are you excited? good man. great to meet you. >> i love watching you on fox. >> we need you to support us. watch o'reilly tonight. i am posting. how are you? >> nice to meet you. i am a huge fan. >> back at you. >> next on booktv, jennifer talks about friedrich nietzsche on a left and right in the united states. this is about an hour and 15 minutes. >> i am pleased to welcome jennifer jennifer ratner

rosenhagen. she taught at the university of miami history department where we were not so many years ago. jennifer's book "american nietzsche," history of an icon and its ideas was published by university of chicago press. jennifer examines how nietzsche's philosophy found a home in america. nietzsche's writing about the death of god and challenges to universal truth have inspired american thinkers, academics, philosophers, poets and others to draw on nietzsche for inspiration we learn in "american nietzsche". "american nietzsche" has been reviewed widely and positively. new york times book review editor alexander stock wrote today's inescapable and perplexing nietzsche is not the same nietzsche who inspired readers in the past. the achievement of jennifer ratner rosenhagen's "american nietzsche" shows how that is the case. the director praised her ability to help readers think more

deeply and historically about nietzsche than we might have in the past. in a compelling prologue to "american nietzsche" jennifer ratner rosenhagen talks about ralph waldo emerson beginning in the 1860s. was emerson who first instructed him about philosophy and life. nietzsche was drawn to emerson because he understood what it meant to travel imagine if to flee through time and space in order to find a thinker to think with. i know a few individuals who travel through time and space as imaginatively and compelling thinkers to think with as jennifer herself so we are all in for a real treat. please join me in welcoming jennifer ratner rosenhagen. [applause]

>> thank you for that lovely introduction. thanks to mclaren bookstore for hosting this event and thank you for coming out tonight. all right. it is very fitting that i find myself in chicago talking about nietzsche because it was in chicago in nearly 90s between undergraduate and graduate school that i began to read his philosophy. and do graduate work in u.s. intellectual history. many people interested in ideas. i was never the less drawn to european thinkers, carl marks, sigmund freud, and nietzsche. most especially nietzsche. after i moved to graduate school i continue to find nietzsche pretty intoxicating and felt sheepish about my attraction to

it. to study american intellectual and cultural history, i felt compelled -- ralph waldo emerson, margaret fuller, john do we, time for me to find myself back on intellectual grounds. to the side. the we find how difficult that will be an american intellectual life. in the american academy and higher education. nietzsche's philosophy featured -- and the humanities and social sciences. there wasn't a university library for major bookstores that doesn't have nietzsche section. as we wind up the intellectual world of the academy was i was foiled in my effort to move away from nietzsche and move back to

my america. and it was unmistakable that this nineteenth century german philosopher was a towering public intellectual. coffee cups and t-shirts and aphorisms as on bumper stickers and tote bags, and slave and master morality, and morning papers and advertisements. and contemporary novels from tom wolfe to scott perot and television shows and movies, the simpson's legal conan the barbarian leader still a fish called wanda, recent shows and that includes the sopranos and the day after tomorrow, and little miss sunshine. and made it to off-broadway.

and there is nietzsche -- and those of you who are weak like myself and add to many of them there is even nietzsche diet as advertised in the 2,000s. meet whatever you fear most. there was this quirky harmless figure of our material culture but we know there is a teenage rambo nietzsche as well. in those early years of the project 16-year-old exemplified the figure of the disaffected brad lidge they nietzsche text in one hand and a gun or knife

on the other. and this became quite conventional in the 1990s and the 2,000s with a 1999 columbine high school massacre. and a double homicide of a husband and wife at dartmouth college and professors in their homes and most recently the shooting of congress woman gabriel deferreds and --gabri l --gabrielle giffords last january. trying to move back away from nietzsche and going to politics was a bad idea i discovered very quickly that nietzsche is there too. in his address to a joint session of congress on september 20, 2001, the first major address president george bush gave after the 9/11 attacks, he condemns the 9/11 terrorists for their vicious will to power. i came to see that nietzsche was

not simply a figure of the right but he was also a figure of the left or the center-left depending on your angle of vision. was many years later that i would learn in october 2008 interview that candidate barack obama who was asked by the new york times about his philanthropic literary influences would mean friedrich nietzsche as one of them he would coming to contact with nietzsche while and undergraduate at occidental college. i could turn to popular music. again nietzsche was there as an inspiration from performers as diverse as gothic rock singer marilyn manson and icon joni mitchell. joni mitchell named her cat nietzsche and dedicated her 1998 song man from mars to him. mitchell explained in an interview with nietzsche, philosopher, not the feline, meant to her, quote, nietzsche was a hero especially with the

us spoke zarathustra. he is a maker of individuals and was a teacher of teachers. just in case this was a curious flute on the ride home tonight turn on the radio to a top 40s station at you likelier kelly clarkson's hit song stronger which the lyrics for stronger are what doesn't kill me makes me stronger. i won't seen it for you. it kind of if rock is not your thing you can listen for kanye w we west's third in which uses nietzsche's maxxam. let's back up a bit. what was clear from the outset of the project was nietzsche have a dominating presence in 20th century intellectual life but it was easy for me at the time to assume that this fascination must have been relatively recent vintage. to track it i thought look at

the psychic and moral history of coming to terms with the horrors of holocaust and the atomic bomb in the first world war. more recent than that maybe i can trace it to the temper of the 60s. especially bankrupt ideology of the cold war world and against the lingering conventions and comstock free of their parents. in my effort to reclaim my mind for more american thinkers, i was foiled yet again. let me move back in time and surely this will go away. it didn't take long or much effort before i started to take note of a curious nietzsche trace and americans fought from earlier periods. in the very text i was reading when trying to get back to my american native legal a variety of religious experience, ruth benedict patterns of culture and paranoid standard of american

