read. cities are to friends and you know how they are when they ask you to do things who asked me to do this and i said sure. i put aside my misgivings to i know it's a fascinating topic. so much material, very rich, but i wondered if i would be able to sort of curb my natural feelings of antipathy about looking at this particular period of american history and i agreed to do it. that was many years ago. this book is i have to confess long overdue in between saying i would do that i read the hemingses of monticello which took a lot of time and energy and then i came back to this seriously and finished it and i am very glad that i did. ..

>> up next on booktv, harlow unger presents a look at the boston tea party and report the demonstration against the selection of import against the british was most smugglers and tax invaders. mr. unger spoke and took audience questions for about an hour. >> there is nothing so easy as to persuade people that they're

badly governed. those words were spoken by the 18th century massachusetts governor, thomas hutchison. i'll tell you more about him later. let me tell you what else he said because his word to mean as much today as much as they did then in 1774. governor hutchinson said you can take the happiest and most comfortable people can use malicious rhetorical skills to arouse popular discontent with their government power with their rulers, it even themselves one of the weaknesses he said, these are his words. this is one of the weaknesses of human nature, which ambitious politicians make use to serve their purposes. a year before he uttered those words, a group of boston

rabble-rousers had convinced americans they were miserable and quote, hutchinson does who thinks they are miserable are so despite all real evidence to the contrary. i doubt if there is a single one who knows that the original tea party movements are about. far from being patriots, those original tea partiers for most smugglers. some of them among the wealthiest and in america, john hancock, yes the john hancock with his declaration of independence left his name synonymous with the word signature. long before he put his john hancock on the declaration of independence, he was arguably among the wealthiest merchant

banker with a commanding view of the seascape. far from espousing liberty, hancock and fellow merchants in new england cover their businesses and communities with economic ruthlessness that often must their competitors homeless and penniless. like today, tea party movements that have nothing to do with peace. he was nothing more than a social network for wealthy women among the beverages. the tea party movement sparked the american revolution began 20 years earlier than the 1750s and 60s the new england

business leaders like tea parties supported across the government i refuse to pay higher taxes. nor has started in the early 1750s when overpopulation in the middle east, especially north sent interceptors poring over the appalachian mountains into what was then clenched territory. france at the time claimed all of canada, the lands around the great lakes, lands around either side of the ohio or mississippi river valley in the gulf of mexico. in 1763, the governor of virginia and a young nature named george washington. most americans don't know the story. the governor virginia said 21-year-old george washington

who became the site of present-day pittsburgh before the steelers started playing football there. washington ordered in the french refused and returned with troops and attacks are most americans don't know the story, but washington fired the first shot in what became the true world war. a conscience a western pennsylvania wilderness. take global conflict in the last seven years in england, france, austria, russia and a dozen other nations fighting for control of colonies in north america, africa, asia and the season between. the seven years were change the map of the world, chipping national borders, europe and

india and elsewhere. he's level thousands of times and villages in europe, still remains more than a million soldiers and civilians and encrypted nations including england and france. now remember it started in britain's north american colonies in the british government and british people naturally got her to subjects and british nor make a pentecostal door with their fellow citizens in britain. in fact, the government had raised property taxes so high in britain that armors rioted and demanded that americans pay their fair share of the war. don't let dean 64, the british government extended to the colonies a stamp tax that everyone in britain has been paying for more than 70 years. it amounted to nothing for the

average citizen. a penny or two attached to legal documents, publications and the packages of such nonessential products with plain cause. the harshest effect however were members of powerful special interest groups. they have been back then, too. the merchants, publishers and lawyers. the merchants had to put a stamp on the purchase order, on every bill of sale, on every newspaper and magazine and lawyers had to put the stamp on every legal document. deeds, wills and such. to cover politically ambitious and female items junior saw an opportunity to make money and to gain political power by organizing mobs of unemployed waterfront workers to protest

the stamp tax and there're many of these workers left after the seven years war. public support for the protest with their duties under the banner of constitutional right claims that americans had no representation in parliament and for parliament to tax them without representation is a violation of the british constitution. they were under these moms, under the secret pay of the merchants and newspaper publishers. adamson of dissent is mobs to britain's waterfront. he attacked tax yours, burns their homes, or b. amidships landing, gradually they close the waterfront and closed boston to almost all british ship.

