Collins Memorial Library: SSI1-173: Alexander Hamilton's America: Books

What about books?

Scholarly books can be excellent sources for establishing historical and cultural background, locating background information, or placing your topic in context with related issues. Search Collins Library Primo Search for titles. A sampling of potentially relevant books is listed on this page.

Strategies for Finding Books

1. Start with specific titles suggested in subject encyclopedia entries.

2. Identify the Library of Congress Subject Headings for that book to identify additional books on the topic.

3. Make sure that the book is scholarly. Remember that scholarly books are written by experts and typically are published by a university press or other academic publisher like Routledge, and will include the "scholarly apparatus" of notes and an extensive bibliography.

4. Use the Preview feature, if available, to skim through the contents via Google Books.

Search Primo

Using Library of Congress Subject Headings

Collins Library, like most academic libraries in the United States, uses Library of Congress Subject Headings to describe the content of books. If you are researching a topic or an author about whom much has been written, you can use Library of Congress Subject subheadings to help pinpoint your search.

Here are several examples of the various ways you can use LCSH to help pinpoint what you need:

Hamilton, Alexander, 1757-1804

Hamilton, Alexander,1757-1804 -- Political and social views

United States -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783

United States -- History -- Revolution, 1775 1783 -- Women

United States -- History -- Confederation,1783 -1789

United States -- Politics and government -- 1775-1783

Political culture -- United States -- History -- 18th century

Hamilton: Founding & Finance

American Creation: triumphs and tragedies at the founding of the republic by Joseph J. Ellis
Call Number: E302.1 .E44 2007 Print Books
Publication Date: 2007
Historian Ellis guides us through the decisive issues of the nation's founding, and illuminates the emerging philosophies, shifting alliances, and personal and political foibles of our now iconic leaders.
American Rhetorical Discourse by Ronald F. Reid
Call Number: PS662 .T56 1995 Print Books
Publication Date: 1995
Three centuries of American rhetorical discourse. Includes sections on the American Revolution, the founding of the nation, and political rhetoric in the young republic.
Building the Empire State by Brian Phillips Murphy
Call Number: Click on the title above for online access.
Publication Date: 2015
Examines the origins of American capitalism by tracing how and why business corporations were first introduced into the economy of the early republic. Murphy follows the collaborations between political leaders and a group of unelected political entrepreneurs, including Robert R. Livingston and Alexander Hamilton, who persuaded legislative powers to grant monopolies corporate status in order to finance and manage civic institutions.
Common Sense: a political history by Sophia A. Rosenfeld
Call Number: Click on the title above for online access.
Publication Date: 2011
Common Sense reveals a political ideal so fundamental to American politics that we are unaware of its power and its myriad uses. Sophia Rosenfeld shows how common sense--the wisdom of ordinary people, self-evident truths--has been used to justify all political extremes, with a history that is anything but commonsensical.
Culture and Liberty in the Age of the American Revolution by Michal Jan Rozbicki
Call Number: Click on the title above for online access.
Publication Date: 2011
Through a careful examination of liberty as both the ideological axis and the central metaphor of the age, Rozbicki offers a fresh model for interpreting the Revolution by establishing systemic linkages between the histories of the free and the unfree, and between the factual and the symbolic.
The Founders and Finance How Hamilton, Gallatin, and Other Immigrants Forged a New Economy by Thomas K. McCraw
Call Number: Click on the title above for online access.
Publication Date: 2012
The Founders and Finance is the first book to tell the story of how foreign-born financial specialists-immigrants-solved the fiscal crisis and set the United States on a path to long-term economic success.
Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation by Joseph J. Ellis
Call Number: E302.5 .E45 2000 Print Books
Publication Date: 2000
An illuminating study of the intertwined lives of the founders of the American republic--John Adams, Aaron Burr, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington.
Liberty's Blueprint How Madison and Hamilton Wrote the Federalist Papers, Defined the Constitution and Made Democracy Safe for the World by Michael I. Meyerson
Call Number: Click on the title above for online access.
Publication Date: 2008
Meyerson presents an introduction to how the Federalist Papers were written and the philosophical thinking that shaped the Constitution
Revolutionary Founders: rebels, radicals, and reformers in the making of the nation by Alfred F. Young (Editor); Gary Nash (Editor); Ray Raphael
Call Number: E208 .R463 2012 Print Books
Publication Date: 2012
In twenty-two original essays, leading historians reveal the radical impulses at the founding of the American Republic.

