>> you've just seen a movie that's become a part of american lure. to write a book about bonnie and clyde is to enter into great controversy. you know, there's so many theories and rumors, so let's

start tonight by laying the worst most vile untrue rumor to rest. i am not the twin brother of warren beatty. [laughter] i give ole warren a lot of credit because he made an excellent movie. it's brilliant, and i like watching it, but the fact remains it extended the mythology and the way our culture quite often rewrites history to fit what we want to believe or in a term time we need to believe. it's true that i didn't intend to write this book. books are like children. they grow up to be whatever they want to be.

you don't have control over it. my original plan was to write a book called along the tall tailed trail. i was going to drive around america, go to iconic places in our country, or places that have become a huge part of our culture and people reputed to have done things maybe they hadn't done. i live in in ft.worth, and bonnie and clyde lived in west texas. after a couple of days, i decided this had to be a book about bonnie and clyde because i was learning things that staggered me and things i had never imagined before. i imagine some of you here tonight are bonnie and clyde long time scholars. there's jim spawn who's done

wonderful things studying the platt city shootout. it's the barden spot -- garden spot outside kansas city where your airport is now located, and it's also where bonnie and clyde and their criminal career began to be extinguished. that was the beginning of the end. the thing that i thought needed to be done in this book -- there have been do my knowledge 27 previous books written about bonnie and clyde coming from rep -- reputable authors. there's few that have context. by that i mean this. the great historian steven ambrose said he wrote books to answer one question, and question was how did they do that?

whether steve ambrose wrote about the transcontinental railroad or organizing d-day, the purpose of his books and what he wanted to find out was how was it done? go down together is my 14th book, and in my books i try to answer a question too, but it's a different one. what i always want to understand is why did they do that? that's where context comes in, and in the case of bonnie and clyde and the legend that's grown and been refurbished and reshaped and 75 years after they are dead, it's still going on. it seems to me there's two why's to be answered. the first is why did two kids from a terrible slum who were among the most up competent -- incompetent thieves who ever pulled a gun and said stick them up, who were not glamorous, why

did they choose quite knowingly to embark on a life of crime that would bring them fleeting fame, but had to inevitably end with their violent deaths. they knew this was coming. they expected it, yet they were willing to have this happen. why? then the second question -- why did america embrace bonnie and clyde? why did they become national icons following in the footsteps, not just of billy the kid and jesse james, but charles lindberg, babe ruth, jack dempsey. why did that happen? there's two parts of the book. if we understand them, if we understand where they came from, maybe we start to understand the

rest. clyde barrow and bonnie parker were products of a place called west dallas that was a hell hole outside of the city of dallas. the dallas power brock -- brockers wanted to create a city that rivaled san fransisco for great culture. they didn't want riffraff, and riffraff was exactly what henry barrow, clyde's father, when he arrived in 1922. his three youngest children, i'd, lc, and marie looking for work because they failed as tenant farmers. the barrows lived in west dallas, not just in a slum, but in a tent city built on a marshy piece of land just on the west side of the trinity river.

it was adult and children died regularly from all kinds of diseases that they caught. the people who were luckiest lived in tents there. the barrows could not afford a tent. they slept underneath the way gone that they rode in on. food was west dallas round steak that means bologna, and when there was not bologna, they were given stale bread. christmas presents were oranges. they were born in a time when a man stayed in the economic level where he was born. if you were born poor white trash, you pretty much stayed there. clyde barrow was an ambitious kid. he was a fine gifted musician playing the guitar and the sax phone.

