About me. Its about the movement of young people coming together. To watch this program and other episodes, visit our website at booktv. Org. Click on the indepth tab at the top of the page. Joining us is pulitzer prizewinning author and historian rich atkinson. Here is his latest book the lfbritish are coming, the war for america, 1775 to 1777. Mister atkinson, your wellknown foryour world , you wrote back 200 years. I did. I spent 15 years looking at the american role in the liberation of europe and world war ii and when i finished third volume having gone through north africa and western europe beginning in normandy thinking about what to do next the obvious thing was due for that campaign whative done for western europe. I just didnt have a heart for it in part because i would have had to start the war over again at pearl harbor even earlier. Ive been thinking for a long time about what was i want to do as a historian and a narrative writer and ive always had a fascination since i was a kid revolution. Topics seem to me to be more important than ever before so thats what ive done. Im one third of the way into what i will be another trilogy, this one a battle historyof the revolution. Told from both the american side and the british side. Like you say moreimportant now than ever . When we look at the revolution, were trying to figure out who we are and who we come from. Were trying to understand the most important question that any people can ask themselves which is what were our forebears willing to die forwhat were they willing eto die for . What is that all about . Today in a moment when our country is divided, when we have the most fractured politics you and i can remember, trying to understand the First Principles that come out of the revolution at the beginning of the early republic is important to remind us of who we are and what people are willing to die for to create this country. From your book many britons viewed americans as unruly, ungrateful children in need of a king. Yes and in need ofworse than a king. There was a paternalistic attitude that many britons had including king george the third. The american colonies and mother country had written a part over hundred 50 years. They had really become separated over a century and a half in ways that especially in britain werent fully appreciated. And when the americans began to assert themselves, began to claim that their local assemblies and provincial congresses were every bit as important as parliament in determining their lives, the british were really outraged by this, thinking you ingrates. We helped protect you from the french, helped protect you from the indians. We protected your trade routes. We permitted america to become a country of 2 and a half Million People , immensely prosperous. The fastest going country in the world, thegrowth rate four times that of britain. When we the americans began to exercise political muscle, there was really very little tolerance for that in britain. Was it popular to take america to task . Yes it was and it remains popular virtually through 80 years of war. The war began in 1775, yorktown around the fall of 1781 and its only in 1779 that Popular Support for the king in trying to keep the colonies within the British Empire begins to disintegrate. One of the reasons for that is theres a widespread belief in starting in 1770, early 1770 that if the american colonies are permitted to slip away it will be the beginning of the unraveling of the new British Empire. With the british victory over the spanish and the french and indian war and let the american colonies slip away, irelands going to go, then the sugar islands and west india and it will be the dissolution of the British Empire. All the wealth and value of the empire will dissolve if these colonies get away so theres this great support for bringing the americans back into line. If you can reconcile two things in the book, britain was nearly bankrupt at this point. Yeah, well we can appreciate that, cant we . Look at our national debt. Britain had gone deeply in debt as a consequence of the seven years war and there was great concern that they could in fact be on the verge of bankruptcy. It wasnt quite that bad, but there was alarm in britain about the financial status and stability of the mother country. And there were reasons why they were determined to keep the american colonies because it was a source of great wealth. The sugar colonies were important to them but the american colonies also. We provided them with all sorts of Raw Materials to british manufacturers. Its an enormous cash cropfor britain so theres a financial component to all of this. The tax on tea time, housekeeping was it . It was three pence and it was symbolic more than anything. The british had tried to impose a series of taxes on the colonies beginning in 1765 with the stamp act. There was such an uproar that it was repealed. There was the townsend act a couple of years after that which again, a big uproar here. There was a repeal for the small tax on tea and that was gemaintained largely to assert parliaments ability to tax the colonies. It wasnt a revenue gain or in any substantial way but the principle of parliamentary sovereignty over the colonies is critical. Again, the colonies were just having no part of it. It wasnt the fact that there was a tax on tea because the british had actually barranged things so that the fight for t came down even as they were taxing it but it was the principal for us in the same way it was theprincipal for them. Boston tea party, december 1973. 