American Machiavelli: Alexander Hamilton and the Origins of U.S. Foreign Policy

by John Lamberton Harper

• ISBN13: 9780521834858
• ISBN10: 0521834856
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-03-08
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

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, Niccolò 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.

Author Biography

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

Table of Contents

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. 'Almost 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 2, 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.