Bonded with a pointed tweet of his own directive the president you don't believe in climate change he says you are excused from this conversation several of this year's major wildfires have burned in parts of California where the raw no forests no way based shipping company says that 9 of its employees have been abducted from one of its vessels when it was more of the coast of Ben in West Africa David Bamford has more detail a statement issued by the company in Norway said the cargo ship the Benita was attacked by pirates 15 kilometers off the West African coast they took away 9 of the crew their identities and nationalities haven't been made public the rest of the crew later moved the vessel into the port of Cotonou in binning while piracy has decreased worldwide West Africa's Gulf of Guinea remains notorious for abductions by armed groups who usually demand ransoms for the safe return of victims the prime minister of Iraq has called on anti-government protesters to reopen roads and help restore normality to the country he made the call after a month of protests which have brought the capital Baghdad and much of the south of the country to a halt addle Abdul Marty said the unrest was costing the economy billions of dollars thousands of demonstrators have blocked all roads leading to Iraq's main Gulf port near the oil rich city of Basra which receives the bulk of Iraq's imports of grain vegetable oils and sugar on Sunday the 1st day of Iraq's working week students age sit ins and many government offices stayed closed Well news from the b.b.c. . Islamists demanding the resignation of the Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan have maintained their protest in Islamabad despite the passing of the deadline they had set for his departure the protests were organized by the leader of a religious party Marlen of Laura who accuses the government of rigging last year's election tens of thousands of opposition supporters set off on what they describe as a freedom March or as r.t. a Week ago arriving on Friday the chief executive of the fast food company McDonald's has been sacked for having a consensual relationship with an employee the company said Steve Easterbrook had demonstrated poor judgment and that it was against company rules for managers to become romantically involved with a subordinate Mr Easterbrook said he had made a mistake and that he agreed with the company that it was time for him to move on the British racing driver Lewis Hamilton has secured his 6th Formula one world title at the us Graham Prix the 34 year old took 2nd place at the circuit in Austin Texas guaranteeing the $2900.00 Championship his Jack Nichols had wasn't only needed an 8th place finish to secure the championship and starting 5th on the grid it would have been reasonable to expect a cautious conservative race but that is not the way Hamilton is wired He gave one place at the start overtook Sebastian Vettel in super fashion and employed a bold strategy to try and beat his teammate to the victory while the tiger didn't pay dividends he wrapped up the title in aggressive style and the title puts him in 2nd place in the all time f one standings behind Michael Schumacher who won the World Championship 7 times and 100 year old Greek woman has for the 1st time been reunited with 2 Jewish siblings she helped save from the Nazis during World War 2 many dinner was a teenager when she helped hide 6 members of the Mordechai family near the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki before helping them to flee into the mountains and that's the latest b.b.c. News. I've lived in a lot of places and I always thought I'd know when I found the one that felt like home and then I moved to Wisconsin. I didn't actually mean this day I was from East Coast cities and suddenly here I was in a state with more cows than people I mean grown men and women here where cheese heads to football games and when it gets really cold people go out on frozen lakes and they drill holes in the ice and then they sit there and fish. I didn't move here and just fall in love with this place but over time it did become my home. I don't know if I took root in it or it took root in me. Yeah I'm a pattern of fat and I know a whole lot about cheese in the winter. Out on frozen lakes and I look at the stars. So anyone who's ever moved to a new place knows what this is like it takes time and emotional investment to make a place feel like your home. I-Man strange champs and today under the best of our knowledge we're going to talk about how someone finds home makes home in an unfamiliar place because we're living through a period of mass human migration thousands of people all over the planet are on the move not always by choice. For instance take Mariel a shocker she went from a city of 2000000 in Syria to a small town in rural Illinois of less than 10000 Here's how she found home I remember going to the music institute and not knowing if I will make it back home because of the mortars and the horror we were experiencing to me as I was 23 I had a great ambition to be able to find my way out of Syria I didn't want to be killed in such a way I wanted to have a future I wanted to come here to be able to help others who are in need in Syria My name is Maria lush back air I am a violinist from Aleppo Syria. When I was junior I went to London for an audition for the master of music program and I was accepted but sadly the work prevented me from doing so so I kept searching for another opportunity. After 7 months of truly hard work I was able to find about mommas carnage and what they are doing for Syria students to find a warm home there I was very excited about the idea. I send them my violin recitals and they were very eager to help me to grant me a full tuition scholarship and I went there. Junior for a 2nd battery. When I was about to leave Syria I needed to catch up my flight from Beirut to the us all the roads from and to Alipore were closed so we were advised to go to a certain area and only people were borrowing off off buses but they are not affiliated with any company and it's got to be on your own risk. We went very early about 7 am We were the 1st people to go on that route it is striking to me to see along the way why we were leaving Aleppo you know everything is destroyed going back to nothing it was just hard. It was very dangerous road over there 50 checkpoints on the way they thought Divine is a garden I had to always operates and prove it's not the bus driver got lost and we were very scared come. Well of times I cried on that way 1st because I know it's probably the last goodbye with my mom who accompanied me all the