Podcast appearances and mentions of Francis Parkman Prize

How much do you know about Handel's Messiah? Find us on Youtube. It's easy to become anxious and worried as we see war and conflict increase. However, it is precisely in these moments, says historian Charles King, that true faith can find its voice. Reflecting on geopolitics, domestic polarization, and the quest for hope in the midst of suffering, King—New York Times bestselling author of Every Valley: The Desperate Lives and Troubled Times That Made Handel's Messiah—sits down with Clarissa Moll for a conversation about holding on to faith when life feels darkest.   GO DEEPER WITH THE BULLETIN: Music in this episode is courtesy of Calvin University's 2021 Messiah production. Watch it here.  Grab some Bulletin merch in our holiday store! Follow the show in your podcast app of choice. Find us on YouTube. Rate and review the show in your podcast app of choice. Leave a comment in Spotify with your feedback on the discussion—we may even respond! ABOUT THE GUEST:  Charles King is the author of the New York Times–bestselling Gods of the Upper Air, which received the Francis Parkman Prize and the Anisfield-Wolf Award and was shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Los Angeles Times History Prize, and the British Academy's Al-Rodhan Prize for Global Cultural Understanding. His other books include Odessa, winner of a National Jewish Book Award, and Midnight at the Pera Palace. He is professor of international affairs and government at Georgetown University, where he has served as chair of both the department of government and the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. ABOUT THE BULLETIN: The Bulletin is a weekly (and sometimes more!) current events show from Christianity Today hosted and moderated by Clarissa Moll, with senior commentary from Russell Moore (Christianity Today's editor in chief) and Mike Cosper (director, CT Media). Each week, the show explores current events and breaking news and shares a Christian perspective on issues that are shaping our world. We also offer special one-on-one conversations with writers, artists, and thought leaders whose impact on the world brings important significance to a Christian worldview, like Bono, Sharon McMahon, Harrison Scott Key, Frank Bruni, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this week's episode of Conversations with Kenyatta, Kenyatta D. Berry, author of The Family Tree Toolkit and host of PBS' Genealogy Roadshow is joined by Pulitzer Prize Winner, author, and historian, Dr. Jefferson Cowie. The two discuss his latest book Freedom's Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power, which won the Pulitzer Prize in History, his research, and so much more.ABOUT DR. JEFFERSON COWIE (as taken from Vanderbilt.edu) Jefferson Cowie's work in social and political history focuses on how class, race, and labor shape American politics and culture. His latest book, Freedom's Dominion, won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 2023.Based on one county's history, Freedom's Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power tells the dramatic tale of generations of local fights against the federal government that prop up a particular version of American freedom: the freedom to oppress others. Advance praise calls it "magisterial," written with "eloquence and with brilliance," and Cowie's "most extraordinary book yet."The Great Exception: The New Deal and the Limits of American Politics was released in early 2016 and attempts to reinterpret a wide swath of American political history in the twentieth century. The Washington Post‘s E.J. Dionne Jr. called it “one of the year's most important political books."Stayin' Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class, draws together labor, politics, and popular culture into a vibrant narrative about the decline of class in American political culture. It received a number of “best book” awards, including the 2011 Francis Parkman Prize for the Best Book in American History and the Merle Curti Award for the Best Book in Social and Intellectual History. Critics said, “Stayin' Alive will long stand as the finest and most sophisticated portrait of politics and culture in the American 1970s, and also as a model for how to talk about both political and cultural transformations without shortchanging either.”Capital Moves: RCA's Seventy Year Quest for Cheap Labor charts the relocation of one firm through four different cities, two countries, and a great deal of social upheaval. It accounts for what made each community attractive for an industrial location and what changed to make the company relocate again. The book received the 2000 Phillip Taft Prize for the Best Book in Labor History.In addition to his scholarship, Cowie's essays and opinion pieces have also appeared in the New York Times, TIME magazine, NPR Music, Foreign Affairs, Chronicle of Higher Ed, American Prospect, Politico, Democracy, The New Republic, Inside Higher Ed, Dissent, and other popular outlets.  The recipient of several fellowships, including the Center for Advanced Studies in Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, the American Council of Learned Societies and Andrew Mellon Foundation, the Society for the Humanities at Cornell, and the Center for US-Mexican Studies at UC San Diego, he has also appeared in a variety of media outlets including CNN's The Seventies, C‐Span's Booknotes, NPR's Weekend Edition, as well as documentaries, podcasts, and radio broadcasts.The music for this episode, as always, is "Good Vibe" by Ketsa. We are dedicated to exploring and discussing various aspects of genealogy, history, culture, and social issues. We aim to shed light on untold stories and perspectives that enrich our understanding of the world. **Please note that some links in our show notes may contain affiliate links, on which Kenyatta receives a small commission.

In conversation with Rev. Dr. Jonathan Lee Walton A postwar coming-of-age memoir about life in a conservative family in segregated Virginia, Drew Gilpin Faust's Necessary Trouble recounts her break from the racial and gender norms of the era and the means by which her involvement in the civil rights and antiwar movements led to her career as a historian of those very fights. The Arthur Kingsley Porter University Professor at Harvard University and its president from 2007 to 2018, Faust formerly served as dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and taught at the University of Pennsylvania for 25 years. Her many books include This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War, winner of the Bancroft Prize and a finalist for the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize; and Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War, winner of the Francis Parkman Prize. Rev. Dr. Jonathan Lee Walton is the president of the Princeton Theological Seminary. He is the author of Watch This! The Ethics and Aesthetics of Black Telelevangelism and A Lens of Love: Reading the Bible in Its World for Our World. His other work has appeared across a range of media, including The New York Times, CNN, Time magazine, and PBS. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 10/11/2023)

As we mark the 60th Annerversay of the March on Washington, it takes us back to the issues of mid-century America.  So it's only appropraite to be joined by Drew Gilpin Faust, a Bancroft and Francis Parkman Prize winner and former Harvard president. Her memoir, "Necessary Trouble: Growing Up in Midcentury," is more than a personal story; it's a lens into the pivotal moments of the 1950s and '60s. Faust's life personifies the era's turning points, illustrating that history isn't just a collection of facts but a tapestry woven through lives lived. Her journey from racial and gendered assumptions to civil rights activism serves as a microcosm of the societal transformations that continue to shape us today. My conversation with Drew Galpin Faust: 

Today, we have Dr. Elliott West on the show. Dr. West received his B.A. from the University of Texas (1967) and his Ph.D. from the University of Colorado (1971). He joined the University of Arkansas faculty in 1979. Two of his books, Growing Up With the Country: Childhood on the Far-Western Frontier (1989) and The Way to the West: Essays on the Central Plains (1995) received the Western Heritage Award. The Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers, and the Rush to Colorado (1998) received five awards including the Francis Parkman Prize and PEN Center Award. His most recent book is Continental Reckoning, which might be my favorite large survey of western history in print.

Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979) was one of the twentieth century's most accomplished and celebrated poets. In this episode, Jacke talks to Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Megan Marshall about her personal connection to Bishop, as well as her book Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast. MEGAN MARSHALL is the winner of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize in Biography for Margaret Fuller, and the author of The Peabody Sisters, which won the Francis Parkman Prize, the Mark Lynton History Prize, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2006. She is the Charles Wesley Emerson College Professor and teaches narrative nonfiction and the art of archival research in the MFA program at Emerson College. For more, visit www.meganmarshallauthor.com. Additional listening suggestions: 396 Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes (with Heather Clark) 176 William Carlos Williams (The Use of Force) 306 John Keats (with Anahid Nersessian)  Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"History recalls Wallace's inaugural address as a set piece in the larger drama of defending Southern segregation, which it was. But the speech was about something even more profound, more enduring, even more virulent than segregation. Aside from his infamous “Segregation Forever” slogan, Wallace mentioned “segregation” only one other time that afternoon. In contrast, he invoked “freedom” twenty-five times in his speech—more than Martin Luther King Jr. would use the term later that year in his “I Have a Dream” address at the March on Washington. “Let us rise to the call of freedom-loving blood that is in us,” Wallace told his audience, “and send our answer to the tyranny that clanks its chains upon the South.” Those rattling shackles of oppression were forged by the enemy of the people of his beloved Barbour County: the federal government." – Jefferson Cowie, Freedom's Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power (Basic Books, 2022). Professor Cowie titles his latest book's introduction ‘George Wallace and American Freedom', which frames part of the historical narrative within which he reexamines one of our most celebrated values within the purview of local history. But as The New York Times review of the book in December by author Jeff Shesol articulately summarized: ‘Freedom's Dominion is local history, but in the way that Gettysburg was a local battle or the Montgomery bus boycott was a local protest. The book recounts four peak periods in the conflict between white Alabamians and the federal government: the wild rush, in the early 19th century, to seize and settle lands that belonged to the Creek Nation; Reconstruction; the reassertion of white supremacy under Jim Crow; and the attempts of Wallace and others to nullify the civil rights reforms of the 1950s and 1960s. Throughout, as Cowie reveals, white Southerners portrayed the oppression of Black people and Native Americans not as a repudiation of freedom, but its precondition, its very foundation.' This book is an engrossing read and check this from Shesol's review about Wallace and his attraction: ‘Racism was central to his appeal, yet its common note was grievance; the common enemies were elites, the press and the federal government. “Being a Southerner is no longer geographic,” he declared in 1964, during the first of his four runs for the White House. “It's a philosophy and an attitude.” That attitude, we know, is pervasive now — a primal, animating principle of conservative politics. We hear it in conspiracy theories about the “deep state”; we see it in the actions of Republican officials like Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who built a case for his re-election in 2022 by banning — in the name of “individual freedom” — classroom discussions of gender, sexuality and systemic racism.' Some of Professor Cowie's other books mentioned in this interview: Capital Moves: RCA's Seventy Year Quest for Cheap Labor (1999) received the 2000 Phillip Taft Prize for the Best Book in Labor History in 2000 Stayin' Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class (2010) awarded the Francis Parkman Prize for the Best Book in American History in 2011 The Great Exception: The New Deal and the Limits of American Politics (2016) Professor Cowie's work in social and political history focuses on how class, inequality, and labor shape American politics and culture. Formerly at Cornell, he is currently the James G. Stahlman Professor of History at Vanderbilt University. Sydney Business School at Shanghai University - can be reached at keith.krueger1@uts.edu.au or keithNBn@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

"History recalls Wallace's inaugural address as a set piece in the larger drama of defending Southern segregation, which it was. But the speech was about something even more profound, more enduring, even more virulent than segregation. Aside from his infamous “Segregation Forever” slogan, Wallace mentioned “segregation” only one other time that afternoon. In contrast, he invoked “freedom” twenty-five times in his speech—more than Martin Luther King Jr. would use the term later that year in his “I Have a Dream” address at the March on Washington. “Let us rise to the call of freedom-loving blood that is in us,” Wallace told his audience, “and send our answer to the tyranny that clanks its chains upon the South.” Those rattling shackles of oppression were forged by the enemy of the people of his beloved Barbour County: the federal government." – Jefferson Cowie, Freedom's Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power (Basic Books, 2022). Professor Cowie titles his latest book's introduction ‘George Wallace and American Freedom', which frames part of the historical narrative within which he reexamines one of our most celebrated values within the purview of local history. But as The New York Times review of the book in December by author Jeff Shesol articulately summarized: ‘Freedom's Dominion is local history, but in the way that Gettysburg was a local battle or the Montgomery bus boycott was a local protest. The book recounts four peak periods in the conflict between white Alabamians and the federal government: the wild rush, in the early 19th century, to seize and settle lands that belonged to the Creek Nation; Reconstruction; the reassertion of white supremacy under Jim Crow; and the attempts of Wallace and others to nullify the civil rights reforms of the 1950s and 1960s. Throughout, as Cowie reveals, white Southerners portrayed the oppression of Black people and Native Americans not as a repudiation of freedom, but its precondition, its very foundation.' This book is an engrossing read and check this from Shesol's review about Wallace and his attraction: ‘Racism was central to his appeal, yet its common note was grievance; the common enemies were elites, the press and the federal government. “Being a Southerner is no longer geographic,” he declared in 1964, during the first of his four runs for the White House. “It's a philosophy and an attitude.” That attitude, we know, is pervasive now — a primal, animating principle of conservative politics. We hear it in conspiracy theories about the “deep state”; we see it in the actions of Republican officials like Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who built a case for his re-election in 2022 by banning — in the name of “individual freedom” — classroom discussions of gender, sexuality and systemic racism.' Some of Professor Cowie's other books mentioned in this interview: Capital Moves: RCA's Seventy Year Quest for Cheap Labor (1999) received the 2000 Phillip Taft Prize for the Best Book in Labor History in 2000 Stayin' Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class (2010) awarded the Francis Parkman Prize for the Best Book in American History in 2011 The Great Exception: The New Deal and the Limits of American Politics (2016) Professor Cowie's work in social and political history focuses on how class, inequality, and labor shape American politics and culture. Formerly at Cornell, he is currently the James G. Stahlman Professor of History at Vanderbilt University. Sydney Business School at Shanghai University - can be reached at keith.krueger1@uts.edu.au or keithNBn@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

"History recalls Wallace's inaugural address as a set piece in the larger drama of defending Southern segregation, which it was. But the speech was about something even more profound, more enduring, even more virulent than segregation. Aside from his infamous “Segregation Forever” slogan, Wallace mentioned “segregation” only one other time that afternoon. In contrast, he invoked “freedom” twenty-five times in his speech—more than Martin Luther King Jr. would use the term later that year in his “I Have a Dream” address at the March on Washington. “Let us rise to the call of freedom-loving blood that is in us,” Wallace told his audience, “and send our answer to the tyranny that clanks its chains upon the South.” Those rattling shackles of oppression were forged by the enemy of the people of his beloved Barbour County: the federal government." – Jefferson Cowie, Freedom's Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power (Basic Books, 2022). Professor Cowie titles his latest book's introduction ‘George Wallace and American Freedom', which frames part of the historical narrative within which he reexamines one of our most celebrated values within the purview of local history. But as The New York Times review of the book in December by author Jeff Shesol articulately summarized: ‘Freedom's Dominion is local history, but in the way that Gettysburg was a local battle or the Montgomery bus boycott was a local protest. The book recounts four peak periods in the conflict between white Alabamians and the federal government: the wild rush, in the early 19th century, to seize and settle lands that belonged to the Creek Nation; Reconstruction; the reassertion of white supremacy under Jim Crow; and the attempts of Wallace and others to nullify the civil rights reforms of the 1950s and 1960s. Throughout, as Cowie reveals, white Southerners portrayed the oppression of Black people and Native Americans not as a repudiation of freedom, but its precondition, its very foundation.' This book is an engrossing read and check this from Shesol's review about Wallace and his attraction: ‘Racism was central to his appeal, yet its common note was grievance; the common enemies were elites, the press and the federal government. “Being a Southerner is no longer geographic,” he declared in 1964, during the first of his four runs for the White House. “It's a philosophy and an attitude.” That attitude, we know, is pervasive now — a primal, animating principle of conservative politics. We hear it in conspiracy theories about the “deep state”; we see it in the actions of Republican officials like Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who built a case for his re-election in 2022 by banning — in the name of “individual freedom” — classroom discussions of gender, sexuality and systemic racism.' Some of Professor Cowie's other books mentioned in this interview: Capital Moves: RCA's Seventy Year Quest for Cheap Labor (1999) received the 2000 Phillip Taft Prize for the Best Book in Labor History in 2000 Stayin' Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class (2010) awarded the Francis Parkman Prize for the Best Book in American History in 2011 The Great Exception: The New Deal and the Limits of American Politics (2016) Professor Cowie's work in social and political history focuses on how class, inequality, and labor shape American politics and culture. Formerly at Cornell, he is currently the James G. Stahlman Professor of History at Vanderbilt University. Sydney Business School at Shanghai University - can be reached at keith.krueger1@uts.edu.au or keithNBn@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

