Enjoy booktv now and over the weekend on cspan2. [inaudible conversations] good evening, everybody. Welcome to the American Enterprise institute. On youve all of income director of social cultural and constitutional studies here at aei, and it is my very great pleasure to welcome you to a discussion of land of hope a one volume history of a records bye Great American historian wildred mcclay. Its a book that comes at a time when questions of who we are as people of whether we can have a unifying rather than a divisive story and of how to tell the story of our country in in a wy that neither sells short our National Greatness nor whitewashes our national sins, are really life questions in our politics and what may be an unusual way. This book is clearly intended to speak to just that moment so the can be a better time to hear from bill about a a sense of hw to approach these questions. Bill mcclay is a national treasure. So. Is first and foremost teacher. He holds the blankenship chair and history of liberty at the rivers of a plumber. He and beloved scores of students past and present university vocal mcguirk is one of the great writers of American History. His book the masters self, the masterless, self and society in modern america was judged the best book in American Intellectual history the u. S. Published by the organization of american historians among us under wonderful books of American History are a students guide to u. S. History, figures in the carpet and finally the human person in the american past and why this matters, chuc conjunctiva, gary and civic life in modern america. Hes also been a historian active in the service of his country. Bill served for 11 years on the National Council of the humanities which is the Advisory Board of the National Endowment to the humanities. Hes a member of the u. S. Sammy the Commission Planning the official public commemoration of americas 250th anniversary in 2026. You as a graduate of st. Johns college in an annapolis. He received his phd in history from johns hopkins. With this latest book hes made an extremely contribution to our capacity to understand ourselves. Land of hope describes itself as an invitation to the Great American story and it exists to fill a gap. Theres not exactly the shortage of books about American History of course but an accessible narrative account of the art of the american story that understands itself as an invitation to the americans looking to become a former citizen of his country is something that we are always in need of. Our format will be very simple. Bill will talk about the book for a bit picky and i will then chat about it briefly and then we will invite all get into that conversation through questions and answers. So with that lets welcome bill mcclay. [applause] this is my first visit to the new and improved aei. Im finding my way around. Its wonderful to be here. This is an institution i hold very dear and have for many years, and i think the fact appointed yuval to this important post is a very good sign about the future. Im going to stick this up here as i may not be using it. Yuval mention it is introduction some of what i was going to say about reasons why i wrote the book, because for someone in the academy to do, write a book like this is a pretty insane proposition. Certainly not anything thats going to help your career. I didnt seek to use it to do that. But it did seem to me that are we okay . It did seem to me that we have a problem. The profession, historical profession of which i am a part has made i think many advances im not sure it will trash the historical profession although we may do that later, it made many advances particularly in articulating the experiences of the inarticulate of the marginalized, of those who have been neglected by historical studies in the past. But the result which is not necessarily the intention, intended result but the result has been a fragmented, fractured, incoherent discontinuous understanding of our past. One that fails to convey to young people the larger arc of the history as yuval put it. Or it reflects the outlook of writers like who is somewhat questionably researched and politically contentious peoples history of United States has sold almost 3 million copies. I just checked on this. Its approaching 3 million. And has been treated as authoritative even in some of the best public and private high schools, other respectable classrooms. The gist of this, the thrust of it is that we are losing a general grasp on the public meaning of her own history. Professional American History is made many advances in its approaches through topics that have been neglected in the past. But what now is neglected is a broad shared historical consciousness, Public Knowledge that we need to be able to think of ourselves as a coherent political entity to think of ourselves as citizens, to prepare people for citizenship. Not just in terms of civics 101 understanding of citizenship as a set of particular Political Rights and responsibilities but in the sense of membership, of being members of the society, members of the country, part of a great story of which america, the american story is constituted. So this is a state of affairs that cant go on without producing serious consequences. The great nation needs and deserves a great narrative, needs to convey that narrative through the rising generations to do so effectively. If two sustain itself and face the challenges that are inevitably thrown out with the presence of the future. It goes without saying that the story, this retelling cannot be a fairy tale. It cant whitewash the past. It has to be truthful to be convincing. But theres no necessary connection between a truthful account doesnt excuse me, theres no necessary contradiction between truthful account and an aspiring what especially the subject is American History. Weve ceased to provide that, either one either truthful or convincing or inspiring in our schools today. So this commendation of truthfulness and inspiration is really what i was after in land of hope wichita itself begins to convey. Im going to unpack that a little more as i go. I hope you forgive me im going to read some passages