Stephen F. Knott and Tony Williams, "Washington and Hamilton: The Alliance that Forged America" (Sourcebooks, 2015)

Summary

In Washington and Hamilton: The Alliance that Forged America (Sourcebooks, 2015), authors Stephen F. Knott and Tony Williams explore the relationship between George Washington and Alexander Hamilton over the course of three distinct periods where their personal and philosophical collaboration contributed to the establishment of the United States and the foundation of the new republic. The text follows the two men, initially separately, as they made their way through their divergent early lives, through to their experiences together in the caldron of the Revolutionary War, and finally to their work during the constitutional convention and Washington's presidency. Knott and Williams note that this relationship, which grew and deepened as Washington and Hamilton worked side by side, first under fire and then in the thick of politics, is vitally important to understand in context of the American experiment. This alliance, often obscured by some of the other, better known collaborations among American Founders, was threaded through the most important dimensions of the American Founding, and yet no other text focuses specifically on Washington and Hamilton's work together. Knott and Williams build on the separate scholarship about Washington and about Hamilton, but they clarify the extent to which this particular collaboration was significant to the long-term stability of the United States and the constitutional system that they helped to create, erect, and in which they worked.

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Lilly Goren

Lilly J. Goren is professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI.

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