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Published on September 11, 2021, the 232nd anniversary of Alexander Hamilton’s appointment as the first secretary of the Treasury of the United States. Available from Amazon in print or Kindle; other stores via Ingram (print ISBN 9780974589992, EPUB 9781088081327).

Reviews

“This ‘Farmer’s Daughter’ does something sophisticated economists fail to do: she makes complex economic issues understandable and shows why the ‘common man’ should care. Dr. Durante is a superb and careful scholar, but more than that, she is a gifted writer and explainer. You will understand why Hamilton’s economic and political ideas provided the solid foundation for America, without which the American Revolution probably would have been just a flash in the pan.”

Dr. Raymond Niles, Senior Fellow of the American Institute for Economic Research

This is a neat book with a sharp focus and a disarming title. The focus is on Alexander Hamilton’s financial programs during his time as George Washington’s first Secretary of the Treasury. And while she may be a farmer’s daughter, Dianne L. Durante is also a longstanding and accomplished Hamilton scholar. Her deep erudition is on display throughout this book. As I read the book and wrote this review, I came to appreciate that the book is also a nice complement to Ron Chernow’s biography of Hamilton. If you liked Chernow, you should get Durante.

Concerning Hamilton’s financial programs, Durante documents how, within just a few short years, the early United States was transformed from an economically depressed, nearly bankrupt set of squabbling states under the Articles of the Confederation to an increasingly prosperous emerging nation under the Constitution.

Review on EH.net by Arthur J. Wilson, George Washington University

Details

• 6×9”
• 392 pp., with 25 illustrations, timelines and tables in the main text
• Pages 193-354 are Hamilton’s three major policy papers, each provided with outline headings for easier reading
• A free download of pp. 1-15 is available here.

What’s unique about this book

On September 11, 1789, Hamilton was nominated and confirmed as the nation’s first secretary of the Treasury. That makes it a perfect day to issue a book on Hamilton’s financial policies. Here’s what makes Financial Programs of Alexander Hamilton unique: it looks at Hamilton’s programs from the perspective of Hamilton’s contemporaries, using primary sources. In late 1789, what would the man who cornered Secretary Hamilton in a tavern, or the woman who sat across from him at a dinner party, tell Hamilton he urgently needed to fix? How did Hamilton’s programs address those crises? And what made those programs so useful that the programs remained in place long after the crises of the 1780s and 1790s were resolved?

Like a novel, history is more gripping if it’s told with dialogue rather than third-person exposition. This book provides historical context and then lets Hamilton and his contemporaries do the talking. When you hear Americans of the 1790s speaking, you can grasp that they were real people with serious problems, many of which are still relevant. The substantive footnotes are placed at the bottom of the relevant pages, so you can read them if you wish without flipping to the end of the book and back. (In the Kindle version, the notes follow each short section.)

Table of Contents

• Chapter 1: Introduction
• Chapter 2: The Gordian Knot, Economic Problems in the United States in the Late 1780s
• Chapter 3: Hamilton’s Life As It Relates to the Gordian Knot
• Chapter 4: Policy Paper #1, First Report on Public Credit
• Chapter 5: Policy Paper #2, Report on a National Bank
• Chapter 6: Policy Paper #3, Report on Manufactures
• Chapter 7: Crises of 1790-1795 and Hamilton’s Resignation
• Chapter 8: The Gordian Knot by 1801
• Chapter 9: Evaluating Hamilton’s Programs
• Appendix 1: First Report on Public Credit, with outline headings
• Appendix 2: Report on a National Bank, with outline headings
• Appendix 3: Report on Manufactures, with outline headings
• Appendix 4: A Selection of Primary Sources Related to the Panic of 1792
• Appendix 5: A List of Important Writings by Hamilton Related to His Financial Programs and to the Threads of the Gordian Knot
• Appendix 6: Select Bibliography
• About the Author, Dianne L. Durante

More

I’m an independent researcher, freelance writer, and lecturer. In 2019, the Alexander Hamilton Awareness Society designated me a National Hamilton Advocate. My other books on Hamilton are:

• Alexander Hamilton: A Brief Biography. Details here.
• Alexander Hamilton: A Friend to America, 2 volumes. Details here.
• Alexander Hamilton and the Reynolds Affair. Details here.

For an up-to-date list of books and essays, visit www.DianneDuranteWriter.com/books-essays.

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