from book to get a sense of the field of it, the flavor of it the tone because i was when the hardest things about writing was to find the right pitch that would be accessible to High School Students because after all they are ultimately, this is ultimately high school textbook. Ive have become delighted, im amazed at the reception that it is gotten with general readers, you know, the adult reading public for lack of a better term. But it truly meant for young people. Its meant to compete with not just howard zinn but the glitzy and hyper extensive textbooks that are on offer. The underlying aims of the book are clear in the outset, which is an epigraph that i borrowed from essay, a a Great American writer for young people. I recommend him. He was a great radical in the 1920s, and in the fullness of time came to a more vivid appreciation of this country. At the profound sense of connection through its past. Let me just read you from this essay. By the way, this passage, the title of the book was the first thing i wrote, which is sort of unusual. I had never done that before. Usually the last thing i wrote, but i thought this title epitomize what it wanted to achieve so i i taped it up to y computer monitor, land of , l and edit their infamy. The other thing i added was a desk, this required on the site, propped up by a piece of cardboard is longer, and this is every generation rewrites the past. In easy fence history is more or less of an ornamental arc, but in times of danger, we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today. We need to know what kind of firm ground other men along to generations before us have found to stand on. In spite of changing conditions of life, they were not very different from ourselves here that thoughts with the grandfathers of our thought. They manage to meet situations as difficult as those we have to face, to meet them sometimes lightheartedly and its a measure to make that helps prevail. We need to know how they did it. This is continued with those passes. This is the part i am especially interested in. In times of change in danger when theres a quick sense of fear undermanned recently, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across this story present and get us past that immediate dilution of the exceptional now that blocks rethinking your dad is what in times like ours when old institutions are caving in and being replaced by new institutions, not necessarily in the court with most mens preconceived hopes, political thought has to look backwards as well as forward. Thats quite appropriate, isnt it . To our moment. Note that passage i kind of marked out. Its arguing a sense of living connection to the past can be studying and reassuring a source of sustenance even in times of great upheaval. And that sense, that sense of connection with the past can free us from the illusion that we live in a time so different from all other times as to be completely without precedent from the illusion of the past has nothing whatsoever to teach us, seeing all of us who teach in humanities struggle against. We are all prone to think of this what about our present times, steady flow of dramatic and unsettling event and Technological Innovations rendered the past irrelevant. Young people i think are especially tempted to think this way because frankly they have less experience. That means that nothing but the present as a point of comparison. But those passes as an idiot dilution. We would say idiotic but he calls it an idiot dilution, recommends the council of the past is something necessary and not merely desirable. It should add to the weight of these observations to tell you the year in which he wrote these words, 1941. This was a truly frightening moment in the history of the world can history of the western world particularly. Hitler in control of the european continent. The very fate of european civilization seemed to hang by a thread. He couldve been forgiven for thinking at this time that the past in the midst of this unprecedented war, that the past have nothing to teach such a moment. But thats that what he said. Part of the point of looking backwards as he counsels us to do is that in doing so we not only recover a sense of where we came from, but we learn to free ourselves from our mental imprisonment in the present, this provincial conviction that we have that what we are seeing and experiencing and believing today represents the pinnacle of Human Knowledge and human possibility, a natural or inevitable state of human beings. When you learn to incorporate the past into our thinking we enrich our imaginations, even as we become far less susceptible to idiot delusions. We become better people and more appreciative citizens. So we need a different kind of textbook, one that does not condescend to the past but instead choose back to it, seeks to recover the roots of our great story and present the story in its fullness, not merely in its coarseness, brutality and failure although not neglecting those things either. But in its triumphs and grandeur and world historical exceptional importance. It needs us to dig in to get importance of history as a result of shared memories that make possible our cohesion as a people, make it possible for us to Work Together towards the achievement of common goals and common goods. It needs to teach us how to balance criticism with appreciation, an old word i like very much. Taking into account the perennial challenges of statesmanship as well as the condition role of circumstances and context, of the conduct of policy in the making of laws and politics. Above all it needs to understand historical knowledge as an essential element in the life of the citizen, a knowledge of institutions and rights but a sense of membership of those belonging and obligation. In addition the book is unusual to the extent it asks its Young Readers to reflect on the meaning of the past. It tries to show them how to think historically, how to understand the history is not just an inert account of indisputable and selfexplanatory details. Instead, histories reflective task the calls for the depth of our humanity. Does not tell us what to think about the past at