politics legal mark luther king jr.'s autobiography and lonely crowd. all had engagements in them and nietzsche under every bed, not quite, although there are a lot under lots of bands. in an effort to move back in time i was able to connect the dots and see how much nietzsche was cropping up. i was able to connect the dots to the turn of the last century when the interest in nietzsche was so intense that observers without hyperbole could talk about nietzsche though to. this was used in the beginning of the 20th century and as one commentator put it, quote, he who will know the zeitgeist of nietzsche. as every new discovery i could not help but ask the same question that the nietzsche commentators i was reading were asking themselves. and that is why? what is the work of an anti

christian anti-democratic, anti enlightenment thinkers doing in a culture like ours? asking these questions my project was born. y nietzsche and why in america? in the time that remains i would like to offer some answers to these questions about what nietzsche's philosophy has been doing and has done for 20th century culture in the united states. my book examines nietzsche's longstanding impact on 20th century american thought. explained, and denial of universal truth and his critiques of christian morality in the legal enlightenment irrationality and democracy have compelled generations of americans to question their religious ideals, moral certainty is and democratic principles. i place episode in the history including -- i will name a few -- early 20th century christian commentators use of nietzsche's philosophy as a register of the

soul of modern man under secularism. i look at early 20th century political thinkers who turned to his nomadic intellectual life as an example of the peril and promise of the freelance intellectual life they hope to have themselves. i look at the debate about the roots of materialism and the first world war and totalitarianism in the second world war. i can think of no other philosopher who has been blamed for two world wars. and i look more recently at popular culture when nietzsche was transformed into the father or grandfather of modernism. many of the names of commentators i discussed in the book will be familiar to you. names like h. l. mencken, jack london, george santana, khalil lebron, william jennings bryan,

clarence darrow, lionel shelling, judith butler, and harold limb. some were enlivened by his writings and others were mortified by his writings, none were in different to the implication of his philosophy for the promise of american life. today i want to look at a different kind of reader. i want to look at a different source. i am going to look at the fan letters written by nietzsche's american readers and sent to the archive in germany. i do so not only because of access to the intellectual world of average americans, often lost by intellectual historians but they signal how and why his philosophy and image of the suffering mad genius became so instrumental in american life. we see how americans press nietzsche into service using him

to criticize the shortcomings of american democracy. immoral timidity of their priests and the hollow promise of enchantment by a secular pop culture. of value of these letters as historical documents, historical sources, it seems to me is not their philosophical value. to say how good they are with pieces on nietzsche. one could surely read them for their philosophical merits and shortcomings but what i think is important for their historical value, that has nothing to do with whether they get nietzsche right or wrong. those judgments matter but their judgments for another day and another book but not for the historian who is interested in using these letters to listen in as it were to people from the past. to listen in to people's moral reasoning. to listen in to people's

longings and fiers -- fears. i tried to listen to how people are using nietzsche to make sense of their moral world. not to adjudicate who is getting right or wrong. the beauty of doing that is we begin to understand how and why nietzsche goes from being an obscure thinker nineteenth century germany to it pop icon in american intellectual life. if book sales are in measure of literary achievements, friedrich nietzsche was a positive failure. his first work the birth of tragedy in 1872 caused a stir among a small circle of allegis but failed to catch the attention of the broader literary press and reading public and yet this was the best selling book during his lifetime. after that it was downhill. the next year his as a david

strauss, of 1873, the first of nietzsche's untimely meditations received some initial attention but then faded from view. the work that filed legal elite keen 78, daybreak of 1881 went unnoticed. nietzsche never tired of contemplating the profiles of the untimely genius. in a letter to a friend in 1881 he bristled about it in different reading public to let him start on silence as he wrote, quote, if i were unable to draw francs for myself and wait for applause and encouragement and consolation where would i be? what would i be? there were moments and periods in my life when a robust word of encouragement, a handclap of agreement would have been the refreshment of refreshments and was everybody left me in the lurch. a few months later as the protracted neglect exacerbated nietzsche's frustration out of

the. three admirers from baltimore send a man -- a lifeline. for not easy to see but a very old letter from 1881. these things don't reproduce well. this is the letter in 1881. let me read you what you can't read for yourself in translation. perhaps it is of little concern to you that in america three people often sit together and allow nietzsche's writings to edify them at their most intimate. i don't see why we shouldn't that least tell you so. we are counting on the fact that your sublimed diction we will never be able want to read anything else again. we need not merely imagine how pleased nietzsche was to get this letter. preserved on the backside of the letter, written on the backside of a letter that is now preserved in the nietzsche archive is his hand written note

to self. the first american letter, introduction to world glory, a better translation would be the beginning of world fame. first american letter, beginning of world fame. finally it seemed the world was waking to his genius. during the next few months, silence settled back in. nevertheless nietzsche enjoy the exuberant productivity in which he wrote his next work. was also during this period he was reading one of his favorite emerson and thanks to his philosophers, ralph waldo renewed inspiration used emerson quotations for the book's epigraph. how fitting that while riding his philosophical love letter to his american hero that a second letter should arrive from the states and from the very native ground of the stage of concord. in a letter from boston dated