his sister used to say her idea of heaven was listening to clyde play. he quit school at 16 and did what kids of his upbringing did. he went to work in a factory for a dollar a day, and realized that was it. he looked across the river, and there was gleaming skyscrapers of dallas. if he could get a dime, he could go to a movie and see people wearing fancy clothes driving beautiful cars. like every other kid, he wanted to wear sunday clothes all through the week. he was ally days man, liked to date girls, and the parents would not let the daughters date clyde. even other west dallas families looked down on the barrows because he was a trash man. the barrow were the losest of

the low. that's when he decided to supplement his income first by stealing chickens, and then graduated to cars. he was a bumbling bank robber, but that guy could steal a car like nobody's business. in those days a ford cost you $260 brand new. if he could steal it and sell it on the black market, he could make $100. that's in the great depression, and that's good money. bonnie parker was born in a little texas town. her mother was a social climber like you wouldn't believe. i'm sure there's no ladies determined that their ladies will be the blue bloodest of them all, but emma parker was going to make that happens. the town was a farming community. the husbands of all the other ladies who brought their children and husbands to the baptist church on sunday were

farmer. bonnie saw there was a brick maison. the way emma saw it made them royalty, and she raised her little girl to believe that. bonnie's first mark she made was made when she was 3 years old when a tent revival meeting came and some of the little children were invited on stage to sing their favorite hymns. bonnie got up there, raised her eyes to the lord, and sang he's a devil in his own hometown. [laughter] she got a standing ovation and from that moment, bonnie's expressed desire in life was to be one of two things. she was either going to be an actress on broadway or be one of those world famous millionaire poets. she wrote a lot of poetry. we look now, she had a stuttering sense of rhythm, but loved quotation marks and useed

them every other word. she was going to be royalty, but something bad happens, and her father dies when she is 3 years old. some people said he was sick and tired of emma and ran off. yes don't know -- we don't know for sure. she has to move with the three young children to west dallas and then the parkers descend into poverty. emma sells overalls, and her pay for $7 a week. bonnie parker, a bright young woman faces this, folks. if she stays in high school and graduates, it makes no difference. there's no money for college and poor girls in west dallas, these were your choices. you could sling hash, work as a maid, or you could be a prostitute. those were basically the things bonnie had to choose among. she went for choice number four. when bonnie was 15 years old,

she mar rid a man named roy thornton, a few years older than her. she believed in the movie romances, and she thought at least if she married roy, she would have a lifetime of poverty, but true love, only it didn't work out that way. he beat her continually. he disappeared for weeks on end. he finally deserted her. she never divorced him. if she was not wearing a wedding ring in the scene you saw, that was a mistake, because bonnie parker wore that wedding ring the rest of her life. she was working as a waitress when roy left her. there's a very strong possibility she was occasionally turning tricks and not doing this to be per miscue yows, but to feed herself and her family, and then 1930, january, there's a party in west dallas.

clyde and bonnie get there, see each other, that's it. everything else about them has been exaggerated or downright fictionalized. they were not great crooks or glamorous, but they loved each other. it was a real love story. they were instantly attracted, and because of that they were inseparable until three weeks later clyde was arrested and sentenced to 14 years in prison in texas. clyde barrow is 22 years old, sent to easton prison farm, a hell hole. prisoners there are treated like slaves and work until they dropped. it is in prison that clyde barrow kills his first man. a trustee who raped clyde in prison for almost a year. he caved his head in with a pipe. not long after that, clyde who

didn't think he'd survive working in the fields for 14 years did something a lot of other convicts there would do. easton was called the bloody ham because to get out of that back breaking killing field work, convicts would routinely take a hoe or an ax and cut off their own arms and feet. he did that and was crippled the rest of his life and limped badly. this tells you something about clyde barrow. he did that on a monday. on tuesday, he found out his mother got him parreddenned by the governor, and he was able to go home happen [laughter] he limps back to dallas, meets bonnie again, makes noises about going straight, but it didn't work. in those days you could be arrested on suspension because they thought you did something and hauled into jail for questioning. the dallas police didn't want him back stealing cars, so they

made a habit of pulling him in every day to take him downtown, question him, let him go, and he walks back four miles to west dallas or wherever he was working and came back to get fired. we were lucky enough to have access to two manuscripts from his family. we know from them that clyde decided why go straight. it's not going to work. they decided to embark on a life of crime. they hated the way their lives were. they knew inevitably they would come to a bad end, but they thought it was worth it. i won't regale you now with the stories of what awful thieves they were other than the first big job, they got the get away car stuck in the mud, tried riding mules bare back, got thrown into the mud, surrounded

