regime that imposed strict new laws against home sexuality and adultery with punishments of stoning and burning people to death, a militia of young boys with the version of tiki torches to enforce the strict new moral code, those t ki iki torches in 1497 known as the bonfire of the vanities in which books, art, clothing, cosmetics were burned and a year after that, just a year after that, popular opinion turned on rola and he was hanged and burned in the central square of florence. joining us now, the new york times best selling author and former editor of time magazine, walter isaacson. wow, lawrence, that was this is i have to say, this is your most magical life brought to us on the pages yet. this is it is such beautiful writing. it is so fascinating. it is an education for me on
people like that were not only tolerated they were celebrated. and part of the technology that changed his life was the printing press which allowed him to then dig into the things donald trump avoids of books. and i keep you know, when you when anything now in the age of trump is a different experience. i feel like reading this book two years ago if it had existed would be a different experience than i have had reading it now because i m finding parallels to it to say look how dark it got in florence in the bonfire of the vanities and look at how they came out of it because we keep looking for those cycles because many of us can feel we re in a dark period now. well, the good thing about history is it teaches us there are cycles. things act, things react. we had that. lasted less than four years to take heart from that. yeah, yeah. and, you know, florence became more tolerant again. and we had it during the joseph mccarthy period. you have a book coming out about 1968 that
i don t think the house would agree. tax reform is just a one-page piece of paper fop my knowledge, there s no bill. and third, you ve got now starting today an infrastructure initiative, a great photo op, but no details, no explanation on how you pay for it. yeah, sarah huckabee sanders will speak to the media. it will be hard to turn the page to infrastructure with mr. comey testifying on capitol hill this week. right. how consequential is what the former fbi director is about to say? it will be a big deal. i recall tom wolf in bonfire of the vanities wrote about how every crisis like this has a predictable result. so you re going to have comey with more bombshells, you ll have trumpagely tweeting about comey, you ll have schumer talking about impeachment, you ll have the republicans saying it s not warranted, and you ll have the markets probably still doing well. yeah, that s my question, because you advise wall street on what s happening in
nation that supposedly had won a war and yet they felt like a defeated country. and churchill was the old victorian, the child of empire, and the empire was slipping away. that s his particular drama. you know, the series has like six concurrent stories. his story is the man who is growing old and is hanging on too long. well, i have to congratulate you on everything you ve done. i have to tell you we all loved terms of endearment when we first met you in that safeway checkout counter when you were desperate for sex. i thought that was one of the great scenes ever about a guy. and i also loved your audio recording of bonfire of the vanities. you did all the oh, my goodness. no, you did all the ethnic accents in new york, every accent. you did, you know, ed koch. you did everyone. those great lines from the guys in the street. that s wonderful. i never get a compliment for that, chris. you deserve more than that. i was very proud of that. thank you. thank you, john l
checkout counter when you were desperate for sex. i thought that was one of the great scenes ever about a guy. and i also loved your audio recording of bonfire of the vanities. you did all the oh, my goodness. no, you did all the ethnic accents in new york, every accent. you did, you know, ed koch. you did everything. those great lines from the guys in the street. that s wonderful. i never get a compliment for that, chris. you deserve more than that. i was very proud of that. thank you. thank you, john lithgow. great movie coming out. thanks for coming on hardball. it s a real pleasure, chris. when we return, let me finish tonight with trump watch. we ve had a hint of it there in the movies. you re watching hardball, where the action is.