way and 2nd because I did not know if I would make it to pay when it was very scary we were not allowed even to take water with us. When I arrived to be told it was a relief it's kind of moving from hell to heaven. That moment I realized the old wound made it I feel safe it was the 1st step to achieve my dream to come to the u.s. And I was so glad to be able to be there but the same time I was very very sad I was compelled to say goodbye to my mom. The moment we were at the airport in Paris it was a very sad moment and. My mom told me that she believes in me so much and I will be able to be successful there. It's kind of hard to go to a place where you don't know anyone there it's kind of an adventure. I found life in Mama's college is really great it's a wonderful place to start they arrange transportation from the airport or train station and they will come to us with joy and it was one of the most amazing experiences in my life so we were having the orientation and all that but all what I wanted to see is the music building and I was asking I don't want to have fun I don't want to go through the orientation can you just take me through the music building. To me it was very safe place it was very calm and I felt very like come specially in a place like Monmouth. The u.s. Has opened a lot of wonderful doors for my career and they saved my life and I am truly grateful for this experience I lost my home in Syria I found a new one in the us. I really hope that the situation in Syria will soon be better and we will have peace again just about 2 days ago my family was survived mortars falling I was talking to them on the phone when it hit our place the line was cut off and I could not connect with them for 2 hours after that sometimes I just gone Facebook I scrolled down I just fear that I will hear any bad news about them is just sad to be leaving here at but your heart is still there. Recently I performed for International Rescue Committee and I performed at the United Nations later on the Kennedy Center I spent I.D.'s festival My goal is to be able to continue to be present my country and be able to always make my parents my city my country be proud of me and be able to continue to represent the Syrian people in the u.s. And in the world and be able to be at peace I'm better they're trying to carry a beautiful message through each performance. Mariella Shakur is a Syrian violinist she lives in Illinois. That feeling of home feeling safe and secure it's so vital so important to our well being I know every time I go off on a work trip I'm basically counting the minutes until I can get home and recharge neuro anthropologist John Allen believes that there is a deeper significance to that pull back home he says it's one of the most important inventions in our evolution one that marked our shift from nest building apes to humans Steve balsam caught up with him to find out why John you've written a natural history of the home do you think we have not fully appreciate how important home is to our lives. You know I don't think we really have I mean it's so it's one of those universal things and some of the universal things are intensely studied like language and. You know other aspects of human behavior but I think home is is sort of taken for granted and we haven't really appreciated how central that is both as a biological unit and as a cultural unit for everybody and yet culturally I would think ideas of what makes a home are so different I mean it's clear that it's more than just a house you know House does not necessarily make a home but you know some people might want that McMansion and other people other cultures you know let's say Australia nomads that would have an entirely different idea of what makes a home yeah and that's why I kind of get at the idea that you build a home from the inside out and so home could be literally the absence of a structure it could be the landscape you live in but that feeling is I think shared and so it's also defined by who you share a home with and what your You're as we enter politics might say a kin group is but those also vary in composition so really it's it's wise I try to look at it from the sort of basic cognitive perspective so what do you think are the essential qualities that makes someplace a home I think it it is other people and usually those other people would be related to you but not necessarily And so those people define to some extent that you interact with whose lives are synchronized with your lives that I think really reinforces a home feeling it's also the place where you sleep and recover from whatever you define as the outside world you're talking about home as refuge right I mean it's sort of is a it's the thing that sort of not the outside world it's the familiar accolades it's almost extension of yourself. It is and you define that we're it's the part of the environment that at least you feel like you define Just because you have a little bit around you and you're familiar with it doesn't really protect you from huge predators or tornadoes or any of the other thousands of things in the world who are out to get you but by defining it that way by by creating this space you kind of trick your body into this feeling of security and safety we're really quite unique in that regard so it does seem like something new that came at least from our branch of the evolutionary tree it sounds like you're making the argument that home is partly what makes us human and this was something pivotal that happened in our evolutionary history yeah partly as route I'm not saying it's everything but I certainly think it's part of the package because if we look at Great Apes great apes let's orangutans in chimpanzees who are our closest relatives living gorillas you know one thing they do that sort of unique to them is they make a little bed every night out of out of leaves or grasses or whatever up in the tree and they sleep there in their bed but they never have their bed in the same place twice they're always moving within a home ranges we use the word there but over other areas so they don't ever hunker down and stay in a place so for some reason in our evolutionary past well after we split for them we started to hunker down in a place at least for an extended period of time relative to our relatives but there are other animal species that do have yet lace I mean they're the only oh yeah oh yeah yes birds and the prairie right homes towns all that exactly and I think there's those are what we call would be convergent evolution but and there are benefits to exploiting us and knowing a territory in space but it's interesting that at least in our