Ken Owen, Michael Hattem, Roy Rogers, Nora Slonimsky, and Joanne Freeman continue their discussion from our previous episode on the life and times of Alexander Hamilton by thinking about the current “Hamilton Moment,” as well as the “peaks and valleys” of Hamilton’s legacy throughout American history.

TOPIC

Alexander Hamilton’s legacy has risen and fallen throughout the nation’s history. Generally speaking, in times of economic prosperity, Hamilton is hailed as the “man who made modern America” and the architect of American capitalism. It is also possible to say that Hamilton’s legacy has been directly tied with the legacy of his archnemesis, Thomas Jefferson. When one is down the other is up. In our own time, Hamilton is experiencing such a peak as to be a moment, as in the past decade he has been the subject of numerous popular books, as well as a television documentary and, of course, an immensely popular Broadway musical entitled Hamilton.

GUEST PANELISTS

Joanne Freeman is Professor of History and American Studies at Yale University. She is the author of Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic and editor of the Library of America volume of Alexander Hamilton’s Writings. Her highly popular course on the American Revolution is available on OpenYale and YouTube.

Nora Slonimsky is a PhD candidate at the CUNY Graduate Center and a Writing Fellow at Lehman College. Her dissertation, “The Engine of Free Expression [?]: The Political Development of Copyright in the Colonial British Atlantic and Early National United States,” focuses on copyright as a conceptual and economic construct.

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FURTHER READING

Chernow, Ron. Alexander Hamilton. New York: Penguin Press, 2004.

Cooke, Jacob E. Alexander Hamilton: A Profile. New York: Hill and Wang, 1967.

DiLorenzo, Thomas J. Hamilton’s Curse: How Jefferson’s Archenemy Betrayed the American Revolution. New York: Crown Forum, 2008.

Elkins, Stanley M., and Eric L. McKitrick. The Age of Federalism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.

Ellis, Joseph J. Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000.

Federalists Reconsidered. Edited by Doron S. Ben-Atar and Barbara Oberg. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1998.

Fleming, Thomas J. Duel: Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and the Future of America. New York: Basic Books, 1999.

Freeman, Joanne. Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001.

Hacker, Louis M. Alexander Hamilton in the American Tradition. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1957.

Hamilton, Alexander. Writings. Edited by Joanne B. Freeman. New York: Library of America, 2001.

Hamilton, Alexander, James Madison, and John Jay. The Federalist Papers. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009.

Knott, Stephen F. Alexander Hamilton and the Persistence of Myth. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002.

The Many Faces of Alexander Hamilton: The Life and Legacy of America’s Most Elusive Founding Father. Edited by Douglas Ambrose and Robert W. T. Martin. New York: NYU Press, 2006.

Morris, Richard B. Alexander Hamilton and the Founding of the Nation. New York: Dial Press, 1957.

The Papers of Alexander Hamilton. Edited by Harold C. Syrett and Jacob E. Cooke (27 vols., New York: Columbia University Press, 1961-1987).

Randall, Willard Sterne. Alexander Hamilton: A Life. New York: HarperCollins, 2003.

Rogow, Arnold. A Fatal Friendship: Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. New York: Hill and Wang, 1998.

Rossiter, Clinton. Alexander Hamilton and the Constitution. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1964.

Staloff, Darren. Hamilton, Adams, and Jefferson: The Politics of Enlightenment and the American Founding. New York: Hill and Wang, 2005.

Stourzh, Gerald. Alexander Hamilton and the Idea of Republican Government. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1970.