adam sandler to political leaders he was absolutely filled with a sense of power and wanted to timor. he convinced other cities to follow suit. he said send up and down the coast of rowing coast of rowing rights and gained a national reputation as a great revolutionary leader. merchants meanwhile stop importing british good. an month, british manufacturers and exporters drew huge financial losses to british trade fell by 50%. the british merchants, british exporters demanded that parliament repeal stamp tax in america to restore trade relation. 1765 parliament did just that and turns them on and james otis than two euros in boston. not just who are these heroes?

both were from wealthy families and like many sons of wealthy new englanders they were harbored. we all make mistakes. if they had gone to yale they would have behaved themselves, gone out and gotten good jobs. adams was fun of boston's largest brewer. you still see the name that the current cinema and stare at nothing to do with the original brewery. his father died when sam is 36. until then, sam had been too lazy to earn a living on his own finale at taking control of the prairie and could have ran into bankruptcy. he allowed the family manager and seemed unconcerned with earning money, married, fathered two children after his wife's death his champion liberty bond himself a slave and racist

children in abject poverty. his father found in the senate care, an easy job as a tax collector, to insurers on the children and slaves. within a short time from his lechers showed a shortage of a thousand pound representing tax monies he had either failed to collect or had embezzled. he was later convicted of embezzlement. as for artists, he was a young lawyer who is deeply humiliated when the royal governors failed to appoint his father, james otis senior asked chief justice of the colony because of a clear conflict of interest. john otis grew a rational to undermine government retaliation. i shall step the plane even if i die an attempt he shouted. he edged towards insanity,

wondering into a boston tavern frequented by british officers to provoke a fight. an officer responded by clubbing him over the head. although he recovered from the physical and, he was an amount of sanity for the rest of his life. at times he would poke his head out of the window and start firing into the park of unseen british enemies. one time he wandered into the state humbly come after his sword and challenged the prime minister of england to come to boston and play his tool. eventually friends tightening down in the chair and carried him to the insane asylum. despite comments depravity and otis insanity, the stamp act protest, the stamp act protest, the stamp act protest in command of a powerful force in boston. but the repeal of a stamp that

love gruden still choking from economic problems. british government remained to encrypt. the large army in america to protect americans, not any financial support from the american. so british chancellor, charles thomson who is the equivalent of our secretary of treasury came up with a scheme to counter the adams otis argument of taxation without representation. he would no longer tax americans. you tax a good but britain shipped to america. glass, lead, paints, paper and tea. he reasoned that duties would be less painful for ordinary americans who could avoid paying them by simply using homemade substitutes. farmers and their families and 95% of americans live on farms

and wooden utensils for many things they needed. the people most effect to where the wealthy have a very beautiful british and european furniture and furnishings and lines and fancy gourmet food. when they post to these, they affected the richest colonials, not the poor or the middle classes. it affected those who are profiting most from the war, the shipowners, merchant, banker's. although the townshend duties do not upset americans, they infuriated the rich owners to resolve to evade a smuggling. they didn't decide to smuggle those they repatriates. they decided to smuggle out of greed and that their motives

became evident to everyone in the british finally won the war against the french in north america as per dish troops home through the wreckage of french fortification, they found most of the french weapons have been smuggled through naval blockades by the same new england shipowners had been carrying military supplies. these are two subjects, merchant for smuggling arms to both sides in the war, the economy as well as their own army. to cloak their treason, smugglers transform themselves into outspoken teachers claiming they didn't compose taxes as long as they had a vote in establishing tax laws. although that reads very well in history books for today's children, it was nonsense then

and is nonsense now. few taxpayers in england had any representation in parliament, including vote if you didn't own property. only one million of the 9 million adult males were entitled to vote. fair or unfair, a makeup of parliament didn't alter britain's need for money to pay for the war for the obligation of every citizen to pay for the war to pay taxes. the wealthiest of americans colonists had profited handsomely from the war without paying for it costs. when the same merchants began smuggling to evade taxes, the british government told justified in cracking down. still with pride for the triumph, sam adams coats the merchants to sponsor another wave of protests, marching as they had before under the

