Brooklyn Historical Society a cultural hub for civic dialogue for over 150 years. The Washington Post right professor at Boston College and then with modern conservativism. And with that coalition of the h century. And then the prevalence of sexism and the quality for the civil war. And then they would be persuade persuaded. I am really excited to be here but first woman to share your questions for heather and in the q a box that as a whole the last about an hour. Now its my great pleasure to introduce Heather Cox Richardson author of six books of american politics and writer of the newsletters. Welcome heather. Im here. Trying to unmute myself also first of all thank you to brooklyn Historical Society but also to say im incredibly excited about this because the first time joann and i do her own thing to gather i asked her not only my but the talk about her new book as well but also how the past speaks to the current moment and whats going on in american politics today. We will talk about my book and her book and also the first moment and that we are only limited to an hour but thank you for giving this a shot. Im excited to be here. This will be fun. It seems like an obvious question that one that people are wondering, even the two little blips that i read to use words like provocative so how is it you came to write this book . Given out timely it is . What i study is that i read politics all the time and they say how people are thinking about things and to end up on that but the history of the Republican Party when i read that conscience of the conservative it was so similar to the speech in 1858 how from the a few good people in the government cannot be involved and then destroy certain peoples liberties and they were very very similar. And i was teaching the trail of tears pushing out native americans out of the southeast and oklahoma. So in that particular week of that conversation of why it was a good thing for the unions to lose their land and why this they had to do this happened to be the sum week that some Football Player was caught on a video dragging that girlfriend out of the elevator by her hair. But the language was the exact same and there was no excuse for him dragging her out by her hair. But then talking about why the indians deserve to be push into oklahoma and it says to me this says something about the day now that the power struggles in the past and what i wanted to get to is what created those power struggles and how did we end up in that moment today like the confederates had founded in the 18 fifties so how language creates power structure that to me is that it speaks very much to what you did talking about the importance of a motion and how the coming of the civil war had to do with the motion. So how did you write that . You are right although the book is about physical violence and the logic and the impac impact, what struck me was i knew it would be about congress and violence but the language people were throwing around in the response even just in the historical record we could see how they strategically were using language for those that disagreed with them. Because that relied on emotion. And then to shape what anyone is able to do and what i was doing in my book is looking at the real dynamics and how that was shaping politics overall. You use the word bullying over and over. In the way that takes shape is through language. The way you put things and say things and we talk about gas lighting shaping the world to establish dominance and bully them. It is astonishing the parallels of the past and where we are right now. Even in the realm of bullying. And the reason why its effective in politics is you dont have to exert force that make them thank you could if you wanted to. Its about the threat. And that we could do really ugly things if we wanted to that we just have to be sure the person being bullied understands that its the good way to manipulate people if it works. Do me a favor. [laughter] i will do it but i need you to do me a favor. Because i could do this to you or i could do something to you. Yes. Or we could get along as long as you do what i want you to do. One of the things that we both share is the power of language and we take it for granted but its such a force of shaping politics so what is the moment that language had a shaping influence . It shows up everywhere. Its very hard to say this matters because you cannot quantify. They say but you never quantify how this talk was important. I said i understand that they can you stand there right now and tell me Rush Limbaugh doesnt matter quick. Of course he matters that we cant measure that. Shouldnt we study that . So in 1954 because so much happened right after joe mccarthy crashes and burns in the mccarthy hearings they dont just hear him is not just the language but they see him and say he is a crusader for anti communism he is a bully and we dont want any part of him. After that they come out with the book mccarthy and his enemy. They say he is rough around the edges but he is right what we considered the Birther Movement because that was never a traditional conservativism and we see that play out right now. So we conservatives have to stand against liberalism meaning everybody else. All democrats, eisenhower republicans when that looks terrific with the interstate highways and the g. I. Bill and they didnt do as much of people of color but those not even that are skilled workers but because of the g. I. Bill the engineers or printers that was not attainable during the depression. So they write this book and say we conservatives is basically everybody else. And when they capitalize and people talk generally were all of her all. You can even talk about liberalism. We believe the government has a role to play to regulate business and promote infrastructure like the interstate highway. So everybody thought of themselves as liberal. These guys are the communist party in china and they take over america. People think that mccarthy is a good guy . But by now the adi being a liberal remember being called the l word . And now it is an epithet and you can see that being constructed. In the 19 nineties Newt GingrichPolitical Action committee was in charge and then tried to socialize. So they actually circulate a document with all the words they