it took a village. dr. watt sop h dr. watson has published more than 40 books, and scholarly t articles and encyclopedias and essays. he has co-convened national conferences on the modern presidency, and moderated political debate and delivered more than 1,000 keynote addresses. he has founded three non-profit think takes dedicated to political reform. he is a frequent media commentator on cnn, and fox's special report with brit hume, and nbc, "usa today," new york times and the bbc. dr. watson has lectured at the four arts numerous time, and he will do so again in the future. we welcome him as he is working the image wick the formidable historians. there you go. okay. everybody hear met all right? most importantly, i have a signed copy. well, thank you again, molly, dr. brennamen and the entire team at the society and congratulations on yet another important and successful and exciting program. i'd also like to thank c-span as mentioned earlier for covering the program, and jay gaines and the others who underwrote the program. the opportunity to sit and talk h history, if anybody knows me, i never miss the opportunity, and nothing but a nice history talk, and to sit and talk history with one of my heroes and arguably one of the pre-eminent historians of our time or any time, a man that has been called the -- capital "t" -- the historian of founders is gordon wood who is the dean of historians will be here for a week. >> i paid him $100 to say that. >> i would like to thank joe ellis for coming, and thank him for the remarks. we have about an hour, and we may go over [ laughter ] we will try to keep it tight to the hour. and i thought that we would cover a few topic, and one being professor el ellis' books, and the writing process, and i want to take him behind the scenes to the research and writing process and get back to the founders and talk about the eternal and important legacy contributions up to today and the meaning today and the relevance today, and we want to touch on a few h historical topics that he alluded to in the the remarks and get back to that and i would like to open up with knowing joe ellis the person. on that note, can you tell us what sparked your interest in history, and at what age did you realize that this was your calling? >> well, i don't have a canned answer to that, and usually, i have heard the questions and so i'm scripted to do this and -- i went to college at the college of william and mary. before that i went to a school in d.c. which which was a jesuit school called gonzaga and so i was classically trained in terms of the latin and greek and stuff, and so i didn't really take much of the way of american h history, but when i had philosophy at william & mary, and then afterwards and people would come up to me in my junior year and say, what are you going to do? and so -- >> yes, we all get it. >> and you had to have an answer so i said that i would go to law school, and i hadn't thought about it, but i knew that everybody would accept that answer. so then my senior year, i realized, i didn't have the money to go to law school, and i was on my own, and wilm ya and mary was cheap and i was working as a lifeguard in d.c. overs overseeing the pools for the kafitz corporation. and i could not afford law school, so i thought, well, i can get into the graduate school, and i did want to go into the philosophy, because they were heading off in the direction of symbiotics, and so i was more interested in ideas. so i said, well, i could go on the be history and applied and i got into yale, and which nobody could understand how i ever got in. >> did you ever ask them how you got in? >> well, i didn't know who to ask. i think that i wrote an essay that somebody thought was good, but the people at yale at the same time as me were much better read than me, and at the end of the year, and i will bring it to a conclusion, but at the end of the year, i thought, that i am not cut out to do this and there's a good feel that i was supposed to write a certain way, and i did not want to do that. and so i sort of started saying, i am not coming back. what was i going to do? is run swimming pool-- i was go running swimminging po pools. and mr.word said to me, you need to come back. and i said, i am not as good as these other people, and he said, yes, joe, they know more by r d read, but you can learn from them, because you know something that they don't know and they can never learn. i have spent the last 40 years trying to figure out what that was. [ laughter ] >> i was lean iing forward for that moment of truth. and now i am hanging off of the edge of the cliff here. >> yeah. i think that it has something to do with writing. if you were not a writer or historian, what could you see yourself doing? >> i'd be a lawyer. and not a corporate lawyer, but a, you know, like, but. i can't -- i would not be happy and i have lawyers making a lot of money who write me and say, i want to do what you are doing. and i say, give up. because it won't work for you that way. but it is, in other words, like most of the things in life, most of the big decisions that i have made in my life to include what i want to be when i grow up and who i want to marry and those kinds of things, you make those decision before you have enough information to really know whether they are a good idea. >> right. whether they are a good decision or not. >> isn't that right? and so, sometimes they work out. like in this case, it worked out. when i wake up happy. i go down to my study and try to write out longhand and i'm not technologically committed to anything other than the way that the roller ball black ink pen. and for me, that is to say it is always fun is not always true, but it is fulfilling for me in a way that is really wonderful. >> sure. >> and teaching for me, and i have retired formally from teaching and i have taught at williams last year, but most of the time at mount holyoke and the five-college area am