Having penned well-received biographies of Gilded Age tycoons, Chernow aimed to produce a “large-scale, go-for-broke, authoritative text on Hamilton.” Two out of three ain’t bad. How should we think about Chernow’s massive account-currently again one of the top-selling history books in the nation-not only as a biography and work of history, but also at the epicenter of this new Hamilton-mania?įirst, on its own terms. Broadway star Lin-Manuel Miranda read it on a vacation, made Hamilton’s life the subject of his eponymous Pulitzer-, George Washington-, and MacArthur Prize-inspiring musical, and the “ten-dollar founding father without a father,” as he’s introduced in the musical, has been on as big of a roll as can be expected for a dead great white man these days. What’s especially noteworthy about Hamilton’s recent posthumous pop-culture stardom is that it was launched by a dozen-year-old biography that is once again on the best-seller lists: Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton (2004), published at the bicentennial of the first Secretary of the Treasury’s fatal duel with sitting Vice President Aaron Burr. It’s time to emerge from your library or book-lined study to catch a whiff of 2016. He is the author most recently of Fighting over the Founders: How We Remember the American Revolution.Īs someone interested enough in American history to read this blog, if you haven’t recently encountered Alexander Hamilton-through his escape from possible relegation off the $10 bill or, more likely, the Broadway musical Hamilton with its exposure on late-night TV, presidential kudos, Grammy appearance, Billboard R&B best-selling cast album or through your Hamilton lyric-quoting students or children-please look up.
Schocket is Professor of History and American Culture Studies at Bowling Green State University.
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