Thomas K. McCraw was Straus Professor of Business History Emeritus at Harvard Business School and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for History.
Well told by McCraw are the familiar stories of Hamilton's
consolidation and funding of the public debt, of his incessant
fighting with Thomas Jefferson, and of his final duel with Aaron
Burr... McCraw shows just how different was Jefferson's party from
the one doing business under the Republican banner today. -- James
Grant * Wall Street Journal *
As Thomas K. McCraw relates here, America lurched from one
financial crisis to another between 1780 and 1840. At many times,
it was entirely plausible that the young nation's financial
troubles might disintegrate it... The achievements of Morris,
Hamilton, and Gallatin cannot be overstated. They erected America's
'basic capitalist framework' by establishing a steady national
currency and loosed gushing wells of both private and public
credit. These immigrants also fashioned a system of taxation and
collection, tamed the nation's debt, and fostered the development
of a manufacturing economy. And these astonishing achievements came
despite ardent political opposition... The lessons of The
Founders and Finance are that America's finances have been far
worse than they are today, and that good policies can triumph over
political stupidity. -- Kevin R. Kosar * Weekly Standard *
We may not know what we are doing with our own public finances, but
perhaps we may take some comfort in the fact that the Founders, two
centuries ago, did not know what they were doing, either. -- Gordon
Wood * New Republic *
A detailed account of the financial negotiations that helped
underwrite the United States might not strike some readers as
inherently gripping fare, but McCraw has made it every bit as
interesting as the more standard accounts of battling redcoats. Men
like Morris, Gallatin, and Hamilton had enormous potential to
become 'the most dangerous men in the world' (in fact they did
become so, in the eyes of their many enemies), and The Founders
and Finance takes us into the heart of their temptations. --
Steve Donoghue * Open Letters Monthly *
If you think the current system is a mess, consider the national
economy after the American Revolution... A welcome addition to
business and financial history, illuminating little-known aspects
of the early republic. * Kirkus Reviews *
Only two men are honored with statues outside the U.S. Treasury
building: Alexander Hamilton and Albert Gallatin. McCraw explores
their qualities, foibles, achievements, and failures in order to
show why both deserve credit for laying the foundations of American
governmental finance... McCraw is a talented storyteller. His
highly readable and fascinating work portrays the brilliance of
Hamilton and Gallatin against the difficulty of their time and is
strongly recommended to all readers interested in American and
financial history. -- Lawrence Maxted * Library Journal (starred
review) *
McCraw sheds light on personalities and policies in this overview
of the development of early American finance. The newly independent
United States 'had long been bankrupt'; both the fledgling national
government and the states were in hock for the War of
Independence... Hamilton's decisive advocacy of a national bank and
assumption of state war debts laid the basis for economic expansion
and cemented the dominance of federal power. McCraw then turns to
Gallatin's ascendancy in Congress, where in 1796 he denounced the
growth in the national debt and decried high military spending.
Starting with the still-resonant contrast between the 'big
government' Hamilton and 'small government' Gallatin, McCraw's
wealth of historical data should interest any lay historian,
particularly when he presents the many 'what if's.' * Publishers
Weekly *
Consistently interesting and beautifully written, McCraw's
narratives of the careers of Hamilton and Gallatin are simply
splendid. We are in the hands of a master storyteller, as well as a
master analyst of historical materials. -- Robin Einhorn,
University of California, Berkeley
A compulsively readable book that is both a dual biography of the
two most influential Treasury Secretaries and a study of American
exceptionalism-the way in which immigrants played a leading role in
building American institutions. -- Harold James, author of
Making the European Monetary Union
McCraw has observed a singular fact about this nation's early
history: most of the people who directed its finances were
immigrants. From Alexander Hamilton to Albert Gallatin, McCraw
traces the influence of these remarkable foreign-born financiers,
and reveals how their partly-imported sensibilities averted what
seemed to be the fledgling republic's most likely fate: bankruptcy.
This is history of the highest order. -- Roger Lowenstein, author
of The End of Wall Street and When Genius Failed
Tom McCraw's new book is a brilliant account of what the great
immigrant financiers accomplished and why their wider-world
perspectives became crucial to building the American nation and its
economy. -- Richard Sylla, New York University
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