1773. Did england find out about that the party. February 1773. They found out the details of and they were outraged. I mean, the newest edification for the colonies turned into a fullblown raging anger at the colonies. Beginning with the king area at that point says blows must bes side. You see the relationship spiraling down seinto an inevitable work. Was king george the third ofpopular sovereignty . Is an interesting guy. We send you think of them as this mentioned that with who prances across the state and every knife. These came for 60 years and hes a man of considerable accomplishment. He was popular in britain. He popular in part because he has a common touch by 18thcentury monarch standards. Hes interested in everything from the use of manure in agronomy, they call him farmer george to supporting o the arts in a big way. And he acknowledges the importance of parliament. Acknowledges the importance of the protestant church. He does everything a british monarch must do in order to retain his popularity in britain among 11 million britons inthe mid1770s. Powers as opposed to today . Is more powerful than the queens today for example, shes really a figurehead today. He has to exceed to the power of both the house of commons and the house of lords, the houses of parliament and he also has to be attentive to his minister. This is part of the reforms that are imposed on the monarchy in the late 17th century, the great revolution of 1688 which imposes restrictions, its not an absolute monarchy hes got Great Authority both morally and politically. Hes able to control this generals are for example. He controls who the ministers are, whos running the admiralty, wasrunning the treasury. So he got great persuasion in that regard. And he controls the Prime Minister is, lord north is the Prime Minister read his childhood friend. A brilliant politician doesnt like being a war minister at all. Thinking is the man driving the train during the war. He is the heart, hardest of the hardliners comes to the war. On your george had never traveled beyond england. In his long life he never would, not ireland , to the continent, not even to scotland and certainly not to america. Quite remarkable, isnt it . He married an obscure magrandeur in this. She had traveled more than he had because he had made the voyage fromgermany to england. He went to play god save the king on the harpsichord and they married six hours after they met. It was a loving marriage to a good husband, 15children. Its a very interesting ownership, but hes , hes a guy with blinders on and a significant way and in part because how can you be king of england and never even visit scotland when youre came for 60 years. So he lives in a circumscribed world of the courts, of his various palaces. And it blinded him to the world thats changing and certainlythe world of the colonies. I learned things in here ive never known about king george. Did you have access to new records . I did and in fact the queen in 2016 made available the georgian papers to scholars for the first. She owned them so the 350,000 pages, most of them from the reign of george iii in 1760 to 1820 and i was one of the first scholars to allow the look at them, but kept in the garrison of the round tower Windsor Castle every morning i would show my badge and show it again at the normandy and climb hundred two stone steps to the top of the round tower begun by william the conqueror and thats where the pages are there fascinating. In other words was his own secretary until late in life when he began to go blind. He writes everything in correspondence in his own hand and basically copies himself. Hes a great list maker. He writes formulas for insecticide. You learn a lot about him and you have a tactile sense of being in his presence. You learn among other things that hes a caring father because theres correspondence to the queen and the kids. You learn that he is in fact driving the train when it comes to the war. He not only dates this correspondence with lordnorth and the other ministers, its to the minute. 11 20 2 pm. And hes very not only punctual that way, hes very compulsive that way. Before we get any further in the revolutionary war weve got colors already lined up. Were going to put the numbers up on the screen. If youd like to participate, rick atkinson. Lets begin with richard from sierra vista arizona. Thanks for coming in, youre on the air. Thank you very much. I wanted to ask rick a question. The First Trilogy you did get about the second world war, we did that as part of training with the military and what i liked about that is the approach you took to telling the story, looking at the lives of soldiers on the battlefield and how this affected them. My questionis with this new trilogy , did you approach, is your approach going to be different from theapproach you took in the First Trilogy or is it going to be similar . Thanks for the question and im happy to tell youive used basically the same