#Brookhiser

[ravewing]

i cannot with jefferson being described as having a deep deviousness😭😭oh jefferson you little rascal!!! youre so devious, we cant take you anywhere🤦‍♂️

[46ten]

James Hamilton, Sr (speculation)

I'm going to beat this dead horse some more.

In checking to see whether any new records have been discovered about James Hamilton, Jr (if that was his name - Peter Lavien thought it might be 'Robert,' haha), born 1751 or 1753 or some point in the 1750s, who may have been apprenticed as a carpenter (Ramsing) and who engaged in some occupation where AH thought he could be set up on a farm (AH's letter to his brother), I didn't find anything!

But I did find one fairly recent article stating James Hamilton Sr. abandoned his family shortly after AH was born, and I just wonder where folks get this stuff? It's one thing to state "unknown," and another to totally make something up. And there's reasoning, beyond just lack of evidence, that this bothers me so much.

I'd like to reflect on why it's popular for some historians to state that James Hamilton abandoned his family:

It allows them to create a narrative where AH was desperate for a father figure and this psychological motivation plays out in his relationship with GWashington. Spoiler: there's really nothing to point to in order to assert that AH was looking for a father figure/sought out approval from an older, paternal figure. From his correspondence, he was happy with the father he did have, and the person he played a son to was Philip Schuyler.

It says something about their own attitude towards financial misfortune. AH states in at least four different letters to different people (based on my recall) that his father fell into great misfortune and his affairs were wrecked, or that he tried but could not achieve great success, or something along those lines. He was "too generous, too easy of temper, too much pride, too large a portion of indolence." But it's never that his father just up and abandoned him.

(Let's limit this to just middle-class Americans) It takes very little - the loss of a job while living in a location not conducive to finding another job, a physical accident, a medical illness, a natural disaster - for someone to end up in crippling debt that they never recover from financially. According to Newton's research, James Hamilton may have spent part of his time running from debt collectors, and then may have taken any odd job he could. But being in a bad financial situation is not a moral failing, no matter how much the editor of National Review (Brookhiser) and a former WSJ writer and biographer of JP Morgan and Rockefeller (Chernow) may believe it.

Two things that can stall a financial slide and prevent destitution are 1) family wealth; 2) ability to draw on equity/credit. Rachel Faucette had both: her relatives were wealthy, and she was a slave owner who could use those enslaved persons as collateral and rent out their labor. James Hamilton apparently had neither. But that doesn't make him a horrible father who abandoned his kids.

This leads to some interesting speculation I came across - one researcher casually mentioning that given the circumstances of Rachel's divorce, James Hamilton Sr. would have had to adopt his sons to legitimize them. (This type of event - having to petition to adopt an illegitimate child that was the product of a long-term but illicit relationship, actually happened in my own family about 175 years ago - there's an official act of the state legislature of this adoption). And this made me think:

There's decent speculation that James Hamilton ran out of money/opportunities in Statia in 1765, which is what led him to St. Croix in 1765 to act as a debt collector for his employer.

Rachel and their two sons move there either that year, or certainly by 1766 (we can locate AH in St. Croix in 1766) but he cannot be counted in a census with the family, or perhaps even live with the family, because of the restrictions on Rachel (not clear that this was the case under Danish colonial law).

When Rachel dies intestate, custody of his sons likely would have gone to her nearest relatives - her son Peter Lavien, and then her Faucette relatives like the Lyttons (her sister's family).

And that James Hamilton Sr likely didn't have legal rights to his sons, but nevertheless does try to settle on another Caribbean island and have property, possibly thinking that they could join him at some point (if their affairs went to wreck, too) makes me feel a certain way. This narrative by conservative historians to paint James, living in the even harsher 18th century, as a neglectful father because he couldn't get on a solid footing financially and was in a decade plus relationship with a woman with whom - after they'd already had two kids - it was determined by a St. Croix court that they could not legitimize the union or children in anyway - is really f'ed up, and tells one a lot more about the worldview of those historians than it tells us about the relationship between James and his son(s).

Anyway, the only thing new here is the question of James Hamilton Sr's legal rights to his son, as I've written of most of the rest of this before. Posting about it in case I take up research of Danish colonial law in the future!

[deadpresidents]

Could you recommend books on the Supreme Court? I honestly didn’t think there were any.

