search chen julie wong or the title of her book, beautiful country booktv.org. >> pulitzer prize-winning author and historian david mccullough passed away sunday in his home of massachusetts at the age of 89 mr. mccullough one pulitzer prize for biographies furman and john adams he received the presidential medal of freedom from george w. bush in 2006 and more than 650 honorary degrees his last book the pioneer was published in 2019. >> now on book tv highlighting programs from our archive with pulitzer prize historian david mccullough. over the past 20 years he's appeared on book tv or than 50 times all of the programs you're about to see can be viewed in their entirety by visiting our website booktv.org and using the search function at the top of our page first in 1992 on c-span

book notes program david mccullough discussed his biography of president harry truman the book was awarded the pulitzer prize for biography and instrumental in changing attitude about the truman presidency. here's a portion of the interview. >> the number of presidents that were already assassinated why would the government have protections for them. >> it was not done i would've the government have a pension they were pensions of army officers and everybody else but no pension for the president he had very little money he had to borrow some money, quite secretly which dean cosigned to pay for the move back home. this is not well-known and it doesn't mean he didn't have money he did have money but he needed cash to cover the expenses of moving out of the white house and when he got home in order to provide himself some

income he undertook the writing of his autobiography, his memoirs which no other president has done except for herbert hoover, herbert's time in office was briefer than truman's and truman's presidency covered far more tumultuous history, to undertake the two-volume memoir was a very major ambitious task. and then he built his library there had been a previous presidential library franklin roosevelt established after roosevelt that died in office. truman was the first president to officiate over the establishment of his presidential library in there again he was beginning something new. one of the things i tried to imply or to emphasize in the book is truman was a very creative public figure.

he was a creative president and a creative presidency he was a builder all his life he built roads, courthouses and when he got to washington he became president he built the famous truman balcony on the back of the white house, the great leery of criticism. he is the one that entirely rebuilt the white house, the white house that we have today is the white house the harry built except for the outer shell that was maintained the original outer shell the entire interior is a reconstruction of the original, he took part in every detail of the reconstruction he loved building and creating things in a larger way his presidency is marked by a creative and intubated acts as the marshall plan and truman doctrine and nato in .4.

so forth. . . .

i remember thinking, he's in the car. i think the fact that he had high color, he rated good health made him seem but a person. he turned to didn't seemed like a little man to me. to me at that moment he was 6-foot eight but i never spoke to him, never met him. i've often thought wouldn't it be interesting if you go back in time to reach out and touch him on the shoulder in 1956 that fall night and say mr. president i'm going to write your biography someday? >> knowing what you know, what you think you would think? >> i'm sure some of it he wouldn't like because this was after an honest attempt to see the complete man with his flaws

and faults. i would hope in some he would think i understood him better than other people have is a much more complicated complex intelligence, thoughtful considerate man than the stereotype harry truman type. he isn't james whitmore. he isn't just a missouri will rogers. all of the people i've interviewed who worked with him and were in the white house all say please understand this was much more. >> how many interviews did you do? >> about 126 and it ranged

across a broad spectrum. some people hardly know them at all the saw him come and go and some of whom were so important during the ten years to write the book. >> who did you spend the most time with? >> i guess in total perhaps either margaret truman or george elsie on the white house staff and secret service people who were invaluable because they work with him all the time. many of whom had never been interviewed before. >> are secret service allowed to talk after the fact? >> apparently so. >> wonderful because they saw him offstage, they sent him under all conditions, often enormous pressure.

my account is based on material that can only be had by reaching that time through living people and their devotion to harry truman is a very compelling thing to listen to and it's true of all the people who work for him at all levels. i did not find a single person who knew him well and worked with him who wanted to tell me what his terrible backstage was, ungrateful or difficult boss he was to work with and it wasn't

just that they liked him they were devoted to him, in a way i kept hoping i would find some people who had some to pull out but it never happened. >> when did you start all of that? >> 1982, ten years ago. >> what was the reason? >> i was looking for the subject and start working on a book about picasso. i had to go around the barn with harry truman and i quit that book and stopped after a few months because i found i just like him so he was a repellent human being and didn't really have a story that interested me. he never really went very far had adventures, and immensely important painter, i found his

treatment of his family and attitude toward women, he wasn't somebody i wanted to spend five years with as a roommate so to speak and by editor suggested i think about doing franklin roosevelt because at that time there is not a good biography of franklin roosevelt on impulse i said if i would do 26 country president, it would be harry truman and he said well, why not harry truman x i looked into it and i found it was not a good biography of harry truman, there isn't a complete time the last chapter you're talking about, part of his life is never been written about before. it comprised of 20 years of his life and beyond that there was

immense collection of letters and diaries which he poured out all of his life on paper and he left a very revealing record unlike that of any president i know of and i'm sure will never have another president that leaves anything like that. we don't write letters much anymore or keep diaries much anymore and he did both his whole life and long before he ever realized is a figure in history. in one month in 1947 when he was president and his wife was looking after her mother, harry truman the president of the united states wrote to her 37 times. these were just simple how are you? the weather is cool or whatever. these were real letters to his. >> did you figure out how he wrote them?

