Author Willard Sterne Randall didn’t plan it this way, but his Alexander Hamilton: A Life comes at a time when a group of political devotees is hoping that Congress will remove Hamilton’s portrait from the $10 bill and replace it with that of President Ronald Reagan. Randall’s biography, which offers a fresh look at the many-faceted career of one of the Founding Fathers, becomes a persuasive response to that group’s wish.

If Hamilton’s only accomplishment were rescuing the infant nation from financial disaster, that would have been enough to ensure him a lasting name and America’s gratitude. But many readers, remembering from their school days only that George Washington’s “money man” was mortally injured in a duel with Aaron Burr, will be astonished to learn of Hamilton’s truly momentous achievements and a legacy equaled by few others in U.S. annals. Randall details Hamilton’s battlefield performance, which led to his becoming Washington’s most trusted aide-de-camp in matters of war and a favorite adviser in affairs of government; his authorship of most of the Federalist Papers, essays that helped to win New York’s ratification of the Constitution and to otherwise shape U.S. political institutions; his principal roles leading to the creation of the Coast Guard and the Navy; and, of course, his critical goals and decisions as the first Secretary of the Treasury. Randall contends that if Washington was the nation’s “indispensable man,” Hamilton was Washington’s indispensable man, even writing his Farewell Speech.

Author of previously acclaimed biographies of Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benedict Arnold and Benjamin Franklin, Randall provides more than a time-line of Hamilton’s accomplishments. We are given a flesh-and-blood Hamilton. While we sometimes encounter the man at his tactful best, we also find him in moments of despair, such as when he confides to a friend, “I hate the world. I hate myself,” and in times of frustration as he lashes out at most members of Congress as “mortal enemies to talent” who have “only contempt for integrity.” We see Hamilton engaging in vitriolic and mudslinging exchanges with other politicians, and, yes, even committing adultery. (A perceptive Martha Washington once noticed an amorous tomcat and named it Hamilton.) Above all, Randall skillfully traces Hamilton’s untiring efforts to establish a financial system based on a currency that has become the most trusted medium in the world and is still graced by his portrait. A retired newsman, Alan Prince lectures at the University of Miami.

In her consistently enlightening new book, Captives: Britain, Empire, and the World, 1600-1850, award-winning historian Linda Colley examines the limitations and vulnerabilities of the British Empire during its most wide-ranging period. In 1820, one out of every five human beings on earth was under English rule a formidable fact to consider. Yet Colley proposes that because of its small size, and its dependence on maritime power and the land and resources of other people, “Britain’s empire was always overstretched, often superficial, and likely to be limited in duration.” In Colley’s view, unless we understand the phenomenon of the captivity of British subjects by enemies of that imperial power, we cannot properly appreciate or assess Britain’s overseas experience. By focusing on captivity narratives from the early 17th century to the Victorian era, Colley demonstrates the weaknesses of British power during that period. Focusing on narratives from the Mediterranean (primarily North Africa), North America and India, with a short section on Afghanistan, she offers the stories of men and women of diverse ethnic backgrounds as a means of increasing our understanding of the captivity experience. Her book offers an illuminating re-examination of the colonial experience, the repercussions of which are still being felt today. Almost without exception, Colley demonstrates, individuals became captives because they were not part of the aristocracy, and the government was powerless or indifferent when it came to offering help. It’s interesting to note that when paying ransom to obtain a captive’s release was an option, the government did not play a primary role, but churches in England often did. Colley’s discussions of each of the narratives is engrossing. We see how individuals learned to adapt to changing circumstances, often with the objective of personal survival. Although the narratives often mix insightful reportage with religious, political and historical prejudice, they remain valuable testaments to the relationship between the oppressor and oppressed, despite their shortcomings as historical truth. This is an insightful and stimulating book that presents history with a fresh perspective. Roger Bishop is a frequent contributor to BookPage.