may 29, 1882, professional violinist wrote to nietzsche to express as he put it, quote, my most humble thanks for the benefit i have the right from your work and the wish which i long entertained to possess a likeness be ever so small of the man i learned to a door for the greatness of his mind and sincerity of his utterances. that was a translation from a german sentence and german to write longer sentences than we do. this is quite an elegant sentence in the or original. this is an occasion to tell nietzsche that he had it rationed for schopenhauer's meditations and he translated no less than three times not with a view for publishing my feeble reproductions of much as becoming intimate with your work. in spite of my efforts, so far short of adequate rendition of the or original that only too

glad for the sake of your reputation to keep the manuscript in my desk. since then i quite destroyed it for the memory of exalted moments that remains and my work was not wasted upon myself. unwilling or unable -- perhaps the america that produced his beloved emerson might have created a people to hear his untimely message. two letters from america are not much but given the paltry response to his writings back at home this seemed like an auspicious beginning. perhaps the dawn of nietzsche's fame was breaking in the west. except unfortunately that it wasn't. the the the only two fan letters written directly to nietzsche prior to his mental collapse in

1889. during the 1890s a handful of letters from enthusiasts trickled in first where the invalid philosopher stage and later where he spent the last three years of his life in a room atop the nietzsche archives which was administered by elizabeth who was himself a.of literary executor and administered until her death in 1935. by the time these fan letters arrived nietzsche was totally unaware of them. his days of agony were over but so too was his ability to read bigger and right or recollect that he was an avid reader and prolific writer. on their own these letters from american fans cannot tell us much. when we read them together with the letters that started arriving in the immediate years

following nietzsche's death we can see they were a foretaste of the season's to come. the concessions -- repeated numerable times by subsequent admirers. and young and old, left and right, immigrants and native-born worked to express their devotion to the thing for >> reporter: the way they thought about themselves and their moral world. they wrote for a picture and an autograph and sometimes simply to say thank you and sometimes wrote to offer their assistance in spreading the gospel in america. these letters might appropriately be classified as american -- they offer a snapshot in time and some are no longer than a paragraph or two. in most cases having their names listed in census records or pop

up in tiny obituaries there is little to nothing left in the public record giving evidence of the fullness of these letter writers live or the extent to which they inc. nietzsche's ideas into daily conduct. nevertheless in their imperfect brevity these letters offer insight into how his ideas not only travel in the world but also how they help make americans more world a new. the kind of culture nietzsche took as his enemy would welcome him as one of his most vital thinkers. the fan letter suggests to me as an intellectual historian that sometimes in order to be told a large picture format of american intellectual life we have to start small. given nietzsche's increased presence in intellectual and cultural life commentators echoed the sentiment of one

observer in 1910 put it that he was, quote, in the air. they wrote about nietzsche as if he were a transcendent spirit but the letters remind us that his thought was no mere vapor but demonstrate the material dimension of ideas because for many the experience of the initial contact is so transformed of that they reported in these letters the form in which they first encountered him as a photograph in a magazine, name in a newspaper review or an author at their local book shot. to letters testify to the ways in which the embodied forms of ideas that matter to people take on psychic value much greater than their monetary one. letter writers of fur to their copies of nietzsche's books as prized possessions. they share with nietzsche which books they own or borrow from a friend or relative and which one they hope to procure.

many of nietzsche's american admirers hoped to gain possession of a precious relic. a little piece of the man who for them was the example of his heroic buber mensch. one of the most common request was for his signature. the 12-year-old from pennsylvania wrote in 1926, quote, my mother loves your brother's writings. all the philosophers -- we can imagine he wanted to send nietzsche's -- wanted to share his autograph with his mom or impress will boyfriend the reason the request was an unadorned admission that he would, quote, love to have it.

this was one of many letters requesting autographs. the request for nietzsche paraphernalia, pictures, and it takes -- a piece of writing that was broken off. these requests shed light on the broader context of the longing and desire to be awakened. in 1923, in mount vernon, wrote for information about where he could find a good picture of your brother. he explained the earnestness of his request in a lengthy narrative demonstrating his devotion to nietzsche. two years earlier as a serious student of zarathustra i draw a circle of hell disciples around me. we hold in my library lectures on a small scale on the philosophy of unique internal

health-care and in order to fully realize the experience leaders and he and his fellow disciples' mode through innumerable fine art galleries on a quest to find a perfect picture of nietzsche, quote, so we can decorate our reading rooms with such a holy relic but to no avail. hoffman sought to reassure this request was not made lightly. he added on behalf of his friends he wanted to express their gratitude for her devotion to their suffering. and he wrote, quote, please allow me to mention we venerate your honorable person and are fully aware without you, the life of your brother would be a much more suffering one. as a token of his gratitude hoffman did what was not uncommon for letter writers to do which was not simply ask for something but send something and so he sent the walk.

a poem he had penned in the flesh of his inspiration of nietzsche. so we see this in other letters. people put in photos of their houses. they send their christmas cards. is the mike on? i had a funny feeling it was off. just keep going? can you hear me? all right. if american nietzsche they goatees want to possess a relic of him it is because he possessed them. they did not simply asked for valuable goods to adorn their lives but explain how the philosopher they adored taught them something precious about the good life. virtually all letter writers with an encounter with nietzsche's philosophy either embolden them or chasing them, liberated them from old falsehoods or saddled them with

a new moral responsibilities. colleen back miller wrote that her brother had inspired the belief that human greatness was still possible in the modern world. low unworthy of his greatness he nevertheless awakened in her a longing for something deeper in herself. nietzsche save her from her own inner emptiness. the ohio country she called home had become commonplace, filled with live trivial and essentially ugly for their engrossed with matters of money not with work or state or art. ..

