Hello and welcome. My name is daughter. Im so happy to see you all here. Weve been planning this event for a while and had to postpone it. And so im extra glad to have a full house tonight. And for good reason. Were here for a conversation with kevin kruse and Julian Zelizer, and theyre here to talk about, of course, their coedited book, myth america historians take on the biggest legends and lies about our past and our recent past. Kevin kruse and Julian Zelizer are colleagues in the History Department at princeton university, where kevin is. In addition, director of the center for collaborative history. And julian is also on the faculty at the school for public and international affairs. The two cowrote faultlines a history of the united states. Since 1974. Before now coedited miss america. Kevins other books include the Award Winning white flight atlanta and the making of modern conservatism and one nation under god. How Corporate America invented Christian America. Yes, julians many equally celebrated books include the fierce urgency of now Lyndon Johnson. Congress and the battle for the Great Society and burning down the house. Newt gingrich. The fall of the speaker and the rise of the new Republican Party from these titles alone, you can easily see the venn diagram of their long running and overlapping interests in american political history and miss america now drives home for us how the disinformation crisis is a condition made acute by the Trump Presidency as much as by the role of social media in spreading lies and it makes inescapable the fact that this disinformation is a chronic condition with very deep roots in americas selfconception. In fact, maybe what distinguishes a myth from a lie is that a myth takes time to take hold and can be corrected, but perhaps not undone with a countervailing truth. Not that its a given any longer that the truth will this larger lie. The range in this book is as impressive as it is sobering. Reaching as it does from the myth of american exceptionalism to that of the vanishing indians, to the men of america, as somehow not an empire with many others along the way. And we can maybe take some comfort from the fact that myth america was on. The New York Times bestseller list for many weeks running if myths cant be undone simply by setting the record straight. They certainly also cant be overcome without that crucial work. This book does some heavy lifting in creating the conditions of possibility for selfexamination that its many readers seem to be ready to show up for. I imagine that the brief to contributors must have included a demand to write forthrightly and clearly, because sort of incredibly. All the essays. Essays in this book meet that very high bar. And i feel certain, not least because of that, that miss america will be a powerful tool for the classroom. What more could we hope for from our historians . Please now join me in giving a warm welcome to Julian Zelizer and kevin kruse. Thanks again. Thank you so much. Its great to be here. Thank you for having us here. Labyrinth is just a wonderful bookstore, so its really an honor and always a welcoming place to speak about ideas and books. So how were going to do this, were each going to speak for about 10 minutes. Just give you a little overview of what we are trying to do, and then we want to open it up for questions and answers for the rest of the time so that you can ask whats on your mind about the book. This was really great project to work on. We tried to find some of the brightest minds in the academy who write well and who had something to say about the big issues of the day. I think we were responding to a number of issues. In fact, and we always say debating history and controversies over history are not new. The history profession has always actually prided itself on intense arguments about how do you interpret the past . We call it historiography. Thats what were trained to do in graduate school to try to understand how different scholars have interpreted, assert in period a certain issue of a certain person. Theres a huge literature on the cold war, for example, and kind of what caused it and what caused the ramp up of the cold war. Theres a huge literature on reconstruction with historians having very different interpretations of how do you study that period . The key in these arguments is that the historians are grounding their arguments in Archival Research and theyre grounding it in a kind of wide read, a vast read of what other scholars have found on the topic. Theres also been more political controversies that we talk about in the introduction before our current times. In 1994, for example, there was a big debate in washington when there was going to be an exhibit over the end of World War Two and the atomic bomb and the decision to drop the bomb. And a big controversy broke out between veterans groups, historians, curators about how do you depict that decision and what are the implications of the way its depicted in that kind of moved out into the public sphere today, though, is a different kind of issue, which i think drove us to take on this project. And its a problem more about disinformation, misleading information, arguments about history that are totally disconnected, totally disconnected from what historians and teachers have been working on. And finding over the years. And we highlight in the interest action to kind of sources of this. One does come from the modern media ecosystem, in particular conservative media, which has created a huge platform form where we saw a lot of arguments being put forward in the last few years, which were kind of striking because they were directly at odds with some basic facts that most historians agree to be true. And we wanted to put out an alternative to understanding these questions. And in part its in politics, history has become politicized and we do argue that theres an imbalance between what we saw in the parties. And there was a big push in a lot of republican politics and that those examples range from the 1776 commission that former President Trump put together at the end of his administration, sean, to whats going on in florida under governor desantis, where history