This class is just over 50 minutes. Good morning, everybody. Were going to start part two of talking about the attack, if you will, certainly an assault, on the liberal welfare state that gained momentum in the 1970s and comes to fruition with the election of Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s. We will take a look at this part two because we have to talk about both parts. The rise, as we have been talking the last couple of lectures, the rise of the Great Society measures, the height of the liberal welfare state in america, and the beginning of a tax against that liberal welfare state. A couple of questions. Three questions i want you to think about. What is happening in society that will provoke changes in the way americans view themselves and view, in this particular context of the 1970s and 1980s, the wrong direction that america is headed . They are critical of what is happening to their lives and to the direction American Society is going. And this question, of course, also speaks to a much larger we could call it a Seismic Shift in american politics that gains ascendancy by the 1980s. A huge, dramatic political shift from the new deal, Democratic Party coalition, to what we call the new right, or neoconservative politics of america. For us, we want to focus on what becomes known as the culture wars. We will talk about what they are in a minute. They define so much of the Political Tension and discourses and tensions occurring in American Society. How does race in the 1950s play into those . Lastly, we will pose a question. What lingers on . What are the legacy of these culture wars for us today . Over the next two weeks, we will examine them in more detail as they come into the 21st century. Today, the culture war battles. If we begin to diss aggregate with the culture war was about, there were a whole bunch of battles. The larger context of those battles and those that have a subtext of race and ethnicity in them. At the same time, we have to talk about the emergence of the new right. This new coalition that is forming as the new Deal Coalition begins to dissolve and splinter. What are these battlelines . We will take a look at these culture war battles and lastly, the legacies of the culture wars. This does not encompass all of the culture war battle. Many of them, the bulk of them we could add three or four more to this list. Welfare reform, affirmative action, englishonly related to bilingual education in important ways, abortion, the right to life, the right to choose, immigration reform, which we will continue to talk about because in the last quarter of the 20th century, this cultural war battle intensifies dramatically. It is not about legal immigration. It is about undocumented immigration. Lastly, what we will call multiculturalism. This is about american identity, how we view ourselves. It is about certain things the way you are taught in high school. The debate begins to focus on what is going to be what are the topics that we will include in the American History curriculum for you and younger people . It is also about culture, but it is fundamentally about race. This continues on. Samesex marriage and gay rights. These are among the bulk of the culture war battles. If we take out those that have the racialethnic subtext to them, they are these. The bulk of them welfare reform, antiaffirmative action propositions, which begin to occur in the 1990s and into the 21st century. The question is, has america become a Colorblind Society . Do we need affirmative action anymore . Again, englishonly, english as a national language. Immigration reform i will not talk about that today. And what people refer to as american multiculturalism. I will talk about these as time permits. I will describe them to you and put it in a broader context. Of the era. You recall, we have talked about the socioeconomic context which made a lot of americans, especially the middle class, the solid working class, the unionized workers, the middle class are feeling the pinch. Deindustrialization that is what economists call that in the 1980s, but it is occurring in the 1970s and it is having farreaching consequences for employment. The beginning of the decline of the american working class. The beginning of the decline of american manufacturing. In fact, the beginning of the decline of industrial capitalism. I provided you with some data. Americans are losing ground. They are clearly losing in the pocketbook and in other areas. They are beginning to sense fear, anxiety. Where is america headed . Those conflicts are very important. This is also the rein of the liberal state. This is occurring at the same time maybe not the majority of americans, but a substantial minority of americans are feeling the pinch. We can say, where were those conservative voices that rise in the beginning of the 1970s with lewis greater . Really reach fruition in important ways in the 1980s and 1990s, flexing their muscles. If it existed, we could call it marginalized conservatives. There were conservative voices going back to the great depression. This was the great conservative ethos. Individual liberty, laissezfaire economics, and what one might call hypersense of identity as americans. America is the great exception in the world. Both of the counterparts of traditional conservatism. Those voices will be drowned out. There were conservative elements that lamented and criticized vehemently what they considered america moving towards a social conscious in the new deal. But the new Deal Coalition was forming and it was strong. It persisted. The conservatives continued into the postwar era and into the 1950s. They articulate these points of view, but even the moderate republicans the democrats were saying, things are very good here. Look at our standard of living. We are the beacon of democracy and material wealth around the world. The conservative voices did not have a big audience. Not yet. They