way of doing things which meaning primate way of doing things we were the only ones who really embrace that So take us back into this evolutionary history and what do you think changed and when do you think this happened when our ancient. Ancestors started to develop this new sense of homo I guess what you're saying is staying put an archaeologist named Glenn Isaac many years ago suggested what he called a home base model and this would have come about 3000000 years and after we split when he start seeing cooperative hunting stone tool use and other sort of behaviors that at least start to hint at a human way of doing things as opposed to an ape way of doing things and so he argued that for a lot of the same reasons that why home is important now it's a place where people can pool resources where children can be raised collectively it's one interesting thing at least to anthropologists Is that went to an ape as a child and it's a female who only takes care of though the one child even if she's in a group she has one at a time the one of the advantages of want to look at it that way that our ancestors had as they started be able to handle more than one baby at a time more than one dependent kid and that's probably much more efficient in a home setting that is you can trade off care between the mother and the father between and relatives and you know food and collective raising of kids is more efficient and in that if you know where the kids are in a way. There are so many interesting questions that this raises I mean one is whether those cultures that stop being nomadic that settle down in a physical space I mean established communities that they were not moving around Did something change psychologically did it sort of I don't know whether a whole different mindset than I think. There are different mindsets that go along with with how you live yes the nomadic people they keep redefining their homes in different places I have a friend who does a lot of backpacking and hiking and he says how you know he's got a kit and he goes clamping any feels like when he's taken all this stuff his coffee you know mug is plate and he builds a fire he feels at home again and so in a sense nomadic people do the same thing and it is different when you're always surrounded by your stuff but I do actually think that that feeling is is probably very common and then what's changing is this external world of of how much you you were you start defining Not everybody in your group as being part of your home or a part of your family but where you start breaking down larger groups into. Into smaller more self-contained units and that leads ultimately to us where we think of the nuclear family as a natural thing as the normal way people are which is is very odd So let's let's bring the story to the present then what does what does all of this evolutionary history tell us about what home means today. I think the main thing again about a home is that is the whole idea of security in a sense of safety from the world surrounding us and I think that when you mix that up with an economic system where houses and dwellings are really important economic investments not just for protection and shelter but as an investment then you you start to mix up the safety you feel with home in the security with a speculative investment and I think it can be there economists would say is a confidence amplifier potentially for people who are living in their homes and using them as investment vehicles you know it seems like there's something deeper as well I mean if you are suggesting that having a home is part of what it means to be human then what does that say if if well if we don't have a home or a house I mean is another word is it sort of a fundamental human right to have a house in Scotland it is in the u.n. Charter is considered to be there but only Scotland is a nation state actually codified that what does it what does it mean that Scotland that they has on their right and they have a legal right to shelter and home is part of their constitution or whatever the structure they were in the last few years have put that in but it does the flipside of not having a home is is being homeless obviously and that talking to homeless people or people who've been homeless their sense of marginalization of not belonging of not not only not having a place to live but not having an identity anymore just this was a sort of side thing I found in doing research for this you know there are a lot of studies brain studies of you know what bits of your brain light up when you're looking at something that's disgusting or stigmatized or whatever and even in these studies that aren't even looking at homelessness they would use a picture of a homeless person as their sort of prompt to elicit disgusted reaction and it shows how how fundamental that view is at least in our society yeah I'm curious whether any of this that we've been talking about has has hit home for you personally emotionally. I've lived a lot of different places I've lived overseas and every time I've moved you know there's a time of adjustment at a time where you feel like ah this is new this is strange this is is hard to live here and then you know one day it's not one day it becomes home and what I find looking at that sort of experience and how I felt is I was totally unaware of it happening that I can't put my finger on the day a strange place became home and yet it happened over and over again in my life so it shows our resiliency there which gets back to the hallmark of really what it is to be human is to be flexible to be able to eat all sorts of different things to be able to live under different situations and to be able to adapt because we aren't tied like a you know a b. Or a wasp to a certain genetic program that we can deal with these things and the tools that we have are really you know that are biological at a real basic level are also quite simple and so they let us do things and just. That's narrow anthropologist John Allen is the author of home how habitat made us human Steve Paulson talked to them and coming up journalist Sebastian Younger has a new theory about why some veterans have a hard time coming home they were exposed to something very healthy out there they were living a close communal existence with 3040 people that they loved they were connected to and totally dependent on for their survival that's our evolutionary past and so soldiers Ironically they feel literally more in danger in a quiet leafy suburb in America if they're alone than they feel in Afghanistan to the to it's to the best of our knowledge from Wisconsin Public Radio and p r x. . We're