is being weaponized and either being used as a real tool of political combat or the subject itself is becoming the focus of what can be taught and what cant be taught. The book also, we should say, looks at some myths that really have taken hold across the aisle and are not partizan, and theyre just myths that can often mislead us in terms of how the past is unfolded. Issues like the history of native americans, the u. S. Overseas. I wrote one on the reagan the idea of a reagan revolution, immigration and more as well as on the founders. Our goal really with the book wasnt to myth bust so much as to put out smart arguments about these big issues by historians who really know their stuff, historians who are really well versed in these subjects, but again, who can write it and it really accessible way and finally on that, we did want to showcase what goes on in the academy. I mean, the two of us as professors feel the kind of intense heat and antagonism that often exists. Unfortunately, in these days between the university and most of you live near one and the rest of the world. And theres historians, people dont hear from who are doing just great work and work. Thats interesting. Even if you dont agree with it, thats thats really sophisticated and engaging and we wanted to showcase some of the scholar, as you might not see so much on tv or hear on the radio, some of whom have come out in the last few years via social media, writing in different publications and and use this book as a vehicle to introduce readers to them. My essays on the reagan revolution, and thats an idea that has a real powerful hold. The idea that in the 1980 election, really everything changed and we moved into a fundamental, really new political era. And i just try to take on two elements of that, which i think dont give a full history of the period. One is the persistence of liberalism, the idea that reagan didnt wipe away the legacies of the new deal or the Great Society. Reagans presidency in the end was built on top of the foundations that they created, and they look at different policies, domestic policies, even foreign policy, where you can see that conservatism wasnt a revolution, it wasnt a clean sweep into a new era. But these other ideas and policies persisted as well. And you have more of a civil war unfold that i think helps us understand where we are today. And the second part of the idea of a reagan revolution, which i tried to challenge, is the idea that reagan wasnt an incredibly contentious president. There were Many Americans from activist, religious leaders to citizens who were not on board with what the Reagan Administration was doing. And i highlight someone like tip oneill, who these days is often remembered for liking to have a beer with reagan at the end of the day, as many people often tell the story. But in fact, if you look at oneill at the time and even in his memoirs, he didnt have very kind things to say about what reagan was doing and about the reagan president. So i tried to bring back just how contentious this decade was, and i do so as kevins heard me say, as a way to actually treat reagan more seriously and to really understand his presidency, including some of the limitations and challenges that his administration faced, rather than somehow discount finding the significance of those two terms. So let me turn it over to kevin to talk a little bit and then wed love to hear from all of you. Just want to echo what julian said in terms of thinking labyrinth for having us here. They always put on great event is one of my Favorite Places in town so very happy to see you all out. Not just supporting us in the book, but this great bookstore and also to just the second all the things that he said about our ambitions with the book, ill briefly talk about my chapter, which was on the southern strategy. Now i see a lot of puzzled faces around the room. The idea that the southern strategy would be included in a book on myths about American History might seem a little odd because a lot of you lived through it a lot of you saw it unfold before your eyes. I grew up in the south. I saw the some of the tail end of it and this was a very conventional idea. The southern strategy, for those of you dont know, is that the Republican Party long the party of lincoln, the party of racial liberalism, the Party Associated with the north, from the civil war on that in the 1960s, it finally decided that it needed to make some inroads into the south and make win over some conservative voters. There and that its long support of civil rights was the Sticking Point that had to be tossed overboard. And so they made peace with segregationists and made an effort to reach out to them. This is a standard story. I cannot get more conventional and conventional narratives than this story. And its obvious because its all over the Public Record at the time. And since this is something that. Reporter guys were chronicling in real time, that strategists for Barry Goldwater or Richard Nixon were talking about in real time to the press, the Party Platform terms of the Republican Party showed this transformation. The polling data shows that no ordinary voters understood what was going on. We see it after the fact in the memoirs and the oral histories and interviews with these figures. They talk about it very openly. What they were trying to do, what they what they accomplished. And its really a remarkable achievement. It really does bring about the kind of the conservative ascendancy that ends with revolution or not brings reagan to power. So this is an obvious story. And so part of my task was very easy, just going back and drawing out this, the story that was kind of hiding in plain sight. I had to do this because a lot of people have suddenly started to doubt this idea of the southern strategy, and theyve done so for clear partizan reasons, i. E. , about a decade ago, a decade and a half ago, republican ends were seeking to turn the page on the southern strategy. We had two different chairmen of the Republican National committee, ken mehlman, and then michael steele, who apologized for the southern strategy, who basically said that was a different chapter of the Republican