There are countless numbers of books about the Supreme Court, so it really depends on what exactly you're interested in reading about, whether that might be a general history of the Court itself, biographies of the most influential justices, landmark cases, and so on.

By no means is this a complete list, but here's some suggestions that I can recommend:

GENERAL HISTORY OF THE SUPREME COURT •A People's History of the Supreme Court: The Men and Women Whose Cases and Decisions Have Shaped Our Constitution by Peter Irons (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) •Nine Scorpions in a Bottle: Great Judges and Cases of the Supreme Court by Max Lerner and edited by Richard Cummings (BOOK) •The Supreme Court by William H. Rehnquist (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) -- This history of the Court is especially interesting because it was written by the incumbent Chief Justice. •The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court by Jeffrey Toobin (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

BOOKS ABOUT SPECIFIC JUSTICES OR COURTS •The Oath: The Obama White House and the Supreme Court by Jeffrey Toobin (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) •Leaving the Bench: Supreme Court Justices at the End by David N. Atkinson (BOOK) -- A unique book about Justices at the end of their time on the Court and how they ultimately left the Court. Most of them died in office because the Court is a lifetime appointment, but the book looks at how some Justices held on to their seats and remained on the bench despite failing health or faltering cognitive abilities. •First: Sandra Day O'Connor by Evan Thomas (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) •Sisters In Law: How Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg Went to the Supreme Court and Changed the World by Linda Hirshman (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) -- An excellent dual biography about the first two women ever appointed to the Supreme Court and the impact they had on American law. •The Brethren: Inside the Supreme Court by Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) -- The legendary journalist from the Washington Post gives the Woodward treatment to the Supreme Court presided over by Chief Justice Warren E. Burger. •The Showdown: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court Nomination That Changed America by Wil Haygood (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) -- The remarkable life of Thurgood Marshall, who was already a legendary figure in the annals of American justice as a civil rights lawyer who successfully argued the case the led to the Supreme Court striking down Brown v. the Board of Education. Marshall's place in history became even more important when President Lyndon B. Johnson nominated him as the first-ever Black Supreme Court Justice. •Five Chiefs: A Supreme Court Memoir by John Paul Stevens (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) -- This is probably my favorite of the recommendations. John Paul Stevens, the third longest-serving Justice in the history of the Supreme Court, writes about the five Chief Justices (Fred Vinson, Earl Warren, Warren E. Burger, William H. Rehnquist, and John Roberts) that he worked for or with throughout his long career, beginning as a law clerk under Chief Justice Vinson and eventually serving as Associate Justice alongside Chief Justice Burger, Chief Justice Rehnquist, and Chief Justice Roberts.

BOOKS ABOUT JOHN MARSHALL (Longest-serving Chief Justice of the United States and arguably the most important judge in American history) •John Marshall: The Chief Justice Who Saved the Nation by Harlow Giles Unger (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) •Without Precedent: Chief Justice John Marshall and His Times by Joel Richard Paul (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) •John Marshall: The Man Who Made the Supreme Court by Richard Brookhiser (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

I also strongly recommend checking out James F. Simon's books about the Supreme Court and the Presidency, which focus on the impact that the Court and the Chief Justices at the time had on specific Presidential Administrations. These are all written by James F. Simon: •Eisenhower vs. Warren: The Battle for Civil Rights and Liberties (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) •Lincoln and Chief Justice Taney: Slavery, Secession, and the President's War Powers (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) •What Kind of Nation: Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, and the Epic Struggle to Create a United States (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) •FDR and Chief Justice Hughes: The President, the Supreme Court, and the Epic Battle Over the New Deal (BOOK | KINDLE)

[almackey]

Abraham Lincoln - Redeemer President

This is a great discussion between Professor Lucas Morel, Richard Brookhiser, and Dr. Allen Guelzo on Dr. Guelzo’s recently released second edition of his book, Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President. The video’s description reads, “Princeton’s Allen Guelzo was joined by historians Lucas Morel and Richard Brookhiser to take an updated look at the revised second edition of Mr. Guelzo’s 1999…

[restitutor-orbis]

I’m reading Alexander Hamilton, American, recommended by @aswithasunbeam, and I just died when Brookhiser wrote “This is certainly important, but no one loves their accountant.” I don’t know why that’s so funny. XD

[bigtickhk]

John Marshall: The Man Who Made the Supreme Court by Richard Brookhiser https://amzn.to/2BZnvCc

[sonofhistory]

President Adams never enforced the Alien Act, but there were fourteen prosecutions under the Sedition Act.

