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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Biographer of Washington, Jefferson and Franklin, Randall is in his usual engaging form in dealing with the complex Hamilton, who in 1804 died in a duel with Aaron Burr. Creating a bigger-than-life hero, Randall sometimes strains credibility in the interest of color, and the evidence of occasional unreliability is exposed by gaps in documentation or in attributions like "according to tradition." One quotation credited to a Tory historian of the Revolution describes an American gallows erected near Charleston harbor, where "twenty-four reputable Loyalists [were] hanged in sight of the British fleet, with the army and refugees on board." In Randall's pages the close of the quotation is altered incredibly to "the army and thirty-five thousand Loyalists looking on." Randall's restless Hamilton, illegitimate son of a West Indian Englishwoman, succeeds on his energy, industriousness and intelligence, and a little help from distant relatives, becoming the new nation's first Secretary of the Treasury at 34. As a New York lawyer, aided by a loveless but lucrative marriage, he scrambled for riches before becoming a power behind the scenes in the federal government, then by Cabinet appointment. Even after Hamilton's resignation at 40, he is described, too sweepingly, as "a sort of unpaid prime minister in absentia," even though he was disgraced by two adulterous affairs, one with his wife's sister. Most of Randall's narrative is vivid and accurate, but the rest should give the reader pause. Eight pages b&w illus. not seen by PW.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Hamilton is a popular choice for biographers and was most recently profiled in Richard Brookhiser's interpretive Alexander Hamilton, American (1999). Randall hews to a more descriptive style, narrating Hamilton's fortune-marked rise to fame, which was sealed when the ambitious aide-de-camp of Washington pleaded for, and got, the assignment to lead the final assault at the Battle of Yorktown. Randall's coverage of Hamilton's subsequent career is covered economically in the one-volume format, so the reader here has an offering weighted toward Hamilton's rise from obscurity on the Caribbean island of St. Croix, emigration to New York City, and enlistment in the Patriot cause in the Revolutionary War. An extremely intelligent and diligent prodigy, Hamilton had a talent for attracting influential patrons, a feature Randall capably emphasizes while also using adroit detailing to vivify the worlds Hamilton moved through, from the slave economy of St. Croix to the upper American social crust into which he married. Randall's vigorous prose captures shows the compass of Hamilton's life and his role in making the U.S. a going concern. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
See all Editorial Reviews
Biographer of Washington, Jefferson and Franklin, Randall is in his usual engaging form in dealing with the complex Hamilton, who in 1804 died in a duel with Aaron Burr. Creating a bigger-than-life hero, Randall sometimes strains credibility in the interest of color, and the evidence of occasional unreliability is exposed by gaps in documentation or in attributions like "according to tradition." One quotation credited to a Tory historian of the Revolution describes an American gallows erected near Charleston harbor, where "twenty-four reputable Loyalists [were] hanged in sight of the British fleet, with the army and refugees on board." In Randall's pages the close of the quotation is altered incredibly to "the army and thirty-five thousand Loyalists looking on." Randall's restless Hamilton, illegitimate son of a West Indian Englishwoman, succeeds on his energy, industriousness and intelligence, and a little help from distant relatives, becoming the new nation's first Secretary of the Treasury at 34. As a New York lawyer, aided by a loveless but lucrative marriage, he scrambled for riches before becoming a power behind the scenes in the federal government, then by Cabinet appointment. Even after Hamilton's resignation at 40, he is described, too sweepingly, as "a sort of unpaid prime minister in absentia," even though he was disgraced by two adulterous affairs, one with his wife's sister. Most of Randall's narrative is vivid and accurate, but the rest should give the reader pause. Eight pages b&w illus. not seen by PW.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Hamilton is a popular choice for biographers and was most recently profiled in Richard Brookhiser's interpretive Alexander Hamilton, American (1999). Randall hews to a more descriptive style, narrating Hamilton's fortune-marked rise to fame, which was sealed when the ambitious aide-de-camp of Washington pleaded for, and got, the assignment to lead the final assault at the Battle of Yorktown. Randall's coverage of Hamilton's subsequent career is covered economically in the one-volume format, so the reader here has an offering weighted toward Hamilton's rise from obscurity on the Caribbean island of St. Croix, emigration to New York City, and enlistment in the Patriot cause in the Revolutionary War. An extremely intelligent and diligent prodigy, Hamilton had a talent for attracting influential patrons, a feature Randall capably emphasizes while also using adroit detailing to vivify the worlds Hamilton moved through, from the slave economy of St. Croix to the upper American social crust into which he married. Randall's vigorous prose captures shows the compass of Hamilton's life and his role in making the U.S. a going concern. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
See all Editorial Reviews
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