Celebrated author to speak in Knoxville

Celebrated historian and biographer Ron Chernow, the writer behind the Broadway sensation Hamilton, will speak in Knoxville on Tuesday, May 7, as a part of The Sherri and Baxter Lee Distinguished Speaker Series.

The lecture is possible through the efforts of the Lincoln Memorial University Duncan School of Law and the East Tennessee Historical Society.

Chernow, a Pulitzer Prize-winning and New York Times-bestselling historian, has authored some of the most renowned and acclaimed biographies ever published. While nearly all of his seven books have earned praise, honors and awards, his 2004 portrait of founding father Alexander Hamilton inspired the Broadway musical Hamilton. The National Book Award winner illuminates the life and times of some of America’s most significant historical figures in his works. His community presentation is entitled Hamilton: The Man and The Musical.

Chernow is author of The House of Morgan, which won the National Book Award as the best nonfiction book of 1990. His second book, The Warburgs, won the George S. Eccles Prize for best business book of 1993. He followed that up with a collection of essays, The Death of the Banker, and in 1998 he published Titan, a biography of John D. Rockefeller, which stayed on The New York Times bestseller list for 16 weeks. Alexander Hamilton was published in 2004. The book spent more than three months on The New York Times bestseller list. In 2010, Chernow’s long-awaited biography of George Washington, Washington: A Life, debuted to outstanding reviews. It would win the American History Book Prize and the Pulitzer Prize in Biography. Chernow’s seventh book, Grant, was released to universal praise in 2017.

Beginning in 2008, Chernow collaborated with Lin-Manuel Miranda as the historical consultant on the sensational Broadway musical Hamilton, the biggest Broadway hit of the past 50 years. In May 2015, as a member of the show’s creative team, he received the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Musical. The show was nominated for a record-breaking 16 Tony Awards, winning 11. Chernow and Miranda jointly received the History Makers Award of the New York Historical Society for their work on the acclaimed show and also were honored at the National Archives in Washington. 

President Barack Obama conferred upon Chernow a National Humanities Medal at the White House in 2015. 

Tickets for the community lecture will go on sale on March 15, at the Tennessee Theatre box office or online at www.tennesseetheatre.com. General admission tickets are $55. Students, East Tennessee Historical Society members and Friends of the Knox County Public Library will receive a code for discounted tickets.