This is an engrossing narrative account which shows how the civil war, theiv indian wars and western expansion were all interconnected. The 1860s were truly a time of National Conflict which involves not only the north and south but also the american west. Her primary Source Research involves letters and diaries, military or its oral histories and photographs adapted from that time and specifically about nine individuals who worked toward selfdetermination and the fight for control of the region. Some of these o people are fairy wellknown to us like frontiersman kit carson. Others like juanita and navajo weaver who we get to know their stories with a lofty history until now and under their stories to showw the imports of individual actions even the midst of a larger military conflict. The book earned a star review in the Library Journal and indeed its history that keeps the reader turning the pages. Megan nelson is aes writer and historian living in Lincoln Ridge has written about the civil war u. S. Western history and American Culture for several publications including the news york times the Washington Post and smithsonian magazine. She earnedimt her b. A. From Hard University and her ph. D. In american studies from the university of iowa. She has taught at Texas Tech University cal state fullerton harvard and brown and is the author of trembling earth. Tonight she will talk to us abouts the three cornered war ad tell us how it came to be in the things she learned during the Research Process and read a passage or two. We will then take questions from the audience. Please give a warm welcome to megan kate nelson. [applause] thank you guys. Thanks for coming out on this drizzly cold and dreary night. Before we begin i would like to acknowledge that we meet here tonight on the traditional lands the the three cornered war tells the story of the civil war in the far west. Most of the action takes place in mexico in what would become arizona during the war as well asex texas colorado and california. At this point you may be asking yourselves why toward the west . I have never heard of about a war quick that i was about gettysburg and appomattox. I thought the same thing myself when i started teaching and researching Civil War History 15 years ago. It seemed like a very long time. I grew up in colorado. I had never heard that there were civil war battles in new mexico or colorado soldiers were really important to the Union Victory in that theater. I had no idea that they were involved at all. In colorado we have silver mining history and it was a little bit later and the denver broncos. I wanted to find out more about this theater of the war and i wanted to find out why theyd never heard of this conflict before. Some things i found out, between 1861 and 1868 if that is the correct year. Usually we talk about 61 to 65 but in Civil War History when you expand the jacket for you expand the chronology so the work becomes broader and longer when you look at it from this place. Between 1861 and 1868 the union the confederacy and native People Struggle to control the region for the union and the confederacy wanted the west for its gold and its specific ports. Each of them saw the west as part of this important vision of isa future so the north was envisioning this empire of free labor, free of slavery from coast to coast and the west was pivotal to that project or the confederacy sought as an empire of slavery also from coast to coast so they thought they could secure the west and they could jump off from their and move south and invade mexico and trace the hemispheric empire of slavery during the caribbean and latin america. The navajos have been living in the southwest for hundreds of years saw this white mans war as an invasion of their territory in both the union and the confederacy sought indigenous groups as optional to their attempt to control the west and his national future. We also learned thated after the union mexico defended the territory from confederate invasion. They initiated against them so what this meant was that the same time the union is fighting this war to emancipate enslaved men and women in east they were fighting a war to exterminate or remove native peoples in the west. I figured all of those things out and i thought that was really interesting. People have not thought about it and then i figured out some things about why it never heard about this war. I think Civil War History focuses on the east and focuses on virginia and the battlefields in the home fronts and politics and of course the subjects are extraordinarily important but what that means is barely do we move outside that kind of area. Also theres a tradition in Civil War History of referring to the transmississippi west with the battle of shiloh and tennessee in general all the areas around the mississippi river. Civil war historians called it the west. Thats a problem with the words that we use because it seems impossible. Also if you open up any kind of Civil War History and you see a map in theirr of the war it usually ends right around the 100 inn fact if you have the bok you can flip to the front to where i have included a map of the 100th meridian which is right in the middle of this new page map in the book. If you and a map there you are erasing 40 of the nations land mass. Where literally erasing the story of the war so it was really important to me when i was talking to Simon Schuster about the books production is that i want to have this map in here and its the entire continent that you see all of the territories as they were western territories