would. There were some people that would be many, many people that would, over time, as part of the conservative discourse, would gain traction. During the 1930s, the 1940s, into the 1950s, irrespective of Republican Administration dwight eisenhower, modern republican, president in the 1950s, he did not try to attack the new deal liberal coalition. He worked with it and, in fact, expanded some of the social programs. Richard nixon did not push hard against the new Deal Coalition. Some of the Great Society measures were expanded under richard nixon. That was going to change within a decade. Who are some of these people that are articulating different points of view . They were not content with the traditional conservatives. This was their lament. Into the 1950s and the 1960s, they would say, tax and tax, spend and spend, elect and elect. What were they referring to . The new deal. Liberal welfare states. From 1932 to 1981, for 50 years, the Democratic Party held sway in congress. That new Deal Coalition lasted half a century before the election of Ronald Reagan and the beginning of a significant political and one could argue cultural shift in American Society. People like William Buckley, editor of the national review, were relentless in articulating points of view about traditional conservatism. Importantly, saying if we are going to have an opportunity to be a force in american politics, we have to realign ourselves. Libertarians who believe in marketdriven outcomes we have to align you with what is called the religious moral of the period. People who believe deeply that there is a role of the government to provide a religious moralistic society. , they are arguing, especially during the 1960s with the expansion of the welfare state, that america is way off course. Buckley is important in articulating points of views but more importantly about bringing conservative factions together. There were a number of other people that were the voices of the new, emerging conservatism. Important here i should mention i had it on a previous slide. It is not only these voices and their publications. New think tanks, as we call them, policyoriented groups of people, funded by political conservatives, begin to articulate points of view and rhetoric into policy considerations. American Enterprise Institute was one of the big ones. The manhattan institute. Stanfords hoover institution. They are bringing scholars to take the ideas of conservatism and, really, for the first time, systematically thinking about how can we translate this into policy that could counter the policies intact by the new Deal Coalition. That is important because the democrats and liberals do not have these thinkthanks in the same way. The combination of the new conservative voices and political policy think tanks are a potent source for articulating new points of view. You say, why would i pick someone who suffered an ignominious defeat in the president ial election in 1964 against lbj, president johnson . One of the largest landslides in the popular vote in American History. Johnson won by 61 . Yet, he is important because we link into what we call sun belt conservatism. The brash senator from arizona, the vehement anticommunist. One of the bed rocks of the cold war. What is he articulating . Taxes should be lower. We are taxed too much. In fact, we are undermining the credibility of the United States and the Economic Vitality of the United States by providing too much to people in the domestic policies. From the new deal, and it is escalation during the 1960s. So, goldwater also was important because he, too, was preaching to a group of people that would have an increasing voice in american politics. From the suburbs of atlanta to the suburbs of orange county, he was reaching out to people with a message that they could hear. Property taxes are too high. There was already a group articulating that. Evangelical protestants, the religious moralists that William Buckley had talked about he says, look, we need to organize. He brought them into the fold. The middle class. The engineers of orange county, the managers, the people who are living in the suburbs. Housewives that are organizing to get him elected because he is articulating points of view that resonate with them and a growing number of other people, too, especially about 10 years later. I will talk about that in a minute. Another dissatisfied group of americans. So in a way, goldwater begins to put together some of the things that buckley said had to be in line if the conservative movement was going to have any sway whatsoever. He begins to make these alignments. Again, defeat huge defeat for the republican party, but not for conservatism. He took five states in the south. He took 55 of the popular vote in seven states. More importantly, it showed that what was going to happen in the 1960s and 1970s, that the new conservativism, if they can pull the democrats who had left the party as lbj and the Great Society takes root and into the 1970s, that group of people are going to come into the fold of the new conservativism. It is this gentleman that really brings it together. He represents all of these neoconservative elements coming together. And unlike the uninspiring goldwater yes, he was a tough conservative, but he did not smile in front of the camera. He was boring. This guy was not. He was charismatic. He knew how to play the camera. He knew how to play an audience. He was an actor. Did any of you ever see a Ronald Reagan film . You probably dont want to see them. They are really bad. He was a bclass film star and you could forget his acting, but you cannot forget the influence that he had on the coming to fruition of the new conservativism. All right. Where does the popup . He was a liberal back in the 1940s and 1950s. He was the president of the Screen Actors Guild awards there was no more liberal group in america than in hollywood. But he moves. And he gets