James Madison by Richard Brookhiser

A few prosecuted under the act:

Matthew Lyon: A Republican congressman from Vermont convicted for writing in a newspaper he edited that John Adams “grasp[ed] for power” and was a “ridiculous pomp”. He was fined $1,000 and spent four months in jail. 

James Callender: Arrested for calling Adams a “hideous hermaphroditical character”. He was fined $200 and was sentenced nine months in jail. 

Benjamin Franklin Bache: Editor of the Aurora Republican newspaper. Escaped prison by dying of yellow fever while awaiting trial. 

William Duane: An Irish immigrant who avoided prosecutions by threatening to expose administration secrets. He also went underground. 

Chalres Holt: Editor of a New London, Connecticut, newspaper

Thomas Cooper: A British radical who edited a small Pennsylvania newspaper

[wowmagazine2016]

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, AMERICA’S GREATEST TORY, A POSTMARK

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, AMERICA’S GREATEST TORY, A POSTMARK by @bushmillsvassar

Vassar Bushmills

I wrote the essay that follows in Jan 2015, almost 6 months before Donald Trump announced his candidacy. So read in that context, for the conversation was more about the hard solutions being offered by radicals such as Ted Cruz than the soon to be “clown”, Donald Trump.

Who doesn’t hang on every word of Charles Krauthammer? He is conservatism’s finest wordsmith, the last word on…

[aswithasunbeam]

Hi! I just wanted to ask how you got into Hamilton! I love your fics, by the way.

Aww, thanks so much! I love to hear people are enjoying them!

So, how I got into Hamilton…Back when I was a lazy freshman in college, I had to researcha paper for my U.S. history class, and I picked up Richard Brookhiser’s Alexander Hamilton, American because itwas the short. I devoured it in a day, and I was completely hooked. (Honestly, for anyone that lovesHamilton but finds Chernow intimidating, start with this book. It’s only about200 pages, but it’s really excellent.) I read everything I could get my handson after that—I probably warped my spine carrying Chernow’s biography aroundfor a year. Hamilton and his views on slavery ended up being the subject of myundergrad thesis.

In the midst of my growing obsession, one of my friendsemailed me LMM’s White House performance with the subject, “He’s one of you.” Iremember watching it and thinking, oh, that’s so cool! I hope a few peopleactually go see it. (Ha!) I received the tremendous gift of tickets to see theplay back in 2016 with the OBC and Javi in as Hamilton. It was, withoutexaggeration, one of the greatest days of my life!! I’ve listened to the soundtrack pretty much everyday since then.

[john-marshall]

"he is in our textbooks and our wallets, but not our hearts" he should get into my Ass

[yr-obedt-cicero]

btw, I just saw it and why do u think that ham was born in 1757? just curious

p.s.: love to see you rambling in ur posts lmao /gen

Okay- That is like one of the nicest things somebody has ever told me?? Thank you??

Also sorry this took some time to actually get around to posting, I have procrastination issues. But anyway, I personally believe Hamilton's birthday year to be in '57 because we have such little evidence to prove otherwise. And who's to say young Hamilton wouldn't have lied about his age before to look older? Especially since he was looking for employment, it would have not been a unlikely shot. Now really, I'm not to say there is any true right or wrong answer. It's all debatable because there is no solid source of evidence to proclaim either one true. So it's really just an opinion at most.

The evidence we do have regarding Hamilton's birthday year being in '57 is just his own claims of such. Any documents in America of his birth year were always signed as 1757. Now it is most popularly considered, especially by historians, that his birthday was in 1755 and that Hamilton had chipped off a few years to look younger so it would help him get into college easier. As it was most common kids at age fifteen or younger attended college in the 18th century, and Hamilton is believed to have been seventeen when he arrived in the colonies.

But what evidence do we have to support this claim is actually pretty small. All he have is a probate court case that was turned into a transcript. Which is not necessarily enough, because Lewine hadn't known the boys very well and could have made the error, or once again, Hamilton could have lied hoping to appear more mature and adequate for hiring. As the Alexander Hamilton Wikipedia has also said; Historians have pointed out that the probate document contained other proven inaccuracies, demonstrating it was not entirely reliable. Richard Brookhiser noted that "a man is more likely to know his own birthday than a probate court."