>> letters, he had wonderful and clear straightforward, strong handwriting just like he was but very legible so never a problem reading his handwriting as there was seldom ever a problem. >> he also pointed out some time in his life he and his wife called their daughter every night? >> yes. they were very close. the same people with him as secret service agents were white house domestic staff has said they were closest family they'd ever known in the white house and though they don't want to be quoted by person, they say truman was the favorite president, the first president to walk out to the kitchen and the first president in their memory to walk to the kitchen to

think the chef or cook for the dinner that night. remember chauvin coolidge coming but they thought that was to see if anybody was with food. truman you everybody by name and all about their family and this wasn't a politicians device, it's just the way he was. the whole give him hell, harry truman on the job of the office in the white house with his people, the lowest level and highest never gave anyone hell or raise his voice. if anything, he's remembered for how considerate he was. small favors and courtesies. >> appeared on c-span more than 75 times including 50 appearances on book tv. up next, he discusses his

biography of john adams. the 2001 book of this recipient of pulitzer prize. >> john adams was born 1735. he lived until 1826. he lived longer than any president in our history. he's been commonly thought of as a rich boston blue lead. he was none of that, he was rich or or blueblood, he is a farmer's son because of his scholarship to harvard, discovered books and read forever as he said. john adams was the most deeply broadly red american his time. let's please today remember john adams, second president of the united states signed legislation created the library of congress. to be here to talk about john adams and remember john adams is

particularly appropriate. his a man of genuine brilliance. also a man of great heart and humor, devoted to his country. truthful, devoted to his wife and family, hard-working and altogether one of the bravest patriots and history. his abrasive, sometimes temperamental, sometimes taxes, sometimes over the concern with his own position or place in his posterity and also a man to his credit but also disadvantage who he said never considered popularity his mistress. he never quoted popularity, he is a man of principle. his courage was the courage of

his conviction, i think one of the most vivid important examples of his principal behavior and conduct in life, the only founding father is a matter of principle. we know it's important to judge those who didn't own slaves in the context of their time. that's correct and fair and historically the sensible sound thing to do but let's not forget john and abigail adams were also of the time and opposed slavery. abigail perhaps even more than her husband. at one time she said i wonder if all prevails and suffering we are going through are god's punishment for the sin of slavery. san andreas fault of slavery to runs through our country's story begins well before the

revolution just as the revolution has too many people seem to not understand begin well before the declaration of independence. declaration of independence john dickinson opposed the declaration of independence was launching into a storm in the paper. what made it more than just a piece of paper is the fact that we succeeded in the revolution, in the war. we've fought for and succeeded gaining our independence john adams would not set free and independent, he would have said independent and free. you have to have independence and then comes freedom. new englanders find major, cultural tradition were fiercely independent people, independence was a way of life and so was

the. i think the the utmost importance and understanding that time, that age and moment in history and protagonists, we believe strongly in the separation of church and state and they all did, to the separation of church and state in their time did not mean separation of church and statesman. if we really want to understand, we have to understand the part religion played and there outlook on what might happen next. they also had long distance communication that took a lot of time and travail almost beyond our reckoning to get a lot of back-and-forth between philadelphia and boston were where the adams lived, took at least two weeks.

communication across the ocean were separated he literally ten years and that separation was created by the atlantic ocean and communicated across the atlantic ocean, upwards of three to six months and what does that mean? it meant both in personal life and to the medic or official life one had to be more is possible then we understand today for one's own decisions. abigail adams at home running the family and farm developed accounts keep people working with her to make the farm work because i was there only means trying to educate the children in making decisions about whether to get smallpox shocks for example. had to make those decisions

herself couldn't pick up the phone and asked her husband what she ought to do and that was part of life the assumption of responsibility to oneself. when adams was serving in france and netherlands and england again and again he had to make tremendous decisions on his own that would affect the course of events at a time and of the united states in this country but also of course his own career but he made them because it was necessary. i think communicated any faster than something to be transported. we think of communication transportation as two different things, at that time was the same thing. no faster than a sailboat, vast difference. they work like we are because they lived in a different time. a very different time. a very interesting time. i tried to read not only study

