I just hope that you periodically in your career keep circling back to the american news. Because i think many biographers over the years would say the same thing. Who really did feel like we are reaching young people. I feel like when i go on doing a lecture or book signing typically the audience is about 35 or 40 years 40 years old and up. Sometimes 60s, 70s and 80s. Lynn seems to have this magical connection with people of all ages. Believe it or not a friend even told me that she took her threeyearold to see the show and the little girl was bouncing and swaying in her seat. I have seen the show were people in their late 80s who are as starry eyed as that trial. Lynn is worth his weight in gold in terms of stimulating young people to read American History. Cspan how important to the success of the shows his and back in 2009 in the white house the first lady and the president . Guest from a personal standpoint it was very helpful because you have to understand that six or seven years working on this before people saw the show i would say im involved in the show its going to be musical, hiphop hiphop musical about the founding fathers. They would look at me like i was crazy. It was a little like the show at the movie a producers where theyre trying to cobalt with the single worst idea and they come up with springtime for hitler. Im involved in this wonderful musical, skull springtime for hitler, thats how people were reacting to the idea of a musical, hiphop musical about the founding fathers. Before the show opened at the Public Theater i was walking near the theater and i pass these two young women on the street and i heard one say to the other, and its a musical about Alexander Hamilton and they both started laughing and then the woman said, and its in hiphop. And they were just standing there on the sidewalk crying with laughter. The one thing about that clip is that when people start laughing us it wont watch that clip from the white house 2009 and let me know to think. Everyone who saw the clip would then call me up and say oh my gosh that was quite extraordinary. Cspan lets watch 40 seconds of it. Im thrilled white house call me tonight because im actually working on hiphop album is a concept album about the life of someone who embodies hiphop, treasury secretary Alexander Hamilton. You left, but its true. He was born of penniless orphan in st. Croix, and illegitimate birth. Became George Washingtons righthand man, became treasury secretary, caught beef with every other founding father and all on the strength of his writing. I think he think he embodies the words and ability to make a difference. Cspan what is happened to lynn miranda and all of this . What success is meant to him and how long can he keep starting in this arena . Guest i think he is said that hes going to stay in the show through july. He announced that he was going to stay in the show for a year because he would like to be on to his next show. And doing a performances per week is very difficult for him to clear his mind show. I heard him say in an interview that when he took my book down on vacation to mexico was the first break that he had had where he could open his mind to another story. I think the show is made him a superstar. People are running after him with every conceivable offer. I think that something i have learned about lynn is he is the original multitasker. The year that he was sending me the hamilton songs and there would be sporadic rehearsals, it was maintained psychological continuity with the show. I think that lynn probably has wonderful musicals and him and i hope that some of them involve American History. Cspan i know its part of all ask it anyway, from a financial standpoint for yourself, did they have to buy your services . Did they do they have to buy the right . Guest lynn option the book but interesting is the book came on 2004 in the book with auctioned three times in hollywood for future fountain it all often happens when its optioned. It goes into a plateau and then hollywood cannot figure out what to do with this story and i kept saying to my agent that i dont get it, heres this orphan kid who comes on the lawrence has the world on fire and he has a sex scandal, theres violence, theres all this ingredients one could possibly want and hollywood cannot figure out what to do with it. At the end of the Second Chapter lynn new exactly what he wanted to do with it. Cspan in your book, in the back in the acknowledgment you say that there is a study underway to try to find out whether Alexander Hamilton was a black. He said the information is going to come later, what happened . Guest what happened was that i discovered from geneticists that if i had a direct mail hamilton descendent that is a descendents who were guys who had the hamilton name, i had them swapping out their mouths and sending the swabs off to a lab for genetic testing. The results were inconclusive. I was thinking to myself, would it be great for Race Relations in this country we suddenly have a biracial founding father. But it made me realize that race, which which we in america tend to think of a something very distinct becomes very nebulous on the genetic level. It turns out we have the socalled races have much more, with each other than differences and to try to determine what race it was. Its very, very difficult. But when hamilton came to north america it was illegitimate and he said my birth is the subject of the most humiliated criticism he was stunned by references but there is also in the press john adams and a lot of different references for racial make up the simple reason that very often when young people came from the caribbean in those years the caribbean islands and plantations it was not unusual for them to be a product to go to a white master and a female slave. So looking at pictures from him its not apparent that he would be biracial and as i fell in the book his father may not have been james hamilton, may have been a man named thomas stevens. Hamiltons many