Bring something new to it. You are in for a treat. Now, as a narrative historian rather than a art historian or art history professor, what i do is write books. In order to do that, i look at the topography of the past and i try to identify fault lines that other people have not seen. This book is a case in point. Eight years ago, i had a conversation with my editor. I just finished a book about Thomas Jefferson and the early days of architecture. She said to me what to do you want to do next . I had a couple of have ideas which i described to her. She very nicely said, i do not think so. [laughter] do you have anything else . I was completely at this point. I said, well, in writing about their early architects i discovered that peele cap to these amazing journals. She kept all of his letters. A wonderful resource about everything to do with culture the late 18th century. He painted thousands of the founding fathers. So, i said in connection with that, John Trumbull wrote an autobiogra
My talk will be a little shorter than his introduction, i think but thank you. [laughter] my thanks to susan, the invitation for the miscellaneous arrangements. Michael and stephen. And coming to mount vernon is always a joy. I feel like i have lots of friends here starting with mary and through carol and on and others. This is a uniformly welcoming place for scholars. And i have spent time in using the archives here. And coming here has been able to enabled me to write all of the significant portions of several books i have done concerning the general. I have also wanted to join such travelers of the past, who will follow me today and ellen tomorrow. You have a list of them. Almost all of these folks, i know their work and admire their work. And when you write books like this one, you can only do them because other people have closed the first and i like to think i bring something new to it. You are in for a treat. Now, as a narrative historian rather than a art historian or art histo