talking about home in this hour and coming home that phrase just think about it coming home it's supposed to be easy right coming home is a relief but it's not always for instance take veterans between 11 and 20 percent of veterans returning from Iraq or Afghanistan experience some form of p.t.s.d. For them coming home is both a relief and a struggle. War reporter Sebastian Younger knows what that's like and he has an unusual new theory about why in a new book called tripe he argues that it's not combat that's the problem instead it's because there's something missing from our culture a sense of being part of a tribe when I was young I had a uncle figure named Ellis who is half Lakota Sioux and half Apache and I remember when I was around 20 he said to me you know it's funny all throughout the history of United States the white people are always running off to join the Indians but the Indians never ran off to join the white people and that always sort of stuck in my mind I like the idea of it and then many years later I spent a year off and on with a platoon in combat in eastern Afghanistan it was a very rough place 20 members and up on the on this ridge a lot of combat no Internet there was no human electricity for awhile it was really rough out there and after was all over with the guys got back to attend to Italy where they're based a lot of them said you know we don't want to go back to America we'd rather if we had the choice we go back out to that outpost and I remembered my uncle Ellis and I just thought wow what is it about modern society that so unappealing on a human level and so then it finally occurred to me maybe the high rates of p.t.s.d. That we're seeing or a function of combat trauma I mean were a species that is clearly wired to survive trauma or we wouldn't be here but maybe there are a function of trauma plus returning to an alienated individualistic society maybe that's what the human psyche really can't handle you spent years yourself as you said as a war reporter in some really difficult combat zones you reported from Afghanistan also from Bosnia but what has your own personal experience of this been of coming home to America from a war zone. Well there's 2 components to it I mean if you go to a war zone you're going to be traumatized and I've come home with what I later realize was pretty severe p.t.s.d. I mean my experiences mostly happened before 911 so there were term p.t.s.d. Wasn't available to me to understand what I was experiencing I just thought I was going crazy and I had no you know I kept having panic attacks and I had no I had no reason to connected to the combat that I bid and so you know after some weeks or months those panic attacks went away with the other component of coming home is precisely what I was talking about before if you travel in the developing world war zone or not you're in a close communal society so Peace Corps volunteers Likewise when they come back to America about 25 percent of them sink into a real depression when they come home which is just about exactly the estimated rate of p.t.s.d. In American soldiers even though only around 10 percent of the u.s. Military is engaged in combat but 25 percent have significant psychological troubles when they come home it's exactly like the Peace Corps and it's exactly like my own struggles when I come home it just feels like a sort of antiseptic commodified society where people are just alienated from each other I mean I mean this is the 1st time in history that people have been wealthy enough to have their own apartment to sleep by themselves in their own room I mean that's unheard of in human society until recently and as much as that is a liberty from the pressures of the group there's also a significant and dangerous isolation there that really affects people you know it's funny you're describing us that way and yet I would have said I don't think I can go a day without seeing the word community someplace when you live in New England this is fall there are community harvest dinners in just about every rural area in New England in my small city there is constant talk about community justice far out in this our community charity tribes What is it that we're missing Well you can't just take the word on there and have it work some magic great really community in the in the anthropological sense in the evolutionary sense of the group of people. Clustered around you when you wake up in the morning what you mean by community if what you mean by that is that people are literally physically around you that you depend on them for the food that you get for the safety that you have then you live in a real community one of the things you see is even in modern society when you introduce a crisis into modern society like the blitz in London or an earthquake or even $911.00 in New York this communal feeling immediately happens it's something that society does spontaneously in order to survive and defend itself and as a result you know even a blizzard or a blackout as a result people look back with real fun is on times that should have been very frightening and hard but people remember the very fondly precisely because you know the whole floor of your building is sort of cluster around one candle you know try waiting out the blackout of whatever it is and that feels good because it reproduces again our evolutionary past but we're wired for you reminding me that my mother in law saying that she is in her eighty's after $911.00 the national mood reminded her most strongly of what it was like to be living here during World War 2 yes in America after the depression during the Depression World War 2 and these kind of crises bring about even at the national level a sense of unity in New York City I live in New York the suicide rate went down in New York after $911.00 the murder rate the violent crime rate went down a male the great sociologist Emil Durkheim realized in the late 800 that countries that were at war experienced a drop in their suicide rate what are called anti-social behaviors because people people realize that their community needs them and one of the tragedies of modern society along with all of its benefits. Is that they were wealthy enough to have the idea that our community actually does not need our direct involvement our society does not need our direct involvement we are effectively unnecessary for the survival of others and that's really really demoralizing They've even found with older people that if they feel necessary to those around them they will live longer and older people that feel unnecessary tend to die more quickly so that's clearly something that is necessary for not