I think the perceptionce that many people in the United States and also around the worldhi that this is an extraordinary unusual time in a sense where we are out of time will be a curiosity in the future. People will look back and wonder about that wonderment. And he gets kind of an interesting phenomenon. When you think about today do you compare it to any other time in history . As a historian. Im interested in that. We have a cognitive tendency. In the same way im the kind of person that seems like this and family members. Our need for familiarity. For most of my career as a historian. What time is this like. It is an easy story to write. I think theres a whole crop of president ial biographers who go out on talk shows. I generally find them to be not i in this era. Its actually a way to kind of contain the chaos. It is a way to avoid what is truly strange about this. What do we mean when we talk about American History. How are we to reckon with the fact that our present day is so polarized that the path is to different paths. We cant even imagine a common interest see. I still stand by the statement. On the count of the nations issues. The past isnt changed. That has been obvious to mesi as a historian for a long time. I think its more obvious to the public than it ever has been before. They got to the floor by the recent conversations about monuments. And whether the confederate monuments should stand. They havent occupied the attention of the media. And the broad swapped. We can think about other controversies in the history wars of the 1990s or certainly moments in the teens and 20s that are similar to that. With the public fight over a history we have a sense now that remember that crazy goofy instrument mean. That is the world in which we t live now. Use of information that is available can be seen. Not in the fractured lens. It is now thehe spectacle. In the past as well. I study history not because im deeply fascinated by things. Im really interested in how we got here. And how people struggled in the past and what we can learn fromggt to forge in the face of suffering. Its really most of the story filed for that you can open up. You can justify your own politics. At the gets pertinent now. And this is from these i i, truths. The american experiment has not ended. A nation born and revolution will forever struggle against chaos. I think in the course of this conversation youre likely to throw something at me change my mind. Thats just a truism. A nation is a human creation. They dont exist in nature. Those are natural communities. They dont naturally live in nations. As a category Political Community in our era has proven extremely important because of the liberal nation state. Its the only one that can guarantee the rights to peoplets and they have the particular place. And the organization of a government through the consent of the people that can actually deliver to the people the services. And the guarantee of rights. Nations are really important. A nation as a fundamentally unstable thing. In some way, especially the United Statesn which is a nation based on an idea. And not on the shared history. It is based on an idea. Its the daily anguish of people wondering whats can happen in the United States and they will look at the country. That as a peerless estate. The constant edginess of that chaos. Professor jill lepore at i will point did you say to yourself, i think i want to write a history of the United States and 800 and some pages. I had been asked to write u. S. History textbooks throughout my career. Most are jointly written. They specialize in a time often in their approach. It takes a team of scholars to put together a textbook. And ive never been attracted to that. It will write the tasks book. It has a particular tone. That is extremely unappealing to me. I happen to write history. But i would write anything. A few years ago i was asked for the first time to write i said as a college textbook. I would be very interested in doing that. I think there is a need for the United States. Just for the public as a whole. There used to be these books. At a certain point every american historians career men what write this. None of them are the last of their kind. The tradition has fallen away and it hasnt been a book like my history for quite a long time. It seemed to me like something of a dare. We will direct the lost tradition. I worked with an editor and publisher that i usually admire and they let me write the book that i wanted to write. T the account that i thought needed to be written. Essays about American History. I said okay. For me it was important that i write it quickly, i get really bored with books really fast. I did write the book pretty quickly. But i have this ideaea in viewers who have read the book. That if i wrote it fast it would read fast. I took on the project but very much of the idea that i would spend x number of months on this product. And no more i if i did then. , with the thousand pages. You can spend ten years on it. Ev that would have driven me not knots. To start chronologically when you do things like that. It is not contending them. It has themes. It aims to be significant in the ability to comprehend that. It was a very particular method. Four chapters. There is a lot of symmetry to the organization. I made the outline. And i went to the library. I put them in the sack in my office. With a yellow sticky note on the top. I made stacks. And that every time i got to the bottom of the stack i would write the chapter. And then to go get it for the next pause. Day by day i worked my way through. My office is not too far from the library building. If you check out the books at the circulation desk. They look at all your books again. E i know the security guards pretty well. They also all came to know what i was doing. Everybody would be paying attention youre at the new deal. I cant wait till you get to truman. Ai all of the security guards were following