Person

Alexander Hamilton

Related Excerpts

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George Washington's Culper Spy Ring: Separating Fact from Fiction

Bill Bleyer dives into the secret Culper Spy Ring during the American Revolution while disproving many of the urban myths surrounding the characters involved.
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The Memes That Made Us

The origin story of “one nation, indivisible.”
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The Founders Flounder: Adams Agonistes

Why John Adams was peculiarly unsuited to the moment.
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Talk of Secession Always Gets U.S. History Wrong

Americans have always been deeply divided.
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Has the World Gone Mad? An Interview with Sarah Swedberg

Swedberg's new book shows how prevalent concerns about mental illness were to the people of the early American republic.
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History Reveals That Getting Rid of the Filibuster is the Only Option

Reforms have only made obstruction the Founders never intended worse.
"We the People"; US Constitution

It Would Be Great if the United States Were Actually a Democracy

The pervasive mythmaking about the supposed wisdom of the founders has covered up a central truth: the US Constitution is an antidemocratic mess.
A red, white, and blue star over a cropped portrait of James Madison.

America Must Become a Democracy

The authors of the Constitution feared mass participation would unsettle government, but it’s the privileged minority that has proved destabilizing.
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A Look Inside Biden’s Oval Office

The oval office looks different now that President Biden is its occupant.
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Knives Out

‘Struggle: From the History of the American People’ charts the strife of early US history in a fierce Cubist/Expressionist style.
A drawing of George Washington surrounded by seals representing the states.

The Constitutional Convention Debates the Electoral College

How the founders settled on the system we love to hate today.

‘America Is a Republic, Not a Democracy’ Is a Dangerous—And Wrong—Argument

Enabling sustained minority rule at the national level is not a feature of our constitutional design, but a perversion of it.
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Will We Ever Get Rid of the Electoral College?

The system that is nobody’s first choice.

Our Chief Danger

The story of the democratic movements that the framers of the U.S. Constitution feared and sought to suppress.
Cast of the musical Hamilton, on the stage for curtain call
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Hamilton and the Unsung Labors of Wives

Who tells our stories has always mattered.
Painting of a worried child and a despairing mother.

With Friends Like These

On early American attempts to kick out foreigners.
Donald Trump giving a speech in front of a large photo of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

‘The Most Ignorant and Unfit’: What Made America’s Worst Ever Leader?

The real challenge is not simply to replace Trump, but to fix a system that produces, promotes, and protects the toxicity that defines his presidency.

Rendering Judgment on America

A new book systematically defends the American Founding against those who believe it was destined to end in nihilism.

Dreams of a Revolution Deferred

How African-Americans in Early America celebrated the Declaration of Independence's ideals, even as basic freedoms were denied to them.

Our First Authoritarian Crackdown

A new book persuasively argues that the Federalists’ attempt to squash opposition and the free flow of ideas was even more nefarious than we thought.