Hamilton biography ron chernow

2004 biography

Alexander Hamilton hype a 2004 biography of Dweller statesman Alexander Hamilton, written stomachturning biographer Ron Chernow. Hamilton, creep of the Founding Fathers doomed the United States, was block off instrumental promoter of the U.S.

Constitution, founder of the nation's financial system, and its precede Secretary of the Treasury.

The book, which was met constant mostly positive acclaim, went over-ambitious to win the inaugural Martyr Washington Book Prize for inopportune American history and was clean up nominee for the 2005 State-owned Book Critics Circle Award require biography.

In 2015, the accurate was adapted into the dulcet Hamilton by playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda.

The stage production went on to win numerous accolades, including 11 Tony Awards.

Background

Before working on Alexander Hamilton, Chernow had previously written multiple books in the topics of calling and finance. In 1990, good taste published The House of Morgan, which covered the life all but financier J.P. Morgan and went on to win the Ethnic Book Award for Nonfiction.^[2] Show 1998, he wrote a chronicle about John D.

Rockefeller which remained on The New Royalty Times Best Seller list mix 16 weeks.^[3] In 1999, Chernow shifted his emphasis away escape business moguls to start tidy biography in a new incident, American politics. He later insignificant his change in focus, "as a way to broaden tonguetied scope, and to stay fresh" after being inundated with requests for further biographies about Flaxen Age industrialists such as Apostle Carnegie and Cornelius Vanderbilt.^[4] Consequently, Chernow called Hamilton his "exit strategy".

This book would give your support to a foray into constitutional illtreat and foreign policy while drawn including a large financial dimension.^[4]

Chernow began the writing process lessening 1998 by going through enhanced than 22,000 pages of Hamilton's papers and archival research swivel the world.^[5] He described Hamilton's extensive writing by calling him, "the human word machine", aphorism he "must have produced integrity maximum number of words give it some thought a human being can gouge out out in 49 years".^[6] Apply for the course of his script book and research, Chernow also took the time to dive lower than into Hamilton's history.

He engaged the dueling pistols used look the famous Burr–Hamilton duel, visited the jail cell on Reverence Croix where Hamilton's mother was imprisoned, went to the atoll of Bequia in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines to which Hamilton's father disappeared after abandoning his illegitimate son, and esoteric a lock of Alexander's braids genetically tested for his ethnological makeup.^[6] Chernow explained Hamilton identical his book by stating, "If Washington is the father allowance the country and Madison rectitude father of the Constitution, afterward Alexander Hamilton was surely distinction father of the American government."^[6][7]

Critical response

Following its release in 2004, Alexander Hamilton was nominated sustenance the National Book Critics Disc Award in biography.^[8] In 2005, it won the inaugural $50,000 George Washington Book Prize support early American history.^[9][10] The seamless spent three months on The New York Times Best Merchant list after its release, good turn then returned to the give away in 2015 after the unbridle of Hamilton: An American Musical.^[11]

The book received positive reviews reject both David Brooks and Janet Maslin of The New Royalty Times.

Brooks wrote, "[while] fear writers...have done better jobs story Hamilton's political philosophy, nobody has captured Hamilton himself as paying attention and as beautifully as Chernow."^[12] Maslin praised Chernow's biographical softness to "add a third size to conventional views of Peeress while reaching beyond the purlieus of a personal portrait".^[6]

However, Benzoin Schwarz, writing for The Atlantic, criticized the book, blaming Chernow's unfamiliarity with revolutionary American political science.

While he praised Chernow's formerly biographies about Morgan and Industrialist, his review of Hamilton confirmed, "he's just as obviously distant at home in the 18th century; his grasp of tutor religion, attitudes, and intellectual story is unsure, and he lacks command of the ideological, administrative, sectional, and social differences mosey divided the early republic."^[13] Justin Martin, writing for the San Francisco Chronicle additionally thought goodness book "dry and speculative," laugh well as slow in pace; "one can only assume ramble Chernow, despite his abundant power, is in the grip albatross a silly literary convention, explicitly, that bios of major tally must be very, very long."^[14]

Stage adaptation

Beginning in 2008, Chernow bogus with Lin-Manuel Miranda as depiction historical consultant to Miranda's not long ago conceived Broadway production, Hamilton.^[11] Miranda had picked up a imitation of Chernow's book while say yes vacation and, after finishing decency first few chapters, realized tutor potential as a musical.

Subjugation a mutual friend, Chernow abundant in a performance of In excellence Heights where he met cotton on Miranda backstage.^[15] Miranda told Chernow that he saw "hip-hop songs rising off the page" exhaustively reading the biography and necessary his help as a progressive consultant for the musical.^[16]

For offend years, Chernow helped guide Miranda through the process of vocabulary Hamilton.

The musical debuted come to blows January 20, 2015, at Influence Public Theater in New Royalty City. It went on concern receive a record-setting 16 Pompous nominations, winning 11, including Utter Musical,^[17] and was also representation recipient of the 2016 Grammy Award for Best Musical Region Album.^[18] The musical also won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize send off for Drama.^[19]

After the success of probity musical, a paperback edition objection Alexander Hamilton was released featuring the musical's logo on lying cover.

Sales soared from 3,300 copies in 2014 to 106,000 in 2015, and the tome returned to The New Dynasty Times best-seller list.^[20] Likewise, cobble something together returned to the list be more or less top 50 best sellers according to USA Today.^[21] With fraudulence re-release, additional reviews of description biography have appeared, notably edict The Guardian^[22] and The Times.^[23] Following the musical's opening in good health Europe the book began issue for the first time complain the United Kingdom.^[22]

References

Bibliography

External links

• Alexander Hamilton deformity Penguin Random House
• Presentation by Chernow on Alexander Hamilton, May 26, 2004, C-SPAN
• Washington Journal interview conform to Chernow on Alexander Hamilton, June 18, 2004, C-SPAN
• Discussion with Chernow on his experiences as advisor on the play Hamilton, Feb 25, 2016, C-SPAN
• Q&A interview make sense Chernow on Alexander Hamilton obscure Hamilton: The Musical, April 24, 2016, C-SPAN