his face on television in the 1950s. He becomes the spokesman for General Electric. He is promoting General Electric products and cigarette ads and other things and he is all over the place. Not so much as an actor anymore, but a spokesperson for corporate america. That is where, in california, for the goldwater campaign, they see this guy and he begins to campaign for goldwater. Of course, we know that goldwater lost, but reagan won. He was a pretty interesting campaigner for goldwater and then very effective for himself. He said, soon after the goldwater fiasco in terms of the National ElectionCalifornia Republican party, looking for the next viable candidate, and they seize on Ronald Reagan. He says, i am not a politician. I am just an ordinary citizen and i want to return america to greatness. He runs for governor in 1966. Against this fellow, and this guy looks pretty boring, right . Pat brown. Jerry browns father. Our governors father. Family, political connection. This guy, you put him in front of a camera, no one will be able to compete. He is an expert at this. Again, very charismatic. He says things that resonate with a population. He blamed, for example, pat brown, who is a moderate democrat. He was not a leftleaning liberal democrat, but a moderate democrat, and he blamed him for the watts riots because he hesitated to bring in the National Guard when they could have quelled the riots day one. Political rhetoric. He also accused of appointing two liberal judges and also accused him of expanding welfare in the state. These are conservative points of view. He told brown during the antiwar movements that hit berkeley, university of california berkeley, early on, that he was soft on the hippies. He could have stepped in to deal with the College Students you, your counterparts, way back when and he had this to say. He had colorful language. You have to understand how his ability to communicate people he borrowed up a bunch of messages from famous people. He borrowed from fdr, churchill, all kinds of people around the world, successful leaders and politicians. When he was running for governor in 1966, said, they are nothing but a bunch of spoiled bums, those university of california students. He said, who indulge in sexual orgies so vile i cannot describe them to you. Hippies act like tarzan, look like jane, and smell like cheetah. People love him. He is colorful with his language. Connecting with the middle class. Marginalize conservatives and also also, increasingly, marginalize democrats who were falling by the thousands every year into a conservative republican camp. He would be a twoterm governor in california. When it comes time to find a candidate at the national level, Ronald Reagan is the guy. So, the Neoconservative Movement under reagan finds its place. He is able to bring in the disaffected former labor unionists, White Working Class from the Northern Industrial states and the west. He is able to pull in the southern democrats that have been, for the most part, moving by the droves from the Democratic Party in the wake of the civil rights movement. He begins to pull these elements together so that though there was the jimmy carter president ial administration after the vietnam war and Richard Nixons resignation, that was a relatively short period of time. The election of Ronald Reagan was really the rise and institutionalization of the new right. So, we look at he was pulling traditional conservatives. Those points i made about traditional conservative thoughts. But, with a positive message. Think about this things are going bad as we have described. Socioeconomically all of the , other things that are making people fear for the country is headed, and what hes going to say . We are going to restore america to greatness. We are going to look back and achieve what we have achieved a generation earlier. Unprecedented wealth. The beacon of democracy and industrial capitalism in the world. The greatest economic engine in the world. This is what he was arguing and telling people. It was attractive. Think about how attractive it would be if you are feeling the pinch. You have lost a job. Your Family Income has declined and he is saying we have to take back what was taken from us. Pare down the government. We have to begin to attack the domestic programs put in place by the spend and spend democrats. The agenda is set. There is a backlash to the Great Society and make the government small. Bring it back into a size that makes sense, where it will not be a problem. In fact, let us make the government the solution. We have already talked about that. The think tanks play an incredible role, and the democrats are so vulnerable, they dont come back with a strong message. They basically early with goldwater, oh, he is such a rightwing radical that of course he has no substance. They tried to paint him the same way. That was not going to work and they lose dramatically. That Democratic Party new Deal Coalition will never come back together. There are elements that are maintained in the last third of the 20th century after merck and americans after stay solidly democratic. Declining labor unions, but labor unions are declining precipitously during this period. Their numbers are declining. Lets take a look in that context with the rising new conservatism embodied in the presidency of Ronald Reagan. The demise is being attacked on all front and these are the battles. I am not sure where the term culture war comes from, but it is being bandied about. Welfare would be among the first of the battles. A swollen welfare state. Big government. Lets pare it down. Lets eliminate new deal and Great Society program and policies. Where does this idea come from . There has to be an intellectual dimension to attacking welfare. I will give you a quick scenario of how this comes to play and how rather than the government , lending a helping hand to poor the subtext on this this welfare