amherst and hampshire university. and writing is solitary, and teaching is a social activity. so i like the combination of the two things. >> right. >> and i miss the teaching. i don't miss grading papers. >> right. >> and i don't miss writing, and one of the things that is happening out there in the world of undergraduates and if you don't know this, you need to know this. in the last couple of years, i know that the students would give me their papers and i would make all kinds of comments on the margin, and labor intensive process, but it is important of the central part of the education, because you are playing with the minds of the syntax of the sentences, you are talking about the way they think. and i spent a lot of time doing that and they come up after class and they would say, i can't read cursive. >> cursive and and roman numera. i discovered that a few years ago? it's like -- so you can do that because it's interlinear on paper. >> yeah, yeah. >> and that's -- i'm an akronistic. >> a few years ago at our university we had smart boards installed in all the rooms. you have seen them on cnn when you can open up the electoral college map or whatever. i am athinking how with i use the smart board to teach about getty's battle. i thought i would show him original letters. i can't remember the letter i pulled up, but it was written in cursive. and i asked the first student, would you read it. and the first student looked at me sheepishly who said i can't. and then it doesn'ted on me that the students couldn't read cursive. likewise probably a semester later in my course syllabus i had an outline for the historical periods and i had it in roman numerals, and then it dawned on me they didn't know that either. i want to get back on the writing, your approach to it in just a moment. if i may, all historians, all of us have a favorite historical place or a site that we like to go to. i know during your research you devote a lot of your poring through all these letters. do you have a favorite historic place or site, a place that you go to to try to get into the brain of john adams. >> you mean sites? >> a house, a badle battlefield -- >> not a place on the internet or anything. i'm not even plugged in in that regard. >> no. >> first of all i don't have research assistance. i do everything myself. >> which is rare today. >> which you know is not -- i mean it's rare -- >> for people of your caliber. >> who are trying to produce works -- >> i don't have research assistance either, but it's different. >> it's because i -- in doing research, and reading, i discover things that i would not be able to tell a research assistant to look for. >> right. right. >> so like general howell in the battle of germantown returned washington's dog. >> right. >> who he found on the battlefield and had it permanently returned. now that's not going to change the direction of the american revolution. but i would have never found that. >> right. >> but the -- i think it's letters. i mean it's a real interesting fact that what's going to happen with the history of the 21st century major political figures. >> because no one writes anymore. >> because there are no letters. >> yeah. >> and how much of the -- in some ways it has too much information because e-mails proliferate in ways that are infinite. reading letters. the adams family correspondence is to me the most -- one of the most richest, perhaps the ripest source. also the -- what i said at the end of my talk, the adams/jefferson correspondence. >> sure. >> and you assign that to students. i've assigned the whole thing to students at holy oak and amherst, and they almost always begin with the assumption that they are going the like jefferson and that he's going to write much more elegantly. >> right zhao. >> and then they realize they don't like him as much as they like adams. >> right. >> and that jefferson has a style that floats. his style is like his mind. it's rap sodic. it's romantic. it floats above the details of ordinary life. and it's attractive in that regard. it's beguiling. but i had this one student who said, this is jefferson. this is adams. and. >> right. >> it's pujellistic it's aggressive. for me, that's a source. that's a place. i mean, i love to go back to mount vernon. i love to go back to monticello. those are the two places that i love to go back to. mount fooul pulier is being recreated in a big way at the at this moment, madison's home. i respect the work that they do. theed a 578s -- i like the adams homestead in quincy, which is run by the national parks service. okay? it's not run by a private thing. >> right. >> and it's a real home. the other places have become museums in some sense. people actually live, you know, for the next three or four generations in the adams' home. and i like that. i like that kind of -- but if there is anything creative that i do it happens when i'm reading a letter and i see things in it that made me think about an issue in a way that i had not before been able to think about. >> i think it's fantastic that you do your own research. i would agree that the sorry about the dog in germantown in october of '77, a research assistant would have said i'm not going the pass this along to the professor. but if you read it yourself, both how cell and washington were dog lovers. it's almost an endearing moment. imagine two leaders in battle exchanging a dog that was running around lost on the battlefield. >> if you wanted to probe that you could go like this. >> sure, sure. >> how could say, look, howell didn't believe in this war. howell didn't want to be fighting washington. he hoped they would be able to defeat the continental army in long island and end it. >> that was it. >> he really, really, didn't want to be there. >> right. >> and he had a relationship with washington in which he saw him as on honorable coequal. and honor exists in a way that we have a difficult time understanding now. >> understanding. yeah. >> i