Path. This is an hour and 45 minutes. Eric foner i am eric foner from the columbia university, moderating this second session on slavery and freedom. I want to begin by thanking the organizers of this excellent conference. We all know how much work went into, you know, putting this whole thing together. Thanks to those at the museum and the American Historical Association that have been so active in getting this conference organized. , i gave my last class at columbia university. I am now writing off riding off into the sunset. [applause] retirement. Of and so i ask if you will indulge me for just a minute as i reflect briefly on my own experience in relation to this field of African American history. Which is a little, it is sort of emblematic of the many things that have happened the last couple of generations. I grew up in a family in which africanAmerican History, although utterly ignored in the School Education that i got in grade school and high school, nonetheless, the black exp
And what does that mean. When im not doing that i try to acquire books. We wanted to talk to you on book tv about some of the books that are coming out the season tell us one book you had been working on. I just turned in a final edit. And its very interesting. They lead a double life. The new book is a tribute. There is a section on neuroscience in the final section on psychology and philosophy. And rick law all of them are basically a response to the age old question. And of course so what are some of the books that they had coming out this fall. With a great list its just focusing on a few. It is the most anticipated. It would be the going to run. Some people have heard of. And born to run as his first book and probably the thing that most people want to know now is that he spent seven years writing the book. And he started writing it after his performance at the super bowl he wrote the book on his own in his free time. And when it came out it was done. It is everything and more but
Box. But no, no, no. Im very happy and honored to be here with such a distinguished set of scholar and an even lovelier audience. Thank you so much to bill and to the White House Historical association, to the u. S. Capitol Historical Society and, of course, James Madisons mountpilyer for having me here. The slogan dont give up the ship, the figure of uncle sam, the star spangled banner, the proliferation of symbols that emerged from the war of 1812 constitutes a paradox. Though, as this conference demonstrates, much recent scholarship on the causes, conduct, and legacies of the war has produced fresh insights about the costs and gains of the war, even the combatants. At the time the treaty was signed, americans understood that peace gained them little and policy, International Power or territory. So on the one hand it seems contradictory that such a wealth of symbolism emerged at such a fectless endeavor. On the other hand, the very futile nature of the war. The victory that contempor
Theres the most recent book by peter snow which is when britain burned the white house. All of these books are great but the question or maybe the point that im trying to make is that to the average person when they read a title like that, its going to give them an impression that is not necessarily what really happened in washington, d. C. And i find it ironic that we have three books that talk about the white house, a very important public building, no question about it, where the president lived and it hurt the morale when you burn the president s house. No question about it. But to me, of all of the buildings that were burnt, the most significant was the Capitol Building. Thats where the seat of government existed. And none of these books have that in their title. Just interesting to me. And just so that you know they are all in good company, this is the title of a chapter in one of my books. Washington is burning. We all do it. Almost all of us that have been talking today at the
And the constitution that will reflect adaptability and great persuasion mad sentence had. An interesting capstone to two days of i think what we all can agree has been just a tremendous group of presentations. So the first speaker that will be coming up this afternoon is kenneth r. Bowling. Kenneth received his phd from the university of wisconsin. His specialty is the creation of the is all about the creation of the federal government during the revolution. Hes been very active and interested in particularly researching the seat of government. Hes been the author of many book and articles. Throughout most of his professional life, hes been the coeditor of documentary history of First Federal congress. I do want to say one thing about one of his books, which i think is a real classic now, thats the creation of washington, d. C. , which is published back in 1991. If anybody wants to know about behind the scenes and proceedings and meetings and all the things that went on in terms of th