should use when they talk about democrats like trader, lazy, special interest, angry and really negative words and then talk about republicans and they are patriots, fiscally responsibl responsible, family, happy , and you can literally see the moment of which they write out all of the traditional republicans. And also republicans in name only. Important language. And then to divide the country into labeling half as negative and have as positive. But im trying to remember you talk about a similar touchtone didnt you . Certainly. Creating a new we by creating a new them suggest to capitalize those words to suggest there is a and it and to capitalize and the power of that it doesnt even necessarily have the awareness but they do just by looking at it and i gets back to politics because if you are really effective at that skill not just in us and a them to put into emotions that will play well and that is a direct drill. And things that you wont necessarily process. So in my first book. By the way i loved it. One of the factors of democracy is how important languages. It is that negotiating power so by definition inflexible. And then Federalist Party in the 17 nineties more elitist. So in the speech and then to use the word aristocrat and then there is a whole cascade of things even with that bag edge attached to it is the way that shapes power and politics stricken ear in the 21st century its another great moment people are not that concerned about taxes in the eighties but if you talk about taxes it conjures up an idea that somehow those of hardworking white people goes to the pockets of lazy people of color in feminist. Even have a conversation by a political operative, lee atwater who says by 1968 you cant use racial epithet even though he does. You cannot say vote for me or you have to deal with this. He says we generalize debt. If you talk about busing people know what you take about on talk about that now you talk about taxes people say i care about taxes. It is not carrying the baggage of this long history of american in fear. But the reality is by 1980 in the politicians where they will never raise taxes and the democrats want to take money from the makers and give it to the takers is coded language. Even now with social welfare legislation is do you want your taxes raised . It is right on the table with a three letter word and to deploy that is a certain case of politics. And then to see on social media they will say no. Thats not necessary but it is meant to have a coded message. And it shows the power of that. You can say thats not what i meant. I remember what people started using the white powers symbol and we use that as the okay symbol. Then you start to see you and think oh my gosh. But it took that. Of ambiguity if you said it was white powers symbol especially the older people saying you are social justice warriors but it was in such a way it was double the powerful not only calling your people to you but if anybody called you out then they would say you are being paranoid but thats how language works and gas lighting thats how it works exactly. And that early. But by some logic to some people you declare your loyalty and planted yourself somewhere just by asking the question. It is a fair question that flies into us versus them. Those people at the time understood the power and in the late 18 fifties i found a lot of members of congress say to each other we have to control our words. And worried if the union would collapse and then have that testimony for that power on a high level and popular level but then to say we will have bloodshed. So the power of that is so easy not to acknowledge it. In the 19th century we studied rhetoric like chamberlin the professor frederick literally studied using words to mobilize populations and we let that go in the early 20th century. The whole series of books on history and the fact that we to have the study but also for it to be deployed to act in such a way that most americans dont think about it is problematic. But there is it is really really misleading that is not historically accurate and makes people sound like they say things they are not. And misusing the quotation mark. It is true but he left out a word. But and if you can tell us somebody is being manipulative. So once and this book in 1951 was rich in culture believers. Everybody is worried about hitler and mussolini. Every generation in certain areas people will listen to them. So that is absolutely done by language, then you have to weaponize it. So than in the 18 fifties the four stages of how you go from its in my interest to how that turns into a societal view. And then we probably should not vote and they really shouldnt have power. And those who are defined as the others they end up killing them. But it is a four stage process. How do you know when you are being manipulated . And it speaks and that is an important place to go. How do people know they are being manipulated . Its a good question. The most consistent question because i only look or even those that but students get to a point where they get confused. How do i know . They know what they say and when they say it to have an impact. Is it adds a but in parma answers the question has to do with being aware of details surrounding context and not spend in the way you are expected to. But rather if you could step back and think to focus on the details by that you are thinking about evidence and the circumstances for its meaning. But you have to think about it. And particularly now when but for them to decide what the facts are. And then to step back and consider because its hard it is confusing. But the truth of reality but it creates a particular kind of moment in politics everybody once the who, what, whe who, what, when, where, why. But i say step back. Do you think your neighbors are keeping bbs in the basement . Do you really think this would have happened . Because so much of what we hear and of course this is in the 18 fifties but you think oh my god. Really cracks i just met a lot of people in my life and to my knowledge people never. That is not normal behavior. Thats the first stage but its funny that i tell you that because of this pandemic i am sitting on property that belongs to the woman who told me this. She was born 1896 and have people think about