reading about the strength and resolve of a whole lot to my hundred. by never minutes at any rate i will remain aware of it and i will desire one of my life. i will not accept substitutes. and we see an example. how they use the philosophy to explain herself to herself. had given her justification for it in a language to articulate her feelings of displacement and disaffection and a world that

seemed content with a the compromises. the philosophy gained traction in readers yearning for individuality as well as belonging. the desire for self understanding, they fastened their own version as exemplar of individuality and a new self and that image. i'm pretty sure you're going to have a hard time reading the letter had, but it's from one george e. mitchell, philadelphia, pennsylvania. did not express the sense of a debase surroundings with his leather similarly showing a self logging for connection. it was quite literally to whom he sought to please himself. my name, as you will see from the above letterhead is one of the few in america, probably the only one. unfortunately my grandparents

and a legal document left the out and the error was perpetuated. however, i am proud of the name and probably my ancestors came from the same stock as our illustrious -- as you and your lustrous brother. so in an effort to sketch out the possible start of the mitchell family tree he went on to tell the woman he hoped was is not too distant cousin about the moravian and bohemian roots of their people and how his branch of the family immigrated to pennsylvania in 1739. those centuries and an ocean separated them he hoped to possess a specimen of his handwriting and his autograph and also a copy of his own biography of your illustrious brother with an autographed inscription in your handwriting. just a few mementos of the thinker him to help was in his blood. this desire to possess a piece as he had possessed his readers reveals that the strong affinity for his life and thought and

shows that it takes many forms. believe that he was his philosophy. on december 9th 1919 he sent the first of three announcing his good tidings. he wrote, i beg to inform you that i am here and he refers to to the passage. he says all the tables, seven. in your beloved deceased brother, just in case she had not read it herself. now, year by have the consolation and the like to have lived long enough to know that the visions of what processes, and hopes of your brother have been filled to the very letter. the author of this going is the very man parked bus ticket in the set of volumes cover respectfully john i bush and then he has a bunch of phrases,

and a strange figure from the north, one who is able enough. when we went by without hearing jubilation back he followed up with the telegram, and this is a little off, assuming that it is transcribed by non english speaker. the telegram reads i your living one is even enough. so inconceivable that he may be ignoring his extraordinary revelation seemed to think that the only reason for the silence that she was dead. why else would she respond? and so he sent a third attempt, contract january 25th in which she could barely contain his exasperation, and it reads dear gentleman, i do beg humble to inquire, does the elizabeth, the sister of the late frederick liz yet to? would really appreciate it if someone connected with the archive will kindly answer the

above query just one word will suffice, please comply with this small request and obliged. please find self-addressed envelope for a reply as it is inconvenient to remit postage, neglected the part of my obligation, but hope that you will incur that travel expense. signs again. though his of connection was unless the best the ways in which to put the philosophy to work was a common strategy, one we see in all of these letter writers. they use the terms and aspects of his own life to describe themselves to themselves. one of the reasons why so many readers such a fashion themselves in his language or after his image was because as

the doctor expressed, he was more of a grace. than a human being. and so will we see in a lot of these letters is of very strong and unmistakable religious imagery that demonstrates this spiritual dimension of the american devotion to after the death of god, these writers still long steered images of grandeur and a vanity but this time in the form of human possibility. he was that image for them. and so will we see in some of the letters, and again, it is not just to letters as i talk about in the book, i see this across the board even in the highest of highbrows serious intellectual philosophical work. this transformation into a kind of secular save your. certainly a language that has shot through with religious or spiritual words. we see this as people talk about the archives, they talked about it in terms of a pilgrimage

making a pilgrimage to the archive or as one writer put it, the holiest of fully places. so american readers fascination took many forms, but a common way of expressing that devotion was to travel to the archives and see his room and his personal library. some of the letter writers refer to actual visits to the archive while others refer to trips in the planning stages and travel plans aborted and delayed. expeditions' both realized and not provide a fuller view of the most of the american exchange. they remind us that when i diaz move readers they do so both in mind and body. his american readers went to a bookstore, they went to a library, they went to a shrine in france house. some, not allowed, but some made a trans-atlantic voices germany. the discussion of travel to the

archive suggests that there is a two-way aspect to this story of the atlantic crossing. not only did the text travel with his ideas, but americans likewise travel to germany for them. the sea is quite beautifully. referring to a trip that he took knowledge of the archive, but also his birthplace where he went to see his birth house. the room with her dear brother was born, your father steady, the old kitchen, the trip proved so transformative that he informed in a letter that inspired his next book project. a pilgrimage, a tribute. the trans-atlantic travel

documented in a letter demonstrates that the transnational traffic of ideas flows in both directions. it shows how the ideas and ideas about him traversed national to -- national borders to distinguish american from german intellectual. the very national narrative of a struggling with initially as i thought, if i want to study american intellectual history have to stick with americans. thinking that there is somehow a distinct tradition here that is cut off from the wider circulation of ideas in the world. the letters alone suggest that because the german thinker it proved so inspirational to many american leaders that the periodic zeal in american life to celebrate american exceptional some, though sometimes have trouble often sets up a false intellectual distinction between american world views and the wider use in

