a prop for the two or three people in the audience who don't know what the book looks like. welcome. to the audience on c-span as well. andill have a conversation we will invite questions toward the end of the conversation so you will be invited to microphones. i want to welcome my friend ron. it is a banner day. it is wonderful that you are doing this for roosevelt house. here, it is very 25th. anniversary of the

chartering of the first bank. against a lot of ampetition a lot of dissents lot of pushback from a recalcitrant congress who thought it was unconstitutional. how did your character maneuver against such formidable ron:ition as jefferson? hamilton was a messenger from the future. hamilton had a vision of the country that was not only not but alsoagriculture based on stock exchanges and large corporations and central banks. the world that we live in today. hamilton because of his asringing in the caribbean

an illegitimate orphan kid has a sense of combat that he had to fight for survival. you can see this in his medical career when he battled with every verbal weapon at his disposal and wrote at inordinate length about things. harold: i wanted to get that anniversary note so we start out with a portrait of the combative hamilton. we are going to talk about this remarkable transition, transformation from the book to the stage. and i'mwe should ask not sure if we can see a show of how many people in the audience have seen the play? [applause]

i have to ask. you've signed so many of these books. how many playbills have you signed? ron: i have made a point of not exiting through the stage door with the cast members because i was so be something pretentious about it because i'm not one of the stars of the show. a couple ofere weeks ago and the cast members were all going to parties and he said come along. so they insisted i go out to the stage door. and there were several hundred people there. rene suddenly pointed to me and said this is ron turnout, he wrote the book. they started screaming as if mick jagger had materialized. i started signing not only andbills but posters

.ouvenir albums and moke's there's even a guy who stuck to $10 bills in my hand and asked me to sign them. [laughter] my first thought was isn't it a federal infraction to sign the currency. how many people bring the book to the show. having the cast members sign the book. i discovered is that once you sign one person's you have to do everybody's. harold: about half of them are

entrepreneurs to sell them. it is good you are keeping small business thriving. congratulations are in order. yesterday the edward kennedy play adapted best from american history was bestowed on hamilton. .nother great kudos and i knowote this, you are writing another one, do you think in terms of adaptations? ron: there's some people who write biographies of with one eye on a possible dramatization.

2004,the book came out in it was optioned three times for feature film. it disappeared into a black hole. agent that i to my don't get it. this is the most extraordinary story. reinventste orphan himself as a founding father. there is a sex scandal. there is violence. it had all the ingredients of an extraordinary movie. he says that after he read to hepters in the book immediately started clicking around to any said surely somebody must've already adapted this.

it was just sitting there for me as a biographer. harold: he took this formidable book on a beach vacation. what is he told you about the epiphany he had? ron: i met lin through mutual friend. and i said i heard my book made a big impression on you. he said he was reading the book on vacation and hip-hop songs started rising off the page. and i said really? [laughter] me thatstarted telling

hamilton's life is a classic .ip-hop narrative and i said what on earth is this guy talking about? hip-hop ignoramus. it, i could pursued tell he would did not want to do something satirical and outrageous. he wants to do a serious, complex rendering of this character. he said i will educate you about hip-hop. the pointed out two things that are still very important to the show. lyrics are so dense and so rapid that you can pack more information into these lyrics than any other musical form. about all oflking the rhyme.

wordplay.hyme and harold: how did he get to you? does he call your publisher? ron: i live in brooklyn heights and a brayden schenn my friend whose daughter had gone to wesleyan with him. out thatcited to find they knew me. there was an enormous amount of happenstance. option team of rivals about lincoln. then he read that steven spielberg was doing a movie based on that.

on nine pages of the book. decided that he did not want to compete with steven spielberg. feeling heartbroken, he wandered into the borders bookstore and saw the book about hamilton. i said to them why does you buy the book? when he was at hunter high school he had written a paper on duel.on and his harold: it all starts at hunter college. you say you are ignorant about hip-hop. did you need to be convinced?

ron: i was intrigued by the idea. i was captivated by his show in the heights. he asked if he could come over to my house, he wanted to sing something for me. how does a bastardo orphan son dropped in a forgotten spot in the caribbean grown tohed in squalor be a hero and the scholar? [applause] i can do the rest of you wanting to go on. if you want me to go on.