the book, not only what they wrote and home i did they write, neither john or abigail adams was capable of writing a sentence or short letter #they wrote just between the two of them over 1000 letters to each other. over 1000 survived in massachusetts to store society in all on red paper and as a consequence of as good as today and you can hold them in your own hand in your holding the letter about the susan distance from your eyes they did with two hands as they did and believe me, something tactical, very important and visceral happens when you are working the real thing. it is not the same as seen on micro reproducing the book. the community, mortality,

vulnerability of the people come through and the bravery. think about woman 11:00 at night, doing all she did sitting down and writing those letters and nearly always inserting into her letter a wonderful quote from one of her favorite poets of shakespeare and nearly always getting it a little bit wrong. [laughter] which shows she didn't look it up. [laughter] she wasn't taking a book off the shelf and copying it saying this will make me look great. [laughter] she knew it, it was part of her but equally important and rewarding in reading not just what they wrote but what they read, i did a small piece for the washington post this summer

about that, going back and reading all those writers so many we are required to read in english and high school or college, samuel richardson and nobles of samuel richardson. to be reminded about what wonderful writers, we talk about progress in heaven knows we live with the benefits of progress of progress all the time certainly when we go to the dentist. [laughter] when i think of poor john adams the end of his life, not a tooth in his head everyone of them was pulled long before novocain but we have a certain vanity and

arrogance about progress but when you read what they wrote in the 18th century, i don't think anybody would be better today or even as well. i'll tell you something else that make us all set up and shape up, the literacy rate in massachusetts was higher in their time than is today and what a disgrace that is. what a lot of work still has to be done about the. the books they read as they do our lives in our time, they affected their notion of truth, heroism, right, wrong, how you write a letter. john adams advised young john quincy, don't try to write literature you write about it, don't strain for thrills and

fancy affect. write the way you talk, it's a letter. write the way you talk. so when you read his letters, you're hearing them talk and one of the things i've done my books, particularly in this book one of the ways i approach biography simply my way and i think it's the only way, to let them talk much as possible. most of life is talk if you think about it. how they talk in the words they use and figures of speech and expression, cadences are a reflection of personality and style, the person. abigail was hugely influenced by writings of samuel richardson, the great novel of orissa, one of the most popular in the 18th century and she wrote an interesting letter to a niece saying she wants to read

clarissa and hugh ought to write the letters the way they are there. people fighting letters back and forth to each other and that's all it is. even when she wasn't separated from her husband, she would write to somebody else, to her sister, mary, some of the best letters she ever wrote and she needed to write and work her thoughts out on paper and feelings out on paper and it's a very important part of writing for all of us. you've all had the experience, you sit down and write something you find you have insight or

thought you never would have had if you hadn't required or forced result or wanted to write. something about writing focuses the brain in a different way. >> we've opened archives to look at all the problems with historic david mccullough. in 2000 when he appeared on our monthly calling for an in-depth to discuss his books and writing process. he gives us a tour of his home and where he writes. >> we've got video of your home and writing. >> not a shed. [laughter] that's on music history massachusetts, a village in the center of the island of martha's vineyard. the house is part of 19th century, part of it is 20th century, that's the back porch looking out over the acre i own will be have nice boring back to

a neighboring farm since the island was first settled. this was my walk to work, it measures 12 by 8 feet and windows on all four sides. i have about 800 books in the end my faithful typewriter upon which i work since about 1965, every book ever written on that typewriter and there's nothing wrong with it. it's an example of a beautifully american american-made machine. >> have you written every word in this room? >> everything. what, part of it in charlottesville when we lived there for a year, but a part of the year when i was doing research at the library of university of virginia but essentially all of it was written there.

>> what kind do you right? >> i'm not writing all day, i'm reading what i wrote the day before or going over notes, there's no telephone. >> is there music? >> no music. a nice view but i have my back to the view. it's far enough from the house, you see general washington and some of his soldiers marching along, i hope they show the end because there's a guy at the end i identify with, these are always a little slow catching up, you're going to see him. i look at him and he's my example. there week -- no. there he is, that's the one. [laughter] is always a little behind.

i work there because when children are young, i didn't want them to have to be walking around. a call to look at what's in front of me as i worked, i think the earliest photograph of the capitol, i love that photograph. we could talk about this later but the top -- this is the great line from adams letter to abigail under this roof carved as of this, indicated there into the mantelpiece of the dining room of the white house. it's the map of boston, and shows very importantly on the book i'm working on now and it can separate map in the john adams book. i take everything, there's a wonderful crayon drawing of john

adams, one of the best representative of him ever done and i love drawing and painting, i paint and draw myself and the only way is the drawings and paintings of utmost importance and try to reach the human being, those are found letters of george washington, those were dug up on the property when we were building where i work. >> how long have you lived there? >> we bought it initially in 1965, paid less that he would pay for a car today. [laughter] was the eyesore of the street and slowly began to restore it and fix it up. we lived there for a term at cornell, as a writer in residence in new mexico for a

