Probably one the best biographers of a founding father written in the last two decades. At the very least, the book tells much about the Founding Fathers' era and gives an appreciation for the much maligned Federalist Party - and the undeniable genius behind it.

Hamilton was an incredibly complex man whose role in the American Revolution as Washington secretary and partisanship with Madison during and after the Constitutional Convention alone would merit an extensive biography. He left his mark as a political theorist, politician, legal scholar, trail attorney, economist, treasury official, and pamphleteer. Ron Chernow covers all of Hamilton's amassing story, from his bastard birth on a Caribbean island to his death at the hands of a sitting Vice President.

The most intriguing parts of the book deal with the viciousness of the politics of 1790s, specifically with the Jeffersonians (excepting probably Madison) consuming hatred of Hamilton. Jefferson personality comes off as a little diabolical: a foppish, epicurean, Europhile aristocrat reborn as a "plain" republican yeoman who simply cannot trust Hamilton, a person not born of the appropriate class or country.

The weakness of the book are few. Chernow had his start writing business biographies and a slight pro-business conservatism creeps through the narrative. And The book may go to far in making the case for Hamilton, shorting the important ideas of Jefferson and Madison into a personal rivalry. However, I highly recommend this book.