ron chernow's biography of alexander hamilton

His childhood is after all condensed into the space of one song. Even certain phrases used in the book itself echo throughout the musical: Chernow dwells on Hamilton’s unstoppable nature “Non-stop”? and the fact that he decided to throw away his shot in the final duel “I will not throw away my shot”.ĭespite those striking similarities, one is also impressed by the way in which Hamilton’s life was adapted to suit the demands of a musical drama. I was surprised to realize how much historical characters are quoted verbatim in the musical: the fourteen-year-old Hamilton wrote“ I wish there was a war” after British landed at Kip’s Bay Washington exclaimed, “Are these the men with which I am to defend America?”… etc. And fans of the musical will find numerous treasures here. I will happily admit that I had never heard of this particular founding father till he was made famous again by Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Hamilton’s biography was of interest to me only because of its adaptation into musical form. A biography is basically a narrated story of human life in all its effervescent nature. It makes one consider these inevitabilities of human life – regardless of the events, inspiring or incriminating, that happen in the middle. There’s something peculiar about biography as a genre – it takes the span of a single human life as its arc: most biographies begin with a birth and end with a death. This is the first biography of that kind of length that I’ve ever read, however, and it wasn’t as slow-paced as I had feared. I also struggled a bit with the descriptions of Hamilton’s financial system – but I think that’s my fault rather than the biographer’s as I can’t pretend my understanding of economics is particularly good. I’m not going to pretend this was a very easy feat for me – the first few hundred pages were quite uphill, perhaps because the stories about Hamilton’s distant relatives were not quite as interesting as the author seemed to think them. I did it! I finished reading Ron Chernow’s massive biography of Alexander Hamilton with 4 more days to spare before I go to see the musical.

Ron chernow's biography of alexander hamilton