by angry townspeople. clyde left bonnie there, ran away, bonnie was arrested and held in prison for three months until a grand jury decided she was a silly girl who was sense leslie in love and pulled into sin, and they released her. it would almost be slapstick comedy except for one thing. people died. bonnie and clyde came from horrible backgrounds, but understand me, there's no excuse for what they did. there were lots of poor kids who aspired to great things and didn't try to get them by robbing, and in this case, they were accused as many as 17 murders by my count. 11 people died at their hands, and almost every case it happened because they got themselves in stupid situations, the gang tried to shoot their way out in panic, and innocent people died. it was wrong they did these things, and yet, look where they

were coming from. why did they get famous then? it's because accidently, the timing was perfectly. imagine something today that's almost impossible, okay? it's a terrible recession in 193 #. [laughter] people barely have money for rent. what they want is some kind of entertainment to get their minds off their problems, and the industry that everyone believed was going to be disappear was newspapers. can you imagine a time when people were not subscribing to newspapers anymore? it boggles the mind, but that was happening. the media wanted some kind of stories they could print that would make people keep buying newspapers. the public wanted entertainment.

the only thing going successfully were the talkies, the new movies and blasting people with machine guns, and again, try to imagine a time where people thought the banks were the enemy. [laughter] i don't know if you can. [laughter] work with me here. in texas at first, parts of oklahoma, new mexico, the papers start writing about the will of the whisp bandit, clyde barrow, who can disappear like smoke, and the glamorous young woman at his side. it worked okay until the day in a place called joplin in west texas, if kids had a nickel, one of their big treats was to go to fair park in dallas where you could get three pictures, a strip of three pictures for a nickel, and the kids would pose

and girls wore goofy hats enand the boys points the guns where the barrel points to the ground instead. clyde and bonnie used to love that, and when they are out as well criminals, they posed for these funny pictures like they did back in west dallas, only now they had reel guns. one day in spring of 1933, bonnie did just a salacious thing. the barrows were traveling with a real criminal master mind named wd jones. he was 16, and he was such a cold-blooded thug that he was afraid of the dark and at night would insist sleeping with bonnie parker so the monsters would not get him, and that is absolutely true. to look like a big man, wd tried smoking cigars, big ones that were a foot out of his mouth. i'm guessing he coughed a lot.

we were not there, we can only assume. bonnie put her leg up on the hood of a car, stuck a cigar in her mouth, wd took the picture, and they forgot about it. a few months later, they are renting an apartment in missouri where they do their dumb thing of culling attention to themselves unnecessarily. in theory, they are hiding out on vacation, but they park a series of new fancy stolen cars in front. they come and go at all hours of the night. one day clyde's cleaning the riffle and fires a burst into the next house. i guess they thought the neighbors would not notice. well, the neighbors called the joplin police who came to the conclusion there must be bootleggers at work, and they put together a posse, tried to

surround the place, and in fact, the three of them, a brother buck, and stop sign got away. -- sister-in-law got away, and two police officers were killed in the process. when they raided the apartment, they found an undeveloped roll of film. they got it developed, and this was the picture. if clyde were here now, he's be firing a burst of the automatic rifle, but he'd miss, and kill other innocent spectators. thank god he's not here. [laughter] in this film, there was one picture above all. this is how perfect bonnie and clyde's timing was. there was something newfangled starting called the wire services where a picture could run in a newspaper one day and be in every other newspaper the next. that picture of bonnie with the

cigar in her mouth was transmitted nationwide. now, readers may have not done what the term freudian imp my cation meant, but they got it anyway. [laughter] within days, the barrow game had evolved from regional rumor to national icon, and they were embraced. the country loved them. couldn't get enough of them, and the media played to that by publishing all kinds of stories. if they were rumored to be anywhere, that story ran as fact, and on it wentings but not too long. there's a reason for that. in plaid city, the beginning of the end came when law officers led by a great lawman started went in properly arm and surrounded the gang. they should have been caught right there. they were trapped at the red

