Ellis' book is a great read. People who read it with the idea that history is a noun, full of facts, dates, people, and places, miss the point. Ellis intends us to look at history as a verb, the inquiry, not the things, but the relationship between the things. Ellis isn't trying to tell us about Hamilton or Jefferson, he is trying to tell us about the relationship between these two powerful men that led to a historic compromise. As a former AP US History I can appreciate some student's frustration, but I often feel we waste real good history on young people.