With new york they pioneered steel frame construction. Then they set limits on skyscrapers. I believe there should be limits on skyscrapers. This was a little too early in the game on that. The gang life in chicago is what it is portrayed stereo typically. It seems as, the new york gangsters really mistrusted people like capone because he was too quick with a gun and a machine gun. And they took care of people like that, even costello. Im not trying to present him as, you know, a man of unalloyed purity. But he never carried a gun, and madden rarely carried a gun either. They had their own enforcers, but it wasnt part of the persona, and they were knit more closely into the city. And i think what gave new york city more stability was tram am actually. And chicagos politics are rampant and wild and mercurial. They form and disappear, and theres never one consistent political machine that can stay in the city. This creates fodder for socialists and reformists and its a stew. Its a boiling caldron i should say. And its a very different cities have personalities, and chicagos is more head long, a more reckless and than, than new yorks, i think. I really do. And there are different types of cities. What happens is in the 19th century, theyre both industrial cities. Now new york is the biggest Industrial City in the country. Now chicago has Big Industries like mill, steel mills and stockyards and gigantic clothing factories. New york is, its the minnows, the small firms in the Garment Industry that dominate, not the big ones, not the big ones. But when america moves see, this is the beginning of i do this in the book. This is the beginning of the decentralization of the city but also the deindustrialization of the country and the Electronics Revolution is coming on. Thats radio. Thats television, okay. Mass communications and things like that. And new york had always been in the forefront of that, since the 19th century, sending packet boats to england, the Associated Press going out and picking up the news, 60 miles offshore and all that sort of stuff. It had always been a Communication Center with more newspapers than any city in the country, and you have this wonderful simbiosis. And the port was very profitable. So it has an industrial base, but its also moving quickly into a new age and pioneering a new type of economy, a new type of lifestyle. And thats what i try to do here in what i call a tale of two cities. One, the quintessential heavy Industrial City of large labor unions and large corporations and lots of labor streikes. And new york in the 20s moving toward a different type of economy, different type of lifestyle where consumption almost becomes more important than production. And maybe its a tale of three cities. Ill make it a tale of three cities and maybe do l. A. In the 50s, which is a complete auto city. Still trying to figure that out. Anybody else . One there and then up here. Hello, hi. Thank you for your talk. Im wondering, you said that, well, i know that people continue to go to the movies, and they wanted to be entertained even during the depression. Mmhm. Well, during, during prohibition, they said more alcohol was consumed than the prior years before they began the whole prohibition era, so i thought that kind of connected it, but also, the gangsters didnt put their money into the banks, so did they have a hard time of it during the depression . I mean, what did they do . No, gangsters dont write letters. They dont put money in banks. They dont write their memoirs. No, they invest in clubs and they spend enormously and not very wisely. But actually, one of the hardest parts of the book was to try to tell the story of gang life without writing a graphic novel, you know what i mean . Because so much of Crime Reporting is anecdotal. And people said dont go into that, thats quick sand. And i find that if you do it right, there are good records. I went down to the new york archives, municipal archives, and i asked for the luciano papers, and he said you are ate only person whos ever asked for them. Theyre in brooklyn, but well get them for you tomorrow. You can come back here and you have your little desk. I thought they delivered a washer and a drier. They were big boxes. And the first thing i pulled out was evidence stuff, you know, revolver and i pulled out a lamp, you know, a lamp with a cord on it that was used to strangle somebody. But then i pulled out all these records. They wired these guys, i mean, they wired their rooms. They wire tapped them. They have all of the, when he was holed up in a hotel with his mistress, they have all, every day they have his menu, they collected all the receipts from the waiters and his order slips and things like that. And despite the code of omerta, theyre not going to squeal, once they got tom dooley on them oncould keep people under custody for months they took prostitutes and put them under the Woolworth Building for months at a time. And they would have consecutive juries where the jury would not be released after a trial and the jury would stay in session for six, seven, eight trials and you could really go after these guys like that. So you have court testimony. You have confessions. And you have terrific crime reporters. Some of the best reporters in the city were crime reporters. So theres a lot of evidence you can compile about the life of criminals, and despite, you know, without reading these ghost written, you know, auto biographies that supposedly luciano penned himself and things like that. And i think unless you do crime was so interwoven in new yorks history, in chicagos history, in detroits history that its impossible to do politics without crime and do it right. And i think historians make a big mistake by not jumping into that territory and looking for those kinds of connections, and it still is that way. Gw bridge. We can talk about that side of it. Anybody else . Yes, sir. First