the world. the letters did, though small in fragmentary help us to consider the ways in which moral alex and social concerns and america have been forged through cross-cultural trans-atlantic wider world system of exchange transmission modification and transformation. in doing so these letters help us to think or rethink some of the static categories that we work with like american exceptional as an or foreign thought, organic ideas were truly american ideas. we pupu radical imports. but before we too zealously embraced the artificiality of constructs like american or german, for inorganic, we should not forget the power that such perceived differences had in shaping a prolific experience of people were steady in the past and, of course policy is still today three as these writers show, many ideas about what is us and then were sharpened not

smooth out and a fraction of this movement. the letters in their own small wait till a bigger story about how the transnational traffic of the areas and ideas helped puncher and rebuild, traverse and reconstitute intellectual borders between america and europe. and so though we might be tempted to view the vibrancy of the posthumous american career as a sign of long standing salutary national transnational intellectually changes and neutrality, many of americans, readers here saw just the opposite, they turn it not because they thought he could make something possible for the pedestrian american intellect, but precisely because in their view he couldn't. the prospect that his philosophy could shrink the distance between german and american culture was the last thing many of these american writers thought, though there were reading in america, they never thought our desire that his

philosophy could find a future. they simply wanted more of the german pathos of distance, more of his philosophy with which to shield themselves. so here we are seeing a very common concerns that we can see at the much higher register of american intellectual discourse. plenty of documentation, but this is a concern in the lower registers of america. "we can hear in these letters is and concern about american intellectualism. it does, but not culture. we don't do ideas. we don't produce ideas.

here we see in a letter this fear of american anti intellectualism burrowed deep into the imagination, this notion that he was a genius and we could have never produced one here. our cultural flow justice tuesday draw to produce this kind of genius. and so these letters document that the longing for intellectual engagement, the reverence for ideas, even if that is to be corporate capitalism or mass culture was not a sesotho professional intellectuals. led to long to inhabit the world created in the body. and so the letters, and this was just a sampling of the letters that i talk about, but they stuck to signal some of the ways in which american readers and list in the image and ideas to contemplate themselves into a critique their america. and that like to end now with one i think as a nice job of pulling together many of the leitmotifs of american devotion.

the two page typed letter from the san francisco-based td cretin and it is a pseudonym for a greek name that i will say because i can't pronounce it, but its chairman for plates as crypto, so this is a pseudonym that he is taking. we see already does so fashioning going on. in this letter he exults a prophetic as a time the savior of modern humanity and the time the critic of the world out of kilter. he began by telling allies of your brother was a life of christ pier in great. no man suffered what he did on the cover of his conviction. informed that he had emigrated to the u.s. as a child believe that he and the german people from which she came were like him the true descendants of the

hellenic spirit. he flashed back to 1914 when 03 stick came to me like a thunderbolt. into the unjust war on germany in 1917. he acted for it -- opted for incarceration rather than bearing arms against the streets he was disgusted with american literature, which produced only riders were the of her brother and then moved from the critique of a botched american culture to contrasted with his esteem for germany and italy. might someday produce riders were the and in america would be in a place to show our savior as italy and germany. these lines were written in 1933 can always suggest that heller's rise to power confirm his view of the unfortunate incongruity between german great as an american poverty.

included by thanking her brother for having grace an oral history this timeless untimely philosophy of life. so this letter is packed with many of the major scenes running through all of the fan letters. brazil's hud general readers may then remade them in their own image. scholars all went hand in putting him tomorrow the the person was a companion, the secular saint, or the cultural critic to work on themselves and their american, and in doing so naturalized him as an american, one of us. in particular, as a hellenic, his own american identity, articulating why he felt such a distance from american culture and helton hammer out is of political ideas. his use shows how his ideas with your time and space, and every

time his ideas did so they were reconstituted when they got in the hands of an american reader. they consider his boats among his prized possessions. by writing to procure additional works a photograph of his handwriting, his american readers sought tangible records of the authors who ideas who had to mr. practical power and their lives. the only reason why they wanted to possess it was because he had possessed them. his letter, like those written before his offer a preview of the varieties of american engagements for decades to come. the letter puts in ink on paper what many of the decades to come would put in their blood and other bodies. so to get closer 11 years later

he wrote a quotation in his blood. he did so in 1944 and then an early time of artistic searching and self creation. carol lack have barred ginsberg library card to check out volumes. he found a vision of a chance for a power of art that he was trying to achieve in his own life and work. as if to ensure that he would stay with him after he returned the books to the library, he cut his finger and with his bloodroot the following word from the birth of tragedy. art is the highest task and the proper metaphysical activity of this life. over half a year later the desire to bring him on to an end to oneself can be seen in the tattoos on the bodies of 20-something and upwards, like the actress maggie fox who had of her rib cage eight quotation and like derek, the indexing of

the book who incidently is also an advanced graduate student and educational theory and comparative literature who at our first meeting to go over the manuscript and talking with the index showed me why it was ken smith that he should be the index sure my book by pulling up his shirt and showing me his tattoo that reads, some madness but always some reason in madness. how fitting. of all that is written i love only when a person has written in his blood. he that verizon blood does not want to be read the learn by heart. doesn't turn who wanted to learn by heart did so by bringing him in their blood.

