The untold story of the founding father's likely Jewish birth and upbringing-and its revolutionary consequences for understanding him and the nation he fought to create In The Jewish World of Alexander Hamilton, Andrew Porwancher debunks a string of myths about the origins of this founding father to arrive at a startling conclusion: Hamilton, in all likelihood, was born and raised Jewish. For more than two centuries, his youth in the Caribbean has remained shrouded in mystery. Hamilton himself wanted it that way, and most biographers have simply assumed he had a Christian boyhood. With a detective's persistence and a historian's rigor, Porwancher upends that assumption and revolutionizes our understanding of an American icon. This radical reassessment of Hamilton's religious upbringing gives us a fresh perspective on both his adult years and the country he helped forge. Although he didn't identify as a Jew in America, Hamilton cultivated a relationship with the Jewish community that made him unique among the founders. As a lawyer, he advocated for Jewish citizens in court. As a financial visionary, he invigorated sectors of the economy that gave Jews their greatest opportunities. As an alumnus of Columbia, he made his alma mater more welcoming to Jewish people. And his efforts are all the more striking given the pernicious antisemitism of the era. In a new nation torn between democratic promises and discriminatory practices, Hamilton fought for a republic in which Jew and Gentile would stand as equals. By setting Hamilton in the context of his Jewish world for the first time, this fascinating book challenges us to rethink the life and legend of America's most enigmatic founder.

The untold story of the founding father's likely Jewish birth and upbringing-and its revolutionary consequences for understanding him and the nation he fought to create In The Jewish World of Alexander Hamilton, Andrew Porwancher debunks a string of myths about the origins of this founding father to arrive at a startling conclusion: Hamilton, in all likelihood, was born and raised Jewish. For more than two centuries, his youth in the Caribbean has remained shrouded in mystery. Hamilton himself wanted it that way, and most biographers have simply assumed he had a Christian boyhood. With a detective's persistence and a historian's rigor, Porwancher upends that assumption and revolutionizes our understanding of an American icon. This radical reassessment of Hamilton's religious upbringing gives us a fresh perspective on both his adult years and the country he helped forge. Although he didn't identify as a Jew in America, Hamilton cultivated a relationship with the Jewish community that made him unique among the founders. As a lawyer, he advocated for Jewish citizens in court. As a financial visionary, he invigorated sectors of the economy that gave Jews their greatest opportunities. As an alumnus of Columbia, he made his alma mater more welcoming to Jewish people. And his efforts are all the more striking given the pernicious antisemitism of the era. In a new nation torn between democratic promises and discriminatory practices, Hamilton fought for a republic in which Jew and Gentile would stand as equals. By setting Hamilton in the context of his Jewish world for the first time, this fascinating book challenges us to rethink the life and legend of America's most enigmatic founder.

Amid the halls of Harvard Law, a professor of legend, James Bradley Thayer, shaped generations of students from 1874 to 1902. His devoted protEgEs included future Supreme Court justices, appellate judges, and law school deans. The legal giants of the Progressive Era-Holmes, Brandeis, and Hand, to name only a few---came under Thayer's tutelage in their formative years.He imparted to his pupils a novel jurisprudence, attuned to modern realities, that would become known as legal realism. Thayer's students learned to confront with candor the fallibility of the bench and the uncertainty of the law. Most of all, he instilled in them an abiding faith that appointed judges must entrust elected lawmakers to remedy their own mistakes if America's experiment in self-government is to survive. In the eyes of his loyal disciples, Thayer was no mere professor; he was a prophet bequeathing to them sacred truths. His followers eventually came to preside over their own courtrooms and classrooms, and from these privileged perches they remade the law in Thayer's image. Thanks to their efforts, Thayer's insights are now commonplace truisms. The Prophet of Harvard Law draws from untouched archival sources to reveal the origins of the legal world we inhabit today. It is a story of ideas and people in equal measure. Long before judges don their robes or scholars their gowns, they are mere law students on the cusp of adulthood. At that pivotal phase, a professor can make a mark that endures forever after. Thayer's life and legacy testify to the profound role of mentorship in shaping the course of legal history.

At the dawn of the twentieth century, the United States was reeling from the effects of rapid urbanization and industrialization. Time-honored verities proved obsolete, and intellectuals in all fields sought ways to make sense of an increasingly unfamiliar reality. The legal system began to buckle under the weight of its anachronism. In the midst of this crisis, John Henry Wigmore, dean of the Northwestern University School of Law, single-handedly modernized the jury trial with his 1904-5 Treatise on the Anglo-American System of Evidence in Trials at Common Law. He inspired generations of progressive jurists-among them Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Benjamin Cardozo, and Felix Frankfurter-to reshape American law to meet the demands of a new era. Yet Wigmore's role as a prophet of modernity has slipped into obscurity. This book provides a radical reappraisal of his place in the birth of modern legal thought.

Nicholas Dukes and Captain Adam Nutt were two men with much in common. Both were prominent members of Pennsylvanian society in the 1880s, both had studied law under the same mentor, and both shared an intimate connection to the beautiful Lizzie Nutt: Dukes was her debonair fiance, Nutt her doting father. Yet Dukes soured on Lizzie during their engagement and resolved to rid himself of his betrothed. He penned a scandalous letter to Captain Nutt accusing Lizzie of sexual transgressions with no fewer than seven suitors, himself included. Such were her charms of seduction, Dukes claimed, that she "would disarm the devil himself." Nutt was not one to suffer lightly an affront to his family. He fired back, "I have always held that when a man invades the sanctity of a home, he takes his life in his hands, and under this code, I shall act." In their shared village of Uniontown, Nutt confronted Dukes in a duel that would lead to one man's death and the other's sensational murder trial. Using the Dukes-Nutt affair, the book explores the role of honor in a society hesitating at the threshold between past and future. The New Narratives in American History series aims to reimagine the craft of writing history by providing compelling tales told by scholars. These brief books rely on a sustained narrative to illuminate a larger historical theme or controversy.