almost everpresent us with a simple play. Paving white hats against black cats pick it means learning to appreciate complexity and nuance and context, the circumstances within which historical actors are constrained to act. It means asking questions and asking them again and again, and again. Asking fresh questions as the expense of life causes fresh questions that arise in our minds. Let me talk now about some of the books more specific distinctives. First of all, theres the fact that it is a book. Its a tangible, physical object rather than an intentional election of pixels on a flickering screen. Thanks to the publisher, wonderful efforts, they made into a very handsome book. I do take credit for selection of the cover art however, its a handsome book, one that i hope if people continue to have personal libraries in the future, that it will make its way into theirs. And the family collections. By taking a stand with the permanence of the traditional printed book, land of hope stance against the growing tendency of publishers and School Systems that rely on digital materials only and confines students experiences of reading to the evermore omnipresent screen. As you will see this as a matter of no small social significance. Digital text can be altered in the blinking of an eye to geore orwell was go to disk. The permanence of a printed book on the other hand, is an expression of the durability of the subject it addresses. Also land of hope was not written by a committee. Well, youre looking at the committee, with its parts tasted together like a hostage note meant to please different constituencies and Interest Groups and stakeholders and Political Action committees and all the other vocal interested parties. The book was written by me, all by myself, typing away in my attic without a gang of graduate students or Research Assistance assisting the process. The book reflects that fact. Readers will, i hope, here in its pages the human voice of an actual author and not a false invitation of the voice of god, and echo chamber synthetically added. And the writing has not been dumbed down although it has in some case of incentivize and i take pains to make it as likely and approachable as possible. Ill let you be the judge when i read some passages. Many of the books fema distinctions are hidden in its title because a image of the tc was the first thing i wrote about the book, and it does express some of the emphases that i knew i wanted to you too as i proceeded. First there is the word land. America is a land. Its not only an idea. True, it is in some respects the expression of an idea or of ideas about liberty, equality, selfrule and other such things and the universal standards and are set out in our declaration of independence which in turn initiated a great request for liberty, equality, et cetera in the nations of the world that we should not discount the historical influence of the worldwide influence of the declaration, even unto todays protest in hong kong. But americas also a very particular nation with a particular structure and a particular history which in turn means its particular triumphs and sufferings, sacrifices, and our memories of these things are important factors that draw and hold us together. They are the sacrifices and sufferings and victories, not of all humanity but of ourselves, but of us alone in some cases. Arlington National Cemetery is a place commanding our devotion, but only because of the nobility of the american idea, but because the remains of our brave countrymen, some of whom are our fathers and brothers and relatives, are interred there. Second, there is the third word of the title, hope, the concept of hope. And this is part of the books argument. On the outset, that the entire western hemisphere came to be inhabited by people who came from somewhere else. Most willingly with one great exception of that, people who came in bondage but most willingly. Restless and exploratory, unwilling to settle for the conditions in which they were born, drawn by the prospect of a new beginning. Freedom, the space to pursue their ambitions in ways that respected old worlds did not permit. Hope is a word, a very powerful word in america. Hope has both theological and secular, even material meaning as well as spiritual ones. All of these meetings have existed and still exists in abundance in america. And, in fact, nothing about america better defines its distinctive character than the ubiquity of hope, since that things as they are initially given to us in life cannot be the final word about them, that we can never ever settle for that. Few courses are more american than this, and its a spiritual quality above all else. An aspirational quality that cannot possibly be adequately accounted for in merely material terms. Of course hope and opportunity are not synonymous with success. Being the land of hope sometimes means being the land disappointment, and dashed hopes. This is unavoidable. A nation that professes such high ideals makes itself vulnerable to searing criticism when it falls short of them. Sometimes very fall short of them as often have done. We shouldnt be surprised by this. Just as we should not be surprised to discover that many of our heroes turn out to be deeply flawed human beings. All human beings are flawed, as are all human enterprises to believe otherwise is to be naive, and much of what has of her cynicism in our time is little more than naivete, indeed disguised as a culprit is too persistent and compelling a force to be defeated for long by such passing sentiment. And finally there is this thing also in the title of story. America has a story. Its a violent our young people be acquainted with that story. Stories are how we organize the world. We organize them around stories that are constricted to of our social existence. We are at our core remembering a story making creatures, and stories of one of the chief way we find meaning in the flow of events, what we call history and literature are the refinement and identification of that basic human need and impulse. Let me give you a fuller sense of the book by presenting some excerpts, each dealing with an issue or event that is especially