mean, think about this. why is it in a revolutionary war battlefield when the two sides approach each other they don't lie down? i mean, why would you stan there while somebody is about ready to shoot you, right? >> yes. >> because that's dishonorable. and like generals in battles in the revolutionary war, even though they are being annihilated will not retreat. >> right. >> why? retreat is dishonorable. >> dishonor. >> stupido. okay? just get behind a rock, you know? >> right. >> but it's -- it -- so that one little incident can be a device that gets you into a whole mentality that -- and one of the things i wanted to say, because i was going on too long in the talk, we are talking about a world, late 18th century,s thatpry-democratic. gordon comes next, you tell him i said it's predemocratic. he is going to go nuts. >> they get along but they have their disagreements. >> it's predarwin. it's pre-freud. it's pre-picasso. it's pre-canes. it's pre-internet. it's even pre-donald trump. >> yeah. >> so it's a really different world back then. >> right. >> now, does that mean it's lost forever? i wouldn't go there. i wouldn't -- if it was lost forever, what had heaven's name are we bothering ourselves to go back there? >> right. >> there are things to learn from that world. >> right. >> but in the same way that -- let's say that you are an anthropologist and you go to sam samoa. you shouldn't expect the samoan parents to raise their kids according to dr. spock. right? and we all know that that would be wrong to do that. it's similar to go back and expect -- and you get into fights about undergraduates about this. >> sure. >> there was a young woman at williams last year. we were talking about slavery. and the constitution. and the constitutional convention. she said, look, they made the wrong case choice. they made the morally reprehensible choice, and that's the end of the story. we can't talk about it anymore. i said, what do you mean we can't talk about it? this is this trigger thing, this notion -- that you have got to recognize that this is a different world and come to terms with that world and understand in fact if they had actually tried to insert an article ending slavery or saying slavery should be on the road to extinction, the constitution would have never passed. >> right. >> so what happens then? >> right. >> so you get your way. you know, what happens then? the south ends up being separate. they make an alliance with england because of the cotton trade. slavery probably lasts longer. it's hard to know. you can go back and play the tape, but i feel strongly that you can't impose a politically correct identity politics agenda on -- >> from a 2017 perspective on something -- >> yeah. >> yeah. >> and there were founders opposed to slavery, hamilton, franklin and others but it was politically not going to happen. you had mentioned john adams is one of those founders that is hard to like according to at love historians and probably not that popular. yet you have been enamored with him. >> yeah, i don't like him. i love him. >> in terms of that,ed a 5789s, getting right to the point is part of the reason why you like adams -- because i've always seen him like truman and grant. i can read truman, i can read grant, they were blunt, got right to the point. whereas i'm still working on figuring out jefferson and washington. is that part of the charm of adams, his directness and bluntness? is that why you love him? >> that's true, but only partially the reason. i mean, compared to truman and grant, adams is a genius and it's also funny as hell. he has a real sense of humor about himself. >> grant never did. >> grant doesn't have that. neither did truman. >> truman, uh-huh. >> he understands himself psychologically much more than any modern politician i've ever seen. he understands what love means. he understands what a realistic -- and he's a contrarian. >> yes, he is. >> who thinks that the fact that he lost the election of 1800 to jefferson is the single most important contribution he ever made to american history because he was right to keep us out of a war with france. and he lost the election for that reason. >> because of it. >> and that his definition of leadership is a definition that's unenforceable in our modern political culture. >> rather do what's right and lose than suffer the consequence. >> the people, the public. what's the people? the people is the, you know, the swoonish thing that changes its mind and can be unpredictable. the public is the long term interest of the people. >> right. >> which at any given time most of the people don't understand. your job as a leader is to understand that. washington passed the jay treaty. very unpopular. the right thing to do. lines us up with britain economically for a century. adams, avoid war with france. right thing to do. would have been devastating to the american economy, et cetera. those are acts of leadership by washington and adams as president that would be unthinkable in a contemporary context because everybody would be poll driven and they would say you can't possibly do that. and so it is a form of leadership. you know, it's like when mark twain went to the holy land. he says christ has been here once, will never come again. [ laughter ] like you are not going to see -- these people around coming back. >> right. >> it's -- but just to know that that form of leadership actually existed, people did that, okay, that's really wonderful. >> and you mentioned the adams/jefferson letters, which we would both agree are one of the most important sources to understanding the founding period and anybody who writes on this topic needs to go back through them. there is a story of adams and jefferson having the fallout over the election. come back together, dying on the same day. >> dying on the same day. if you made that up, nobody would accept it. >> hollywood agents wouldn't put that in a film. >> you can do that. >> the 50th