my progress. People read a lot of history. They were the people that i checked up with the most. What got left out. One of the reasons that it became so difficult for an academic history and to write the history of the United States. That revolution was in the academy. It has involved putting back in all of the people we were stripped out of the story ofry the United States for a century of an half. They were really quite provincial they all belong to a single Demographic Group. They were interested in the history of that Demographic Group and no other. We have a very narrow understanding. With the historians of science. It is a topic of the American History. All of the people who kind of exploded the profession. Nobody could write that. Given now that we have such a broad with the broad understanding of the diversity. How could you cram all of that into a single volume. It wouldvo involve eight rhetorical act of violence. In certain groups in any case you would be kind of the not for what you empathize. His academic scholarship it is pretty punishing. There is a lot of disincentive to do this kind ofnt work. You would be promoting a kind of fiction that the country was just one thing. They could be reduced to one story. These are the years of not only intellectual. But the political sensibility. It seemed like a on dependable project. It did not get them for a really long time. There were many nights making lists of all of the things that we were going to be able to attend to. I wasnt writing an encyclopedia. And the reader needs to know why information in the chapters actually had to be in some theme or claim you come up with rules for what needs to be there and what doesnt. Its not to say that they can all be secondguessed. I guess the way that i eventually got myself to sleep. Was the number this is not the last definitive account. I was trying to rekindle the tradition. And my hope would be that other people would come alonge and write similar books. And challenge the account. That is how the historical scholarship works. Its not really meant to be the end. Be what motivated the followup book. I was asked to write an essay for foreign affairsrs on the history of american nationalism. A time in 2018 that they might remember of they gave a speech. Maybe he was in texas. He said he was explaining i was a nationalist. I guess im not supposed to use that word. But im a nationalist. I think they were remembering the details. They asked them about nationalism and the history of the world and the meaning and implication. He kind of just said he didnt care. The point was he considered himself and national. There was in 2018 a lot of discussion of the rise of the american nationalism. Speemac i was asked to write an account either in the context of the movement. Or the idea of america as a nation. And what that absence of a National History is. Thats what it can do by proposing a problem. I think i say in the preface to the book. I wanted to explain what the nation was. And why nationstates manner. And why it matters. And how it is. F in the absence of the defense of liberalism the only kind of nationalism that comes to the floor is the liberal. And that poses a danger. We will get into those definitions in just a minute. We happen to have that video about President Trump in october of 2018 in houston. See mike at globalists is a person that wants the globe to do while and not carried about our country so much. We cant have that. To have a word it sort of became oldfashioned. Its called a nationalist were not supposed to use that word. W im a nationalist okay. Use that word. So professor jill lepore when you hear the president say im a nationalist what does that doy to you. I think in the context of the whole. Its just so interesting to hearxc i dont have video in this exchange. Im not looking at what the viewers are looking at. I think they are richer in the spirit of the occasion. There is something about calling out and celebrating nationalism for an adoring crowd. I think for a lot of people who had watched the nationalist rise to power in order to secure the civility of the people for the purpose of the aggression. It is an unsettling terrifying thing. I had forgotten how he begins its really interesting. The rhetoric about globalism and globalists in particular is often fundamentally anti somatic. They were actually without a nation. In nationalism. As a core commitment of many people around the world tends to really set to one side people who are stateless. And a lot of conspiracy theories in the 18th and 19th a century are antisemitic in the sense that they are based t the idea that there is a secret and bankers who control all the money. And people who had no National Attachments had global ties that are undermining the national borders. When the rhetoric about globalists comes back in our day and really harkens back to the long tradition there is something really interesting about that. Its not to say that there are very strenuous peaks of globalization. One of the chief criticisms. In 1990. Even into the late 1980s. Is that kind of unthinking of globalism. Certain people would be left behind by globalization. But thats okay. Its for the best. And it does make an enormouss number of financiers. I think people watching trump and who admire trump and feel recognized and seen by him are thinking about all of the ways in which globalization has been responsible for a great deal of this about the world. Its an interesting mix of their people really angry about whats going on. But for him to evoke nationalism in the way that he does. And very much to applaudap what he is presenting the organ that defines globalists in this antisemitic history. As demonic bad people. People who love the nation best they are the good people and their love is another form of patriotism. It is like a central move. In an essential step in urging people to be making make in sacrifices for the nation. That can only be asked