Ron Chernow

Publisher's description: In the first full-length biography of Alexander Hamilton in decades, National Book Award winner Ron Chernow tells the riveting story of a man who overcame all odds to shape, inspire, and scandalize the newborn America. According to historian Joseph Ellis, Alexander Hamilton is "a robust full-length portrait, in my view the best ever written, of the most brilliant, charismatic and dangerous founder of them all." Few figures in American history have been more hotly debated or more grossly misunderstood than Alexander Hamilton. Chernow's biography gives Hamilton his due and sets the record straight, deftly illustrating that the political and economic greatness of today's America is the result of Hamilton's countless sacrifices to champion ideas that were often wildly disputed during his time. "To repudiate his legacy," Chernow writes, "is, in many ways, to repudiate the modern world." Chernow here recounts Hamilton's turbulent life: an illegitimate, largely self-taught orphan from the Caribbean, he came out of nowhere to take America by storm, rising to become George Washington's aide-de-camp in the Continental Army, coauthoring The Federalist Papers, founding the Bank of New York, leading the Federalist Party, and becoming the first Treasury Secretary of the United States. Historians have long told the story of America's birth as the triumph of Jefferson's democratic ideals over the aristocratic intentions of Hamilton. Chernow presents an entirely different man, whose legendary ambitions were motivated not merely by self-interest but by passionate patriotism and a stubborn will to build the foundations of American prosperity and power. His is a Hamilton far more human than we've encountered before-from his shame about his birth to his fiery aspirations, from his intimate relationships with childhood friends to his titanic feuds with Jefferson, Madison, Adams, Monroe, and Burr, and from his highly public affair with Maria Reynolds to his loving marriage to his loyal wife Eliza. And never before has there been a more vivid account of Hamilton's famous and mysterious death in a duel with Aaron Burr in July of 1804. Chernow's biography is not just a portrait of Hamilton, but the story of America's birth seen through its most central figure. At a critical time to look back to our roots, Alexander Hamilton will remind readers of the purpose of our institutions and our heritage as Americans.

Alexander Hamilton

The author draws on Rockefeller's own papers to provide a biography of the legendary oilman, capitalist, and philanthropist

The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr

Titan

"Ulysses S. Grant's life has typically been misunderstood. All too often he is caricatured as a chronic loser and inept businessman, or as the triumphant but brutal Union general of the Civil War. But these stereotypes don't come close to capturing him, as Ron Chernow shows in his masterful biography, the first to provide a complete understanding of the general and president whose fortunes rose and fell with dizzying speed and frequency."--Book jacket.

Grant

A comprehensive account of the life of George Washington negates the stereotype of a stolid, unemotional man and instead reveals a dashing, passionate man of fiery opinions and many moods who fiercely guarded his private life.

A Life

Washington

A startling portrait of big money, big politics, and big ambitions follows the checkered fortunes of the Morgan empire from Victorian England to the shores of America, where it has continued to exert influence for 150 years. winner of the National Book Award. reprint.

An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance

The House of Morgan

Tells the story of the most powerful Jewish banking dynasty in German and American history

The Twentieth-Century Odyssey of a Remarkable Jewish Family

The Warburgs

From the author of Alexander Hamilton, the New York Times bestselling biography that inspired the musical, comes a gripping portrait of the first president of the United States. Winner of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Biography “Truly magnificent . . . [a] well-researched, well-written and absolutely definitive biography” —Andrew Roberts, The Wall Street Journal “Until recently, I’d never believed that there could be such a thing as a truly gripping biography of George Washington . . . Well, I was wrong. I can’t recommend it highly enough—as history, as epic, and, not least, as entertainment.” —Hendrik Hertzberg, The New Yorker Celebrated biographer Ron Chernow provides a richly nuanced portrait of the father of our nation and the first president of the United States. With a breadth and depth matched by no other one volume biography of George Washington, this crisply paced narrative carries the reader through his adventurous early years, his heroic exploits with the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, his presiding over the Constitutional Convention, and his magnificent performance as America's first president. In this groundbreaking work, based on massive research, Chernow shatters forever the stereotype of George Washington as a stolid, unemotional figure and brings to vivid life a dashing, passionate man of fiery opinions and many moods. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s smash Broadway musical Hamilton has sparked new interest in the Revolutionary War and the Founding Fathers. In addition to Alexander Hamilton, the production also features George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Aaron Burr, Lafayette, and many more.

George Washington

This one-volume collection covers five decades of Washington's astonishingly active life and brings together over letters, orders, addresses, and other writings.

Selected Writings

National Book Award winner Ron Chernow expertly traces the decline of the big bankers and the rise of small investors. The reader is taken on a fascinating tour of Anglo-American high finance over the past two centuries, with detours into Canadian, German and Japanese finance. As the point of departure for his colourful, panoramic survey, Mr. Chernow poses a historic riddle: Why did the great financial dynasties - the Rothschilds, Barings, Morgans and Warburgs - flare so brilliantly in the 19th and 20th centuries and then enter into a precipitous decline? Why did such heavyweights give way to more anonymous financial conglomerates? And, most curious of all, why have small investors, banded together in mutual funds, suddenly inherited the financial earth? The Death of the Banker shows how American reformers mounted a spirited campaign to pry captive companies loose from their traditional bankers and restored competition to financial markets. In a world criss-crossed by capital flows, the banker will never again exercise such spectacular but arbitrary rule over clients.

The Decline and Fall of the Great Financial Dynasties and the Triumph of the Small Investor

The Death of the Banker

Eureka

PLEASE NOTE: THIS IS A GUIDE TO THE ORIGINAL BOOK. Guide to Ron Chernow's Alexander Hamilton Preview: Alexander Hamilton (2004) is a sprawling biography of one of the most important figures in American history. It is based on copious original research, especially into Hamilton's early years. As a political theorist, a polemicist, and the first Treasury secretary, Hamilton dedicated his life, his intellect, and a seemingly limitless stream of words to the cause of unifying and strengthening the United States. He did perhaps more than any other one person to ensure the strength of the American union, even as his pride and hot-headedness kept him from the presidency and led to his early death... Inside this companion: - Summary of the book - Important People - Character Analysis - Analysis of the Themes and Author's Style

Ron Chernow

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