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SUMMARY Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow Fast2read

Ron Chernow has made a name for himself as an award winning writer, biographer, journalist, and historian. He was awarded the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Biography and the American History Book Prize for his biography on George Washington, Washington: A Life, that same year. He has also won the National Book Award for Nonfiction for his 1990 book The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance, which covered four generations of the J. P. Morgan family. However he is most known for his exemplary biographies of John D. Rockefeller Jr. and Alexander Hamilton, both of which were nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Chernow began his career as a freelance writer and over sixty of his pieces appeared in newspapers and magazines from 1973 to 1982. Though he briefly left the field in the 1980's to serve as the Director of Financial Policy Studies at the Twentieth Century Fund, he returned to his writing, focusing on biographies in addition to writing for The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. In 2004, Chernow published Alexander Hamilton to widespread critical acclaim. In addition to being nominated for a National Books Critics Circle Award, it was named the winner of the first George Washington Book Prize for Early American History. It was adored by renowned book critics and maintained a spot on the New York Times Bestseller List for over three months. The biography was such a critical and financial success because Chernow was able to successfully weave Hamilton's life into an engaging and fascinating story resembling a novel, which appealed to the general public in addition to historical scholars.