important and get problematic in our view of the american past. Perhaps the single most sensitive subject in the presentation of American History is the place of slavery in the nations past. The challenge is presenting the subject accurately as one of balance, insisting on the way waiting this of slavery without enduring significance. Theres a tendency among the young to imagine that slavery was uniquely american institution, but this of coure is a profound conception. United states did that create slavery, did not create racism nor racial prejudice. These people are as old as Human History and our default position of human nature, absent some strong countervailing moral force. But the United States while having a history that is touched by these evils and adding participated in them is also a country that has a larger history of which they can be proud of seeking to overcome such things. Yet how does one deal with the failure of the constitutions framers . To deal with the problem this icily at the time of the countries beginnings . By the time at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 the institution of slavery had already, deeply enmeshed in the national economy, despite all the ways that its existence stood in glaring contradiction to our nations tournament to equality and selfrule as expressed in the declaration of independence. There was real by in Samuel Johnsons famous jibe, how is it that we are the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes . How we went to today could such otherwise enlightened and exemplary men as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson have owned slaves . A practice so contradictory to all that they stood for. And as i write in the book now im quoting from the book, that is no easy answer to such questions but surely a part of the ant is that each of us is born into a world we did not make and it is only with the greatest effort and often at great cost that we are ever able to change the world for the better your moral sense of villages are not static but if you dont and deepen over time and general more progress is very slow. Part of the study of history involves the training of the imagination. Learning to see historical actors speaking and acting in their own times rather than hours. Learning to see even our heroes as an all too human mixture of admirable and on admirable qualities. People like us who may like us be constrained by circumstances beyond their control. Continuing here, the ambivalee is regarding slavery in the structure of the constitution where we are almost certain unavailable data unavoidable to achieve a political effecting of the nation. What we need to understand is how the original compromise the longer became acceptable to increasing numbers of americans, especially in one part of the union and why slavery ubiquitous institution in Human History came to be seen not merely as an unfortunate evil, but as a sinful impediment to human progress, a stain upon the whole nation. Live today on the other side of a great transformation immoral sensibility, a transmission tt was taking place but not yet completed in the very heres the United States was being formed. Which insist america is founded on slavery and they are producing materials for use in american schools. Absent a countervailing argument, there is a genuine danger that part of the education of American Students is the teaching of slavery is enduring makeup, its dna, metaphor they use, it is pernicious. The wisdom of the statesman is less than obvious to contemporary observers because the leader is in a position to understand all the essential forces at play. It requires daring especially when the outcome seems doubtful in the public is leaning in a different direction or simply afraid. It may mean courting the displeasure of the multitude accepting unpopularity. The book contains many examples, lets take the case of lincoln. We are accustomed to thinking of lincoln and heroic terms that we forget the depth and breadth of his unpopularity. Few great leaders have been more comprehensively that are underestimated. A los Southern View of lincolns to be expected, widely shared in the north too. As david donald put it lincolns own associates saw him as simple susan, a baboon, and a must for mister, a joker, abolitionist wendell phillips, huckster at politics, a firstrate secondrate man, George Mcclellans opponent in the 1864 election openly disdained him as a wellmeaning baboon. Our rhetoric today cant hold a candle to that. For much of the election lincoln was convinced and with good reason that he was doomed to lose that election with incalculable consequences for the war effort through to the nation and all he had done, all he had sacrificed to that end. I quote from the book again. We need to remember this is how history happens and very much directed toward not the young people but all of us can benefit from this. This is generally how history happens. It is not like a hollywood movie in which the background music swells and the crowds in the room applaud and leaps to its feet as the or 8 or dispenses timeless words and the camera pans a room full of smiling faces. In real history the background music does not swell, the trumpets do not sound in the critics often seem louder than the applause. The leader or the soldier has to wonder is he acting in vain . Are criticisms of others in fact true . Will time judge him harshly . Will his sacrifice be for nothing . Few great leaders felt this more comprehensively than lincoln. I do this a lot with other statesmen in times of stress, to try to get people to appreciate what it is like to be in the shoes between the man in the arena is the roosevelt. Let me also suggest something. Land of hope an invitation to the Great American story relates the end of the civil war in a way that might pose lessons for our fellow countrymen today who seem to regard the messages of the american past with contempt and here is how i describe the scene in the book. This is a somewhat longer passage. On april 9th after the last flurry of resistance leave faced facts and be to grant in appomattox courthouse to surrender his army. He could not formality