The Hamilton Project

My decision to immerse myself in the world of “Hamilton” as I prepare to see the musical in April

Over a year ago, I found out that Hamilton was coming to Dallas on its US tour, and because my wife is awesome she made it work out for us to get tickets to it. We will be going to see it on April 15th at the Music Hall at Fair Park in Dallas. That is less than three months away and while that may not be as exciting for you, dear reader, as it is for me, it does have one positive side affect if you are a Hamilton fan or a consumer of early American history. In order to fully immerse myself in the world of Hamilton, I am reading several books featuring the major characters of the musical or, in one case, an actor from the original cast. My goal is to read 7 such books and post reviews of each over the next 3 months. However, I am holding out hope that, like Hamilton and the Federalist Papers, I read like I’m running out of time and get to my “bullpen” and a total of 10 or 12 books before April 15th. Most of the “starters” are biographies, and most of those are very thick biographies, so this is a pretty ambitious project for me. There will be several non-Hamilton-centric books I will review as well between now and then, including some reviews of advance copies I’m very excited about, but here are the ones that will be marked as part of #TheHamiltonProject:

The Starters:

Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow

Eliza Hamilton: The Extraordinary Life and Times of the Wife of Alexander Hamilton by Tilar Mazzeo

Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power by Jon Meacham

The Three Lives of James Madison: Genius, Partisan, President by Noah Feldman

Written Out of History: The Forgotten Founders Who Fought Big Government by Senator Mike Lee

Failing Up: How to Take Risks, Aim Higher, and Never Stop Learning by Leslie Odom Jr. (aka Aaron Burr from the original cast)

The Marquis: Lafayette Reconsidered by Laura Auricchio

The Bullpen:

Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation by Joseph Ellis

Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787–1788 by Pauline Maier

1776 by David McCullough

Founding Faith: How Our Founding Fathers Forged a Radical New Approach to Religious Liberty by Steven Waldman

Liberty! The American Revolution by Thomas Fleming

I will update with links as I review the books. Stay tuned. A review of the book that inspired the masterpiece, Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton, is coming very soon.