Its my honor to introduce three people to you this evening. First is Roger Rosenblatt whose work has been published in 14 languages. Roger is the author of five New York Times notable books of the year and three times bestseller. The story the story i am mad about the writing life came out in april and a cool moon a life love and responsibility will be in october. Rogers written seven off broadway plays notably the one person free speech in america that he performed at the American Theater which was the times 10 best plays of 1991. Last spring he performed them play piano in his play living in the basement is nothing which would go to the Stoller Center for the arts at stony brook and the theater in new york next year. He also wrote the screenplay for a bestselling novel rapid rising which is currently in production. Roger is distinguished repressor at english and writing at stony brook. He formerly held the copeland appointment to creative writing at harvard where he got his ph. D. Am
Returned to the farm. Thats a theme that this country was founded on. If you go up to the rotunda in the capital and you look at the great painting of the tremble of George Washington turning over his powers as commanderinchief and the Continental Army to the congress, the cincinnatus symbols are all do that painting because the Founding Fathers really believe this is what democracy entails. It meant that citizenship met any citizen should be called, could be called upon any time to serve his country or her country and any capacity including the greatest power. In the power belong to the people, therefore, power would be returned by those who held it for a time. Truman liked to say i try never to forget who i was, where he came from, and where would go back to. Thats the cincinnatus Team Obviously but it also shows that he knows who he was. He knew who he was and he was proud of who he was and the return to independence after he left the office of the presidency in 1953 was his way of
Cspan why wouldnt the government at that time have protections for him . Guest why wouldnt the government have a pension. There were for pensions for nobody else and not a penchant for the present in effect he had very little money. He had to borrow money quite secretly which dean acheson cosigned to pay for the move back home. This is not wellknown and it doesnt mean he didnt have any money. He did have money but he needed cash to cover all the expenses coming out of the white house. When he got home in order to provide himself some income he undertook the writing of his autobiography, his memoirs which no other president had ever done except for herbert hoover. Hoovers time in office was much briefer than was trumans presidency and covered far more tumultuous history so to undertake the 2volume memoir was a very major ambitious task and then he build his library. There had been a previous president ial library, Franklin Roosevelt library at hyde park established after roosevelt had d
With, and connects to, the pandemic we are living through right now, right here, in april 2020. So many of us arent home, working at home, living at home, and sheltering in place as science takes on the covid19 virus. I am so fortunate to have a truly skilled and knowledgeable colleague joining me today scholar who wears many hats suspending histories archaeology, and geography. John hessler is the director of the collection at the library of congress. In a specialist on early america. He is the author of a book recently copublished by the library of congress, called collecting for a new world. John is also a distinguished curator in the libraries geography and map division and an expert and mapping in general. Now how does mapping fit in with all this . He is an advisor to a number of leading edge institutions in this country as they tech this bread of covid19 and understand how mostly populations and time. John, welcome. Thank you marie great to be here. Thank you for joining me. Let
We know from early historians how devastating this variety of smallpox was, 90 of all indigenous deaths were attributable to smallpox, tell us about that. There was a point of scholarly discussion. One of the sources we have, most of the media is a chronicler, spanish chronicler arrived in spain, he wrote a diary or memoir, talks about the actual mortality rate, keeps talking in terms of 50 but some of the other sources we have, people like cortez himself cortez writes and cant stand, and in europes time. From 1522 january 15, 21 is one of smallpox was introduced, theres a very early source, talks about him and writes a letter to charles v in 1520 and this is the first mention of smallpox in the new world from a spanish source. He was surprised when he arrived, there were very few people there and he attributed to dying of smallpox, he heads off and finds immediately upon arrival of the expedition, the native people began dying of smallpox fairly rapidly, very rapid phase but a number