Join Pulitzer Prize winning author Ron Chernow for an in-depth discussion on his biography Alexander Hamilton and how it inspired the making of Hamilton!
You and your guest will discuss with Ron the process of writing the biography and what it was like to assist and advise Lin-Manuel through the process of making the musical. Plus, your bid will help raise funds for immigrant communities through the Hispanic Federation’s Emergency Assistance Fund.
An honors graduate of Yale and Cambridge, Ron Chernow is one of the most distinguished commentators on history, politics, and business in America today. He has won virtually every major prize in American letters. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has hailed him as “one of the pre-eminent biographers of his generation” while Fortune magazine has called him “America’s best business biographer.” The Chicago Tribune said that Mr. Chernow was possibly the nation’s “most influential” historian and “may be the most popular.” The Washington Post cited him as one of the “five most important public intellectuals in America today.” In September 2017, President Obama conferred upon him a National Humanities Medal at the White House and he was honored the same week by the National Archives in Washington.
Mr. Chernow’s much anticipated biography of Alexander Hamilton was published in April 2004 to extraordinary acclaim. The New York Times praised it as “moving and masterly...by far the best biography ever written about the man,” while USA Today hailed it as “a must-read. Ron Chernow’s masterpiece.” The New York Review of Books called it a “great biography.” Excerpted by Business Week and chosen as a main selection of The Book-of-the-Month Club and the History Book Club, the book spent three months on the New York Times bestseller list and was the first recipient of the George Washington Book Prize for the year’s best book about the founding era. It was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award.
Starting in 2008, Mr. Chernow began working with Lin-Manuel Miranda as historical consultant on the sensational Broadway musical Hamilton, inspired by his biography of Alexander Hamilton and considered the biggest Broadway hit of the past fifty years. In May 2015, as a member of the show’s creative team, he received the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Musical—the first time he ever received a theater award. The show was nominated for a record-breaking 16 Tony Awards and won 11 of them. In November 2015, Mr. Chernow and Mr. Miranda jointly received the History Makers Award of the New-York Historical Society for their work on the acclaimed show. That same month, Mr. Chernow’s biography of Alexander Hamilton returned to The New York Times bestseller list, where it stayed for more than a year, selling more than two million copies. His work has been translated into fifteen languages.
Photo Credit: Beowulf Sheehan