anners is of signing of the declaration of independence. they both passed on july 4. >> same day. 50th anniversary to the day of the declaration. >> remarkable. almost to the hour. >> again, you can't make this stuff you have. >> can't make this stuff up. is there something about the adams/jefferson letters that you particularly like or you particularly find are important on our work on the foundry? >> yes, they are a summing up of the revolutionary generation. okay? the generation is passing of it's 1812 to 1826. they are old. they are getting to be old guys. >> right. >> and they are looking back together at what they've done and the way it's -- they have shaped the revolution and the way it has shaped them. and as adams said, you and i ought not to die before we have explained ourselves to each other. and they were bitter enemies throughout the 1790s. and jefferson was a duplicitous son of a gun. he hired several scandal mongers. >> james calendar. >> who also blows the whistle on the sally hemmings thing with jefferson. but it's watching two of the preeminent founders think about what has happened, and what it means, and the fact is they don't agree. two men have lived the same experience and they don't agree about what it means. and it's the beginning -- it is the -- what i would call the american dialogue that i find really compelling. that -- and that it reinforces my notion that history is an argument. it is and ian argument without ending. >> never ends. >> you can see it. you can see the american argument being formulated with them. >> right. >> that to me is why the correspondence is seminal. >> what i like about it is you have these two elder statesmen late in life recommend nising. these two old bulls reminiscing about their hey day and taking different perspectives. but jefferson to me has been remarkably enigmatic and plants evidence and tries to be above the fray yet he is duplicitous in the fray. yet -- >> he is forced into it. if you want to depict it. jefferson liked to stand with his arms folded to sort of protect him from intruders. and adams pacing back and forth and periodically grabbing him by the lapel. i thinkette bo of them are performing. they don't know we are going to be here in palm beach. but they know that they are going to be -- >> history's eyes watching. >> they know these letters are going to be road for a several hundred years after they write them. they are writing them to us as well as to each other. so they are on their -- and this relates to a point that i was going to bring up in the talk. and that is they get into a discussion about whether there is a hereafter. and adams not writing to jefferson, writes to somebody else after writing to jefferson, we have been talking about whether there is a hereafter. if it ever can be proven conclusively there is no hereafter my advice to every man, woman, and child on the planet is to take opium. >> yeah. >> and so both of these guys are having doubts about whether traditional christian definitions of life after death are credible. adams die as unitarian. jefferson dies a deist. a luke warm anglican in terms of his daily practice. for them, the only absolutely certain form of immortality is secular immortality. it's us. it's us thinking about them later. and this -- later is now. part of the reason they are on their best behavior is that they are trying to win fame. and fame is ever lasting. it's not just like fortune. it's like ever lasting. and that's the -- and we are going to build monuments to them and we are going the name streets after them and we are going to name lakes after them. all that's true. more for jefferson of course. but on the book i did on adams said there needs to be a memorial to adams on the mall or maybe on the title basin near the jefferson memorial and positioned in such a way that it casts shadows across the jefferson memorial. >> that they are both look at one another, keeping an eye. >> that would be great. >> they are both coming to grips with their mortality but shaping their legacy to the en. there is i sense a profound respect and admiration among the two that they were able to repair this vitally important relationship. maybe the most enigmatic of all the founders, one that i still this is for mormon umt than man, more myth than flesh and blood is george washington. your book on washington did a marvelous job of taking that veil off of him. could you talk a lib about washington's letters and about washington almost crafting or creating this persona, almost acting the role. he is so hard -- he is the least knowable in my opinion of all the founders. >> he's difficult. and i spent six years reading and writing about him. and wrote a book called his excellency. to give you an example of what i'm talking about. on the day he leaves the presidency in april 29, 1797, and about ready to recognize adam as his successor, you look into his diary and you wonder what he is going to say. like, this is the end of his -- you know, of his public career. >> we are waiting for something profound. >> what is he thinking. >> but. >> and you get to the diary, it says april 29th, 1797, a day like all days. temperature, 37 degrees fahrenheit. so most of the entries in his dery are about the weather. >> sure. >> like with adams it's about the weather inside his own soul, about the gusts that are surging through his soul. and he is talking about what he feels. and he is talking about how ambitious he is. and then he feels guilty about about how ambitious he is. i think if you know that washington's -- at some point during his life during the war, washington comes to understand that he is a public figure and an actor. from that point on, everything he does is orchestrated. >> is a role. yep. >> and he knows he is not going to tell you stuff. it's the reason he -- there is probably 600 letters between martha and george. and one of the things he told her before -- when he was writing his will, a year