| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 110.3

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 110.3 | The History Cooperative

John Lamberton Harper. American Machiavelli: Alexander Hamilton and the Origins of U.S. Foreign Policy. New York: Cambridge University Press. 2004. Pp. xii, 347. $30.00.
Alexander Hamilton was the founder of realism in U.S. foreign policy. Republics, he believed, were not inherently more peaceful than monarchies. Nations, like individuals, act from offended honor as well as self-interest and thus should not needlessly provoke opponents. A militarily and economically vulnerable power, like the United States in the 1790s, must recognize its constrained options. Above all, it should not assume that its location or its republican principles exempt it from the kind of power politics practiced throughout the world.	1
John Lamberton Harper draws explicit parallels between Hamilton's thought and life history and that of Niccolò Machiavelli, the father of European realist statecraft. Harper does not claim that Hamilton was directly influenced by Machiavelli; secondhand influence (e.g. David Hume) is sufficient (p. 6). More important is similarity of situation: both Florence in 1500 and the United States in the 1790s were fledgling republics caught in the crossfire between warring great powers. This led Machiavelli and Hamilton independently to reason their way to strikingly similar conclusions.	. . .

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