formula. The book is told, youre a military guy, in military terms and there are big arrows on the map, the king and congressand so on. The major field generals and the tactical level so theres everyday soldiers on both e sides. And as well as the lives of those caught up in these squalid events. A wife left to take care of the farm and the shop when her husband goes off to work for years at a time and youre trying to take care a business in massachusetts and north carolina. So ive tried to use that same narrative approach that i used for the liberation trilogy on world war ii. That trilogy, the second book focused on italy. Next call is, in hazleton pennsylvania. Id like to know if there was a correlation or a parallel between Sleepy Hollow and the ride of the headless horseman in pennsylvania and colonization times and the battle of germantown. Wow. Thomas, i dont think so. Sleepy hollow is a hail written by Washington Irving is one of the early endeavors of george washington. Paul reveres ride is a real thing and it happened on the night of such 1775. Paul revere a silversmith in boston, part of the radical innercircle and he sent out into the countryside to alert tpeople in lexington and concorde and elsewhere that the british are coming. He didnt yell incidentally the british are coming, that wouldnt have made any sense to people who still at that time thought of themselves as british. What you was quoted as yelling is the regulars are coming out in the regular british army coming out of boston. I use the phrase as a metaphor because thats what the first couple of years of war are about. The british are coming with a substantial portion of their very large army y, coming with 30,000 hessian mercenaries with almost half of the greatest police the world as ever seen andcoming to kill your men, radio when it. Plunder your homes and in some cases for your account. So if a product thing but it doesnt really have any relation to the legend of Sleepy Hollow at that point the british navy and 300 ships i believe. Hundred warships. So we had that in the u. S. Navy today mark. Probably not, you remember back in the reagan years owning up to 600 ships, and he was a big deal. Its been declining since then. 300 warships, thats a very powerful navy. Theyd never seen anything like it they sent almost half of that needy on the north american station. That was not hold of your first ride though. He had been the messenger for the boston radicals for some time. And he had written to philadelphia,written to new hampshire. He was a very expert at doing this. Carrying news quickly. He was trusted. He was reliable. He was a good horseman. So he actually written into the massachusetts countryside previously with false alarms before he did it trthe real thing on april 18. Rick hansen, who were the radicals . The radicals in boston, theyre in every colony, all 13 colonies some coterie of radical by radicals we mean people looking for a substantial break with the way things are done now. Theyre looking either for autonomy meaning parliament is not going to tell us what to do. Theyre not point to tax us. Olgoing to control our lives ourselves. Theyre not thinking independence, you have accepted the very few cases but in boston for example there are people like samuel adams s. His distant cousin john adams the lawyer, samuel adams is a brewer. John hancock, probably the wealthiest merchants in boston. And there united by a belief that they are much put upon. The british have troops and occupation force in boston, thats why the boston massacre, the shootings in 1770 her area theres friction between the Occupying Force and the townspeople of boston. And they dont like it. They dont like any of it and they are very well organized. Theyre extremely good at propaganda their brilliant propaganda and they have organized their correspondence with the other colonists and they have got the other colonies watching very carefully whats happening inmassachusetts. And they have convinced the other colonies that it can happen to us in boston, can happen to you. In williamsburg or in charleston or in philadelphia. And this becomes an article of faith that unifies those radicals and even the moderates and even some of those who are straddling the fence trying to think this through. What should we do. Sothe radicals , there must be moderates and who are some ofthe moderates . There are a number of moderates who John Dickinson of pennsylvania. Brilliant lawyer, a fine writer. Theyre looking for a Modus Vivendi with the mother country. Theyre looking forsomething short of war. Looking for a way out of this. Benjamin franklin is a moderate, hes in england for more than 16 years representing several of the colonies. The king asked no greater supporter than Benjamin Franklin early in his reign and hes increasingly as are a number of the other moderates radicalized by what has been happening leading up to the outbreak of war. Franklin becomes a radical, but he like many others is a moderate who feels like hes driven to it over time. Gym in grand rapids minnesota. Thank you again for the opportunity to speak with rick. A great fan, theliberation trilogy is one of the best pieces of work ive ever read. And i can echo the fact that its being pursued the same