skyscraper built in the United States, and when, where was it built and when . Generally, generally, went into skyscrapers, thats a debate among architectural historians. Most say that the Home Building in chicago was the first built with a steel frame partially, before they were supported by loadbearing walls. You go to the beach and build a sand castle. If youre going to go tall you have to build the base out, so the walls get so thick you cant go any taller. So with the steel frame you hang the walls like curtains, like a cathedral actually. You hang them there, and jenny was one of the pioneers of that, so that Home Insurance building which is no longer in existence, was probably, to my mind, the First American skyscraper. I think it was 1888, i think thats right. Everybody can check that on there. I think that w it was built. Well, thanks. Appreciate it. [ applause ] the cspan cities tour takes American History on the road, traveling to u. S. Cities to learn about their history and life. Weve partnered with timewarner cable for a visit to waco, texas. We began turning over the b sides of the 45s that weve received. First off, gospel music was not widely heard in the white community. And what it was, it would only be the hits if that. But the b or flip side would be heard even less, and what we discovered quickly was how many of the b side songs were directly related to the civil rights movement. Since theres very few databases, and none of them are complete on all gospel music, we didnt know that. We didnt know the sheer number of songs that had very overt songs like there aint no segregation in liheaven, that would be a dangerous thing to possess in the deep south. But singing that sort of song out loud . Thats a risk. The texas ranger hall of fame. It was set up in 1976 for the 175th anverniversary of the rangers. We have paintings or portraits of all those rangers. They really begin with steven f. Austin. Austin was very successful with his rangers. They fought not only, managed to make the area reasonably safe fioricetlement from indian raids, but when the texas war for independence broke out, the rangers played a major role by staving off the mexican army long enough to allow the colonists to build their own army and develop a strategy. And as a result, texas became its own independent nation, the republic of texas for about ten years. Watch all of our events from waco saturday on book tv and sunday afternoon at 2 00 on American History tv on cspan 3. Next on American History tv, elizabeth who hahoffman speaks. She spoke at world denver. This is just over an hour. Thank you so much, kay. Thank you all for being here. I cant tell you how pleased and honored i have be here addressing the World Affairs council. And especially because what i hope we will discuss tonight is i think one of the most critical questions of our time. Which is youre not going to know it, because i didnt turn on the microphone. Good, youre human. Where is the button here, kay . No. The green light, right . The classic green light. So anyway, im here to discuss one of the critical questions, i think, of our times which is why the United States assumed the role of world defender after world war ii. And the question of whether we must continue this role indefinitely. Now this conversation springs from my new book which i hope is available outside. But also from an op ed i wrote for the New York Times last year with the title come home america. And this was subsequently the subject of a morning joe show on the same subject. And in the essay, i observed that everybody talks about getting out of the iraq and afghanistan. But what about germany and japan . And in essence what im trying to raise is a very fundamental question. Where do we go from here . Do i need to make more basic changes that turning point in our national history. Because i think in many ways, for me, and im a historian, that our nation suffered from a lack of historical self awareness about our role. And its the lack of historical self awareness that makes us a target and obscures and confuses our future choices. This is where history is important. Im kind of a cheerleader for history. Because history shows us the big picture. It gives us those longrange trajectories that help make sense of the mess and the turmoil of everyday crises. When i say everyday crises, im aware that that sounds like kind of a putdown. No. What i mean by that is that World Affairs have crises every day. So we need to understand the big picture which helps us make sense of our choices. To give us an example of what i think of this kind of historical confusion, i like to go right to the top here. President obama said last year, when he was addressing our nation about the question of intervening in the syrian civil war, and he said at that time that the u. S. Has been the chief enforcer of International Law for the past seven decades. And then the president asserted, america is not the worlds policeman. Well, what do policeman do but enforce law, right . He also said and this was just a couple of weeks after that. He was addressing un he was addressing the United Nations. He said the u. S. Seeks the world in which state sovereignty is respected. But also in which sovereignty cannot shield a regime from outside intervention. This is a flat contradiction. The whole point of sovereignty is absolute authority within territorial boundaries. Now in a sense what the president is doing is speaking out of both sides of his mouth. What he is really saying is we are seeking a world in which sovereignty is subject to external checks and balances to protect individual human rights, much as the federal government operates in the United States. By the way, i want you to already be sort of listening. Checks and balances is such an american term. But in way this has do with the american view and also, i think, the american role in the world. Now i think