only on their mental health but even in some ways our physical health and this is a story you tell that really stuck with me and I wanted to ask you to tell us about this person she's a Bosnian journalist named in its era and the task of it tell us about her because it's it's such an illuminating story. The 1st war that I was in was Bosnia in 1903 and as I'm sure we all remember a modern army the Bosnian Serb army surrounded a modern city sorry of 0 and basically used the civilian population for target practice for 3 or 4 years. But they survived they made it they lived in their basements they acted collectively they had militia groups that defend their neighborhoods and they made it so I was there during those terrible times and. I didn't have a chance to go back to Sarajevo until year and a half ago but I met this journalist needs ata who was 17 when the war broke out and she didn't give much thought to it you know boyfriend she had friends this is sort of the adults problem until a Serb tank rounds slammed in your parents' apartment and it shrapnel fragment almost took one of her legs off her father Ruster to the hospital in his arms through the shelling at night and it instead of amputating her leg. Her father convinced the doctor try to save her leg and he did through a long. Surgical procedure that she had to endure without anesthesia because there was none in the city. And so when I saw her she said to me when we met she lowered her voice and she said you know it's weird the war was so terrible and thank God it's over but we all miss it the civilians all miss the war and what she said was that she said basically we acted better than we were better people than we cared for each other we were selfless we looked out for each other now we just take care of our own individual lives and we're smaller people and she said there's even proceeding in Bosnia that said things were better when they were bad referring to the war. So the question is Is it possible to restore some of that kind of joy or goodness of those kind of tribal relationships without war basically you're asking how can we have it all like how can we live in a safe comfortable modern society with all the amazing blessings and benefits that come with that and regain the sort of sense of community that throughout human history has been created by danger and by hardship can we have it all honestly and not quite I don't think we can but I think there's a lot we can do to foster more of a sense of community at the neighborhood level and all the way on up to the national level I think we can there are deliberate choices we can make as a society without burning down the suburbs and going back to living in lean tos I mean obviously that's not a possibility thinking that 11 example you brought up in the book near the beginning I think you were thinking about the the recession and you pointed out that as many people committed suicide after the recession you know after presumably losing their jobs or whatever as were injured during some of our wars and yet of course there was very little fallout for the people who crashed the economy. Which is an example of undercutting community Yeah I mean one of the characteristics of a of an organic tribal society is that it is adamant about punishing anything anyone who threatens its safety is welfare that may be an enemy across the river oh Or it could be people in their own society that are acting in dangerous. Unknowable ways and so one of the things that punish very very quickly is a betrayal of the group stealing food someone bullying other people into giving them more resources so if you look at America in 2008 a relatively small number of mostly men in the financial industry gambled with the welfare of this nation and hurt us tremendously I mean really put us in danger in they cost us the recession cost us around 14 trillion dollars And if I'm remembering my math correctly that's around $45000.00 per person so the people that did this to us. Without exception have not been punished they haven't really even been sanctioned socially in very harsh ways that's new right I mean is supposed to size in human history would take those people out and hang them and I know I'm not advocating that but when you ignore something that's so obviously bad for everybody you're sending the message as a nation you're sending the message you know what there isn't really any there there I mean you say Ok we cause America but you know what America won't even look out for its own interests it won't even protect itself from its self. And if that's the case you the citizen really don't belong to anything it's a fiction Well it's interesting it makes me think What would we do as a culture if we were serious about defending us the people of the United States with the same vigor that we use to defend us against you know suppose that outside attacks. Why I think we would need a real revision of our sort of legal and moral system a political political system really where people who are very powerful economically and politically powerful if they damage this country they experience Justice legal justice I mean you're the punishment for stealing a $100.00 away harsher than for defrauding the country of $100000000.00 that's not right and but you know in addition I think. The use of contempt in political speech for political rivals is really corrosive to the American soul you know it's a little bit like hearing your parents scream at each other when you're a kid like wow our mom and dad are going to get divorced like is this the end of this stuff this family I think is what it felt like to endure this ghastly election campaign of 2016 in the kind of insinuations and mockery and derision and contempt that many candidates expressed for others and for voters was really grotesque and I think it sends the message again like there's no country here to defend I mean you don't I mean no one out at restruck all this outpost I was at I mean there were lots of tensions and dislikes and they were guys are straight up hated each other but no one had contempt for someone who might save their life tomorrow morning you don't use contempt on someone who's inside the wire and when you use content with a fellow American America is a Mexican American or or your political rival or your Democrat or Republican when you use contempt of both sides do it. You're basically saying you know what you're not really American you're not inside the wire you're other and you know you shouldn't be in this country and you know when you accuse the president of deliberately trying to harm this country you are undermining this democracy in ways that are far