banners about on this waterfront thugs swarmed through boston's streets, burning the homes of opponents and dragging those loyal to the legitimate government to let the thugs called a liberty tree to the strip in tar and covered with feathers and hung from a ranch and subjected to unmentionable agony and humiliation. adams is searching other cities when british troops marched into boston to crush the rioters, adams and the merchants retaliated by organizing a nationwide boycott of all nationwide imports. within a year they had during the stamp acts prices, british merchants forced parliament to repeal the townshend that to restore trade with america for which parliament acted too slowly to avoid the boston

massacre. he had since the population of the unruly elements the soldiers and two targets first and then sold snowballs and stones and other missiles. they finally retaliated into a threatening mob one night and i'll been turned out to be synonymous with the waterfront. nonetheless, threatened to become a citywide riot and defend a real civil war there. he immediately ordered the officer and soldiers involved in the incident and trial for murder defending them or none other than josiah, quincy and john adams. neither quincy nor adams, nor

any members of the jury. they were all farmers. and they voted unanimously for the soldiers they found the other two soldiers but justifiable manslaughter. just as important know, there will expand sam adams and james otis senior incited the mob. boston citizens decided they had another had voted them out of office and back to the insane asylum. the army command, their troops if that had come to america to fight the enemies who are after all their own countrymen. the army pulled out of boston

and the rest of the colonies. troubles between britain collimation defended them and they are ever after under the union jack. except except for one tiny relationship with the motherland, repealing duties, a small group of angry parliamentarians needed to retain some simple but always insisted parliament's absolute security to tack all british subjects with or without their consent. although parliament had yielded to all demands of americans, the majority felt it had to retain at least one public duty as a symbol of its authority to retain the smallest most innocuous one, the one i'm tea.

wow, what a colossal miscalculation. portillo is nothing more than a social beverage. few americans drink even a cup of tea date and in many cases taxon was negligible. about one 10th of 1 penny for a 9-penny cup. that is a tax about 1101%. but as thomas hutchison put it, so small a start, a great fire was kindled. they sparked the rise of another from its ashes. as you may have guessed, even one end of the prophet of america's largest tea importers and resume to smuggling and british customs officials take

enforcement and after the british seized one of john hancock ships for nonpayment of duties. hancock opened his door to stay anonymous. add incentives paid to to vandalize and destroy the shops and homes of anyone who's older drank imported tea in britain were even reported by someone as having drank some tea. so if your neighbor hated you, and they pull someone over and say he's drinking british tea and would be burned down. petit boycott led to other new england cities and down the atlantic and this was the original tea party movement. it wasn't patriotic and it wasn't pretty or glorious. the kind that was on thursday

december 16, just before christmas with the legendary boston tea party and the dumping of immediate dollars a reduce tea. people who dump them into six, seven men, nobody knows exactly how many were there. many disguised himself as indians. ironically, white colonists who willingly slaughtered the american indian on site disguised themselves as indians who were a symbol of freedom, regardless of the phony symbolism, the boston tea party unleashed a social, political upheaval which would never again be able to control. the tea party provoked here in boston and other american cities with unimaginable barbarities on each other.

philadelphia, charleston, boston station second tea party a few months after the first one. they burned the homes of anyone who was suspected of favoring british royal assent in imitation of the inquisition cloak from the doors of citizens who dared to pledge support for their church, their king and their legitimate established, the squeaky wooden cart, and drivers breaking down doors and transports to deliver tree. if i've always awaited them to strip them, tar and feather them and hang a rope around their waists to the sworn comment beaten and humiliated. this is no fight would be a good

hundreds. this was the extent of state authority in the right to the individual. an independence did not end the conflict through the colonial tea party than those who supported them were precisely libertarians who would help businesses, arms of the wilderness on their own and they were not about to share their labor with any government. independence did not change matters. almost immediately after we recognized our independence, massachusetts, new hampshire, maryland, virginia began rioting against government taxation. this time taxation by their own elected government in each state. it was the same conflict between the collect the rights of the

state in the authority of the state versus the rights of the individual. taxation by any state, any government invariably deprives the individual of some of his property, forcing him to contribute involuntarily to his community's defense and other essential services and sometimes nonessential services. the postal service and essential government functions of private industry do a better job. public transport, essential government service. these are questions we still debate. although the ratification of the constitution and creation of a federal government answered some of these questions and calm things down a bit, they erupted again into all-out civil war submitted 19th century when many americans felt the federal government had reserved state and local powers. slavery was central to the civil

