the American colonists' woes? I really, really, wonder these days. Suggest you read "Duke Hamilton is dead by Victor Stater which is about another duel by the Duke of Hamilton in Scotland with a member of Parliament in Hyde Park.

Anyway, I loved the book and feel that the scholarship is very sound on this one. I bought Chernow's lengthy book but put it down when he started to hypothesize that Hamilton had African roots which is a very popular spin on things from the carribean. I don't think so. I really wouldn't care if his mother was African, but she was just a French protestant, from the Mediterranean. Anyway, I want just the facts and I don't want my history lessons tainted with politically correct lies.

"Not worth a continental" was a popular saying during the revolutionary war which was caused by the continental congress flooding the country with paper money causing inflation and thereby making the currency worthless.

I hope "not worth a continental" doesn't become "not worth an American dollar" anytime soon, because we will have to live with this worthless currency until the people wise up and begin electing the types of people who will have faith and confidence in American business sense, American workers, and just plain pride in our country, our nation's founders and a select few with wisdom.

PLEASE READ THIS! I read it yesterday, watched Glen Beck last night on Fox news explaining how printing lots of greenback will cause inflation! Have been in a state of shock ever since I finished the book until now. OH VEY! Can't we defer to Ben Bernanke to appoint someone to Treasury given the seriousness of our financial situation. It's never been done before, but I think it could be construed very easily as constitutional, since our founders did not want what they framed as being set in stone. In emergencies, the most qualified persons need to take the helm.

Check this out:

[...]

After hearing the soundtrack a few dozen times I decided to dig in and get the real story. Loved all the details and the writing. Obviously this is a compelling tale, but this version is a well documented history that is also a very enjoyable read. I'm letting my wife read it next and then holding onto it until my son is a few years older.

Randall does an excellent job of telling Hamilton's story as well as describing his significane to the development of the new nation. As I read the book I was struck by how "modern" Hamilton was. His emphasis in centralized structures, efficient government and the significant role economics played in his political understanding. I was struck how Hamilton was more pragmatic than many of his contemporaries.

Recommend this to anyone wanting to flesh out their understanding of the Revolutionary period.

This is a well written book that will interest most people. Randall focuses primarily on Hamilton's childhood and his time in the Continental Army. It sheds very little light on Hamilton's political career. Randall almost forgets what Hamilton accomplished after the war in shaping america( which is remarkable). The book is 70% about Hamilton in the army, which is interesting. So if you are interested in reading a book about Hamilton in the army this will entertain you. If you are interested in Hamilton's political career after the war I would recommend another book. But overall this is a well written book.

I was very much looking forward to reading this book, and the first two thirds of it did an excellent job of describing Hamilton's youth and his service in the Revolutionary War. However, like most of the other reviewers, I was disappointed with the inadequate coverage of Hamilton's pivotal role in creating the new country. I agree that it appears that the book seems to have been planned as something twice as long (which would have been a pleasure to read). For whatever reason, the author had to rush ahead with an insubstantial overview of the great events of Hamilton's life after the war. It's too bad that the second part of the book can't deliver on what the first part promises. Such a fascinating character deserves more.

"'Power Without Revenue is a Bubble,' He Wrote":
Things We Should've Learned Centuries Ago
As Delineated in Willard Sterne Randall's "Alexander Hamilton: A Life"

Christopher Snyder
April 26, 2013
Little Red Schoolhouse
(undergrad vers.)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- 1 -

¶ When Alexander Hamilton wrote, to his friend and comrade-in-arms John Laurens, that "we

must secure our UNION on solid foundations, a Herculean task" [one of several references to Hamilton's

voluminous correspondence Willard Sterne Randall draws on in his 2003 biography, "Alexander

Hamilton: A Life"], he is fully appraising the task before him: to bring the bickerers to the table, as

Americans, to avoid handing to England the easy victory of re-"conquering" the barely-born nation,

provided it should sink into being too "divided" to put up a United Front.