“—where on the 19th of this month Madam Rachael Lewine died, and whose effects were forthwith sealed up, in order now to take an inventory of them for subsequent distribution among the decedent’s surviving children, who are 3 sons, namely, Peter Lewine, born in the marriage of the decedent with John Michael Lewine who, later, is said for valid reasons to have obtained from the highest authorities a divorce from her (according to what the probate court has been able to ascertain), also 2 other sons, namely, James Hamilton and Alexander Hamilton, the one 15 and the other 13 years old, who are the same illegitimate children sc. born after the decedent’s separation from the aforesaid Lewine."

(source)

The Caribbean was by no means professional or wealthy, if Hamilton could not even have a surviving birth certificate, it's not doubtful to say their law system probably wasn't the most efficient either. (Also they settled Hamilton's "suicide" case horribly)

There only one other form of "evidence" we have is this letter that was posted on a poem given to the news in Saint Croix.

“Sir, I am a youth about seventeen, and consequently such an attempt as this must be presumptuous; but if, upon perusal, you think the following piece worthy of a place in your paper, by inserting it you’ll much oblige Your obedient servant.

-A.H"

(source)

We don't actually know if this poem was submitted by Hamilton or not, though historians have assumed such because of the initials. The poem was submitted in April 6, 1771, so it would not add up if Hamilton's birth was 1757. But this is again where I bring up, Hamilton could have changed the year to appear more suitable and employable. Especially to try and get his poem in the Gazette.

Basically, Hamilton could have fudged with the numbers either way, wether it was to appear older or younger, and I would not consider him above doing either honestly. The probate court case transcript is not enough solid evidence in my opinion though.

Not to mention, Hamilton was often described as scrawny and young looking when he made it to the colonies. As one had said Hamilton in his beginning years of military, "I noticed a youth, a mere stripling, small, slender, almost delicate in frame," Though it should also be noted Hamilton suffered with immunity and would often be sick while in war.

So it's really up to the interpretation, I find '57 to be overall more believable because I think it be a very "Hamilton thing" to lie about your age to appear older and help him get a job. Especially since he had been desperate and willing to do lots in order to just get out of the islands and make a name for himself. And we really have only two unreliable accounts to say otherwise. But it's really up to anyone on what to think! ^^

[46ten]

Historians and Hamilton (or a brief defense of Michael E. Newton)

There is a post out there that's something like "don't believe Michael E. Newton - he's not a historian and he's a finance bro." (I'm not deliberately vagueblogging - I just can't find the post and it's been weeks.) Now I'm not a Newton fan, and last I checked he was promoting an hour long youtube video on Alexander Hamilton's kindness (or some such nonsense), but he's conducted original research that merits review.

My concern with the post was two-fold:

That's just the old ad hominem fallacy;

2. Finance bro? - who do folks think Alexander Hamilton was?

There was a discussion on here about 1-2 years ago about who was/wasn't deserving of the title historian. "Historians" come from a variety of departments - journalism (Ron Chernow, financial journalist), English (Fawn Brodie, famous for biography of Jefferson and introduction of psychobiography), economics (Broadus Mitchell, still the gold standard Alexander Hamilton biographer) and so on. What ultimately matters is if they present their work for scholarly evaluation, and Newton does that. I have issues with some of his interpretations - though most are very limited anyway -but he's put his own or crowd-funded money towards finding and piecing together documents and put it out there for anyone to evaluate, as far as I can see (disclosure - I briefly interacted with him about a specific question about his research and he provided responses). The facts he's presented about Hamilton's early life are either right or wrong. He's also accepted by others wearing the historian hat, among them Richard Brookhiser (as the editor of National Review, maybe he's dubious, but he's certainly gotten awards and funding for history studies) and Stephen F Knott (can't really question his bona fides).

Now the great irony of Newton's discoveries about AHamilton is that they demolish the very argument that finance bros most want to make about the background of the man - that he was self-made, someone who rose up through his own merit, someone whose unfortunate background led to a lifetime of striving for the public good. Newton's AHamilton is a descendent of one of the wealthiest families in St. Croix, his mother - even post-divorce - had middle class wealth, the members of his extended family were the wealthiest people on St. Croix, he became a sort of business manager for an international shipping firm based out of NYC, he's gifted 15x the average salary of an American laborer by a relative, he arrives in the American colonies and goes to live with two of the wealthiest men in the colonies and attends schools that the wealthiest people in the colonies send their own kids to, and continues to receive opportunities through West Indian/American connections. And later, poor guy, his half-brother leaves him over 10x the average salary of an American laborer. This is not someone working their way up from the bottom, engaged in a struggle to overcome hardship and poverty. This is also not someone who is going to be personally insecure about his status. Compared to the average Anglo-American white man of that time period, heck let's even define it as the average Anglo-American middle class white man, Alexander Hamilton led a very privileged early life. But to repeat, that's not what finance bros - or those who love the Hamilton musical - want you to know about Alexander Hamilton, which makes Newton's work pretty interesting.

