Alexander Hamilton

This concise, elegant, and erudite presentation of the life of Alexander Hamilton is just what we need. As Americans look to the past to answer questions about our present and future, Bernstein has given us an excellent history of the life and times of a man who did so much to set the course of the early United States. * Annette Gordon-Reed, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family *Yet again, R. B. Bernstein demonstrates his mastery of the lives and legacies of the men who made America. His concise and illuminating pen portrait of Alexander Hamilton: The Energetic Founder is a welcome addition to the founders’ bookshelf, an appropriate pendant to the author’s excellent brief biography of Thomas Jefferson, Hamilton’s nemesis. * Peter S. Onuf, Thomas Jefferson Foundation Professor, University of Virginia *Alexander Hamilton was the most consistent and insistent nationalist among the founding fathers. R. B. Bernstein’s admirably concise and clear book presents an excellent guide to Hamilton’s constitutional and political thought and activities. Bernstein introduces us to Hamilton’s lifetime of energetic advocacy, and he shows us why Hamilton mattered then and still matters now. * William E. Nelson, Edward Weinfeld Professor of Law, New York University School of Law *…offers a fine, concise case for seeing Alexander Hamilton as the father of the US government. * The Guardian *

R. B. Bernstein was Lecturer in Law and Politics at the City College of New York and distinguished adjunct professor of law at New York Law School. An expert on the American Revolution, the origins of the Constitution, and the early republic, he was a graduate of Amherst College and the Harvard Law School and did his graduate work in history at New York University. He was the author of thirteen books, including Thomas Jefferson (2003) and The Education of John Adams (2020).