Biographies

Alexander Hamilton America's Forgotten Founder by Joseph A. Murray
Call Number: Click on the title above for online access.
Publication Date: 2007
Describes the character and achievements of a man who was instrumental in casting the form of our government and especially its strong financial structure. His financial innovations renewed the public credit when war debts threatened to swamp the fledgling economy, provided a stable currency system and established a federal revenue system.
The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Jefferson by Frank Shuffelton (Editor)
Call Number: E332 .C26 2009 Print Books
Publication Date: 2009
Essays explore Jefferson's political thought, his policies towards Native Americans, his attitude to race and slavery, as well as his interests in science, architecture, religion and education. Contributors include leading literary scholars and historians; the essays offer up to date overviews of his many interests, his friendships and his legacy. Together, they reveal his importance in the cultural and political life of early America.
Fallen Founder: the life of Aaron Burr by Nancy Isenberg
Call Number: E302.6.B9 I84 2008 Print Books
Publication Date: 2008
Villain of the revolution or victim of history? In this biography, Nancy Isenberg resurrects the Burr that time forgot: a loyal patriot, brilliant lawyer, and progressive Enlightenment intellectual who had the tremendous misfortune to make powerful enemies whose efforts ultimately dammed his legacy
George III: America's Last King by Jeremy Black
Call Number: Click on the title above for online access.
Publication Date: 2006
Identifying George as the last British ruler of the Thirteen Colonies, Black reveals his strong personal engagement in the struggle for America and argues that George himself, his intentions and policies, were key to the conflict.
John Laurens and the American Revolution by Gregory De Van Massey
Call Number: Click on the title above for online access.
Publication Date: 2000
Recounts the young Laurens's wartime record and his revolutionary ideas concerning the rights of African Americans.
Lafayette by Harlow Giles Unger
Call Number: E207.L2 U45 2002 Print Books
Publication Date: 2002
An intimate and detailed portrait of the heroic young French soldier who, at nineteen, renounced a life of luxury in Paris and Versailles to fight and bleed for liberty-at Brandywine, Valley Forge, and Yorktown.
Most Blessed of the Patriarchs: Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination by Annette Gordon-Reed; Peter S. Onuf
Call Number: E332.2 .G669 2016 Print Books
Publication Date: 2016
Jefferson was a man so riven with contradictions that he is almost impossible to know. Gordon-Reed and Onuf dispel the many clichés that have accrued over the years, and trace his philosophical development from youth to old age.
Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow
Call Number: E312 .C495 2011 Print Books
Publication Date: 2011
Biographer Ron Chernow provides a richly nuanced portrait of the father of our nation, dashing forever the stereotype of a stolid, unemotional man, and revealing an astute and surprising portrait of a canny political genius who knew how to inspire people.

Economic History

The Economy of British America, 1607-1789 by John J. McCusker; Russell R. Menard
Call Number: HC104 .M38
Publication Date: 1985
The nature and extent of that success are still unfolding. In this first comprehensive assessment of where research on prerevolutionary economy stands, what it seeks to achieve, and how it might best proceed, the authors discuss those areas in which traditional work remains to be done and address new possibilities for a 'new economic history.'
The Federal and State Constitutions, Colonial Charters, and Other Organic Laws of the State, Territories, and Colonies Now or Heretofore Forming the United States of America by Frances Newton Thorpe
Call Number: JK18 1909
Publication Date: 1909
Government and the American Economy by Price V. Fishback
Call Number: Click on the title above for online access.
Publication Date: 2007
The American economy has provided a level of well-being that has consistently ranked at or near the top of the international ladder. A key source of this success has been widespread participation in political and economic processes.
Manufacturing Revolution: The Intellectual Origins of Early American Industry by Lawrence A. Peskin
Call Number: Click on the title above for online access.
Publication Date: 2007
"Peskin shows how economic pioneers launched a discourse that continued for decades, linking industrialization to the cause of independence and guiding the new nation along the path of economic ambition."
Wall Street: A History by Charles R. Geisst
Call Number: Click on the title above for online access.
Publication Date: 1999
In this wide-ranging volume, economic historian Charles Geisst answers this question as he provides the first history of Wall Street, ranging from the loose association of traders meeting on New York sidewalks and coffee houses in the late 18th century, to the modern billion-dollar computer-driven colossus of today.