remarked many remarked in later years hamiltons best friend from boyhood with someone named ned stevens and he became a dr. And then everyone suddenly had the chance to mean ned stevens they were bowled over by the resemblances that they look like brothers which made me think that they probably were. I think this show decided that those probably one complication too many and decided not to deal with that which wouldve been difficult to deal with. You start the show in 1776 with 76 with the opening song he tells us everything that you need to know up until that point in hamiltons life. That wouldve been quite a bunch to drop into that. Cspan hears more video from that event that you are in attendance in 2015. Was the word 50000 . You got it. Guest i think so. Mocha mocha mocha thats the trailer from the show that these to publicize it. Youre saying offcamera that thats your family now. Guest its a very hip cool crowd now. Its its a change my life and image around town. It has been so moving for me that they have invited me into their world. Cspan any chance with you on stage at some point . Guest no. Although im hoping june 12, im hoping that ill be up on the stage if we do win for best musical which i think we have a reasonable chance of doing. But i dont think ill be up on the stage on the theater. I could mention it as a possibility, i cant figure out why they dont want me in the show. Cspan pick tick off the main things that hamilton did, he died at 49. Guest other people its a 47. Well there are three main ask, winning the revolutionary are, he was washingtons aid and chief of staff and battlefield hero. In the second act the Constitutional Convention. Hamilton personally issued the plea to the Constitutional Convention to meet in philadelphia in may of 1787. He seven. He was the sole new york delegate to sign it. He then originated and wrote 51 of the 85 essays that were considered the classic under the constitution. It became the third accretion of the federal government. The first treasury secretary at age 34, he creates a Treasury Department which means he creates this tax system and Accounting System first monetary system, for central bank, first custom service, on and on and on. Hot hamilton was the architect of the federal government. Cspan did you like him after you lived with them for so long . Be two on one hand he was very charming, his very witty, it very charismatic very easy to like that side of him. But he was also brash, headstrong and dangerously sure of himself and often selfdestructive and bad judgment. So i had tremendous admiration for what hamilton had accomplished. Ive been say wonderful things about the story of hamiltons accomplishments were so monumental you could admire him but his flaws were so serious that we can all identify with him. So hes very human and superhuman depending on the moment. The fascinating story that someone as brilliant as hamilton was as flawed and fallible as he is. Its interesting because when were creating the show there is this notion on the Broadway Musical of the central character should be sympathetic, you should be rooting for central character, hamilton with the reynolds pamphlet and other things that happened in the second act, he is constantly testing the sympathy of the audience. Its been very interesting that people walk out of the theater not only with modest admiration but but affection for him and i realize the reason is because he became real to them. This is a big mistake that i think we make in the schools in terms of teaching history. We think that in order to instill love of historical figures and love of American History we should present a series of and students are very bored and the figures seem completely unreal. If you can capture them accurately they will love these characters. Cspan where did you go to high school . Guest i went in queens and then i did to degrees in english literature, one at yale and one in cambridge. So i never studied history in school. Cspan when you look back at what you mustve had some history classes. Guest some history. Cspan do you remember them at all . Guest history should be the most exciting subject and so often its reduced to rote memorization, i dont remember having exciting history classes. I think that i, like a lot of people out there discovered, some some people were lucky enough to have fantastic history teachers, dont mean mean to denigrate all history teachers, but i think my story of like a lot of other people i met there suddenly in the 30s and 40s in one day on their own they pick up a piece of history, biography and they start reading the sale my gosh this is fascinating that i never felt that before. And having that conversation constantly with the show that people are coming in saying how come no teacher, how come theres a passionate and brilliant and argumentative and fascinating these characters were. The last time we visited was for your washington book, a book is because the Alexander Hamilton book. And now what are you doing . Im doing Ulysses S Grant. Cspan but youre right in the middle of this trying to live in a different century, how hard is that . Guest extremely hard because the mornings and afternoons in the week im in the civil war and reconstruction simon the 19th century, then nights and weekends im back in the 18th century. Occasionally when i come up for air im in the early 21st century but only occasionally. I find usually because my books a very, very long packed with information that when i finish a book theres usually a delete button in my mind that just wipes out the book. Its like my mind is tired of having sustained all of this information. So ive not only had to keep the entire Ulysses S Grant book suspended in my mind, but because of the show of hamilton and even washington, sometimes i feel like my brain is bursting with these books my mind is crying for the release. Cspan when will you finish the grant book and when will it be released . Spee2 im hoping to finish the book this year and that