surrender the whole confederacy but the surrender of his army would trigger the surrender of all others and so represented the end of the confederate cause. It was a poignant scene, dignified and restrained and said, a terrible storm raged and blown has finally exhausted itself leaving behind a strange and reference purged of all passion. The two men had known one another in the mexican war and had not seen one another in 20 years. We arrived first wearing his elegant dress uniform soon to be joined by grant clad in a bit spattered frat code, his trousers, the boots were a fashion plate. They showed one another deepest respect for courtesy. Grant generously allowed Police Officers to keep their sidearms and men to take their horses home for the spring planting. None would be arrested or charged with treason. Four days later when lees army of 28,000 men surrendered their arms general Josh Chamberlain of maine a hero of gettysburg was present at the ceremony. He later wrote of these observations that day reflecting on his soldierly respect for the men before him each passing by and stacking his arms, men who only days before had been his mortal foes and here i quote from chamberlain, cannot be improved on. Before us in humiliations to the embodiment of manhood, men whom neither toils nor suffering from fact of death nor disaster nor hopelessness could bend from their resolve standing before us now in famished but iraq, waking memories that bound us together in no other bond, was not such manhood to be welcomed back into a union. On our part on the sound of trumpet nor role of drums, not a cheer, not a word nor whisper nor motion of man standing again at the order but an odd stillness as if it were the passing of the dead. That is chamberlains observation and my account picks up from there. Such deep sympathy, tinged with sadness, grief and death. This war was and remains americas bloodiest conflict generating 1 million casualties of the two sides combined including 620,000, the equivalent of 600 men in the american population, one in four soldiers who went to war never returned home, when inserting returned home with one or more missing limbs. For decades to come, every village and town in the land one could see men bearing such scars and mutilations, a lingering reminder of the price they and others had played. And yet chamberlains words suggest there might be room in the days and years ahead for the spirit of conciliation. The spirit lincoln had called for in the second inaugural speech, spirit of binding up wounds, caring for many affected and bereaved and losing ahead together. It was a slender hope and a Worth Holding or nourishing, worth pursuing. It didnt turn out that way thanks in large part to john wilkes booth, the assassin of lincoln but the story is illustrative nonetheless. Of chamberlain and his troops could be that forgiving, that generous, that respectful to the man who had been only days before their mortal enemies we are to be able to extend similar generosity towards men from what is now for us a far more distant past. We can be encouraged in this disposition by lincoln himself, a Cabinet Meeting on april 14th, the very day of the assassination, so hunting. I hope, lincoln said, there will be no persecution, nobody work after the war is over. Enough lives have been sacrificed. We must extinguish our resentment if we expect harmony and union. Theres been too much desire on the part of our good friends to be masters, to interfere with and dictate to those states, to treat people not as fellow citizens. There is too little respect for their rights. I do not sympathize in these feelings. Perhaps lincolns hopes were unrealistic. Such an erratic outcome was possible. Perhaps it would have been entailing too many concessions. We can never know for sure but given the high regard in which lincoln is rightly held by most americans, most of the worlds greatest leaders it would be a mistake not to Pay Attention to his statesmanlike example. Not only in understanding the past in which he lived but the present in which we live as well. Lincoln never lost sight of the fact the war that consumed his presidency and finally his life would be a failure if it were not in the end a war of unification and reconciliation and not merely a war of conquest and vengeance. We will fare far better in our own debates and internal conflict if we can recall the same thing. Finally another act of statesmanship that was not all that controversial at the time has become highly controversial in the years since. President Harry Trumans decision to use and develop the atomic bomb to bring the war against japan to a end. So secret was the development of this weapon, the new president had not even been informed of the existence until becoming president after roosevelts death and suddenly found himself as the one who had to make the momentous choice whether or not to use these weapons against japan and how to use them. In todays debates over the morality of using these new fearsome weapons we have had an unfortunate tendency to view the decision apart from its context and without reference to the way the responsibilities in a National Leader like truman had to fulfill under the circumstances. I tried to counsel readers as they tried to counsel my students against such weightless moralizing. Here is my description in the book of trumans decision. Truman was a straightforward and decisive man who did not agonize over his choices and decided it would be imperative to use this new weapon as something that would save lives particularly in light of the horrendous ebuddy experience in okinawa and what it portended for the occupation of japan. How best to use it . Given the fact that only two bombs were then available and given the real possibility of them failing to explode properly it did not make sense to announce a demonstration explosion in some uninhabited areas approve the weapons power. The detonation might fail entirely and make americas threats look hollow. Even if a demonstration bonded explode it might not have the desired effect anyway. And this usually scores. How could truman possibly justified to the world his declining to use this weapon. Of