John C. Miller's biography of Alexander Hamilton is an excellent read. Miller goes through Hamilton's life from the West Indies to his death at the hands of Aaron Burr i 1804. Hamilton, a man of intense ambition and ego, emerges as a brilliant and flawed man. Hamilton was a proponent of strong central government, had no faith in ordinary people, and believed the wealthy were meant to rule. Miller brings out all of these views and provides good commentary. He outlines Hamilton's proposed government at the Constitutional Convention: an executive and senate appointed for life, the executive with an absolute veto, governors and judges appointed by the executive for life, with an absolute veto over their assemblies. If you want to see the real Hamilton this is the biography.

This book focuses on the domestic political scene in the United States during the period covered. Foreign affairs, and social affairs are discussed in context of how it affected the development of the Federalist party and the Democratic-Republican party. The book is well written and I found it enjoyable to read. It is well organized although there are a couple of times he discusses the same event in two widely separate parts of the book without a clear transition, so it makes it look like he's going off on to a tangent, then back to his original topic. Good academic history.

The grim and sober notion of a monochromatic Puritan world is quickly put to rest by colonial scholar John C. Miller in his fine volume, The First Frontier: Life in Colonial America. Contrary to the stern stereotypical image of a thousand Thanksgiving pageants and grade school centerpieces, Dr. Miller creates an anecdotal quilt that captures a diverse frontier world that edged the rocky shore of the cold Atlantic. If Dr. Miller's book had been the primer for legions of school children there would have been little dozing in the classroom; America wouldn't have had to wait for Mel Gibson and the Patriot to discuss the finer points of "bundling." Nor would we have questioned Samoset's motivation when it's revealed he boldly marched up to the Pilgrims and asked for beer. The extarordinary range of detail, gleaned from diaries, letters and other primary sources surprises us with anecdotes of crime and punishment, recreation, education, dress, labor and medicine among others. From cockfights, slavery, urban life to mean cabins on the frontier, the first Americans emerge as a diverse species, as unique as the forest they push back from the sea. Consider that, Harvard educated and Stanford professor, Dr. Miller first wrote this thin tome in 1966, makes this undiscovered gem a treasure for any serious student of the American frontier. But, like Washington's Expense Account, it reaches across the coffee table and seizes the mainstream reader's interest. This is a Don't Miss. coleman@gunnison.com

Long a definitive work on the colonial period, this interesting work gives the reader the broad base of knowledge necessary to understand the period.