For a while I though this book would beat me. Big page counts don’t intimidate me, although as I get older smaller fonts do. I started Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton in late 2020 or early 2021, with the goal of finishing it by the end of 2021. My intent was that it would be the non-fiction book that I would read around my fiction books and I’d finish it a bit at a time. Turns out I was wrong on my timeline. 5 weeks ago I changed tactics and switched to the audio-book. 1 loan + 1 renewal later and I finished.
Hamilton is a 9 and is probably the second best biography (or autobiography) I ever read. Educated was first, but these are 2 different books and that makes comparison tough. The scope of Hamilton is massive and the research and thought that went into it must have been immense. It is even more impressive considering the research material is so old.
In hindsight I partially regret listening to this book because I was unable to highlight, and this was a highlightable book. Here are a few things I picked up:
- At any give time, most of Hamilton’s male contemporaries hated him
- Most of the women who knew him loved him. Children too
- Hamilton was mostly self taught, even when he was being educated. Although not his most recognized talent, he was a skilled medical practitioner
- People were smarter, or at least more attentive to their own thoughts and opinions back then
- Washington was loved. Martha too
- Thomas Jefferson was seen as lazy, but he just wanted to do his own thing. He hated Hamilton.
- Aaron Burr had no redeeming qualities other than luck
- The revolutionaries and founders had extreme skill when it came to insulting each other and did it with relatively clean language
- Hamilton never choose to abandon his friends
- NJ was not always competing for the most liberty-oppressed state, and Weehawken was not in the same place it is now
Great book, and I would have no hesitation picking up anything else Chernow wrote.