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| Alexander Hamilton on Finance, Credit, and Debt
ISBN: 9780231545556
Platform/Publisher: JSTOR / Columbia University Press
Digital rights: Users: unlimited; Printing: chapter; Download: chapter
Subjects: Finance -- United States; Credit -- United States; Debt -- United States;
Sylla (Alexander Hamilton: The Illustrated Biography), an NYU professor emeritus of economics, and Cowen (coauthor of Financial Founding Fathers), head of the Museum of American Finance, comprehensively examine Alexander Hamilton's financial legacy. Architect of the modern U.S. financial system, Hamilton created a securities market, national currency, and central bank, and, the authors write, handled the country's first market crash masterfully. Each chapter begins with context for Hamilton's own excerpted writings, which include letters, essays, and reports to Congress, abridged to maintain a focus on finance. Arranged chronologically, the book details Hamilton's work to move the U.S. from a wartime footing to a climate conducive to business growth. Hamilton's prose is lively, vivid (a Revolution-era letter terms the "fluctuating constitution of our army... a pregnant source of evil"), and, most importantly, persuasive; faced with Thomas Jefferson and James Madison's opposition to the central bank, Hamilton convinces George Washington by broadly interpreting the Constitution to mean that every governmental power includes "a right to employ all means requisite and fairly applicable to the attainment of the ends of such power." This remains a benchmark argument today, the authors point out. This is undoubtedly a treasure trove for financial and public policy geeks, and the book will also help lay readers go beyond the hit musical in understanding Hamilton's lasting significance. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Richard Sylla is professor emeritus of economics and the former Henry Kaufman Professor of the History of Financial Institutions and Markets at New York University Stern School of Business. He is a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and chairman of the Museum of American Finance. Among his books are Founding Choices: American Economic Policy in the 1790s (2011) and Alexander Hamilton: The Illustrated Biography (2016).
David J. Cowen is president and CEO of the Museum of American Finance. He is author of The Origins and Economic Impact of the First Bank of the United States, 1791-1797 (2000) and coauthor of Financial Founding Fathers: The Men Who Made America Rich (2006). |
