Ron Chernow’s non-fiction biography Alexander Hamilton may well be the strangest source material to ever be adapted into a hugely successful, award-winning Broadway musical. That is a pretty tall order to fill, however, so it may also not even land in the top ten. After all, consider the competition: a book of poems about cats, a comic strip about a little orphan girl nothing but creepy white circles for eyes, an animated Disney movie featuring anthropomorphic animals and SpongeBob SquarePants. Of course, each of those as well as many other contenders are united by one thing that Chernow’s book is missing: a visual component that can immediately be envisioned on the stage.
Chernow’s book about Hamilton is, on the other hand, no different from any other biography of a leading figure of the American Revolution era. Upon hitting store shelves with subsequent (mostly) positive reviews, the legacy for Chernow’s book initially seemed to be that it would become yet another force for good in the ongoing attempt to bring to attention of Americans the part in the creation of the country played by the single most overlooked and under-appreciated major figure.
Almost exactly one year after Chernow’s book was published, the Discovery Channel aired a multi-part special counting down the 100 Greatest Americans of all time. Ronald Reagan came in at number one. Oprah Winfrey made the top ten. Walt Disney and Bob Hope made the top twenty. In the number twenty spot itself was yet-to-be disgraced abuser of steroids, Lance Armstrong, who even before his disgrace could point only to being faster than Frenchmen on a bike as his greatest accomplishment. Alexander Hamilton did not make the top twenty-five despite the fact that a year before the program aired, Chernow had asserted with notably no argumentative response: “If Washington is the father of the country and Madison the father of the Constitution, then Alexander Hamilton was surely the father of the American government.”
Although Chernow had certainly done his job in the service of bringing to attention what the Discovery Channel special proved beyond all doubt was true—that Americans were at the time more ignorant about the contribution of Alexander Hamilton to the creation of America than any other historical figure—it appeared as though it would be yet another slight nudge forward. The book was a best-seller and talked about on NPR and PBS, but no news of a movie adaptation or miniseries such as might have been at least possibly suspected. Instead, the story of the book ended with a twist more unexpected than that which occurs in Psycho or Fight Club.
Although it seems almost inevitable now, it is likely there was just one person in the world who read Chernow’s illuminating and insightful story of Alexander Hamilton and saw not just a Broadway musical, but a Broadway musical featuring hip-hop music performed by a multi-racial cast. And just like that everything changed for not just Chernow’s book, but the legacy of that guy most knew only as the handsome fellow on the ten-dollar bill who wasn’t a President. Thanks to Lin-Manuel Miranda just chancing upon a copy of Chernow’s biography while relaxing on vacation, everything changed almost overnight and now just about everyone now realizes Hamilton is greater representative of the United States than not just Lance Murdoch or Bob Hope, but Ronald Reagan himself. As Don King might say, “Only in the America!”
