The Nature of Things

Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow My rating: 5 of 5 stars Like most who have ever had a course in American history in high school or college, I was somewhat familiar with the broad outlines of Alexander Hamilton's life. The problem is that those courses generally have a very Jeffersonian bias and that tells only half the story. Ron Chernow set out to balance the books a bit. He succeeded admirably. "If Washington was the father of the country and Madison the father of the Constitution, then Alexander Hamilton was surely the father of the American government."  - Ron Chernow Chernow's book read like a novel; something from Dickens, perhaps. His mother in the West Indies left the man she was married to and tried to get a divorce. Eventually, the divorce was obtained by her husband, but its terms prevented her from marrying anyone else. She had a lover named James Hamilton with whom she lived. They presented themselves as husband and wife and in time two sons were born ...