Overview

America has gone Hamilton crazy. Lin-Manuel Miranda's Tony-winning musical has spawned sold-out performances, a triple platinum cast album, and a score so catchy that it is being used to teach U.S. history in classrooms across the country. But just how historically accurate is Hamilton? And how is the show itself making history? Historians on Hamilton brings together a collection of top scholars to explain the Hamilton phenomenon and explore what it might mean for our understanding of America's history. The contributors examine what the musical got right, what it got wrong, and why it matters. Does Hamilton's hip-hop take on the Founding Fathers misrepresent our nation's past, or does it offer a bold positive vision for our nation's future? Can a musical so unabashedly contemporary and deliberately anachronistic still communicate historical truths about American culture and politics? And is Hamilton as revolutionary as its creators and many commentators claim? Perfect for students, teachers, theatre fans, hip-hop heads, and history buffs alike, these short and lively essays examine why Hamilton became an Obama-era sensation and consider its continued relevance in the age of Trump. Whether you are a fan or a skeptic, you will come away from this collection with a new appreciation for the meaning and importance of the Hamilton phenomenon.

Full Product Details

Author:   Renee C. Romano ,  Claire Bond Potter ,  Renee C. Romano ,  Claire Bond Potter
Publisher:   Rutgers University Press
Imprint:   Rutgers University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 13.20cm , Height: 2.50cm , Length: 20.30cm
Weight:   0.399kg
ISBN:  

9780813590295

ISBN 10:   0813590299
Pages:   396
Publication Date:   09 May 2018
Recommended Age:   From 15 to 99 years
Audience:   General/trade ,  College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  General ,  Tertiary & Higher Education
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Reviews

Treating Hamilton as a historical phenomenon in its own right, contributors to this volume reflect on the lives that inspired it and its meaning for our conflict-ridden present. --Kathleen M. Brown David Boies Professor of History, The University of Pennsylvania Deeply documented, culturally astute, interpretively diverse, consistently illuminating--this is a model of intellectual engagement. Providing insight into Hamilton's significance, the essays cogently reveal how contemporary culture shapes our past. --Joshua Brown American Social History Project, City University of New York Graduate Center Historians on Hamilton is an erudite and accessible scholarly consideration of the Broadway phenomenon that created an Alexander Hamilton palatable for our times. An indispensable work for all interested in the founding and contemporary racial politics. --Annette Gordon-Reed author of The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family

Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton is enthralling as musical theater. As history...not so much. Fortunately, two great professional historians, Renee C. Romano and Claire Bond Potter, are here to set the record straight, gathering expert essays to tell you the inconvenient truths about Alexander Hamilton that the hit play leaves out. More than that, though, Historians on Hamilton offers informed and insightful meditations on the themes of history, memory, legacy, interpretation and art that lie at the heart of the Broadway smash. No Hamilton fan should do without it. --David Greenberg professor of history at Rutgers University, author of Republic of Spin Think of this volume as a how-to manual for scholars to use the brilliance of Hamilton to teach about the incredibly complex power dynamics of early America. --Gautham Rao assistant professor of history at American University and author of National Duties Hamilton, the musical, has turned thousands of people onto the history of the American founding. For those who want more, Historians on Hamilton digs deep into the myths and realities behind the show. --Jacob Weisberg editor-in-chief of the Slate Group and author of The Bush Tragedy For Hamilton fans, history buffs, political thinkers and Broadway acolytes, this collection provides dozens of fascinating perspectives, correctives, fresh perspectives and sidelong directives. It probably won't change your mind about the show, but it will keep you thinking and talking about it, and the world that surrounds it, for a long time to come. If you love Hamilton the musical or have any curiosity about the man himself and where he fits into the American panorama, this is the book for you. --Jack Viertel producer, critic, renowned author, and senior vice president of Jujamcyn Theaters Treating Hamilton as a historical phenomenon in its own right, contributors to this volume reflect on the lives that inspired it and its meaning for our conflict-ridden present. --Kathleen M. Brown David Boies Professor of History, The University of Pennsylvania Deeply documented, culturally astute, interpretively diverse, consistently illuminating--this is a model of intellectual engagement. Providing insight into Hamilton's significance, the essays cogently reveal how contemporary culture shapes our past. --Joshua Brown American Social History Project, City University of New York Graduate Center Historians on Hamilton is an erudite and accessible scholarly consideration of the Broadway phenomenon that created an Alexander Hamilton palatable for our times. An indispensable work for all interested in the founding and contemporary racial politics. --Annette Gordon-Reed author of The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family