this and republicans believe this and she would say who was getting the money and giving it . She said he was saying follow the money. Followed the money. That is that we see all the time people say is this real . Is this real . Think about who makes the money from that. I get this all the time. You only say the things you do because you are so highly paid. I have no complaints and make a very good living but somehow sean hannity is telling the truth . How is she on the internet . I promise you im a published professor im not giving sean hannity a run for his money. You may want to say who is making money from this particular video and who will stand to gain with the legislation put in place. And doing wonderful things for the farmers. Because i cant say anything. I can tell you it is snowing outside that does it mean that it isnt. Both the 18 fifties brings to the table is that if youre not swept up in the emotional language then how do you step out of it . I think both era talks about examining who is talking and why and what emotions it triggers. Does it make you feel angry and afraid and miserable . But that you can do something thats an important distinction. Will it really bl sharia law in oklahoma . Ive never heard anybody even talk about it. And then he makes the rounds but it can happen i can see it. [laughter] right. In one way or another to plug into the reality is to ask that question. Just recently someone on twitter proclaimed they are all like that. And they are out for no good and only out for many. My response was am i evil . We engage all the time. No you are not. So then who fits into that and why do you say that . Because on the one hand it is a way to decode something that you can also see how it could contribute to conspiracy theories and with this kind of woman with this kind of woman and that people fundamentally they want to understand how and why they work the ways they do and that is a conspiracy to explain it. I never understood that. I am not a conspiracy person. Im very much ask questions until we get to the base. But if you want to understand conspiracy and how things really work, they are around you. To really get into somethin something, look at the history of the post office. And entangled complicated story why do you manufacture something when there is so much real stuff that is fascinating . I was talking just yesterday of the iraq war. She abd it. It was every where. So i always wondered about conspiracy theorists because if you want to get involved in stuff and look at the leverage of power at all right there. It doesnt have to happen in the basement of a pizza parlor or the idea that somehow somebody planted a birth certificate in hawaii. Its now uncovered by it or medical researcher. A day no more by their own thing and that is deeply problematic because as i said to somebody yesterday experts can be prick prickly. I think you and i are fairly approachable, but certainly i come and im sure that you have experiences asking a simple question to an expert and they treated you like you are the stupidest, like its just always mortifying no matter how it happens. So some of them can be difficult, but i dont think i have ever met a real expert who wasnt deeply profoundly in love with their topic and the truth. You dont have to b be their friend, buthere forhim, but thew some researcher who is pulling down 30,000 a year tops is working e. Hour weeks because somehow saw the payroll of big pharma. The idea that somehow this poor researcher at the university of nebraska is a part of some conspiracy is a divorce from reality. It validates the assumption and predates a story. The people that you talk about they are so passionate about it they are neat and tidy and the strugglstruggle and fight and te complexity and ambiguity is a that is what i love to do a two guys are mad at each other and go to the field and one shoots up the other and then it is resolved. The logic of it is logical because they are risking their lives for that logic. Let me figure out things like education and political power and all these things get mixed in and it makes perfect sense but its far more interesting than the period they hated each other and what a rough time that was. That doesnt tell you about the tying period. One of the things we do in history everything we pass is good or bad. Human beings are mixed in our history is mixed into one of the things about the polarizing language we are talking about one of the passages in that language is that it takes away the ambiguity of what human beings really are. Your heroes come from nowhere. Nobody wakes up one morning and says im going to be a real jerk today. They say im going to go protect my family. Nobody sees himself as a fill fillin. For the most part, the kind of regular people that you talk about goes into washington and is just a regular nice guy and by the end of the book he didnt speak up and say im going to be a warrior to a quickie book of considering going to go about my day and gradually got radicalized. The opposite is also true, people put their feet on the ground. You read in their sort of wife like he did this and she did that and she did that and i hate to give away a spoiler but one because she goes to bed and rolled by the japanese. She cant be there and shes like no, no, i cant. Ive got to go home. So in a pan attack she gets a panic attack she gets put in the position and shes terrified without being discovered, she watches the movements of the occupiers the whole time and when she emerges, she has information nobody else has. She didnt have to wake up to say im going to be a hero and refuse to be enrolled. The people are like where are our heroes, they are us. You might be putting your feet on the ground today thinking that you are just going to go to downtown and when push comes to shove and you have to make a distinction between doing what is right and doing what is wrong, if you choose what is right, that is the first step to being a hero and that is the peace i feel like this kind of f gotten lost in the sweeping narratives where you are either good or bad. No, you are both. Host when you look over the broad sweep of americans, there is a tendency often among some people to try to find the golden period, the good period. When it was all good and happy