that declining resulted in hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths . He concluded the only realistic choice open to him was demand japanese surrender in the starkest and most threatening terms with a deadline attached and when the deadline passed, drop one of the bombs without warning on evaluable japanese target and that is what he did. It was a morning on july 20 sixth to surrender or face the grim reality that, quote, the alternative to surrender is prompt and utter destruction. Then when there was no surrender forthcoming early on the morning of august 6th a loan be 29 bomber dropped a bomb on hiroshima, a major naval and war industrial center. So a few words in closing and then i welcome questions and discussion. Come back to lincoln again. It was lincoln who articulated in his first inaugural address the hope that what he called the mystic courts of memory would yet swell the course of unions at a time when the prospect of the union staying together were diminishing by the minute. He was appealing in a moment of Grave National crisis to the Great American story. A nations grateful memory of the generation of 76, the revolutionary patriots who created the nation and all those others who sacrificed so much to make the nations grand experiment in democracy into a success. Lincolns great speech did not succeed in preventing a war in his time but that does not mean his prescription was the wrong one for other times including our own. We too live in a fractious period of disunity, disturbing portends, one in which there is lucidity responsible talk of civil war. We also have an even longer and more illustrious National History to appeal to now. Even in our current time of national discontent and strife. We have an even more impressive orchestra of mystic courts to hear and heed. Lincoln could point back to lexington and concorde, into the miracle of philadelphia produced the constitution. We have so much more. We have gettysburg, promontory, summit, ellis island, iwo jima, west berlin, selma, dozens of other places that serve as markers for the progress of the american spirit. We cannot draw effectively on a history we have forgotten or worse have never known at all. Such comprehensive ignorance, such abject ebay sure of the past is no longer a hypothetical danger but a clear and present one. In that sense i hope land of hope can be a small but helpful contribution to the much larger project of National Restoration and i thank you. [applause] the alligator is in there just to get thank you very much. Wonderful overview of the book. It addressed fantastically what also jumps out from the book itself which is a sense that our history can be a source of unity. I wanted to start by asking you about that. There is way our politics now is using history as a source of division, to describe the american story as rooted in sin and the next version of oppression or whether it is to draw out of the american story proof that the other side is betraying the american tradition. Has our history been used as a source of unity traditionally that this kind of division, in fact something new . Or is always in the act of history itself . It is always a danger. I think we have history that has been contested certainly back to the civil war period. There are debates and they are interesting debates, not without intellectual merit, about the meaning of the constitution whether it was a compact or reestablished states on a different basis, they sacrificed their sovereignty as southerners come increasingly insisted they had not. They are fueled by inferences as historical debates always are. No one ever engages in a historical debate for completely disinterested way, but they are legitimate issues. I often feel in teaching about the development of the american institution, you have to see a dialectic between opponents, the most salient example of which being the federalist and antifederalist debate. There is so much in the critique of the constitution that is not only been sensible and valid but has been borne out, we have the bill of rights among other things saying thanks to those roguish antifederalists. Even though we tend always to look to the federalists papers when we are in a period of constitutional upheaval as we have been lately. The antifederalists, maintaining that debate and that dialectic, that tension is very important. It is interesting how this cant i tried to be evenhanded from partisan standpoint but this wont be a evenhanded statement. People who are quite willing to dispense with the constitution or tinker with it radically when we have times of national crisis, really Critical Issues that go to the foundations of our institutions. Why is it they always come back to the constitution, the federalist papers, for legal scholars who testified not long ago. They were talking about the federalists every other breath. There is a way in which those documents are the documents for which they serve as a commentary or the anchor we always come back to even though it is a very contested anchor. The constitution is not a simple document that yields is truth to any casual reader. Everything in its has been thought fodder over and will continue to be. Talk about the quote you start with which jumped out at me. History is the grandfather of our thoughts. A wonderful way to think about how to get over the tension between us and our fathers and learn from the past. Glad you caught that. Every time i read that i am tempted to say grandfathers are not fathers. You think about the difference in the relationship of grandparents to grandchildren, Something Special about that. This is inherent, leads over the sort of freudian kind of mothers and children that over that dialectic to a less friction, less frictional more i wont say disinterested but more generous, less conflictual transposition and transfer of knowledge and sentiment. I think you are right. It does take us out of the sense that we have to do things exactly the way our fathers did. We are operating in a paradigm that may be broader, the specific things our fathers did, to embody values and aspirations that are more broadly and deeply part of the story. Since you