Back in 2015, one of my colleagues from the History Department gave me a heads up that they were looking for a “sensible male” chaperone for an upcoming trip to New York; would I be interested? Newly divorced and with no immediate plans for Spring Break 2016, I said I would think about it. I’d had an unsavory experience on a chaperone trip at the all-girls’ boarding school where I’d taught many years previous, and I’d avoided all subsequent chaperone duties as a result. I liked my life to be simple, so I may have been actually formulating apologies in my head as she provided the details.
During her pitch, however, she let me know that they were planning to take the students to see Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton at the Richard Rodgers Theater
As a prelude to the trip, I picked up Ron Chernow’s biography of Alexander Hamilton (the inspiration for the musical), and I devoured it. I was happy Su picked out the book as my first official read here in Bangkok. I loved it then, and I love it more now almost five years later.
One of the first things that struck me as I reread this biography was the age of the major players during America’s formative years. Hamilton and most of his fellow revolutionaries were in their 20s when they fought for American independence and subsequently shaped an entire country. Hamilton’s rags-to-riches story – from British West Indies bastard to what Reverend John M. Mason described as “’the greatest statesman in the western world, perhaps the greatest man of the age’” (714) – is stunning enough, but to have accomplished all he did before his death at age 49 is, I think, unparalleled. As a lazy writer myself, I’m shamed by the volumes that poured from his quill; it’s simply breathtaking and decidedly humbling.
I was also struck by how Chernow’s narrative expertly captured the humanity of these giants. Americans make a big deal of the tradition of the Founding Fathers, how their words in the Federal Papers (mostly Hamilton), in the Declaration of Independence, and in the US Constitution are held with almost Biblical reverence, the authors apotheosized in arguments around the law and what it means to be American. But these same authors were clearly just men. Hamilton, though brilliant, was flawed: jealous, adulterous, vindictive, proud, covetous . . . he has most of the 10 Commandments covered based on Chernow’s insights! For Hamilton, the instruction “thou shall not…” is frequently met with his, “hold by beer.” But I think that those very human traits outlined in this biography make Hamilton so appealing. He’s simultaneously a man amongst men and a human being, a god, but one imbued with all the petty foibles of the Ancient Greek variety of gods, and a giant of American independence but sometimes a very small man. We can identify with his humanity due to that duality. We are heroes and heroines of our own stories, but often our own antagonists at the end of the day.
As a Brit, I wasn’t schooled in the nuances of American history, so I was fascinated to learn the political history of the US through Chernow and move beyond the jaundiced eye we Brits tend to cast back to 1776 and all those traitors. It stunned me, therefore, to discover just how similar our modern-day political feuds in the US are to those of the 18th century. States’ rights on the Republican side with Johnson conflicting with the perfect union promoted on the Federalist side with Hamilton could just as easily be imagined in the 21st century with Florida determined not to mandate masks during a pandemic (Governor DeSantis) and the federal government looking to implement a nationwide vaccination strategy (President Biden). I found myself making modern connections throughout the governmental sections of the biography (the role of the federal government, the absurdity of the Electoral College, the animus between the North and the South, and the disparity of wealth); Chernow provided insights not just on the life of Alexander Hamilton and the early years of the Republic, but also on why the current tensions in today’s America are so deep-seated. I mean, what could be more immediate than the depiction of John Adams petulantly skulking away from Thomas Jefferson’s inauguration?
Hamilton’s untimely death at the hands of Aaron Burr brought a tear to my eye both in New York in 2016 during the musical and here in Bangkok in 2021 rereading Chernow at my desk. It was such a colossal waste of a life, a frustrating nixing of potential, and all for a matter of honor. Chernow skillfully wove Burr into the fabric of his biography, so he was always a simmering presence in the text, a denouement slowly bubbling to the surface. Despite not being schooled in the nuance of American history, it was an English education, so I knew enough that Burr was the ultimate instrument of Hamilton’s destruction. Even knowing it was coming, however, I was wishing for a different outcome in those closing chapters, even now! It was like that retrospective on a journey that led to misadventure: if only I’d left 10 minutes later, or if I had just taken that right instead of the left.
In the last months of his life, Hamilton had ample opportunity to change course, but infuriatingly, perhaps characteristically, he did not. My frustration was magnified to outright anger by the progenitor of his death: “an affair of honor,” a duel. Even in Hamilton’s times, many condemned the whole dueling business. Not only was it illegal in most of the country, which necessitated a wink and a nod to those directly involved in the proceedings (messengers, seconds, doctors, boatmen and the like) to make plausible a claim of ignorance about what was going on, but there was also a palpable negativity about this silly but deadly game in the general population. Sir Richard Steele, for example, wrote frequently about the absurdity of the code in The Tatler at the beginning of the 18th century, albeit from London. Chernow’s depiction of the inflamed populace of New York posing a significant threat to Burr after the murder, and it was called such, speaks at least in part to the negativity felt about duels in America. And all my anger was there even before I factored in the stupidity of Hamilton throwing away his shot when ranged before an opponent quite clearly bent on murder.
Despite the poignant end to the book, however, Chernow’s biography is a celebration of a great American that didn’t disappoint once again. I was enthralled by my read in 2015, giddy to see it performed in New York in 2016, and moved by my reread in 2021 on the other side of the world where it sparked a multitude of emotions about the life and times of a singular genius, Alexander Hamilton.
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