The Hamilton scheme : an epic tale of money and power in the American founding / William Hogeland.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hogeland, William, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Hamilton, Alexander, 1757-1804.

Hamilton, Alexander.

United States--Economic policy.

United States.

United States--Economic conditions--To 1865.

United States--Politics and government--1783-1809.

Debts, Public--United States--History--18th century.

Debts, Public.

Physical Description:

x, 525 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2024.

Summary:

"'Forgotten founder' no more, Alexander Hamilton has become a global celebrity. Millions know his name. Millions imagine knowing the man. But what did he really want for the country? What risks did he run in pursuing those vaulting ambitions? Who tried to stop him? How did they fight? It's ironic that the Hamilton revival has obscured the man's most dramatic battles and hardest-won achievements--as well as downplaying unsettling aspects of his legacy. Thrilling to the romance of becoming the one-man inventor of a modern nation, our first Treasury secretary fostered growth by engineering an ingenious dynamo--banking, public debt, manufacturing--for concentrating national wealth in the hands of a government-connected elite. Seeking American prosperity, he built American oligarchy. Hence his animus and mutual sense of betrayal with Jefferson and Madison--and his career-long fight to suppress a rowdy egalitarian movement little remembered today: the eighteenth-century white working class. Marshaling an idiosyncratic cast of insiders and outsiders, vividly dramatizing backroom intrigues and literal street fights--and sharply dissenting from recent biographies--William Hogeland's The Hamilton Scheme brings to life Hamilton's vision and the hard-knock struggles over democracy, wealth, and the meaning of America that drove the nation's creation and hold enduring significance today." -- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction: Their fights, our fights

Part I The hatching. Meet Alexander Hamilton

Founding fatcat

Exchanging eye-rolls

In which we are introduced to the public debt of the United States

Part II The first great American class war. Man in black

Nothing commonsensical

Never waste a crisis

Peacetime

The new Jerusalem

Washington's county

To annihilate all debts

Part III The scheme and the system. The Hamilton constitution

Ta-da!

Breakup

Industry and Rye

Six Greek columns and a Roman pediment

Part IV To extremes. The husband scheme

Reason

Enemies everywhere

Too big to fail

Uprising, crackdown

Biblical

Part V A scheme superseded! Albert Optimiste

The Jesuit

Triumvirate

Albert Agonistes

Epilogue: From the Jackson era to the New Deal to the Great White Way.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780374167837

0374167834

OCLC:

1393205277