“One price of political greatness,” says John Steele Gordon, “is to be forced to campaign even long after death.” In 1923 the staunch conservative Republican Arthur Vandenberg wrote a whole book saying that if Alexander Hamilton were still among the living, the founding father of the American economy would be—a staunch conservative Republican. Maybe, maybe not. But as Gordon shows in a lively examination of Hamilton’s career, the wizard who created Wall Street out of chaos has left a highly pertinent legacy.