Party. And now were turning the page on this. And i think in the era of george w bush, there was a sincere effort to turn the party towards a more multiracial, make up, a more moderate on civil rights, open to immigration reform, things like that. You can look at bushs cabinet and its priorities. You can see it all pretty clearly. So that was in keeping with this long history. They acknowledge the past and were seeking to simply move on from it. The problem came when the Trump Movement started and there was a new generation of republican operatives who didnt want to apologize for the past. They wanted to pretend the past never happened, and rather than own up to the southern strategy, they insisted it was, in the words of an article carol swain put out a video on prager. You. It was largely an invention of liberal academics and an invention recently that we had somehow retrofitted this story out of the past. And so the idea here was that they were going to rather than acknowledge racism in the past of the party, simply pretend that the party had never embraced racism and therefore couldnt possibly embrace racism. Under trump. So again, i hear the chuckles. So part of my task was to go back and just recover this history thats hiding in plain sight. I was actually surprised at how plain its hiding. Bill dickinson, an Alabama Democrat who switches to the Republican Party in 1964 and is elected as one of the first republicans in congress from the state. When he switches parties, he says, i am joining the white mans party. The mississippi Republican Party in 1964 writes that offensive racial segregation into its platform, the first Mississippi Republican elected in 1964, the first place he goes to speak after winning his election is a klan front known as the association for the preservation of the white race. Its not subtle. Okay, so all of that story was something i thought i knew, but i found incredibly colorful details, which i was happy to write about in the piece. But i also found that the origins of this are a lot earlier than we thought, and im not alone in this. Other people have written about this, but the traditional story is the public might know it is that this all happens under goldwater and nixon. Its a story rooted in the sixties. And certainly theres a really remarkable shift there thats really, really comes out in the public. You see big things like Strom Thurmond switching of the dixiecrat candidate, switching from being a democrat to a republican. Barry goldwater, the nominee in 64 as voted against the civil rights act. And theres a long proponent of the socalled southern strategy have been telling republicans, we need to go hunting where the ducks are in the south. And by that he meant give up chasing black votes, go after White Conservative votes. But what i found in looking at this is that the origins of this is a common problem for historians. We always find things a little earlier than we. We thought they were. We keep digging back further and further into the past. But i found that the story really takes off not in the 1960s, but in the late 1940s. And right after the dixiecrat revolt, when southern democrats, both the Democratic Party and opposition to trumans embrace of civil rights in 1948 and run the states rights Democratic Party, the dixiecrat party, theyve grown in failure. But this signals to both parties the republicans in the democrats, southern democrats are up for grabs and even though the southern democrats technically come back into the fold of the Democratic Party, largely because the senior figures on the senate dont want to give up their seniority. Leaders of the Republican Party see an opening here, and it starts right away. And in 1948 and 49 prominent senators from the Republican Party are urging a union between dixiecrats and republicans. The head of the rnc goes down to alabama in 1952 and says, you all believe in states rights. Republicans believe in states rights. We should get together and form a union. And its no accident that some of the early candidates that the Republican Party runs in the south are themselves former dixiecrats. In 1954, the candidates the Republican Party runs in both alabama and florida are former leaders of the dixiecrat movement. As time goes on, theyre less former formal dixiecrats than just former segregationist. In 1963, they run a two Democrat Officials who have just jumped to the Republican Party. But who make it clear they believe in white supremacy. So this story is one that stretches back from the forties all the way really into the current millennium. A lot of this change doesnt finally settle out in Southern States at the local level until the early 2000s. So its a long process. And so i think its wrong to think of it. Its simply wrong to think of it as something it didnt happen. But if youre someone who believed it did happen, but it was suddenly a quick switch in the mid sixties, its a much longer and arduous process than that, but it was one that was fun to write about. Were ready for questions. Absolutely. All right. So dorothea has a microphone and well come around you. And again, please wait till the microphone gets to you to ask your question. Otherwise, the people on cspan will see us responding to nothing. Theyll be very confusing. So if you have a question, just go out and raise your hand and radio will find you here. So right here and were happy to talk about some of the other essays in the book as well. Right. Thank you. Thank you very much. I have read the book. I wrote. I find that its fascinating, troubling, but a very, very good and important read. And then it comes to the question that i have and you alluded to it and you allude to this in your introduction as well. It is heavily weighted towards the myths propagated by the political right, and that is just a real that thats a point that people can, you know, cant get to and to discount to the book how do you propose those to answer . You know, those critics im thinking of some of your colleagues on campus, you know, who feel that theyre very persecuted for having conservative views. How do you and how do we go about countering the arguments that are going to be made, that this just is a liberal