"History recalls Wallace's inaugural address as a set piece in the larger drama of defending Southern segregation, which it was. But the speech was about something even more profound, more enduring, even more virulent than segregation. Aside from his infamous “Segregation Forever” slogan, Wallace mentioned “segregation” only one other time that afternoon. In contrast, he invoked “freedom” twenty-five times in his speech—more than Martin Luther King Jr. would use the term later that year in his “I Have a Dream” address at the March on Washington. “Let us rise to the call of freedom-loving blood that is in us,” Wallace told his audience, “and send our answer to the tyranny that clanks its chains upon the South.” Those rattling shackles of oppression were forged by the enemy of the people of his beloved Barbour County: the federal government." – Jefferson Cowie, Freedom's Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power (Basic Books, 2022). Professor Cowie titles his latest book's introduction ‘George Wallace and American Freedom', which frames part of the historical narrative within which he reexamines one of our most celebrated values within the purview of local history. But as The New York Times review of the book in December by author Jeff Shesol articulately summarized: ‘Freedom's Dominion is local history, but in the way that Gettysburg was a local battle or the Montgomery bus boycott was a local protest. The book recounts four peak periods in the conflict between white Alabamians and the federal government: the wild rush, in the early 19th century, to seize and settle lands that belonged to the Creek Nation; Reconstruction; the reassertion of white supremacy under Jim Crow; and the attempts of Wallace and others to nullify the civil rights reforms of the 1950s and 1960s. Throughout, as Cowie reveals, white Southerners portrayed the oppression of Black people and Native Americans not as a repudiation of freedom, but its precondition, its very foundation.' This book is an engrossing read and check this from Shesol's review about Wallace and his attraction: ‘Racism was central to his appeal, yet its common note was grievance; the common enemies were elites, the press and the federal government. “Being a Southerner is no longer geographic,” he declared in 1964, during the first of his four runs for the White House. “It's a philosophy and an attitude.” That attitude, we know, is pervasive now — a primal, animating principle of conservative politics. We hear it in conspiracy theories about the “deep state”; we see it in the actions of Republican officials like Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who built a case for his re-election in 2022 by banning — in the name of “individual freedom” — classroom discussions of gender, sexuality and systemic racism.' Some of Professor Cowie's other books mentioned in this interview: Capital Moves: RCA's Seventy Year Quest for Cheap Labor (1999) received the 2000 Phillip Taft Prize for the Best Book in Labor History in 2000 Stayin' Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class (2010) awarded the Francis Parkman Prize for the Best Book in American History in 2011 The Great Exception: The New Deal and the Limits of American Politics (2016) Professor Cowie's work in social and political history focuses on how class, inequality, and labor shape American politics and culture. Formerly at Cornell, he is currently the James G. Stahlman Professor of History at Vanderbilt University. Sydney Business School at Shanghai University - can be reached at keith.krueger1@uts.edu.au or keithNBn@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

"History recalls Wallace's inaugural address as a set piece in the larger drama of defending Southern segregation, which it was. But the speech was about something even more profound, more enduring, even more virulent than segregation. Aside from his infamous “Segregation Forever” slogan, Wallace mentioned “segregation” only one other time that afternoon. In contrast, he invoked “freedom” twenty-five times in his speech—more than Martin Luther King Jr. would use the term later that year in his “I Have a Dream” address at the March on Washington. “Let us rise to the call of freedom-loving blood that is in us,” Wallace told his audience, “and send our answer to the tyranny that clanks its chains upon the South.” Those rattling shackles of oppression were forged by the enemy of the people of his beloved Barbour County: the federal government." – Jefferson Cowie, Freedom's Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power (Basic Books, 2022). Professor Cowie titles his latest book's introduction ‘George Wallace and American Freedom', which frames part of the historical narrative within which he reexamines one of our most celebrated values within the purview of local history. But as The New York Times review of the book in December by author Jeff Shesol articulately summarized: ‘Freedom's Dominion is local history, but in the way that Gettysburg was a local battle or the Montgomery bus boycott was a local protest. The book recounts four peak periods in the conflict between white Alabamians and the federal government: the wild rush, in the early 19th century, to seize and settle lands that belonged to the Creek Nation; Reconstruction; the reassertion of white supremacy under Jim Crow; and the attempts of Wallace and others to nullify the civil rights reforms of the 1950s and 1960s. Throughout, as Cowie reveals, white Southerners portrayed the oppression of Black people and Native Americans not as a repudiation of freedom, but its precondition, its very foundation.' This book is an engrossing read and check this from Shesol's review about Wallace and his attraction: ‘Racism was central to his appeal, yet its common note was grievance; the common enemies were elites, the press and the federal government. “Being a Southerner is no longer geographic,” he declared in 1964, during the first of his four runs for the White House. “It's a philosophy and an attitude.” That attitude, we know, is pervasive now — a primal, animating principle of conservative politics. We hear it in conspiracy theories about the “deep state”; we see it in the actions of Republican officials like Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who built a case for his re-election in 2022 by banning — in the name of “individual freedom” — classroom discussions of gender, sexuality and systemic racism.' Some of Professor Cowie's other books mentioned in this interview: Capital Moves: RCA's Seventy Year Quest for Cheap Labor (1999) received the 2000 Phillip Taft Prize for the Best Book in Labor History in 2000 Stayin' Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class (2010) awarded the Francis Parkman Prize for the Best Book in American History in 2011 The Great Exception: The New Deal and the Limits of American Politics (2016) Professor Cowie's work in social and political history focuses on how class, inequality, and labor shape American politics and culture. Formerly at Cornell, he is currently the James G. Stahlman Professor of History at Vanderbilt University. Sydney Business School at Shanghai University - can be reached at keith.krueger1@uts.edu.au or keithNBn@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history

"History recalls Wallace's inaugural address as a set piece in the larger drama of defending Southern segregation, which it was. But the speech was about something even more profound, more enduring, even more virulent than segregation. Aside from his infamous “Segregation Forever” slogan, Wallace mentioned “segregation” only one other time that afternoon. In contrast, he invoked “freedom” twenty-five times in his speech—more than Martin Luther King Jr. would use the term later that year in his “I Have a Dream” address at the March on Washington. “Let us rise to the call of freedom-loving blood that is in us,” Wallace told his audience, “and send our answer to the tyranny that clanks its chains upon the South.” Those rattling shackles of oppression were forged by the enemy of the people of his beloved Barbour County: the federal government." – Jefferson Cowie, Freedom's Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power (Basic Books, 2022). Professor Cowie titles his latest book's introduction ‘George Wallace and American Freedom', which frames part of the historical narrative within which he reexamines one of our most celebrated values within the purview of local history. But as The New York Times review of the book in December by author Jeff Shesol articulately summarized: ‘Freedom's Dominion is local history, but in the way that Gettysburg was a local battle or the Montgomery bus boycott was a local protest. The book recounts four peak periods in the conflict between white Alabamians and the federal government: the wild rush, in the early 19th century, to seize and settle lands that belonged to the Creek Nation; Reconstruction; the reassertion of white supremacy under Jim Crow; and the attempts of Wallace and others to nullify the civil rights reforms of the 1950s and 1960s. Throughout, as Cowie reveals, white Southerners portrayed the oppression of Black people and Native Americans not as a repudiation of freedom, but its precondition, its very foundation.' This book is an engrossing read and check this from Shesol's review about Wallace and his attraction: ‘Racism was central to his appeal, yet its common note was grievance; the common enemies were elites, the press and the federal government. “Being a Southerner is no longer geographic,” he declared in 1964, during the first of his four runs for the White House. “It's a philosophy and an attitude.” That attitude, we know, is pervasive now — a primal, animating principle of conservative politics. We hear it in conspiracy theories about the “deep state”; we see it in the actions of Republican officials like Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who built a case for his re-election in 2022 by banning — in the name of “individual freedom” — classroom discussions of gender, sexuality and systemic racism.' Some of Professor Cowie's other books mentioned in this interview: Capital Moves: RCA's Seventy Year Quest for Cheap Labor (1999) received the 2000 Phillip Taft Prize for the Best Book in Labor History in 2000 Stayin' Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class (2010) awarded the Francis Parkman Prize for the Best Book in American History in 2011 The Great Exception: The New Deal and the Limits of American Politics (2016) Professor Cowie's work in social and political history focuses on how class, inequality, and labor shape American politics and culture. Formerly at Cornell, he is currently the James G. Stahlman Professor of History at Vanderbilt University. Sydney Business School at Shanghai University - can be reached at keith.krueger1@uts.edu.au or keithNBn@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

"History recalls Wallace's inaugural address as a set piece in the larger drama of defending Southern segregation, which it was. But the speech was about something even more profound, more enduring, even more virulent than segregation. Aside from his infamous “Segregation Forever” slogan, Wallace mentioned “segregation” only one other time that afternoon. In contrast, he invoked “freedom” twenty-five times in his speech—more than Martin Luther King Jr. would use the term later that year in his “I Have a Dream” address at the March on Washington. “Let us rise to the call of freedom-loving blood that is in us,” Wallace told his audience, “and send our answer to the tyranny that clanks its chains upon the South.” Those rattling shackles of oppression were forged by the enemy of the people of his beloved Barbour County: the federal government." – Jefferson Cowie, Freedom's Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power (Basic Books, 2022). Professor Cowie titles his latest book's introduction ‘George Wallace and American Freedom', which frames part of the historical narrative within which he reexamines one of our most celebrated values within the purview of local history. But as The New York Times review of the book in December by author Jeff Shesol articulately summarized: ‘Freedom's Dominion is local history, but in the way that Gettysburg was a local battle or the Montgomery bus boycott was a local protest. The book recounts four peak periods in the conflict between white Alabamians and the federal government: the wild rush, in the early 19th century, to seize and settle lands that belonged to the Creek Nation; Reconstruction; the reassertion of white supremacy under Jim Crow; and the attempts of Wallace and others to nullify the civil rights reforms of the 1950s and 1960s. Throughout, as Cowie reveals, white Southerners portrayed the oppression of Black people and Native Americans not as a repudiation of freedom, but its precondition, its very foundation.' This book is an engrossing read and check this from Shesol's review about Wallace and his attraction: ‘Racism was central to his appeal, yet its common note was grievance; the common enemies were elites, the press and the federal government. “Being a Southerner is no longer geographic,” he declared in 1964, during the first of his four runs for the White House. “It's a philosophy and an attitude.” That attitude, we know, is pervasive now — a primal, animating principle of conservative politics. We hear it in conspiracy theories about the “deep state”; we see it in the actions of Republican officials like Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who built a case for his re-election in 2022 by banning — in the name of “individual freedom” — classroom discussions of gender, sexuality and systemic racism.' Some of Professor Cowie's other books mentioned in this interview: Capital Moves: RCA's Seventy Year Quest for Cheap Labor (1999) received the 2000 Phillip Taft Prize for the Best Book in Labor History in 2000 Stayin' Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class (2010) awarded the Francis Parkman Prize for the Best Book in American History in 2011 The Great Exception: The New Deal and the Limits of American Politics (2016) Professor Cowie's work in social and political history focuses on how class, inequality, and labor shape American politics and culture. Formerly at Cornell, he is currently the James G. Stahlman Professor of History at Vanderbilt University. Sydney Business School at Shanghai University - can be reached at keith.krueger1@uts.edu.au or keithNBn@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/public-policy

"History recalls Wallace's inaugural address as a set piece in the larger drama of defending Southern segregation, which it was. But the speech was about something even more profound, more enduring, even more virulent than segregation. Aside from his infamous “Segregation Forever” slogan, Wallace mentioned “segregation” only one other time that afternoon. In contrast, he invoked “freedom” twenty-five times in his speech—more than Martin Luther King Jr. would use the term later that year in his “I Have a Dream” address at the March on Washington. “Let us rise to the call of freedom-loving blood that is in us,” Wallace told his audience, “and send our answer to the tyranny that clanks its chains upon the South.” Those rattling shackles of oppression were forged by the enemy of the people of his beloved Barbour County: the federal government." – Jefferson Cowie, Freedom's Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power (Basic Books, 2022). Professor Cowie titles his latest book's introduction ‘George Wallace and American Freedom', which frames part of the historical narrative within which he reexamines one of our most celebrated values within the purview of local history. But as The New York Times review of the book in December by author Jeff Shesol articulately summarized: ‘Freedom's Dominion is local history, but in the way that Gettysburg was a local battle or the Montgomery bus boycott was a local protest. The book recounts four peak periods in the conflict between white Alabamians and the federal government: the wild rush, in the early 19th century, to seize and settle lands that belonged to the Creek Nation; Reconstruction; the reassertion of white supremacy under Jim Crow; and the attempts of Wallace and others to nullify the civil rights reforms of the 1950s and 1960s. Throughout, as Cowie reveals, white Southerners portrayed the oppression of Black people and Native Americans not as a repudiation of freedom, but its precondition, its very foundation.' This book is an engrossing read and check this from Shesol's review about Wallace and his attraction: ‘Racism was central to his appeal, yet its common note was grievance; the common enemies were elites, the press and the federal government. “Being a Southerner is no longer geographic,” he declared in 1964, during the first of his four runs for the White House. “It's a philosophy and an attitude.” That attitude, we know, is pervasive now — a primal, animating principle of conservative politics. We hear it in conspiracy theories about the “deep state”; we see it in the actions of Republican officials like Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who built a case for his re-election in 2022 by banning — in the name of “individual freedom” — classroom discussions of gender, sexuality and systemic racism.' Some of Professor Cowie's other books mentioned in this interview: Capital Moves: RCA's Seventy Year Quest for Cheap Labor (1999) received the 2000 Phillip Taft Prize for the Best Book in Labor History in 2000 Stayin' Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class (2010) awarded the Francis Parkman Prize for the Best Book in American History in 2011 The Great Exception: The New Deal and the Limits of American Politics (2016) Professor Cowie's work in social and political history focuses on how class, inequality, and labor shape American politics and culture. Formerly at Cornell, he is currently the James G. Stahlman Professor of History at Vanderbilt University. Sydney Business School at Shanghai University - can be reached at keith.krueger1@uts.edu.au or keithNBn@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law

"History recalls Wallace's inaugural address as a set piece in the larger drama of defending Southern segregation, which it was. But the speech was about something even more profound, more enduring, even more virulent than segregation. Aside from his infamous “Segregation Forever” slogan, Wallace mentioned “segregation” only one other time that afternoon. In contrast, he invoked “freedom” twenty-five times in his speech—more than Martin Luther King Jr. would use the term later that year in his “I Have a Dream” address at the March on Washington. “Let us rise to the call of freedom-loving blood that is in us,” Wallace told his audience, “and send our answer to the tyranny that clanks its chains upon the South.” Those rattling shackles of oppression were forged by the enemy of the people of his beloved Barbour County: the federal government." – Jefferson Cowie, Freedom's Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power (Basic Books, 2022). Professor Cowie titles his latest book's introduction ‘George Wallace and American Freedom', which frames part of the historical narrative within which he reexamines one of our most celebrated values within the purview of local history. But as The New York Times review of the book in December by author Jeff Shesol articulately summarized: ‘Freedom's Dominion is local history, but in the way that Gettysburg was a local battle or the Montgomery bus boycott was a local protest. The book recounts four peak periods in the conflict between white Alabamians and the federal government: the wild rush, in the early 19th century, to seize and settle lands that belonged to the Creek Nation; Reconstruction; the reassertion of white supremacy under Jim Crow; and the attempts of Wallace and others to nullify the civil rights reforms of the 1950s and 1960s. Throughout, as Cowie reveals, white Southerners portrayed the oppression of Black people and Native Americans not as a repudiation of freedom, but its precondition, its very foundation.' This book is an engrossing read and check this from Shesol's review about Wallace and his attraction: ‘Racism was central to his appeal, yet its common note was grievance; the common enemies were elites, the press and the federal government. “Being a Southerner is no longer geographic,” he declared in 1964, during the first of his four runs for the White House. “It's a philosophy and an attitude.” That attitude, we know, is pervasive now — a primal, animating principle of conservative politics. We hear it in conspiracy theories about the “deep state”; we see it in the actions of Republican officials like Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who built a case for his re-election in 2022 by banning — in the name of “individual freedom” — classroom discussions of gender, sexuality and systemic racism.' Some of Professor Cowie's other books mentioned in this interview: Capital Moves: RCA's Seventy Year Quest for Cheap Labor (1999) received the 2000 Phillip Taft Prize for the Best Book in Labor History in 2000 Stayin' Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class (2010) awarded the Francis Parkman Prize for the Best Book in American History in 2011 The Great Exception: The New Deal and the Limits of American Politics (2016) Professor Cowie's work in social and political history focuses on how class, inequality, and labor shape American politics and culture. Formerly at Cornell, he is currently the James G. Stahlman Professor of History at Vanderbilt University. Sydney Business School at Shanghai University - can be reached at keith.krueger1@uts.edu.au or keithNBn@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-south

