please welcome sidney milkis. [applause] >> good afternoon everybody. thank you so much for coming out on a beautiful day, wednesday afternoon. it is a real honor to be here and an honor to speak before such a distinguished audience, which includes many of my distinguished colleagues in distinguished colleagues and friends. i am not happy that it took me 10 years to write this book, but to some degree it was a labor of love because i have always been interested in how elections and parties have shaped america's constitutional democracy. the 1912 election was one of those rare campaigns that challenge voters to think seriously about their rights and the constitution. it was the climactic rattle of the progressive era vet rose at the dawn of the 20th century when the country burris try to come to terms with the profound challenges posed by the industrial revolution. for 1912 election was not a major resounding as they sometimes call them. it wasn't like the resolution of 1800, the election of 1860 was the election of 1936. it wasn't that decisive that it

i have admired timothy ferris' writing since 1988 "coming of age in the milky way," a marvelous book or go it is beautifully written yet scientifically sophisticated and the other has a particular flair of bordering on genius for the portrait that bring science to life. and like all professional writers, when it comes to my rivals my heart is a lump of clay or a small dried raisin and i hold with gore vidal, it is not enough for me to succeed or go others must fail. [laughter] when i saw the ambition of this new book from timothy ferris when jason said why don't you look at this i said ah ha, this time he falls on his face. surely he can't write a treatise on science, society and liberal theory with the same kind of grace and skill and clarity that he is brought to peer scientific topics. i deeply regret to say that he has indeed done exactly that. one good reason to read this book is for the sheer pleasure of it. it is vivid. here's a quotation. i could've taken hundreds like this. sputnik suggested politicians and pundits alike that the united states awash in a hedonistic grew up m

and at the moment we don't see any breaks or blue, we just see that kind of white milky look into the sky. but it's not a real heavy cloud deck. that's out in parts of pennsylvania. and ohio and kentucky and tennessee. these are not producing rain, these clouds here. further west, the clouds immediately adjacent. you see little bumps here. especially from tennessee southward toward the gulf coast and mississippi and alabama. these are thunderstorms. there could be strong storms. as this system moves to the east, the southern component with this moisture will dissipate because the main low is going to be up here in the great lakes. that's where most of the moisture is going to concentrate as the storm approaches us. and while all this is happening, warm air comes in. and that's what drives our temperatures during the day today. the instant weather plus future cast shows that by 2:00 in the morning, there's the cold front coming in. don't see rain around it. there might be a couple sprinkles as the front comes through. that's probably about all that will happen. this is before sunrise a