6 JANUARY 1923, Page 34

THE GREATEST AMERICAN : Alexander Hamilton. By Arthur Hendrick Vandenberg.

(Putnam's. 12s. 6d.) This is an interesting book and an annoying one. It is interesting not only for the Hamilton material which it includes, but also because he who reads closely between the lines can learn there a great deal about the political mind of modem America. It is annoying because it is not a careful, critical study of a great man, but merely a eulogy pitched in a monotonous key of superlatives—one of the least convincing methods of establishing a case for a hero.