That man being Pejman Yousefzadeh. He has posted a great review of the book that spawned the name of my blog over at Pejmanesque: BOOK REVIEW--ALEXANDER HAMILTON
I had just recently finished reading this book when I started blogging and I could not think of a better homage, than to reflect the modern incarnation of Alexander Hamilton's pamphleteering and thus Hamilton's Pamphlets was launched.
Excerpt from Pejman:
Ron Chernow's biography has to rank as one of the best and most comprehensive historical pieces I have ever read on one person's life and career, and confirms all of the reasons why Alexander Hamilton is my favorite Founding Father. I enthusiastically recommend it to all and sundry.
I agree with Pejman's evaluation of the book and his feelings towards it. Like this (substituting Republican-Conservative for the Libertarian-Conservative, of course):
What is a libertarian-conservative like me doing praising the likes of Hamilton, who when compared to Jefferson and Madison was a centralizer of power? While I do not share Hamilton's general distrust of the populace and believe in "the wisdom of crowds" as a general principle, history has quite clearly proven Hamilton right in his arguments for a Bank of the United States (at least in the time in which Hamilton lived), the assumption of state debt by the federal government, and a centralization of power in the Constitution compared to the gross diffusion of power that existed in the Articles of Confederation. It is, of course, possible to take principles too far and neither Jefferson nor Madison acquitted themselves with much honor in their various post-enactment manipulations of Constitutional language and intent--manipulations that were wholly self-serving and solely designed to frustrate Hamilton's legislative and managerial plans without confronting those plans on their merits. I am more than pleased to be a libertarian-conservative and advocate the diffusion of power when one considers the federal government in present circumstances. When it comes to the time of the founding, however, it can scarcely be argued that the scheme envisioned by the Articles of Confederation was superior to that implemented by the enactment of the Constitution. Relatedly, Jefferson was entirely off-base with his advocacy of an agrarian-based society, while Hamilton saw that large cities and an industrialized society were the wave of the future, and helped prepare the United States accordingly. Finally, while both Federalists and Jeffersonian Republicans leveled calumnies against one another, the accusations that Hamilton was a monarchist, an "Angloman," and someone dedicated to using his position as Treasury Secretary to enrich himself were quite laughable--as Chernow shows. It becomes more difficult to take Hamilton's critics seriously in retrospect when one considers their Herculean efforts to slander him. Additionally, it is more than a little appalling to read through the meandering and weak excuses offered by Jefferson, Madison and James Monroe for the bloody excesses of the French Revolution. Hamilton--ever the realist--was much more on the mark in assessing the turbulent events across the ocean.
Long excerpt, but so on the money and there's much more at Pejmanesque. I leave it with this last quote and then you'll have to go check it out for the rest:
Chernow's book is an excellent one. If all Revolutionary biographies were so well-written, we would have no trouble teaching history to our kids. I urge the reading of Alexander Hamilton most strongly.
I too urge the reading of this book. I really like to read and I really like American History and this is the best book I have yet read on the Founding Fathers.
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