and states and as they were organized at the beginning of the war and you also see the navajo and the apache homeland on this map layered in three different layers of the map and its a continental map from the atlantic to the pacifico. Also whats interesting in what i found out when i went on my researchch trip is that even though the fight for the civil war in the southwest is really well preserved everywhere because if you go to virginia and you are trying to find battlefield sites in important areasnt if they are not preservd they are usually under a parking lot and there is not that kind of suburban suburbanization or urbanization and large areas of the southwest. What happens is a lot of the sites that you read about in the threecornered war are actually there. Its just they are very far apart. They are run by all different kinds of federal agencies. They are not particularlyy well funded and most tourists go to the southwest and south western culture for the Indigenous Culture for its architecture and its great enchiladas. They are not going for war history so theres a great example ofer this in Santa Fe Plaza. If youve ever beenta there rigt in the middle of Santa Fe Plaza is a memorial to the Union Soldiers who fought in the war against as it says the confederate and the savages. There was a little protest around that monument word savages. Its interesting but everyone ignores it. When i went for my research i went around and talk to people and i asked that obelisk do you know what it is and they were like no. We started walking the path of the plaza and look at the shops that were all around and they had no idea. You will read about it. And that the antagonists in the book john clark takes part in the fundraising for that memorial. The plaza itself is a civil war site because it was built by Union Soldiers. When the officers were like we need the system too work otherwise they will start carousing around one of the officers have been built the plaza. That is something that you would never know because it is not noted. For various reasons and through various mechanisms the history of the war has really been sometimes forgotten and sometimes not even mentioned. During all of this research i discovered how complicated the civil war was and how many different groups of people were involved in the war and how it took place over hundreds and sometimes thousands of miles. Its an enormous region of all these armies had to march in the groups of people at the march sometimes 400 miles at a time. Along this stretch was 800 miles my challenge was how do i tell the story . I didnt really want to tell it in a traditionally academic way in an argument driven thematically oriented kind of way so i started thinking about all the different ways i could possibly tell the story. At the time i was reading a lot of novels and one of those novels was and this is very surprising that i would be reading this novel because im not usually bound with the misogynist and excessively violentt novels. I was just devouring this book and i try to figure out why. I went and i looked at it and i mapped it out. Started taking notes of what he was doing and what he was using was actually a form that was quite common in literature which is a multiperspective narrative. If you go into the book and you look at the table of contents you will see that each of these chapters is named after person. There are only three that are not and those are the names of battles in which multiple people come together. In each of these chapters you are going to follow that through time and that he will leave them and go to somebody else and then he will come back to them a little bit later. Each person has anywhere from two to three chapters. Some of them stay for a short time in new mexico and some for the entire time that one of them dies. I wont tell youou who so that u can save that for later and be intrigued. I decided to try this approach to bring the reader of the threecornered war through the experiences of nine different people and they are all representing the movie of nine different communities and different war actions. Im not going to introduce them all to you here because i would be overwhelming and probably would take too long but im going to talk about three of them in particular to give you a sense of the books range and there is an image insert in the middle if you would like to look at it. The second image here and i can hold us this up to you here on the left page. This is John Robert Taylor who i affectionately started referring to as crazy eyes but i think his eyes are very light live in the photography at the time kind of washed out his eyes so he looks particularly crazed in this picture. Is actually holding a sword that makes him look like hes holding a bowie knife. I knew i wanted to start with baylor because i wanted to start with the confederate invasion of the territory in the summer of 1861 and baylor was that the head of that. He was born in kentucky along with several people who were born in kentucky including kit carson so thats an interesting and weird connection. Baylor moved to texas in the 1840s and he and his family members were lured by the promise ofve rich land and the owners of. His uncle is the one after whom baylor is named so its a family with a long history in texas. He got married and started a family and over the next 15 years he worked as a farmer and a rancher and he enslaved men and women in both of those ventures. The law was submitted to the bar in thehe Texas State Legislature but he also became the editor of a newspaper called