crown tavern except an armored car which was actually a regular car with armored plating was supposed to be blocking a driveway. he suffered a slight wound, panicked, and ran away, and that allowed them to break free. bonnie and clyde somehow deeply believed that they lived this long, evaded that many law mep because they were criminal master minds. nothing was further from the truth. most local law mapp were -- lawmen were farmers who needed a job, got elected, paid $15 a week. they had to supply their own guns, usually .22 pistols and their own cars which were farm trucks. clyde may have been a lousy crook, but he stole wonderful cars, took great pride in them, broke in and had browning

automatic rifles so when there was uncoordinated pursuit, they drove away from it, and if they couldn't, they shot their way out of it. coffee wrote the game plan on how to take them down, and it was ultimately taken up by the most famous texas ranger of all. by the end of january 1934. he was a famous texas ranger and agreed to come after bonn any and collide and credited killing 50 criminals, wounded 17 times himself. he was such a folk hero, that his gun was called his side arm. he called his pistol old lukey, and he was hired to find them and put them in the ground. he told his troops the best way to een force the -- enforce the law is a bullet in the gut, and basically that's what he did. there's controversy since whether the last member of the barrow gang set up bonn any and

collide or they were coerced against their will. we were lucky in the project by finding a man who in the 1970 #s made a number of videotape interviews with the family so we now know what happened. may 23, 1934, six lawmen set up an ambush for bonnie and clyde tricked into coming that way by the family, and the lawmen fired 160 shots. clyde died instantly. the whole thing took 16 seconds. after clyde died, bonnie had enough time to see what was going to happen. she screamed. she died, and as ted, one the dallas deputies involved in the ambush said later. he said when we were done, they were nothing butt a pile of wet -- but a pile of wet rags. 10,000 people attended clyde's

funeral, and 20,000 to bonnies. flowers were bought for her casket. true crime magazines kept the legend going for years after that. 1966 blanch barrow having served her jail sentence is at home in the little dallas suburb, knocked on her door and says his name is warren beatty and wants to do a movie. she's the only one living and wants to pay her for the use of her name. she is excited, gets enough money to build a fence around the property. warren beatty tells her about the wonderful actors to to be in the cast, and she was one heck of a beauty in her day got the idea this that faye dunaway was maybe going to play her. [laughter]

couldn't wait to see the movie. the premier comes. she struts in, watches the movie. the movie is over. blanch stands up and announces that movie made me look like a screaming horse's ass. [laughter] face it, she was right. [laughter] everybody in the barrow and the parker families tried to sue the studio. the judge threw out the lawsuits saying everybody was dead, couldn't do that, but frank's widow, won a large settlement because the movie tried to look like there was a grudge against the barrow gang when in fact, he never even saw bonnie and clyde until the day he killed them. here we are, 75 years later. the image continues. there's going to be a new bonn

any and clyde movie, a remake, and understand that great talented serious actors like hillary duff plays bonnie. i heard from someone involved in the production. they wanted to ask me a few questions after reading my book. i said, well, i hope the book sticks to the history. i think that will sell popcorn. people will be interested. they said, well, here's the thing. we're going to have a surprise ending. [laughter] yep. [laughter] here's the thing. why do we write books about history? i think our purpose ought to be to have some record of what really happened. that's why i love to read about history as well as to write about it. something that answers the questions why did these things happen?

i don't claim that this book is ever going to be the definitive book because when you write about history, no book is defentive. it has new things in it, but someday someone else will find something i missed. i hope so. jim will be doing a book soon. i can't wait to read it. it's going to be wonderful, but we got to try. when you write history and you were not there, basically what you're trying to do is make the best educated guess that you can. if you read my book, i hope you notice there's 5 # 5 pages of chapter notes. every time i say i believe this happened, i want you to know why. beyond that, i hope you think about this. could bonnie and collide be an excellent -- clyde be an excellent example of how in our different times of trouble we invent things that perhaps did not quite exist? we make people become what we want them to be and not who they

were. i think we can learn a lot about ourselves from what happened with bonnie and clyde, and meanwhile, the story goes on. they will continue to interest us to obsess some of us. that may not be a bad thing if we learn from the mistakes they made and some of the reasons we created some of the exaggerations that we love. i'd like -- maybe there's folks who want to ask a question or two? this looks like a great crowd. ..