For Hamilton fans, history buffs, political thinkers and Broadway acolytes, this collection provides dozens of fascinating perspectives, correctives, and sidelong directives. It probably won't change your mind about the show, but it will keep you thinking and talking about it, and the world that surrounds it, for a long time to come. If you love Hamilton the musical or have any curiosity about the man himself and where he fits into the American panorama, this is the book for you. --Jack Viertel producer, critic, renowned author, and senior vice president of Jujamcyn Theaters Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton is enthralling as musical theater. As history...not so much. Fortunately, two great professional historians, Renee C. Romano and Claire Bond Potter, are here to set the record straight, gathering expert essays to tell you the inconvenient truths about Alexander Hamilton that the hit play leaves out. More than that, though, Historians on Hamilton offers informed and insightful meditations on the themes of history, memory, legacy, interpretation and art that lie at the heart of the Broadway smash. No Hamilton fan should do without it. --David Greenberg professor of history at Rutgers University, author of Republic of Spin Think of this volume as a how-to manual for scholars to use the brilliance of Hamilton to teach about the incredibly complex power dynamics of early America. --Gautham Rao assistant professor of history at American University and author of National Duties Hamilton, the musical, has turned thousands of people onto the history of the American founding. For those who want more, Historians on Hamilton digs deep into the myths and realities behind the show. --Jacob Weisberg editor-in-chief of the Slate Group and author of The Bush Tragedy Treating Hamilton as a historical phenomenon in its own right, contributors to this volume reflect on the lives that inspired it and its meaning for our conflict-ridden present. --Kathleen M. Brown David Boies Professor of History, The University of Pennsylvania Deeply documented, culturally astute, interpretively diverse, consistently illuminating--this is a model of intellectual engagement. Providing insight into Hamilton's significance, the essays cogently reveal how contemporary culture shapes our past. --Joshua Brown American Social History Project, City University of New York Graduate Center Historians on Hamilton is an erudite and accessible scholarly consideration of the Broadway phenomenon that created an Alexander Hamilton palatable for our times. An indispensable work for all interested in the founding and contemporary racial politics. --Annette Gordon-Reed author of The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family