before died, six months before he died i want you to destroy all our correspondence. she did. >> she did. >> except they were three letters that survived by accident. and he didn't want us to know him. >> right. as he was. >> as he was. >> as he wanted to be. >> in other words, if you had those letters, you would have a wholly different perspective on washington. we have 1200 or 1600 really letters between abigail and john telling you everything. but if you are a historian or a biographer, if you don't have that, see you don't have what you need. >> right. >> and washington -- i do think when washington is a young man, during his career as a soldier in the french and indian war and then as master of mount vernon before the war, but especially in the early years, there's stuff there that allows you to see the ambition and the emotional dimension of his personal. >> which was more complicated than i think you realize. >> which was very -- >> yeah. >> massive ambition. gargantuan sense of what he wanted to achieve. but that he -- he developed an interi interior muscularity to control that and conceal and then there is a space around him nobody gets in except martha and lafayette. that's it. maybe hamilton. maybe ham ton, too. >> yeah. >> there are times when henry knox might get in there. but a few people that would really. during the war. remember, the war is seven and a half years long, okay? they are out there, in the field, for seven and a half years. and he has got all these people who are aged to camp, hamilton being a primary one them. 11 or 12 of these people throughout the course of the war. when they meet at night to talk about the war, the battle, the day's events, the understanding is it's all confidential. >> yeah. >> and he lets his hair down. and he tells -- >> to have been a fly on the wall then. >> and they swear allegiance that they will never talk. >> right. >> and they never did. they never did. they would have all talked now. they would have all gone on oprah and they would have made a million bucks and i can tell you what washington really said about -- all this stuff. but we know from what they said that he was behaving in ways that don't fit the iconic image of what he was. so he is -- his iconic depiction is -- well -- >> the part he kind of willed that. he had a flare for the dramatic, too. >> when -- what's the name of the artist who painted the -- >> trumbull? >> no. who? stewart. gilbert stewart. gilbert stewart's painting washington. it's not the one on the dollar bill. i was going to say, washington is in your wallet all the time. that when he is painting washington for what's called the lands style portrait in 1796, he writes a letter the moment he is doing it. he says i'm a painting george washington. he describes his ferrell things. he says he has the widest set of eyes i have ever seen. and his eyes -- -- he is the wildest animal i've ever seep in the forest. he is primal. and what he paints is exactly the opposite. >> the opposite of it. >> what he paints is exactly a controlled thing. it's not what you saw, but what he knew we needed to believe. okay? all those portraits are forgeries. all those portraits of misrepresentations of the real character of washington because that's what he thinks we need to believe. and the artists know that's the way they are going to make money. >> i like the writings about him from some of the soldiers and those that knew him that describe the physical washington, his size, how imposing he was, and he could stay in the saddle longer than men half his age. and he just had a -- i guess we would call it contractoris ma, a presence but also a power and muscularity, and when he walked in, everybody knew he was in charge. >> he was a head taller than everyone else. i talked to someone at mount vernon that's relevant what you are saying. i say when he is young. remember, all the portraits are of him as an old guy. >> right. >> what if we were only known by the portraits of when we're old. like when he is young and mount vernon commissioned a study of this to try to create an image of him. anthropologists. >> there are recreations of him at different points in his life. >> but i can make it easy for you, okay. young washington. think john wayne 1939, stage coach. >> that's not bad. >> that's what he is. >> that's not bad. >> that's what he looks like. he is a tough hombre. >> i'm going to borrow that, by the way. >> you can have it. >> and mount vernon, everyone, there is recreations of him, life size, accurate based on this exsentencive research that joe mention. and you can see him at different points of his life, the teenage surveyor, frerge and indian war, general. it's remarkable to see him. size 13 shoe back then. >> they measured him when he died for his coffin. there is controversy about this. but they measured him and he was 6'3" plus. the instructions he give to his tailor, i am six foot, and not proportionally made. he is not. custom is one reason why his clothes never fit him. the 6'2" is kind of a middle position. there are soldiers in the french and indian war who say he was 6'2". i say he is 6'3" 1/4. but the people say they bent his toes when they measured him for the coffin and so that added an inch or two. i'd go with the coffin, man. i just think that's -- >> his scottish physician, dr. craig and his revolutionary buddy measured him at 6'1", once at 6'3", there is accounts all over the place. >> one of the things, they don't think d people asked adams in his old age what he looked like. nobody sees these people, they are not on tv. adams is famous, they says, can you describe -- he says i'm 5'6" or 57 i know not which and 145 or 168 pounds, i know not which. they don't know specifically how big their height and weight in the same way that we do. >> we do today. >> it wasn't considered as precise. >> what is clear, as i said in one of my writings is george washington would have a great tight end in the nfl. big guy, flat