i was curious on blanche brought because i remember when i saw the movie years ago, you just saw where she was in the hospital and then she just kind of dropped off the face of the earth. do you know what happened to her and what she also couldn't solve since she's the only person to the movie. >> blanched producer asked her that's wonderful college my life on the inside. if you can find it you want to see it. after platte city, not iowa, the barros led to iowa where they were surrounded again and captured again, but diadem blanche was brought back to stand trial for shooting a firearm during platte city from which branch sewer she knew. she got 10 years in prison.

she served her time, came back to texas, remarried and was a heck of a pure drinking the tv who was known after she'd had a six pack or two to start talking about how body was jealous because blanche was prettier. and it could have been true. she sold the rights to use her name to the movie, but i promise you a shipping consultants in the movie they would've played her. lynch did not appreciate the movie and in her later years she did not want to mention it after she'd have a brew two. >> what else? >> one of everybody's favorite stories about cried because he was god within me, too. the letter was signed by champion. it's just not pharaoh and they

are probably right that he would not have put a different name there. but i will say that henry ford got the letter was real. he wrote quite a thank you note and sent it to general delivering tools tools that come worklife letter have been postmarked. so henry ford and sure to last breath they have been a killer, video great manners and great tasting cars. yes, sir. [inaudible] >> well, they were actually three cars making the rounds. the real, real desk are currently sung by a casino and is on display outside of las vegas. but here's an interesting story about that. the policy that ambushed bonnie and clyde was made up of six people. texas ranger frank hamer, former ranger manacles who was with the

highway patrol, dallas county deputies, bob bellecourt and ted hinton and sheriff henderson jordan and his deputy and they all hated each other. they all gave conflicting versions of the ambushed him afterward is trying to make themselves look like the years and everybody else non-heroes. the car after the ambush was returned reluctantly by henderson jordan who wanted to keep the money to the original owner it been stolen from kansas. and the owner sold it, bulletholes and all. then she sold its remaining trustingly who built himself as a crime doctor and started taking the car around county fairs all over the country with a lecture that crime doesn't play. john dillinger's father to come along and had a sideshow that was mostly the mugshots of clyde and john dillinger.

and when he would give his lecture coming to talk about how the family sold out on the implied. frank hamer always wanted to protect his sources can associate insisted they had nothing to do with it. when stanley took a shutout into austin, texas where he lived, during the show, they were all lucky is still to decide, leapt on stage and told stanley to get out of town, slapped his face is a huge chance so hard he knocked him down and betrayed his site. stanley had a second set of slides and he kept taking the car around, but not in texas as he was afraid of hamer. when he finally came back to show it at the state fair, he hired two bodyguards to protect him from frank hamer. this bodyguards retain head in and bought all court come in the dallas deputies who were the ambush. that's how much those guys hated each other.

yes, ma'am. cw never existed. cw was actually a composite of several members of the pharaoh king and that's one of the reasons this movie which again is wonderful entertainment is not historically accurate. there was no cw. cw is the corporate wt jones and henry masi. but there was no cw. >> i believe blanche when she got out of jail she had straight to the relationship with the coffee is and when she got out of jail she went and spent some time with them at their home before she went back. >> the coffees for wonderful folks. >> i was hoping she was here and we could introduce her to the crowd. ma'am, would you stand up. right in the front row, this is the widow of sheriff coffey.