bias. Well, id say a couple of things, and weve got this question before. So and i think its a valid one. First and foremost, this is a book that came out of what we were seeing around us in the moment. And because the book really took shape in in 2019 and 2020, a lot of the energy, a lot of the conversation about American History was coming from the right. It came from the Trump Administration with its 1776 commission, again, a commission about American History that had no american historians writing the report. It came from a governor desantis, Governor Abbott in texas and florida who are republicans. Right. And so thats where the energy has been. And so weve been kind of reacting to that. But again, as julian said, youre right that a lot of the myths that we talk about the book are coming from the right. But there are ones that are what we call bipartisan myths about american exceptionalism, the american empire, the vanishing indian, things like that. And we do have some small pushback against im not trying to say theyre both sides equally represented. But if you look at akhil omars piece, he tackles some things from the right. But when he discusses the constitution, he also discredits some very progressive historians like charles beard. He takes them on, too. So there are some points there, i think its entirely fair to say, but its weighted to the right. But i would just say that thats just the moment were in. And if we were to do a volume like this in in ten years, and if joe biden is at the end of his presidency putting out a wildly ahistorical commission, will lean into that, too. Yeah. Yeah, i just ill add a couple of things. One of the ideas that weve talked about and ive written about in other books and its its an idea that comes from the social sciences that theres this asymmetry in partizan ship and that partizanship exists on both sides. And you see that. But its different. Its qualitatively different. And i think part of what kevins getting at is the weight in terms of history of where you saw again, work disconnected, totally disconnected from where scholarship was was as we wrote this coming primarily although not entire early from kind of conservative media and conservative writers who are tackling history below riley and others who are taking on these kinds of issues in their books. So we stand by that. And that is what we were going to respond to at the moment. It is important and its very and this is part of the answer to you. It is weighted there. But there are other essays that i think kind of easily connect to myths that you hear more broadly. We would continue the project or we hope others continue the project. And this is the method is more important in some ways than this being a totality of findings. And sure, when you see these kinds of problems in how we interpret history, our point is see what historians have to say and kind of have a serious debate about it. And i must say, we picked historians, i guess our criteria in addition to people we knew would write well and who would produce the essays always important, very good historians. And we didnt actually know what they were going to write. That kind of somehow, as if we could predict where they would go with the even what topics they were going to pick. We gave them a lot of freedom. We just like these historians. This is what they came back with based on in many cases decades of working on these issues. So thats where the history unfolds and and thats what is ultimately written. We stand by that and lets have a debate rather than a debate about is it partizan history or kind of what take on a specific essay and lets have a debate about that. And thats how i respond. And i think, look, theres been a lot of kind of i mean, ive encountered people who are not progressive historians are very interested in the book and engaged with it. Yeah. And i would just add one thing. You mentioned colleagues on campus that i not aware of real criticism from conservative or libertarian scholars because i think they agree with the facts of the piece and a conversation on twitter just a week ago with with a libertarian scholar who im sure our politics are different, but we both know the subject matter well. And we were kind of trading ideas and we were on the same page because we both are historians working out of the evidence. And the evidence is, in this case, pretty obvious. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Im going to come around. Hope dorothy has a fitbit on. I know were active. Were doing science side. Some people in the middle have to. Yeah, yeah. You on the aisles have to ask some questions here. Thank you. I confess i havent read the book so it out. You maybe you covered this in your in your essay but with regard to the southern strategy, i have always viewed the 1972 democratic convention, which implemented the reforms that the Mcgovern Commission had called for. Ive always seen that as kind of an expulsion of the dixiecrat rats. Is that fair . I mean, is that a fair characterization. Its less a direct expulsion of the dixiecrats in the way in which they felt really targeted by changes the party had made in 1936, 1948, especially. The 64 the 72 convention is really important because its really where its where the labor unions feel that theyve beaten, been kicked out. You know, there are a lot of books that, you know, youve got people in the aflcio saying there are no union men here. And its all these there was a reform that George Mcgovern oversaw, the fraser Mcgovern Commission that basically set up kind of an Interest Group approach to to the convention, which got a lot more representation. But traditional people felt left out. Thats what were talking about. So it was less the convention, but more nixons landslide. And in 72 sets up finally the condition that these people in the southern strategy have been winning over voters at the local level. The hard part they find are they cant get political figures, especially in congress, to switch parties and they wont switch parties because they have seniority in the Democratic Party. And all of their power comes through seniority. They have considerable julians written about at length. This is a