Finished with Hamilton - Full Review

Aaron Burr's death mask means...we're done with Chernow's Hamilton.

ABS Reviews, with pseudonyms:

Laurens - 4 out of 5 stars
Hamilton - 4 out of 5 stars
LaFayette - 4 out of 5 stars

•     Comments from the ABS:  
• Good book but Chernow's Washington biography is better.
• Doesn't appropriately explain the French Revolution as an important context of the parties.
• It's unlikely that there was a love triangle between Laurens, Hamilton, and LaFayette, but hey, that wouldn't make for an interesting musical.
• Will never look at someone's nose the same again.
• If your partner tells you to say out of town because they're worried for your safety, it's time to come home. 
• "I wish it was 200 pages shorter."
• Someone learned about monographs.

All three book club members rated Hamilton 4 out of 5 stars.  One ABS book club member gave high marks to the musical for holding up to historical scrutiny.  After a volley of criticisms lobbed by the remaining two ABS members, he still held firm to his comments.  

The beginning of the book takes us on a graphic ride through his childhood in the West Indies, his immigration and education at King's College (Columbia) during the escalating tensions prior to the Revolution, and his extraordinarily rapid rise to power during that after the war.  Chernow argues that much of his rise to success was contributed to an auto-didactic thirst for knowledge driven by a constant feeling of being years behind in his educational and professional development.  

Chernow maps out Hamilton's indispensable contribution to the establishment of the federal government and the ideology behind the factions that would eventually lead to political parties.  Chernow hints at the notion that Jefferson and Madison not only resisted him because of fundamental differences in their vision of America, but also because Hamilton's intellect, endurance, and ability to influence others creating an intimidating threat to their control and required restraining.  

With no surprise, the height of Chernow’s praise comes during Hamilton’s tenure as Treasury secretary under the Washington administration.  It is very difficult not to highlight Hamiton’s brilliance in constructing the financial system that will eventually contribute to America’s ability to become an industrial superpower.  However, Hamilton also found the time to consult Washington on other matters, including foreign policy issues – much to the dismay of Jefferson. 

Chernow shows that his fall from grace is due to, primarily, to a series of personality flaws that make him the spotlight of several republican newspapers before his resignation as Secretary of the Treasury.  Not the least of which is his very strange extra-marital relationship with Maria Reynolds.  Let’s make this long story short: Hamilton has an affair with a married Maria Reynolds; Maria and her husband begin extorting Hamilton for money; Hamilton pays; Hamilton continues the relationship; Hamilton admits to the relationship unnecessarily in a newspaper essay. 

The escalation of tensions between Aaron Burr and Hamilton following Burr’s hilariously shady Manhattan Company led to the famous duel between the two.  Throughout Hamilton’s life, Burr seems to be both consistently present and unnoticed at the same time.  The parts about the duel that we felt was most interesting was the process of dueling itself.   In essence two people challenge one another to a duel and their “seconds” would then try to deescalate the situation by determining an honorable way to prevent the duel.  In the very unlikely chance that a duel happens, the two challengers usually aim at a limb or throw-off their shot.  Death from a declared duel was very rare. 

The ABS has read several books dealing with the Federalist Era and Alexander Hamilton indirectly:  The Empire of Liberty by Gordon Wood, Washington by Ron Chernow, Adams by David McCullough, and differing biographies on Thomas Jefferson.  In all of these books, Hamilton comes off negatively in most cases, aside from the financial system.  To recover Hamilton’s reputation, Ron Chernow had his work cut out for him, and he did it.