Behalf of the center and the new york office i would like to welcome you all here for what i think is a momentous and landmark event for us, an evening honoring the launch of david brion daviss new book. I have a couple of acknowledgments and a brief introduction and then we will start the program an alternate over to the speaker. I would like to begin first of all but sending my thanks to my colleague and friend dr. Bragman who is the person who arranged or this event that brought dr. Davis in the center together i would also like to thank michelle from the publishers of the book. She is the gilda lerman institute for the help of operation in arranging this evening. I also would like to very much welcome and recognize alan and francis members of the board of trustees who have taken their time to come here this evening as well. Thank you for that. A few brief words of introduction. One of the reasons i was so glad and jumped jump at this opportunity was because this work and the work o