One of the people that I've found interesting in our history class would have to be Alexander Hamilton. I am surprised that I find his life and beliefs intriguing because I've heard his name a million times before and never gave it a second thought on why he is in the history books. Reading a section in chapter 8 in our A People and a Nation books it says that he thought of people with " unvarnished cynicism." Which is really interesting to me because when I think about that time period of the nation getting started with our government, I always imagined it with hopeful and optimistic people all ready to selflessly help the needy. I know the optimistic side of me likes to believe that people will sacrifice their selfish needs for the good of other people, but when I think about it more and more , in reality, people are the way Hamilton explains them to be. I think we all do things and work harder for certain things when it benefits us more, rather than someone else. And although the idea does sound cynical, look at how that idea helps our nation today. Big corporations and rich and powerful people start with having their own selfish ambitions. But by serving their own ambitions it often times benefits other people, even though it was started off with self-interested motives.