in the pentagon after that point. And of course there is no golden moment. There was august 13, but that moment doesnt exist. There are always compromises being made, people making good choices and bad choices. And the struggle of any country but certainly the american story is about some people having ideas and ambitions and hoping they make the right choice in otheandother people being motivy Different Things some people unable to proceed possibilities in other people are able to and they been up against each other in choices are made and the story moves on. There is no moment in American History when you dont have the struggle and ugliness and ideals together in one messy blog. Allowing yourself to believe in the things that feel believable without painting something is perfect or golden or better. When you do that, you erase the human struggles for history, and that is what history is. Talk about the future, people making choices about where we go from here and how we move past the moment that they are currently in. I see that a lot of people have been asking a question in a general kind of way which is a asking how the civil war itself laid out the foundation for the shifts and ideological shifts that we see today. How does the first period come later . Guest i do think it is a fascinating pattern and i would think to just list the civil war and reconstruction. What happens in the civil war irq that there are two important things that come onto the civil war under what has been at the Republican Party the brandnew Republican Party and that is on the one hand you get to push for the inclusion of africanamerican men in the declaration of independence and the idea that they should have equality of opportunity, not an outcome that the quality of opportunity. And you get that push during the civil war. You also get a rejection of the idea that he will b a few wealtd run the country and the idea that the government itself should be the government of the people, by the people and for the people and that isnt in ways we tend to forget today. It is in the inclusion of africanamerican men in the definition of the body politic but thats the homestead act and American Indian land. Its designed to get the Union Pacific railroad act designed to get what people object to the westerwestern plains and westerd so that they can rejoin the society. We get the first so people can do business over the state lines, which by the way, there was a great piece when hes trying to get across the country and has many doesnt work. You also get for the first time in American History national taxation, so the idea that people are investing in the government and that the government in turn is for the people. People on the government and event takes care of the people that are investing in it and that is everybody. Paying sales tax and income tax during the civil war on the Republican Party. So, what happens after the war is these things all kind of cluster together and giving reconstruction, what happens is the southern democrats that loathe the idea of black participation society, mind you they dont want slavery back. Its completely disintegrated during the war and they might want it back but its clear that its long gone and you could never really untangle. They work for their survival and the employers cheat them, they raped women, kill some of the men and because of the code they write in the summer of 65, they cannot sue, they have n no right to alsrightsat all so under the circumstances, africanamericans go to the Army Officers and covered under the department established called the bureau of refugees. They go to them and say help us out here. We worked hard and after three months they say we havent done anything. Anything. The Bureau Officers that are Army Officers because that is the area of the Government Congress put it in, the bureau refugees created them and abandoned land in the summer of 65 and it becomes known, they decided in favor of africanamericans about 70 of the time. At that point they start to say we didnt care about slavery after all. What we care about is the federal government telling us how to treat our people. This is going to change over the next three to four years as they have the ability to protect their own right in the civil rights legislation and by establishing federal courts where they can testify under the bureau. What you are doing is giving rights that they are not labeled by name in any legislation because it was written for them but he says are giving rights to block then you are giving to white men but then he said something huge and he says what you are doing is creating this giant federal government, giant federal government that is designed to give rights that white men dont have and the only way to pay for those rights is by tax dollars. What you are doing is redistributing wealth for hardworking white people too lazy and impoverished africanamericans. That language right there is in his veto the bills of 1866 and by 1871, southern democrats that want to get the black rights based on racial issues suddenly say it wasnt race we were worried about the fact they were having poor people now suddenly saying how our tax dollars are supposed to be spent in its righitsright there we get the uf the word socialism, all the papers talk about socialism in the south of how socialism has taken over america because state legislatures and the federal government are creating bureaus and programs that have to be paid for by tax funding and those things will benefit africanamericans and because africanamericans are impoverished after the war, thats going to come from taxes on white people and even today you hear people screaming constantly on the massachusetts statehouse two days ago somebody saying that the whole idea of closing down the societies because they want to turn into the socialist states of america. What they are saying is that any legislation that helps achieve quality of opportunity across the societies they redistribution of wealth because its going to take tax dollars is nothing to do with 20th century socialism and producti production. Its just right here from this era of reconstruction and comes right out of the civil war. And i keep saying i have for various articles about when reconstruction ended that you could make