period in which congressional leaders have considerable power. If you ran a committee, you were really kind of a king of your own little fiefdom, right . That i know that checks out king and fiefdom. But but they refused to switch because they were losing a lot of power. But when nixon goes through with his landslide in 72, there are negotiations that come very close to getting about 40 to 50 congressmen to switch parties because they see that the writing is on the wall. The Democratic Party has left them behind and they decide that theyre going to make a switch and they make a switch almost because they work out this arrangement that about half the committees are willing to grant seniority to these democrats that become republicans. The problem is going to be solved. Theyre all going to get the Strom Thurmond special treatment. Its going to be great. It doesnt happen because of watergate, right . When this starts to go in, early 73 is when watergate starts to break open and suddenly all these democrats are like, i dont want to be a republican in this moment. Right. So theres a missed opportunity there in 72. And i think the convention probably fuels that because there is a sense that the Democratic Party is no longer a party of the white working man. Right. So the labor unions, i think, are the bigger party rather than anything on race in the south. Great question. Thank you. And you also have i mean, what so its a process that continues and you have another key moment which people forget about. But at the time was big. In 1975, the watergate babies, the kind of class of 74 thats elected they are also, in many ways an extension of that mcgovern coalition. But they come into Congress Ready to change some of that seniority and committee system. And in 1975 and january, they depose. Well, in december or in january, they depose four Committee Chairmen who are some of the most powerful, all southerners on capitol hill. First, they depose wilbur mills, whos involved some of you will remember, in a sex scandal and who had been the most powerful, one of the most powerful people i know from arkansas. He doesnt switch parties. He just retires. W. R. Pogue, edward baer from louisiana, a pogues from texas, and then a liberal actually Wright Patman and they just they do something no one had done. The freshmen vote them out. They say, youre not going to be chair anymore because youre not loyal to the National Party. And kevin writes about the National Party is changing the democrats since the forties are moving toward an embrace of civil rights and embrace of social welfare. And these southerners are kind of at odds with with where they are that that moment of toppling them is one of these inside washington story that was really important, had never been done before. And it sets a new mode, a new mood that i think also will alienate some of those southern democrat ites from hanging on anymore. I. Good evening. Thank you so much for sharing your perspectives on the book that im eagerly awaiting to read. I will admit i havent read it yet, but im trained as a rhetorician and i to a two part question, one intended audience for your book, who could you chair . And you may have addressed this in early parts of the intro or the prolog. Whos your intended audience for this . In the second part of the question is about the frustration and for lack of a better phrase, ordinary americans may feel about understanding our National Story stories. Plural. So my question is about grand narrative. Whats your view on grand narrative . Is debunking these myths a gesture towards a revised or another version of a grand narrative thats a messy and complicated one, or should folks hold on for story that a kind of unifying story that we all can sort of rally around . I get start i think we have many audiences. I mean, all authors have this general reader. I dont know exactly who that is, but its readers who are in the military. They like to read, write general, they like to read history and theyre not spending all their time reading history, but theyre certainly engaged. And thats obviously one of the audiences and as an earlier question suggested, thats challenging in this day and age because you layer on that a very polarized world where its hard to kind of reach the broadest range of readers, because some will automatically discount it without even opening the book, as some kind of particular slant on history. We obvious see very much hope over and we have been delighted how many people in that category have actually though read this and and bought it student look we really believe i think both of us feel this dearly. Its, its, its frightening and upsetting. Whats happening right now as subject matter is being legislated out of the classroom because its seen as unpatriotic or its seen as too controversial and. Thats just terrible. And it will lead to undermining the quality, civic and historical education for for young kids. So we do hope this book and its written in a way that i think could be effective in the classroom. It makes it there and it becomes of the classroom conversations where its allowed and finally, in terms of thats an interesting question. I dont i mean, i dont know i dont know if we have the same answer. Im not sure were thinking of a grand narrative to redo. Obviously, in another book, we do have a story about americas since the 1970s, but i think both of us fundamentally agree that narratives about American History are complicated. And to truly, truly engage in American History and to respect this country and we often say to be patriotic is not simply to be positive about everything. And imagine a clean history. Its actually to take seriously the bad, the controversial elements, the conflict, the tensions, the hypocrisies, and to put that into the storyline its essential because otherwise you are just putting out propaganda, otherwise youre not really taking the history of the country seriously. And that concerns us. And thats part of what were trying to at least move us toward, even if its not a grand narrative. Narratives that are much more complicated in understanding the richness, really, of of this countrys past, both good and bad. Yeah. And just