while and we spent probably half a year at least in independence missouri when i was working on the truman -- this is the other work area where paraphernalia medications are located, fax machine, copy machine and computer and so forth. that's a sign that says no cell phones permitted i loved that little sign. having lunch, that's a photograph of joint session of congress, i love it because it's falling asleep to my eloquence. grandchildren, the previous picture, rosalie's grandfather who had a wealthy -- a house on

martha's vineyard. the paintings are here and there unless i give them to the children. that's one from our motel room in boston -- >> how long does it take you to paint? >> these are watercolors for reservation in montana, that is a sketch of a farm near the house where we live. it's something i've always loved to do and our oldest daughter and first granddaughter, that is the public library where he served as a trustee over the years. you see where i had to go to get to the library. i used to say would you like to go to the library? we would walk across the street and there was a little library. that is the church where our

children were married on the corner of where we live. >> i have one of those photographs you're talking about, who's in the photo? >> that's a picture of my mother probably before i was born. >> mother on the left? >> yes and my aunt on the right. i love it because it's a wonderful. photograph about there's a great car in the background, cars always date photographs. always put a car in your photographs but i appreciate the picture because my aunt was the one who gave me copy of mathematics when i graduated from yale in the start of me reading shelby which started me reading barbara and a lot of other people and i didn't know it at the time but the bruce book changed my life because i began to sense what i wanted to

do as a writer. >> david mccullough is the author of a dozen books to time when both surprised national book award. he's appeared on tv more than 50 times. in 2002. he reflects in the research conducted for his 1983 book about the brooklyn bridge. >> i'd had lunch with several fronts in the restaurant or east side of washington of new york. the two friends were both engineers in the builders and brooklyn bridge headnote and set up the structure. my first book was really a study in human shortsightedness, irresponsibility. there is a theme to the

johnstown, it's careless, extremely dangerous always. assume people are in positions of responsibly they are there for behaving as possibly and that was a mistake all were making and johnstown of the cost of more than 2000 lives. it was not an act of god, it was the fault of human beings. what happens in life and publishing is you quickly typecast and after the book came out i had to publisher approaching, one wanted me to do a book about chicago fire and the other about the san francisco earthquake. [laughter] at the age of about 35, i was being typecast as bad news mccullough. [laughter] i didn't like that. whatever they wanted at that

stage in my outlook on life and the human condition was some symbol of affirmation because we aren't always shortsighted or know how to solve problems and we do have the capacity to do greater things. the imperfect people working together can often be noble, creative works. listening to these two men talk about the brooklyn bridge at that lunch, i suddenly thought, that's it. that's the symbol of affirmation i've been looking for. i came out of that restaurant working as an editor in new york, somebody waiting for me at the office to talk about something and forgot about it i was so excited about the idea

and so motivated i went to 42nd street library in new york and i took the stairs up to the third floor where the card catalogs were, i think for a time, i was repelled by this book already acquiring a structure and design in my head and all i wanted to know was if somebody had already done it and i pull out the drawer, 100 cards on the subject of the brooklyn bridge but not one according to the descriptions, the book in mind i had to write. >> nothing about bridge engineering or physics or mathematics in one of the lessons i learned in the process of writing the book is if you are motivated, you can learn anything. if you work it out yourself, unravel it yourself, struggle to understand it on your own, you will know it in a way you never

lose it, it will never go away and i'm interested in how we learn things and how we teach people today and have traditionally so much of it is just headed to the students and we all know how we can study or can study for the museum exam and we do fairly well or maybe even fairly well very well in two months, two years it's gone. i could go today 30 years later and take a test on the brooklyn bridge and do extremely well. it's part of me now because i had to do it on my own. one reason when to bring the lab technique to the teaching of humanity's and we do presently. rosalie and i drove up from our home in white plains, a beautiful saturday, every thing

in glorious color. we got to the campus in new york and almost no one was there, it must have been a football weekend or something and we went to the library, an old church converted into a library, a very victorian church. i went to the desk and called in advance and said we are here to look at the collection and she said we are so shorthanded today, i'll just give you the key and if you go to the top of the stairs to the attic, there are light switches on the way up the stairs and if you turn left, there's a door to a closet to the left. we went up the stairs and turning on the light switches which were like 40-watt bulbs. [laughter] the stairs creaked with something like stephen king returns to the left of the top

of the stairs and opened the door and there wasn't a closet, it was really a small room with shelves from floor to ceiling jammed with material. scrapbooks, old boxes of letters and photographs, all kinds of notes and you couldn't tell what they were tied up in old shoestrings and you could tell the shoestrings had never been untied, they formed that look shoestrings get 30 years later that have never been untied. [laughter] there was a bust of the designer of the bridge, the doorknocker of her house on brooklyn heights, everything it looked like something in these closets up in the attic but it was the volume and i said oh my goodness. she looked at it and she said oh my god.

