interesting essay at Vox: Hamilton and historiography

[heresluck]

http://www.vox.com/2015/11/27/9771784/hamilton-cabinet-battle-debt

Teaser:

The net impact of Miranda's rendition of the dispute is to render Hamilton as a more progressive-friendly figure and Jefferson as a more straightforwardly conservative one. Jefferson complains that Hamilton's text is too long, echoing Republican criticisms of Barack Obama's key legislative initiatives, and objects generically to taxes — again, sounding like a modern Republican — without raising the point that 18th-century taxes hit the poor more heavily than the rich.

This is part of a larger shift in the trajectory of how American history is understood. [...]

Miranda's Hamilton so perfectly matches the sensibilities of mainstream Obama-era Democrats that the Democratic National Committee turned an early November Hamilton performance into a fundraiser.

And it reflects an ongoing, albeit somewhat subtle, split among contemporary Democrats.

Comments

[brainwane]

Oooooh! Thank you so much for the link. I literally thought yesterday that I'd like to see political scientists' opinions on the Hamilton rendering of those disputes! And on a different axis, I see Hamilton as following a new trend of silly, earthy, exuberant, sentimental, loving, infernokrusher and literally fantastic retellings of our history.

[yatima]

YES GOOD

[jjhunter]

That is also much of what I love about the Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage, yes!

[brainwane]

I should have mentioned that in the piece I just wrote -- thank you for the reminder that Thrilling Adventures is in the same vein!

[jjhunter]

My pleasure, and thanks for the link to your piece - I enjoyed it very much!