chested but broad shouldered, big hands, big feet. big strong man. would you say that john adams is your favorite of the founders? if you could meet the founders, is there one of them that you think you would particularly like? is there one of them that you think you would particularly not like? >> i like adams for the reasons i specified. also, he will tell the dirt. you know, he will tell you the truth. and so if you can get him -- but most of itst he has already told us in his letters. i would like franklin next. franklin probably would be the most capable of understanding our world. >> hmm, visionary. >> yeah. like if you just take adams to a mall he would go nuts. what is this? like, a mall. adam -- franklin would say yeah, yeah, i can see how this would happen. the person that -- i mean, they are all interesting. i think the most boring would be madison. madison just doesn't tell you anything. what do you want to hear? i'll give it to you. >> well the descriptions of him are also not very -- the great little madison. >> always the guy standing in the corner of the room. that's -- that doesn't do justice to the power of his mind. >> brilliant man, right. >> the person i would have the toughest time with is jefferson. again, i spent seven, eight years working on him. and i won the national book award for this. and i wasn't supposed to win. there was another person. >> great tiling for the book, american sphinx, trying to figure him out. >> i went down and accepted the thing and i said my wife ellen told me i should never write this book because i don't really like jefferson. well, take that, ellen. [ laughter ] it's not that i don't like him. it's that i don't respect him. he's due policitious. is hypocritical. and his reputation depends on accepting the lyrical quality of his prose. and he is the best -- well, franklin is the best writer. but he is right up there. and all these people, especially adams and jefferson, are world class letter writers. all right? a lost art. but for reasons that are there in american sphinx, jefferson is always going to disappoint his most ardent fans. and i would hate to have to sit down and tell him that, you know. >> on that note, let's talk about your writing process, your writing style. would you take us into the tricks of the trade? you mentioned it took -- you spent x number, six, seven years with washington, with jefferson. how long does it typically take you to write, to research? and how do you approach your actual writing? you said you are not a computer guy. you actually ball point pen. >> roller ball. >> roller ball, okay. >> black ink. >> black ink. okay. i need to try that. >> not a -- what's the word? fountain? not an 18th century feather, you know, quill pen. >> okay. there's a guy that created 60 minutes named don hewitt who is now dead. and what hewitt said always struck me as absolutely right and obvious. the issue is always what is the story? >> sure. >> what is the story? >> does that drive you from the beginning? >> it's not what is the argument? it's not -- there has to be a story. and how do you tell it? how do you tell it in a way that's true to the 18th century, true to the body of evidence you have distilled and digests, and yet accessible to an audience? who is your audience? i'm not a historian w.h.o. is only writing to another few specialists in the field. >> right. >> though i'm writing books with end notes that specialists can look at and allegedly i hope can inform their understanding as well. who are you writing to? my ideal audience, the audience i'm writing to are the same people i've taught for 40 years. >> right. >> so it comes out of the teaching. who are they? they are very smart, and they know nothing. >> okay. >> okay? perfect. okay? and you have to be able to get them to comprehend this particular -- this particular world that you are recreating for them. so my mind is sort of falling off into sideshows here and i don't want to -- i don't want to do that. but. >> where do you get your ideas? do you sit and say, there hasn't been enough on madison or jon jay is on the rise? or do you do research and something sparks you and you say that's -- that's a book? >> there is no single thing. it's improvisational. if you look at the body of work that's joe ellis which i have never looked at, because then i'll die as soon as i do that. that things are out of order, you know, like i do the founding brothers before i do the revolutionary, before american quartet, and it's the way they came up in my mind and the way that they presented themselves to me in terms of sources. i am driven by primary rather than secondary sources. >> okay. >> okay? instead of saying well what's the current scholarly agenda which is out there, that's what you are supposed to do -- gordon is really good at that. okay? he is coming -- he really knows that. >> next week. >> next week. gordon knows more about the second quarterary literature than anybody. i know more about the primary literature than anybody. well, who can say. that's where i -- so it comes from that. i wrote a book called founding brothers. one of the first chapter of the book is called the duel. >> yeah. >> five years later i get this letter from a. >> at the columbia school of journalism and he says we want you to come down and talk to our students this is a class they are taking and they are reading the duel as a kind of model of how to tell a story. >> hmm. >> and i said really? well, what is it about it? well, you begin at one point you cut back, and then you go under, and you get background without telling the reader you are doing that but somehow bringing the reader along and then you go to the end and then go back again? i said really? i didn't know i did that. i mean, in other words a lot of what i'm doing is not theoretical. it's just like that's the way it come. >> right. >> i said i can't come down and talk to you about this at columbia because i don't really know what