a good case for the fact reconstruction still hasnt ended because they are having the exact same conversation today that they had in the 1870s. Host so a civil war by definition shuffles the relationship between government and the people you are describing an ongoing battle for who that is, whos included in this excluded and those are obviously highly significant questions. After some time they are more pressing but people know that is part of the battle going on here and part of why its so person personal. There was this literally save democracy and somehow that has the use of language because at this moment where its a very small group of people who believe that they should control the wealth and the power for the good of the rest of us and to me that sounds like what they were saying and i am not comfortable with that. Host im going to switch a little bit because we were asked a question that talks more about us and historians penitence above. And i think its an important thing to talk about, so the question is basically given what we are doing right here speaking to each other with this great group of people in the public why art historians so eager to be public intellectuals with this at this moment that is inspiring some historians to step more aggressively forward dan moments where they might have done that in the past . Guest im not sure that i can answer that because it hasnt been my experience there are certainly people of our generation doing it. You could count us on a maximum of two hands. Younger historians have been involved but i was actually be here weve both been public intellectuals for most of our careers its just nobody pays attention. I didnt wake up one day put my feet on the ground and say im going to write these letters. I was painting my house and got stung by a Yellow Jacket and im allergic to them. And i didnt have my pen, so i had to observe the reaction. The next thing i knew, everybody was asking questions and so that was born. And its funny at one point i wrote an article in a place where near the guardian for many years people said its great they discover they. But i think its just me o justn the moment but we recognize for too long weve paid attention to the narrative that wasnt rooted in reality. Its saying wait a minute that isnt what happened in 1954. How did we do. Get. How do we get out of it. I think that is the thing historians bring to the conversation that other commentators dont necessarily. I often joke that i have a double brain at this particular moment. Part of my brain is looking at what is happening and thinking about patterns. I have a sense of urgency and im thinking like a historian. I do think there is a different sense of urgency to this moment and you are right both of us have been engaged in talking to the public forever, but theres an urgencthere isan urgency to s different or feels different to me. Sometimes i get an online webinar where i talk about looking at the past and then how you can use those tools to figure out the press and. I was trying to think of something i could write or do. Low and behold this moment has taught us things about technology but its added reporters are doing Something Different and you and i. But i always find it enormously frustrating when you get an article and it says joe smith, director of the great office of something youve never heard of, pertains to something youve never heard of and some congressperson said im going to cut it off at the knees and youre like what on earth just happened here so a lot of wha ii didnt really say here is the players, heres the larger story of why this matters and heres how it might come out. People complain sometimes but i dont go into a lot of stuff. If you took out my explanation of who each person is, i bet that theres probably 50 to 200 words in every one of those is just what the players are. The actual analysis, there is a whistleblower thing where the first time i saw that last night, i mike i remember this, i remember the name, i remember there was a whistleblower complaint and he was somebody important. But i wrote about the back story, and i think that is where a lot of it is important because we can say here is the context, and heres why it matters. There isnt really a room in the newspapers to do that. Most is doing well but there are others they do it for every single story and its like i have a job. They do a great job with it, but nobody can read a bunch of stuff on each particular thing. And the study of history is about context. We are trying to do that sort of thing right at this moment. Its a story. People are sending me wonderful stuff about mathematical models and they are really interesting but its hard to make a mathematical model, why did we have the story is to make it come alive. We have the humanities and what can touch you more at this moment then people that can connect with the humanity of the past and the present and try to make sense of it in a way that is sincere and comes from your own attempt to figure it out, so all of that makes perfect sense to me. This is a good question we should address language to shake what people think of liberals. Its happening on both sides, and if it is, are there similarities, how is the reverse working . Absolutely it is with the new book is about. One of the things that has been powerful especially since the 1980s is the degree to which the movement in the conservative language has dominated everything sweet and the democrats got swept up into the idea of the Market Forces controlling things and we ended up with a nation in such a place that it was shaped along a certain ideological view. So even if you are saying there are weapons of mass destruction in iraq, if you were doing those kind you were still reinforcing distaste thathe space that the c caused. One of the project is im and each day and get people asking what can i do, one of the things that i engaged in and from my study in history is to develop a different language to say yes, us versus them command line includes people who want equality of opportunity and want to use the government not for many of the top but to put money at the bottom and to make sure people can work our job and make enough money to support a family. That is my us. And it looks very much like us of the 1950s, the