that this kind of double speak isnt intentional. And i think we see it in president after president. So this is not a democratic or republican problem. Its an american one that we suffer from not knowing exactly what where weve come from and why. I think it reflects a lack of understanding about the structure of the world in general. And if we dont understand our history, no one else will. Because were the ones who write about it. Were the ones who tell people, this is who we are. If we dont understand it, they wont either. By the way, i hate to be a tease because i cant possibly answer all of the really Big Questions in 45 minutes and my idea here is to give you 300 years in 45 minutes. But i will do my best. Because the fact is that the u. S. Exercises a very unusual role. As the nation with the greatest and yet very limited power in the world. The power to determine outcomes in foreign affairs. When things go wonky, people ask, whats the United States going to do about it . They dont say, whats mexico going to do about it. Or france or iran. 95 of all soldiers serving op soil other than their own are americans. That includes u. N. Peacekeepers and troops. This sometimes creates new problems in the process. This raises very important questions and possibilities. For example, are we the worlds policemen . Or from another perspective, are we a selfimposed bully . Are we an empire . That seeks to dominate the world for its own geopolitical benefit and Economic Prosperity. Thats door number one. Door number two, are we, as many realists believe, instead the only power that stands between the world and armageddon between a repetition of the Great Depression or world war ii or even Nuclear Devastation of the planet . Is that our role . If thats true, must we play that role forever . Regardless of what it costs. What it costs our schools, infrastructure, domestic security, treasury. Our soldiers, are psyche. Door number three. Or is it possible and this is what my research suggests. That the road weve been on for the past 70 years been a detour, a necessary detour on the main path to which World History has actually been heading since about 1648, and now is the time for course correction . If im right, then my book challenges us to transition to the next phase of our national epic. Confidently and affirmatively, learning from both successes and failures, indeed to objective, scholars must be as rigorous with the identifying what went right as with what went wrong. As i said, i cant get all of this material and get it all out there. But im going to come pretty close. And for that, youll have to read my book. Every author has to put this plug in there. So, im hoping you will. What american umpire does is try to take essentially 300 years of history and make sense of it so we can understand where we might go. So in todays talk i want to do three things. First of all, i want to tell you a little bit about why i wrote the book. As kay said, im also a novelist. I have lot of irons in the fire. And i also like to explain why i think the reigning scholarly paradigm, this is my second objective, not only why the wrote the book but the way of looking at the world as i think most scholars adhere to is wrong. This refers to the u. S. As an umpire. Lastly i want to produce an alternative. This is a very persuasive explanation. And, in fact, people all around america are starting to call it the empire. I was watching jon stewart the other day. And my hero said, this big imperial nation. No, john youre wrong, but he hasnt called me yet. So i would like to propose in alternative explanation. Which in a nutshell is that the world as a whole has devised new norms over the past four centuries. And that these norms are not just made in america. They are worldwide. But that under the press of catastrophic events in the 1940s, the United States reluctantly refers the long standing policy of political nonengagement, nonentanglement and adopted a function thats akin, but not identical to one actually used to playing among its own states, the role of an umpire, to compel acquiescence, between squabbling governments, in moments of crisis. At the time we did this, we were the only nation with a relevant experience and requisite capacity. So, why did i write this book . That is a long story. I wont bother you with the whole thing. But it goes back to when i was first interviewing to be a graduate student and i was interviewing for a scholarship. An Important National scholarship. I was very excited and nervous about the process and there was a panel of experts interviewing me. I was going into the field of what is called diplomatic history at the time. I was asked, eager young thing i was, why do you want to enter a dying field . Well, i didnt know it was dying until he told me that. I had to bunt quickly and say, well because we cant let it die, right . This is too important, subject of americas relationship. But he is right. As i discovered. As in the field of history dying, i think for a couple reasons. One is this cultural and social history became very attractive. I think the other reason, i think a lot of Young Scholars repelled by a field in which there was only ever one answer to every question. Which is if you were look at what had happened in the world, the answer was pretty much america messed up. And so whatever the reason, scholars left the field and what happened is that political scientists took it up. And are mostly concerned with modern policy issues. Their knowledge of history is not deep. Thats not their field. And the historians who stayed in the field are historians generally who subscribed and often do generally subscribe to the idea that the american record is one long story of empire and imperialism. And that goes back to George Washington and ben franklin. But empire, i think, is a terribly misleading term that obscures challenges facing us today. And a misdiagnosis, as