very briefly, i think its more about setting up a model than establishing a narrative, right . Because i think what were more pushing back on is the kind of thing we saw from trump or see from desantis. Now in which theyre pushing a version of history which they call patriotic education. Thats not the point of history. Thats not my job to teach you patriotism anymore, that if i were teaching the history of france, brazil, it would be my job to teach you to be patriotic to france or brazil. Its my job to teach you the history, warts and all. And i would argue that out of looking at the places where america falls short, where you see a contradiction between its ideals and its actions, where you see it struck, willing to make things right, thats interesting. And this idea. But there are simply facts lined out in the field somewhere and we go out and collect them is is equally bizarre, right . Desantis said he simply wants to it doesnt want talk about critical race theory, but wants talk about simply that there were some people in the past who saw something wrong and stood up and did something about it. Okay. What did they see was wrong . Right. Why was it difficult for them to stand up and fight back, you know, and so they just want to teach kind of a cartoonish version of the past that both reduces it on its own, but also makes it meaningless. I think if we see history as a morality tale, kind of a George Washington of a cherry tree, and thats all you get out of it, that doesnt resonate for people. Do you see real people struggling with real problems and all the complexity . We all recognize that in our daily lives and people in the past recognize it in theirs. And so we can find we can learn some lessons from what happened in the past, in the present. So thats the kind of thing i think were trying to do rather than set forth a grand a grand narrative. Great question. Thank you so much. And you. Thank you. Thank you, gentlemen. My question is a little bit of a jump shift. Okay. And its its really where do i go to explore this a little more . Im a former history teacher, among other things. And one of the most influential books for me was max webers protestantism capitalism. Where are we . We have in america, i think, a very ill call it singular type of protestantism and a singular type of capitalism and. The marriage between the two is becoming, for me, increasingly toxic. So where do i go to read more about this . Whos writing about this, if anyone . Yeah. And what are your takes on it . And thats sort of the grand narrative as i see it. Im going to answer this guess because my second book was about this you struggle at the subtitle were one nation under god how Corporate America. And then in Christian America is about this. This, this wedding. And what i find there is things we take for granted. Its funny, i gave a talk on this here at this podium eight years ago. What i find in that book is that things that we take for granted today, like one nation under god and god, we trust all these things that were invented in the fifties are a recent inventions. Theyre not from the founding, but the original story. We all told, at least i was told before i researched this book, was that was simply a kneejerk reaction into. Communism, right . That the soviet union is godless and atheistic and therefore the u. S. Needs to be godly. But what i found to look at this book is that actually its a longer process and its not a bad antique communism. Its about opposition to the new deal. It starts of the 1930s when these wealthy philanthropists and corporations start funding this effort for what they call freedom under god, as opposed to slavery under the new deal, state right. So its this long process. So so thats one story. But im not the only ones there. Theres a large number of people named darren docherty, whos done a great book. There is Bethany Morton did a book on called to serve god in walmart, which is great. Yeah. Darren graham, lots of people have done books on kind of the intersection of of of capitalism and in this period, because youre right, there are two vitally important forces that have intersected in a lot of interesting ways. And ill just add and its also talking about my own stuff. So my last book was about a guy named Abraham Joshua heschel, who is a theologian at the Jewish Theological Seminary and he also became a big civil rights antiwar activist. And his writing is fascinating. Before that period, he wrote a lot of books on relationship between god and humans. And the idea of piety, and a lot of what he was writing about, where some of the tensions between capitalism and religion and trying to kind of craft a set of ideas about how religion can be an important force in counteracting some of the material inside entities that surround. And he has a great book. Some of you might have on the sabbath, which is an argument in favor and about what the sabbath is the seventh day. And part of it is a kind of period where you claim time, you claim time, not just physical space. And some of the time youre claiming as away from the Material World that surrounds you. The other days. So, i mean, and theres lots of people written about him in that generation. There was a whole generation of kind of publicly oriented theologians. Hes one of them. Paul tillich or reinhold niebuhr, who were wrestling with this in that period and have a very different take. So its kind of interesting to read both i thing together. Yeah. Thank you very much. I havent read the book. I look forward to doing so. Im troubled by the idea of american exceptionalism. And as somebody who grew up outside of this country, could you talk a bit more about what are the foundations, historical foundations of american exceptionalism, whether its of whether its a myth or a reality or somewhere in between . This is a great piece. Yeah. Written by a colleague, david bell, whos a french historian. So we got an outsider to talk about how exceptional america could be. And what david writes about in this piece is that there are two world historical figure to our response symbol for really making american exceptionalism a major idea in our discourse. And this unlikely duo is Joseph Stalin