| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 109.3

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 109.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Robert E. Wright. Hamilton Unbound: Finance and the Creation of the American Republic. (Contributions in Economics and Economic History, number 228.) Westport, Conn.: Greenwood. 2002. Pp. xii, 230. $62.95.
This is a frustrating book to read. Despite its title, it has little to do with Alexander Hamilton, who appears only in passing. The subtitle gives a better idea of the scope of Robert E. Wright's work: there is actually a good deal of scattered, useful information on banking, credit, and investment in the early republic that, if consolidated, could be a good—perhaps excellent—article. But the book, as is, should never have been published. There is no coherent theme. It is a collection of unrelated chapters, most propounding either a far-fetched claim almost entirely unsupported by evidence or a painfully obvious point well established by decades of previous historiography.	1
In an inauspicious beginning, chapter one wanders through an explanation of how interest rates affect the value of income-producing assets, usury laws and colonial interest rates, the impact of imperial policy on colonial assets, and a few other topics before concluding that one of the major reasons for the American Revolution was the desire to gain control of monetary policy. Unfortunately, Wright finds no evidence for his claim. In the 203 footnotes for this one chapter, there is not a single reference to anyone discussing independence as a means of achieving local control of monetary policy. Furthermore, the author commits several errors of interpretation along the way: for example, misunderstanding completely the cultural importance of "honor" in a gentlemanly society and claiming that the concept meant simply concern for one's business credit rating.	. . .

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