we know, is often more dangerous than no diagnosis at all. With a misdiagnosis, you can make the wrong prescription. There are groups like al qaeda which also claim the u. S. Is an empire to which there is only one answer which is death to the empire. Or death to america. What i would like do is tell you about who some of these people are. Sometimes i myself even think, am i exaggerating this, that this is the reigning way of understanding the u. S. Role in the world, at least among my peers in the scholar community. I would like to run through a couple of titles for you. This is a book by neil ferguson, a brit. Though he is at Harvard University. Cause of the rise and fall of the american empire. Another book, richard emmerman, from Temple University in philadelphia, empire for liberty. And from Benjamin Franklin to paul wolfowitz. Harvard university professor, charles mayor, american ascendency and its predecessors. Simply named, american empire. Reality and consequences of u. S. Diplomacy. Or this is more of the basics. Empire is the way of life, granddaddy of them all. This is actually the 50th Anniversary Edition of this book. Very simply named empire by michael hart and antonio negre. Some people put a positive spin on this. Saying the u. S. And europe has not just had the monroe doctrine, it is the Marilyn Monroe doctrine. As you can see. Shes not a blonde but its the same idea. Or how about the empire trap, at Harvard University again. Now talking about the empire or in praise of empires. This is a historian at ucla. Now by the way, i want to suggest that this is not all criticism from the left, and sometimes people from the opposite side of the political spectrum will say actually we need more empires and we just wish the u. S. Were a better one. Thats another way of interpreting it. This is probably the most famous interpretations of the u. S. As an empire by johnson, who wrote this is now whats called the empire trilogy. I sometimes feel like im arguing against lord of the rings. This really is sort of the reigning paradigm. The interesting thing about this term empire is that almost nobody defines it with any precision. It is this absolutely sloppy catchall phrase thats used to describe everything from tourism and religion to Foreign Investment and war. Now i know youre saying, what doesnt she be a little more direct about what you dont like about that term . I actually felt pretty strongly about this. Essentially the term, to an important extent, its used to describe most every catastrophe in the world and any catastrophe with which the United States is associated as an outcome of our attempt to control and really exploit the rest of the world, as if this is the only possible explanation for americas mistakes or its successes. So to give you a sense into the peek of these books all youve seen are the titles. I want you to get a sense, whats the flavor of this criticism. Chalmers johnson for example described americas bases abroad and theu has hundreds of bases abroad as a striking evidence, quote, for those who care to look, an imperial project that cold war obscured. Andrew bacevich. Who is a conservative those some say he is so far right that he has come around to the left. That the intervention in iraq as he put it was, quote, a war for the imperium because the policy in total is to, quote, expand an american imperium. Again, this is not just a right wing, left wing thing. On the left, clearly left side, the world socialist web says quote iraq was a predatory imperialist war. Carried out as part of a longterm strategy to reorganize the middle east to secure american interest. Another british commentator, tarik ali, he writes, quote, when people tell me that the american empire is weakening, i say, dont underestimate it. Europe and the middle east fall into line when the United States says this has to be done and that had to be done. The only sovereign nation today is the imperial nation. Now, this is not just in the ivory tower that these accusations are booted around. Very sadly after the great tragedy of the Boston Marathon last year, tsaernaev, the person who engineered that bombing, his neighbors were interviewed and said he went around ranting about the american empire shortly before he set off the bomb that killed so many innocent people in boston last year. President obama, this accusation of the empire has been out there so prevalently since 2003, that not only did george bush but also barack obama, both come out about this. And barack obama told the u. N. Last year, quote, the notion of an american empire isnt born out by americas current policy. We seek a world where a nation does not covet land or resources above nations. President said this. About an hour later, there was a commentary about this on democracy now, a Radio Station associated with the nation. And at that time the commentator said, quote, obama basically came out and said the United States is an imperialist nation and we are going to do whatever we need to conquer areas to take resources from the world, unquote. I dont know what machine he put it in to get that translation out, but the point of that is that when you wear a certain kind of glasses or maybe a certain kind of hearing aid, you only hear it in a certain way. And thats why i think this is a terribly important conversation for us to have. And so, jon stewart and others lively say were an imperial nation, i say dont take that lying down. Or at least submit it to analysis. So thats why i would like to step now to talking about the reigning paradigm and the historical profession. And on what basis the United States is called an empire by serious wellmeaning, you know, virtuous scholars, many of whom are my personal friends. One of the bases for this is that the u. S. Was expansionist, you know, throughout the west. Here we are in colorado. So we know that story. The u. S. Expanded over native american