Flexner, Hamilton, and psychobiography
“One is nevertheless confronted by so many shortcomings than an essay-length review would be required to discuss and to provide illustrations of them. In a comparatively brief notice, such as this, it is only possible to cryptically point to a few representative flaws: (1) the repeated use of excessively long quotations (running sometimes to many paragraphs) where paraphrases would have been far preferable; (2) footnote citations that have no discernible relationship to the text or that are actually misleading; (3) the uncritical use and occasional distortion of documentary evidence; and (4) assertions and interpretations for which - so far as one can tell - there is not a shred of factual evidence, and, relatedly, repeated exaggerations. All this inexorably leads the academic historian to the question: Where does history end and historical fiction begin?” [my emphasis]
- Jacob E. Cooke, Lafayette College, Book review of James T. Flexner’s The Young Hamilton: A Biography, Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, January 1979.
2-4 are really important points, and they’re depressingly common in biographies.
Flexner gave Hamilton the psychobiography treatment, and the effects of that still reverberate in the world of Hamilton studies. Cooke, though critical of Flexner above, would also attempt this same treatment in his own Alexander Hamilton (1982). And that’s how we get analysis like this:
In the only flash of self-knowledge in his long backward look at the affair, [Hamilton] admitted that perhaps...vanity drew him on. But it was vanity of a particular kind. Sheer pride in his power and prestige could have lured him into beginning the affair. But elementary self-interest should have made him cautious when Mr. Reynolds appeared, and driven him away altogether after he was actually blackmailed. But Hamilton was being driven, not by the pride of a man, but by the pride of a boy. The pretty woman in distress, who had already reappeared as Mrs. Arnold at West Point, was originally Rachel Faucett in the West India. He could be his father, saving her from John Lavien. He could be himself, consoling her after his ne’er-do-well father had vanished - only this time, his consolations could be effectual, because he was no longer a helpless boy, but secretary of the treasury, calling into activity the whole vigor of a nation. - Brookhiser, Alexander Hamilton, American
As a discipline, psychobiography is rather controversial. It attempts to uncover and understand the motivations of historic actors using psychological methods. In studies of the Founding Fathers, Fawn Brodie famously wrote Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History. In Hamilton’s case, historians have seen his childhood in the Caribbean as a fertile ground to imagine all sorts of things that drive the adult Hamilton and explain his behavior. These books are somehow praised for giving us the “flesh-and-blood” person, though please think about how preposterous that sounds.
As I see it, there are two main problems with psychobiography and Hamilton: 1) we simply do not have enough of the facts of Hamilton’s childhood with which to work (even better is when biographers don’t utilize Hamilton’s own words on the subject); 2) almost all of these biographers (Flexner, Cooke, Chernow among them) are not trained in psychoanalysis or really any psychological methods, instead employing armchair psychology to somehow draw connections between likely disparate events and painting a portrait of Hamilton’s personality and actions based on some sort of tormented childhood that they’ve imagined. It makes for exciting reading, but it’s not based on fact, and often not based even in decent speculation. Worse, it sometimes stands in the way of actual research, and we instead have a highly speculative, under-researched account of Hamilton’s life. And we arrive at the mess that is Flexner’s The Young Hamilton.
For some criticisms by other bloggers of Flexner and his methods (and his strong misogyny) specifically, please see the following:
@schuylering on Flexner’s treatment of Elizabeth Hamilton
@publius-esquire on Flexner’s treatment of Rachel Faucette
