Alexander Hamilton in Pick-a-Shelf

Mar 17, 2017 Sandy rated it it was ok

Shelves: biography-autobiography, history-and-geography, read-in-2017, src_spring-2017_read

The big problem with this book was the overwhelming bias - as another reviewer pointed out, Chernow had quite a crush on Alexander Hamilton.

Essentially, anyone who disagreed with Hamilton was bad. Their motivations were always bad, no possibility that anyone who disagreed with him could possibly have had an honest difference of opinion about what was the best for the country and the form of government. I just can't buy it - none of these people were perfect, but I can't accept Hamilton as a sain The big problem with this book was the overwhelming bias - as another reviewer pointed out, Chernow had quite a crush on Alexander Hamilton.

Essentially, anyone who disagreed with Hamilton was bad. Their motivations were always bad, no possibility that anyone who disagreed with him could possibly have had an honest difference of opinion about what was the best for the country and the form of government. I just can't buy it - none of these people were perfect, but I can't accept Hamilton as a saint and everyone who disagreed with him as evil.

One of the ways Chernow does this is to quickly mention "unsaintly" things that Hamilton did, but as fast as possible, explain them away, and apply a completely different standard to him than to anyone who opposed him. One example that was dramatic to me was his discussion of the possibility that Jefferson (a widower) may have had an affair with a married woman when he was in France. Chernow fulminates about how this made him morally degenerate. Yet, Hamilton (a married man) who had a year long affair with a married woman (and paid blackmail to her husband) was just overworked, so flirting with women was his only relief, and anyway it was all her fault and she was so compelling and seductive that he just couldn't help himself and on and on.... This type of thing goes through the entire book - if Hamilton did the same thing that his opponents did, it was all justified for whatever reason, while the opponents had evil motivations.

He also repeats the error that it seems that Hamilton himself made - believing that EVERYTHING was all about him. Anything that anyone did was motivated by animus toward Hamilton. And, somehow Chernow seems to think he knows exactly what everyone was thinking, even with nothing to base this on.

I think that Chernow's attempt to glorify Hamilton backfired, at least with me. I went into this with no particular preconceptions, but found myself becoming increasingly skeptical as Chernow's spin got more and more blatant. I imagine it was difficult for Chernow - he is likely too honest to simply omit everything that was negative, but then had to work overtime to spin it. At any rate, because of Chernow's spin, I found myself taking the opposite side, thinking, "well, okay, how ELSE could this or that be interpreted?" ...more

7 likes · Like · see review