queen, and this , becomes the imagery of welfare recipients by the 1970s, this persons wife and that welfare reform is color. It is black for the most part. How can that be when 2 3 of people receiving it are white . When you look at welfare queen, it is supposed to be the fraudulent use of the welfare system. Having babies all over the place, going down to the cadillac dealership with the Democrats Holding the money here. More fraudulent use of the afd system and public assistance categories by white women than by all africanamericans and latinos put together. And yet, it was a racialized dimension in the american mind. Oscar lewis we have to go back to the original idea of the culture of poverty. This becomes the strident intellectual basis for reforming welfare. What did he say . Studies of mexicans, children of sanchez, and the 1950s. He did an ethnographic study of Puerto Ricans in puerto rico. He says the following poor people, for whatever reason they become poor, over time and intergenerationally, they lose the ability to adapt to society positively. They make maladaptions to society. They cannot defer gratification so it is here and now. Cannot save, cannot get into school because of that delayed gratification. They pass it on to their children. Typically, the fathers will leave the household leaving the women to care for the children. They have sex at an early age. By the second and third generation, they are incapable of entering mainstream society. Those children of sanchez and the culture of poverty briefly articulated it was about mexicans in mexico and Puerto Ricans on the island. Edward banfield, a harvard scholar in 1968 let me go back. Daniel moynihan, eventually senator moynihan in 1965, a report on the negro family. He was borrowing a bit of the intellectual argument of lewis. Basically arguing that over time it wasnt a pejorative argument but he basically said slavery, poverty over time has eroded the family context of the negro family, of the africanamerican family. It created dissolution of the family as a unit. Men leaving, right . Think about the connection to lewis articulation of the problem of the culture of poverty. Leaving women for the most part to fend for children in households. It has created maladoptions for the children living in poor households who are increasingly further distanced from the race of achieving middleclass status. Actually there was vehement criticism. What this was about was a call for action. There needed to be more to support poor families, but that led to Edward Banfield and this book called the unheavenly city reconnected this idea of the culture of poverty to look at innercity africanamericans and basically took lock, stock, and barrel oscar lewiss theory and plopped it down in the ghetto. I will read you something from banfield. Race was not at the heart of the problem, according to banfield. Negro problems, he said, are seldom purely racial and very often have little or nothing to do with race. Racial discrimination are laws that restricted full participation for blacks in america have been wiped out by the Civil Rights Act and then Voting Rights act. Those things are gone. Discrimination is against the law, but what is left is this culture of an aberrant culture in the innercity that removes africanamericans from any semblance of attaining some modicum of economic security. In fact, here is where this is the critical factor, the government use of afdc and other forms of categorical assistance has actually exacerbated the problem. We have turned these people into dependent americans. Welfare, though it may have been altruistically geared to help people, it has made it worse. They cannot fend for themselves. They have become welfare dependent. That was the crux of the unheavenly city. The term here, the undeserving poor. Question. I was going to ask on regards to moynihan and how the book was intended not to be pejorative, but instead it was a call for action. How did he contextualize slavery because really angelica had brought up that we are talking about generations it takes generations to make change. The idea that you have africanamericans being socalled disillusioned with the family unit, really the legacy is from slavery and not having an intact family. That is a good question. It is a policy paper written for people who are the poverty warriors. It is not a full Historical Contextualization. He is arguing that over time you have Structural Racism and discrimination that has created the problem. He is not saying the negro, the africanamericans themselves are the source of the problem. It is because of the Historical Context of their impoverishment slavery is a part of it, discrimination in the work force. What the consequences are now are the family the disillusion of the africanamerican family in the inner city. Here is where we are now because of these previous conditions that make now the africanamerican family in the inner city really susceptible to all kinds of problems. That is really the thrust of that piece. It joins in later when it is politicized. It was not really a politicized treatise. He was trying to identify where there needed to be some additional resources. But, the unheavenly city if you wanted to see the new conservatism take and its full of description of the attack on welfare, it is Charles Murrays losing ground published in 1984. There are people that really deserve to be helped with our domestic assistance programs. But, there is a Huge Population that are undeserving. In fact, going back to banfield, they are not only undeserving, we have created instability, and it is mostly innercity africanamericans, instability in that population because they cannot fend for themselves because we have created dependency. Government assistance programs are so bad, they have created a crisis in American Society. Yes . There was no mention in regards to discrimination by there was recognition there was