[laughter] there goes three years of our lives. it was the proverbial trunk in the attic -- i don't know how many times. it did take three years to go through the material and write the book and they were in many ways the best three years of my life. i was telling marie earlier before this event started, i've written a number of books and sometimes you write the book and the subject is sort of done and you feel that's it, i've said everything i wanted to say about this and you really don't want to turn back to it again but that's never true for this subject, it's infinitely

interesting structure, an interesting work of the american importance and a lesson of so many kinds that i hope i can just talk about that. first of all, it's a great urban event, great expression of the ideal of the city, a community committed to the idea of this and it stands at the gateway of our country and particularly that day in the 19th century, the gateway for millions coming up to the new world. there is nothing like it in the world, nothing like it in the country. those towers on the performance bridge which don't seemed like very much today, the tallest structures in the north american continent.

they were an expression of the beginning of high-rise, the first time it began to appear that this wasn't going to grow out what it's going to grow up. the concept of a vertical city was new and nearly impossible. in the brooklyn bridge of the ingredients of high rise ski skyscraper of an american because it contains heroic scale and the first use of structural steel in a major way except for the bridge in st. louis which still stands first major use anywhere. steel was going to transform. the revolution created by

customers steel and one of the major changes complexity and the direction of it. the bridge contains in its design a concept and work of engineering performing and if you walk across the bridge, you know what i'm talking about, it's the boardwalk, it's how you walk over the bridge. instead of putting pedestrian sidewalks on the outside of the bridge and perimeter, the designer put them inside the bridge of vertical space and cables and above the vehicular

traffic so when you walk across, you feel contained in the network of cables and not on the edge of the bridge so the uneasiness that go with that are gone. because you are above the traffic, you can enjoy the view on no other bridge. there's never been a bridge where pedestrian walkway was so designed and tragically there's never been since. the engineers who designed the bridge, i spent weeks and months and years studying, you can't see anything. [laughter] the engineers wrote people on a sunday afternoon or weekend day you could go with your family or

boyfriend or children and walk out of the city up higher than you've ever been in your life and they were more than about four or five stories. 119 feet of it is not a river, it's a title straight, salt water, there were sharks in the river, siegel's fly under the bridge and the bridges so high because it was built in the age of sale and they wanted the ships coming and going stream without trimming the top and the various ships of the day that do that. as the beginnings on the river so you can see sailboats and feel fresh air and enjoy yourself and know you are in new york city, brooklyn, or was

thought to be the greatest country on earth. >> you are watching book tv on c-span2. looking at others and award-winning historian david mccullough. he appeared at the national book festival in washington d.c. to discuss his bestseller 1776. >> the revolutionary war here 18th century was more important to who we are and the way we are in our american secular faith than most people realize. unfortunately to a large degree, it is portrayed so often almost as though people involved, particularly the protagonist were figures in a crushing pageant. the closing of the time, the

renditions of jefferson and others lends this theatrical quality to them. we don't see them in photographs. we have no recordings of their voices. we can't see film footage of them. in the case of those who fought in the war, we have no on the spot drawing by correspondence. it's almost impossible to reach them as we would reach people in the civil war or first world war except for what they wrote in diaries and letters sometimes order books and records of one

kind or another and memoirs or autobiographies after the fact. newspaper coverage was not like you would expect, no correspondents covering. by and large we would have to conclude we don't know what they look like but we do know what they look like because of these notices and men deserted from ranks or went over to the other side. they were very descriptive because they hoped to find these people. what comes through is the

realization how different from all of us they looked. very few who fought with washington merged with washington in 1776 were a uniform. even officers rarely had uniforms. washington himself how to make this fit uniform because he felt it was part of his role as a leader, to look like the leader, the general but the men in the ranks were wearing everything imaginable and not supplied replacements for what they were so is it more on, their clothing became tattered and mended, dirty and eventually in rags or worse than rags. the times themselves was so much harder than we understand. life for somebody in the 18th century was very difficult by

our standards, uncomfortable, filled with danger, threats of disease, possible accidents and physical destruction that could come. people were beat up by life more than we are in our time. no orthodontists or dentists or cosmetic surgeons to say the least so someone with a severe childhood injury like daniel week green was walk the rest of his life with a limp and would be readily corrected. john trumbull, the great painter whose works hang in the capitol, signing of the declaration of independence, magnificent painting of one of the most important scenes in our history when washington returned command of the army back to congress,

