History tv, all weekend, every weekend on cspan3. To join the conversation, like us on facebook. Next on American History television, pulitzer prizewinning author eic foner on the challenges of establishing civil rights for friedman in the reconstruction period and beyond. Eric foner. With that, i would like to introduce eric foner. Eric when iuntered was a College Student thinking about becoming an historian and had visions of riding a good book. Then i read freemen, free soil, maybe ir and thought ought to stop now. I will not be able to write a book that good. Whatis is his first book, is he going to write . I ran away from antebellum history. You cant compete with people like him. I have come back to antebellum history and slavery and since then, i have relied on many of erics more than 20 books. I would review the list, but we do not have that much time. I do want to say, and this is the fun of introducing a speaker, looking at his selected publications, i notice he has written a
The virus is becoming a pandemic. It could kill millions. It will reorder the Global Economy and change our politics. Could the disease help to determine the outcome of the president ial election eight months from now . Of course it could. It will. The leaders cant stop that. Like all matters of life and death, its beyond human power to effect. But they can respond to the threat in a way that makes this country stronger, not weaker. How can they do that . Heres how. The first step is to take the virus seriously and convince the public that you are. In 1918, wood row wilsons white house downplayed the spanish influenza and refused to take obvious precautions to slow the spread. Wilson had a pointless war in europe to fight. The generals couldnt be distracted from that goal. The government continued shipments to overcredit army camps across the country and pack them on ships to france. The virus spread exponentially. 50,000 contracted it. People died of the flu. Could wilson have prevent