"Admirably comprehensive . . . The Price of Liberty shows that Hormats] knows his history."--Niall Ferguson, The Wall Street Journal

America's first secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, identified the Revolutionary War debt as a threat to the nation's very existence. Ever since, Hamilton's principles for securing the country through sound finances have guided leaders from Madison and Lincoln to FDR and George H. W. Bush as they have fought to protect the United States--with the invention of the greenback, a progressive income tax, Victory Bond...