its the white mans in 1860 in this is the sort of thing that i appreciate about mid19th century racist is that they are very open about it. They are just like we are going to start a paper that will be called the white man. In 1860 this newspaper had a lot of pieces about comanche acts odd angle is in texas and they use this to gin up all this fear about comanches. He was kind of a prototexas ranger and he would gather a people and throw them right out after comanches in the war. He was wearing a belt buckle made out of silver that he had melted down from a coat he had taken from a comanche warrior. As you get the flavor of this john baylor was proud to join the Confederate Army in texas and defense of slavery and secession in the right of white men to rest lanes away from native people. By all accounts he was extremely charismatic. He was about 6 feet 3 inches. He was super tall for someone in that period with an imposing strong guy. He was impetuous and ambitious and resentful and all those characteristics will describe all of his actions in 1862. This context of the civil war west. The next person she is the last image here when megan suwanee was just a teenager when she married and he was a powerful navajoma pigman. As long history in the homeland. Pretty soon after the wedding,ci the war began. In raiders of the Three Corners will follow juanita as she and he, they negotiate and manipulate and he made union forces in their homeland. And then intending starvation to surrender to the u. S. Army. The story and incarceration at the union army reservation, a place we can really think of as a prison camp. They dominate the final part of the book. Wanting to sort times experience is one of suffering but one of persistence and survival. And of all of the intactness, she is the heart of the book. She is there from the beginning and until the end in your story really revealsls the extent to where the threequarter war the civil west. I just want to tell you about john clark. His picture is in here kind of in the middle. Parents on the righthand side ofth the page. You will not have heard of john clark it all in your life. He was a surveyor, a lawyer, a land owner in illinois. When the war began. He was too old, he was in his early 40s. But he really had hoped to serve the union in other ways. So president lincoln was a friend of theirs from their law professor days, appointed him Surgeon General of the mexican territory. In the summer of 1861. And clark left his large family in illinois in order to take up his post. Anyhow that until 1868. He also wasnt new mexico pretty consistently the entirety of the book. He took a couple of furloughs went home and at onene point he went as a kind of fled the santa fe and left and went to dc and went marching up on city and went to report to lincoln and stanton and then visited the General Land Office and then he reported. Those sort of the dc vacation in the most intense part of the new lyxico conflict. The court really was the voice of the Lincoln Administration and new mexico territory. A dedicated republican who believed in the parties vision in the lap and trend landscape of the free white labor pretty clark was responsible, not only surveyed reservation but also dd a survey of the arizona cold country in 1863. After gold was discovered a little bit north to a town prescott is now which is north of phoenix. So he went out there to confirm that the gold had actually been discovered and it was mileti just finding that was going on. And then he came back and reported to santa fe citizens and to the army there was gold other and there were more than a thousand miners already there in the mountains and the needed protection and also needed to clear the navajos from the area because the road from albuquerque to gold mines went through nava hope territory. In the letters appears in washington also credit hope that Lincoln Administration and Republican Party envision the conquest of the west i would say that clark was my Biggest Surprise because of found his diary so they were not hidden or anything that in the data they had put together and i knew that he was a general pain in santa fe for this time and when i called the diary, when you go to these reviews, these Research Trips coming at you neverer what you will get. So sometimes its a teeny tiny something and maybe has Something Like what they think that they weret in range. All i got was this anonymous box with 27 volumes of diary unit. Meticulously written. Pages long entries every day talking about the weather, but they did every day, talking about the feelings that were talking about going to seances, after night at dinner parties. Just amazing amazing content for the entirety of the work. And then i went the national archives, all of the letters that he wrote to his bosses at the land office also were in a super huge box because he wrote very regularly from new mexico. Some of his original maps for their pretty good plot map of santa fe. I truly believe that i would was maybe the second person to open those letters ever. They were in pristine condition. All of the folds still perfectly there, very chris. No stains, no marks of wear and tear. And often the wax feel that he had or seal. Still there. So he was really is kind of amazing person who again one of these unusual suspects right pretty you wouldnt really think that he would be an important person and yet he is. So you would be interested in coming to get toed know him several you think of are all looking at the civil war from this most unexpected place, the far west, shows us a couple of