[knee-breeches]

Hi! I'm not sure how active this blog still is, but I'm a newcomer to amrev stuff and know pretty much nothing about Madison, what would be a good book to start with? (Also I really really like your blog because I haven't seen *anyone* else post about him. Bonus question: what made you interested in him?)

Best entry-level Madison biography is definitely “James Madison” by Richard Brookhiser. He’s a great founding-era biographer for anyone starting to learn, because he’s fairly unbiased and succinct, but still comprehensive. Steer clear of the Lynn Cheney biography, because it’s majorly sensationalized/selective history, and it generally just sucks. 

As for how I became interested in Madison in particular: I read “How to Fight the Presidents” by Daniel O’Brien years ago, looked more into Madison as a result, and then became invested because I was intrigued by the combination of “underdog” and “pragmatic intrigue” that, in my estimation, comprised Madison’s character.

[strangeandforlornbooks]

✨January 2021 Reads✨

rereads in bold, favorites in italics

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J K Rowling ~ finishing my annual reread. perfect as always. weird how the characters I've looked up to for more than a decade now seem way too young 5/5

Circe by Madeline Miller ~ reread for book club. our theme was feminist reinterpretations of Greek myths!

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J K Rowling ~ genuinely feel like I could write a dissertation on Christian iconography in this and how Harry’s character arc is all about faith. gets me every time

Meditations on First Philosophy by René Descartes ~ for my philosophy course. really vibed w/ it, especially after Aristotle last semester. ‘my perception of God is prior to my perception of myself.’

An Oresteia by Anne Carson ~ you think ‘not to me. not if it’s you.’ is a really tender line if you’ve only seen it on Tumblr but that play was, in fact, entirely insane. another book club read.

If We Were Villains by M L Rio ~ the prose! the characters! the emotions! the Shakespeare! the self-sacrifice and the love and the friendship and the sorrow! The despair and then the faintest of hopes! I could not handle it

Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power by Victor Davis Hanson ~ fun if you like military history like me. battle of tenochtitlan was WILD stuff

The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood ~ written well but there was never, like, a point. another book club read

Give Me Liberty: A History of America’s Exceptional Idea by Richard Brookhiser ~ American political history, yay! loved the analyses of early American democracy especially

Battle Cry by Leon Uris ~ on the one hand, Leon Uris can’t write, but on the other boy can he write. wildly unrealistic but very lovable characters, exciting adventures, moving battle scenes. you know things aren’t going to end well when you only have 50 pages left and it’s still 1943.

[angelqueen04]

Alexander Hamilton Virtual Book Club

Join leading Alexander Hamilton authors and scholars in the coming months as part of the virtual "Hamilton Book Club." The next four months will include discussions on highly ranked Hamilton books, with the opportunity to share your viewpoints and have your questions answered. Some of the authors  of these books have confirmed their participation and will be part of the sessions.

DATE: September 13, 2020 TIME: 6 P.M. BOOK: Alexander Hamilton, American, by Richard Brookhiser

[collapsedsquid]

As the WASPs declined, the topic spawned a mini-genre all its own. Peter Schrag’s 1971 contribution (an early version of which appeared as an essay in the April 1970 issue of this magazine) quotes H. L. Mencken dating the decline to 1924, which Schrag deemed premature (recall that Baltzell had dated the beginning of the decline just five years later, with the stock market crash). Schrag catalogues some of the prominent artists and intellectuals of the time—most were Jewish, a few were immigrants, and some were even black people and American Indians. Foreign Affairs remained soundly Waspish, but gone was the day when “American” meant “WASP” (forgetting enslaved people and their descendants); the native stock had gotten complacent and outnumbered. Sounding like a contemporary celebrant of the internet-driven demise of the cultural and political gatekeepers, Schrag cheered “the vacuum left by the old arbiters of the single standard—Establishment intellectuals, literary critics, English professors, museum directors, and all the rest” as “a sort of cultural prison break.” He did, however, worry that if “the WASP’s mediating function . . . were to be seriously eroded,” chaos could ensue.