At least 23 of the 118 sailors who died aboard the Kursk survived the internal explosions that sent the nuclear submarine to the bottom of Arctic waters in August 2000. That was confirmed by the contents of a note found on one of the bodies. What we don’t know is whether or not the Russian regime preferred these men dead. That’s the main question addressed by author Robert Moore in A Time to Die: The Untold Story of the Kursk Tragedy. With cool dispassion, Moore dissects every element of the nightmare both inside and outside the stricken vessel that gripped the world for nine agonizing days. And in the process, he demonstrates that the Russian government’s Communist mentality and its military culture have survived the break-up of the Soviet Union.

Twice the size of a jumbo jet and longer than two football fields, the Kursk provided a clear example of the sea adage that a submarine has room for everything except a mistake. Moore examines what the international community has deemed errors, among which were a 48-hour cover-up, falsified reports blaming the West, the impoverished Russian Navy’s failure to maintain adequate rescue equipment, and the government’s reluctance to ask for outside assistance. All these factors contribute to the notion that the Kremlin in Moscow, where a tram driver is paid as much as a nuclear submarine commander, valued machines more than men.

Combining forensic evidence with the laws of physics, Moore masterfully re-creates the doomed sailors’ final hours. And, thanks to a tape recorder hidden under the coat of a journalist, we are able to eavesdrop on a raucous meeting unthinkable in the old Russia between the outraged families of the dead sailors and President Vladimir Putin, who was still on vacation in the sunny Crimea five days after the accident. As Moore, chief U.S. correspondent for the British news agency ITN, skillfully reconstructs the hour-by-hour sequence leading to the divers’ excruciating approach to the sunken submarine, readers might find themselves ignoring what they already know about the outcome and hoping against hope that some of the trapped sailors will be found alive. Alan Prince of Deerfield Beach, Florida, lectures at the University of Miami.

<B>An unlikely figure in Japan’s history</B> Giles Milton, author of <I>Nathaniel’s Nutmeg</I>, returns to the perils and adventures of the 17th-century Pacific Rim in <B>Samurai William</B>. With a novelist’s eye, Milton illuminates a little-known but utterly remarkable period during which the fiercely insular Japanese shogunate opened its doors to the West, thanks mostly to the pluck and perseverance of an unlikely Englishman named William Adams. At the end of a disastrous Dutch expedition seeking a westward route to Asia, Adams’ dilapidated and undermanned ship drifted helplessly into Japanese waters in April of 1600. Adams and his crew were not the first Westerners to reach the Japanese coast Portuguese missionaries had begun to trickle in more than half a century before but they would be the most influential during Japan’s brief dalliance with the West.

Forbidden to return to his native Britain, Adams made the best of his situation, learning the Japanese language and customs, befriending the Japanese shogun and, as Britain and the Netherlands began to establish tentative toeholds of commerce on Japanese soil, becoming a <I>de facto</I> minister of European affairs. It was harrowing, often dangerous work: Japan was fraught with civil wars, and political, commercial and religious tensions frequently boiled over into violence among the Europeans. Shortly after Adams’ death, the Europeans were expelled from Japan, and the island nation again receded into isolation. Two centuries would pass before Japan restored contact with the West. Although almost nothing of the European sojourn had survived the wars and weather of the intervening generations, the memory of the man the Japanese called Anjin Sama, or Mr. Pilot, had been preserved in the name of Tokyo’s Anjincho district. Not only a unique figure in European history, William Adams had also earned his place in the annals of Japan. Adams’ story inspired James Clavell’s fictional <I>Shogun</I>, but the actual events of his life make as worthy a tale as any novel. Milton evokes with equal skill the gritty quays of London, the soupy tropical shores of equatorial Africa and the exquisite palace of Osaka. He has written an adventure tale that will appeal to both the armchair historian as well as the armchair explorer. <I>Elizabeth Entman writes from Manhattan.</I>

