American Machiavelli
Alexander Hamilton and the Origins of U.S. Foreign Policy

Alexander Hamilton rose from his humble beginnings as an illegitimate West Indian orphan and emigrant to become the premier statebuilder and strategic thinker of the American Founding generation.

John Lamberton Harper (Author)

9780521708746, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 30 July 2007

376 pages
22.6 x 15.6 x 2.2 cm, 0.55 kg

'… a decent history about the role Alexander Hamilton plated in the shaping of foreign policy of the Early American Republic … the book does help further the scholarship of the history of American foreign policy …' Political Studies Review

Alexander Hamilton rose from his humble beginnings as an illegitimate West Indian orphan and emigrant to become the premier statebuilder and strategic thinker of the American Founding generation. This is the first detailed narrative study of his foreign policy role and ideas to appear in more than thirty years. It focuses on Hamilton's controversial activities as a key member of President George Washington's cabinet and as an aspiring military leader in the 1790s, a decade of profound division over the shape and powers of the Federal government, and US policy toward the warring powers of Europe. Drawing parallels between Hamilton and the Florentine diplomatist and thinker, Niccolò Machiavelli, prize-winning historian John Lamberton Harper offers an insightful and accessible account of the origins of Hamilton's outlook, his bitterly personal rivalries with Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, and his indispensable part in designing and implementing US foreign policy.

Part I. The Coming of Necessity: 1. From providence to fortune, 1757(?)–1781
2. Prepared to be not good, 1781–1788
Part II. Battle Lines are Drawn: 3. At Washington's side again, 1789
4. Hamilton versus the Virginians, 1789–1791
5. The Nootka Sound Crisis, part one: the Morris mission
6. The Nootka Sound Crisis, part two: Hamilton and Jefferson
7. Liaisons Dangereuses, 1791–1792
Part III. Seizing the Helm: 8. The birth of American neutrality, February-May, 1793
9. 'A most distressing dilemma', May-December, 1793
10. Hamilton and the war crisis of 1794
11. The Jay treaty
Part IV. Informal Adviser to the Prince: 12. Return to not-so-private life, 1794–1795
13. 'Camillus' into the breach, 1795
14. A high-stakes game: Washington's farewell address, 1796
15. Transition to the new regime, 1796–97
Part V. A Prince in His Own Right?: 16. Hamilton and Adams: the background
17. Hamilton's 'Grand Plan'
18. Hamilton's army, part one, 1797–1798
19. Hamilton's army, part two, 1798–1799
20. Killing two birds with one stone, 1799
Part VI. The Lesser of Evils: 21. 1800 and after
22. From fortune into providence.

Subject Areas: Political leaders & leadership [JPHL], Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], History of the Americas [HBJK]