[laughter] in providence, impoverished and squalor. i had never heard such rich language in broadway lyrics. as he sang that first song, he hasn't changed the word. i was thinking this guy either writes very tight or very long. i write very long. my book hasst as is been thrown in the washing machine and trunk. this runs throughout the whole show. a cross between 18th-century speech and early 21st century

slang that is picked up in the music. i was so impressed by the first song. he spent an entire year writing the first song and the entire year writing the second song. the reason he spent so much time of those first two songs was establishing the style. that was a great breakthrough. no great breakthrough in broadway history. it proved not only to me but to himself that he can do it. at this ratesaid we would all be dead before the

finish the show. we finished the show. so he put him on this regimen of doing one or two songs a month. he would be the keyboard singing another song. they were done more or less in chronological order. i can still remember my reactions. i can remember sitting alone in my office listening to the first king george the third song, you'll be back. i remove or sitting there remember sitting there laughing uproariously. it was so ingenious. such extraordinary craftsmanship in this show. visualizing the whole

scene around it. whenreat rewind seen angelica sings the song satisfied. she keeps rewinding the scene where she meets hamilton. the sister eliza singing helpless. you suddenly see that it is tragic because she sees deeply into his nature and realizes that her very innocent sister is going to have a more complicated marriage than she bargained for. he is clearly not a big reviser. you say he gets the songs down quickly.

ron: i am a compulsive reviser. is a reviser because he is an almost manic perfectionists. he kept revising it up until the day they recorded the cast album which they call freezing the show. otherwise he would still be rewriting the show. his mind is always throwing off these sparks. sharpening andly tightening it. i was commenting through the end of the public theater ron and even the beginning of the broadway run. he responds to things that i had said. there iste in the game

a very big point about hamilton's life that we haven't covered. when he took over the government he was bankrupt and by the time theeft five years later country had gone from bankruptcy to prosperity and he had restored american credit. the next time i saw the show sayson comes out and he you took us from bankruptcy to prosperity. i hate to admit it but he doesn't get enough credit for all the credit he gave to us. that was a direct reaction to my saying that. before he had madison coming out and saying that hamilton had died a poor man. he was wonderfully responsive. i would give him my reactions to

things he would be sitting there at his laptop and if i said something completely asinine he would not say anything he would just air at me in silence. if i said something that struck a nerve, he would start typing furiously on the laptop. never: so you were directly confronted with a suggestion that wasn't going to work. ron: he is very diplomatic. harold: how did you respond to him aside from astonishment? that race blind casting that you encountered. now i'm embarrassed to say and i went through

this. where he was sending me songs. i wasn't thinking about the casting. i want you to come and listen. i went to this little rehearsal studio in the garment district. their standingin there with actors. the first thought that went oh my my head was all my god, they are all black and latino. the only musical i ever saw wast the founding fathers 1776. a bunch of middle-aged white males and powdered wigs. that thinking to myself i'm going to take him aside and say we are talking about the founding fathers of the united

states here they started singing. they did the entire first act. i said these are the most glorious voices i have ever heard. about two or three minutes into it, i was thinking that i have never heard any singers capture the fire and passion of the american revolution the way these young black and latino performers did. i had become a raging militants on this whole issue. it is more than colorblind casting. i would say after a couple of minutes i completely stopped thinking about what color or ethnicity anybody was.

when it started at the public theater people didn't have a picture of what this was going to be. became a non-factor. by having this young black and latino cast, incidentally this , isgotten less attention how young everybody is. image, maybe not hamilton who died relatively young. our image of washington and jefferson and madison is often them as older man. actors was of young in its way as innovative as having people of color.

and more accurate in a certain way. and captures the spirit of the revolution. extraordinary inspiration on their part. they only say that one of the things that that accomplishment is that it immediately shakes the audience out of their preconceptions. these figures are familiar to us as icons on the wall. .uddenly you walk in they could begins kids walking down the street today. the director had another inspired idea. from the neck down their 18th-century but from the neck up their 21st century. sasha has an afro. seeing simultaneously

america's past and america's present. the visual effect of these new york type kids. harold: he became the historical advisor to the show. you became the historical advisor to the show. ron: i laughed and i said you want me to tell you when something is an error? said yes, i want to the historians to take this seriously.

he showed great strength and great integrity in terms of wanting to have the story the accurate. be accurate. thatfter a while i felt the least important thing i was doing was affecting the show for historical accuracy. he was have a plausible dramatic reason for why something was happening the way it was. he never placed any limits on what i could say or do. at rehearsals but i didn't want that unless the actors

initiated it. i didn'tays afraid, want to take him aside and say here's what i think about aaron burr. they had to respond to the lyrics. i didn't want to confuse the issue. i have a fantastic dinner with the actress who plays eliza. chris jackson plays george washington. out.ught me a lot of the actors didn't and i did not want to really undercut what the producer and director were doing at the rehearsal.

harold: my experience in being a historical advisor was rather thankless and frustrating. i talked with tony kushner on when the lincoln movie came out and the problems that had arisen. i was always asked my opinion he spielberg would say didn't like the way i thought it should be and i would say it's not the way i think it's the way it was. that art can go where history cannot. hamilton has one son in the play and he had five. it is made more simple. did they ask you to give that an ok?