more dangerous than al Qaeda or ISIS ever could it's a really really corrosive thing to do and I think it should be I mean it's protected under free speech of course but I think the social sanction against doing a gives using that kind of speech should be so high that politicians stop doing it Sebastian thank you so much for talking today this was just great it's my pleasure . Sebastian Young is the author of drive on homecoming and belonging. It's in the best of our knowledge from Wisconsin Public Radio And now bookmarks writers on books they love. I'm Jonathan Chait from New York magazine the book I want to talk about is what hath God wrought by Daniel Walker house which is part of the Oxford History of the United States of America and covers the period from 15 to 1848 which is a fascinating book which is really changed the way I thought about American history even though in some ways because it covers a time period that I didn't know very much about and receives probably less treatment in popular culture than a lot of other people but is really a crucial this was a time when America expanded massively at the expense of different kinds of people who were living in the periphery of white settled American life and at the beginning of this period it wasn't clear that American power would prevail over these lanes in the way it all its men did but I think the thing that makes this book so fascinating to me is that it reframes the whole history of the intellectual debate in America and what how argues is that you had 2 really important ideas that were fighting with each other for supremacy you had the Jacksonian idea which is the one that prevailed in most of this which was that the Democratic Party which was then based in the south and was very very suspicious of the central government and was in favor of slavery and resistant to any changes to the social order including more humane treatment of Native Americans and more rights for women and then you had the Whig tradition which was based in New England and it was based on a more active role for the federal government and more liberal social relations less aggressive foreign policy and I think if you really studied that debate as it existed at the time this gives you a template for the political arguments that we see today. And I think it's especially interesting because for a long period of time after the Civil War things got very very scrambled because the Democratic Party stayed the party of the south and then the North had the Republican Party which for a while was a very left wing party at the beginning but then stopped being a left wing party and became a right wing party and then the Democratic Party eventually brought in all the liberals in the Liberals took it over and so you had these parties that were scrambled for well over 100 years and we couldn't see that where we've become now is the same place we were in the time that how I was writing about it in the beginning of the 19th century where you had this this Yankee tradition against the southern tradition which is still the debate we have so you can really see the divided polarized red versus blue America merging in a much clearer way 200 years ago so that's that's the used to which I've really been in putting this book. Jonathan Chait recommends what half god rot the transformation of America 815-2848 you'll find more bookmarks and an interview with change on our website at d.t. Book dot org. I was researching my 1st historical novel fever 793 writer Laurie Halse Anderson and I came across a book that explored the slave owning of Benjamin Franklin who had been my super big hero growing up I just adored every aspect of Benjamin Franklin and nobody told me he had to help people in slavery for his entire adult life we prefer of course to focus in on the fact that as in his eighty's he founded the Pennsylvania abolition society so you think oh he's a good guy but when I realize that this hero and this very significant founding father held people in slavery at least 9 of them we have primary source evidence for it and it. Nauseated me was horrified me that was about 20 years ago Laurie Halse Anderson was at the very beginning of her career as a children's and young adult novelist and she could not stop thinking about what it must have been like to be a slave in $776.00 when the white columnists all around you were talking about liberty and justice just not for you so she started reading and researching she wound up writing a trilogy called Seeds of America it's about 3 young African-American slaves during the American Revolution the 1st book was a finalist for the National Book Award the 2nd was a bestseller and the 3rd called Ashes is just out I would like to point out that the American Revolution lasted as long as the publication history of this see her he said I have very very patient fans and I thank them for their for waiting for this book how widespread was slavery around the time of the American Revolution in 77620 percent of the population of New York City was held in slavery and Philadelphia as well he would slaves in Boston Albany New York Vermont New Hampshire what we call Maine 20 years right that's one in 51 invited people at New York was a slave and Philadelphia yes our country was founded on land that that was taken away from the Indian nations and on the labor of unfree people. So the terrible irony in this in this history and the irony that is the bedrock of your 3 novels in this seeds of America series is that here during the Revolutionary War in the period leading up to it here's the whole country talking about freedom and liberty and condoning slavery at the same time and this is where your characters came from right you kept thinking about that and wondering what would it have been like to be a slave in New York or Philadelphia or Boston when everybody's talking about freedom and you're in slaved and they're not talking about you. They're not talking up people who look like you that was the question that has driven me for 20 years I did a lot of research trying to understand this speaks to historians and I had to really came to me one day I was at the New York Historical Society they had a magnificent exhibit about slavery in New York and they published a book about it too and I will walked into the exhibit they had a sculpture that was made out of thin wire and it was a sculpture of a man and a woman who were lit trying to liberate themselves trying to free themselves from slavery but there was the brilliance of this piece of art is that if you moved a little bit sideways you couldn't see it because the wire was so thin and then you moved back and there