<p> Probably no American statesman displayed more constructive imagination than did Alexander Hamilton. Prodigal of ideas, bursting with plans for diversifying the economy, and obsessed by a determination to make the United States a powerful nation under a centralized government, he left an imprint upon this country that time has not effaced. <em>Alexander Hamilton and the Growth of the New Nation </em>is the premier biography of Alexander Hamilton written by one of the foremost scholars of early American history.</p><p> Hamilton's career was at times contradictory: born, in John Adams's words, the "bastard brat of a Scotch peddler," he rose to high social, political, and military position in the newly born country. He dreaded divisiveness, yet his strate­gies and actions aggravated political sectionalism. Miller weaves together the complex facets of Hamilton's life to make a vivid, absorbing biography.</p>