| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 89.4

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 89.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Alexander Hamilton and the Persistence of Myth. By Stephen F. Knott. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002. xii, 336 pp. $34.95, ISBN 0-7006-1157-6.)

George Will once wrote, 'We honor [Thomas] Jefferson, but live in [Alexander] Hamilton's country' (quoted on p. 6), meaning that the United States currently embodies everything the first treasury secretary stood for, including an industrial economy, an independent judiciary, a strong executive, and a military establishment. Stephen F. Knott of the Miller Center for Public Affairs at the University of Virginia heartily agrees, arguing that Hamilton's blueprint enabled the nation to become a superpower. Yet Americans remain uncomfortable with that indefatigable founder, often writing him off as a monarchist, a plutocrat, or a militarist. In tracing the few ups and many downs of the Hamilton image, Alexander Hamilton and the Persistence of Myth might be compared to Merrill D. Peterson's The Jefferson Image in the American Mind (1960). Whenever Hamilton's reputation rises, Jefferson's falls, and vice versa. . . .

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