and Newt Gingrich, an american exceptionalism starts in the 1920s as american communists desperate to try to explain to Joseph Stalin, america hasnt gone communist. And the argument is, america is exceptional to the rules of history. Didnt have a feudal past, didnt have other steps along the way, and therefore doesnt fit fits marks progression right . So this had been something that was in some of our rooms since the 1920s, but largely not beyond that until a history phd named Newton Leroy Gingrich left the university of west georgia and got into politics and what Newt Gingrich starts doing in the late eighties and early nineties is talking about american exceptionalism. But in a very different way under stalin in the communist, it was, heres why america is weird. Heres why america doesnt fit the pattern. Whereas under gingrich it became, heres why america is great. Heres why america is unlike all the others. And it was mobilized by him in some ways the same way stalin mobilizes it to say, look, america is sealed off from all this contamination of the socialist world, right . So we shouldnt listen to other countries who have universal health care or a robust social safety net or things like that, because america is exceptional, right . And better so dont listen to us. Other people listen to that. So its out of those two really interesting forces. And the essay is fantastic. I love were its our kickoff essay and david did such a wonderful job of it is it really explodes that idea of both of what is it american exceptionalism means and how its applied. Yeah. Right up front. Yeah. Thank you, arthur. Question about this talk or methodology and specifically. The new technology. So we have email you have voicemail. So an older history, youd have people making phone calls that we no documentation now, but now we have this new technology and im specific really thinking of the case with the million voting versus fox news and in the traditional. Historical analysis, somebody would take the tape from the fake news broadcast and you cant have an artist and then you end up with the data that came out from the and email that the people on fox didnt believe. Its a totally picture. So how did that affect you at the start . Very good question. I think in general, certainly historians of the modern period, they do look for those sorts of tensions all the time. So one of the sources i use not for this book but for a lot of my books, are the Lyndon Johnson white house recordings where you can hear the president speak. Im working on a book about freedom summer right now, and these tapes are essential and you can hear differences between white politicians are saying and behind the scenes theyre strategizing and i think thats true of many of the works. And historians in our book that they do look for that at. Sometimes its easy to find sometimes legal cases actually put out material that give you a behind the scenes look. Sometimes theyre recordings you didnt know about. Other times its elusive. I do. Thats one of the benefits of the current period. This gets back to teaching theres a lot of primary material thats been put out there, which helps you kind of dig and try to understand that when possible, the public pronouncements, ill just also say matter though. So yes. So take this as a case. If we had an essay about fox news, its very important to kind of understand what are they saying behind the scenes and what are the hosts, the producers that are murdoch talking about as theyre putting out this argument about the election. But the public pronouncements ultimately matter very much. Thats what most people saw. Thats what had a political impact. Thats what became part of this effort to overturn the 2020 election. So thats still very valuable. Its not as if that material isnt there, but for historical method, thats what we try to find. And thats why you look for memos and thats why oral history is often very important because people will say things that arent on the record that of a sudden give you a nuance, right . So thats the bread and butter of what we do. I havent read the book either. We want people. We want people who havent read it. So you can there copies over there. All right. Well be watching. So my my question is that the largest lawyers in the courts have virtually said that citizens have the right in the constitution to go to schools and shoot children. My question is, what were the writers of constitution meaning . Yeah. Again, talking about sources. Who do you trust . Im a liberal. I have really pronounced attitudes on gun control. So im going to quote nixons chief justice, warren burger, who after he retired, said the story that the nra has sold American Public about gun rights is the greatest fiction in the history of this, that the idea that you have remember the idea that you have an under unreserved individual right to gun ownership is only established in our recent history in the heller decision, Antonin Scalia came up with that and even then its not absolute. There are doors open for for gun control, but the idea that. The idea that there is a limitless right to own a gun and not just a gun, but any gun, no matter how much its been designed and made for war or is deeply ahistorical. Theres a reason. Look, look at the First Amendment of the Second Amendment. The First Amendment says its all about freedom of speech and expression and religion and says quite clearly, Congress Shall make no law abridging this congress does all the time. The Second Amendment doesnt have that. Congress will make no law that says it shouldnt be abridge, but it starts off with a qualifying phrase a wellregulated militia being necessary to the maintenance of a free state comma the right. So and i think that that was no accident. And you can look at people who have looked closely at the framing of the Second Amendment. Our colleague carol, who wrote on voter fraud in this is incredibly productive. Shes got a great book called the second to highly, highly recommend, carol anderson. The second i talked about this in great length. So this idea that there is an unfettered right is simply not true. The problem is, is that the reigning majority in the Supreme Court