mechanisms of writing. From Strategy Tactics and so on thank you again. I have after finishing the book, i was left on the last couple of pages with the enormous difficulty the british had of being in new york having confidence and still unable to get to washington. It was only a few dozen miles away from them. And i was struck by them, if you could comment on that, i would appreciate. Thanks for calling. The british when this book ends in the first week of january 1977 had been ascended, Washingtons Army s rate of 3000 men, they driven across new jersey after being routed out of new york. Washington writes to his brother i think the game is up. And then of course he does ga the bold thing of crossing the delaware on christmas night 1776, i faxed the hessian garrison in trenton, crosses the river again and i faxed again trenton and princeton and he revives these dwindling hopes of the americans that they end up driving the british out of new jersey completely so they really have a very small total toehold given the length of the american colonies, they have new york and they have part of rhode island. One of the problems that the british half from the beginning that they underestimated is the adifficulty of waging expeditionary war, across 3000 miles of ocean do so in general how risk in new york in the summer of 1776 asks for 950 horses to be sent to him england and ireland so ndthat he can fill his artillery case on that he can pull his supply wagons so that he can go somewhere area of those 950 horses are in fact from britain, 400 of themdied during the voyage. And several hundred others are ruined beyond use when they arrive in new york. Its that kind of difficult logistical challenge that the british are facing from the beginning. So yes, washington is not far away with a relatively small army that has been kicked around very thoroughly, but the british army including this large force of passions that have arrived from germany not get them, partly because they cannot transport themselves and the supplies that they need to really chase washington wherever they need to chase him. Just to annihilate that army. Whats the average length of sale between london and boston . If youre going westbound youre back from boston to london, you can do it in six weeks if youre lucky and the weather is decent. If youre going eastbound, you can do it in three months. If youre lucky. Now, there were scores of ships carrying supplies. From mainly court, the Southern Coast of ireland which was a big supply base for thebritish. Heading to boston, that never arrived in boston because they were blown to the west indies, blown back to britain. They were intercepted byrebel marauders. Sometimes it would take months and months for a ship to arrive. They would end up in antigua for example barbados. Which is not on the direct route. From court to boston, it happened a lot. Next call is jack in brattleboro over vermont. Thank you for taking my call. I would like to ask Mister Atkinson if he would consider getting a detailed rendition of french a during the revolutionary war. Its something you dontusually see. I know Mister Eugene weber who is a former history professor in california, his tv show said that the french he four years worth of income to the government towards the americanrevolution. And id like to know a lot more about what was that besides just gunpowder must get sent you the blue uniforms atwashington requested. Thanks for the question. In this book ends in 1777 i write a fair amount of the beginning ofthat help. Benjamin franklin shows up in paris and bursae in december 1776. The french began providing gunpowder, muskets. They do it through a very unusual, unlikely source, a playwright named beaumont share who sets up a phony company. Munitions are provided from french armories. It gives her size possible deniability because of the want the british to get too mad at theme yet. All the french care about really is getting even with the british for the feet they had suffered in the seven years war but the want to do it on their timetable. Those munitions areo aboard. The battle of saratoga, some of the gunpowder, some of those muskets are aboard at the british defeat in the fall of 1777. The french provide millions in livres, the french currency. They provide, you mentioned uniforms. They provide everything that you need really to sustain an army. French assistance and, of course, it becomes assistance with a navy and army behind it in 1778, is the critical component in the success of the rebellion. Had it not been for the french, the americans are unlikely to have succeeded in eventually over eight years winning their independence. The french are absolutely critical to it. Itit does bankrupt the french monarchy. You mentioned four years of income. One of the issues thats going to lead to the french revolution is the instability that obtains in france as a consequence of their involvement in the war on behalf of the americans. Host were going t to squeeze in one more call. This is her in orchard park new york on mac got a question about the revolutionary war. I read accounts where its not necessarily a gentleman swore. I have read accounts if the call is recaptured by the british or the british capturing colonists, they didnt