nations. It went to war with mexico. Thats why we call the u. S. An empire. Other people say, no, no, no. The main reason to call the u. S. An empire is because of its 20th century military dominance, the bases that we have all around the world and the coincidental not coincidental spread of American Values, trailing along with those bases. Some people say thats why were an empire. Others will say, other scholars that it is 21st century economic dominance. How else do you explain it, right . It must come out of the imperial quest. Well, the thing is, the interesting thing is i was writing this book which Harvard Press brought out just last year. I thought, my goodness, when you take off these glasses and the hearing device that filters evidence, you actually find that theres a lot of evidence, obvious evidence that argues against all of these forms of interpretation. Lets take the first one. The u. S. Is an empire because it expanded across the west. That does sound fairly imperialistic. Especially considering the war against mexico. It sounds that way until you say, okay, what was the context of that . In fact, in the 19th century, this was happening throughout the americas. I like this particular picture because it shows what a crazy, crazy quilt latin america was after it declared independence. In fact what happened was there were 21 border wars, very similar to the u. S. Mexican border war in the hundred years following latin america independence. This particular one shows latinamerica before the war of the pacific when chile invaded north and took big chunks out of peru and bolivia. Very similar and justified in almost the same exact way as the american expansion. So if we want to call chile an empire or uruguay an empire, i say do it. But we dont. Why . Because those became nation states in the rights that citizenship are defined a different way. Theyre just a different animal. By the way, the chileans didnt just stop at butting up against the neighbors. It wasnt just chile, there were 21. They also expanded against native american people. Vast campaigns taken to dispossess native americans of their land. And you know, horrible event. We all know how horrific these kind of complains were. Very brutal and yet this is what nation states were doing. 19th century is the era we know of as nationalism and nationalism is often not pretty. Standards have changed offer the years. We dont call it empire because it is a little bit of a different thing. The other reason why we compare the United States to empires of the past is because of military bases. Now again that seems logical on the face of it. Except when you consider that when the United States has military bases abroad, it has it on the basis of the contractual agreement with the country that is the host country. And the host can kick us out. You know what happens when the host kicks us out . We go. Empires dont act that way. They dont. I like to show this slide because this is the years that United States was in france before our oldest ally kicked us out. After world war ii. They said yankee go home. Im not sure they said it in a nice polite french sort of way. Perhaps with a glass of wine. They asked us to leave and we did. Same is true in the philippines and elsewhere the United States left after a period of time. And, in fact, everywhere the United States has intervened it has ultimately left, unlike other empires of yore. Now the other reason why people sometimes say, the empire is because of its economic prowess. I always like to say to this, consider one fact. The United States has the Worlds Largest economy in 1890. 1890. Before the first dough boy hit the shores of france. Before the United States joined United Nations. Any such thing. So americas economic story is a very different story from that of empire. And yet this is where we all get stuck. We say, yes, but the u. S. Is the primary guarantor of world security. Why do we get involved . Why are we involved in all these other countries . By the way, the japanese call this more or less the yoshida doctrine. Which translates more or less into let america do it. Why is that . This came out of world war ii. And in fact, one of the interesting parts of this story is that there wasnt one country, other than the United States, that was willing to sign a peace treaty with japan at the end of world war ii because of its behavior in that war. You think nazi germany was bad and it was horrific. Nobody is willing to sign a peace treaty. It wasnt until 1951 that australia became the second country after the u. S. To sign a peace treaty. Why . Because this all took place in the same week and a foggy week in san francisco. This is where the novelist comes out. I dont know if it was foggy. San francisco often is. But what happened is in the very same week that the peace treaty was signed by multiple countries with japan, that was at the end of the week. At the beginning of the week, the United States promised as australia and new zealand that we would be there if japan ever rose again. Immediately after that the United States signed the new york japanese bilateral treaty that to assure the japanese we will do this for them. Please, you wont have to pick up a gun. We will be there all the time. That way nobody is worried. After that, everybody else was willing to sign a peace treaty to rehabilitate japan and bring it back into the modern world. Thats been at great expense to the United States. So we undertook this role and part of the reason i think that it is so hard for us to understand exactly how the world unfolded, is because what we do see is the fact that United States has influence has spread at the same time that theres been a spread of certain values, which we tend to call American Values. But i dont think that we need to explain this as being part of a plot for the United States to rob others of their autonomy and their resources. The reason for