important things. The civil war was a frequented war in a couple of different ways. The north and the south and the west. , between the union and the confederacy and the native people. And ankles has panos and native soldiers. So those of three of my three element there is a writer but i think really complicated motion of the unions work as a just war. And it has continental conflict, truly national war that includes all regions and all People Living within cross this quarter. So stop there so you more time for questions should you have any about the topic of the Research Process or the writing process. The threequarter west. [applause]. The three cornered war. [applause]. Are you inclined doing more with him or about him. Has anybody done a whole story on him. Megan so the question is about john clark and will i pursue him a little bit more maybe write a longer biography of him. I know more about him. I know where he went, he actually left mexico and was the attorney general very briefly in utah and actually in salt lake when the transcontinental, with the golden spike was hammered in. I cant say that he was actually there at the ceremony, but he was nearby. I would not be surprised if he was but then he went east and in the parking Arkansas Railroad company is lansurveyor. And ultimately died of cancer. When he was older and had this very long career. I dont think, will i do think i have done enough of my geographical work here to help you get to know him. This fullscale biographies are a little hard. Sort of want the person he obviously does, he touches a lot of different ways of when he leaves. So spoiler alert, when he leaves 1968 to go back to dc, will he decides hes going to go home. He will drop by dc first so he can attend the impeachment trial. Offender johnson. [laughter]. Thats going to be interesting. So no, i dont go write a whole different book about him. But, certainly more to learn. Certainly more than other writers to do with people like this who you think of just like this kind of government, while there actually pretty fascinating. Rules to play. Guest the question based on that. Ms. Been large group of people there were chosen from. Im curious about how you made that position. Megan how did i choose thes man. I just knew from the beginning that he was hugely significant because he basically singlehandedly, just decided to invite mexico territory. So he is the one who gets done. He occupies places that surrender troops and then get down and creates the confederacy. So thats in one of those spaces of three or four days. So i knew he needed to be in it int once i i read more about him and read his letters, which are at that university of texas, i knew i had to write about him because he was just, a really complicated guy. He loved his wife so much. And unfortunately i do not mind. I reallyhi wish i had to sit oua plea to texas to check their attics to see if any of these still exist because i think some of the things he returned his letters were pretty like valentines day like. Its always like more interesting to write about really complicated people. I knew that i needed kind of people who were at really important moments recent Bill Davidson was a texan soldier, what it started to read his account of the war, i figured out he was in every single moment. He marched from san antonio to others only got thought and then he was at the head of the troops marching northward after that victory forging pretty was assigned to the lead as a forger. So heen was in albuquerque when they took it, he was in santa fe, they took it any thought in Apache Canyon which was kind of a bigger battle at the end of this campaign and then he came back to santa fe and was nurse by another person. I knew i wanted to have him in the smoke because in her because she was a fascinating part of the civilian experience of the war. She was army wife. So i thought that was an interesting thing because she went with her husband, to almost every single posting that he held. He was a professional military man and for 20 years she was with him. So that gives readers a back story of start up with the army is actually like before the war. What that looks like in these frontier days. Because she was in california, in 1860s when persimmon is estate, she was in utah during the utah war and in fact one of the wives, published a poem in the news and was addressed to basically louisa into other women there with the army. Like two of the wives. Like how dear you. How you come to her land. Sanskrit material. But i only had one letter in her own voice and it was from later in the war. I think, one of the things that you choose who to write about, you dont necessarily need to have everything. But you need have something. Because she was married to a pretty senior officer in the u. S. Army, i can talk about her neck and tracker in a newer she was. Other soldiers talked about her. So i i can sort of find her in e documents and because she led this effort to nurse the soldiers, they wrote about her, the culture the angel of santa fe. In santa fe newspaper printed a piece sort upon her although. They were a little skeptical because she was helping the enemy. So lazy but she seemed too nice. Like she seems like to be true. Dont try to figure out kind of angles on her that would give her a little bit more texture. 