eisenhower years except i would hope that its a great deal more inclusive i think you could get into an argument about this but there is no doubt the 1950s wasnt exactly the time for people of color were women or whomever. If i am right that the language controls politics and power is controlled by tapping into the deeper Human Emotions and american values, the way that you change history is by changing our language. When you use the word patriot and you dont mean somebody screaminneed somebodyscreaming d a steakhouse, but the guy who gets in his truck and goes off to support his family, that changes the association of words and the National Narrative changes history. Thats why i say to people speak up and say what you believe in and what matters because that is what is going to change history and changed the moment we are in the people feel good about being an american and it isnt hating and killing and destroying and the dominating browser building up and creating a society where everybody has equality of opportunity. So, is there another narrative, i would argue that his is important because it was hetero normative and kind of racist, not kind of really racist and sexist but we have the space to build our own new narrative and that is the excitement in this moment. We are in a crisis and we get to decide what comes next and put our feet on the floor in the morning and say im going to make the next right choice. Its a really exciting time to get to choose the future. Its also a moment they are being called upon to appreciate the process of government and create how the constitution on a basic level structures. What does it mean to have other branches of government and what are the checks and balances, what are the Different Things being a citizen has meant overtime and how does our politics work, what is the process of self . I think some of what we are experiencing right now is people are not plugged into that. As a historian, some of what ive experienced is the need to step forward. The process matters. If you cannot, for example, trust elections, you need to say there will always be 100 honest but if they say we believe in the process and oversight and there is a way to fix it, but process comes in its place . Weve talked about this before but when i talk about the founding and its tempting to talk about ideology etc. But if you ask them at the time the most valuable contribution, some of them said so out right. They will tell you the process they created is going to be all kinds of crises we cant even imagine what they will be in the future that we are setting up an emotion a process with the convention itself. You could at least refer back and have a platform so you can find a way out that is part of a shared agreement on how the nation works. And i feel like weve sort of lost the process and we are so used to things being unprecedented right now that we are losing that touchstone and its a really important one. That is what happened in the 1850s and now in the past few years. The pieces are there for everyone to pick up and this is the ultimate outcome in the 1850s of course where there were people who didnt like the process or get their way they simply said we are done. We are going home and so from watching the process just wait around us today again what is the outcome of that and i talk about that all the time. If you dont have that group of bureaucrats and loyal to the government or the state not an individual, then you become a group of abscessed oligarchs. You are beholden to whomever holds the ranks of power and have no means of reclaiming that because of the very least even if you replace that person with your person, you still dont have a process in place. Thats the other thing we need to do is protect elections but also protect nonpartisan membe members. Dedicated to the state and process. I think on that note, we told ourselves around two pathways that is urgently needed to call chris. I think along the lines of what you are saying, its tempting to experience this moment and think either everything is going to be fine or we are done, and i think part of the spirit of what youre saying is we still matter as the public. A template. This is a moment of extreme contingency so what we do matters. Its a moment of possibility and contingency and that is a positive and encouraging messa message. That is the way to look at it but its also the moment to realize that democracy isnt a spectator sport and its so exciting to see so many people getting involved in the process that you and i have loved in our own ways for many decades and its also the moment to recognize democracy is about us and we need to step up to the plate and decide what we want to do with it, what they are okay with and what we are not. In all of the terror in this moment its also one of the extraordinary possibility. Absolutely and i think maybe it makes sense to end there. I want to thank everyone out there who has been watching and engaging in the conversation for coming. Obviously look to the site for more programs now that we are in the virtual universe. Who knows what will happen. But at any rate, thank you all for coming. Ive had great fun today. And thank you, joe joanne and thank you to everybody for having patience with what wasnt probably what they were expecting that seemed to be a much more fun thing to do. If you want to go along with the actual book, you know, i do my own facebook theories on it. And that will be archived on youtube. As soon as i get the time to label those if you didnt feel like you got enough on that particular thing is available elsewhere as well, so thank you. This was fun. I will add my last little commercial advertisement. Those that are interested in my conversations looking at history and applying it to the present on every thursday morning at 10 00, they are live and archived at nche. Net conversations. Think you guys. Thank you guys. Thanks everyone. Starting now our summer series that features programs from our archives with wellknown authors. Next, historian joanne freemanm talks about her life in writing. She appeared on our monthly program, in depth come in september, 2019. Host you are going to hate this opening question. Trace the arc of the nations history from 1783 to 1861, the political history of the nation. Guest