The #1 New York Times bestseller, and the inspiration for the hit Broadway musical Hamilton!

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ron Chernow presents a landmark biography of Alexander Hamilton, the Founding Father who galvanized, inspired, scandalized, and shaped the newborn nation.
"Grand-scale biography at its best—thorough, insightful, consistently fair, and superbly written . . . A genuinely

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"Fans fell in love with Eliza Hamilton--Alexander Hamilton's devoted wife--in Lin-Manuel Miranda's phenomenal musical Hamilton. But they don't know her full story. A strong pioneer woman, a loving sister, a caring mother, and in her later years, a generous philanthropist, Eliza had many sides--and this fascinating biography brings her multi-faceted personality to vivid life. Eliza Hamilton: The Extraordinary Life and Times of The Wife of Alexander...

"In Hamilton: An American Biography, Tony Williams provides readers with a concise biography that traces the events and values that enabled Hamilton to rise from his youth as a dispossessed orphan to Revolutionary War hero and Founding Father, a life uniquely shaped by America and who, in turn, contributed to the creation of the American regime of liberty and self-government. He was one of key leaders in the American Revolution, a chief architect...

Examines the rivalry between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, whose infamous duel left the Founding Father dead and turned a sitting vice-president into a fugitive--

"Whatever sense of hope the Founder Fathers may have felt at the new government's birth, almost none of them carried that optimism to their graves. Franklin survived to see the Constitution in action for only a single year, but most of the founders who lived into the nineteenth century came to feel deep anxiety, disappointment, and even despair about the government and the nation that they had helped to create. Indeed, by the end of their lives many...

"A richly illustrated portrait of the Founding Father and first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury describes his experiences as an illegitimate orphan, soldier, friend, philanderer, political firebrand and financial whiz whose groundbreaking policies continue to shape today's American government"--Publisher Born out of wedlock on a small island in the West Indies and orphaned as a teenager, Alexander Hamilton nonetheless rose to a position of power and...

"It was 1790, and Thomas Jefferson and one of his dinner guests, James Madison, were determined to work out a political compromise critical to the nation's future with their third dinner companion (and political opponent), Alexander Hamilton. This gathering around Jefferson's celebrated table involved nothing less than the creation of the young nation's finances, foreign relations and the eventual location of its capital. The dinner's results? An...