In The Conquerors, presidential historian Michael Beschloss delivers a fascinating exploration of how the Allies decided to deal with the threat posed by Germany after World War II. As he shows in the book, Franklin Delano Roosevelt fervently believed that it would not be enough to defeat the Nazis militarily. It was also imperative that the Allies lay the foundation for democracy in postwar Germany. Without that, history indicated it was likely that Germany would initiate another war in the decades ahead. Despite sharp policy difference with Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin, not to mention division within his own cabinet, FDR’s broad vision prevailed. This piece of wartime statecraft, says Beschloss, was “one of America’s great 20th century international achievements.” In exploring the complexity of FDR’s leadership and demonstrating that the politician who wanted to keep his options open, who was flexible and duplicitous, was also able to win the acceptance of such positions as Germany’s unconditional surrender, Beschloss drawing on previously unseen documents from the FBI, Russia and private archives tells an absorbing story, one that’s carefully researched and compellingly written. Among FDR’s major flaws was his refusal to publicly condemn what we know as the Holocaust until 1944, although he had learned of it much earlier. Also, in what Beschloss describes as “one of the great mistakes of modern diplomacy,” neither FDR nor his negotiators raised the issue of U.S. or British access to Berlin because it might make the Russians “suspicious.” In 1945, General Dwight Eisenhower said the success of the Allied occupation of Germany could only be judged in 50 years. “If the Germans at that time have a stable, prosperous democracy, then we shall have succeeded.” This important book is a cogent reminder from the relatively recent past that it is often not enough to achieve military victory. Winning the peace is also crucially important. Roger Bishop is a Nashville bookseller and regular contributor to BookPage.

In a competition held in 1401, Lorenzo Ghiberti defeated Filippo Brunelleschi in winning the contract to sculpt a pair of bronze doors for the baptistery of the cathedral of Florence, Italy. Subsequently, Brunelleschi’s plan to build a dome atop the cathedral was chosen over Ghiberti’s. They did not know then they could not know then that their ensuing life-long rivalry would serve to instruct and inspire a host of other artists, thus bringing to Italy, and to the Western world, the dawn of a refreshing new age.

Author Paul Robert Walker tells their story in The Feud That Sparked the Renaissance: How Brunelleschi and Ghiberti Changed the Art World. Millions of visitors to Florence see the artistic masterpieces of these two, hear a tour guide’s five-minute spiel and then leave for the next attraction. It is a pity that they depart without really appreciating the nuances of the antagonists’ strained relationship and with scant knowledge of their personalities and even less about the politics, working conditions and economic factors that shaped their generation all of which are superbly resurrected in this book.

Walker reviews the painstaking efforts involved in Ghiberti’s crafting of the religious-themed reliefs for the gilded portals. They were so beautiful that one year after he completed the doors, he was commissioned to do two more, which Michelangelo is said to have described as worthy of being the “Gates of Paradise.” The author also details Brunelleschi’s ingenious solution to designing and constructing the cathedral’s dome, which because of its size then the largest in the world had stymied everyone else for more than a century. Its loftiness (280 feet above the ground) persuaded officials to serve only diluted wine to the workmen.

The author treats us to an explanation of Brunelleschi’s development of what probably was the most important artistic breakthrough of the Renaissance: the mathematical principle of linear perspective depicting a subject on a flat surface in such a way that it appears so real viewers feel they can reach out and touch it. With this book, Walker author of 20 previous titles on subjects ranging from the American West to miracles, from baseball to folklore widens his reputation for versatility. His newest work is sure to bring such sheer pleasure to people interested in history, architecture and art that many of them will regard the book itself as a work of art. An ex-newsman, Alan Prince of Deerfield Beach, Florida, now writes and lectures.

Defining and showcasing the American identity is a fruitful endeavor for publishers, who take up the challenge this season with a quartet of fine new gift books. Spotlighting spectacular and little-known events from our country’s history and examining the roots of our national character, these selections shed new light on a seemingly inexhaustible subject.