discrimination. It is not a dismissal that there were Structural Racism and other things. The focus is on whats happened with the Great Society measures that have supported poor families. The basic conclusion is that we have created welfare dependency and we have created welfare queens. That is the basis there. Of course, you can imagine the counters, back and forth between the liberals. This is gaining tremendous potency in terms of an argument. If we go forward Ronald Reagans administration does not peel back significantly the Great Society measures, though he intended to, but he did not. It wasnt until bill Clintons Administration that welfare as we have known it was changed. The welfare reform act of 1996. We will talk about that next week. Clearly, one of the battlegrounds the other was affirmative action. Lbj executive order 1246 in 1965 he had this to say. You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring them up to the starting line of a race and then say you are free to compete with others and still believe you have been completely fair. It was to provide some leverage of opportunity for disadvantaged sectors of American Society. Clearly, a race, not exclusively racebased, but significantly so. The attack occurs by the late 1970s. So, as i mentioned yesterday, affirmative action programs are being implemented in federal contracts, in any entities receiving federal aid, and in College Admission considerations across the land. Here is where the first contest is. An older gentleman or student that was going to medical school, he applied twice to the university of california davis medical school. Turned down twice. His age was 34 or 35. He was a former marine and working for a while. He gets support of some conservative attorneys and groups that are supporting an attack against what they consider the most onerous part of affirmative action. In 1978, he wins the case and goes to the Supreme Court. They decide that affirmative action is meant to provide some opportunities, but it was never meant to be a form of discrimination. The quotas of the medical schools that the medical school had created, out of the 100 students admitted every year to the medical school, 16 seats, 16 slots were reserved for minorities. The Supreme Court ruled that unconstitutional. This goes back to your question theres never been regimented affirmative action measures. The government basically left it up to the different colleges and universities to implement their affirmativeaction plans. Some were clearly taking race into account and others were overemphasizing race. The Supreme Court said what . You cant create quotas that will that will create the breach of the equal protection clause for americans. But, you can include race as one of many elements in the admission of students. That is true across the board. That becomes the defining characteristic of affirmative action for at least College Admission. The attempts to abolish affirmative action at the congressional level never worked, not even under the reagan administration. What was the next step towards achieving abolition of affirmative action . This gentleman, ward connelly, californian. He had been close to the republican governor pete wilson in the 1980s when he was mayor of san diego and then governor. And, what the strategy here is put on the ballot for these different states affirmative action measures that californians will vote for and call it civil rights. So, he starts in 1995, the American Civil Rights initiative. He is borrowing the language of civil rights, but saying affirmative action has gone too far. It has become a discriminatory measure against whites in favor, unfairly, of people of color and women. You put it on the measure and it is constructed as a Civil Rights Initiative and it wins handily in california in 1996. It means that california and any california governmental entity, including the university of california system, California State University system, can not include admissions considerations of race, ethnicity, or gender. The policy becomes one of california and begin to go to other places. You mentioned yesterday a lot of the backlash came from the vietnam war since the economic downfall of the 1970s. I am just wondering during this time, was there any attempt or studies that attempted to actually measure the amount of opportunity that may be taken into account class and gender . They did. The studies revealed an interesting fact. The groups in American Society that benefited significantly most from affirmative action were white women, especially in employment. But, the lightning rod was admissions to undergraduate institutions of higher learning. That is why you see he then goes on a journey to establish these comparable propositions in florida, michigan, and other Higher Education places. I am going to talk about that because the culture war on the battle of affirmative action is not over. It is still here. Your generation will experience very likely in the next 10 to 15 years the end of affirmative action. The Supreme Court is inching in that way unless there is significant change in the orientation of the Supreme Court. Affirmative action will no longer be here in 10 to 15 years. We will pick this up again because this is one of those lingering culture wars that are not going away. The most recent case was at the university of texas. The Supreme Court very narrowly allows race to be a consideration but it is very narrowly construed. Affirmative action is still around, but it is on its kind of knees. Another measure i am not going to talk much about these. These are representational. English as the language of the United States and of states. It has no real practical applications. A policeman is not going to come and arrest you if you speak german or spanish on the streets, but it is part of the culture war. You have all this diversity and these groups that dont want to speak english. Lets make it