mentioned that you chose the cover art, the image is a very hamiltonian idea of america. Is that the hope inherent in america that america is a land of that kind of material commercial urban promise. When they had a magnificent design, cant think of his name, a wonderful guy, freelance person they hired, he did a version of this using a painting that was a beautiful landscape and from a design standpoint, fabulous. I said i like this but we cant do this because i dont it is bad enough it is called land of hope but if i put this pastoral scene on their the conclusion people will draw is this is an american past that never was in this kind of thing, dealing with america as an agrarian society. I want to find something that is urban, has an urban feel but has an upward feeling you get when you walk into a cathedral. The staff encounter was helpful and we looked for weeks and i stumbled on this. It didnt seem to me to have the upward thrust, that sense of ambition. I wasnt thinking in these terms of americas commercial republic but i was thinking of it as a land of exasperation and opportunity, bustling Energy Rather than that. Peaceful agrarian lens. Host i want to bring people in the middle of the room in. We will get to the microphone. I ask that you tell us who you are and tried to ask a question. If there are questions we have one in the back. Thank you very much for this magnificent book and thank you to the American Enterprise institute, you spoke about land, you spoke about land of hope, you spoke about hope, you spoke about story. You didnt say anything about the invitation and i want to ask you about that. In other icicle texts about the american story less attention is paid to the 17thcentury english context and religious divisions are not treated with the seriousness with which you treat them and i wonder if you intended an invitation to the background in europe of religious strife and whether the invitation is not merely an invitation to the american story but the invitation to the story that precedes that story and the grandfathers of the grandfathers. Was that intentional . I want to say yes. I have two things in mind. One was i wanted to make clear i am not pretending to produce the definitive one volume American History, this is not the henry steel commentor morrison followon. It is longer than i wanted it to be. I just couldnt make it any shorter. I wanted it to be short. I wanted it to be compact, i wanted to be accessible to young people. I did not want to strive for a definitive text. That is part of the invitation. And invitation to the party is not the party. That leads to the other thing. I do feel that for a lot of people young and old, this is a story they dont know. They are afraid to go into too much because they have a sense they are dragging us there, nothing much to be proud of, giving young people sick leave or a sense that the american past is a sort of endless procession of confederate flags so to speak but nothing can avoid having to apologize for which is absurd but it is what it is, it is where we are. Is that your students expectation, you have been teaching American History for a while. A distinct time when people expect to be taught about race first and foremost and think about American History is a process in imperialism and those sorts of things. I have a way of formulating that is absolutely correct and has to do with what i call the true default. When i started teaching in the 1980s, i taught the American History survey. I dont think the other questions past anything. Part of what you are dealing with is sequence, narrative and connections between ideas and events. You get simple questions, why did Andrew Jackson feel so strongly about that . Andrew jackson, johnson, you get this answer. Andrew jackson was a Great American and he cared about america and the United States is not good for america. It didnt need to have a bank. The stars and stripes forever conclusion, a bad answer. It pulls my heartstrings a little bit. The default was it was not because that was what they believed but what i wanted to hear. Helps to get out of this jam, with minimum damage to their grave but default number 2, obamas apology tour, Andrew Jackson was a bitter, malicious, violent man. This shows more knowledge than that. He was a racist and imperialist and so on and so forth, opposed to the bank of the United States, america is an imperialist this has to do with the bank of the United States. There is a sense that this is what i want to hear, what they believe coming out of high school. What they think the teacher wants them to say. We switched from default number one to default number 2. We are a hill of beans in anodyne form. They perceive from ignorance and posturing, reflecting in complete absence of historical knowledge or interest in the historical past but it is interesting the far back, the default is to say america has been arrogant, that was one of obamas favorite lines. We have been arrogant whereas default number one would be stars and stripes forever. That tells you something. It is accrued measure of the worst it tells you something about the general set of expectations they are up against. And how do you deal with that . The first question, how i deal with them is an important subject. It is not the only subject. And the interest in better understanding the margins which are real. I dont want to put down people in my profession, many who have done very good work. Some of you are aware that several leading historians have come out against the 1519 project and the quiet about it. This is bad history. In a leftwing historical profession people are not willing to go that far. Another question right here. You said there are dozens of other places that serve as markers for the progress of the american spirit. Whether what you have got in the period since 1970. I would have to think about that, this is not a period that doesnt jump out at me. What i do do in the 70s, what i find interesting, as i talk about i talk about watergate, the defeat in vietnam in the general sense of the ending of american power, it is a culmination of the carter administration. We talk about the extraordinary role of the