2001 of the attendees to the seances. One place to find her. Is very interested in contacting her ex context. Usually a combination of who could find think about the contacts that would give me enough sources so that i can build their lives for you and the page but that would also allow me to talk about the Larger Community and the role and. Guest is a section of the tree is that you ended with some of the three by three that you mentioned anglo, and did you see spano. I just wondered if you could tell us a little bit more about this. Maybe more examples. Megan so one reason is that it in the first multi racial people in the field. His civil war. When we focus so much on the eastern side, were on the approximation, africanamerican soldiering, and those biracial armies and in some parts of the trans mississippi but, in the fall of 1861, has spano volunteers and officers were joining in mexico and native spies were joining anglo volunteers, some were from colorado, gold miners and then u. S. Professional soldiers. They had elected to stay with the union and not with the confederacy. So the army was very interesting. A small army. In comparison to the armies of the east. Between 354500 on any given day. They were actually very much like the fighting forces of the esa not many of them had any experience. Actually during any of this. The hospital soldiers were defending their homelands. One of these theaters of the war were the confederates, susie this is defensive. They were quite willing to pick up arms and fight for the union. Not necessarily fully supported the federal government. They had only been citizens for 12 or 13 years. They had a sort of an easy relationship with the federal government. More than anyone, they need in texas. So the fact, because 1941, texas had inmate new mexico, because of with that santa fe was actually part of texas. [laughter]. So there decided to march into new mexico would try to save santa fe and that ended disastrously. So they got pushed are actually taken prisoner and marched to mexico city. But new mexicans remember that moment and theyci were very resentful and larry of any taxes morning to march into the territory. So this one of the big misjudgments. He kind of came in with a much larger force. In the mormons two. That was a huge disaster for them because he was counting on them to provide food for his army. On that march. So the his spano officers and all of fights not only when the confederacy but the apaches and enough outposts, they were reorganized and they were put into the first california part. Navajos and apaches were in the north. Its really interesting army to study. Some military historians have done so but definitely there is more work that needs to be done there. He is the commander in charge of that. Guest just read the first few chapters. The soldiers and marching and basically their defeated by dehydration and the landscape. How much of the landscape sort of becomes another character and factor. Megan is a great question. I was talking to a podcast or said he thought it was during an antagonist during the book. I think that is true many ways because if any of you have been to the southwest, it is talking. It is very high, and elevation. Its so dry and the distances that these soldiers were traveling even on horseback, they were spending two three months on the road. In west texas the water sources is the pecos river was very few and far between because and theres that army marching and then another army marching another antagonist from an california who came from los angeles also water sources born for part. He staggered the company. So youd only be Going Forward of 100 men in time rather than all 3000 at a time. So they wouldnt just suck dry a water source all at once ready to give it time to replenish. So thats one of the things they tried to do to help survive in the road. So in his picture coming little crazy because its eyes were so lightcolored. And he was a commander and he oversaw everything. He made them train and carry all of the with them and carry water with them. He did notot lose a single persn in that march except in the engagement with the confederates did by the end of that campaign in the guy lost 30 percent of his men and som most of it was exposure. Peace actually started foot marching in theey fall. If you have not been to the desert, it gets very cold at night also during the winter. So for you will hear from davidson a lot in particular complaining about how wet they are called they are rated and often if they are in the desert with trees, they cant start fires. Because how do you. So the soldiers are really more reliant on the wagon trains. This was part of the reason the confederacy lost an begin spoiler alerts. In 1862, the union forces actually commanded by a guy was a lawyer with no experience whatsoever commanding the military but he had read a lot of books. Any thought a maneuver might work he took half the army to go around mason come around the back of the confederates and they destroyed the wagon train which was 80 wagons. They took all of their animals and also let most of them go and if you dont have a wagon train and dont have animals, to move either your bodies or much of the stuff you have left, through the desert during thiss period, you are basically dead men walking. So they had to retreat and they retreated all of the way back and they get back in the spring and the summer. And then they jumped off and went back to san antonio in june and july. In 1862. The environmental aspects of this theater, are really extreme. And you see nature and climate impacting themth in ways, there may be more reminisce of a sense of having challenges of like those in the middle east area much more kind of couple transportation now and wagons and animals. The only other kind of interesting tidbits about that, is that