If you didn’t know who was on your $10 dollar bill, you do now thanks to the Broadway musical Hamilton. Alexander Hamilton was once a blip in history books ‘til Lin-Manual Miranda rose this “ten-dollar founding father without a father” to stardom. Miranda loosely based his play on the 2004 biography Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow. While it’s a well-written and researched book, it’s a massive undertaking at 818 pages.
I can shamefully admit I was a bit late for the Hamilton fad, but after devouring the musical after its release on Disney + I was in LOVE!!! As a history nerd, it made me want to immediately start reading Martha Brockenbrough’s biography on Hamilton titled Alexander Hamilton: Revolutionary. It’s a condensed version of Hamilton’s life and is much easier to tackle compared to Chernow’s massive biography.
Brockenbrough’s fact-filled biography follows Hamilton through his poverty-stricken childhood to his ultimate demise at the hands of the infamous Aaron Burr, "the d*** fool that shot him." Her book doesn’t read like your traditional textbooks; instead it has plenty of visual aides, as well as witty, fun facts about Hamilton and his comrades. This well-researched biography gives us Hamilfans a brief insight into Hamilton’s often tragic and drama-filled life.
If you enjoy this biography, you’ll enjoy this humorous non-fiction novel about George Washington: You Never Forget Your First, by female historian Alexis Coe.
Ashleigh Edwards, Library Associate