Author Information

RENEE C. ROMANO is the Robert S. Danforth Professor of History at Oberlin College in Ohio. She is the author or coeditor of many books, including Racial Reckoning: Prosecuting America’s Civil Rights Murders.   CLAIRE BOND POTTER is a professor of history and the executive editor of Public Seminar at The New School in New York. She is the author or coeditor of several books, including War on Crime: Bandits, G-Men, and the Politics of Mass Culture (Rutgers University Press). About the contributors: Joseph M. Adelman is an assistant professor of history at Framingham State University in Massachusetts. A historian of media, communication, and politics in the Atlantic world, he is currently working on a book about the circulation of political news during the American Revolution and the history of the U.S. Post Office.   Catherine Allgor is the president of the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston, Massachusetts. She is the author of several books about women and politics in the founding era, including A Perfect Union: Dolley Madison and the Creation of the American Nation.   Jim Cullen is a history teacher at the Ethical Culture Fieldston School in New York City. He is the author of numerous books, among them The American Dream: A Short History of an Idea That Shaped a Nation and Sensing the Past: Hollywood Stars and Historical Visions.   Joanne B. Freeman is a professor of history and American Studies at Yale University, specializing in the politics and political culture of Revolutionary and early national America. An elected fellow of the Society of American Historians and an advisor to the National Park Service, she is the editor of The Essential Hamilton and Hamilton: Writings; and the author of Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic, which won the Best Book award from the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic. She is currently completing a study of physical violence in the U.S. Congress.   Leslie M. Harris is a professor of history at Northwestern University. She is the author of In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1626–1863; and coeditor with Ira Berlin of Slavery in New York, which accompanied the groundbreaking 2005– 2007 New-York Historical Society exhibition of the same name.   Brian Eugenio Herrera is an assistant professor of theater in the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University. He is the author of The Latina/o Theatre Commons 2013 National Convening: A Narrative Report and Latin Numbers: Playing Latino in Twentieth- Century U.S. Popular Performance, which was awarded the George Jean Nathan Prize for Dramatic Criticism and received an Honorable Mention for the John W. Frick Book Award from the American Theatre and Drama Society.   Patricia Herrera is an associate professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of Richmond, focusing on U.S. Latinx visual art, performance, and museum exhibitions. She is also an artist, performer, and educator who uses theater to promote social justice. She is the author of Nuyorican Feminist Performance: From the Nuyorican Poets Cafe to Hip Hop Theater.   William Hogeland is the author of three narrative histories of the founding period, The Whiskey Rebellion, Declaration, and Autumn of the Black Snake, as well as the expository books Founding Finance and Inventing American History. His essays have appeared in the Boston Review, the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Oxford American, and Best American Music Writing. He blogs at williamhogeland.com. Lyra D. Monteiro is an assistant professor of history and teaches in the Graduate Program in American Studies at Rutgers University— Newark. She has published on issues in cultural heritage and archaeological ethics and is the codirector of the Museum On Site, a public humanities organization.   Michael O’Malley is a professor of history at George Mason University. He is the author of Keeping Watch: A History of American Time and Face Value: The Entwined Histories of Race and Money in America.   Jeffrey L. Pasley is a professor of history and the associate director of the Kinder Institute on Constitutional Democracy at the University of Missouri. His most recent book is The First Presidential Contest: The Election of 1796 and the Beginnings of American Democracy, a finalist for the 2014 George Washington Book Prize.   Claire Bond Potter is a professor of history at The New School. She is the author of War on Crime: Bandits, G-Men, and the Politics of Mass Culture and coeditor of the collection Doing Recent History: On Privacy, Copyright, Video Games, Institutional Review Boards, Activist Scholarship, and History that Talks Back. She is the executive editor of Public Seminar. Her essays have appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Dissent, the Washington Post, Inside Higher Education, berfrois, and Jacobin.   Renee C. Romano is the Robert S. Danforth Professor of History and Professor of Comparative American Studies and Africana Studies at Oberlin College. She is the author of Race Mixing: Black– White Marriage in Postwar America and Racial Reckoning: Prosecuting America’s Civil Rights Murders, as well as coeditor of the collections The Civil Rights Movement in American Memory and Doing Recent History: On Privacy, Copyright, Video Games, Institutional Review Boards, Activist Scholarship, and History That Talks Back.   Andrew M. Schocket is a professor of history and American Culture Studies at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. He is the author of Fighting Over the Founders: How We Remember the American Revolution and Founding Corporate Power in Early National Philadelphia. His writing has also appeared in the Washington Post,the San Francisco Chronicle, History News Network, and Salon.   David Waldstreicher is Distinguished Professor of History at CUNY Graduate Center, and the author of Slavery’s Constitution: From Revolution to Ratification; Runaway America: Benjamin Franklin, Slavery, and the American Revolution; and In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes: The Making of American Nationalism, 1776–1820. As an editor, his books include John Quincy Adams and the Politics of Slavery: Selections from the Diary; A Companion to John Adams and John Quincy Adams; A Companion to Benjamin Franklin; and Beyond the Founders.   