"History recalls Wallace's inaugural address as a set piece in the larger drama of defending Southern segregation, which it was. But the speech was about something even more profound, more enduring, even more virulent than segregation. Aside from his infamous “Segregation Forever” slogan, Wallace mentioned “segregation” only one other time that afternoon. In contrast, he invoked “freedom” twenty-five times in his speech—more than Martin Luther King Jr. would use the term later that year in his “I Have a Dream” address at the March on Washington. “Let us rise to the call of freedom-loving blood that is in us,” Wallace told his audience, “and send our answer to the tyranny that clanks its chains upon the South.” Those rattling shackles of oppression were forged by the enemy of the people of his beloved Barbour County: the federal government." – Jefferson Cowie, Freedom's Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power (Basic Books, 2022). Professor Cowie titles his latest book's introduction ‘George Wallace and American Freedom', which frames part of the historical narrative within which he reexamines one of our most celebrated values within the purview of local history. But as The New York Times review of the book in December by author Jeff Shesol articulately summarized: ‘Freedom's Dominion is local history, but in the way that Gettysburg was a local battle or the Montgomery bus boycott was a local protest. The book recounts four peak periods in the conflict between white Alabamians and the federal government: the wild rush, in the early 19th century, to seize and settle lands that belonged to the Creek Nation; Reconstruction; the reassertion of white supremacy under Jim Crow; and the attempts of Wallace and others to nullify the civil rights reforms of the 1950s and 1960s. Throughout, as Cowie reveals, white Southerners portrayed the oppression of Black people and Native Americans not as a repudiation of freedom, but its precondition, its very foundation.' This book is an engrossing read and check this from Shesol's review about Wallace and his attraction: ‘Racism was central to his appeal, yet its common note was grievance; the common enemies were elites, the press and the federal government. “Being a Southerner is no longer geographic,” he declared in 1964, during the first of his four runs for the White House. “It's a philosophy and an attitude.” That attitude, we know, is pervasive now — a primal, animating principle of conservative politics. We hear it in conspiracy theories about the “deep state”; we see it in the actions of Republican officials like Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who built a case for his re-election in 2022 by banning — in the name of “individual freedom” — classroom discussions of gender, sexuality and systemic racism.' Some of Professor Cowie's other books mentioned in this interview: Capital Moves: RCA's Seventy Year Quest for Cheap Labor (1999) received the 2000 Phillip Taft Prize for the Best Book in Labor History in 2000 Stayin' Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class (2010) awarded the Francis Parkman Prize for the Best Book in American History in 2011 The Great Exception: The New Deal and the Limits of American Politics (2016) Professor Cowie's work in social and political history focuses on how class, inequality, and labor shape American politics and culture. Formerly at Cornell, he is currently the James G. Stahlman Professor of History at Vanderbilt University. Sydney Business School at Shanghai University - can be reached at keith.krueger1@uts.edu.au or keithNBn@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Links from the show:* Who Killed Jane Stanford?: A Gilded Age Tale of Murder, Deceit, Spirits and the Birth of a University* Connect with Richard* Connect with Ryan on Twitter* Subscribe to the newsletter About my guest:Richard White is the author of many acclaimed histories, including the groundbreaking study of the transcontinentals, Railroaded, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Francis Parkman Prize, and a Pulitzer Prize finalist. He is Margaret Byrne Professor of American History, Emeritus, at Stanford University, and lives near Palo Alto, California. Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

