OVER THE LAST two decades, Alexander Hamilton has become a folk hero. In 2004, Ron Chernow’s massive Hamilton biography was a bestseller. A decade later, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s spectacularly successful Hamilton: An American Musical further heightened the popularity of America’s first treasury secretary, despite—or, more likely, because of—its inaccuracies and simplifications. And this year, The New York Times and Bloomberg have run stories titled “There is a Secret Hamiltonian in the White House” and “Industrial Policy and Alexander Hamilton,” celebrating President Joe Biden’s economic initiatives.
Hamilton’s fondness for industrial policy was also one of the reasons the libertarian economist Murray Rothbard dubbed him the Mephistopheles of early U.S. history. William Hogeland’s new book, The Hamilton Scheme, essentially shares Rothbard’s view, although not for all the same reasons.
Unaffiliated with any university or think tank, Hogeland nonetheless has written several books about early U.S. history that are deservedly well-respected. His