you are talking about. but i do think having an eye for a good story and how to try to tell it in a way that provides interesting -- you know in the case of the duel it's almost anningan ing agatha christie mystery story. that's part of the way to do it. i can't define what a good story is, but it's like pornography, you know it when you see it. >> jesse holmes line. yeah, knew it when i see it. would you mind telling us what you are working on now? what's the next book? >> i'm working -- for the last two years i'm working on a book called then and now, a meditation on the reflgs of the american founding. -- relevance of the american founding. i've written more than half of it. some of it is going to have to be redone. but what's risky about it. but for that also reason, that reason, interesting, exciting. it's foreign poll see, income inequality, judicial philosophy, race, and leadership. those are the chapters. >> okay. >> and like each chapter has one founder. foreign policy is washington. race is jefferson. income inevacuate is adams. i've done -- i know how to do the then. >> just how to bring it up to today. >> but then i've got to do now. how can you right about the present historically? that's technically or theoretically impossible to do. but i'm trying to do it. and i'm trying to say let's connect. what i said to you in your remarks today, that none of the founders believed that -- except for jefferson -- believed that the values that the americans create in the american constitution and the american republic are transferable to fundamentally different cultures. . >> right, can i ask on that note -- so like -- yeah, go ahead. >> you had said and written, and we had talked about this at another time, that the notion of american exemptionalism today, that a lot of people that write about it or talk about it evoke george washington. i agree with you that washington -- you've said and written that washington would not agree with. >> right. >> the notion of american exceptional imtoday. would you explain that? >> washington -- there is a letter washington writes in 1783. the last of his circular letters to the states. it's probably the most profound letter washington ever wrote. and he actually wrote it. >> instead of hamilton. >> washington did not write the farewell address. ham ton wrote it. it was washington's ideas, but nevertheless. that he says that we are coming into existence as a new nation even though we are not a nation yet and we have these enormous advantages. we have the oceans to protect us. we have this boundless continent. of course he is not talking about the fact that there is all these native americans there. we begin with the biggest trust fund, he says, that anybody -- that's my version of what he says -- of any new nation. so we have all these advantages, okay? and that you -- so it's our very uniqueness that means you shouldn't expect other countries to be able to duplicate this easily. all right? and that's the exact opposite of the meaning that most people using the term american exceptionalism -- >> right. >> so washington's view, which is most clearly expressed by john quincy adams in the next generation who is adams' son but really is pursuing the foreign policy created by washington said america goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. and george cannon, the great diplomat of the 20th century always used the like to cite that especially in light of the wake of vietnam. washington believed in some version of a city on the hill of reagan believed in what he called the shining city on a hill. but he thought that meant we needed a big military. which it doesn't. if you think john winthrop is the real origin of the city on the hill, 1630. and actually the perfect city on the hill is a medieval city of inequality. it's not what we want. >> right. >> but the idea is americans can influence the world not by invading with other armies but by perfecting and values and institutions that we have here. it is an isolationist posture. washington, you know, washington's farewell address is the eyelationist message. >> warning us about entangling alliances. >> i don't think isolationism is feasible now. i think it's impossible for the super power to retreat from the responsibilities of the world. u but i do think some form of neoisolationism. we are going to stay in nato, play a role in the world bank, we are going to have responsibilities to the world but that the highest form of influence we can have is not military but the soft power. >> soft power. >> and the strength of our own political institutions and our own economy. and that's what washington believed. >> do you have -- of all your books, could you say one of them is your favorite? was one of them particularly easy to write? and was one of them particularly difficult to write? >> it's like your children, you know. [ laughter ] it's the last one. so my favorite is now my youngest child, is american quartet, which gail was so nice to cite. somebody in hollywood has just bought the film rights to the american quartet but it will never happen. it happens like 1% of the time. we'll see. there is a book i wrote -- i mentioned this in the green room to you, that i weapon back and i was reading over the summer for what i'm working on the current then and now project, a book i wrote american creation. i wrote that in 2004. i said hey this is really good. i forgot i said that there is stuff in there that i like. there is also a book i wrote early on called passionate sage, about adams. it sort of began the revolution -- begun a new interest in adams. in fact, david mccullen called me up and said, joe, i started to work on a book on adams and jefferson. and i discarded jefferson because i really don't like him. and i said, you got it right, david. and then -- then he said, can i -- do i have your permission to write about adams? i said, david mikilucs is asking me if i can give him -- of course. enthis he