[applause] if you want to talk about real heroes, let's talk about this lady and her has been. lynch had been sentenced to prison for shooting at him. he forgave her, they were friends to her. he protected her. there are good people in this story in the coffees are two of them. man, it's such an honor to be here tonight we all treasure his memory. [applause] it is getting towards the witching hour and tip off, so maybe to my questions and then of course i would happy to sign books and let me assure you go down together is the perfect guy for every occasion. who would like to ask another question? wichita into the microphone so everyone can hear you. >> well, i should whisper this

because i want to know if the real clyde -- >> yes? let me take the pressure off you. this is one of my favorite stories involved in this research. now in the movie is coming you may have noticed that there was a hint that clyde was shall we say a tad underdeveloped in the romance department. will be tactful. and people of wondered if this was true. there is a fabulous historian in texas named john neal phillips and john neal decided he was going to get to the bottom of this. i've had several girlfriends before body and one of the young woman named lenore b. williams who clyde at a number of escapade with. john neal found her and as he described to me. there is a lovely elderly lady and he's come to see her because he wants to ask the question.

[laughter] may strain to think, i put this in words? so she's telling stories about that clyde was so self-conscious about his height that when he and i would take our picture together, he'd want to stand on the curb so he put collier. he does a lesson that fascinating? and finally he just couldn't do it. she looked at an agreement had, you ought to know, don't you? [laughter] john neal said yes, ma'am. he said she drew herself up inside, honey, he didn't have any trouble at all. [laughter] so i'm going to take her word for it. she was mayor. one more question maybe someone would like to ask. let's give a little attention to the folks in the back. >> of clyde was so good at stealing cars, why didn't he start robbing banks?

>> for a couple reasons. he had weaker terms than settling for what you could get from reselling a stolen car. in particular, he was hoping some point to lead the raid and from other prisoners, just as a way of getting even. he needed more money for that than he could get otherwise, but he was a pathetic and it. most times they came away without any money at all once they get chased away, drove into her to parks and killed a couple of the papers. one time when they actually did pull off a fairly successful about three minnesota, they came away to $1600. the only problem with that of crisp bills into silver dollars and they had to try to run down the street, looking like santa claus hauling his pack. yet the lack lot of ambition. he did not have the deep skills to achieve them. folks, i am honored that you came. it's been very exciting for me. this is a wonderful facility.

obviously the kansas city library special and i hope to keep doing these programs. i'll be over here if you want to get a book signed or asking her questions. and go missouri. [applause] >> every sunday at 5:00 p.m. eastern, booktv airs a program for archives that coincides with the occasion that have been that in history. former history program, check out american history television and stand three or visit spandau doric/history. hdv features 48 hours of people and events that document the american story. >> sophia rosenfeld, what is the definition of common sense and politics? been a good question to start up with. the one thing we never talk about, but refers to all the

time. common sense is supposed to be, at least, the kind of thing you don't have talk about. it's the wisdom everybody has. it the obvious, the self-evident and it's something politicians refer to the. if you ever notice that democrats or republicans love to have a commonsense solution to health care or a commonsense solution to problems in the environment, but nobody ever actually says what is common sense, what would it be. every day, ordinary list i'm kind of reasoning about everyday ordinary matters were supposed to basically agree upon without discussion. >> when did it enter -- that turned into political discourse? >> welcome at the very old term that goes back to aristotle in different forms. the faculty come a brain that starting in the early 18 century, it starts to become a political term and starts to

suggest a kind of politics everyone can participate and potentially, a sense that politics is that something so complicated that ordinary people can participate and an ordinary people have a kind of collected wisdom that lends itself to thinking about political issues. that happens after the glorious revolution in england first. >> how did aristotle use common sense? >> it's completely different really. there's some residue but for aristotle terrace five basic senses. we still think that i had of greek philosophy. aristotle is trying to figure out how they coordinated. how did she figure out that sugar and salt were different? they look the same comet tasted different. how did you put all your different sense reactions together? suggested there was a commonsense that combined the five member to distinguish

between things, but also put together the sugar and what was better and granular with assault. we have a different explanation that's fallen entirely out of psychology and brain science, the last laugh time to the middle ages. >> who introduced the political competence? >> it doesn't come from any one place. the term started to have a more casual fans of much like today, as you just happen to know, either things he knew what the faculty for figuring them out, everyday perception. and after the glorious revolution, lots of anxiety about what are you going to do about preventing the stray from