they were and it was such a testimony to the ever presence of people in slavery throughout the United States during the colonial time period and then how so many people chose not to see them and as I say good Riggs sacked Lee I stood there kind of rooted to the spot and I heard the voice of Isabel my main character in my ear and she said the best time to talk to ghosts is just before morning and I pulled out my pencil and I started to scribble away and I think I had been researching for about 2 years at that point reading every narrative I could that came from slaves trying to tell former slaves trying to tell their own history trying to understand as much as I could what did that feel like how old is Isabel when we 1st meet her she's 13 she's 12 years old well years old and she's in charge of her little sister Ruth who's 5 their parents have died they've been sold to new people who they don't know and they find themselves transported to New York City in the middle of the most dramatic summer ever the Patriot armies occupying the city and then the British show up and then what happens. She's enlisted in the spy ring there are lots of spy ring is operating in New York City at that time period one of the inspirations for this character came from an apocryphal figure I haven't been able to find good primary sources about but it's a young girl named Phoebe Francis whose father ran Francis Tavern in New York City during that summer of 776 and people said that Phoebe was one of the people who overheard the assassination plot against George Washington which was a real thing and she helped to save Washington so I fold that into the story there's Washington commanded that everybody on the island of Manhattan needed to attend the hanging of the man who was in charge of trying to assassinate him Isabel is her her owners are loyalists right British or there are differences in how either the loyalists the Tories versus the Patriots treated slaves well and that difference changed over time when you have a war that last 8 years. Originally the British very early in the war began to offer freedom to those slaves who could run and join them 1st men of soldiering age and then all slaves they didn't do that because they were nice they did that because they wanted to disrupt the Patriot economy when Isabel tries to do that she doesn't she's given back because she belongs is held in property of a loyalist family and the British didn't want to upset their Loyalist friends the Patriots of course had no interest in freeing anyone but what the Patriots did have was a cohort of African-American men some free some still held in slavery others who liberated themselves from slavery who heard that call of freedom and signed up George Washington didn't want them in the beginning of the war in 775 in Boston but then he begins to accept. Black men and boys into his army which is where course on starts to get involved and I was going to say this is a bill this is moving into your 2nd into the next I'm going to write for exactly this one is narrated by Kurt Isn't it was heard all this talk about liberty and decided to join the Patriots and the book follows him to Valley Forge So how many how many African Americans fought in the Revolutionary War By the time they marched out of Valley Forge about 10 percent of those men were men of color by the time you get to Yorktown the numbers aren't quite as hard but I've seen some estimates as high as 20 percent and remember this was an integrated Army these were black and white soldiers fighting together for this cause it was the last time our army was integrated into the Korean War in the 1950 s. I think I read somewhere that you actually have some ancestors who fought in the Revolutionary War Yeah my lot of my mom's folks come from New England so most of those people fought for the Patriots one branch of the family were loyalists and wound up being banished to Nova Scotia for a while before they made their way back to Massachusetts did that I don't know did that make any of this feel more vivid or did you wind up in terms of thinking about slavery feel more complicit or implicated in the way knowing that you had relatives back then I think it's more important as a white person in America to recognize the privilege that I'm living with every day . Not that I can't be responsible for the things done by people who lived before me but I can and do take responsibility for what our country looks like today and you know understanding for example that I didn't have to teach my Steen age son not to walk down the street with his hood up in his hands and his hoodie. And understanding that you know just coming to terms with that I think is where my responsibility lies in figuring out how to talk. Friends how to help people open up their eyes and their hearts a little bit more that's way more important than whatever I feel about my ancestors so you've just come out with the 3rd and final book in this trilogy ashes and it's been what 8 years or something since the 1st one came out so your fans have all been eagerly waiting to see what was going to happen with Isabel and Curzon So give us a little synopsis what's happening in ashes Yeah this is this is where everything wraps up the end of the war especially as fought in the South was particularly ugly and bitter. That's where you really have the poor state of for Genya had the British run through it trying to set fire to everything South Carolina suffered deeply North Carolina as well people who were held in bondage however were able to take advantage of that chaos one of the historians who vetted my manuscript has speculated there's a pretty good chance that more families in slave families were able to liberate themselves obtain their freedom because of the chaos of the American Revolution than were able to free themselves through the underground railroad before the Civil War so Isabel and corps on and Ruth are caught up in that it was a very frightening time for anybody of color even soldiers even soldiers who could prove that they were free free people because you had slave owners in Virginia so desperate to replace their workforce that they were grabbing people and didn't matter what their status was if they looked like they could be a slave and they could be enslaved while these people are trying to fight for the freedom of their country so it's a perilous time I mean do you think do you think the way issues of slavery and freedom were dealt with or not dealt with during this period of history set the nation up for the Civil War you know 100 years later you know. Completely there was an opportunity when they were framing the Constitution