PositiveThe New York Review of BooksChernow’s depiction of [Hamiltion\'s] life, while doing full justice to his achievements, is less concerned with explicating what they were (which he does with exemplary clarity and conciseness) than with their role in fulfilling a restless ambition that ultimately proved self-destructive ... Anyone who has heard of Alexander Hamilton knows that he is going to wind up with Burr on a dueling ground in Weehawken, New Jersey. Chernow is too good a craftsman not to follow the path that led Burr as well as Hamilton to that confrontation ... Chernow’s book is remarkable not for any new disclosures or novel interpretations, but for his unblinkered view of Hamilton’s thought and behavior in a time that generated in him and so many others the capacity to do what none of them had previously dreamed of ... It has been said that Hamilton was a great man but not a great American. Chernow’s Hamilton is both.
