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. 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, Niccol? 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.

A narrative study of the career of Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804), the illegitimate West Indian emigrant who became the first US Secretary of the Treasury and President George Washington's closest collaborator. It focuses on Hamilton's controversial activities as a foreign policy adviser and aspiring military leader during the 1790s.

John Lamberton Harper is Professor of American Foreign Policy and European Studies at the Bologna Center of the Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies. He is the author of America and the Reconstruction of Italy, 1945–1948, winner of the 1987 Marraro Prize from the Society for Italian Historical Studies, and American Visions of Europe: Franklin D. Roosevelt, George F. Kennan, and Dean G. Acheson, winner of the 1995 Robert Ferrell Prize from the Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations. His articles and reviews have appeared in The American Historical Review, The Journal of American History, The Times Literary Supplement, Foreign Affairs, The National Interest, Survival, World Policy Journal, SAIS Review, and other publications.