David’s Reviews > Alexander Hamilton > Status Update

What a great biography and great man. Hamilton is one of the most important founders, with an origin and career unlike any other. You'll end up with a lower opinion of Jefferson, John Adams, Madison and Monroe, however.

Imagine: Hamilton loans money to Burr, who's heavily in debt, and then Burr kills Hamilton in a duel. Some thanks!

One good thing about duels: just the prospect could cause a slanderer to retract a lie. Now, we have perpetual falsehoods, e.g., Obama's birth certificate.

Hamilton is caught in a snare of sexual blackmail -- and makes a clean breast of it.

Jefferson and Hamilton meet at last. I never knew before that Jefferson was not only brilliant but also... a fool, hypocrite, backstabber....

Not yet 30 years old, Hamilton helps found the Bank of New York.

Amazing what this 22-year-old -- _22_! -- had already accomplished and was now accomplishing as a colonel and aide to George Washington.

"Love of fame, the ruling passion of the noblest minds, which would prompt a man to plan and undertake extensive and arduous enterprises for the public benefit." I.e., not fame for fame's sake, which is the way of our own time.

Not even Dickens could conjure up a childhood as fraught with misfortune as the real childhood of Alexander Hamilton.