bicentennial generation and the tall ships, some of us are old enough to remember the tall ships in new york harbor and other harbors on the east coast, what a tremendous, watched by millions of people, it was the most interesting effect because bicentennial was very nearly botched, they spent 10 years working on it, very nearly didnt produce anything. Warren Burger Health rescue john warner and others but the tall ship for many people is in the mind deep into my thing that, what does that have to do, it was restorative, a sense of national promise, possibility and did so by drawing on the past, by drawing on these magnificent ships. Im favorable to ronald reagan, not completely uncritical but unfavorable to him. At the end of the cold war, the intensive narrative stops. What we did with the last chapter was arguing that in fact from the standpoint of writing a textbook we are still dealing with questions that have come with the end of the cold war and have not completely resolved them. I really feel the close you get to the present the harder it is to avoid partisanship. I present reagan in a very positive way except for the deficits. I am a bit of a deficit hawk. The last chapter on america, the cold war ended 30 years ago, a book of American History written in 1960 wouldnt of stopped in 1930. Something extraordinary, there is a sense in the chapter that we havent found our way. I am talking about the polling data, distrust of our institutions across the board and 22 trillion debt and so on. I to end in less than happy way with the sense that these challenges are not beyond us. Look at things we have surmounted in the past. I am glad you added this, i hear a lot of good things about it. Host lets take another question right there. I and roger with the cato institute. You opened your remarks by alluding to the state of the teaching of American History in colleges and universities. I wonder if you could say a little bit more about that, the source of it, what is to be done about it apart from the adoption of your book. And again, the sources of it and how it is that may change . I will answer your question as i ask it. I was talking more about high schools and the fact that young people are not getting a sense of coherence sense of their path but it is equally true with colleges and universities. One of the things nobody in the History Department wants to do, teach a survey course. American history, european history, nobody wants to do that and part of the reason is people have a sense of time spent away from my specialty and my resources are wasted but it is also the hardest course to teach well because it involves constantly trying to integrate fresh insights coming all the time as a result of research but keeping perspective. One of the things we lost is a sense of perspective. One of the problems is young people dont know American History. When i tell students the feature of all of society through Human History until fairly recently, they think i am crazy, they have no idea what the history of the world looks like. In a way the study of American History is studying the larger context in which it appears is to fail to see what a life in a great deal of darkness that history is. Back to your question i think the historical profession places a high premium on specialization. Specialization and never more recondite fields that feed into a song of the public meaning history. There are a lot of very good historians who point this out. They dont seem to realize that the way they do things is a big part of the problem. You need to come to the subject with some sense of the whole, some sense of the story. Within which these elements of Research Take on their meaning. There is an ideological element too. One of the things i have looked at 25 or so other textbooks and what i expected to find, a great example of an ideologically driven caricature, a Cartoon Version of america, you dont find that in the other textbook. The real problem is they are so badly written, so convoluted. I compare them to a hostage note. All these things are inserted to appease various groups that will influence the texas textbook committee, the holy grail of textbook publishing, get texas. And others, other states with textbook selections. You have these utterly incoherent how can we expect them to read them . I cant read it. I think in the end ideology is less of a problem. It does become a problem after 1964, including 1964. From that point on the very best on all that good but the very best become clearly and transparently ideological. I want to use them but for a long time i publish a little book 20 years ago called students guide to us history. It was published by isi books. A lot of circulation, people wrote to me and said you have a bibliography and you dont have a textbook. There is not a textbook i can recommend. I email people that the least bad. After a while i felt guilty, why dont you write a textbook . Forget it. Guilt can be a good thing, can induce us to do things we ought to do. That was part of the reason i broke down and said it is better to light a candle than curse the darkness though it may be more painful sometimes. Almost at the end of our time. Are you hopeful about the prospect of teaching americans about their history . I am. It is one of the problems we face, first world problems, the problems of all humanity. How are we going to figure out appropriate limits of our imposition of our will on nature which is bioethical, environmental, these are things that will preoccupy us in the years to come, what does it mean to be human, when we have the capacity to transform so much of what we are, the biological complement that is given to us. Everybody has to struggle and we are better equipped in most to do it. Thanks to leon katz of course. Host you can find the book right outside. Thank Wilfred Mcclay for a wonderful evening. Television has changed since cspan began but our Mission Continues to provide an unfiltered view of government. Already this year we have brought you primary election coverage, the president ial impeachment process and the federal response to the coronavirus. 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