¶ As the newly-appointed head of finances for a country that hadn't existed with a ratified

constitution of its own only several months before, Hamilton found himself in the position of having to

entreat his old friend and comrade-in-arms, the Marquis de Lafayette, to broach the idea of cutting the

newly-formed United States some slack on the loans forwarded by his nation, which had just turned the

corner on its own Revolution. Juggling problems of "not [being able to] publicly seek a deference of

loan payments without undermining public confidence" (since "news of such an official request would

depress American credit") with the "dread[s]" he enumerated about the tenuous nature of the post-

Revolution French government (apprehensions which Randall characterized as "prophetic") and the

repeated volleys of the "Anti-Federalists" (who weren't too keen on ratifying that "Constitution" thing,

and remained bitter about their grudging defeat), the most relied-upon aide-de-camp of the former

General, now President, George Washington found himself in a "multiple-plates spinning" situation

that shouldn't seem unfamiliar to any American not comatose or Rip Van Winkle.

¶ In a turn of events that should surprise no-one -- or should I say SHOULD'VE surprised no-one? --

at war's end, "each state believed it had spent more than its share [for the common defense] and was

not receiving fair credit according to congressional accounting methods" -- this, after the national

currency had plummeted in value to 2.5 cents on the dollar, thus "coining" the phrase (as Randall notes

-- no pun intended, of course!) the phrase: "not worth a Continental." War wounds, of more sorts than

simply the physical, were proving not to heal so easily.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- 2 -

¶ Even the newly-agreed-upon Constitution was proving to not have been so "agreed upon": "In

appealing for a 'loose constructionist" view ... Hamilton not only breathed life and vigor into the

American economy but kept the Constitution from becoming rigid, ossified, and before long a dead

letter." Whew! Even opening the document up to ACTIVE INTERPRETATION required a precedent-setting

"flourish"!

¶ Lest we forget, "on the last day of the four-month-long constitutional convention, three of the

forty-two members present remained so bitterly opposed to it that they refused to sign." Not unaware

than one can only run out the clock" if the clock is in a stable enough position where it can be relied

upon to continually EXIST, Hamilton remarked at the time while "no man's ideas were more remote from

the plan than his were known to be" couldn't it be possible to "deliberate between anarchy and

convulsion, on one side, and the chance of good?"

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
C+

Christopher, you're backsliding a bit: while you've kept to the "one citation per paragraph" rule, and the paper, ostensibly, is structurally sound for it, you not only slip back into the addressing-the-reader voice I cautioned you about (and, yes, it DOES compromise the "seriousness" of your effort), but the thesis itself, while executed in a headlong-and-straightaway fashion, feels more like a summary than an "arc" with "meat" to it.

That being said, this sort of back-and-forth is more indicative of the sort of progress work in this class entails, rather than sloth or sloppy thinking: I couldn't have predicted you'd need to "take a step back" in THIS particular manner and, cold comfort though that might seem, your errors are yours alone to learn from. Try to see what I mean by that -- it's not just a convenient platitude to drop on students, undergraduate or not, but an incitement to all you can do, the next time around: start from scratch, and plough forward with your next effort.

Try letting the quotes "find" a thesis for you; you're certainly able at picking apt and pithy ones, now you just need to build on that confidence and FIND something (a bit different, perhaps) to say in your papers.

Johnson de Johnson
Prof. Emeritus, Eng. Lang & Lit.
Univ. of Chicago

By examining Hamilton's early life, Randall helps explain why Hamilton accomplished so much. As a youth, Hamilton overcame severe handicaps through energy, intelligence and creativity. Randall shows Hamilton's confidence and strength increasing. He was soon speeding past his peers. A tragedy that his life was cut short.

Randall's book is exhaustive in its coverage of Hamilton's life, development and texture. But the result is skimpy coverage of his greatest contributions. Hamilton's finger prints are all over American political economy.

Fascinating glimces into St Croix childhood and developing anthipathy for slavery. Women's rights, too. Interesting but exhausting detal about the Revolution: walked the reader through each season from 1776 to 1781. Likely duplicating work Randall did for his Washington biography. Cop out. Hamilton was also first secretary of the Navy; a tidbit but no meat.

Reads like the best fiction. A big book that reads quickly and ends too soon. Insight, education and enjoyment. Might be read before "The Real Lincoln" by Thomas J. DiLorenzo, which, you might say, is almost its sequel.

Interesting look at one of our founders and a different take on some of the other founders. Well written, reads like a novel rather than a biography. I knew some of Hamilton's history but this fleshed him out and made him human.