ron: if you ask me about my one is that away was, history is long and complicated and broadway shows have to be tightly constructed. i had hundreds of people mentioned in the book. a broadway show you have to have had most maybe eight or 10 als.ciple everything has to keep happening to them. sometimes things would happen in the show not to the characters that they happen to a real life. he would always take a fanfic historical ingredients and give it a faithful reading. there is a scene in the show

where jefferson and madison and burr confront hamilton with the reynolds scandal. that scene actually happened but neither jefferson and madison nor burr was there. but it was three jeffersonians who confronted him. so he took the three jeffersonians who were in the show. you have to work with this limited number of principal characters. if it was mentioned in the show that they had other children people would say where are they? i think that he did the right thing.

harold: you said you didn't want pedant. finger wagging tenan people do seek you out. i love the fact that the actor who played washington sort you out. the head of the public theater said that your participation beyond granting the rights added some gravitas to the proceeding. i think that is right at least from the audience perspective. seriousis not always a medium. there was a seriousness and a joyfulness at the time.

ron: i want to create a safety net under him. i want you know how people will come at you if they want to attack you. about three or four weeks after the opening there is an article in the new york times with historians squawking about it. first show that has been such a sensational success and we are now 13 or 14 months into the process. it is amazing that there has been nobody who has come forward the attack on the history. gordon ward did a great review of it for the new york review of books.

i said goal. ulp. wood is here. i said, you know there is some dramatic license in the show. he said don't worry, i have been listening to the cast album. but people are impressed with how much accurate history there is. i knew that i would have to see and have a relationship with him i would have to see the show not only as a biographer of it as a theatergoer. the first time i heard the third song of the show or the second show where hamilton goes into a tavern and he meets hercules mulligan and the marquis of

lafayette. it never happened. he said to me i have to establish that quartet early in rst act. and i said you're right. so i was seeing it as someone who loves theater as well as a biographer. you have confided in other interviews that is much as you love theater, the musical comedy genre was not your favorite. realize that this

was not just the success but revolutionary? ron: there were two or three times when i look into the future. 2012 he did ay performance where he did a few hip-hop songs. i'maid to the audience doing this concept about alexander hamilton. he sang a few songs from the show. it was a packed house. they were on their feet screaming and cheering. theater festival at vassar.

of 2013. they did the first act concert style. a lot of new york theater producers go there to scout shows. every producer in the house want to invest in it. we were getting extraordinary actions. by the end of the first act almost everyone was simultaneously in tears and inspired. she said i've never kind of felt such patriotism. extraordinary capacity

to connect with the audience emotionally. hasld: the residual effect been on the book. the only two authors in the last ofple of years whose books the previous decade have returned to the bestseller list lee.on and harper [applause] on sunday when the new york times book review appears the paperback will be the number one

best-selling paperback in the country. that is truly extraordinary. for you questions, i will do some lightning round questions. how may times have you seen the musical? ron: i have seen about 50 times. about every it third night. sitting in the last row. he wanted reactions. i go backstage each time. to enormous thrills.

enormous thrills. seeing this vivid three-dimensional life on the stage. but also meeting this extraordinary cast. just as lovely offstage as on. they have on braced me in the family. i was go backstage. i have a very fatherly feeling towards them. they are also extraordinary and it is not my job to criticize them.

harold: have you been brought on stage? ron: no. i have told him that i would like to go on and do the opening number. he has resisted me on this. [laughter] $10, founding father. harold: do you find yourself looking as much of the audience as at the stage? ron: we are in the delayed gratification business. writing a book. harold: my gratification has been delayed much more than yours has. [laughter] here i am in this tribal

culture of the theater. i often turn around to see people cheering and laughing. i was there last night. this show has the strongest audience reactions i have ever seen. it keeps changing. theld: when he comes out, pause between the first two is 30 seconds. there is a rock concert intensity to the audience.

down, lights are going the audience starts screaming and applauding. i saw something last night i had not seen before. the cast album has been so widely heard that as the actors began to saying people start applauding. as if they were listening to sinatra. i've never heard that in the theater. oh, there is the room where it happens. harold: is this distracting? ron: i was talking to him about

that. they love it. they are feeding off the waves of energy coming from the audience. this is the greatest experience of their life. it is a very strenuous show. very exhausting. they had been performing for six hours. are,atter how tired they the audience always lifts them up. harold: it is extraordinary for you. we can take a few questions. what are you doing now?

how are you able to work when you are at the theater every week? ron: ulysses grant's life does not move to a hip-hop beat. my writing life is mornings and afternoons on weekdays. my involvement with the show is nights and weekends. it has involved inspiring this book. you hope to change the way this person was seen.