war. northerners tend to oversimplify the nature. even americans who oppose slavery in the north as well as the south has supported emancipation recognize the emancipation proclamation with all its good intentions also represented government can't ration of property. it's hard to think of human beings as property, but they were. and the civil war didn't do not conflict. it flared up again during the civil rights movement in the 20th century when the federal government essentially usurped over education and again during the vietnam war and the serb authority to lead the nation to war in the debate continues today with the emergence of a modern tea party movement that is trying to fault and even reverse expanded federal current intrusion into our daily lives. the problem that tea partiers today face is what one man to

find those government intrusion, another man defined as a financial subsidy for the national economy. i'm sure that farmers -- if you ask a farmer today for a highway engineer or an oil man and the definition of a boondoggle, they're not going to say social subsidies for subsidies to the oil industry or subsidies of oil construction. we can only hope that the growing tea party movement today doesn't divide the nation introduced the conflict it did in the 18th century. at the time come massachusetts chief justice, peter oliver kahn described the horrors produced in his memoirs.

the towering and feathering and bribes rained on controls. the liberty of the press was strained by the very men who had been looming for liberty. those printers who are going to support government were threatened that it destroyed and all this uproar arose from the selfish designs of the merchants, mark petrie to disguise their private views by mouthing it for liberty, but who are willing to sacrifice them for money. ..

1634 and included the great religious leader and hutcheson. he adored this country. it belonged to him as much as it did to sam adams. more so he served in this country and its government and its war. sam adams had never done that. before hutcheson died he wrote these words i am sometimes tempted to endeavor to forget i am an american and turned my who views from -- to turn towards remain of life in england, but

my passion for my native country returns and though i know not how to reason upon it, i feel a fondness to lay my bones in my native american soil. justice peter oliver also from an old american family also fled to england and lies buried there. the george washington and other respected american leaders across the country condemned the boston tea party as vandals and they may have well ended in jail and faded into obscurity had the british government not responded so rash and violently by sending troops back to boston. bye cornering the troops in private homes of loyalists as well as rebels the british military commanders seemed to declare war against all americans and that provoked almost the entire massachusetts

citizenry into open rebellion. lexington followed, but americans discovering the importance of the individual's right to bear arms. then came bunker hill and that was followed by a declaration of independence by the massachusetts legislature. virginia followed suit after patrick henry's starting call for liberty or death and the declaration of war against britain. his call echoed across the continent and roused so many americans that on july 4th, 1776, all 13 states declared independence from britain. and who were those original tea party years, who were the men on the ships, who head off the explosion that sparked the revolution and helped bring down one entire and create another? , who boarded the ships and dumped devotee in boston harbor, sam adams, hancock at the time

they swore never to reveal each other's names to prevent their arrest for treason and immediate death on the gallows. while the names remain secret for decades after the two-party but now the in my new book. i believe the list will surprise you. when the irony of to party have never is that none of those who don't the tea into boston harbor rose to prominence in the government of the nation that emerges from the revolution and because the kind of men who lead the revolution and destroy governments, the road, pierre and france, sam adams' in america, seldom have the qualities needed to organize and build a new government or nation. come their instincts are to destroy and killed and the

second irony of the revolution that the tea party sparked is that instead of eliminating the taxation it increased ten thousandfold. suddenly local governments to pay for the cost of defense, law enforcement, postal services and all the other government services that the british government had paid for before independence. instead of paying a small single duty on tea, massachusetts imposed who ehud judy is on every product that passed through the ports and collected it. apart from the cost of the tea that was lost in the tea party that was jumped overboard. the boston tea party was undoubtedly the most costly tea party in world history. thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. i would be happy to answer your questions. [applause] thank you very much. i'd be happy to answer any questions and the gentleman will

have a microphone for a few to be heard in the nation and across the world. >> where did the original? was it from england? where did originate? in europe or in the colonies -- >> dewitt would have originated here as far as i know. it wasn't a custom in england. yes, sir. >> was there any organized support in the colony, any of them which would call loyalist? >> organized support for >> loyalists supporting -- >> across the nation at least one-third of the population were absolutely loyal subjects of

