doug brinkley edna greene medford come back to you. in light of the discussion of abraham lincoln being so high on our list and being bracketed by the presidents who are loose on our list. why is that? is that surprising to you that the best president falls right between that works? >> not in the least. there is a reason for that. these are all mid 19th century presidents. the three that are at the bottom of the list our presidents who were faced with a crisis and did not manage it well. pierce just stands by as the country's unraveling. he perhaps could have done something, he is the person who is there in the middle of this whole debate over the expansion of slavery. in the 1850s, he allows the kansas nebraska act, while it's past, pearce doesn't attempt to challenge that. you've got buchanan, who is sitting by as the country gets closer to war. he doesn't do anything to stop it. you have lincoln coming in, he has a decision. can either allow the confederacy to go its merry way or he can try to keep the country together. and he decid

we're joined from texas by professor doug brinkley of braise university. from michigan, by historian and author richard norton smith. via zoom by historian and author amity shlaes. and from here in washington, d. c., professor edna greene medford of howard university. good morning to all of, you thanks for joining us this morning. doug brinkley to start with you this morning, start by explaining the criteria that we use here. how do we kim may pair the man, they're all men at this point, who have held the office of presidency over 230 years? how we decided to make that comparison? >> well, c-span has but together a group, all of us that are on the air today are advisers to it, on how to actually rank these presidents. we want to make sure people realize this is not a scientific ranking. that the purpose of, it in many ways, is to be fun and enlightening. to perhaps stoke a conversation around the nation about various presidents, to story tell. but what we really did, do it's not just one, ranking your breaking them up in the categories. so, a president wil

doug brinkley john adams and thomas jefferson the great founders of our nation. we should be celebrating thomas jefferson through the declaration of independence. ironically jefferson on his tombstone in charlottesville, virginia did not want to be known as the president of the united states produce more proud of offering the declaration and being a founder of virginia and other aspects of the career. jefferson i think should be a little higher coming out recently in these polls. because of the one big thing he did, the louisiana purchase when you doubled the size of america and one swoop of diplomacy is such a large game changing event what jefferson did. but one of the things i want viewers to understand is jefferson does not get credit in the polls for doing the declaration of independence that's before he became president. we were just focusing on the president. john adams and jefferson i call one of their intellectual feuds was aware did the american revolution start? adams always believed it began with the boston tea party and the boston massacre. it really

times bestselling author who's credits include two volumes of the nixon tapes with historian, doug, brinkley. a biography of henry cabot lodge jr. and nectar is now at work on a history of the 1968 presidential election. ladies and gentlemen, would you please join me in welcoming irv gelman and dr. luke nichter. here. thank you. now first of all, i'd like to thank you all for coming. i appreciate it. i hope you enjoy the evening, but i'd like to spend. two minutes maybe and thanking my wife gloria gay for tricking me to come to the nixon library. i had absolutely no intention to write a book on richard nixon. let alone now three books on richard nixon. but nobody else will do it. is a project the most historians especially academics won't do you just can have tenure promotions. or anything when you write about darth vader and to many academics nixon is darth vader. which is unfair untrue etc. but i was married to gloria gay for 29 years until she passed away. she was a wonderful wonderful person. and i just want to let you know that i wouldn't be here. if it wasn't for her tricking me into c

i want to thank our panel from texas, doug brinkley, professor at rice university. from michigan, historian and author, richard norton smith. via zoom, historian and author, amity shlaes. and from here in washington, d.c., professor edna greene medford at howard university. thank you all so much for your time this morning. -- including cox. >> homework can be hard, but squatting in a diner for internet work is even harder. that's why we're providing lower income students access to affordable internet. so homework can just be homework. cox connect to compete. >> cox, along with these television, companies support c-span 2 as a public service. present this m >> i am honored to present this morning's speaker is. they are both exceptional people. our first speaker will be professor gary w. gallagher, who is the john l no, it's not the way it's pronounced? and a u -- professor americas in the history of the civil war and director of the center for civil war history at the university of virginia. he's the author, co-author, and editor of numerous civil war era works. he h

who oversaw the fourth survey for a deep dive into those results rejoin from texas by professor doug brinkley of white university from michigan