Review: Rivals Unto Death: Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr

A weekend leisure reading review…because sometimes Pastors also need a break from heavy theological reading!

 

Rick Beyer. Rivals Unto Death: Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr New York, NY: Hachette Book Group, February 21st 2017. 224.

5 out of 5

Purchase: Amazon

Reading this book made me realize that the current heated American political scene during election is nothing new, that it has had its crazy moments and its up and downs.  This book is about the animosity and competition between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr which most American remember with the duel between these two men that were involved with American politics that result in the death of one after the duel.  But rather than focus only on the duel the book looks at both men’s lives and the comparison and contrast between the two of them and how their lives culminated to that unfortunate duel.

I thought the author did a good job comparing and contrasting Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr.  This book is a look at not only the biographical details of both men but also how their paths cross pathed or orbited near one another over the decades. I really enjoyed learning about both men’s upbringing and also their military career during the War of Independence.  I thought it was interesting to see how both men were similar in how they were driven, talented and energetic both as officers in the Contintental Army and later in their New York law practice.  Yet there were differences between them including their deposition and also how people perceived them.

Overall in my opinion the author did an excellent job in giving us facts and attempted to be fair.  There was a sense that later in their politics the book gives you the details of both men’s concerns with the political direction of the country.  Yet their concern seem to be the reaction of coming to the opposite conclusion of their upbringing: Alexander Hamilton who grew up poor was concerned about the tyranny of the masses while Aaron Burr who grew up in an affluent household was suspicious of the few rich elites in the political process.  The book goes over the scandals of both men while also putting the over the top rhetoric of the political discourse in the context of that being how it was during their time.  Sadly with many factors being set it led us to an event where because of honor Hamilton and Burr faced each other in a duel and one would be killed.  In one of history’s dispute of what happened that day with the duel which debate linger to today, Hamilton was killed and Burr ended up being quite hated.

Fascinating read and it lead me to put current American politics in perspective and to also pray that our country’s election process would not undermine the republic.