Pulitzer-Prize-winning literary biographer Megan Marshall joins Jacke to discuss the book that was twenty years in the making: The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited the American Renaissance. This "stunning work of biography," as the New York Times labeled it, tells the story of Elizabeth, Mary, and Sophia Peabody, the nineteenth-century New England women who made intellectual history. MEGAN MARSHALL is the winner of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize in Biography for Margaret Fuller, and the author of The Peabody Sisters, which won the Francis Parkman Prize, the Mark Lynton History Prize, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2006. She is the Charles Wesley Emerson College Professor and teaches narrative nonfiction and the art of archival research in the MFA program at Emerson College. For more, visit www.meganmarshallauthor.com. Additional listening suggestions: 120 Emily Dickinson 356 Louisa May Alcott 296 Nathaniel Hawthorne 111 The Americanest American - Ralph Waldo Emerson Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/shop. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I had a fascinating discussion about Robert Moses and The Power Broker with Professor Kenneth T. Jackson.He's the pre-eminent historian on NYC and author of Robert Moses and The Modern City: The Transformation of New York.He answers:* Why are we so much worse at building things today?* Would NYC be like Detroit without the master builder?* Does it take a tyrant to stop NIMBY?Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Read the full transcript here.Follow me on Twitter for updates on future episodes.If you end up enjoying this episode, I would be super grateful if you share it, post it on Twitter, send it to your friends & group chats, and throw it up wherever else people might find it. Can't exaggerate how much it helps a small podcast like mine.A huge thanks to Graham Bessellieu for editing this podcast.Timestamps(0:00:00) Preview + Intro(0:11:13) How Moses Gained Power(0:18:22) Moses Saved NYC?(0:27:31) Moses the Startup Founder?(0:32:34) The Case Against Moses Highways(0:51:24) NIMBYism(1:03:44) Is Progress Cyclical(1:12:36) Friendship with Caro(1:20:41) Moses the Longtermist?.TranscriptThis transcript was produced by a program I wrote. If you consume my podcast via transcripts, let me know in the comments if this transcript was (or wasn't) an adequate substitute for the human edited transcripts in previous episodes.0:00:00 Preview + IntroKenneth Jackson 0:00:00Robert Moses represented a past, you know, a time when we wanted to build bridges and super highways and things that pretty much has gone on. We're not building super highways now. We're not building vast bridges like Moses built all the time. Had Robert Moses not lived, not done what he did, New York would have followed the trail of maybe Detroit. Essentially all the big roads, all the bridges, all the parks, the United Nations, Lincoln Center, the World's Fairs of 1939 and 1964, and hundreds of other things he built. And I think it was the best book I ever read. In broad strokes, it's correct. Robert Moses had more power than any urban figure in American history. He built incredible monuments. He was ruthless and arrogant and honest. Okay.Dwarkesh Patel 0:00:54I am really, really excited about this one. Today I have the pleasure of speaking with Professor Kenneth T. Jackson about the life and legacy of Robert Moses. Professor Jackson is the preeminent historian on New York City. He was the director of the Herbert H. Lehman Center for American History and the Jock Barzun Professor Emeritus of History at Columbia University, where he has also shared the Department of History. And we were discussing Robert Moses. Professor Jackson is the author and editor of Robert Moses and the Modern City, the Transformation of New York. Professor Jackson, welcome to the podcast.Kenneth Jackson 0:01:37Well, thank you for having me. Okay.Dwarkesh Patel 0:01:40So many people will have heard of Robert Moses and be vaguely aware of him through the popular biography of him by Robert Caro, the power broker. But most people will not be aware of the extent of his influence on New York City. Can you give a kind of a summary of the things he was able to get built in New York City?Kenneth Jackson 0:02:03One of the best comparisons I can think of is that our Caro himself, when he compared him to Christopher Wren in London, he said, if you would see his monument, look around. It's almost more easier to talk about what Moses didn't do than what he did do. If you all the roads, essentially all the big roads, all the bridges, all the parks, the United Nations, Lincoln Center, the World's Fairs of 1939 and 1964, and hundreds of other things he built. I mean, he didn't actually do it with his own two hands, but he was in charge. He got it done. And Robert Caro wrote a really great book. I think the book was flawed because I think Caro only looked at Moses's own documents and Moses had a very narrow view of himself. I mean, he thought he was a great man, but I mean, he didn't pay any attention to what was going on in LA very much, for example. But clearly, by any standard, he's the greatest builder in American history. There's nobody really in second place. And not only did he build and spend this vast amount of money, he was in power for a long time, really a half century more or less. And he had a singular focus. He was married, but his personal life was not important to him. He did it without scandal, really, even Caro admits that he really died with less than he started with. So I mean, he wanted power, and boy, did he have power. He technically was subservient to governors and mayors, but since he built so much and since he had multiple jobs, that was part of his secret. He had as many as six, eight, ten different things at once. If the mayor fired him or got rid of him, he had all these different ways, which he was in charge of that the mayor couldn't. So you people were afraid of him, and they also respected him. He was very smart, and he worked for a dollar a year. So what are you going to get him for? As Caro says, nobody is ready to be compared with Robert Moses. In fact, compares him with an act of nature. In other words, the person you can compare him with is God. That's the person. He put the rivers in. He put the hills in. He put the island in. Compare that to Moses, what Moses did. No other person could compare to that. That's a little bit of exaggeration, but when you really think about Robert Moses and you read the Power Broker, you are stunned by the scope of his achievement. Just stunned. And even beyond New York, when we think of the interstate highway system, which really starts in 1954, 55, 56, and which is 40-something thousand miles of interstate highways, those were built by Moses' men, people who had in their young life had worked with the parkways and expressways in and around New York City. So they were ready to go. So Moses and Moses also worked outside New York City, mostly inside New York City, but he achieved so much. So probably you need to understand it's not easy to get things done in New York. It's very, very dense, much twice as dense as any place in the United States and full of neighborhoods that feel like little cities and are little cities and that don't want change even today. A place like Austin, for example, is heavy into development, not New York. You want to build a tall building in New York, you got to fight for it. And the fact that he did so much in the face of opposition speaks a lot to his methods and the way he… How did Moses do what he did? That is a huge question because it isn't happening anymore, certainly not in New YorkDwarkesh Patel 0:06:22City. Yeah. And that's really why I actually wanted to talk to you and talk about this book because the Power Broker was released in 1974 and at the time New York was not doing well, which is to put it mildly. But today the crisis we face is one where we haven't built significant public works in many American cities for decades. And so it's interesting to look back on a time when we could actually get a lot of public works built very quickly and very efficiently and see if maybe we got our characterization of the people at the time wrong. And that's where your 2007 book comes in. So I'm curious, how was the book received 50 years after, or I guess 40 years after the Power Broker was released? What was the reception like? How does the intellectual climate around these issues change in that time?Kenneth Jackson 0:07:18The Power Broker is a stunning achievement, but you're right. The Power Broker colon Robert Moses and the fall of New York. He's thinking that in the 1970s, which is the… In New York's 400-year history, we think of the 1970s as being the bottom. City was bankrupt, crime was going up, corruption was all around. Nothing was working very well. My argument in the subtitle of the 2007 book or that article is Robert Moses and the rise of New York. Arguing that had Robert Moses not lived, not done what he did, New York would have followed the trail of maybe Detroit and St. Louis and Cincinnati and Pittsburgh and most cities in the Northeast and Midwest, which really declined. New York City really hasn't declined. It's got more people now than it ever did. It's still a number one city in the world, really, by most of our standards. It's the global leader, maybe along with London. At one point in the 1980s, we thought it might be Tokyo, which is the largest city in the world, but it's no longer considered competitive with New York. I say London too because New York and London are kind of alone at the top. I think Robert Moses' public works, activities, I just don't know that you could have a New York City and not have expressways. I don't like the Cross Bronx expressway either and don't want to drive on it. How can you have a world in which you can't go from Boston to San Francisco? You had to have it. You have to have some highways and Carroll had it exactly wrong. He talked about Moses and the decline of public transit in New York. Actually what you need to explain in New York is why public transit survived in New York, wherein most other American cities, the only people who use public transit are the losers. Oh, the disabled, the poor and stuff like that. In New York City, rich people ride the subway. It's simply the most efficient way to get around and the quickest. That question needs, some of the things need to be turned on its head. How did he get it done? How did he do it without scandal? I mean, when you think about how the world is in our time, when everything has either a financial scandal or a sexual scandal attached to it, Moses didn't have scandals. He built the White Stone Bridge, for example, which is a gigantic bridge connecting the Bronx to Queens. It's beautiful. It was finished in the late 1930s on time and under budget. Actually a little earlier. There's no such thing as that now. You're going to do a big public works project and you're going to do it on time. And also he did it well. Jones Beach, for example, for generations has been considered one of the great public facilities on earth. It's gigantic. And he created it. You know, I know people will say it's just sand and water. No, no, it's a little more complicated than that. So everything he did was complicated. I mean, I think Robert Caro deserves a lot of credit for doing research on Moses, his childhood, his growing up, his assertion that he's the most important person ever to live in and around New York. And just think of Franklin Roosevelt and all the people who lived in and around New York. And Moses is in a category by himself, even though most Americans have never heard of Robert Moses. So his fame is still not, that book made him famous. And I think his legacy will continue to evolve and I think slightly improve as Americans realize that it's so hard, it's hard to build public works, especially in dense urban environments. And he did it.0:11:13 How Moses Gained PowerDwarkesh Patel 0:11:33Yeah. There's so much to talk about there. But like one of the interesting things from the Power Broker is Caro is trying to explain why governors and mayors who were hesitant about the power that Moses was gaining continued to give him more power. And there's a section where he's talking about how FDR would keep giving him more positions and responsibilities, even though FDR and Moses famously had a huge enmity. And he says no governor could look at the difficulty of getting things built in New York and not admire and respect Moses' ability to do things, as he said, efficiently, on time, under budget, and not need him, essentially. But speaking of scandal, you talked about how he didn't take salary for his 12 concurrent government roles that he was on. But there's a very arresting anecdote in the Power Broker where I think he's 71 and his daughter gets cancer. And for the first time, I think he had to accept, maybe I'm getting the details wrong, but he had to accept salary for working on the World's Fair because he didn't have enough. He was the most powerful person in New York, and he didn't have enough money to pay for his daughter's cancer. And even Caro himself says that a lot of the scandals that came later in his life, they were just kind of trivial stuff, like an acre of Central Park or the Shakespeare in the park. Yeah, it wasn't... The things that actually took him down were just trivial scandals.Kenneth Jackson 0:13:07Well, in fact, when he finally was taken down, it took the efforts of a person who was almost considered the second most powerful person in the United States, David Rockefeller, and the governor of New York, both of whom were brothers, and they still had a lot of Moses to make him kind of get out of power in 1968. But it was time. And he exercised power into his 70s and 80s, and most of it was good. I mean, the bridges are remarkable. The bridges are gorgeous, mostly. They're incredible. The Throgs Neck Bridge, the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, the Triborough Bridge, they're really works of art. And he liked to build things you could see. And I think the fact that he didn't take money was important to it. You know, he was not poor. I wouldn't say he's not wealthy in New York terms, but he was not a poor person. He went to Yale as a Jewish person, and let's say in the early 20th century, that's fairly unusual and he lived well. So we can't say he's poor, but I think that Carol was right in saying that what Moses was after in the end was not sex and not power, and not sex and not money. Power. He wanted power. And boy, did he get it.Dwarkesh Patel 0:14:37Well, there's a good review of the book from, I'm not sure if I remember the last name, but it was Philip Lopgate or something. Low paid, I think.Kenneth Jackson 0:14:45Okay.Dwarkesh Patel 0:14:46And he made a good point, which was that the connotation of the word power is very negative, but it's kind of a modern thing really to have this sort of attitude towards power that like somebody who's just seeking it must necessarily have suspicious motivations. If Moses believed, and in fact, he was probably right in believing that he was just much more effective at building public works for the people that live in New York, was it irrational of him or was it selfish of him to just desire to work 14 hour days for 40 years on end in order to accumulate the power by which he could build more public works? So there's a way of looking at it where this pursuit of power is not itself troubling.Kenneth Jackson 0:15:36Well, first of all, I just need to make a point that it's not just New York City. I mean, Jones Beach is on Long Island. A lot of those highways, the Northern State Parkway, the Southern State Parkway are built outside the city and also big projects, the Power Authority in upstate New York. He also was consultant around the world in cities and transportation. So his influence was really felt far beyond New York City. And of course, New York City is so big and so important. I think also that we might want to think about, at least I think so, what do I say, the counterfactual argument. Can you imagine? I can remember when I was in the Air Force, we lived next door to a couple from New York City. We didn't know New York City at the time. And I can't remember whether she or he was from the Bronx or Brooklyn, but they had they made us understand how incredibly much he must have loved her to go to Brooklyn or the Bronx to see her and pick her up for days and stuff like this. You couldn't get there. I mean, it would take you three hours to go from the Rockaways in Brooklyn to somewhere in the Northern Bronx. But the roads that Moses built, you know, I know at rush hour they're jammed, but you know, right this minute on a Sunday, you can whiz around New York City on these expressways that Moses built. It's hard to imagine New York without. The only thing Moses didn't do was the subway, and many people have criticized him because the subways were deteriorated between the time they were built in the early part of the 20th century in 1974 when Carol wrote to Power Broker. But so had public transit systems all over the United States. And the public transit system in New York is now better than it was 50 years ago. So that trajectory has changed. And all these other cities, you know, Pittsburgh used to have 600,000 people. Now it has 300,000. Cleveland used to have 900,000 and something. Now it's below five. Detroit used to have two million. Now it's 600 something thousand. St. Louis used to have 850,000. Now it's three hundreds. I mean, the steep drop in all these other cities in the Midwest and Northeast, even Washington and even Boston and Philadelphia, they all declined except New York City, which even though it was way bigger than any of them in 1950 is bigger now than it was then. More people crammed into this small space. And Moses had something to do with that.0:18:22 Would NYC Have Fallen Without Moses?Dwarkesh Patel 0:18:22Yeah, yeah, yeah. You write in the book and I apologize for quoting you back to yourself, but you write, had the city not undertaken a massive program of public works between 1924 and 1970, had it not built the arterial highway system and had it not relocated 200,000 people from old law tenements to new public housing projects, New York would not have been able to claim in the 1990s that it was a capital of the 20th century. I would like to make this connection more explicit. So what is the reason for thinking that if New York hadn't done urban renewal and hadn't built the more than 600 miles of highways that Moses built there, that New York would have declined like these other cities in the Northeast and the Midwest?Kenneth Jackson 0:19:05Well, I mean, you could argue, first of all, and friends of mine have argued this, that New York is not like other cities. It's a world city and has been and what happens to the rest of the United States is, I accept a little bit of that, but not all of it. You say, well, New York is just New York. And so whatever happens here is not necessarily because of Moses or different from Detroit, but I think it's important to realize its history has been different from other American cities. Most American cities, especially the older cities, have been in relative decline for 75 years. And in some ways New York has too. And it was its relative dominance of the United States is less now than because there's been a shift south and west in the United States. But the prosperity of New York, the desire of people to live in it, and after all, one of its problems is it's so expensive. Well, one reason it's expensive is people want to live there. If they didn't want to live there, it would be like Detroit. It'd be practically free. You know what I mean? So there are answers to these issues. But Moses' ways, I think, were interesting. First of all, he didn't worry about legalities. He would start an expressway through somebody's property and dare a judge to tell him to stop after the construction had already started. And most of the time, Moses, he was kind of like Hitler. It was just, I don't mean to say he was like Hitler. What I mean is, but you have such confidence. You just do things and dare other people to change it. You know what I mean? I'm going to do it. And most people don't have that. I think there's a little bit of that in Trump, but not as much. I mean, I don't think he has nearly the genius or brains of Moses. But there's something to self-confidence. There's something to having a broad vision. Moses liked cities, but he didn't like neighborhoods or people. In other words, I don't think he loved New York City. Here's the person who is more involved. He really thought everybody should live in suburbs and drive cars. And that was the world of the future. And he was going to make that possible. And he thought all those old law tenements in New York, which is really anything built before 1901, were slums. And they didn't have hot and cold water. They often didn't have bathrooms. He thought they should be destroyed. And his vision was public housing, high-rise public housing, was an improvement. Now I think around the United States, we don't think these high-rise public housing projects are so wonderful. But he thought he was doing the right thing. And he was so arrogant, he didn't listen to people like Jane Jacobs, who fought him and said, you're saying Greenwich Village is a slum? Are you kidding me? I mean, he thought it was a slum. Go to Greenwich Village today. Try to buy anything for under a million dollars. I mean, it doesn't exist. You know what I mean? I mean, Greenwich Village, and he saw old things, old neighborhoods, walking, is hopelessly out of date. And he was wrong. He was wrong about a lot of his vision. And now we understand that. And all around the country, we're trying to revitalize downtowns and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and gasoline and cars. But Moses didn't see the world that way. It's interesting. He never himself drove a car. Can you believe that the man who had more influence on the American car culture, probably even than Henry Ford, himself was always driven. He was chauffeured. In fact, he was so busy that Carol talks about him as having two limousines behind each other. And he would have a secretary in one, and he would be dealing with business and writing letters and things like this. And then she would have all she could do. They would pull off to the side of the road. She would get out of his car. The car that was following would discharge the secretary in that car. They would switch places. And the fresh secretary would get in the backseat, Moses, and they would continue to work. And the first secretary would go to type up whatever she had to do. He worked all the time. He really didn't have much of a private life. There are not many people like Robert Moses. There are people like Robert Moses, but not so many, and he achieved his ideal. I think that there are so many ironies there. Not only did he not drive himself, he didn't appreciate so much the density of New York, which many people now love, and it's getting more dense. They're building tall buildings everywhere. And he didn't really appreciate the diversity, the toleration. He didn't care about that, but it worked. And I just think we have to appreciate the fact that he did what was impossible, really impossible, and nobody else could have done what he did. And if we hadn't done it then, he sure as heck wouldn't be able to do it in the 21st century, when people are even more litigious. You try to change the color of a door in New York City, and there'll be—you try to do something positive, like build a free swimming pool, fix up an old armory and turn it into a public—there'll be people who'll fight you. I'm not kidding this. And Moses didn't care. He says, I'm going to do this. When he built the Cross Bronx Expressway, which in some ways is—it was horrible what he did to these people, but again, Carol mischaracterizes what happened. But it's a dense working class—let's call it Jewish neighborhood—in the early 1950s. And Roses decides we need an interstate highway or a big highway going right through it. Well, he sent masses of people letters that said, get out in 90 days. He didn't mean 91 days. He meant—he didn't mean let's argue about it for four years. Let's go to legit—Moses meant the bulldozers will be bulldozing. And that kind of attitude, we just don't have anymore. And it's kind of funny now to think back on it, but it wasn't funny to the people who got evicted. But again, as I say, it's hard to imagine a New York City without the Cross Bronx Expressway. They tore down five blocks of dense buildings, tore them down, and built this road right through it. You live—and they didn't worry about where they were going to rehouse them. I mean, they did, but it didn't work. And now it's so busy, it's crowded all the time. So what does this prove? That we need more roads? But you can't have more roads in New York because if you build more roads, what are you going to do with the cars? Right now, the problem is there are so many cars in the city, there's nothing to do. It's easy to get around in New York, but what are you going to do with the car? You know, the car culture has the seeds of its own destruction. You know, cars just parking them or putting them in a garage is a problem. And Moses didn't foresee those. He foreseed you're all going to live in the Long Island suburbs or Westchester suburbs or New Jersey suburbs. Park your car in your house and come in the city to work. Now, the city is becoming a place to live more than a place to work. So what they're doing in New York as fast as they can is converting office buildings into residential units. He would never have seen that, that people would want to live in the city, had options that they would reject a single family house and choose high rise and choose the convenience of going outside and walking to a delicatessen over the road, driving to a grocery store. It's a world he never saw.0:27:31 Moses the Startup Founder?Dwarkesh Patel 0:27:31Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Like the thing you pointed out earlier about him having the two limousines and then the enormous work ethic and then the 90 day eviction. I mean, I'm a programmer and I can recognize this trope immediately. Right. Robert Moses was a startup founder, but in government, you know, that attitude is like, yeah, it's like Silicon Valley. That's like we all recognize that.Kenneth Jackson 0:27:54And I think we should we should we should go back to what you said earlier about why was it that governors or mayors couldn't tell him what to do? Because there are many scenes in the power broker where he will go to the mayor who wants to do something else. And Moses would, damn it. He'd say, damn it, throw his pages on the desk and say, sign this. This is my resignation. You know, OK. And I'm out of here because the mayors and governors love to open bridges and highways and and do it efficiently and beautifully. And Moses could do that. Moses could deliver. And the workers loved him because he paid union wages, good wages to his workers. And he got things done and and things like more than 700 playgrounds. And it wasn't just grand things. And even though people criticize the 1964 World's Fair as a failure and financially it was a failure, but still tens of millions of people went there and had a good time. You know, I mean, even some of the things were supposedly were failures. Failures going to home, according to the investment banker, maybe, but not to the people who went there.Dwarkesh Patel 0:29:20Right. Yeah. And I mean, the point about the governors and mayors needing him, it was especially important to have somebody who could like work that fast. If you're going to get reelected in four years or two years, you need somebody who can get public works done faster than they're done today. Right. If you want to be there for the opening. Yeah, exactly.Kenneth Jackson 0:29:36And it's important to realize, to say that Moses did try public office once.Dwarkesh Patel 0:29:41Yeah.Kenneth Jackson 0:29:42And I think it's true that he lost by more than anybody in the history of New York. He was not, you know, he was not an effective public speaker. He was not soft and friendly and warm and cuddly. That's not Robert Moses. The voters rejected him. But the people who had power and also Wall Street, because you had to issue bonds. And one of the ways that Moses had power was he created this thing called the Traverse Bridge and Tunnel Authority to build the Traverse Bridge. Well, now, if in Portland, Oregon, you want to build a bridge or a road, you issue a couple hundred million dollars worth of bonds to the public and assign a value to it. Interest rate is paid off by the revenue that comes in from the bridge or the road or whatever it is. Normally, before, normally you would build a public works and pay for it itself on a user fees. And when the user fees paid it off, it ended. But what Moses, who was called the best bill drafter in Albany, which was a Moses term, he said he was somewhere down in paragraph 13, Section G, say, and the chairman can only be removed for cause. What that meant was when you buy a bond for the Traverse Bridge or something else, you're in a contract, supported by the Supreme Court. This is a financial deal you're making with somebody. And part of the contract was the chairman gets to stay unless he does something wrong. Well, Moses was careful not to do anything wrong. And it also would continue. You would get the bond for the Traverse Bridge, but rather than pay off the Traverse Bridge, he would build another project. It would give him the right to continually build this chain of events. And so he had this massive pot of money from all these initially nickels and dimes. Brazil made up a lot of money, the 30s and 40s and 50s and 60s, to spend more money and build more bridges and build more roads. And that's where he had his power. And the Wall Street, the big business loved him because they're issuing the bonds. The unions loved him because they're paying the investors. Now what Carroll says is that Moses allowed the investors an extra quarter percent, I think a quarter percent or half percent on bonds, but they all sold out. So everybody was happy. And was that crooked? It wasn't really illegal. But it's the way people do that today. If you're issuing a bond, you got to figure out what interest am I going to pay on this that will attract investors now.0:32:34 The Case Against Moses HighwaysDwarkesh Patel 0:32:34And the crucial thing about these tales of graft is that it never was about Moses trying to get rich. It was always him trying to push through a project. And obviously that can be disturbing, but it is a completely different category of thing, especially when you remember that this was like a corrupt time in New York history. It was like after Tammany Hall and so on. So it's a completely different from somebody using their projects to get themselves rich. But I do want to actually talk in more detail about the impact of these roads. So obviously we can't, the current system we have today where we just kind of treat cities as living museums with NIMBYism and historical preservation, that's not optimal. But there are examples, at least of Carroll's, about Moses just throwing out thousands of people carelessly, famously in that chapter on the one mile, how Moses could have diverted the cross Bronx expressway one mile and prevented thousands of people from getting needlessly evicted. So I'm just going to list off a few criticisms of his highway building and then you can respond to them in any order you want. So one of the main criticisms that Carroll makes is that Moses refused to add mass transit to his highways, which would have helped deal with the traffic problem and the car problem and all these other problems at a time when getting the right of way and doing the construction would have been much cheaper. Because of his dislike for mass transit, he just refused to do that. And also the prolific building of highways contributed to urban sprawl, it contributed to congestion, it contributed to neighborhoods getting torn apart if a highway would crossKenneth Jackson 0:34:18them.Dwarkesh Patel 0:34:19So a whole list of criticisms of these highways. I'll let you take it in any order you want.Kenneth Jackson 0:34:27Well first of all, Moses response was, I wasn't in charge of subways. So if you think the subways deteriorated or didn't build enough, find out who was in charge of them and blame that person. I was in charge of highways and I built those. So that's the first thing.Dwarkesh Patel 0:34:41But before you answer that, can I just ask, so on that particular point, it is true that he wasn't in charge of mass transit, but also he wasn't in charge of roads until he made himself responsible for roads, right? So if he chose to, he could have made himself responsible for mass transit and taken careKenneth