Chernow and historians et al

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These are the three Ron Chernow books I have in my bookshelves.

I am just under one hundred pages left to finish the book on the left Alexander Hamilton that so inspired a talented songwriter that he composed a Broadway Hit about one of the Founding Fathers that turned into a mega-hit. I saw it’s roadshow in Chicago a couple years ago with my daughter’s family. It was great and I am not a fan of the rap music which underscored the action.

I was still new when Donald Trump was elected and Vice President Pence and his wife attended the Broadway production after the inauguration. That became a big news story because at the production’s end the entire cast came to the stage and implored the Vice President to make sure Donald Trump stopped to consider what he was doing in his first term as president. I wonder if Mike thought back on this when Trump’s mob was carrying ropes to hang him as he played his part in notarizing the honest election results.

This is the second pic I took this morning of my books. The first included only the Hamilton book at the House of Morgan. That twosome will begin the next post as I talk about Hamilton. As I compared the two books on the financial titans Hamilton with its 720 pages before the Acknowledgments seemed to have more words per page than the slightly fatter book about JP Morgan. I wondered how many words were in each book and having discovered that they can be easily googled I checked. Hamilton has 204,500 words. When I inquired into House of Morgan the answer was less precise, it is “estimated to contain around 300,000 words.”

After looking these figures up I checked on other histories Chernow has written. They include a book about another man in finance John D. Rockefeller. Its called Titan. Last night I finished the chapter about Hamilton’s denying Aaron Burr the presidency which I’ll mention in the next post. Not quite sleepy enough to go back to bed I skipped to the Acknowledgements to read them. They follow the epilogue and I found them surprisingly interesting. They mention the people who helped the author with research and like the credits of a movie Ron Chernow got lots of help from interesting experts in surprising places.

The photo above includes his book on Grant which my daughter gifted me but which I’ve held back on because I’d read a good bio on Grant ten years ago which freed him from his dismal treatment when I was a high school student. I’ve mentioned what my fifth grade teacher said of Grant that angered my Grandfather. Its in the linked post and in that post there is another post from 2013 that goes further into that anecdote.

The Chernow acknowledgments included a thank you to his agent. He credited her with suggesting he turn his attention to Hamilton after his two books on the financial successes of two Gilded Age Businessmen. Both of these men were indebted to Hamilton who almost singlehandedly designed the economic framework that let the sleep colonial America blossom into a commercial giant. That commerce made the Jeffersonians suspicious because the later were plantation owners who owed lots of money to bankers who were always leaning on them for loan repayments.

Those previous books as well as a Chernow book on Washington gave me confidence that he had a good grasp of the “dismal science” economics.

I have five or six similarly sized books about other Americans I have yet to open. If I tackle them like I have Jefferson – one or two chapters a day- I should be able to add to my reading list which I will keep updated. Hamilton will be added in a few days.

About the author

Harry is a ferociously good natured eccentric in Duluth Minnesota who detests traitors dressed up as Uncle Sam. You can find somewhat better edited writings of his at the Duluth Reader "contributors." page. The URL is:

https://duluthreader.com/contributors/h/84/284-harry-welty