happening again? an idea that gets proposed, one great and contacted a commonsense, but a lot of very ordinary people do newspapers and magazines. if we just use common sense, we would take so much about things. when fed about religion, politics. ironically of course as soon as the term is introduced, everybody starts fighting and that's been a story ever since. >> in the american political discourse, is a thomas paine who introduced the term? >> yes, it's a known term, but it's been who brings the term sensually into american politics. and what he does most of all is attach it to some notion of the. so it helps bring about commonsense in circulation. that helps foster democratic notions, but paneer what comes

up with this idea, why can't the commonsense of the people be themselves the source rule. >> was the impact of the book? >> it's hard to imagine. no book had in the unlike the popularity of paine's common sense. it's the perfect addition for about $2. it's very short and meant to be highly extensible. didn't cost a lot in 18th century term for no book was written the unlike as commonly as "common sense." 25 editions came out in every major city. editions came out in london and dublin, eden borough. it was the right set of ideas for the right moment. it's rare for a book to have that kind of immediate impact in the pamphlet even more so. >> did he make a lot of money writing not? >> he did not. he was not a very successful business man. he died in total poverty, a kind of schemes along the way. he did not make much off of it.

publishing was a lot different. bestsellers did not mean much income. as computers parroted by all kinds of people. pain was obviously an incredibly difficult man. here's a thought that most things, but also very brilliant as the polemicists and one great track during the american revolution. another great during the french revolution and changed opinion really internationally. my call them the first international revolutionary. >> where did you come up with the idea of writing about common sense? >> i was intrigued by two things and they sound quite different. one is could you read of history is something that sounds at its outset in history? common sense is that they would always agree upon. don't put your hand in the fire. that comment ends. that doesn't sound very

historical. i was intrigued at the idea of where to get the idea in the first place that they would be a tso side history? in the second reason i came to the topic is that where the thing to a moment of resurgence of populism. i think we probably all agree on that. and common sense is the idea that at the root of populism. in some ways, this book is the prehistory of populism. how did we ever get the notion that ordinary people together at the kitchen table solutions might know better than expert policy in washington? those two groups have an interest in politics and interest in historical writing combined. >> what you think about the tea party movements have adapted thomas paine? >> i find it fascinating. for years and years, and really until the reagan years, and he was considered the patron saint of the last.

he was the founding father of radicals. he was much hated hated frilly and early 19th century in america for his supposedly atheist views cover radical political economy and most people associate themselves were on the last for a long time. washington doesn't have a monument. he's the only founding father we don't recognize in quite the same way as hamilton, madison, jefferson. what the reagan, something interesting happened. he appropriated the notion of common sense. he often spoke of his own ideas of standing up from his political wisdom or his advisors, but from the people's common sense. and he opened the way for a kind of -- as opposed to arrest wing

populism, raping populist adoption of pain and common sense and back is therefore not the last sale online every appropriators. but the book was a bestseller this past year. so the incredible number of copies. >> professor sophia rosenfeld come in your view, was ronald reagan's adaptation of thomas paine purposeful? >> i think he recognized in pain very cleverly certain themes that continue to have a really good american residents, a kind of tamara will be sunny outlook. a sense we can do this. and in pain, a folksy quality that didn't have to necessarily be applied to the set of ideas that painted that could be adapted and used for a lot of different purposes.

the interesting thing about popular that's a whole and commonsense is that it does not stand for any set of ideas. it's not an ideology that matches the politics. it's a way of talking on a style of talking that can resonate in a lot of contexts into a lot of different ends. so what has this quality of having sometimes revolutionary implications and sometimes deeply conservative ones. and reagan found a temperament that he really could use. >> eth history here at the university of virginia. what do you teach? >> and an expert in the french revolution and the enlightenment, but i teach myself more widely. i'm interested in teaching courses about the age of revolution, the american french haitian revolution among others and i teach the more general

courses about the history of the world. in teaching a course right now in the of human rights. where do we get the modern ideas of human rights? i'm interested in the roots of our modern political vocabulary and the concepts that we b&b about a lot, sometimes without exploring much. >> let's go to your expertise then. common sense, a term or concept used during the french revolution. 1789. >> exactly. what i find most interesting and this came out of working on this topic is that the french revolution does adapt a french version of good sense more than common sense and is very similar notion, but two very different ends. that is teiresias in pain the kind of revolutionary democratic populism.