Jackson 0:34:56of it. Maybe, although I think the other thing about it is putting Moses in a broader historical concept. He was swimming with the tide of history. In other words, history when he was building, was building Ford Motor Company and General Motors and Chrysler Corporation and building cars by the millions. I mean, the automobile industry in the United States was huge. People thought any kind of rail transit was obsolete and on the way out anyway. So let's just build roads. I mean, that's what the public wanted. He built what the public wanted. It's not what I was looking historically. I don't think we did the right thing, but we needed to join the 20th century. New York could have stayed as a quaint, I don't know, quaint is not the right word, but it's a distinctly different kind of place where everybody walks. I just don't think it would have been the same kind of city because there are people who are attached to their cars in New York. And so the sprawl in New York, which is enormous, nobody's saying it wasn't, spreads over 31 counties, an area about as large as the state of Connecticut, about as large as the Netherlands is metropolitan New York. But it's still relatively, I don't want to say compact, but everybody knows where the center is. It's not that anybody grows up in New York at 16 and thinks that the world is in some mall, you know, three miles away. They all know there is a center and that's where it is. It's called Manhattan. And that's New York and Moses didn't change that for all of his roads. There's still in New York a definite center, skyscrapers and everything in the middle. And it's true, public transit did decline. But you know those, and I like Chicago, by the way, and they have a rail transit from O'Hare down to Dan Ryan, not to Dan Ryan, but the JFK Expressway, I think. And it works sort of, but you got to walk a ways to get on. You got to walk blocks to get in the middle of the expressway and catch the train there. It's not like in New York where you just go down some steps. I mean, New York subway is much bigger than Chicago and more widely used and more. And the key thing about New York, and so I think what Carol was trying to explain and your question suggests this, is was Moses responsible for the decline of public transit? Well, he was building cars and roads and bridges. So in that sense, a little bit, yes. But if you look at New York compared to the rest of the United States, it used to be that maybe 20 percent of all the transit riders in the United States were in the New York area. Now it's 40 percent. So if you're looking at the United States, what you have to explain is why is New York different from the rest of the United States? Why is it that when I was chairman or president of the New York Historical Society, we had rich trustees, and I would tell them, well, I got here on a subway or something. They would think, I would say, how do you think I got here? Do you know what I mean? I mean, these are people who are close to billionaires and they're saying they used the subway. If you're in lower Manhattan and you're trying to get to Midtown and it's raining, it's five o'clock, you've got to be a fool to try to get in your own limousine. It isn't going to get you there very quickly. A subway will. So there are reasons for it. And I think Moses didn't destroy public transit. He didn't help it. But his argument was he did. And that's an important distinction, I think. But he was swimming with history. He built what the public wanted. I think if he had built public transit, he would have found it tougher to build. Just for example, Cincinnati built a subway system, a tunnel all through the city. It never has opened. They built it. You can still see the holes in the ground where it's supposed to come out. By the time they built it, people weren't riding trains anymore. And so it's there now and they don't know what to do with it. And that's 80 years ago. So it's a very complicated—I don't mean to make these issues. They're much more complex than I'm speaking of. And I just think it's unfair to blame Moses for the problems of the city. I think he did as much as anybody to try to bring the city into the 21st century, which he didn't live to. But you've got to adopt. You've got to have a hybrid model in the world now. And I think the model that America needs to follow is a model where we reduce our dependence on the cars and somehow ride buses more or use the internet more or whatever it is, but stop using so much fossil fuels so that we destroy our environment. And New York, by far, is the most energy efficient place in the United States. Mainly because you live in tall buildings, you have hot floors. It doesn't really cost much to heat places because you're heating the floor below you and above you. And you don't have outside walls. And you walk. New Yorkers are thinner. Many more people take buses and subways in New York than anywhere else in the United States, not just in absolute terms, in relative terms. So they're helping. It's probably a healthier lifestyle to walk around. And I think we're rediscovering it. For example, if you come to New York between Thanksgiving and Christmas, there's so many tourists in the city. I'm not making this up. That there is gridlock on the sidewalks around. The police have to direct the traffic. And in part, it's because a Detroit grandmother wants to bring her granddaughter to New York to see what Hudson's, which is a great department store in Detroit or in any city. We could be rich as in Atlanta, Fox, G Fox and Hartford. Every city had these giant department and windows where the Santa Claus is and stuff like this. You can still go to New York and see that. You can say, Jane, this is the way it used to be in Detroit. People ringing the bells and looking at the store windows and things like that. A mall can't recapture that. It just can't. You try, but it's not the same thing. And so I think that in a way, Moses didn't not only did he not destroy New York. I think he gets a little bit of credit for saving it because it might have been on the way to Detroit. Again, I'm not saying that it would have been Detroit because Detroit's almost empty. But Baltimore wasn't just Baltimore, it's Cleveland. It's every place. There's nobody there anymore. And even in New York, the department stores have mostly closed, not all of them. And so it's not the same as it was 80 years ago, but it's closer to it than anywhere else.Dwarkesh Patel 0:42:16OK, so yes, I'm actually very curious to get your opinion on the following question. Given the fact that you are an expert on New York history and you know, you've written the encyclopedia, literally written the encyclopedia on New York City.Kenneth Jackson 0:42:30800 people wrote the encyclopedia. I just took all the credit for it.Dwarkesh Patel 0:42:34I was the editor in chief. So I'm actually curious, is Caro actually right that you talked about the importance just earlier about counterfactual history. So I'm curious if Caro is actually right about the claim that the neighborhoods through which Moses built his highways were destroyed in a way that neighborhoods which were in touch by the highways weren't. Sorry for the confusing phrasing there. But basically, was there like a looking back on all these neighborhoods? Is there a clear counterfactual negative impact on the neighborhoods in which Moses built his highways and bridges and so on?Kenneth Jackson 0:43:10Well, Moses, I mean, Caro makes that argument mostly about East Tremont and places like that in the Bronx where the Cross Bronx Expressway passed through. And he says this perfectly wonderful Jewish neighborhood that was not racially prejudiced and everybody was happy and not leaving was destroyed by Moses. Well, first of all, as a historian of New York City, or for that matter, any city, if a student comes to you and says, that's what I found out, you said, well, you know, that runs counter to the experience of every city. So let's do a little more work on that. Well, first of all, if you look at the census tracts or the residential security maps of S.H.A. You know, it's not true. First of all, the Jews were leaving and had nothing to do with the thing. They didn't love blacks. And also, if you look at other Jewish, and the Bronx was called the Jewish borough at the time, those neighborhoods that weren't on the Cross Bronx Expressway all emptied out mostly. So the Bronx itself was a part of New York City that followed the pattern of Detroit and Baltimore and Cleveland. Bronx is now coming back, but it's a different place. So I think it's, well, I've said this in public and I'll pay you for this. Carol wouldn't know those neighborhoods if he landed there by parachute. They're much better than he ever said they were. You know, he acted like if you went outside near the Bronx County Courthouse, you needed a wagon train to go. I mean, I've taken my students there dozens of times and shown them the people, the old ladies eating on the benches and stuff like this. Nobody's mugging them. You know, he just has an outsider's view. He didn't know the places he was writing about. But I think Carol was right about some things. Moses was personally a jerk. You can make it stronger than that, but I mean, he was not your friendly grandfather. He was arrogant. He was self-centered. He thought he knew the truth and you don't. He was vindictive, ruthless, but some of those were good. You know, now his strategies, his strategies in some were good. He made people building a beach or a building feel like you're building a cathedral. You're building something great and I'm going to pay you for it and let's make it good. Let's make it as best as we can. That itself is a real trick. How do you get people to think of their jobs as more than a job, as something else? Even a beach or a wall or something like that to say it's good. He also paid them, so that's important that he does that and he's making improvements. He said he was improving things for the people. I don't know if you want to talk about Jane Jacobs, who was his nemesis. I tend to vote with Jane Jacobs. Jane Jacobs and I agree on a lot of things or did before she died a few years ago. Jane Jacobs saw the city as intricate stores and people living and walking and knowing each other and eyes on the street and all these kinds of things. Moses didn't see that at all. He saw the city as a traffic problem. How do we tear this down and build something big and get people the hell out of here? That was a mistake. Moses made mistakes. What Moses was doing was what everybody in the United States was doing, just not as big and not as ruthless and not as quick. It was not like Moses built a different kind of world that exists in Kansas City. That's exactly what they did in Kansas City or every other city. Blow the damn roads to the black neighborhoods, build the expressway interchanges, my hometown of Memphis crisscrossed with big streets, those neighborhoods gone. They're even more extensive in places like Memphis and Kansas City and New Orleans than they are in New York because New York builds relatively fewer of them. Still huge what he built. You would not know from the power broker that Los Angeles exists. Actually Los Angeles was building freeways too. Or he says that New York had more federal money. Then he said, well, not true. I've had students work on Chicago and Chicago is getting more money per person than New York for some of these projects. Some of the claims, no doubt he got those from Moses' own records. If you're going to write a book like this, you got to know what's going on other places. Anyway, let's go back to your questions.Dwarkesh Patel 0:48:10No, no. That was one of the things I was actually going to ask you about, so I was glad to get your opinion on that. You know, actually, I've been preparing for this interview and trying to learn more about the impact of these different projects. I was trying to find the economic literature on the value of these highways. There was a National Bureau of Economic Research paper by Morgan Foy, or at least a digest by Morgan Foy, where he's talking about the economic gains from highways. He says, the gains tend to be largest in areas where roads connect large economic hubs where few alternative routes exist. He goes on to say, two segments near New York City have welfare benefits exceeding $500 million a year. Expanding the Long Island Expressway had an estimated economic value of $719 million, which I think was Moses. He says, of the top 10 segments with the highest rate of return, seven are in New York City area. It turns out that seven of the top 10 most valuable highway segments in America are in New York. Reading that, it makes me suspect that there must have been... The way Cairo paints Moses' planning process, it's just very impulsive and feelings-based and almost in some cases, out of malice towards poor people. Given that a century later, it seems that many of the most valuable tracks of highways were planned and built exactly how Moses envisioned, it makes you think that there was some sort of actual intelligent deliberation and thought that was put into where they were placed.Kenneth Jackson 0:50:32I think that's true. I'm not saying that the automobile didn't have an economic impact. That's what Moses was building for. He would probably endorse that idea. I think that what we're looking at now in the 21st century is the high value put on places that Moses literally thought were something. He was going to run an expressway from Brooklyn through lower Manhattan to New Jersey and knock down all these buildings in Greenwich Village that people love now. Love. Even movie stars, people crowd into those neighborhoods to live and that he saw it as a slum. Well, Moses was simply wrong and Cairo puts him to task for that. I think that's true.0:51:24 The Rise of NIMBYismDwarkesh Patel 0:51:24Okay. Professor Jackson, now I want to discuss how the process of city planning and building projects has changed since Moses' time. We spent some good amount of time actually discussing what it was like, what Moses actually did in his time. Last year, I believe, you wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal talking about how the 27-story building in Manhattan was put in limbo because the parking lot, which we would replace, was part of a historic district. What is it like to actually build a skyscraper or a highway or a bridge or anything of that sort in today's New York City?Kenneth Jackson 0:52:06Well, I do think in the larger context, it's probably fair to say it's tougher to build in New York City than any other city. I mean, yeah, a little precious suburb, you may not deploy a skyscraper, but I mean, as far as the city is concerned, there'll be more opposition in New York than anywhere else.It's more dense, so just to unload and load stuff to build a building, how do you do that? You know, trucks have to park on the street. Everything is more complicated and thus more expensive. I think a major difference between Robert Moses' time and our own, in Robert Moses' time, historic preservation was as yet little known and little understood and little supported. And the view generally was building is good, roads are good, houses are good, and they're all on the way to a more modern and better world. We don't have the same kind of faith in the future that they did. We kind of like it like it is. Let's just sit on it. So I think we should say that Moses had an easier time of it than he would have had he lived today. It still wasn't an easy time, but easier than today. Yeah.Dwarkesh Patel 0:53:40Well, actually, can you talk more about what that change in, I guess, philosophy has been since then? I feel like that's been one of the themes of this podcast, to see how our cultural attitude towards progress and technology have changed.Kenneth Jackson 0:53:54Well, I think one reason why the power broker, Robert Carroll's famous book, received such popular acclaim is it fits in with book readers' opinions today, which is old is better. I mean, also, you got to think about New York City. If you say it's a pre-war apartment, you mean it's a better apartment. The walls are solid plaster, not fiber or board and stuff like that. So old has a reverence in New York that doesn't have in Japan. In Japan, they tear down houses every 15 years. So it's a whole different thing. We tend to, in this new country, new culture, we tend to value oldness in some places, especially in a place that's old like New York City. I mean, most Americans don't realize that New York is not only the most dense American city and the largest, but also really the oldest. I mean, I know there's St. Augustine, but that's taking the concept of what's a city to a pretty extreme things. And then there's Jamestown and Virginia, but there's nobody there, literally nobody there. And then where the pilgrims landed in Massachusetts, Plymouth plantation, that's totally rebuilt as a kind of a theme park. So for a place that's a city, it's Santa Fe a little bit in New Mexico, but it was a wide place on the road until after World War II. So the places that would be also, if you think cities, New York is really old and it's never valued history, but the historic preservation movement here is very strong.Dwarkesh Patel 0:55:33What is the reason for its resurgence? Is it just that, because I mean, it's had a big impact on many cities, right? Like I'm in San Francisco right now, and obviously like you can't tear down one of these Victorian houses to build the housing that like the city massively needs. Why have we like gained a reverence for anything that was built before like 80 years?Kenneth Jackson 0:55:56Because just think of the two most expensive places in the United States that could change a little bit from year to year, but usually San Francisco and New York. And really if you want to make it more affordable, if you want to drop the price of popsicles on your block, sell more popsicles. Have more people selling popsicles and the price will fall. But somehow they say they're going to build luxury housing when actually if you build any housing, it'll put downward pressure on prices, even at super luxury. But anyway, most Americans don't understand that. So they oppose change and especially so in New York and San Francisco on the basis that change means gentrification. And of course there has been a lot of gentrification. In World War II or right after, San Francisco was a working class city. It really was. And huge numbers of short and longshoremen live there. Now San Francisco has become the headquarters really in Silicon Valley, but a headquarters city is a tech revolution and it's become very expensive and very homeless. It's very complex. Not easy to understand even if you're in the middle of it.Dwarkesh Patel 0:57:08Yeah. Yeah. So if we could get a Robert Moses back again today, what major mega project do you think New York needs today that a Moses like figure could build?Kenneth Jackson 0:57:22Well if you think really broadly and you take climate change seriously, as I think most people do, probably to build some sort of infrastructure to prevent rising water from sinking the city, it's doable. You'd have to, like New Orleans, in order to save New Orleans you had to flood Mississippi and some other places. So usually there is a downside somewhere, but you could, that would be a huge project to maybe build a bridge, not a bridge, a land bridge from Brooklyn to Manhattan to prevent water coming in from the ocean because New York is on the ocean. And to think of something like that's really big. Some of the other big infrastructure projects, like they're talking about another tunnel under the river, Hudson River from New Jersey to New York, the problem with that is there are already too many cars in Manhattan. Anything that makes it easier to bring cars into Manhattan because if you've not been to New York you don't really understand this, but there's no place for anything. And if you bring more cars in, what are you going to do with them? If you build parking garages for all the cars that could come into the city, then you'd be building over the whole city. There'd be no reason to come here because it would all be parking garages or parking lots. So New York City simply won't work if you reduce the density or you get rid of underground transportation because it's all about people moving around underneath the streets and not taking up space as they do it. So it won't work. And of course, it's not the only city. Tokyo wouldn't work either or lots of cities in the world won't work increasingly without not just public transportation but underground public transportation where you can get it out of the way of traffic and stuff like that. Moses probably could have done that. He wouldn't have loved it as much as he loved bridges because he wanted you to see what he built. And there was an argument in the power broker, but he didn't really want the Brooklyn battle very tunnel built because he wanted to build a bridge that everybody could see. So he may not have done it with such enthusiasm. I actually believe that Moses was first and foremost a builder. He really wanted to build things, change things. If you said, we'll pay you to build tunnels, I think he would have built tunnels. Who knows? He never was offered that. That wasn't the time in which he lived. Yeah. Okay.Dwarkesh Patel 1:00:04And I'm curious if you think that today to get rid of, I guess the red tape and then the NIMBYism, would it just be enough for one man to accumulate as much influence as Moses had and then to push through some things or does that need to be some sort of systemic reform? Because when Moses took power, of course there was ours also that Tammany Hall machine that he had to run through, right? Is that just what's needed today to get through the bureaucracy or is something more needed?Kenneth Jackson 1:00:31Well, I don't think Robert Moses with all of his talents and personality, I don't think he could do in the 21st century what he did in the middle of the 20th century. I think he would have done a lot, maybe more than anybody else. But also I think his methods, his really bullying messages, really, really, he bullied people, including powerful people. I don't think that would work quite as easy today, but I do think we need it today. And I think even today, we found even now we have in New York, just the beginnings of leftists. I'm thinking of AOC, the woman who led the campaign against Amazon in New York saying, well, we need some development. If we want to make housing more affordable, somebody has got to build something. It's not that we've got more voter because you say you want affordable housing. You got to build affordable housing and especially you got to build more of it. So we have to allow people, we have to overturn the NIMBYism to say, well, even today for all of our concern about environmental change, we have to work together. I mean, in some ways we have to believe that we're in some ways in the same boat and it won't work if we put more people in the boat, but don't make the boat any bigger. Yeah.Dwarkesh Patel 1:01:59But when people discuss Moses and the power accumulated, they often talk about the fact that he took so much power away from democratically elected officials and the centralized so much power in himself. And obviously the power broker talks a great deal about the harms of that kind of centralization. But I'm curious having studied the history of New York, what are the benefits if there can be one coordinated cohesive plan for the entire city? So if there's one person who's designing all the bridges, all the highways, all the parks, is something more made possible that can be possible if like multiple different branches and people have their own unique visions? I don't know if that question makes sense.Kenneth Jackson 1:02:39That's a big question. And you've got to put a lot of trust into the grand planner, especially if a massive area of 20, 25 million people, bigger than the city, I'm not sure what you're really talking about. I think that in some ways we've gone too far in the ability to obstruct change, to stop it. And we need change. I mean, houses deteriorate and roads deteriorate and sewers deteriorate. We have to build into our system the ability to improve them. And now in New York we respond to emergencies. All of a sudden a water main breaks, the street collapses and then they stop everything, stop the water main break and repair the street and whatever it is. Meanwhile in a hundred other places it's leaking, it's just not leaking enough to make the road collapse. But the problem is there every day, every minute. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.1:03:44 Is Progress CyclicalDwarkesh Patel 1:03:44I'm curious, as a professor, I mean you've studied American history. Do you just see this as a cyclical thing where you have periods where maybe one person has too much power to periods where there's dispersed vitocracy and sclerosis and then you're just going to go through these cycles? Or how do you see that in the grand context of things, how do you see where we are, where we were during Moses and where we might be in the future?Kenneth Jackson 1:04:10Well you're right to say that much of life is cyclical. And there is a swing back and forth. But having said that, I think the person like Robert Moses is unusual, partly because he might have gone on to become a hedge fund person or didn't have hedge funds when he was around. But you know, new competitor to Goldman Sachs, I mean he could have done a lot of things, maybe been a general. He wanted to have power and control. And I think that's harder to accumulate now. We have too much power. You can demonstrate and you can stop anything. We love demonstrations in the United States. We respect them. We see it as a visible expression of our democracy, is your ability to get on the streets and block the streets. But you know, still you have to get to work. I mean at some point in the day you've got to do something. And yeah, Hitler could have done a lot of things if he wanted to. He could have made Berlin into a... But you know, if you have all the power, Hitler had a lot of it. If he turned Berlin into a colossal city, he was going to make it like Washington but half-sive. Well Washington has already got its own issues. The buildings are too big. Government buildings don't have life on the street and stuff like this. Like Hitler would destroy it forever because you build a monumental city that's not for people. And I think that was probably one of Moses' weak points is unlike Jane Jacobs who saw people. Moses didn't see people. He saw bridges. He saw highways. He saw tunnels. He saw rivers. He saw the city as a giant traffic problem. Jane Jacobs, who was a person without portfolio most of her life except of her own powers of judgment and persuasion, she thought, well what is the shoe repairman got to do with the grocery store, got to do with the school, got to do with something else? She saw what Moses didn't see. She saw the intricacies of the city. He saw a giant landscape. She saw the block, just the block.Dwarkesh Patel 1:06:45Yeah there's a common trope about socialist and communist which is that they love humanity in the abstract but they hate people as individuals. And it's like I guess one way to describe Robert Moses. It actually kind of reminds me of one of my relatives that's a doctor and he's not exactly a people person. And he says like, you know, I hate like actually having to talk to the patients about like, you know, like ask them questions. I just like the actual detective work of like what is going on, looking at the charts and figuring out doing the diagnosis. Are you optimistic about New York? Do you think that in the continuing towards the end of the 21st century and into the 22nd century, it will still be the capital of the world or what do you think is the future ofKenneth Jackson 1:07:30the city? Well, The Economist, which is a major publication that comes out of England, recently predicted that London and New York would be in 2100 what they are today, which is the capitals of the world. London is not really a major city in terms of population, probably under 10 million, much smaller than New York and way smaller than Tokyo. But London has a cosmopolitan, heterogeneous atmosphere within the rule of law. What London and New York both offer, which Shanghai doesn't or Hong Kong doesn't at the moment is a system so if you disagree, you're not going to disappear. You know what I mean? It's like there's some level of guarantee that personal safety is sacred and you can say what you want. I think that's valuable. It's very valuable. And I think the fact that it's open to newcomers, you can't find a minority, so minority that they don't have a presence in New York and a physical presence. I mean, if you're from Estonia, which has got fewer people than New York suburbs, I mean individual New York suburbs, but there's an Estonian house, there's Estonian restaurants, there's, you know, India, Pakistan, every place has got an ethnic presence. If you want it, you can have it. You want to merge with the larger community, merge with it. That's fine. But if you want to celebrate your special circumstances, it's been said that New York is everybody's second home because you know if you come to New York, you can find people just like yourself and speaking your language and eating your food and going to your religious institution. I think that's going to continue and I think it's not only what makes the United States unusual, there are a few other places like it. Switzerland is like it, but the thing about Switzerland that's different from the United States is there are parts of Switzerland that are most of it's Swiss German and parts of it's French, but they stay in their one places, you know what I mean? So they speak French here and they speak German there. You know, Arizona and Maine are not that different demographically in the United States. Everybody has shuffled the deck several times and so I think that's what makes New York unique. In London too. Paris a little bit. You go to the Paris underground, you don't even know what language you're listening to. I think to be a great city in the 21st century, and by the way, often the Texas cities are very diverse, San Francisco, LA, very diverse. It's not just New York. New York kind of stands out because it's bigger and because the neighborhoods are more distinct. Anybody can see them. I think that's, and that's what Robert Moses didn't spend any time thinking about. He wasn't concerned with who was eating at that restaurant. Wasn't important, or even if there was a restaurant, you know? Whereas now, the move, the slow drift back towards cities, and I'm predicting that the pandemic will not have a permanent influence. I mean, the pandemic is huge and it's affected the way people work and live and shop and have recreation. So I'm not trying to blow it off like something else, but I think in the long run, we are social animals. We want to be with each other. We need each other, especially if you're young, you want to be with potential romantic partners. But even other people are drawn. Just a few days ago, there was a horrible tragedy in Seoul, Korea. That's because 100,000 young people are drawn to each other. They could have had more room to swing their arms, but they wanted to crowd into this one alley because that's where other people were. They wanted to go where other people were. That's a lot about the appeal of cities today. We've been in cars and we've been on interstate highways. At the end of the day, we're almost like cats. We want to get together at night and sleep on each other or with each other. I think that's the ultimate. It's not for everybody. Most people would maybe rather live in a small town or on the top of a mountain, but there's a percentage of people. Let's call it 25% who really want to be part of the tumble in the tide and want to be things mixed up. They will always want to be in a place like New York. There are other places, San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia a little bit. They're not mainly in the United States, but in Europe, Copenhagen. Copenhagen is not a big city, neither is Prague, but they have urbanity. New York has urbanity. I think we don't celebrate urbanity as much as we might. The pure joy of being with others.1:12:36 Friendship with CaroDwarkesh Patel 1:12:36Yeah. I'm curious if you ever got a chance to talk to Robert Caro himself about Moses at someKenneth Jackson 1:12:45point. Robert Caro and I were friends. In fact, when the power broker received an award, the Francis Parkman Prize from the Society of American Historians, it turned out we lived near each other in the Bronx. And I drove him home and we became friends and social friends. And I happened to be with him on the day that Robert Moses died. We were with our wives eating out in a neighborhood called Arthur Avenue. The real Little Italy of New York is in the Bronx. It's also called Be