that is because the very same 70 years, makes you think the United States has had its most creative influence is the same point of time in which sovereign countries are autonomous countries, able to make their own decisions, have quadrupled. From 50 to 200. And the great Economic Prosperity in history. So what is the alternative explanation . All right. Phase three of this talk. This is why i wrote the book. This is why i think the other ideas are wrong. What is my idea . I think that one way, the best way we can explain the spread of American Values is because they are not american. We need to understand something about the world. What World History shows is that spread of useful techniques of human governance and Economic Production have always spread outward from the point of outward from their point of origin. But a lot of the values, some did not originate in the United States. Even those that did, they spread out because other people wanted them. Not because they were coerced in any way. To give you an example, about 30 years ago, if anyone said to you, you will all have a computer in your pocket in 30 years, you would be thinking, oh, my god, how will i walk with a computer in my pocket. We now all have computers in our pockets. Not because apple to coerce anybody to buy the iphone. People line up to buy the iphone. We have these devices from Silicon Valley to siberia. In many ways, what we have to compare this to is the fact that there are other monumental changes, which we dont deny and similarly human governance has changed. To give you a sense of this, i think this is very similar to transition from the paleolithic to the neolithic. What defines the stone age is the fact that they didnt have farming. When farming was invented or discovered, plants were hybridized. No one who to go around forcing farming down anyones throats. They were like, whoa, farming. Thats better than hunting and gathering. Another epic change in human destiny was the Industrial Revolution and nobody has to go around saying you must drive a car now you chinese person. No. People want cars and they want machines because of the valuable things they bring to human life. We dont go around saying, when we order a sandwiching with saying i want a ham and cheese sandwich on iraqi bread. This is just absolutely true, in fact i know it is true. That a similar epical transition has gone on in human government. And the United States has been a big part of that. So have other countries. The United States became a big part of the transition, which is a transition that took place over many centuries from the monarchal empires that competed militarily toward capitalist republics that compete economically. Its just the world we have. And it hasnt forced other people to do this. Rather they elected to. But it was also a big part of it because it embodied so many of these kinds of characteristics. In a way, stature grew because, like the iphone, it was cool. Now to give you a sense of this, the latin american republics after the United States was formed, 20, 30 years after the United States was formed, latin american countries they werent countries yet. Colonies began to break away from spain and portugal, they all declared themselves republics. Did the United States make them do this . No, we were just this little teeny tiny country. In fact they went one better than us. They took the ideas and ran further in some ways. They abolished slavery, 40, 50 years before the United States did. France also declared a republic. Did we make them do that . No. Nevertheless, the United States is important because they show Different Things could be done. Things that had been talked about for generations upon generations. The United States showed that you could have a chief executive who retired after a designated term. Also it was possible to create a durable peace among competing states and which would be on some basis other than a volatile balance of military power and, thirdly, that you could have open commerce across borders. If you want know why the United States was wealthy by 1890 in global terms, a lot of it had to do with open commerce across state borders. We had the European Union long before they had the European Union. So in any case, what the United States did is they showed different kind of pipe dreams that you could actually realize. And as was said by a french observer at that time, in 1830 he was such an interesting fellow. He knew washington. He knew jefferson. He was there on the ground when the revolutionary war was occurring. He was also the diplomat for france to arrange the louisiana purchase. Then he came back to see america in 1830. He was so he said, i saw a former president walking along the sidewalk. He just thought that was the most amazing thing. He said the government of the United States has no model in ancient or modern times. So what the United States experience demonstrated is it demonstrated possibilities much as magellan demonstrated that the world wasnt flat. Magellan didnt make the world round. He simply circumnavigated it. So my book surmises there were three, in a way, swren acre principles that were part of what happened. I called these access, arbitration and transparency, i think it is better than life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. Because those have too much of an american flavor. These are really world values. The transition by which nations replaced empires. This happened and this happened over a period of many years. Really it begins with the treaty in 1648 when the europeans basically kick out Papal Authority and say, no, we are states unto ourselves, and it continues through the breakup of the soviet union in 1991. Its a long process, but it does happen. Now what do i mean by these values . I would like to explain it briefly because we are coming up on the time deadline here. I like to begin with adam smith. Who wrote the wealth