Historians on “Hamilton”: How a Blockbuster Musical Is Restaging America’s Past

America has gone Hamilton crazy. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Tony-winning musical has spawned sold-out performances, a triple platinum cast album, and a score so catchy that it is being used to teach U.S. history in classrooms across the country. But just how historically accurate is Hamilton? And how is the show itself making history? Our guests examine what the musical got right, what it got wrong, and why it matters.

Claire Bond Potter is Professor of History at The New School for Social Research, New York, NY, and co-Executive Editor of Public Seminar, a digital journal of ideas and culture aimed at a general audience. Her writing has appeared in general audience publications such The New York Times, The Washington Post, Jacobin, The Bulwark, and Dissent.

Renee C. Romano is the Robert S. Danforth Professor of History and Professor of Comparative American Studies and Africana Studies at Oberlin College in Ohio. A specialist in twentieth and twenty-first century American cultural and political history and in the field of historical memory, she is the author of Racial Reckoning; Reopening America’s Civil Rights Trials and Race Mixing: Black-White Marriage in Postwar America.