britain. in the debate over independence in the continental congress, only days before the actual declaration of independence, john dickinson of philadelphia offered at the olive branch petition to the king pledging the american loyalty to the king, the love of the king, love of being british subjects and simply asking for him to control the parliament and let us raise our own and taxes and keep parliament out of hours. had he accepted the olive branch petition we probably could have become a member of the british commonwealth. so there was a tremendous amount of loyalty, and even a loyalist forces. there was a major battle that often not mentioned, and i don't know whether this is prejudiced

or what, but the major battle and most north carolina not far from wilmington north carolina a british fleet was going to land soldiers at wilmington and a loyalist army had formed and was marching towards the coast to join up with the british regulars. the force of rebels but what we call patriots intercepted them and massacred them at the creek, which is a blind gulch where the rebels were waiting for them. so, without the loyalist support the british troops couldn't land, and that kept the south free of the british control for a few years until they landed at charleston. yes, sir? >> you mentioned that the boston tea party spread south into other cities.

it almost sounds as though there was a network of people who had the same fault of being inspired one way or another or were working together. i never thought of the boston tea party as being that, but is that really -- >> sam adams sat up because there was no other form of communication as they set up a series of committees of correspondence or instigated the formation of the committees of correspondence in every major city in the country. and they started communicating with each other, and that is how the word was passed. that's how we eventually decided on the continental congress for all of these committee members to meet in philadelphia and discuss independence. yes, ma'am? >> what did what he party at greenwich new jersey, was in

that before -- >> i'm sorry. i can't hear you. >> the tea party at greenwich new jersey, didn't that happen before the boston tea party? >> which tea party? >> the one at greenwich new jersey. >> no, afterwards. >> it was another tea party i didn't mention the dumped tea at greenwich new jersey which most people have never heard of and i never heard of until i did this book but it's along the delaware river in philadelphia. yes, ma'am? >> can you talk about what source is used for writing the book, or the new ones or the interpretations or? >> well, nothing is new and the sources are almost endless, the equivalent of three of those shelves over there. the diaries and writings of john adams, the writings of john

adams are i think seven volumes and diaries of four volumes, the writings of sam adams and of thomas hutchinson, all of these people were prolific writers and kept their correspondence. so it's rich pool of research. yes, sir? >> all of this information be disclosed, why was a dormant for so long? >> let's not dormant, it's there in bits and pieces, and the problem with american history to -- i think i can generalize all american history, but the history of the colonial revolutionary war mike and post revolutionary war maquis era is that it's very complex, and as

my son, when my son was about 14 and came home from school and said you know something, that blacks in american history all the doing talk. european there's a lot of action. but all they do is talk. he's right. and the talk is very complex on very complex issues that philosophers and political interests and lead philosophers have been debating for many years. this involved enormously important concepts that have implications for the entire world, divine right of kings and aristocrats. slavery itself, the rights of the individual. this was the age of enlightenment, and our revolution culminated the age of enlightenment in which these philosophers and authors and thinkers in the western world

were debating the rights, what they call the natural rights of the individual were all men born with equal rights as opposed to the divine rights of kings so these were very, very complicated issues and to convince all of this into a history book this big that an adolescent has to get through in 26 weeks or whatever length of the school year is it's impossible. it's impossible. so the author of american history and the especially the text that most americans grew up studying have to condense it and make it really simplistic. yes, sir? >> another project, have you started another project you can relate to now when you're writing your next book, sir?

>> bring on these other books. [laughter] my next book will have very smart readership. he was also a brilliant inventor and a brilliant thinker, brilliant spy and a great libertarian and he organized, he convinced the french king that by surreptitiously supporting the american revolution the french could undermine and weaken the traditional enemy of britain who had beaten the pants of them in the seven year war, and he was responsible for organizing the dummy corporations that in france should surreptitiously shipped the french arms and in france from the seven year war and sometimes shoot them over here surreptitiously to the american

rebels, and indeed he was responsible for the surprise, victory at saratoga and the arms imports with just in time they would carry over land and he was about to beat us and suddenly they came it was called the patriot. but the next book directly on this period would come on and it's called the seven pillars of power and they took this vaguely defined office presidency and turned it into what many now called the imperial presidency and he did this on his own it was george washington. >> yes, sir. >> you mentioned the name john hancock in connection with the