is leaning more and more in that way. But if you want a ray of sunshine here and i realize ive talked us into a dark corner, the the public is strongly in favor of gun control, not confiscation, but reform restrictions, regulations as like we saw with the Assault Rifle ban in the nineties, which rapidly and significantly reduced the amount of gun deaths. The the idea that this is who weve always been and, who we have to be, is a complete fiction. And i think its incumbent on all of us not to let people push that particular lie in the public sphere. Yeah. I mean, eric foner has a great argument and set of books about reconstruction and is really resetting a lot of how we understand what originalism is. Its not as if were locked into the everything from early period. And i think in addition to that, the debates are pretty robust. If you want to call them a debate about what exactly the founders themselves meant. And finally, look at the weapons. I mean, its like that somewhere. I saw a photograph of like, what are we talking about with pistols at the founding of the country versus assault weapons which are being used in so many mass murders or even the kinds of handguns we have. Thats not originalism. Those are modern inventions that are, quote, president. Come on, man. You know, lets lets get serious and lets protect the liberty of kids, which is equally important. Much more important, frankly, not equal and much more important for all of us. I wonder if i could hog the last few minutes. Yeah. Simply in order to invite you to reflect on what might have been some of the surprises for you in putting this book together, especially since you didnt assign. Yeah, thats a great question. So, so, i mean, a lot of it. Good question. Were both you know, we both work in the 20th century, early 21st century. So a lot of those essays werent surprising to us because they as we tried to do in the essays, replicate what the standard knowledge of historians. And theres a disconnect between the profession and the stuff we know and what the general public might know. So we tried to address that. So those essays didnt really surprise us . I dont think so. For me, it was in fields in which im not as well read. And so the one that stood out to me was by our our friend ari kelman, a piece on the vanishing indian. And this is one of those bipartisan myths we talked about. And he talks about how theres the vanishing indian trope is basically an idea that native americans were wiped out in the 19th century and largely a vanish from the American Public and are never thought of in our current discourse. And ari noted in the piece that one of the things we often think of as being remarkably supportive and uplifting of native americans in the 20th century. Browns book, bury my heart at wounded knee. I actually spread a lot of these ideas about that indians were vanishing. Right. So it was a very so supportive and sympathetic point of view. But de brown put out but it was one that really spread this idea kind of perniciously. I think honestly against the authors even intent so that was one that really, really surprised me and id add another one that had that i knew the basic story. Karen cox has a very good essay about monuments, the lost cause and confederate monuments. I know enough to know where they came from and when they were put up, but the level of detail she has about kind of what was driving the kind of, you know, putting up these monuments and how it was totally connected to basically a fight against civil rights and the knowledge at the time from kind of black american activists about what this was about is kind of stunning to read. She she really shatters not only the myth that these are just somehow a celebration of the south as opposed to a celebration of resisting civil rights. But the idea of they didnt know it at the time you read this essay and the quotes she has are pretty amazing, i think, and very powerful to counteracting it in this story. And i think its kind of a model because you often hear on these kinds of quiet people that know that at the time, but you see, they knew exactly what this was about at the time. That was actually the battle that was taking place. So her essay, i think will be very eye opening and and, you know, even the ones we know and obviously this is what we do for a living. So we had a pretty good sense. But the detail and the kind of way they put the story together, i think was off and i theres one by daniel imahara about u. S. Foreign policy and rethinking what is imperialism and how do we really understand how a country can exert power overseas if its not tradition . All forms of control is really well written and i think changes your on thinking of u. S. History. One more that its want to plug didnt was it a surprise but rather the framing of it i think has really made an impact on me in the way i think and teach was our our colleague Larry Glickman wrote a piece about white backlash and that the term itself needs to be thrown away because its a term that presents all kind of a conservative movements on issues of race as reactionary. And i mean that in the most basic sense of they didnt have any agency, but they were provoked and it suddenly suddenly happened. And it gets deployed in the media a lot in a predictive way, like, oh, well, if liberals pass the civil rights bill, theres going to be a white backlash. Its almost gives a license to that. Right. And so what larry argues is actually no, this is a social Movement Like any movement on the left or the or the center, that that has its own agency, has its own operations, that we dont need to think of it as kind of a natural phenomenon that just gets sprung forth, but rather something that people with motives are pushing. Its a really great essay, so i always love a long q a that gets around to a lot of book recommendations while i have everyones attention, i just a quick practical word on if you want this book and i do recommend this book, you can get it signed down here. If you just line up here and then just pay on your way out. But now please join me in thanking julian and kevin. Thank you, everyone coming out. Thank you so much. Thank you. Good evening, everyone