writes this big biography. and then this wonderful documentary made for hbo. it's really well done. i'm in love with whoever -- laura listeny. forever in love with her. but i went -- i looked back at passionate sage, and i said, you did good. you did good there. >> that's one of -- >> that's my eldest son, you are doing good. my eldest son is work forth nature conservancy, i'm really proud of him and that one as well. >> was one of them difficult? and why. >> the one i'm writing now is the most difficult. >> because connecting the now. >> kegging the now. and i'm taking risks. and i'm running the risk and i know i'm going to get criticism for it but i'm going do it. >> aside from your own books do you have a favorite history book or a favorite historian? and i'm going to let you off the hook. you don't have to say me. do you have a favorite historian and a favorite history book? >> one of the beks -- one of the books that influenced me to go on in history when i was an undergraduate is book on the armada. the book called the armada. it's about the battle. >> okay. >> just is a story well told. >> the story telling, the sweeping event. >> yeah. yeah. almost anything by richard hoff set thor. >> okay. >> who has been long since passed away but on american history, the american political tradition by richard hoff set thor influenced me a lot. c. van woodward, the burden of southern history. he has a sense of tragedy that is really important. those are the ones that influenced me a lot. one of the writers now who i really think is a beautiful stylist is stacey schiff. stacey schiff has done a recent book on the witchcraft, which got a horrible review in the "new york times," but it was unfair, i thought. but she has written a biography of franklin. won the national book award for -- daughter. >> oh. >> she just writes -- i'm attracted to people who write. jill la pour who is a writer who does a lot of social history things and who has said that her calling is to give voice to the voiceless. i want to give voice to the people that have voices already. but i admire her range. she writes for the new yorker for ways that go off, wonder woman, in all kinds of directions. i think she is a no for somebody that's reaching beyond the cloistered groves of academia to articulate a story. >> now you have your reading list. we are getting close to the end of the session. let me ends up with some questions on founders. having devoted a career to telling the story of the founding and being widely considered to be the historian of the founding what would you say is the most common mistake or misinterpretation that people make or have about the founding period? what do they get wrong? >> they always assume they are more super human and cannonized saints. no matter how much you talk about recovering them as human beings, there is a patina of iconography that -- you know, the trumbull portraits. there is a new book by paul stayedy called arms and artists about the revolutionary war that's really good with this. but the way in which we have learned to envision them. and then the marble statues, the monuments on the mall, make it very difficult for people to really understand the founders as imperfect but impressive human beings so that no matter how much i tell them that, i know i'm speaking to people that are not going to be able to fully understand or agree with me. >> i don't want to offend anyone's political sense its is he i'll phrase the last question this way. if our current political -- >> we're already interested. >> if our political leaders today were to come to you and say would you give us some advice from the founders? what advice do our political leaders today need to know or learn about the founding generation? >> well, the level of partisanship that's present in the congress and the federal government now, the founders were almost as partisan. they were. okay? so they don't have much advice to offer to us on that score. >> but they found a way to get it done. >> they did. the thing that would most -- that most concerned the founders and that i think the -- we have created a plutocracy. money. i'm not talking about doing away with citizens united although that would be nice because that's not the source the problem. it exacerbates the problem but it's not the source. you talk about draining the swamp. as soon as they leave the swamp they go to k street and make more money. if we -- i can't wave a magic wand and reduce -- significantly reduce or eliminate the way in which money affects the policy choices of our political leadership. but that's the thing the founders would find most upsetting and most surprising and where i would agree with them. >> i would agree with that. we have everyone coming up in a week, gordon wood, who -- former professor of brown, eminent scholar, and winner of numerous awards. the dean of revolutionary war scholars. in everyone's opinion. coming up in a week. in february and march we have david mikilucs and ron childreno coming here in april, lin cheney. so the series will continue. please join me in thanking professor joe ellis for his comments. [ applause ] >> thank you. >> well done. >> thank you. thank you. >> thanks for coming. >> thank you. thank you, everyone. >> there will be an opportunity to sign some books in the -- >> are you related to -- >> thank you, everyone. >> announcer: watch c-span as president donald trump delivers his first address to a joint session of congress. >> this congress is going to be the busiest congress we have had in decades. >> announcer: live tuesday february 28th, at 9:00 p.m. eastern on c-span and c-span.org and listen life on the free c-span radio app. the james is virginia's largest river. >> it norms in the appalachian mountains, runs through richmond and flows into the chesapeake bay. the river served as a trade route for colonist ins and is sometimes called america's founding

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