we had a huge dragon train, which state nickname mexico because they had mexican drivers. Again, one of thesese kind of weird things. There is mexico coming up. Er but, they have these wagons that were made out of wood from east texas. I was a started to get into higher and drier areas, it started to shrink and spit out and also the wagons would literally were falling apart on the road. Then where are they going to get more wagons. Hostile populations. They were not going to give them anything. So the environment is working in really interesting and challenging ways. Mostly for the confederates. They were more vulnerable of the two armies. Guest my question would be about the potential of somebody who broke your heart this is that you could not include that person we just didnt have enough. I think it would fit nicely to with the hard choices that historians make all the time when you wish you had something more but it just didnt work for the narrative. Megan i think there were people who i could have included read they were my originalists. There is major player in this conflict also was the soninlaw. And i decided to go with the more intensive kind of experience with the union army and the interaction with him ashley kind of catapults into fullscale war with the army. And he was with them and most of those locations. In fact you will hear about him some is almost like a supporting actor best supporting actor. Youll hear about him but he does become the focus. And i do wish i could have included more to spanos antagonists rated his carson as it was theca head of the first f mexico and was in all of these spaces and narrating all of these actions. A lot of this officers and soldiers for his panel. We know a fair amount about some of them but with the demands of the storytelling, i think it was created to little bit of repetition there. So they tried to do instead was to bring in his spano actors in a non whenever i had the chance. And also kit carson to talk about because he was married into the hispanic community. His wife was from a very prominent family in mexico. And also because of his work as commander. I can bring in all of the stories about those soldiers and their experiences and their morale and why they were fighting in theth motivation ara and of course, i always wish for more women who were there. Writing diaries. In the was a story about john parkin woman. And conversely, theres different sources and during this particular time there just wasnt that much material being generated. I give intriguing elements. Like since is in the santa fe and circulating in this world and i would hear about them in john parts diary or otherir plas read but just couldnt put enough of their stories together they didnt have as much as i needed. Or wanting to have, also married it was with him the whole time subcontractor for the entire conflict but it was more challenging for other women for me to include other women in there. I kept going to the archives and hoping for that kind of eureka moment where you would find someone and you can say yes this is the person. There definitely more stories to tell. Because i think there are caches of sources that we may not know about now or if there in archives but not fully kind of brought in. So we have not found them yet. Im hoping that people will read and come away with a better sense of before they left or why it in the moment. Kind of finish it thinking it was a very good read but also i hope that they leave thinking, i wonder what else is out there. Because this is the stories primarily of the southwest is the gateway to the larger western are so many other communities that are engaged in the war during this time. We need to know more about them. Guest the questions about lanita, what sources did you covered that helped you fill in her story and find her voice. Megan fortyone need to story, i was extremely lucky to have the research of the navajo historian who was a defendant. She has written a book about juanita and has written several articles about her and her role and also several navajo historians or oral historians also which ofso the story and ty been particular of women in the role. So i was able and there is a great book about navajo women and basically in 19th and 20th centuries been about living traditionally. So iel felt like that was a good one. I felt like that source could give meve some good out of contt for her. And knowing what would come from life been like. Did she do domestic test, when she me in charge of things. And also one need to we know was a leader. So there is a lot of good work out there and never host access because there were currency and southwest. They were wellmade and watertight sunday sold and this was one ofem the trade items for navajos along with enslaved people. So theres a whole discussion of slavery in new mexico. I was able to talk about that also with one intent. Because there are stories that given her name juanita and she also had a navajo own name. There were stories and things that she may have been a spanish person who had been enslaved in some sort of parade or some kind ofrt writing warfare and then brought into the navajo tribe and sort of absorbed. Spthat allowed me to talk about that aspect of navajo culture. It allowed me to read about sheep raising and spending actually and weaving blankets addresses in the work that women do to clothe their family and keep them warm. Along with all of the work that they do in agriculture and cooking and soaring total storytelling also. Women are the storytellers the navajo tribe. I went to the Navajo