return his power back, something no general had done. the only heavy use of one i because of a childhood injury. henry knox had part of one hand blown off and on and on. people were missing teeth, i cast in the eye or a way of holding her head on the shoulder. life was dangerous, difficult and people were resilient, tough and strong to a degree that something we celebrate. we in our time are softies by contrast. it's hard for us to imagine what would like to have sweeping academic smallpox or typhoid

sweep through our town and community, city and take lives of hundreds of people all around us but it happened. of course when the war came on, the tragedy and the grief, sorrow can't be measured with statistics. advocate adams said future generations who will reap the blessings will have little idea, can little imagine what we have suffered on their behalf and she was right. the war was longest in our history except for the vietnam war, eight and a half years. also very bloodied proportionate to the population. 25000 americans were killed. two we who have lived with the 20th and 21st centuries of

sufferings worldwide, 25000 doesn't sound like a great deal but 25000 was 1% of the population of 2,500,000 and if we fight the revolutionary war today with our population, it would mean over 3 million would be killed. in their times, it was a horrible war and extremely costly to the people who stayed home and had to make do without her husband to work the farm, hard to be the breadwinner for the family. i'd like to reach you a little bit. these are very colorful and interest. they are in a way describing what's immediately identifiable in a way we are not used to. very much like characters in dickens day. one george reynolds of rhode

island was 5-foot nine and half inches tall, 817 and carried his head something else on his right shoulder. thomas williams was an immigrant, old country man, that means he wasn't an old man from the country, is probably from ireland or wales or summer. he spoke good english but had a film in his left i david ralph, saucy fellow bring a coat, jacket and breaches and ruffled shirt when last seen. colonel roosters and kathy harvey's regiment in the connecticut, is paired fellow, . blue coat and black vest, a middle button, black long hair and black eyes.

his poison hermaphrodite fashion. [laughter] michalak smith, a small fellow, gray-headed and a younger look in his face, about to say i swear, i swear. in between his words, smart. on a green coat and old red gray coat, he's wearing two coats, one red and one green, is a gangster although he wears something of this for looks. john davey, long pump shoulder fellow, shoemaker says culpable. he had on a green coat, slim legs and while some of his teeth. these men were largely anonymous were the ones who did the hard marching and fighting and

fighting again and again month after month and made the words noble ideals of the declaration of independence, more than just words on paper. when we celebrate fourth of july, we celebrate the great openings passages of the declaration of independence, we celebrate all men created equal, life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. none of that would have been possible without the men who marched through 1776 and beyond. don't picture them as all heroes, they weren't. hundreds deserted, thousands as time went on, thousands more went home, they were only enlisted for your and when the time came to go home, there is nothing to stop them many of

them just marched away. when washington was in retreat, many of the men were without shoes in winter was coming out and the british were coming on fast behind him and beyond imaginable. soldiers were well trained, good clothes and equipment and when that was going on in december, the enlistments for 2000 men came up and 2000 men marched away and went home with no shame. washington's army was down to 3000 men, that's all they were left so in effect quite literally, we owe what we have and who we are and all that we hold safe to about 3000 men who would not quit.

that was in part because they were led by a man who would not quit. washington was not a great intellectual like jefferson or adams or hamilton, he wasn't a brilliant speaker. when george washington was was a leader, a man of phenomenal courage, physical and moral courage. a man who could spot great talent in other people and give them a chance to look to his investment he picked, he picked in about two weeks, the band feel green is picked them despite the fact that he was new englander's fans who he does hardly liked. [laughter] they were the bestie had. they were the only general

officers stayed the entire length of the war, did not leave, would not quit. >> you are watching book tv on c-span2 and we are showing highlights from historian david carlos and make many appearances. he published the american spirit, a collection of speeches throughout his career. he spoke of the john f. kennedy presidential library in boston. history can inform us today. >> writing my book about harry truman, i love the idea he went out for a walk every morning so i thought maybe i should try that as a way of tuning up your head, not necessarily your body and you start thinking in a way if you are not walking so last summer with comments made, not

only appalling but unimaginably a place, i thought what could i do to provide a counter view to this, i started thinking about speeches i gave at occasions such as the 200th anniversary of congress, anniversary of the white house, kennedy's memorial service at dallas i was asked to be the speaker commencement speeches and speeches i've given that particular occasions of importance in the history of other organizations and/or universities and found there were a great many where i was

voicing what really matters to me and why i think history is fascinating and how essential i think it is as a means to enlarging the experience of being alive. why should we limit our little bit of time in our biological box? ...