There is virtually no page unillustrated in The Story Of America (DK, $35, 672 pages, ISBN 0789489031), a splendidly designed and colloquially written history by Allen Weinstein and David Rubel. Besides the predictable head shots of the great and the curious, there are also copious images of tools, costumes, coins, buildings, maps, political cartoons, posters, magazine covers, handbills and kindred historical artifacts. Subtitled “Freedom and Crisis from Settlement to Superpower,” the book begins with the conquests of Cortes and concludes with the terrorist attacks of September 11 and their immediate aftermath. To make the evolution of the nation more understandable, the authors pinpoint 26 specific events among them the Salem witch trials, John Brown’s raid on the armory at Harpers Ferry, the Watergate investigations and present them with cinematic immediacy. These accounts are complemented by succinct profiles, written by other historians, of such pivotal political, social and cultural figures as Supreme Court justice John Marshall, abolitionist Harriet Tubman, Native American warrior and statesman Quanah Parker and playwright and activist Lillian Hellman. Clearly organized and well indexed, The Story of America is a visual delight that will give American history buffs hours of browsing pleasure.

Freedom: A History of US by Joy Hakim (Oxford, $40, 416 pages, ISBN 0195157117) is a companion piece to the forthcoming 16-part PBS series, “Freedom: A History of US,” which will begin airing Jan. 12. A former teacher, reporter and editorial writer, Hakim first gained fame as a historian with her 10-volume History of US, written as texts for elementary school students. This new book aspires to an older audience, although it remains exceedingly readable and filled with the enthusiasm Hakim brought to her original work. She writes much of her narrative in present tense to heighten the notion that long-ago events are occurring before our eyes. “In the South, where blacks often outnumber whites, many whites don’t want black people to have guns,” Hakim observes in a passage on the use of black soldiers in the Revolutionary War. Her short sentences and simple words belie the toughness of her theme that individual freedom, the philosophy on which this nation’s government is based, is an easier doctrine to espouse than ensure. Each section of her book charts the progress of and deviations from the ideal. Illustrated with highlighted quotations and 400 photos. In their new book In Search Of America (Hyperion, $50, 307 pages, ISBN 0786867086) ABC News anchor Peter Jennings and producer Todd Brewster focus on specific activities occurring within each of six towns Aiken, South Carolina; Boulder, Colorado; Washington, D. C.; Plano, Texas; Gary, Indiana; and Salt Lake City, Utah. From watching these activities and noting how the towns’ citizens respond to them, the authors deduce certain truths about the American character. For example, the push to put religion in or keep it out of the Aiken school system reveals the raging but still-unresolved struggle between science and faith, moral relativism and absolutes. Visits to the other cities enable the authors to speculate on how a broad spectrum of the population views the role of government, capitalism and globalization, entertainment and popular culture, race and immigration. Rich in photographs, the book is further enhanced by breezily written profiles of people from other parts of the country. It is doubtful that In Search Of America teaches us anything that a reasonably intelligent adult wouldn’t already know. But it does bring our own beliefs about the nature of America into sharper focus. In September, ABC-TV aired a six-part companion series to this book.

A collection of photos meant to reveal the American character (and how little it has changed), America Yesterday and Today by Blythe Hamer has just enough text to sketch in highlights of the nation’s history of the last hundred years or so. As visualized here, that character manifests itself in sections titled “Free Time,” “American Classics,” “Sports ∧ Entertainment,” “The Great Outdoors,” “The City,” “Everyday Living” and “Celebrations.” With few exceptions, the images range from benign to uplifting. Even photos of social protest such as those contrasting opposition to the Vietnam War and to the World Trade Organization show no heads being cracked or blood flowing. The fallen World Trade Center is detectable only by the faraway smoke from its unseen ruins. Many of the shots come with built-in laughs: the bathing beauties of the 1920s standing cheek-to-cheek, as it were, with their bikini-clad great-granddaughters; the born-again tough guy wearing a T-shirt that proclaims “Satan Sucks”; the skateboarders using garbage bags for sails. More pleasant than provocative, America Yesterday and Today is a scrapbook for a nation, with scenes from our daily lives that illuminate who we were, and are.

