Ron Chernow
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Who is Ron Chernow and what is his background?
Hello, my name is Ron Chernow. And I feel very, very warmly about anyone who has won the Mark Twain Award for American Humor. Oh, wow. Including our friend Conan O'Brien. So it's a delight to be here.
Thank you very much. Yeah.
Fall is here, hear the yell Back to school, ring the bell Brand new shoes, walkin' loose Climb the fence, books and pens I can tell that we are gonna be friends Yes, I can tell that we are gonna be friends
Hello and welcome to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend. This is kind of a special episode. You probably know I'm a huge history buff, and I have read every single book that this gentleman has written, I believe. If he has another book out there, he might have written a Nancy Drew mystery that I'm Unaware of. But other than that, I think I have read all of his books. His latest is a joy. My guest, of course, is a Pulitzer Prize winning author. And his latest biography, Mark Twain, is out now. And Twain, in my opinion, is more relevant at this moment than ever before. And we need Twain. And I'm just thrilled that this gentleman is here today and that he's written this magnificent book. Ron Chernow, welcome.
I saw in your resume, Conan, that you had studied history at Harvard and I had studied literature at Yale. So you were in training for my career and I was in training for your career.
I know, I know. So all this history that I've done. You want to trade? You want to trade? Sure. Sure. You've done, you know, I've noticed something, which is there's a, and other people have pointed it out as well, that you have written this string of spectacular biographies. And I congratulate you on the Mark Twain. I read all, I believe, 1,200 pages of this book and was enthralled. I love it. And I learned so much about Twain that I didn't know because you've unearthed some amazing stuff about the man. And to see his life, I mean, it's very hard to contain this guy's life. And I think you have managed to do that brilliantly. Thank you. But I was looking at your work because I believe I have read all of your books, which I can't say to many people. Judy Blume.
But it's you and Judy Blume. But there's an interesting path to the order in which you wrote because you start out and you write about J.P. Morgan. and great Gilded Age industrialists, which then got you interested and whet your appetite for your next book, which is Rockefeller, which then got you interested in finance. And you think, I'll go back to the beginning, the source, who's running finance in America at the very beginning? Well, Hamilton, you write that book. And I know your plan all along was for it to be a musical with a lot of rap.
Yeah. People, you know, people always say to me at events, Mr. Chernow, did you imagine as you were writing the book that it was going to end up as a hip hop musical? And I always say, I think the question answers itself.
Yes. There is a real, I'm sure you've seen it, but there's an amazing tape. of Lin-Manuel Miranda. He's been invited to the White House to perform his latest work. This is obviously a bunch of years ago, 15 years ago or so. He's invited to the White House, to the Obama White House, to perform his latest work. And he gets up to the microphone and he says, I'm now going to perform, this is the President Obama and the first lady there and all these assembled people at the White House. And he says, I'm gonna perform my latest work. It's a musical about Alexander Hamilton. Huge laugh, huge laugh. And he goes, hold on, hold on, hold on. No, no, no, I'm serious. It sounded so absurd to people.
And then, of course, it became one of the most... No, in fact, you know, with that song, a few months earlier, he had come to my brownstone in Brooklyn Heights and he sat on my couch and he started snapping his fingers and he did the opening number of the song. And when he finished, he said, what do you think? I said, well, you've taken the first 40 pages of my book and you've condensed it into a four-minute song. And I said, that's rather amazing. But what I was thinking, and I didn't say to him, I said, this is kind of embarrassing that it took me 40 pages to say what this guy has done in four minutes. And then a few months later, he said, go on YouTube. I performed it at the White House.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
Who is Ron Chernow and what is his background?
0:03–20:22
2
What is the significance of Mark Twain in American literature?
20:22–25:46
3
How did Twain's early life influence his later works?
25:46–34:21
4
What are some of Twain's most notable inventions?
34:21–50:04
5
How did Twain's views evolve over his lifetime?
50:04–1:00:33