Elizabeth L. Wollman is associate professor of music at Baruch College, CUNY, and a member of the doctoral faculty in the Theater Department at CUNY Graduate Center. She is the author of The Theater Will Rock: A History of the Rock Musical, From “Hair” to “Hedwig”; Hard Times: The Adult Musical in 1970s New York City; and the forthcoming The Critical Companion to the American Stage Musical. Joseph M. Adelman is an assistant professor of history at Framingham State University in Massachusetts. A historian of media, communication, and politics in the Atlantic world, he is currently working on a book about the circulation of political news during the American Revolution and the history of the U.S. Post Office.   Catherine Allgor is the president of the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston, Massachusetts. She is the author of several books about women and politics in the founding era, including A Perfect Union: Dolley Madison and the Creation of the American Nation.   Jim Cullen is a history teacher at the Ethical Culture Fieldston School in New York City. He is the author of numerous books, among them The American Dream: A Short History of an Idea That Shaped a Nation and Sensing the Past: Hollywood Stars and Historical Visions.   Joanne B. Freeman is a professor of history and American Studies at Yale University, specializing in the politics and political culture of Revolutionary and early national America. An elected fellow of the Society of American Historians and an advisor to the National Park Service, she is the editor of The Essential Hamilton and Hamilton: Writings; and the author of Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic, which won the Best Book award from the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic. She is currently completing a study of physical violence in the U.S. Congress.   Leslie M. Harris is a professor of history at Northwestern University. She is the author of In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1626–1863; and coeditor with Ira Berlin of Slavery in New York, which accompanied the groundbreaking 2005– 2007 New-York Historical Society exhibition of the same name.   Brian Eugenio Herrera is an assistant professor of theater in the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University. He is the author of The Latina/o Theatre Commons 2013 National Convening: A Narrative Report and Latin Numbers: Playing Latino in Twentieth- Century U.S. Popular Performance, which was awarded the George Jean Nathan Prize for Dramatic Criticism and received an Honorable Mention for the John W. Frick Book Award from the American Theatre and Drama Society.   Patricia Herrera is an associate professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of Richmond, focusing on U.S. Latinx visual art, performance, and museum exhibitions. She is also an artist, performer, and educator who uses theater to promote social justice. She is the author of Nuyorican Feminist Performance: From the Nuyorican Poets Cafe to Hip Hop Theater.   William Hogeland is the author of three narrative histories of the founding period, The Whiskey Rebellion, Declaration, and Autumn of the Black Snake, as well as the expository books Founding Finance and Inventing American History. His essays have appeared in the Boston Review, the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Oxford American, and Best American Music Writing. He blogs at williamhogeland.com. Lyra D. Monteiro is an assistant professor of history and teaches in the Graduate Program in American Studies at Rutgers University— Newark. She has published on issues in cultural heritage and archaeological ethics and is the codirector of the Museum On Site, a public humanities organization.   Michael O’Malley is a professor of history at George Mason University. He is the author of Keeping Watch: A History of American Time and Face Value: The Entwined Histories of Race and Money in America.   Jeffrey L. Pasley is a professor of history and the associate director of the Kinder Institute on Constitutional Democracy at the University of Missouri. His most recent book is The First Presidential Contest: The Election of 1796 and the Beginnings of American Democracy, a finalist for the 2014 George Washington Book Prize.   Claire Bond Potter is a professor of history at The New School. She is the author of War on Crime: Bandits, G-Men, and the Politics of Mass Culture and coeditor of the collection Doing Recent History: On Privacy, Copyright, Video Games, Institutional Review Boards, Activist Scholarship, and History that Talks Back. She is the executive editor of Public Seminar. Her essays have appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Dissent, the Washington Post, Inside Higher Education, berfrois, and Jacobin.   Renee C. Romano is the Robert S. Danforth Professor of History and Professor of Comparative American Studies and Africana Studies at Oberlin College. She is the author of Race Mixing: Black– White Marriage in Postwar America and Racial Reckoning: Prosecuting America’s Civil Rights Murders, as well as coeditor of the collections The Civil Rights Movement in American Memory and Doing Recent History: On Privacy, Copyright, Video Games, Institutional Review Boards, Activist Scholarship, and History That Talks Back.   Andrew M. Schocket is a professor of history and American Culture Studies at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. He is the author of Fighting Over the Founders: How We Remember the American Revolution and Founding Corporate Power in Early National Philadelphia. His writing has also appeared in the Washington Post,the San Francisco Chronicle, History News Network, and Salon.   David Waldstreicher is Distinguished Professor of History at CUNY Graduate Center, and the author of Slavery’s Constitution: From Revolution to Ratification; Runaway America: Benjamin Franklin, Slavery, and the American Revolution; and In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes: The Making of American Nationalism, 1776–1820. As an editor, his books include John Quincy Adams and the Politics of Slavery: Selections from the Diary; A Companion to John Adams and John Quincy Adams; A Companion to Benjamin Franklin; and Beyond the Founders.   Elizabeth L. Wollman is associate professor of music at Baruch College, CUNY, and a member of the doctoral faculty in the Theater Department at CUNY Graduate Center. She is the author of The Theater Will Rock: A History of the Rock Musical, From “Hair” to “Hedwig”; Hard Times: The Adult Musical in 1970s New York City; and the forthcoming The Critical Companion to the American Stage Musical.

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