i am christian ostermann, and i have the privilege of cochairing the seminar with professor erik from george washington university. i am delighted to see so

i am christian ostermann, and i have the privilege of cochairing the seminar with professor erik from george washington university. i am delighted to see so many of you here on this beautiful afternoon. we will have c-span taping the event today, so welcome to all of those who are viewing us at home. i suggest that you visit our website to learn more about the seminar and upcoming speakers. both the natural history center and the wilson center website has information on the series. the washington history seminar is a collaborative effort of two organizations, the wilson enters history and public policy program and the natural history center of the american historical association directed by professor dane kennedy, who joins us here as well. we are currently in our ninth year of holding these sessions, which run weekly doing the seminar. we would like to thank our sponsors, the lepage center for history in the public interest of villanova university, and george washington university's history department, as well as a number of individual donors, most of them anonymous, some of them i k