Nation and looked in the lot of their different materials. I can of earlier periods, blankets and dresses in style which she would made it made him. And then also other things like baskets and other things they wouldve had. So also what is interesting about juanita issue along with kit carson which is ironic. Theyre the most photographed people in his book. The reason for that is that she went with this man to washington dc is part of the navajo delegation in 1974. So that photograph is from trip although she was photographed several times in other places. So i have all of these really wonderful images of her. A lot of them, you can see the dress that she is wearing. Circuit described that as well. So then think really and billy were story was about her disciplinary of the kind of biography buildings designs using visual culture, military records to track her in mexico, and then also oral stories. And that had been collected numbly by her descendents but also by the community. Any other questions. Guest you how people come away with a good read. I was taking most of us are introduced to this little world through history textbooks. This is ait good read. I really good read. He really and so much of the reason why any of us do not pursue history. To me this is a way of taking are bringing people through mostly perspective narratives. It can almost read like fiction. Engaging and really seems like this radical how traditional history isdi taught. And how we think of history. Like have you thought about the potential for this type of narrative to be a way to bring new students into history or to open this field up to people who dont want to read about things like this but will follow a person pretty. Megan that is my hope. I have always advocated for but never tried to this book, writing about history is a journey. What are the different ways you can experiment with it. You know what they should be argument driven. Every kind of looks at the same even though the arguments are very different. So i would like to see any kind of boundary pushing along those lines pretty and if you think about a project thats. You wanto do in history, and how you might write about it, a city with the project on exercise, side by sides where they had think about well heres my project, how would i structure it five different ways. With five different sections in the first three were pretty easy. I will do it he manically, chronologically them maybe, but then they really get interesting when we get to the fourth event like, and write this upwards or as a series of letters. I through historical actors or how might they doht this. In this way that is compelling to read about. If so much fiction. In there and so many different ways and we look at, i hear lots of people that if they talk about the work one of the things that happened into his documentaries. One of the reason that that so successful modeling becausese is got photographs that you can use co a innovative way, another just like a normal, it was named after him the reason it is cut so compelling is because it is about people. They picked out individuals they followed through the war in the segments of the documentary and read their words aloud is that they were speaking to you. And one of the things i try to do here is to put quotations. Diary entries instead of using that as evidence is how we would usually do that as a historian. And you would say, Something Like they were uniquely cold that year and that you just had three soldiers to think how cold it was right. So instead,. [laughter]. I have using that quote from the diary telling someone else or actively writing ing his diary and saying how horrible it is. And speaking it as dialogue instead of a paragraph full of compiled evidence. I would love to see more history written in different and interesting ways. They have a lot of reallyy good narrative history think you can write narrative history differentit ways. It would just be really cool to see how people could experiment with that. An academic history heavily fires following such things, that will be hard. I do hope this is assignable for students because one of the things that if not, acceptable. Hopefully in the first chapter. You can only take a chapter from the middle and photocopy it for your students and have them read it. It would make no sense. Then you like taking a chapter from the novel in the military here here are pieces. Its like youre in of the action. Youve already learned things about the people you know what is happening if you read from the beginning. So it will be, interesting to e from my colleagues of mine who are High School Teachers if they are able to assign this book to students in a way that they can read it from this beginning to end. So thats one of ourth challeng. Reading it for a class, how do you divvy it up. Are you working into the syllabus. Maybe a more workable chunks bu hopefully for people who are just reading it you have it on the bid stands reading along, and helping that they can devour it. Like a wooded novel. Thank you all so much for coming. [laughter]. [background sounds]. Youre watching a special edition of book tv, airing out during the week while members of congress and the district due to the coronavirus outbreak and tonight i look at pandemics First National institute of Health Jeremy brown provides history of 1918 flu and tammy. And have prepared we are for the next major outbreak. The discussion about viruses from the 2016 oakland book festival featuring Carl Zimmerman and ed young, and later john berry describes 1918 flu pandemic they killed as