Book Review

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to JAH online. About 246 words from this article are provided below; about 342 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the Organization of American Historians, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time.
If you are not a member of the Organization of American Historians, you can:: • Join the OAH and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the Journal of American History.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two-hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the Journal of American History (86.1-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the Journal of American History.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

Book Review | The Journal of American History, 86.4 | The History Cooperative

A Fatal Friendship: Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. By Arnold A. Rogow. (New York: Hill and Wang, 1998. xvi, 351 pp. $27.50, isbn 0-8090-4753-5.)

Wise and experienced advisers warn graduate students that biography is the most difficult history to write and that dual or collective biography is all but impossible. One cannot help but feel admiration, then, for Arnold A. Rogow's biographical approach to the relationship between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton. Occasionally colleagues and collaborators but more often political opponents, these unique and not easily understood men are best remembered for the shots they exchanged in New Jersey early in the morning of July 11, 1804. Within weeks former Secretary of the Treasury Hamilton was dead and Vice President Burr ruined and wanted for murder: in the two centuries since, no princes of the American polity have matched Hamilton and Burr for the violent excitement of their final encounter. 1

Perhaps Burr and Hamilton continue to fascinate because the causes of their final encounter remain shrouded in mystery. The politics of the first party system were as vitriolic as any since, yet no known statement by Hamilton can explain why Vice President Burr believed that he had no option other than to call Hamilton out. It is telling, perhaps, to reflect that Rogow's volume recounts the events leading to this denouement with both style and insight yet is unable to add anything new that would make this deadly encounter any more comprehensible. . . .

There are about 342 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.