to last outlaw slavery throughout the entire nation and as I understand it the states of South Carolina in Georgia whose economies were so dependent on and slave labor said if you pass this then we will leave the Confederation of American States we will rejoin Great Britain and so in order to preserve what was a fragile United States our leaders whom we love to admire so much could not find the courage of their convictions to make all Americans free. How does that history knowing this how does it affect how you think about racism in America today I mean I've done clearly an enormous amount of research that helps me understand how we got to where we are today it's fascinating to discuss this with friends of mine who are white and to feel their resistance not because they're bad people these are often very liberal politically liberal open hearted people but they don't know their history they don't know how we got to where we are today if they would let me teach a history course I would started in the protests after the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson Missouri and I would teach history backwards to show you how the institutional racial injustices of today and the lack of understanding of the lack of the qualities in America today are directly tied to not only the founding of the United States but the fact that we haven't had the courage to be honest about that founding. And while we can and I certainly hold up people like George Washington. With respect and I'm a very patriotic American I don't want to live in a country where the Declaration of Independence is written to a certain kind of person that was written for all of us though those powerful words are what bring people. Here to America from all over the globe to help us make what I believe is the most fascinating. Diverse strongest country ever in terms of its people but we're not going to get there until we understand our history once we do that then we can look at the present with open eyes and begin planning for a true United States in the future. Laurie Hall's Anderson seeds of America is a series of historical novels set in colonial America the 3rd and final volume is just out as called Ashes. And that's it for this hour but there's always more in our podcast feed to subscribe look us up on i Tunes stitcher or where ever you catch your park asked. To the best of our knowledge comes to you from Madison Wisconsin and the studios of Wisconsin Public Radio. Car produced this hour with help from Doug garden Charles Monroe Kane and Mark wreckers Joe Hart is our technical director Steve Paulson is our executive producer and I'm and strange chaps until next time. I'm Geoffrey Riley host of the Jefferson exchange here at j.p. Thanks for joining us today in a world of nearly endless media choices public radio continues to provide a unique service it's a service that matters perhaps more now than ever it matters because dueling opinions and stale talking points are no substitute for real reporting and independent journalism it matters because we need to hear diverse voices not echo's it matters because knowledge is power and informed citizens are essential to an enduring democracy Public Radio matters and so does your support if you're a current j.p. Our contributor or sustaining member thank you if not please take a moment to contribute today at i.j. P.R.'s org or during business hours at 888-552-6191 thank you this is the news and information service of southern Oregon University's Jefferson Public Radio 12 30 am k s j k talent at 9 30 am k g I Grants Pass also heard in the road Valley at one o 2.3 f.m. News of the region the nation and the world. It's 3 o'clock in London alone welcome to News Day on the b.b.c. World Service. And b. James Copnall. Top story today the smog in the Indian capital Delhi has got so bad the authorities of brought in restrictions on vehicles but will it work as protests in Iraq continue we'll ask just how far will they go and our correspondent in the Netherlands investigates. And the lengths some people in and out of the country will go to get it and after finding a long lost giant tool to species this team is going back to look for more on the volcano was extremely active and so this is probably a species that's on the edge of existence anyway is a helicopter will be extremely useful to retrieve any tortoises. And more sports and business coming away 1st that this bulletin of the latest world news. Hello I'm David Harper with the b.b.c. News a traffic restriction scheme has come into effect in the Indian capital Delhi as the authorities grapple with the worst and pollution the city has experienced for 3 years can't win a reports from this morning car drivers will only be allowed into the capital on odd or even dates according to the final digit of that car number plate it's only the 3rd time such a measure has been introduced in India reflecting the city authorities desperate battle against the all pervasive toxic smoke that has seen flights cancelled schools closed and residents urged to remain indoors women driving alone with other women or with children aged under 12 will be exempt from the scheme which runs until the 15th of November the governor of the Us state of California Gavin Newsome has reacted angrily to tweets by President Trump blaming him for the recent wildfires and threatening to withhold federal aid Mr Trump said the governor had done a terrible job of forest management yet was asking the government for financial help Peter Viles reports from Los Angeles Donald Trump's claim that California's governor has done a terrible job of forest management reflects an ongoing hostile relationship between the president and governor knew some according to Mr Trump the governor should be cleaning the forest floors regardless of what his bosses the environmentalists demand of him Mr Newsome responded with a pointed tweet of his own directed at the president you don't believe in climate change he says you are excused from this conversation several of this year's major wildfires have burned in parts of California where the raw no forests the former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has warned that the current tensions between Russia and the West are putting the world in colossal danger Steve Rosenberg reports from Moscow a Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev had worked with President Reagan to reduce the nuclear arsenals of the u.s.s.r. And America but the treaty they signed has now collapsed creating the risk of a new arms race between Moscow and Washington President Gorbachev told the b.b.c. The world was in colossal danger he called on.