of nations in 1776. He talked a lot about the fact that if nations were open, that if trade could proceed in an open way that not only would society become freer, but it would become more personally fulfilling and also more prosperous and wealthy. This, we think of the hidden hand of the market and all of that. The idea of access. But my more modern example is this fellow, ping. If you want to talk the about the principle of axis, we have to talk about china. Those who talk about the United States as an empire, they often talk about the open door empire and they trace it back to the u. S. Policy toward china in the 1890s. But the fact was that the United States not only advocated open markets, equal markets, but also the chinese sovereignty. At that time there was a possibility that china would become like africa, divided up into parcels and parceled out to europe and u. S. Always defended chinese sovereignty. In any case, china did close itself off for about 40, 50 years. And what they found, however, is that by closing off all access to the west, they actually were becoming poorer and poorer. So in 1979, den chow ping did a 180. Because ding chow ping saw china falling through the cracks, and he initiated a policy called opening up. As a result of that, some 300 million chinese have been pulled up out of poverty. So often people ask me how can we trust china . We dont have to trust china, but we can trust the process. The process that has made it in selfinterest of nations like china to open up their markets and trade with others. The principle is an old principle in which the idea became really, maybe, maybe, how about this, instead of nations warring with each other to advance their interests, maybe they could arbitrate their differences, and that would be a better, not only a more moral way of getting on in the world, but also a more profitable way of getting along in the world. The first example of this, and the United Nations is the culmination of this idea. But the United States has an equivalent of it. America was kind of weird well, america still is weird. But part of its weirdness was the idea that could you have states that were neighbors, and normally the traditional idea was that your neighbor was always going to be your worst enemy, why . Whos going to steal your stuff first . Its your neighbor. Look at ukraine and russia today. Its your neighbor you have to look out for. So the United States formed an arbitrational if thats a word process by creating a federal government, designed to corral states that otherwise might come to blows. The last principle is the principle of transparency. Id like to show mikhail gorbachev. Glasnost was the policy of gorbachev, not because they had lost the cold war. And this has become a transnational value. Have you noticed the swiss have been in trouble in recent years because theyre not transparent in their banks . The criticism you can make of anybody is you are insufficiently transparent. We all go, whoa, thats not good. This is truly an international value. So the outward spread of these new tools for human organization, selforganization explains the spread of American Values without coercion, but it doesnt explain why the United States got involved. Why the United States jumped, with both feet, in 1947, into the role that we continue to have today. And i think that the answer is not just an answer which naturally enough historians will say well, you know, world war ii and the cold war and the soviet union seemed to be on the verge of nabbing western europe, everybody else was devastated. Who was going to take up this kujle so to speak. The british were on wartime rations until 1955. Until 1955, the british were on rations for butter and cheese and meat, and other basic foods. The cricket has gone off. Thank you. In any case, the United States, i think did this for reasons that go beyond the historical moment. Theres something in our dna. Theres something in our dna. And it goes back to this word, umpire. It was a word that our founders used to explain what they were trying to create by creating a union of sovereign states that would prevent, ultimately, these sovereign states from falling out amongst each other. And so, in the federalist papers they explain this. And if you read the federalist papers youll see such quotes. John jay, one of the authors wrote in disputes between the states, the umpire, quote, would decide between them to compel acquiescence, end quote. Alexander hamilton said the federal government would be, quote, an umpire or common judge to interpose between the contending parties. Here, he noted that athens and sparta did so much worse stuff to each other than persia ever threatened because tiny states butting up against even other can create such intense vir rivalries that can result in violence. So the federals created what they called an umpire, a higher sovereignty with the job and the coercive responsibility that imperial pmetro polls had playe through out history. So new states could come in on the same terms as anybody else. No state could expand its borders into another state, a sister state, so to speak, and the federal government, in extremis would intervene if crisis, truly exostench crisis existed. And you can count on one hand how many time the government has had to do that. The civil war of 1861. The little rock integration crisis of 1957 and so on. And so today, the United Nations enjoys a status which is very similar to the u. S. Before we had a constitution, which is to say that there is a union amongst states, but the u. N. Security council has limited power. Has no army, no navy. So how can it exercise this umpire role. When the u. N. Fell upon hard times and the u. S. Was pressed, truly pressed by its allies, not the soviet union but the others, to fulfill this role, the United States had some experience in the role, explains why when france told us to leave, we did