what you see in the french revolution as comments and used exactly the opposite way is the kind of counterrevolution or counter conservative idea, meaning an idea that could be leveled against the radical reason abu ghraib is the hair in particular in the way of defending traditional ways of doing things, the wisdom of people in the countryside and the roots of modern anti-democratic populism of the light in the age of revolution that in the. >> that at revolution have been a couple years after hours. whether a lot of influence this? thematic incredible number. jefferson was there for the beginning of the french revolution. the great document that frames the revolution. lafayette becomes immediately the head of the national guard because he is the hero of the american revolution. and of course the real reason

french have such a financial crisis to begin with in the american revolution about 15 years earlier. so the french revolution in some senses even conceivable without the american revolution. not that it was the same direction. plenty of differences between the two, but one of the fascinating things about teaching them together is figuring out how deeply interwoven the ats, finances, even military aspects of the revolutions per. >> professor rosenfeld, do you include any examples of uncommon sense, nonsensical clacks >> i do. and the book there is a final section on the politics of data, which would seem to be quite garfield. the 20th century, and the international artistic movement of the first half between the two world wars took really the

approach that commonsense had gotten us to the first world war, mass destruction and it was time that we consider the possibilities of undoing common sense. and i'm fascinated by the idea that much of the artistic avant-garde, literary paintings, movies of the 20th century is focused on challenging commonsense, figurine out attention to syria but nonsensical, the absurd is the kind of response to politics of common sense that ended in the 20th century with an offer letters deeply destructive events. >> now your book, "common sense: a political history" is published by harvard. why? >> well, that's a good question. harvard does wonderful books that i think straddled the realm

between the academic and the trade, really trying to reach a broader audience with intelligence series books and marketing them as such. and it's hoped many of the publications will so that particular space in which they can be read by university audiences, whether it's students or the faculty, but also ideally make censored dance in public discourse, which a readership is interested in ideas and politics at harvard was going to situate this book cannot space and i hope that's what will happen. >> what is your background? where we raced? >> okay, so i was born in new york city. i grew up right outside new york and new jersey in a town called leonie m. and grew up with parents who are in the arts. my father is a cellist, now

retired. and i went to the university of princeton in graduate school at harvard and ended up about 14 or 15 years ago here in charlottesville, where he had been teaching european history and atlantic history ever since. >> what is life like i eca clanks >> it's a good place to teach that the team century in particular as you might imagine. the students are excellent. if there's a theme to beautiful place to live and it's an interesting place and so fire it occupies a space between a big state public university in the smaller liberal arts school for something like ivy league schools. it's an interesting amalgam of the two, kind of public private in-state, understated and the

quality of life is enhanced by the number professional schools, especially allow school. so i've been very happy being here. >> tenure? >> yes. >> as a tenured professor are you encouraged to write a published book such as transcendent? >> absolutely. there's not a sense that if you don't try to book you lose your job tuner. we have enormous privilege of job security, but there's a strong sense of the research university that teaching and research go together, and we provide your students with interesting courses at i've been simultaneously caged always in some kind of research and writing projects. so almost all my colleagues are always somewhere in the process of writing books and articles. pressure might not be the right word after a while, but it just becomes what you do.

>> were there any legality is using in naming the book called transcendent? >> i don't know. i hope i don't discover that could affect. there was legality in publishing some of the images in the book in the book as is always the case. but "common sense" is not a copyrighted term. it's a commonsensical part of our vocabulary and it's been appropriated to every possible and. if you go to amazon and type in commonsense, you'll see there's the commonsense of investing, common sense says receiving your backyard gate there is a commonsense for everything. >> second thought? >> this is my second book, yes. >> sophia rosenfeld, professor at university of virginia and author of "common sense: a political history" joined us here on book