it will come out next year. Ive had so many distractions with the show, pleasant distractions with the show. That every time i think that the interest of the show is going to start to subside and actually intensify so i would love if grant comes out next year, not positive it will. Cspan do you think it will . Spee2 i was was look for people who are misunderstood. Guest hamilton had been demonized in jefferson was this pure and virtuous man, he he was a tribute to the Common People and hamilton was this villainess figure and he was a tool of the plutocrats. And i touch on that hamilton was really much more liberal figure than he had been pretrade. Jefferson may be less so. Simply with grant i was try to start out with some of the risk that a pardon around or grant the drunkards turns out to be very complicated story. Grant the presidency whose presidency was riddled with corruption and nepotism, that was there, there, but oddly the whole story reconstruction was a big story of his presidency, so i feel like there is so much that has been forgotten by Ulysses S Grant but im hoping when the book comes out it will be a surprising most people as Hamilton Book or the other book did that theyre just go see so many more dimensions to this figure. You have to pick one, if you are able to walk interview hamilton grant or washington or rockefeller, who would you choose . I would choose george washington. I feel of all the figures i had written about that he was the most important. And the most mysterious to try to be able to stare at him and study him. If i wanted somebody who is just going to battle his intellect, clearly Alexander Hamilton. But i think washington as they said many years ago he was the indispensable man who made Everything Else happened. But i think in writing about hamilton i certainly came to feel that his achievements were up there. Cspan we found video that miranda put on youtube when he is a young boy. I dont know if youve seen it or not, well go ahead and roll it and i want want to know if theres any video of you anywhere that would exhibit this kind of talent . Footloose music playing. This was before hiphop and all that day,. I think they say no such video exists in the turnout family archives, dancing off the walls i was probably out playing stickball or doing something else. Spee4 his enemy showed interest in doing a broadway show in washington . Guest theres hasnt been a lot of interest in doing washington in terms of film so i have to tell you when lynn first told me that hamiltons life was classic hiphop saga and hiphop head at the perfect fit i didnt understand what he was talking about. But i understand now because theres something particularly the way he presented in the show, hamilton is presented as a very intense almost phonetic character. Here here you have this dense rapid heap pop music. Theres something about that personality that perfectly mesh. So it took me time to see what mustve come one great blinding flash. Cspan the last question. Has there been anybody who did not like the show that wrote about it . Guest no review that i can remember that was at all critical was in the new yorker by hilton hills. But otherwise we have had hundreds upon the static reviews of the show. I think its inevitable that somebody will come along. When you have them come along say this is the greatest show. Cspan did you know this was going to happen . Guest no. But back in january 2012 lynn 12 lynn did a performance about ten or 12 songs at the Lincoln Center and the audience was full of people in their 20s and 30s. They werent even staged really. He got up where the sum of the other cast members and sang the songs that i can remember at the end all these young people in their 20s and 30s were on their feet cheering, screaming and stomping. I looked around and said oh my gosh, is, is this a preview of the future . Every time the material was tested out in front of the Audience Response was extraordinary. Then i remember we went to theater festival and the place was crawling. Every producer in the room and theyre saying this is like the greatest thing ive ever seen. So we had them for nation and inclinations that might happen. But we cannot have predicted was that it would be quite a sensation or that it would be not only a theatrical phenomena but a political and cultural phenomenon. Were at the white house a few weeks ago and ive nothing theres ever been a sitting president of the United States to come twice to see this show. The first lady who has come to see the show. Weve. Weve had the obamas, clintons, cheneys, with had every hollywood and broadway star you can imagine there. Its been a nightly whos who. Its just something that none of us could have imagined that it would be quite this kind of conversation. Cspan ron chernow, thank you very much. Guest always a pleasure brian, thank you. For free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program, visit us at q and a. Org. Q a programs are also available at cspan podcast. Heres a look at our primetime schedule. Starting at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan, the American EnterpriseInstitute Holds a discussion on the 20th anniversary of the 1996 well for law. At 830 eastern on cspan two, it is book to be with a look at to be with a look at what members of congress are reading this summer. On cspan three at eight p. M. , its American History to be with programs and events on congressional history. Tonight, more about the 1996 welfare law and a look back at the congressional debate that led to a Republican Congress passed in the bill and president clinton signing it into law. Will hear from panelists who discuss how changing the welfare system impacted poor americans and how the law changed existing welfare programs by Creative Work requirements and allowing states to have more control over welfare dollars. All of this tonight at 9 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Cspans washington journal, live everyday live everyday with new so