examples bike his rib cage simply make a literal what has been figural in american history or 20th century american history, and that is that he has been inscribed on the american body, in our blood, as he put it, us. the risks involved in making his to page epistle more interpreters with american barrick, can the type of cranky a letter or to to tell us anything broader for understanding the importance for 20th-century american thought and culture? my belief is that they do precisely because they speak to the ways in which an astonishing range of readers participated in a much wider circle of intellectual exchange seven normally appreciate. in addition they show how he works by making the designation averaged an average american. no longer makes sense to his

readers as a sense of false description. even for those who came with a sense of inadequacy he provided them languish for the church to marketplace or the market was in the health and to sharpen the stent to us as a distinction in themselves enabling them to the deal their own products than 30. workman by issuing instructions but by serving as a guide to becoming. there were unable to anchor their belief they could at least police themselves to the thinker who have learned to live without them. thank you. [applause] i will leave out the tattoos. i'm happy to take some questions right now. i've just been asked that if you want to pose a question to

please wait until the mike comes to you so that you can ask the question in the mike. >> determine the from people talking about your solidarity, wonder how much of his early popularity, solidarity, immigrants who were long in for collection to the old country. >> a wonderful question. disproportionate number of letters are written by people with german names. the letters, and some of them are written in german, some written in english will letter writer regrets that he or she cannot write in his or her mother tongue, but this is a source of, you know, great consternation. and so i think it is very conceivable that he really was in need the german readers, but

as we look out to the wider published sources it does not tell us anything, it does not seem representative. first of all, at the turn of the last century most educated americans, german was a standard second language for educated americans. he did not have to be ethnically german, and also, the first translations were already available in 1896, so people could start reading it in translation. it seems to me that the answer to your question is both yes and no. my sense is that for germans, as the germans there was that sense of affiliation or bond. you see it. but you see also that lining to connect, to feel that he was a sibling sold, also extended to people who are not ethnically german. one more point on that. that is that in the early years of his posthumous fame as it were in america was seen as a polish, as polish, ethnically

polish and not german. described himself as the defendant -- descended a polish aristocrats and partly away for him to criticize germany. and so this is picked up and actually becomes a big subject of conversation and debate. and that is very interesting, so he's polish and american intellectual life until world war one. it is at that point that he becomes seen as the monster or the inspiration of the german mind. he becomes chairman but he starts out polish making and polish made him exotic .

apennines. [inaudible question]

>> mark, i mean, that's a good question. that is where we see a slip between what is -- unit, the interpretation and the letters of what we can see in the more widely published sources, so, no, the letter, i mean, that kind of self criticism that we see, maybe someone comes close. this sense of inadequacy, but that is not quite what you're talking about. for certain in the broader reception many thinkers pick up on this. that to be you can't be. so already james gibbons, one of the early -- in fact, credit for making him famous in america, an early inspiration, he said the only -- u.s. the only -- pardon me, the only region died when he

died, so he recognized a ridiculous this was. he was very critical. should he ever did a reception, should he ever did famous it could only be a people misunderstand and. and so he is not the first pick up on this. a scene that gets picked up over and over and over again, the notion that he can't have zero wide reader. if he does then it is a trope. you know, it is hero worship. he was deeply critical. so there are commentators to themselves ever critical. another example. i could go on and on, and get oftentimes the very people who are popularizing him. a perfect example of this. you know, the only reason why in 1987 that he could be such a figure in pop culture is because he is so badly misunderstood.

there is some truth to that. but anyway, the simple answer to get back to the question is this sense of criticism, the sense of understanding that he did not want. we see that. the person who expresses his most elegantly, eyebrow raising. he was a reader because he was a firm idealist. what he understood was that he tore down the absolutes, toward them the foundations of our beliefs, but he did not just leave it that. it's our job to come up with the images after this. so we understood, we're missing

the boat. enough of filling out what he had called for. [inaudible question] >> wonderful. [inaudible question] >> national tv was to get this reference. >> at top preference for you. a character named howard johnson. anyway, he's just to make a speech. he says -- and then in as another character, blow it. so kind of a throwaway line. ascends that he is so well-known that people understand. >> also now, and this is how we can know that he is so

conventional. as i put it in an article, a conventional iconoclast. the quintessential iconoclast. >> already different kind of sources. you can subject to the same kind of critical analysis. i just like all those various registers and which he crops up in our life, but i think even the throw airlines, the throwaway visuals, the best one that i can think of no , leyna sunshine. the teenage mother, the movie has -- for he has put up on the screen to mike to go back to it. situps a pushups in his room.

flexing his own power. there. how do we make it bigger. and not sure i can. is the one in the middle. is this is a profile had to study, mid 2000's, saw this in miami movie theater with the bunch of people younger them myself. as with the word. as soon as the scene cropped up they all burst out into laughter . a visual cue, the incongruity of it, the absurdity of it, driving people in the audience had already and, no, but that to already suggest some of the grand as ginger -- south

aggrandize teenager. as a point of entry, how is it possible you can open with a ." it has immediate residence. and part of what i try to figure out or examine in the book is because they're is a long history of engagements that he is just part of our discourse, his terms are our terms, his average is now standard iconographic carriage tree in our visual culture. >> do you give any clues into elizabeth's role either in her voice. is there hate mail in there?