Many people have been more famous in death than in life, but Elmer McCurdy would seem to take the prize for post-mortem renown. McCurdy died at the relatively tender age of 31, then had a remarkably fertile career as a celebrity corpse, first in funeral parlors, then in carnivals, a wax museum, film and, finally, an amusement park. The entire stint lasted 65 years.

With insight, and with tongue planted firmly in cheek, Mark Svenvold relates the story of this unusual figure in his new book Elmer McCurdy: The Misadventures in Life and Afterlife of an American Outlaw. In the process, the author also presents an incisive commentary on American entertainment history. While dead bodies have been held sacred since the time of the ancient Greeks, the underbelly of America’s low-end entertainment scene thought nothing of exploiting a human corpse along with the average American’s fascination with the grotesque.

McCurdy began life inauspiciously as an illegitimate baby in rural Maine. He earned his dubious claim to fame as an outlaw by bungling a couple of train robberies. His death, in a shoot out in 1911, featured all the color and flamboyance that his life lacked.

McCurdy’s body, unclaimed by friend or relative, languished at Johnson’s Funeral Home in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, laced with enough arsenic to preserve it well into the 21st century. Presumably to defray the expense of his storage, the embalmer put McCurdy on display for paying sightseers.

For the next several decades McCurdy traveled the beer-and-pretzels entertainment circuit, changing hands when one get-rich-quick scheme gave way to another. It isn’t clear when or where folks lost track of the fact that he was a dead body and not an inanimate prop. Svenvold hints that truth didn’t much matter to the carnies and B-movie makers who passed McCurdy’s body from one enterprise to another.

Part of McCurdy’s appeal in death was his ability to tap into America’s secret fascination with outlaws and self-destructive behavior. In reconstructing his eventful life and afterlife, Mark Svenvold holds up a mirror to this interesting contradiction in our nation’s collective psychological profile. Lynn Hamilton writes from Tybee Island, Georgia.

When he was preparing to preside at the burial of the remains of Tsar Nicholas Romanov II and his family in St. Petersburg in 1998, Father Boris Glebov is reported to have said: “I really don’t know who I am burying.” During the service a few days later, the priest was forbidden to utter the names of the victims, because the Russian Orthodox Church refused to acknowledge the authenticity of the bones. Unswerved, President Boris Yeltsin asserting that “we must tell the truth” attended the ceremony and declared, “By burying the innocent victims we want to expiate the sins of our ancestors.” In The Secret Plot to Save the Tsar, author Shay McNeal begins to do what even glasnost has failed to accomplish: effectively penetrate the thick layers of fabricated and suppressed Russian history. She dismisses Yeltsin’s comments as a politically correct attempt at closure, and she raises unsettling questions about the results of DNA tests on what the government insists were the bones of Russia’s last tsar, his wife Alexandra and three of their five children.

In the decades since the 1918 execution of the Romanovs, a number of claimants have appeared, asserting they were the children who miraculously survived the massacre. Their stories have kindled an avalanche of books, movies and documentaries. More than rehashing these tales, McNeal widens the scope of the Romanov tragedy by tracing complicated relationships and complex intrigues that she says form a chain of events emanating from an international plot to spare the life of the tsar. She cites evidence linking the plot to U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, England’s King George V, Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm and even to Russia’s double-dealing V.I. Lenin. The author brings superb research efforts to this book. Her sleuthing is at its best when she pits previously neglected documents and newly declassified files against official versions, thereby producing perplexing discrepancies and contradictions and thus assuring that one of the greatest mysteries of the last century will continue to frustrate international historians and fascinate Romanov aficionados.