>> historians don't have a role in talking about current politics but he's talking about current politics. >> before current politics came on the scene none of these were written. >> and rhythm a second time thinking what is the sentence, what is a paragraph what is the point he's trying to make here that might be taken to heart for people and politics. i read a second time. each time i was looking in the speech that might be taken to heart that might be elected president, let me pick out a few i won't do each one i think 12 out of 15 and found a pertinent

point from 1989 he quoted margaret chase smith who had the guts to review joe mccarthy, she said i don't want to see the republican party and she was a republican from maine why the political victory on the four horsemen fear ignorant bigotry and smear, smear is interesting word why did you think that happened at the current time. >> if you only had a sense of humor. >> could you imagine somebody reading the and the current political climate. >> wouldn't it be wonderful. a republican to stand up as she did one of the rare cases and that point in her history most people have no idea who margaret

cheesman was she was one of the bravest most admirable political figures we've ever had. >> now many republicans are stated of now? >> not enough. >> 1998 quoting benjamin rush not as well-known as the mother patriot that time one of the original signers of the declaration speaking of good nature that mattered most in human relations he said" woman the book this is his quote tendered gentleness and disposition to speak with disability and listen with attention and you added in 1998 words of the wife are perhaps in their own day more than ever. >> indeed benjamin rush is one of my favorite characters from the past and a remarkable man and 18th century polymath of somebody who's interested almost anything and he was an

accomplished position in one of the first people to encourage the fair inhumane treatment of mental illness and as if they were animals, he was extremely courageous in his ability to go into places, it was rampant clearly yellow fever epidemic. he rested over and over and he was one of the signers of the declaration of independence and when he signed the declaration of independence he was almost 30 years old we forget how young those people were, jefferson what erupted under declaration of independence was 33. washington when he took command of the continental army was 44

years old we see them later on with their white hair and their elderly statues entrance factors and so forth they were not that way they were very young i think that's encouraging that that is part of our story i don't think we can ever know enough about the american revolution. by the way the new museum of the american revolution is just opening and philadelphia it's a must for all of us it is marvelous in particularly a place to take your children your grandchildren to get them hooked on history. it is brilliantly organized as a spectacular building by robert

stern, excuse me it's right in the center were all the historic neighborhood is. it's only a few steps down the street from independence hall. we who lived in the boston area with reality of the miracle as part of our environment and our world that is getting great, i love kidding these profiles i read that when i was still young and not aware what i wanted to do with my life and i love his regard for john quincy adams. >> equal to him right in the beginning. >> what i like and that quote and i'm not here to comment on anything but what i like on that quote is the word civility which is a lost art in the public

discourse of america today in the sense of comity that existed among people who share a common goal and no there needs to be a common end it is gone and you write we've had many instances with deep chasms of division in this country but we come out of them what is going to bring us out of this the two sides when politics trumps policy when the sense of a national goals is gone and party goals matter more than the national goal. >> what brings us together. >> leadership are the best kind leaders who have encouraged to stand up for their convictions and the backbone to do with writing your respective of what

it means to the political future or the chance of being reelected it has to come mainly from the people we talk about the three segments of government and legislative judicial and executive but there's a fourth factor the people, all of us, when we stand up and say no more of this we don't take this anymore when we stand up and say there is a person right there that say the right thing and doing the right thing and we're going to get denied and make sure that the attitude becomes potent and maybe even decisive, when someone reads about margaret chase and says that's what i'm going to do somebody in the government right now it will happen out of the necessity to

survive and morgan expect that. >> i believe in you right were a centrist nation we are a country where 30, 40, 50% of the people want government to get something done. >> we ain't doing it. >> that doesn't mean we won't. >> we came through very hard times very baffling times very pessimistic times and inappropriate behavior times in the part of her leadership but very often when we do come through these difficult times are clouded sky times and we do come through were better for having done it.

people talk about that was a simpler time back then, know what was it was never a simple time or things have never been so bad or so dark, yes they have it if you don't understand that you understand the reality of our story. i like to point out that the influenza epidemic which might periods in your parents probably went through it 1918, 19,500,000 people died they did not know where it came from and if it would ever go away if all or how to curate. if that were to happen today, given the size of our population, the proportion 1,500,000 people would die in less then a year.

imagine if that were on the nightly news every night we'd be even more terrified he would be next in our family to die. and just as the depression in the civil war, horrible times but we came through them because among other things we have the faith that we would and because that we understood of much consequences ever accomplished alone has to be a joint effort that's it they have to come back to understand. >> a look at david mccullough's program from our archives concludes with this recount of the pioneers who settled in the northwest territory. this event is from 2019 at the ohio statehouse in columbus. >> the big change the big sudden revelation that here was something was after i finished

and got down to marietta because i heard there was an archival material there and my assistant who i feel is the greatest researcher in america today and i saw this breathtaking collection i knew we had open king tut's tomb it was really thrilling let me just try to describe what it was thrilling it isn't just so much of it there are literally thousands of letters diaries, memoirs, published journals, maps, data of all kinds, drawings and magnificent oil paintings, it is the quality of it all the