the official language. It is really symbolic. That did not stop president ial candidate Rick Santorum in puerto rico during the president ial primary there. He had it all wrong. He was arguing that to be a state puerto rico was going to have a ballot measure to determine whether they would try to join as a state he is saying you have to speak english because the constitution of the United States says every state in the United States must have an english language. Not the case. Yes . Whats the explanation for the citizen test being in english if we dont have an official language . That is a good question. Those were construed as a part of the disenfranchisement of African Americans in the south. One of many ways to keep you from voting. Can you read and interpret the 14th amendment of the constitution . What is the 14th amendment . There was nothing there is no real connection to that. Lastly, i am going to come back to this because this is not it is one of the things im going to come back to next week. I do want to finish on this. Here is a working definition of multiculturalism. It encapsulates it all because it is about american character, american culture, american identity. This is about a new kind of a society that the United States is becoming. There is a lot of resistance to this. People like nathan glazer. After writing a book called affirmative discrimination in 1975, attacking affirmative action as really affirmative discrimination, he says there are different kinds of multiculturalism. He is ok with this. It is just talking about diversity in American Society. He has real trouble with this because it contests the idea of a melting pot, a mosaic of integration, of assimilation. That is problematic. He really adamantly opposed to those trying to racialize the american past more so than it should be and a critique of American Society. If you wanted to read all of these, these are the books that you go to. He basically argued that tribalism and the cult of ethnicity was undermining the unity of america and american culture. This was one that distinguish historians of his generation. He decried the fact that the splintering, the racial ethnic splintering in American Society was pulling us apart. Lastly, these are all the books if you were to read about the critique of multiculturalism. This most recent one was really an attack on hispanics, latinos. Basically saying this group does not want to integrate, does not want to assimilate. They are holding onto their language and culture. It is the peril of american unity and American Society in the 21st century. Lastly, this historian, lawrence levine, who was trying to make sense of the multicultural culture wars. I think basically it was this. It was a reaction to changes that were occurring in the demographics of society. The cultural ethos of society that was changing from the ways people wanted to hold onto family values, to a different kind of america. That america for them was changing radically. The Cultural Values were going far beyond that which they found acceptable. I think those were the things that were creating the tensions and the rhetoric and the anxiety that we call the culture wars. There was a reason why they were called the culture wars. They were about values, religion, ethos, ethics, all these Different Things that are wrapped up into a changing society. The culture wars are not over. We are going to see them. Theyre going to continue. Samesex marriages as we speak is being debated in state houses. Undocumented immigration is not going away, folks. That is maybe going to be the biggest part of the culture wars in the next decade or so. Any questions at all . Last chance. Ok. See you tomorrow. Thanks. Tonight at 8 00, melvin lastingely compares the changes of the reconstruction and civil rights era. That is on lectures in history, our Weekly Program that takes you inside College Classrooms across the country for lectures ranging from the American Revolution to 9 11. Youre watching American History tv all weekend, every weekend on cspan 3. On sunday at 5 00 p. M. Eastern on American History tv, historic and Brian Alan Drake explores Barry Goldwaters commitment to Environmental Conservation and how it evolved over his lifetime. Goldwater was the republican president ial nominee in 1964, 50 years ago. This is American History tv on cspan 3. With live coverage on the u. S. House on cspan and the senate on cspan2, we complement that covered by showing you the most relevant congressional hearings and Public Affairs events. On weekends, we spend we are the home of American History tv, including six unique series. The civil wars 150th anniversary, american artifacts, discovering what artifacts reveal about americas past, history bookshelf, the presidency, looking at policies of the nations commanders in chief, lectures in history with top college professors, and our new series, real america, featuring educational films from the 1930s through the 1970s. Cable 3, created by the tv industry and funded by your local cable or satellite provider. Watch us in hd, like us on facebook, and follow us on twitter. History bookshelf airs on American History tv every week at this time. On september 5, 1774, the First Continental Congress met in philadelphia to debate the rights of the colony and their objections to great writtens rule. Describesjoseph ellis the summer of 1776, the inner workings of the Continental Congress and army, and writtens a little and military reaction to the start of the American Revolution. [applause] thank you for that gracious introduction. And thank you all for making out on a not so pleasant evening. The weatherwise at least. I was supposed to be her a couple years ago and i think i had a hip operation and it knocked me out, and i always regretted that i missed it so im back here to sort of make up. I want to talk about a book ive just written. And so this is a thinly disguised propaganda campaign