All right. We need to go ahead and get started with our first session today. And it is wonderful to see quite the turnout at 8 30 in the morning for a panel on James Buchanan, which is we all know that James Buchanan is often overlooked, but we are going to remedy that here in just a moment. I want to quickly introduce our two speakers. First is john quist. John is the tall one standing behind michael. He is a professor of history at shippensberg university. He teaches classes in 19th century u. S. As well as civil war era. He studied at the university of michigan under j. Mills thorton. Recall Michael Nieberg who you heard last night also a student of j. Mills thorton. John has published a very important book entitled the social roots of antebellum reform in alabama and michigan, and his cospeaker today is michael burkner, excuse me, professor of history at gettysburg college. Many of you might remember that michael was the interim director of the Civil War Institute. He played a pivo
All right. We need to go ahead and get started with our first session today. And it is wonderful to see quite the turnout at 8 30 in the morning for a panel on James Buchanan, which is we all know that James Buchanan is often overlooked, but we are going to remedy that here in just a moment. I want to quickly introduce our two speakers. First is john quist. John is the tall one standing behind michael. He is a professor of history at shippensberg university. He teaches classes in 19th century u. S. As well as civil war era. He studied at the university of michigan under j. Mills thorton. Recall Michael Nieberg who you heard last night also a student of j. Mills thorton. John has published a very important book entitled the social roots of antebellum reform in alabama and michigan, and his cospeaker today is michael burkner, excuse me, professor of history at gettysburg college. Many of you might remember that michael was the interim director of the Civil War Institute. He played a pivo
Becomes more relevant all the time. Anthony pitch is the author of many nonfiction books. Dead,ing, kill pop the and the burning of washington. He is a former associate of press staffer in london and a broadcast editor in philadelphia. A Senior Writer who has reported from israel and africa. Following his letter, he will be signing books in front of the archives store. Please welcome anthony pitch back to the National Archives. [applause] anthony hello, everybody. I am glad that you managed to take time off to come here. I have concentrated on American History in my last five books and they all have to do with catastrophe. That is what i am attracted to. I think in the closing years of my life that my books, the book is the best id, have written. Sometimes i read it and i wondered if i wrote it. This book, i had wanted to write about a lynching since 1998. And i could not find a lynching that had documentary evidence to back it up. I found one in maryland that interested me, but the re
He is a former associate of press staffer in london and a broadcast editor in philadelphia. A Senior Writer who has reported from israel and africa. Following his letter, he will be signing books in front of the archives store. Please welcome anthony pitch back to the National Archives. [applause] anthony hello, everybody. I am glad that you managed to take time off to come here. I have concentrated on American History in my last five books and they all have to do with catastrophe. That is what i am attracted to. I think in the closing years of my life that my books, the book kill papa dead, is the best i have written. Sometimes i read it and i wondered if i wrote it. This book, i had wanted to write about a lynching since 1998. And i could not find a lynching that had documentary evidence to back it up. I found one in maryland that interested me, but the records had been destroyed, so there was nothing to write about, nothing to research. Eventually, i found this lynching and it struc
It featured profiles of seven american icons were control freaks, from Thomas Jefferson to steve jobs. These were people with character disorders that had difficulty relating to other people but were amazing movers and shakers. And i wrote a chapter on jefferson. And jefferson, of course, is americas most articulate proponent of freedom and most articulate enemy of tyranny. But with his own daughters, he was a control freak. He told them what to do, what to wear. So here he is, and jefferson also was an amazing politician. We all know how brilliant he was. But in the election of 1804 he 74 of theed by vote. It brought up the question of how one leads a nation and how one leads a family. Jefferson was a great visionary thinker and a great leader, but as a dad, soso. He also neglected his daughters a little bit. When he goes to paris, he sticks them at a convent school. One of his daughters famously had to be shepherded from london when she comes to visit him in paris. And so this questi