quality of the writing and the thinking the quality in expressing what they were brokenhearted about and fearful of and how they were suffering and all the work they had to do in the onset of epidemic disease in the natural fiascoes of storms and earthquakes in all of it happening one after another one year they almost starved compared to them we are all a bunch of softies truly. i could go on for hours about

the lessons of history and why history is so beneficial and so important. so enlarging of life i think two of the most important lessons to be learned and passed on tour children and grandchildren the first is empathy to be able to put yourself in the other persons place to imagine what life might've been like and what they went through it's insane for the people in her own time yet to understand why people feel as they do about things put yourself in their place, empathy, secondly gratitude gratitude for all the other people do for a benefit or have done or did long ago we should never take that for granted we should never see that's the way

it is. one of the things we unfortunately do take for granted is the public school system. another thing all men are created equal, that's just on paper but in fact those two parts of our national life began here, first public school system anywhere in the country here in ohio why did this happen because it wasn't men primarily the charter the northwest ordinance 18871787 states very clearly there will be public education there will be complete freedom of religion, there will be an attitude toward the native american fundamentally respectful and decent and there

will be no slavery, there were slaves and every one of the original 13 colonies, is as all men are created equal but we have 150 slaves over here in the slave quarters stucco to be that way in ohio, that was still primarily to say entirely into his son, vanessa cutler who was what they call 18th century polymath somebody knew a lot about everything that was interested in everything he was a doctor of law and a doctor of medicine in a doctor of timidity, all three in practice

all three he was probably almost certainly the leading american of his day he was interested in everything he believed in the importance and the essence of the of the good life to learning and had a love of learning like very few americans like ever came to know to read about. he never lived here in a came out to see how everything was going but he had too much going on back home in massachusetts which is north of boston his church and his parsonage are still there in superb condition the place were the first covered wagon and it was still there and

his son came here with his wife and four children and they are young and hopeful and they know how to dress themselves for hard work but nothing even the most difficult in the former and the rocky ground of new england and being comparable to what they paste here. they came out and on their way coming down the ohio river two of the children died of disease they had to be buried on the banks of the river with no settlement or anything, imagine they arrive here in mrs. cutler stepped off the boat, the barge at one point and turned her ankle badly he was suffering from disease himself when he

arrived here, they do know one thing so they had to begin as everybody else had to do it by hard work we had no idea how hard those people work 90 day everyday men in children, abram cutler had not had the education his father had because he had been raised by his grandparents were farmers in connecticut this is very important to keep in mind because then what he did abram cutler, we were asked in an interview just the other day here in ohio all of the scenes in my book which i could've been there to watch and i knew right

away, there was a big movement that came after the election of thomas jefferson, jeffersonians we will call it because they didn't really have a party name sometimes those river republicans the jeffersonians here decided they were going to get rid of the role that there would be no slavery and introduce slavery into ohio leading the charge to stop that and from going to a slave state and the other one was abram cutler himself he was young at

this point and he is absolutely devoted to stopping this change and he gets quite ill. he could hardly get out of bed and there was even some question of whether he had survived or lived in the day that the vote was going to take place, ruthless putnam came into the boardinghouse room nearby, he was old enough to have been his father, they came in and he said cutler you must get well in your place or you will lose your favorite measure. according to one account putnam and another man carried into the convention on a stretcher but there is no reliable evidence of

this, cutler himself, i went to the convention and moved to strike out the obnoxious matter and made my objections as forcibly as i was able, it was an active fortitude and the result was never ever to be forgotten here. it cost me every effort i was capable of making and it passed by a majority of one vote only because he got up from his suffering and there would be no slavery but all of the northwest territory indiana, illinois, michigan and wisconsin imagine if slaves had been admitted.

imagine what would've happened there would've been no underground railroad they would bid no uncle tom's cabin the most influential powerful ever written by any american there would've been no abraham lincoln or ulysses s grant the whole picture would've been different this one man, the first statue of him he is not mentioned in any of the history books and he's totally forgotten. imagine the excitement that we felt that here were all his winners, the putman collection as well as your 1000 feet into

pieces. >> if you missed any of the author programs with historian david mccullough or want to watch them in their entirety you can visit our website booktv.org access our archives by using the search box at the top of the page and search david mccullough and book. >> at least six presidents recorded conversations while in office here are many of those conversations during season to of the podcast presidential recording. the nixon tapes are a private conversation part deliberation and 100% unfiltered. >> let me say the main thing it will pass and my heart goes out to those people with the best of intentions are overzealous and i'm sure you know if i could've spent a little more time being a politician and less time being