boston tea party. john hancock was the leading merchant perhaps in the colonies. what was his part in the boston tea party? >> welcome he wanted no part of it. he wanted to continue smuggling and making money. he was arguably the wealthiest merchant banker in america. there was no hard currency in this hemisphere at that time. so the merchants often -- everything was on and the merchants, and large merchants like hancock would provide seed or tools to a former or small merchant and against for example the four worst crop in the spring and that's why they were called merchant bankers because they were lending money and they were doing it, they were fulfilling the role of the modern linker as well as the modern marchant and he was the

largest -- his uncle had built the business and house of hancock was the largest merchant bank in america. now, suddenly the riots were all over the place and they are threatening any merchant who does business with england, and he tried to straddle the road for as long as he could. but as the mob's became more and more powerful, and began burning down the mansions, they burned down the mansion of thomas hutchinson. thomas hutchinson's father was a merchant banker, and it was one of the most beautiful homes in america designed by the magnificent cupola on top and the writers went out and burned that house down from top to bottom. one of the rioters described how

the cupola felt the ground. but they -- destroyed manuscript that went back. hutchinson was an amateur historian. after all he was a educated man with advanced degrees in history, and he and this is still available a three volume history of massachusetts from its beginnings, but the documents to support that history, the original manuscript from the time, the landings in massachusetts were all destroyed by the rioters and hancock didn't want that to happen to himself and he tried to make peace with saddam's and sat on the fence as long as he could and finally he had to join -- he had to get money to support adams and become part he decided it would be more advantageous

for him to try to take control of the rebel movement, which he eventually did. and when massachusetts declared independence, he was elected first governor of massachusetts. that put him in control of the massachusetts independent movement and forced sam adams into the background. sam adams went to the constitutional convention and was therefore i think two or possibly three terms, but never again was a figure of importance in either national or massachusetts history. he became a governor of massachusetts. he was vice governor during hedgecock's last term at the beginning of the 19th century hancock died and exceeded to the governorship. he was elected for one term and then he died but he again never

had any importance in american politics come only state politics. we have time for one more question -- we've for the microphone, please. >> what was the relationship between sam and john adams? >> well, obviously they knew each other at the continental congress they both served in the continental congress, so they knew each other there. but john adams was a staunch conservative, and adams was a fiery radical. when sam adams got to the continental congress, most of the congress, they were not called congress, but most of the delegates gradually isolated him and the other radicals and they had little to do in the continental congress at the beginning of the war ordering the war and indeed, sam adams

couldn't organize his own business and his own home. he had no place in the continental congress and john hancock was elected president of the continental -- first president was patent randolph and he got sick and about three or four months and john hancock became the first effective president of the congress. one the articles of the confederation were signed, he remained president of the congress, and ergo the first president of the united states. in fact, if not in the title. and he was a brilliant administrator. one would have to be to run the kind of business he did. he was a brilliant administrator, and helped washington win a war. he really had a very difficult time trying to organize, purchase arms and material

because the congress had no right or no power to tax. so hancock had to send emissaries to get loans and he was very successful doing that. >> thank you again, ladies and gentlemen. [applause] >> for more information visit the author web site, harlowgilesunger.com. is there a nonfiction author or what you'd like to see feature on booktv? send us an e-mail at booktv@c-span.org or tuitele at twitter.com/booktv.. >> things didn't always look pretty new york city. when i grow the 1970's it looked as if not just president ford but history itself was telling new york to drop dead. the city seemed mired in crime and disorder, the decline of the garment industry felt that it left the city essentially on

board. now, that situation is not unusual for new york because what york was going through was a process of the industrialization in the continent of all of america's older cities. one of the themes of this is that the american dream doesn't have to lie behind a white picket fence in the suburb and the cities have been intrinsic toward american history and our experiences in the nation as anyplace else. the birth of america has its roots in urban interactions in boston and the 17 seventies between john hancock who badly wanted the political change that could be created by a mob and sam adams, who like many purveyors of looker knew how to conjure a mob and the connection has created by the city of boston changed america, create a, helped create this great country. in the 19th century the great problem was making of the will of the american interior accessible to the markets of the east and europe.

