Hamilton: A History

BackStory

History, Education

4.5 • 2.9K Ratings

🗓️ 10 June 2016

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Alexander Hamilton is living large these days! Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hit musical about the Founding Father won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and scored a record-breaking 16 Tony award nominations. In addition, Hamilton’s surge in popularity helped keep his face on the front of the $10 bill. Peter, Ed and Brian take apart the Hamilton phenomenon by considering who Alexander Hamilton was, his legacy (and how it was remade) and why a white migrant from the British West Indies appeals to so many Americans in 2016.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is backstory. I'm Ed Ayers.
0:04.0	The hit Broadway musical Hamilton is taking the country and Tony Awards by storm. The
0:09.2	play has even influenced the federal government as CBS reported last April.
0:15.0	Plans to put a woman on the $10 bill ran into Broadway musical. Alexander Hamilton stays
0:20.5	on the saw buck. Abolitionist Harriet.
0:23.0	Today on backstory, we're exploring the impact of America's first Treasury Secretary.
0:29.0	His controversial plan to restore economic ties with America's arch enemy, Great Britain.
0:34.0	And I think just finished a war with this country. And now we're going to be best friends
0:38.6	and trading partners with him again.
0:41.0	To his apparent and eventually fatal, fondness for duels.
0:45.4	He was actually involved in ten, which is a lot. I mean, he made it up into the devil
0:51.2	digits. The Hamilton phenomenon. Coming up on backstory.
1:00.0	Major funding for backstory is provided by the ShiaCon Foundation, the National Endowment
1:05.4	for the Humanities, the Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation, and the Arthur Vining
1:10.4	Davis Foundations.
1:12.4	From the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, this is backstory with the American History
1:20.7	Guys. Welcome to the show. I'm Ed Ayers. Here with
1:26.3	Brian Ballot. Hey there, Ed.
1:28.3	And filling in for Peter O'Nuff, we have incoming UVA law school dean, Risa Gawuboff.
1:33.7	It's great to be here, Ed.
1:35.1	Okay, Brian, Risa, give it a day's topic. I thought we'd start with a little trip to Broadway.
1:40.5	My treat. I thought the lights were brighter already.
	...

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