simply march them off to pow camps. They were bayoneted at best. That was the gel treatment, ive read accounts, out in the field when groups of prisoners were captured by either side. Whats the truth, rick . Guest thanks for the question, herb. It was a really brutal war. Its a civil war first of all between american revolutionaries and those who remained loyal to the crib. So particularly and the south in the later years of the war it gets extremelyut brutal. British treatment of american prisoners is awful. We would dub them war crimes today. There were thousands of american prisoners who died in british jails, particularly on british prison ships that were anchored in east river off in new york. They were prisoners ask you both sides, no question about that. There were executions. Men were hanged, sort of extrajudicially. Its wrong to say that most prisoners were bayoneted or executed, but the treatment could be quite rough and, of course, it becomes a selffulfilling thing. Washington wrote many letters to the britishgt high command complaining about the treatment of american prisoners, demanding that they be treated better. Most of those demands went unheeded. Its a nasty part of the american revolution. Host so april 1775, we didnt get very far in a conversation, what was thehe Political Support in the colonies for an uprising . Guest mixed. The british believed, there were strategic miscalculation, that most americans, to have million americans, 500,000 of them are black slaves, that most white americans are really loyal and all they need is a little encouragement. Thats not true, as they will find out. That error for years. I think you have to say that probably a third may be of americans are true believers. I third area sitting on the fence. Probably 20 arere loyalists, ad then there are others who move back and forth between those camps. Host heres the first in the hopefully trilogy about the american revolution, the british are coming the war for america, lexington to princeton, 17751777. Rick atkinson is the author. Thanks for spending a few minutes on booktv. Guest thank you, peter. Booktv recently visited the universe of louisville and kentucky to hear Mitch Mcconnell talk about senators from kentucky with coauthor. In this segment he describes the role of the majority leader. One real power of the majority has with the other 99 9 delegates they decide what were going to do. And all of you remember a a decision i made which is extremely controversy all during 2016, not to fill the Supreme Court vacancy during the president ial election when president Justice Scalia passed away. Big controversial decision but it illustrates that the principal part of the majority leader is to decide what youre going to do. What bill are you going to take up what nomination are you going to go forward with. And that started when the Vice President of roosevelt decided the following, which is the majority leader would have prior recognition, the first one to be recognized, the minority leader would have second recognition. And so the prior recognition right, is what became the power to set the agenda, which is the only real power the majority there has been after that its a freeforall. Getting the outcome you want is frequently extremely challenging but at least you can decide what direction youre going to take before we have the big debate over when you going to get anywhere or not. Berkeley been both majority leader and minority leader over his tenure, as of you. How would you characterize the difference between the majority leader, minority leader, what are the different roles, what are the different abilities to influence things in both position . If your football fan its the difference between the offense of corded and the defensive chordata. Its easier to score when you are on offense because you kind of get to call the plays. If youre on defense its much harder to score and your in a reactive mode. You know, what are we going to support and what are we going to oppose . Contrary to what a lot of you may think, there are plenty of things we do together, but the media being the way it is if you have a bipartisan compromise, into it is something aboard, and makes almost no news at all. Its like dropping a pebble in the ocean. For example, i think the biggest piece of legislation we passed the last two years for president obama when i was the majority of set was still called the 21st century to build which is been a major bill for funding. If you did know about that, its not your fault. You get the drift. We do a lot together and that significant, partially ignored the most people only see the controversy, the things we disagree on. There are plenty of those, no shortage of controversial item. You can watch the rest of this program, visit our website booktv. Org and type Mitch Mcconnell in the search box near the top of the page. I think were going to go in and get started, if youd like to take your seats. Welcome, everybody. Thank you for joining us here today. Ill let everyone get settled. We are really excited to spend the next 55 minutes with you. Im suzi sosa, the cofounder and ceo of an often text startup called verb and a very honored to be the moderator today and im here with mike isaac from the new york times