to you get another side of the reaction to iraq to you -- could you figure out how she contributes to fashioning? was left for you. >> well, really talented and hard-working historians to have to put together the story of elizabeth forester for the crucial role in the career. when he has his mental breakdown in 1889 he spends the last 11 years of his life really stark raving mad. it gets worse, but that is when she takes over. it is already in those years of his mental twilight where she is crafting a profit and largely -- and ms. keller's will admit caught prior to his sister, purchase some million note,

relief osha discovered him, his fame had not yet broken. as a terminal. the unfortunate part of the story is she was anti-semitic, very nationalistic, and in fact, she is the one who over the course of their early thirties helps to make the archives basically an instrument or an institution devoted to the nazis. there is a famous picture where she welcomes other and they're is a picture of hitler next to him, so she welcomes -- should play some unfortunate rolls. how she did send -- inches crucial for in the public committing the translations out, so she is really crucial for just getting him out there. how did she respond? the problem in the archive is simply the fraud is of the record. they do not -- we are unable to

have any kind of record of what degree, how many letters, the letters that are still extant request, in some cases we have of going letters that have been sent back, and some of them seemed very gracious and very particular. out of some of these letters she formed relationships with some people. she and relationships with a jamaican, heiress' it actually with comic early on. she had a relationship with northwest and philosopher by the name of james taft have fields, and import a philosopher in the early 20th century and even says collective volumes so that he can have it at northwestern. but it is very spotty. so what i don't have is how much is letters reflect how many letters came in, and we can't quite see the extent to which she wrote back, but i can see

funny things. i understand that you cannot send an autograph. you need to keep his body intact. i respect that. i have records of other people saying thank you for the autograph. might have been very choosy and selective and savvy about who she was going to foster her relationship with and and not. [inaudible question] here is what i think is the

clearest distinction, if you will. so when s to the question is no. there's some things which receipts traffic or in all of the reception. of course is a worldwide phenomenon and that the works and in france and scandinavia and spain and italy and japan ops. it's happening elsewhere. what that think this particular to the american greetings is that i have very few interpreters who are reading a prolific as a thinker. politics with a capitol p. they're reading, a critic of democracy, a cultural critic of democracy, that is to say, a critic of the kinds of human types of democracy foster's.

does that make sense? so reading about as a great visionary of a new kind of politics was we, of course, see in russia and italy. we see that in. there may be conservatives, liberals command receive both of those, but they're reading him more as a cultural critic of the human types that democracy foster's command at think that's very different. i think that is very particular. it is, again, about american culture or american individuality, a commentator on american soles, but not necessarily on our political system as such. the other thing i would just signal, and denny was kind enough to reference it in his intro. as i mentioned also, he was an

avid reader. in fact, emerson was the first philosopher. he read emerson as a teenager. i discussed this in the prologue . so one of the things i try to examine when his ideas first come to america and the late 19th and early 20th-century occasionally thinkers would say, that sounds kind of familiar, it sounds a little bit like emerson but then they often usually do this as a way to make a distinction, either that he is a genius and emerson is saccharin and victorian and too much to get to give the, that emerson is safe for democracy, wholesome, well, does not have a breakdown, and that he is a simple lytic bad man. for those early on who hear the emerson in timber and his voice, often trying to draw a distinction kumble what is

interesting is his connection carries on in the american leadings and in the last chapter i discussed in a particular three authors, the literary critic and the philosopher, author reach in their own way use them as a way to get back to emerson, to read every discover emerson for an american audience and so i think what might be distinct about america or what we might be able to say is somehow coloring this perception is that americans are hearing their own inner orator, they're hearing emerson. so i think that there is something particular in the way. one more hand.

one more question. is going to bring you the mike. >> thank you. i'm an indigenous person discounts to that -- comment. a lot of americans admire. someone without a conscience. for instance, so we see him as very much like americans. it's not really a matter of culture or philosophy. philosophy, but it's different. we see ourselves as being bound

to a conception of right and wrong, what should and should not be that cannot change depending upon what we believe our work cut of education we did. >> thank you. well, that is a very big question, but let me try to give you a simple answer and a plea not a simplistic one, but i think there would say without a conscience, but certainly calling into question all absolutes. calls into question all foundations for your belief whether it be god or science,

truth. so is inter philosophical project and made it a lot of things as a writer, but one clear line of his readiness of the one that has the biggest impact here is that he challenged universal truth. >> a thing as objective. he thinks that there are unknown facts to my just ipod the season that there is no objective reality. >> that is a very good reason, and it is one that many americans share with you. and it is for this very reason that some think he is a remarkable and timely in need to get rid of the artifacts of, you know, what it is, fill in the

blank, decay christianity, the artifacts of sexism or racism, whether it is the artifacts of a dysfunctional democracy, and others see this as a terrible destructive set of ideas that puts everything into question, that has no reverence, that gives us no point of moral orientation debate and for a pluralistic country trying to find its unity this is not the kind of philosopher we need your and so you're not alone in that reading, and i would say to you, as a historian, there are many people who pose really intelligent and interesting rieders is very different things with the consequences of that. you're right. and the question for readers was , what did come out on the other hand, better america, more humane america, but the democracy, or is this -- will

this tearaway everything that we hold near and dear and we will be stuck, destroyed unrealistic days. so the stakes a very high, and i think most of his readers understood that. just how they came to terms with it, how they came to terms of america is the subject of the book and the reason why it's a subject of the book is because it's a huge part of our intellectual history. and so today the letter writers are just a tiny little sampling of a much larger set of conversations, lori ones, andrew once. today i should do the devotees from but there are people who dedicate their careers to take him down. and there are -- there are important and there are discussed as well. what i hope to make unmistakable is we need to understand these more reckonings and 20th-century american life. we can't do it without understanding how he often figured into this conversation. thank you.

>> there was a comment in which he was compared. i saw that. basically improvisation of a more relativity. their own -- there are none. >> that sen. more relativity. that already, could quibble with that those of wrigley. a reader "with the notion of relativity. southbound and the same kind of absolute as object to the. it gets a little high flying for us tonight at 730, but the notion that he is tearing away more absolutes is absolutely true, and you are concerned about the consequences when also letterpresses up against would you hold dear.