Marcia Franklin talks with Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and author Fredrik Logevall, Ph.D. about the antecedents to the Vietnam War. Logevall, the Laurence D. Belfer Professor of International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School and a professor of history at Harvard College, won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in History for his book, "Embers of War." It examined France's colonial involvement in Vietnam, and how and why U.S. support of the French led to the Vietnam War. In its citation, the Pulitzer committee called the work a "balanced, deeply researched history of how, as French colonial rule faltered, a succession of American leaders moved step by step down a road toward full-blown war." The book also won the Francis Parkman Prize from the Society of American Historians. Franklin talks with Logevall about why he felt it was important for people to know about the pre-history of the Vietnam War, whether the war could have been avoided, and how the decisions made before and during the Vietnam War have affected our country's foreign policy since then. The author or editor of nine books, Professor Logevall previously taught at Cornell, where he was the director of the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, and at the University of California Santa Barbara, where he co-founded the Center for Cold War Studies. He is the past president of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. Franklin spoke with him in Idaho Falls, where he gave the keynote speech at the Idaho Humanities Council's 2016 Eastern Idaho Distinguished Humanities Lecture. Originally Aired: 04/29/2016

In this new episode, host Rainer Schulte sat down with Harvard Professor Louis Menand for a virtual conversation on the future of the humanities. In December 2021, Menand published an essay in The New Yorker titled “What's so Great about Great-Books Courses,” which is certain to be of interest to those who study and teach the Humanities. Menand was previously an associate editor of The New Republic, editor of The New Yorker, and contributing editor of the New York Review of Books. He is currently a staff writer at The New Yorker. In 2016 he was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Barack Obama. His most notable book, The Metaphysical Club won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize in History, the Francis Parkman Prize from the Society of American Historians, and the Heartland Prize from the Chicago Tribune. Dr. Menand's most recently published book, The Free World, offers a new intellectual and cultural history of the postwar years and is one of The New York Times's 100 best books of 2021.

In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Fredrik Logevall about the early life of the 35th President of the United States, John F. Kennedy. They discuss why JFK's story is important for telling America's story. They mention the Irish immigrants that came to the United States and how his family gravitated to politics shortly after their immigration from Ireland. They provide the familial, national, and global backdrop for Jack along with the major characteristics of his psychological profile. They discuss the importance of Jack's various relationships, his foreign affairs experience, serving as US Representative and US Senator, and many more topics.  Fredrik Logevall is the Laurence D. Belfer Professor of International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government and Professor of History, Harvard University. He is a specialist in US foreign affairs and international history. He won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for History, 2013 Francis Parkman Prize, as well as the 2013 American Library in Paris Book Award and the 2013 Arthur Ross Book Award from the Council on Foreign Relations for his book, Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam. His latest book, JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917-1956, is the first of two volume biography on JFK. 

Frank Schaeffer In Conversation with Charles King, Professor and Author of New York Times-bestselling Gods of the Upper Air._____LEARN MORE ABOUT CHARLES AT HIS WEBSITE OR ON TWITTER.ARTICLES:I, Too, Was Once a Soldier of the Apocalypse: Why White Evangelicals Must Choose Between Reform and American ExtremismThe Fulbright ParadoxRace and the Road to a New American Internationalism_____Charles King is the author of seven books, including the New York Times-bestselling GODS OF THE UPPER AIR (2019), winner of the Francis Parkman Prize and the Anisfield-Wolf Award, and finalist for the National Book Critics Circle award and the Los Angeles Times history prize; MIDNIGHT AT THE PERA PALACE (2014), a New York Times Editors' Choice and inspiration for an upcoming Netflix series of the same name; and ODESSA: GENIUS AND DEATH IN A CITY OF DREAMS (2011), winner of a National Jewish Book Award. He lectures widely on global affairs and has appeared on broadcast media such as NPR, PBS, MSNBC, and the BBC. A native of the Ozark hill country, King studied history and politics at the University of Arkansas and Oxford University, where he was a British Marshall Scholar. He is Professor of International Affairs and Government at Georgetown University, where he previously served as chair of the Department of Government and faculty chair of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service._____In Conversation… with Frank Schaeffer is a production of the George Bailey Morality in Public Life Fellowship. It is hosted by Frank Schaeffer, author of Fall In Love, Have Children, Stay Put, Save the Planet, Be Happy.Learn more at https://www.lovechildrenplanet.comFollow Frank on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.https://www.facebook.com/frank.schaeffer.16https://twitter.com/Frank_Schaefferhttps://www.youtube.com/c/FrankSchaefferYouTubeIn Conversation… with Frank Schaeffer PodcastApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/in-conversation-with-frank-schaeffer/id1570357787Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1FVF48mNwzNaLd1tJ4zH6y?si=aeVQ54ieTA-hlSuMNB5APA&dl_branch=1_____Support the show

Louis Menand is the Lee Simpkins Family Professor of Arts and Sciences and the Anne T. and Robert M.Bass Professor of English at Harvard University. He is a staff writer at The New Yorker Magazine and has served as an associate editor at The New Republic and a contributing editor at The New York Review of Books. His book The Metaphysical Club earned him the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for history and the Francis Parkman Prize from the Society of American Historians. In 2016, he was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Obama. Most recently he is the author of the triumphant new book The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War, which was published in April 2021 by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. Louis Menand Book Recommendations: Tristes Tropiques - Claude Levi-Strauss Chance and Circumstance: Twenty Years with Cage and Cunningham - Carolyn Brown Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 - Tony Judt Warhol - Blake Gopnik Wolf Hall Trilogy - Hilary Mantel About The Inquiring Mind Podcast: I created The Inquiring Mind Podcast in order to foster free speech, learn from some of the top experts in various fields, and create a platform for respectful conversations. Learn More: https://www.theinquiringmindpodcast.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theinquiringmindpodcast/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theinquiringmindpodcast Twitter: https://twitter.com/StanGGoldberg TikTok: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMdKj2GeG/ Subscribe to the Inquiring Mind Podcast: Spotify: http://spoti.fi/3tdRSOs Apple: https://apple.co/3lGlEdB Google Podcasts: http://bit.ly/3eBZfLl Youtube: https://bit.ly/3tiQieE

  Frederick Douglas was the “prose poet of America's (and perhaps a universal) body politic. He searched for the human soul, envisioned through slavery and freedom in all their meanings. There had been no other voice quite like Douglass's.” Join me and Professor David Blight as we discuss his Pulitzer Prize winning biography, Frederick Douglass, Prophet of Freedom. The lessons Douglass taught about freedom, dignity, and justice nearly 150 years ago are as important and relevant today as they were then. Guest David W. Blight, Sterling Professor of American History at Yale University David W. Blight  is a teacher, scholar and public historian. At Yale University he is Sterling Professor of History, joining that faculty in January, 2003. As of June, 2004, he is Director, succeeding David Brion Davis, of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition. In his capacity as director of the Gilder Lehrman Center at Yale, Blight organizes conferences, working groups, lectures, the administering of the annual Frederick Douglass Book Prize, and many public outreach programs regarding the history of slavery and its abolition. He previously taught at Amherst College for thirteen years. In 2013-14 he was the William Pitt Professor of American History at Cambridge University, UK, and in 2010-11, Blight was the Rogers Distinguished Fellow in 19th-Century American History at the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA. During the 2006-07 academic year he was a fellow at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Writers and Scholars, New York Public Library. In October of 2018, Simon and Schuster published his new biography of Frederick Douglass, entitled, Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, which garnered nine book awards, including the Pulitzer Prize, the Francis Parkman Prize, the Bancroft Prize, and the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize. The Douglass book has been optioned by Higher Ground Productions and Netflix for a projected feature film. Blight works in many capacities in the world of public history, including on boards of museums and historical societies, and as a member of a small team of advisors to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum team of curators. For that institution he wrote the recently published essay, “Will It Rise: September 11 in American Memory.”  In 2012, Blight was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and delivered an induction address, “The Pleasure and Pain of History.” In 2018, Blight was appointed by the Georgia Historical Society as a Vincent J. Dooley Distinguished Teaching Fellow, which recognizes national leaders in the field of history as both writers and educators whose research has enhanced or changed the way the public understands the past. Blight's newest books include annotated editions, with introductory essay, of Frederick Douglass's second autobiography, My Bondage and My Freedom (Yale Univ. Press, 2013), Robert Penn Warren's Who Speaks for the Negro, (Yale Univ. Press, 2014), and the monograph, American Oracle: The Civil War in the Civil Rights Era (Harvard University Press, published August 2011), which received the 2012 Anisfield-Wolf Award for best book in non-fiction on racism and human diversity. American Oracle is an intellectual history of Civil War memory, rooted in the work of Robert Penn Warren, Bruce Catton, Edmund Wilson, and James Baldwin.  Blight is also the author of A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom, Including their Narratives of Emancipation, (Harcourt, 2007, paperback in 2009).  This book combines two newly discovered slave narratives in a volume that recovers the lives of their authors, John Washington and Wallace Turnage, as well as provides an incisive history of the story of emancipation.  In June, 2004, the New York Times ran a front page story about the discovery and significance of these two rare slave narratives.

  Frederick Douglas was the “prose poet of America's (and perhaps a universal) body politic. He searched for the human soul, envisioned through slavery and freedom in all their meanings. There had been no other voice quite like Douglass's.” Join me and Professor David Blight as we discuss his Pulitzer Prize winning biography, Frederick Douglass, Prophet of Freedom. The lessons Douglass taught about freedom, dignity, and justice nearly 150 years ago are as important and relevant today as they were then. Guest David W. Blight, Sterling Professor of American History at Yale University David W. Blight  is a teacher, scholar and public historian. At Yale University he is Sterling Professor of History, joining that faculty in January, 2003. As of June, 2004, he is Director, succeeding David Brion Davis, of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition. In his capacity as director of the Gilder Lehrman Center at Yale, Blight organizes conferences, working groups, lectures, the administering of the annual Frederick Douglass Book Prize, and many public outreach programs regarding the history of slavery and its abolition. He previously taught at Amherst College for thirteen years. In 2013-14 he was the William Pitt Professor of American History at Cambridge University, UK, and in 2010-11, Blight was the Rogers Distinguished Fellow in 19th-Century American History at the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA. During the 2006-07 academic year he was a fellow at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Writers and Scholars, New York Public Library. In October of 2018, Simon and Schuster published his new biography of Frederick Douglass, entitled, Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, which garnered nine book awards, including the Pulitzer Prize, the Francis Parkman Prize, the Bancroft Prize, and the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize. The Douglass book has been optioned by Higher Ground Productions and Netflix for a projected feature film. Blight works in many capacities in the world of public history, including on boards of museums and historical societies, and as a member of a small team of advisors to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum team of curators. For that institution he wrote the recently published essay, “Will It Rise: September 11 in American Memory.”  In 2012, Blight was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and delivered an induction address, “The Pleasure and Pain of History.” In 2018, Blight was appointed by the Georgia Historical Society as a Vincent J. Dooley Distinguished Teaching Fellow, which recognizes national leaders in the field of history as both writers and educators whose research has enhanced or changed the way the public understands the past. Blight's newest books include annotated editions, with introductory essay, of Frederick Douglass's second autobiography, My Bondage and My Freedom (Yale Univ. Press, 2013), Robert Penn Warren's Who Speaks for the Negro, (Yale Univ. Press, 2014), and the monograph, American Oracle: The Civil War in the Civil Rights Era (Harvard University Press, published August 2011), which received the 2012 Anisfield-Wolf Award for best book in non-fiction on racism and human diversity. American Oracle is an intellectual history of Civil War memory, rooted in the work of Robert Penn Warren, Bruce Catton, Edmund Wilson, and James Baldwin.  Blight is also the author of A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom, Including their Narratives of Emancipation, (Harcourt, 2007, paperback in 2009).  This book combines two newly discovered slave narratives in a volume that recovers the lives of their authors, John Washington and Wallace Turnage, as well as provides an incisive history of the story of emancipation.  In June, 2004, the New York Times ran a front page story about the discovery and significance of these two rare slave narratives.  A Slave No More garnered three book prizes, including the Connecticut Book Award for non-fictio...