this is an amazing situation where between the book and the show we have changed how people and the hamilton entire. era. harold: so you can be immersed in the civil war and the gilded age and then go back to hamilton? ron: my life has been very exciting. there's something nice about crawling into my cubbyhole and working on the book. healy says the simplest three

hours of the day are when he is on stage. do is do what he did. as much as i enjoy the experience of the show is a collaborative process. there is a give-and-take. you win some battles and you lose some. i am the dictator of my world. in the book. >> i was struck by the way it

ends. the love story. what she goes through. how her life continues. ron: i didn't know how he was going to end the show. he was writing chronologically. book i do writing the not want to end the book with because i thought that would be cold and depressing way to end it.

as eliza sings in the show, i stopped wasting time on tears. i lived another 50 years. the epilogue would have to eliza as an old woman. she tried to preserve the flame of her husband's life and legacy. i did not know until very late .n the process hamilton dies. suddenly she comes out and i said oh my god he is doing it. it is so moving.

so unusual to do that in the show. the audience is just bathed in tears. it is the most amazing ending. going to a parallel process and i realized that he had come up with that same solution. broadway het on went outside holding a copy of the book. he said i want to read to you the opening paragraphs of the book. the opening is also about eliza as an old woman.

he almost broke down in tears. as strong as i knew his reaction it showedo the book, just how profound his insight was into the love story. >> the constant characterization of hamilton is a feminine person . feminine. a leader as it didn't seem to be a negative characterization.

quite a number of descriptions of hamilton would say there was something feminine about him. often said in an accusatory style. that hamilton was somebody who was a person of infinite possibilities. extraordinarily complicated. he decided not to go to the fact that there was something very amorous about his relationship with john lawrence. he may have been bisexual. knows, he's very

heterosexual for the rest of the story. was an infinitely complex person. capable of extraordinary sensitivity. his mother had been overwhelming as an influence on his life. his father had been a feckless character. i don't know if that sensitivity came from the relationship with the mother. >> i love the easter eggs in the music.

when he says your pants look hot, and he says i like you a lot. --that a reference to his ron: no i think it is much more innocent. but you have to ask cam. who knows? him. who knows? one of the delights for me of watching the show is that it re-creates the research that i did. i was doing research in the rare manuscript room at columbia. going through the hamilton papers.

as you see in the show, at the time of the reynolds scandal hamilton never publicly commented on it. i found a tiny handwritten letter from angelica and her sister. consolerying to con her. n icarus.ed and i he flew too close to the sun. artest to go to places where history can go. she just felt that was such a world of private pain she never spoke about it. there, hey could go

had to go there. that song is so beautiful. the first time i heard it i said to myself everyone seeing this show is going to be convinced that that line was pure invention. it sounds too good. and yet it came directly from a real letter. my students are obsessed with this show. song and theening in my class and they wanted to hear the whole cast album.

one girl did a prom proposal using the titles of all the songs in the show. decide to write a biography of alexander hamilton? ron: i started working on the book in 1998. i had done a series of books about moguls and tycoons. with my agent. after i finished the rockefeller book. i brought 16 different subjects. the 16th was alexander hamilton.

she put her finger on number 16. i said to her you know why this show is here? because of you. one who put her finger on hamilton. as a started to investigate it, hamilton was fading into security. obscurity. be regarded as a second rate founding father. and nothing about elizabeth schuyler hamilton. everybody knew about abigail adams. there was a real opportunity

here to resurrect this man and this story. to start reading some of the and this wasaphies by far the greatest personal story of any of the founders. combined with a list of monumental achievements that compare with anybody. it was an easy call at that point. i am up to chapter five. i see his star rising. would you think hamilton will be relevant today on the american political scene? where would he be?

[laughter] the people running for president? ron: i fear that the one place he would not be is in washington. our political system is so dysfunctional and there's only ,isincentives to public service the nonstop need for fundraising, all these good reasons for not going into politics. hamilton might be doing leveraged buyout's. were doing biotech research. or doing biotech research. he was such an intensely verbal

character. if he felt strongly about an issue he would sit down and write 25 consecutive essays for the newspaper. hownd it hard to imagine would hamilton fit into the political culture of today. hamilton was very outspoken. donald trump will be the exception to what i'm about to say. world everything now is the pollsters and the focus groups. been, he wasd've never muzzled. harold: he might've been huge. [laughter]

hamilton was heading toward the status of a historical footnote into you resurrected in with your book. you put them back in the pantheon of founding fathers. the father to the cast of this show. and educational phenomenon as well. you said being involved with his work was a biographers wish fulfillment. response, it is great for hunter college and roosevelt house to have you. [applause] you have written about the $10 scholar. he is one in a million. [applause]

>> george mason university tin-pilawajoseph gene argues during the reconstruction era, native americans frequently the u.s.rectly with government but the advance of sellers to the west was an overwhelming force that still cost native americans there went. -- their land. his classes about an hour and 15 minutes. mr. genetin-pilawa: today, we are going to pick up with u.s. federal tribal relationships. ithough you will notice and did warn you we are jumping forward slightly. last class, we were speaking about removal and the establishment of reservations in the 1830's,0'