>> in the united states, i am what is called in indigence transpersonal. our people have been used for medical experimentation right now. a genocide. nobody cares because it doesn't affect embedded. if our morality was based and there was absolute right and wrong this could not be happening. >> i mean, that's -- i would just right so bring to you awareness that there are many readers who would think that his philosophy would be as our races you are. you just used for arguments. so thank you. thank you very much for coming. [applause]

>> is there a nonfiction of barbecue would like to see to it? send us an e-mail at book tv at c-span.org or tweet us. it. >> it is cheaper weekend. next come in the battle louisiana state university's report professor alexander me to birds details napoleon's escaped from the russian army in november 1812. watch an interview here on book tv. >> there is the napoleonic legend greuel level. people who subscribe dual believe that napoleon was one of the greatest reformers. liberal ideas, currency, one

state, something akin to the european union that exists today the story is certainly much more complex and that napoleon was, of course some of the champion of revolutionary ideals, but also the traditional ruler. so he is a very complex individual. many aspects of his career are troubling. , said his legacy is still being debated. he is after jesus christ the only human that has been -- that there are more books written about than anywhere else. he sees the issue of who he was as still quite debate did. napoleon, first and foremost

known for his military containment, but there was one that was part of his legend or part of this mythologist around his name. it took place in 1812 during the invasion of russia, and it is -- we both know, the fallen goalie inveighs russia and jerry c-span . by november he is essentially forced to retreat. as he is retreating from russia the russian army tries to surround and corner him. they choose a place which now is an belorussia whether want to coram and destroyed. and so the book is the first full-scale in english of what happened on the banks of the

server back in november of 1812. if we look on a global scale will we see is that because the struggle between britain and france. they signed a peace treaty hallo aloe and then it essentially collapsed the following year. the war resumed in 1805 and he had the decision to five diversification. it's interesting. that year the united states effectively into the fray after the british the united states to lead to the rapture and their relationships. we have this to a conflict. the warfare in europe between france, britain, russia, but

also have a struggle between the americans. it's tied to this applicable rivalry between france and britain. one of the reasons i get interested in the battle is that if you look at the traditional accounts, is described as the military genius, and he is betrayed a single handedly outwitting russians, making the move to the right and then crossing the river to the left. so always fascinated by the city of how smart. i decided to look closer at the events on the river. i would to the russian archival documents. what i realized is that the story is actually wrong. the main reason why napoleon was saved was actually russians

mismanaging the whole operation. the rivalry between russian journals, the misinformation that they played a much greater role than napoleon's personal role. and draft a monopoly and played the least in the battle. his generals, as marshals who is to address themselves, but their stories are often sidetracked or not discussed. the other thing that is appealing, it's the story of human tragedy. it's a tragedy on large-scale. just imagine standing with my back against the like, but imagine how the french army corner with the river on one hand, a few russian armies attacking from one side and another russian army being across the river.

so there have to escape. is the wintertime. is the wall where they can escape by crossing the river. it's cold. they have to build a bridge. we have here several hundred engineers, many of them french, but the majority are dutch and polish. and so they decide to sacrifice their lives by entering the frigid waters, building the bridge literally on the shoulders. they stand there in the freezing waters building the bridge as they're dying. they do build the bridge, two bridges and a day and a half and allowed the army gradually to move across. but the sense, the fact that the bridges are built also gives some sense of safety to thousands of people who follow the army. remarkably many of these people decide to perform crossing the river and stay on the other -- postpone crossing the river of saying that we can cause of tomorrow, the brazil here. what happens is that when the

battle begins the bridges to cracking down, cracking and collapsing. tens of thousands of people rushed into the river trek across. you can imagine this human tragedy of this vast scale. we have mother's dying and giving away their children to soldiers hoping that there will be who were able to save the balloon. there is one seemed particularly were pregnant woman, she was accompanying a regiment, seven or eight months pregnant. right there on the banks of the river. the atrocity. she actually gives birth to a child. when she dies giving birth to this baby born, but the soldier says the boy end terry sent through the winter, through the gas and destruction and save some. six years later he finds him in

paris. the employer is running around the orphanage. he arrives on 26 of november. by this time he already has begun building the bridge. he stays throughout the 3-d battle which, but they have looked through memoirs are reports and tell us that he was very attached fermenta participation. he gave plenty of flexibility to his generals and his marshals to direct the battle. so we have napoleon more of overseeing it but not actively engaged in a. the three russian generals who are engaged in this battle, one of them will be blamed for it and rather unjustly. the past 200 years, and this

year we celebrate 200 anniversary of napoleon's invasion of russia, for the past 200 years dismantle his name is admiral, blames for the bungling of this operation. he has been made a scapegoat. when i looked at the story that happened, the reality is that he was not as is possible for the collapse of the russian operation. he was made a political scapegoat for. karen out of this date, forced to leave russia because of public indignation. forced to live in france and poverty in exile or you was blind with his reputation tatters. the following spring the rush of stories collected over 35,000 bodies on the banks. but many of the bodies were

never found says the river carried them away. in fact, a few years after the battle with the europeans came to see this side of the battle the locals sold the that there were so many bodies inside the river that it actually taste coarse . there was an island in the middle of the river that was created as bit set and there was carried over the bodies . most of the dead were noncombatants. that is, many of these were not soldiers, people, french, and others who follow the army from moscow fearing for their safety from the russian troops. they perished there. one of the reasons is the language barrier will loom. not many neo