The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914 By: David McCullough  Narrated by: Edward Herrmann This selection serves as an introduction to this fine book. It is available on Audible or purchase at your favorite book seller The National Book Award–winning epic chronicle of the creation of the Panama Canal, a first-rate drama of the bold and brilliant engineering feat that was filled with both tragedy and triumph, told by master historian David McCullough. From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Truman, here is the national bestselling epic chronicle of the creation of the Panama Canal. In The Path Between the Seas, acclaimed historian David McCullough delivers a first-rate drama of the sweeping human undertaking that led to the creation of this grand enterprise. The Path Between the Seas tells the story of the men and women who fought against all odds to fulfill the 400-year-old dream of constructing an aquatic passageway between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It is a story of astonishing engineering feats, tremendous medical accomplishments, political power plays, heroic successes, and tragic failures. Applying his remarkable gift for writing lucid, lively exposition, McCullough weaves the many strands of the momentous event into a comprehensive and captivating tale. Winner of the National Book Award for history, the Francis Parkman Prize, the Samuel Eliot Morison Award, and the Cornelius Ryan Award (for the best book of the year on international affairs), The Path Between the Seas is a must-read for anyone interested in American history, the history of technology, international intrigue, and human drama.

The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914 By: David McCullough  Narrated by: Edward Herrmann This selection serves as an introduction to this fine book. It is available on Audible or purchase at your favorite book seller The National Book Award–winning epic chronicle of the creation of the Panama Canal, a first-rate drama of the bold and brilliant engineering feat that was filled with both tragedy and triumph, told by master historian David McCullough. From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Truman, here is the national bestselling epic chronicle of the creation of the Panama Canal. In The Path Between the Seas, acclaimed historian David McCullough delivers a first-rate drama of the sweeping human undertaking that led to the creation of this grand enterprise. The Path Between the Seas tells the story of the men and women who fought against all odds to fulfill the 400-year-old dream of constructing an aquatic passageway between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It is a story of astonishing engineering feats, tremendous medical accomplishments, political power plays, heroic successes, and tragic failures. Applying his remarkable gift for writing lucid, lively exposition, McCullough weaves the many strands of the momentous event into a comprehensive and captivating tale. Winner of the National Book Award for history, the Francis Parkman Prize, the Samuel Eliot Morison Award, and the Cornelius Ryan Award (for the best book of the year on international affairs), The Path Between the Seas is a must-read for anyone interested in American history, the history of technology, international intrigue, and human drama.

From the winner of the Bancroft Prize and the Francis Parkman Prize in History, a lost episode rediscovered after almost two hundred years; a thwarted love triangle of heartbreak–two men and a woman of equal ambition–that exploded in scandal and investigation, set between America's Revolution and its Civil War, revealing an age in subtle and powerful transformation, caught between the fight for women's rights and the campaign waged by evangelical Protestants to dominate the nation's culture and politics.At its center–and the center of a love triangle–Martha Parker, a gifted young New England woman, smart, pretty, ambitious, determined to make the most of her opportunities, aspiring to become an educator and a foreign missionary.Late in 1825, Martha accepted a proposal from a schoolmaster, Thomas Tenney, only to reject him several weeks later for a rival suitor, a clergyman headed for the mission field, Elnathan Gridley. Tenney's male friends, deeply resentful of the new prominence of women in academies, benevolent and reform associations, and the mission field, decided to retaliate on Tenney's behalf by sending an anonymous letter to the head of the foreign missions board impugning Martha's character. Tenney further threatened Martha with revealing even more about their relationship, thereby ruining her future prospects as a missionary. The head of the board began an inquiry into the truth of the claims about Martha, and in so doing, collected letters, diaries, depositions, and firsthand witness accounts of Martha's character. The ruin of Martha Parker's hopes provoked a resistance within evangelical ranks over womanhood, manhood, and, surprisingly, homosexuality, ultimately threatening to destroy the foreign missions enterprise.-CHRISTINE LEIGH HEYRMAN is the Robert W. and Shirley P. Grimble Professor of American History at the University of Delaware.

Eric Foner, the 2020 Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards winner for Lifetime Achievement, joins The Asterisk* to discuss the Jan. 6, 2021 storming of the U.S. Capitol, his marriage to a fellow historian and his place among the most influential American historians of the last half-century. With more than two dozen books to his credit, AWBA jury chair Henry Louis Gates Jr. says Foner “is the dean of Reconstruction historians, and is one of the most generous, and genuinely passionate, professors of his generation.” In arguably his most influential book, “Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution,” Foner tracked the warp and weave in the struggle for freedom and equality long after the Confederacy expired. It won the Bancroft Prize, the Francis Parkman Prize, a Los Angeles Times Book Award, the Avery O. Craven Prize and the Lionel Trilling Award. The book is still considered the premier synthesis of the years 1863-1877.

Today, a discussion with historian John Barry!John M. Barry is a prize-winning and New York Times best-selling author whose books have won multiple awards. The National Academies of Sciences named his 2004 book The Great Influenza: The story of the deadliest pandemic in history, a study of the 1918 pandemic, the year's outstanding book on science or medicine. His earlier book Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America, won the Francis Parkman Prize of the Society of American Historians for the year's best book of American history and in 2005 the New York Public Library named it one of the 50 best books in the preceding 50 years, including fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. In 2006 he became the only non-scientist ever to give the National Academies Abel Wolman Distinguished Lecture, a lecture which honors contributions to water-related science, and he was the only non-scientist on a federal government Infectious Disease Board of Experts. His latest book is Roger Williams and The Creation of the American Soul: Church, State, and the Birth of Liberty, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and winner of the New England Society Book Award. 

In this conversation, Dr. Bob talks with John Barry, author of the New York Times Bestselling book, The Great Influenza. This discussion comes at a perfect time of where we are in the climate of COVID-19 and John Barry does an excellent job of explaining his research of the Great Influenza. Dr. Bob and John's discussion is informative and dynamic - a must listen episode!   John M. Barry is a prize-winning and New York Times best-selling author whose books have won multiple awards. The National Academies of Sciences named his 2004 book The Great Influenza: The story of the deadliest pandemic in history, a study of the 1918 pandemic, the year's outstanding book on science or medicine. His earlier book Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America, won the Francis Parkman Prize of the Society of American Historians for the year's best book of American history and in 2005 the New York Public Library named it one of the 50 best books in the preceding 50 years, including fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. His books have also been embraced by experts in applicable fields: in 2006 he became the only non-scientist ever to give the National Academies Abel Wolman Distinguished Lecture, a lecture which honors contributions to water-related science, and he was the only non-scientist on a federal government Infectious Disease Board of Experts. He has served on numerous boards, including ones at M.I.T's Center for Engineering Systems Fundamentals, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and the Society of American Historians. His latest book is Roger Williams and The Creation of the American Soul: Church, State, and the Birth of Liberty, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and winner of the New England Society Book Award.    How to contact Dr. Bob: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChztMVtPCLJkiXvv7H5tpDQ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drroberthamilton/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bob.hamilton.1656 Seven Secrets Of The Newborn website: https://7secretsofthenewborn.com/ Website: https://roberthamiltonmd.com/ Pacific Ocean Pediatrics: http://www.pacificoceanpediatrics.com/

In grappling with the Covid-19 pandemic, many scientists and government officials are looking to the 1918 pandemic as a reference point for lessons learned. Also known as the "Spanish Flu," this epidemic was the most sweeping of the 20th century, infecting one third of the world’s population, and upending social, political, and economic norms. John M. Barry, a New York Times best-selling author, joins this episode to discuss his book, “The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History.” The book was named the 2004 book by the National Academies of Science, and is garnering current attention given its relevancy to today.  Barry has been recognized in the field of science for his work and has been a source to politicians on both sides of the aisle for his insights on pandemics. He is also the author of several other books, including, “Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How it Changed America,” which won the 1998 Francis Parkman Prize for the best book of U.S. history; “Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul;” and "The Ambition and the Power: The Fall of Jim Wright: A True Story of Washington."

n grappling with the Covid-19 pandemic, many scientists and government officials are looking to the 1918 pandemic as a reference point for lessons learned. Also known as the "Spanish Flu," this epidemic was the most sweeping of the 20th century, infecting one third of the world’s population, and upending social, political, and economic norms. John M. Barry, a New York Times best-selling author, joins this episode to discuss his book, “The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History.” The book was named the 2004 book by the National Academies of Science, and is garnering current attention given its relevancy to today. Barry has been recognized in the field of science for his work and has been a source to politicians on both sides of the aisle for his insights on pandemics. He is also the author of several other books, including, “Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How it Changed America,” which won the 1998 Francis Parkman Prize for the best book of U.S. history; “Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul;” and "The Ambition and the Power: The Fall of Jim Wright: A True Story of Washington."

John M. Barry is a prize-winning and New York Times best-selling author whose books have won multiple awards. The National Academies of Sciences named his 2004 book The Great Influenza: The story of the deadliest pandemic in history, a study of the 1918 pandemic, the year’s outstanding book on science or medicine. His earlier book Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America, won the Francis Parkman Prize of the Society of American Historians for the year’s best book of American history and in 2005 the New York Public Library named it one of the 50 best books in the preceding 50 years, including fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. His books have also been embraced by experts in applicable fields: in 2006 he became the only non-scientist ever to give the National Academies Abel Wolman Distinguished Lecture, a lecture which honors contributions to water-related science, and he was the only non-scientist on a federal government Infectious Disease Board of Experts. He has served on numerous boards, including ones at M.I.T's Center for Engineering Systems Fundamentals, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and the Society of American Historians. His latest book is Roger Williams and The Creation of the American Soul: Church, State, and the Birth of Liberty, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and winner of the New England Society Book Award. His books have involved him in two areas of public policy. In 2004, he began working with the National Academies and several federal government entities on influenza preparedness and response, and he was a member of the original team which developed plans for mitigating a pandemic by using "non-pharmaceutical interventions"-- i.e., public health measures to take before a vaccine becomes available. Both the Bush and Obama administrations have sought his advice on influenza preparedness and response, and he continues his activity in this area. He has been equally active in water issues. After Hurricane Katrina, the Louisiana congressional delegation asked him to chair a bipartisan working group on flood protection, and he served on the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority East, overseeing levee districts in metropolitan New Orleans, from its founding in 2007 until October 2013, as well as on the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, which is responsible for the statewide hurricane protection. Barry has worked with state, federal, United Nations, and World Health Organization officials on influenza, water-related disasters, and risk communication.His writing has received not only formal awards but less formal recognition as well. In 2004 GQ named Rising Tide one of nine pieces of writing essential to understanding America; that list also included Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address and Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” His first book, The Ambition and the Power: A true story of Washington, was cited by The New York Times as one of the eleven best books ever written about Washington and the Congress. His second book The Transformed Cell: Unlocking the Mysteries of Cancer, coauthored with Dr. Steven Rosenberg, was published in twelve languages. And a story about football he wrote was selected for inclusion in an anthology of the best football writing of all time published in 2006 by Sports Illustrated.A keynote speaker at such varied events as a White House Conference on the Mississippi Delta and an International Congress on Respiratory Viruses, he has also given talks in such venues as the National War College, the Council on Foreign Relations, and Harvard Business School. He is co-originator of what is now called the Bywater Institute, a Tulane University center dedicated to comprehensive river research. His articles have appeared in such scientific journals as Nature and Journal of Infectious Disease as well as in lay publications ranging from Sports Illustrated to Politico, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Fortune, Time, Newsweek, and Esquire. A frequent guest on every broadcast network in the US, he has appeared on such shows as NBC's Meet the Press, ABC's World News, and NPR's All Things Considered, and on such foreign media as the BBC and Al Jazeera. He has also served as a consultant for Sony Pictures and contributed to award-winning television documentaries. Before becoming a writer, Barry coached football at the high school, small college, and major college levels. Currently Distinguished Scholar at Tulane's Bywater Institute and adjunct faculty at the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, he lives in New Orleans.

John M. Barry is a prize-winning and New York Times best-selling author whose books have won multiple awards. The National Academies of Sciences named his 2004 book The Great Influenza: The story of the deadliest pandemic in history, a study of the 1918 pandemic, the year’s outstanding book on science or medicine. His earlier book Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America, won the Francis Parkman Prize of the Society of American Historians for the year’s best book of American history and in 2005 the New York Public Library named it one of the 50 best books in the preceding 50 years, including fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. His books have also been embraced by experts in applicable fields: in 2006 he became the only non-scientist ever to give the National Academies Abel Wolman Distinguished Lecture, a lecture which honors contributions to water-related science, and he was the only non-scientist on a federal government Infectious Disease Board of Experts. He has served on numerous boards, including ones at M.I.T's Center for Engineering Systems Fundamentals, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and the Society of American Historians. His latest book is Roger Williams and The Creation of the American Soul: Church, State, and the Birth of Liberty, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and winner of the New England Society Book Award. His books have involved him in two areas of public policy. In 2004, he began working with the National Academies and several federal government entities on influenza preparedness and response, and he was a member of the original team which developed plans for mitigating a pandemic by using "non-pharmaceutical interventions"-- i.e., public health measures to take before a vaccine becomes available. Both the Bush and Obama administrations have sought his advice on influenza preparedness and response, and he continues his activity in this area. He has been equally active in water issues. After Hurricane Katrina, the Louisiana congressional delegation asked him to chair a bipartisan working group on flood protection, and he served on the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority East, overseeing levee districts in metropolitan New Orleans, from its founding in 2007 until October 2013, as well as on the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, which is responsible for the statewide hurricane protection. Barry has worked with state, federal, United Nations, and World Health Organization officials on influenza, water-related disasters, and risk communication.His writing has received not only formal awards but less formal recognition as well. In 2004 GQ named Rising Tide one of nine pieces of writing essential to understanding America; that list also included Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address and Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” His first book, The Ambition and the Power: A true story of Washington, was cited by The New York Times as one of the eleven best books ever written about Washington and the Congress. His second book The Transformed Cell: Unlocking the Mysteries of Cancer, coauthored with Dr. Steven Rosenberg, was published in twelve languages. And a story about football he wrote was selected for inclusion in an anthology of the best football writing of all time published in 2006 by Sports Illustrated.A keynote speaker at such varied events as a White House Conference on the Mississippi Delta and an International Congress on Respiratory Viruses, he has also given talks in such venues as the National War College, the Council on Foreign Relations, and Harvard Business School. He is co-originator of what is now called the Bywater Institute, a Tulane University center dedicated to comprehensive river research. His articles have appeared in such scientific journals as Nature and Journal of Infectious Disease as well as in lay publications ranging from Sports Illustrated to Politico, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Fortune, Time, Newsweek, and Esquire. A frequent guest on every broadcast network in the US, he has appeared on such shows as NBC's Meet the Press, ABC's World News, and NPR's All Things Considered, and on such foreign media as the BBC and Al Jazeera. He has also served as a consultant for Sony Pictures and contributed to award-winning television documentaries. Before becoming a writer, Barry coached football at the high school, small college, and major college levels. Currently Distinguished Scholar at Tulane's Bywater Institute and adjunct faculty at the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, he lives in New Orleans.

A repost of Robert Caro's live event at BookPeople Bookstore in Austin, Tx. For his biographies of Robert Moses and Lyndon Johnson, ROBERT A. CARO has twice won the Pulitzer Prize, twice won the National Book Award, three times won the National Book Critics Circle Award, and has also won virtually every other major literary honor, including the Gold Medal in Biography from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Francis Parkman Prize. In 2010, President Barack Obama awarded Caro the National Humanities Medal. Caro graduated from Princeton, was later a Nieman Fellow at Harvard, and worked for six years as an investigative reporter for Newsday. He lives with his wife, the writer Ina Caro, in New York City, where he is at work on the fifth and final volume of The Years of Lyndon Johnson.

