Ron Chernow, who grew up in a middle-class neighborhood in Queens, bought a place last year in the Dakota, the storied Manhattan apartment building whose residents have included Lauren Bacall, Leonard Bernstein, and John Lennon. It’s safe to say that most people who live at the exclusive address have made their fortunes in fields more lucrative than historical authorship. But few historians are like Chernow.
A respected author who had drawn acclaim for biographies of, among others, John D. Rockefeller, Chernow published Alexander Hamilton in 2004, the 200th anniversary of the duel that took the life of the Founding Father. The 800-page doorstopper was an instant hit, staying on the New York Times bestseller list for three months. And then someone named Lin-Manuel Miranda read it on a beach in Mexico and decided to make a musical of it. Perhaps you’ve heard of it? Something by the name of Hamilton?
This year marks the 10th anniversary of that revolutionary work’s off-Broadway premiere. During that decade, the multiethnic show and its hip-hop soundtrack (and merchandise) have hauled in more than $1 billion. Chernow’s book has also benefited, with more than 1 million copies sold—many no doubt purchased with $10 bills, a denomination that the Treasury Department says will continue to retain Hamilton’s likeness, thanks in no small part to the extraordinary popularity of the works that bear his name.
John McMurtrie is the nonfiction editor.