in the interest of an authoritarian. There is a messy history on on that. There is america. And just kind of pause. What is the difference between patriotism. Liberals wont defend nationalism anymore. I think its important. To love your country. I think its important to be willing to be willing to think about your obligations your country. In the civic duty that we owe to one another. That is a thing that is central to any liberal nation. It is a small space to aqua occupy. What is a difference between a nationalist and a populist . Im not sure that it is really that interesting. In the most simple definition a populist is a politician who makes appeals directly to the people. Rather to policies or fellow elected officials. Theyre not going to appeal to congress for support. It is in the peoples interests. It seems fine. Weve a majority that governs. It certainly appealing to the people. Has a whole negative econnotation around that many scholars should say that. It is to think about thwarting the institution and in the scene the emotional support of the people for the sake of a political agenda. In the most meaningful way. When they use the sense of that. St listing the support of the people and not delivering real things to the people. It may or may not be a fair definition. They did a lot of things that were in interest of the people. Yet they were not populous. It was a more populist nature. And the particular pitch. Good afternoon. Thank you for spending some time with us on book tv. This is our indepth program. This month we are pleased to have join us from Cambridge Harvard professor jill lepore. She is the author of many booksy she received her phd in american studies in jail in 1995. In her first book came out in 1998. It was the name of war. He with american identity. Her second a book 2002 is a is for americans. Letters and other characters in the new United States. It came out in 2005 the whites of their eyes. The Tea Party Revolution in the battle over American History in 2010. The mansion of happiness a history of life and death in 2012. The story of america essays on origin also came out in 2012 b in the book of ages the life and opinions of Jane Franklin sister of Benjamin Franklin came out in 2013. I believe that one of the National Book award. The secret history of wonder woman. 2014. We will ask it about it a little later. These truths which we talked about the history of the u. S. In 2018. And this america the case for the nation last year and her most recent book is if that how the Civil Corporation in vented the future. That is a brandnew book. Will talk about that in just a minute. We want to involve you in this conversation as well. If you have a question or comment that you would like to make you can contact us via social media here are the numbers. If you live in the east and central time zone. 7 now if you want to send a text message you can do so. Just include your first name in your city if you would. And i could go to 202748, 8903. The text message number. Were also going to scroll through our social media accounts facebook you can make t,comment you can send an email we will scroll through those just remember at book tv. So jill, if then what was the corporation and im hoping im saying it correctly. And aptos candidate and up with an ocean behavioral scientists and computer scientists. They were some of, what David Halverson wouldve called the best and brightest. They are altogether in a ironic way. They had the idea that they could conduct with the early Mainframe Computers that were available in the 1950s and the ibm, 704 using a neuter gender new computer language that they could program a computer to inductive simulation of the u. S. President ial election where they can use that simulation to provide Campaign Advice to whoever the democratic nominee would be. This was 1959 expected the nomination to be stevenson and his campaign ed greenfield and most the guys worked for him had in fact worked in 1956 with Dwight Eisenhower and with the incompetent 1960 everybody expected eisenhowers Vice President , Richard Nixon to run as a republican nominee. People thought he be a formidableht candidates. Nixon was an extremely formidable cannot but a vulnerable one. But the democrats are really vulnerable because of their position on civil rights. Greenfield and his colleagues, built this machine which they call the people machine. This computer simulation of the election in order to prove to the democrats importance of engaging orders in the north and take a stronger position on civil rights. Atthat is how the company was founded. They were to the a dnc in 1959 a democratic nominee who is not at least stevenson as you know. It was john f. Kennedy. And then they went on to do pioneering work in whole bunch of other realms. Kind of the cold war of this company and its important in a lot o of ways for how it really significantly served make its kind of the back story to facebook or much that goes on at social media s today. The data mining and such. But the company did is very much the great granddaddy of so many data mining and social Media Companies today. Spew in did you find the story . Guest i found the story into thousand 15 i am with the new yorker Magazine Networks for the magazine for a long time burnham often asked to do pieces that provide the history of an institution that people think they know all k about but in fact just dont. But the historians know about. Ii was asked to write about the industry in 2015 which was very much in the news for all kinds of reasons we could go into thats a long story. It became quickly clear to me the Polling Industry was very much in decline in crisis and was largely being supplanted by data science. Protocol 3000 people in the phone and ask a bunch of questions and higher staff to do that if you could just follow them online and extractor data and figure out what their political preferences are without having to doli that. The da