Black Elk witnessed some of the most monumental moments in the history of the Lakota and the Northern Great Plains: Red Cloud’s War, the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the murder of Crazy Horse, Wounded Knee. In his compelling new biography, Black Elk: The Life of an American Visionary (Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 2016), award-winning nonfiction writer and journalist Joe Jackson tells the story of this place and these events through the chronicle of Black Elk’s life. As one of the most globally famous practitioners of Lakota spirituality, Black Elk’s life is well known. Jackson uses an array of sources to breathe new life into his story and presents the complicated, sometimes tragic, sometimes hopeful figure within his historical context. Jackson’s prose is crisp and vibrant, and the narrative of Black Elk’s religious and personal lives make for a page-turning story. Black Elk: The Fife of an American Visionary won the 2017 Francis Parkman Prize from the Society of American Historians. Stephen Hausmann is a doctoral candidate at Temple University and Visiting Instructor of history at the University of Pittsburgh. He is currently writing his dissertation, a history of race and the environment in the Black Hills and surrounding northern plains region of South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Black Elk witnessed some of the most monumental moments in the history of the Lakota and the Northern Great Plains: Red Cloud’s War, the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the murder of Crazy Horse, Wounded Knee. In his compelling new biography, Black Elk: The Life of an American Visionary (Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 2016), award-winning nonfiction writer and journalist Joe Jackson tells the story of this place and these events through the chronicle of Black Elk’s life. As one of the most globally famous practitioners of Lakota spirituality, Black Elk’s life is well known. Jackson uses an array of sources to breathe new life into his story and presents the complicated, sometimes tragic, sometimes hopeful figure within his historical context. Jackson’s prose is crisp and vibrant, and the narrative of Black Elk’s religious and personal lives make for a page-turning story. Black Elk: The Fife of an American Visionary won the 2017 Francis Parkman Prize from the Society of American Historians. Stephen Hausmann is a doctoral candidate at Temple University and Visiting Instructor of history at the University of Pittsburgh. He is currently writing his dissertation, a history of race and the environment in the Black Hills and surrounding northern plains region of South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Black Elk witnessed some of the most monumental moments in the history of the Lakota and the Northern Great Plains: Red Cloud’s War, the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the murder of Crazy Horse, Wounded Knee. In his compelling new biography, Black Elk: The Life of an American Visionary (Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 2016), award-winning nonfiction writer and journalist Joe Jackson tells the story of this place and these events through the chronicle of Black Elk’s life. As one of the most globally famous practitioners of Lakota spirituality, Black Elk’s life is well known. Jackson uses an array of sources to breathe new life into his story and presents the complicated, sometimes tragic, sometimes hopeful figure within his historical context. Jackson’s prose is crisp and vibrant, and the narrative of Black Elk’s religious and personal lives make for a page-turning story. Black Elk: The Fife of an American Visionary won the 2017 Francis Parkman Prize from the Society of American Historians. Stephen Hausmann is a doctoral candidate at Temple University and Visiting Instructor of history at the University of Pittsburgh. He is currently writing his dissertation, a history of race and the environment in the Black Hills and surrounding northern plains region of South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Black Elk witnessed some of the most monumental moments in the history of the Lakota and the Northern Great Plains: Red Cloud’s War, the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the murder of Crazy Horse, Wounded Knee. In his compelling new biography, Black Elk: The Life of an American Visionary (Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 2016), award-winning nonfiction writer and journalist Joe Jackson tells the story of this place and these events through the chronicle of Black Elk’s life. As one of the most globally famous practitioners of Lakota spirituality, Black Elk’s life is well known. Jackson uses an array of sources to breathe new life into his story and presents the complicated, sometimes tragic, sometimes hopeful figure within his historical context. Jackson’s prose is crisp and vibrant, and the narrative of Black Elk’s religious and personal lives make for a page-turning story. Black Elk: The Fife of an American Visionary won the 2017 Francis Parkman Prize from the Society of American Historians. Stephen Hausmann is a doctoral candidate at Temple University and Visiting Instructor of history at the University of Pittsburgh. He is currently writing his dissertation, a history of race and the environment in the Black Hills and surrounding northern plains region of South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Black Elk witnessed some of the most monumental moments in the history of the Lakota and the Northern Great Plains: Red Cloud’s War, the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the murder of Crazy Horse, Wounded Knee. In his compelling new biography, Black Elk: The Life of an American Visionary (Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 2016), award-winning nonfiction writer and journalist Joe Jackson tells the story of this place and these events through the chronicle of Black Elk’s life. As one of the most globally famous practitioners of Lakota spirituality, Black Elk’s life is well known. Jackson uses an array of sources to breathe new life into his story and presents the complicated, sometimes tragic, sometimes hopeful figure within his historical context. Jackson’s prose is crisp and vibrant, and the narrative of Black Elk’s religious and personal lives make for a page-turning story. Black Elk: The Fife of an American Visionary won the 2017 Francis Parkman Prize from the Society of American Historians. Stephen Hausmann is a doctoral candidate at Temple University and Visiting Instructor of history at the University of Pittsburgh. He is currently writing his dissertation, a history of race and the environment in the Black Hills and surrounding northern plains region of South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Black Elk witnessed some of the most monumental moments in the history of the Lakota and the Northern Great Plains: Red Cloud’s War, the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the murder of Crazy Horse, Wounded Knee. In his compelling new biography, Black Elk: The Life of an American Visionary (Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 2016), award-winning nonfiction writer and journalist Joe Jackson tells the story of this place and these events through the chronicle of Black Elk’s life. As one of the most globally famous practitioners of Lakota spirituality, Black Elk’s life is well known. Jackson uses an array of sources to breathe new life into his story and presents the complicated, sometimes tragic, sometimes hopeful figure within his historical context. Jackson’s prose is crisp and vibrant, and the narrative of Black Elk’s religious and personal lives make for a page-turning story. Black Elk: The Fife of an American Visionary won the 2017 Francis Parkman Prize from the Society of American Historians. Stephen Hausmann is a doctoral candidate at Temple University and Visiting Instructor of history at the University of Pittsburgh. He is currently writing his dissertation, a history of race and the environment in the Black Hills and surrounding northern plains region of South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In conversation with Sam Katz, civic entrepreneur and executive producer of History Making Productions Professor emeritus of history at New York University, David Levering Lewis won the Pulitzer Prize in 1994 and 2001 for his ''superb'' (The Nation) two-volume biography of W.E.B. Du Bois, the polymath founder of the NAACP and a principal shaper of the Civil Rights Movement. His other books include God's Crucible, Race to Fashoda, and 1970's King, notable for being the first scholarly biography of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. His many honors include the Bancroft Prize, the Francis Parkman Prize, and the National Humanities Medal. His latest book is a biography of the unlikely Republican nominee who would lose to Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1940. Watch the video here. (recorded 9/26/2018)

Great Crossings: Indians, Settlers, and Slaves in the Age of Jackson (Oxford, 2017) is a dramatic and vibrant story of a little-known Kentucky school, the Choctaw Academy. Christina Snyder, McCabe-Greer Professor of History at Penn State University, argues that this short-lived institution represented both the promise of a multi-ethnic American society, as well as the withering of that dream during the era of Jacksonian Democracy and Indian Removal. Snyder presents several characters, including the Choctaw scion Peter Pitchlynn, the enslaved nurse and sometime-plantation overseer Julia Chinn, and her mate and master, Vice President Richard M. Johnson. Each person’s story (as well as several others) underscores the complicated hierarchies of race and class in antebellum America, as their histories intertwine with that of the Choctaw Academy and its students. Winner of the 2018 Francis Parkman Prize from the Society of American Historians, Great Crossings is a richly told and thickly researched tale that upends simple narratives of pre-Civil War American society, Native nations, and enslaved people. In their place, Snyder tells of complex humans acting by turns graciously and selfishly, with cruelty and with kindness, as the diverse population of the antebellum American West fumbled its way into the modern era. Stephen Hausmann is a doctoral candidate at Temple University and Visiting Instructor of history at the University of Pittsburgh. He is currently writing his dissertation, a history of race and the environment in the Black Hills and surrounding northern plains region of South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Great Crossings: Indians, Settlers, and Slaves in the Age of Jackson (Oxford, 2017) is a dramatic and vibrant story of a little-known Kentucky school, the Choctaw Academy. Christina Snyder, McCabe-Greer Professor of History at Penn State University, argues that this short-lived institution represented both the promise of a multi-ethnic American society, as well as the withering of that dream during the era of Jacksonian Democracy and Indian Removal. Snyder presents several characters, including the Choctaw scion Peter Pitchlynn, the enslaved nurse and sometime-plantation overseer Julia Chinn, and her mate and master, Vice President Richard M. Johnson. Each person’s story (as well as several others) underscores the complicated hierarchies of race and class in antebellum America, as their histories intertwine with that of the Choctaw Academy and its students. Winner of the 2018 Francis Parkman Prize from the Society of American Historians, Great Crossings is a richly told and thickly researched tale that upends simple narratives of pre-Civil War American society, Native nations, and enslaved people. In their place, Snyder tells of complex humans acting by turns graciously and selfishly, with cruelty and with kindness, as the diverse population of the antebellum American West fumbled its way into the modern era. Stephen Hausmann is a doctoral candidate at Temple University and Visiting Instructor of history at the University of Pittsburgh. He is currently writing his dissertation, a history of race and the environment in the Black Hills and surrounding northern plains region of South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Great Crossings: Indians, Settlers, and Slaves in the Age of Jackson (Oxford, 2017) is a dramatic and vibrant story of a little-known Kentucky school, the Choctaw Academy. Christina Snyder, McCabe-Greer Professor of History at Penn State University, argues that this short-lived institution represented both the promise of a multi-ethnic American society, as well as the withering of that dream during the era of Jacksonian Democracy and Indian Removal. Snyder presents several characters, including the Choctaw scion Peter Pitchlynn, the enslaved nurse and sometime-plantation overseer Julia Chinn, and her mate and master, Vice President Richard M. Johnson. Each person's story (as well as several others) underscores the complicated hierarchies of race and class in antebellum America, as their histories intertwine with that of the Choctaw Academy and its students. Winner of the 2018 Francis Parkman Prize from the Society of American Historians, Great Crossings is a richly told and thickly researched tale that upends simple narratives of pre-Civil War American society, Native nations, and enslaved people. In their place, Snyder tells of complex humans acting by turns graciously and selfishly, with cruelty and with kindness, as the diverse population of the antebellum American West fumbled its way into the modern era. Stephen Hausmann is a doctoral candidate at Temple University and Visiting Instructor of history at the University of Pittsburgh. He is currently writing his dissertation, a history of race and the environment in the Black Hills and surrounding northern plains region of South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

Great Crossings: Indians, Settlers, and Slaves in the Age of Jackson (Oxford, 2017) is a dramatic and vibrant story of a little-known Kentucky school, the Choctaw Academy. Christina Snyder, McCabe-Greer Professor of History at Penn State University, argues that this short-lived institution represented both the promise of a multi-ethnic American society, as well as the withering of that dream during the era of Jacksonian Democracy and Indian Removal. Snyder presents several characters, including the Choctaw scion Peter Pitchlynn, the enslaved nurse and sometime-plantation overseer Julia Chinn, and her mate and master, Vice President Richard M. Johnson. Each person’s story (as well as several others) underscores the complicated hierarchies of race and class in antebellum America, as their histories intertwine with that of the Choctaw Academy and its students. Winner of the 2018 Francis Parkman Prize from the Society of American Historians, Great Crossings is a richly told and thickly researched tale that upends simple narratives of pre-Civil War American society, Native nations, and enslaved people. In their place, Snyder tells of complex humans acting by turns graciously and selfishly, with cruelty and with kindness, as the diverse population of the antebellum American West fumbled its way into the modern era. Stephen Hausmann is a doctoral candidate at Temple University and Visiting Instructor of history at the University of Pittsburgh. He is currently writing his dissertation, a history of race and the environment in the Black Hills and surrounding northern plains region of South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Great Crossings: Indians, Settlers, and Slaves in the Age of Jackson (Oxford, 2017) is a dramatic and vibrant story of a little-known Kentucky school, the Choctaw Academy. Christina Snyder, McCabe-Greer Professor of History at Penn State University, argues that this short-lived institution represented both the promise of a multi-ethnic American society, as well as the withering of that dream during the era of Jacksonian Democracy and Indian Removal. Snyder presents several characters, including the Choctaw scion Peter Pitchlynn, the enslaved nurse and sometime-plantation overseer Julia Chinn, and her mate and master, Vice President Richard M. Johnson. Each person's story (as well as several others) underscores the complicated hierarchies of race and class in antebellum America, as their histories intertwine with that of the Choctaw Academy and its students. Winner of the 2018 Francis Parkman Prize from the Society of American Historians, Great Crossings is a richly told and thickly researched tale that upends simple narratives of pre-Civil War American society, Native nations, and enslaved people. In their place, Snyder tells of complex humans acting by turns graciously and selfishly, with cruelty and with kindness, as the diverse population of the antebellum American West fumbled its way into the modern era. Stephen Hausmann is a doctoral candidate at Temple University and Visiting Instructor of history at the University of Pittsburgh. He is currently writing his dissertation, a history of race and the environment in the Black Hills and surrounding northern plains region of South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana.

Great Crossings: Indians, Settlers, and Slaves in the Age of Jackson (Oxford, 2017) is a dramatic and vibrant story of a little-known Kentucky school, the Choctaw Academy. Christina Snyder, McCabe-Greer Professor of History at Penn State University, argues that this short-lived institution represented both the promise of a multi-ethnic American society, as well as the withering of that dream during the era of Jacksonian Democracy and Indian Removal. Snyder presents several characters, including the Choctaw scion Peter Pitchlynn, the enslaved nurse and sometime-plantation overseer Julia Chinn, and her mate and master, Vice President Richard M. Johnson. Each person’s story (as well as several others) underscores the complicated hierarchies of race and class in antebellum America, as their histories intertwine with that of the Choctaw Academy and its students. Winner of the 2018 Francis Parkman Prize from the Society of American Historians, Great Crossings is a richly told and thickly researched tale that upends simple narratives of pre-Civil War American society, Native nations, and enslaved people. In their place, Snyder tells of complex humans acting by turns graciously and selfishly, with cruelty and with kindness, as the diverse population of the antebellum American West fumbled its way into the modern era. Stephen Hausmann is a doctoral candidate at Temple University and Visiting Instructor of history at the University of Pittsburgh. He is currently writing his dissertation, a history of race and the environment in the Black Hills and surrounding northern plains region of South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Great Crossings: Indians, Settlers, and Slaves in the Age of Jackson (Oxford, 2017) is a dramatic and vibrant story of a little-known Kentucky school, the Choctaw Academy. Christina Snyder, McCabe-Greer Professor of History at Penn State University, argues that this short-lived institution represented both the promise of a multi-ethnic American society, as well as the withering of that dream during the era of Jacksonian Democracy and Indian Removal. Snyder presents several characters, including the Choctaw scion Peter Pitchlynn, the enslaved nurse and sometime-plantation overseer Julia Chinn, and her mate and master, Vice President Richard M. Johnson. Each person’s story (as well as several others) underscores the complicated hierarchies of race and class in antebellum America, as their histories intertwine with that of the Choctaw Academy and its students. Winner of the 2018 Francis Parkman Prize from the Society of American Historians, Great Crossings is a richly told and thickly researched tale that upends simple narratives of pre-Civil War American society, Native nations, and enslaved people. In their place, Snyder tells of complex humans acting by turns graciously and selfishly, with cruelty and with kindness, as the diverse population of the antebellum American West fumbled its way into the modern era. Stephen Hausmann is a doctoral candidate at Temple University and Visiting Instructor of history at the University of Pittsburgh. He is currently writing his dissertation, a history of race and the environment in the Black Hills and surrounding northern plains region of South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Center of the American West is proud to announce the 2013 Wallace Stegner Award Winner: Western American Historian and Author, Elliott West. “Elliott West is the best historian of the American West writing today.” – Richard White Each year, the Center of the American West presents the Wallace Stegner Award to an individual who has have faithfully and evocatively depicted the spirit of the American West. Elliott West, who received his doctorate from the University of Colorado, is author of six books, most recently The Essential West: Collected Essays (2012). His book, The Last Indian War: The Nez Perce Story (2009) is one of three of his books to receive the Western Heritage Award and two to win the Western History Association’s Caughey Prize. His book, The Contested Plains (1998), received six national awards, including the PEN-West Award as the year’s best non-fiction book, and the Francis Parkman Prize as the outstanding book in American history. It is considered a classic in the field. This event is made possible by the generosity of Al and Carol Ann Olson.

This week, we welcome Dr. John M. Barry, author of Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul. Dr. Barry is also the author of Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Floor of 1927 and How It Changed America, recipient of the Francis Parkman Prize from the Society of American Historians and The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague In History, recipient of the Keck Award from the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Barry is Distinguished Scholar at the Center for Bioenvironmental Research of Tulane and Xavier Universities. Dr. Barry?s web site is www.johnmbarry.com