cities made that happen, they grew up to the great transportation to the network that enabled the rich dark soil to become. if you go back to 1816 it costs as much to use the goods 32 miles overland us to ship them across the atlantic. it was enormously difficult to access all of the wealth that was in the american hinterland. the cities grew up to this great transportation network, the cities that grow along the erie canal, the chicago which was formed which start off with the illinois and michigan can now created a great watery arc that spanned all the way to new york to new orleans. the rails only supplemented that transportation network that was initially based on water. indeed every one of the largest cities in america in 1900 was on a waterway and fields like new york and boston which were basically to declare their river meets the sea to the newest, an annapolis on the most navigable point on the mississippi river. the industry than grew up around

those transportations. new york's defense three great industries in the 19th century were sugar refining, printing and publishing and garment production. all of them were tied to the port. sugar refinery because new york was a part of the great triangle trade that involved and then there was plenty of sugar coming to new york which is how isaac roosevelt, the founder of fdr's family fortune got involved in the refining business. he also was actually an antibritish agitator because british ruled interfered in his sugar trade. printing and publishing is one of my favorite stories because the big money in the 19th century publishing was in printing pirating novels. he had to come out with the latest dickens or walter scott and get it out first. now they made that happen. the thing that made the harper brothers succeed in the 1920's was the fact they could get the latest walter scott novel and the peak faster than the philadelphia competitors because they were in new york. they were in the great port that actually got the books first and enabled them to print first and

dominate the market. chicago as well. chicago's greatest industry, the stockyards of course grew up around its rail yard. they were right next to the real to come and in detroit and even more remarkable occurred in the rise of the automobile industry. and it shows the ability of the city's for the mundane reasons to then create these chains of innovation that create some of the humankind's greatest in the first. so if you go back to the mid-19th century detroit in the city of the small firms, smart people and connections to the outside world and it's a city with a huge amount of england trade and has a great business taking care of the engines that were on the ships coming in the great lakes so detroit joint of the seminal firm in the 1970's. frank kherbi, the great shipping entrepreneur comes and they perform a critical role in educating young people like henry ford. henry ford's debts the start and

dried up. he then becomes part of the great channel and entrepreneurship. the truth in the 1900's feels a lot like silicon valley in the 60's. basically an automotive genius. david dunbar, the fisher brothers, the dodge brothers, all of whom are inventing and innovating and stealing each other's ideas and supporting each other within put all of them desperately trying to figure out the new fame and the do it and they create this amazing thing the mass-produced automobile. now, one of the tragedies of detroit, and unfortunately there will be several tragedies i'm going to talk about in the next couple of minutes, is the way they figure it out is by -- the way they are able to make the mass-produced automobile despite suing something that is it difficult to the cities. they do it by creating great factories that are vertically integrated and they provide employment for less educated americans on the grand scale. now none of this is great, extremely productive providing jobs for those americans to start with less education.

that's wonderful. but nothing could be more and difficult to what makes cities works than the plant. the great walls surrounding the area. little connection with the people look around them. and for awhile, it is one of reproductive. but when the economics change, and the transportation costs fall the production could easily move to the lower cost areas like the work states and of course automobile production across the globe. when those conditions change, dietrich didn't have the stuff to reinvent itself because it didn't of the cultural and entrepreneur should and the skills so intrinsic to the urban renewal. now of course a second tragedy of detroit is the way that the government responded to meet was exactly the opposite of what in fact the truth needed. the government responded and federal government carries a lot of blame in this by being there ready to subsidize new structures first with urban renewal and spending on transportation infrastructure, creating nonsensical investments like detroit's monreal. now, the problem is that a city

like detroit, declining city already has an abundance of structures and infrastructure relative to the people. the last thing you need for more structures in place like dietrich and get the politicians were they're ready across the entire rust belt ready to build the villages because it looks great. because it is beautiful. shiny new building and all of a sudden you could declare them to come back city but that does nothing to address the problem of the urban area and nothing to do with the most important which is to insure that children growing up in the cities have the skills they need to compete in the global economy and have something that should be a birthright of every one which is the safety of the streets. so, we have people that over the streets but we didn't have the skills and the entrepreneurship in detroit that would have enabled it to come back. bye contrast, new york did come back and it came back not because of a government program that because the private entrepreneurship, because people coming up with new ideas and creating a change. >> you can watch this and other ba