Almost two decades later, Robert Christopher’s Crashing the Gates noted all the non-Anglo-Saxons penetrating the corporate elite, some of whom affected the WASP manner—such as Pete Peterson, the private equity mogul who made a second career of trying to eviscerate Social Security and Medicare—and others who didn’t, such as Lee Iacocca, who rescued Chrysler in the 1980s. (Both were sons of immigrant restaurant owners—Peterson of Greeks who owned a diner in Nebraska, Iacocca of Italians who owned a hot dog joint in Pennsylvania.) The gatekeepers didn’t give up without a fight, though. A friend of mine who grew up in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, home to the Fords and other old-line auto execs, told me that when Iacocca tried to buy a house in an über-Waspy enclave of the town, it was taken off the market. When he made an offer on another, it, too, was taken off the market. That is caste discipline.

The Decline of the WASP and Crashing the Gates were serious chronicles that largely approved of WASP decline in the name of diversity, but 1991 brought a lament from the right: Richard Brookhiser’s The Way of the WASP: How It Made America, and How It Can Save It . . . So to Speak. (“So to speak” is admittedly a nice touch.) Brookhiser found no virtue in diversification. To him, what came after WASPdom was not a culture but a product of decay. Gone were the days when virtues like conscience, industry, civic-mindedness, and anti-sensuality commanded respect and deference. (Anti-sensuality indeed: comfort is scorned. Thermostats are kept low in the winter, and when I suggested to my WASP mother-in-law that I might get an air conditioner for the room we sleep in at the family summer retreat, I got a look like I’d proposed turning the place into a bordello.) For Brookhiser, part of what killed the old order was modernism—meaning characters like Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche, the instigators of what the French philosopher Paul Ricœur called the hermeneutics of suspicion. In the case of the WASPs, one might suspiciously regard their high-mindedness as a cover for self-interest. But what really did them in, in Brookhiser’s eyes, was not history, not immigration, not their insularity, not massive economic transformations, but a loss of nerve. They got liberal and soft and lost all self-discipline. And that has deprived society of its “immune system” against bad thoughts, bad politics, and bad behavior. If only the WASPs would recover their lost virtues and offer themselves as leaders, “they will be accepted” by a society craving proper leadership.

That seems a stretch, but he has a point about the loss of nerve. In tracing the history of the right’s takeover of the G.O.P., Geoffrey Kabaservice pointed to John Hay Whitney’s shutting down the New York Herald Tribune, a voice of posh, liberal Republicanism, in 1966, because it was losing around $5 million a year (the equivalent of almost $40 million today). Right-wing plutocrats have endured far greater losses to promote their cause: the Rupert Murdoch biographer Michael Wolff estimates that the Rupe has lost over a billion in the nearly four decades he’s owned the New York Post. Kabaservice concludes, “The Tribune’s disappearance was further testimony that moderates were simply less willing than conservatives to suffer and sacrifice for their cause.” Those WASP virtues of discretion and thrift don’t equip you for an ideological war—especially if you don’t think of yourself as having an ideology.

Contrary to Baltzell’s fears that they were hardening into a caste, unable to admit fresh blood, the WASPs encouraged their own supplanting. In the 1960s, the Ivies began opening up to the products of public schools. Under President Kingman Brewster Jr. and the admissions director R. Inslee “Inky” Clark, also a junior, Yale began rejecting legacy WASP applicants in favor of the upwardly mobile. In 1966, the university’s governing body, the Yale Corporation, summoned Clark to explain the sorts he was admitting to the class of 1970. He argued that in a changing America, Jews, minorities, even women might be appropriate Yale material. This didn’t sit well with one corporation member, who pointed to his posh colleagues and said, “You’re talking about Jews and public school graduates as leaders. Look around you at this table. These are America’s leaders. There are no Jews here. There are no public school graduates here.” Inky won that battle, which is why I found myself at Yale five years later—and the same is likely true for Brookhiser, right after me, given his modest origins in suburban Rochester. The transformation of Yale, along with the other Ivies and the prep schools, marked the ceding of power from a hereditary aristocracy to something that likes to think of itself as a meritocracy.