Republican Empire: Alexander Hamilton on War and Free Government (American Political Thought) - Hardcover

Walling, Karl-Friedrich

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0700609709 ISBN 13: 9780700609703

Publisher: University Press of Kansas, 1999

Synopsis

A conversation about war and freedom between founder Alexander Hamilton and the Loyalists, Anti-Federalists, Jeffersonians and other Federalists. Instead of pitting Hamilton's virtues against his opponents' vices, it pits his virtue of responsibility against the revolutionary virtue of vigilance.

About this title

Review:

"Absolutely brilliant. Walling convincingly challenges the conventional understanding of Hamilton as a Machiavellian statesman with little or no concern for public virtue in citizens and statesmen. His development of the vigilance vs. responsibility theme is perceptive, subtle, and balanced, and his handling of the classics is far more learned and accurate than anybody else's except Paul Rahe's. A superb work and a major contribution to scholarship."--Forrest McDonald, author of Alexander Hamilton: A Biography and Novus Ordo Seclorum: The Intellectual Origins of the Constitution

"In this remarkable book, Walling contradicts the conventional wisdom. He contends that the unprecendented ability of the United States to wage war while still preserving liberty is primarily the legacy of Alexander Hamilton. . . . . This is a book that Hamilton deserves. It is unthinkable that the United States could have triumphed in this century without having become Hamilton's republican empire."--Washington Times

"A very detailed and subtle explication of Hamilton's thinking that takes careful account of concrete historical events and circumstances."--Gordon S. Wood in the New York Review of Books

"Walling's greatest contribution is to show how Hamilton was not the militarist he is often accused of being. . . . An important contribution to the literature of the American founding. . . . "--Gary McDowell in the Times Literary Supplement

About this edition

• Publisher: University Press of Kansas
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0700609709
• ISBN 13: 9780700609703
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 372