Latest future tense social. This is very exciting for me because im a huge fan of erik larson and his book and we got to listen to a little bit of churchill to get me mood. Im andreas martinez, from future tense a collaboration between new america, trade magazine and Arizona State university. We look at the implications of the impact of technology on society. Im also professor of practice at Cronkite School of journalism as Arizona State university. Its an honor to pleasure to have you with us today, erik, and what brings us here today is your latest book, the splendid and the vial, saga of churchill family and defiance during the blitz. As all of you probably know, im sure, erik is the author of such fabulous bookses dead week, in the guardian of garden of beads, thunderstruck, i have most of your becomes but not your first book. I was intrigued look agent your biography you wrote a book another companies spying on consumers. A very future tensey subject which. I loved on your website, which all of you should listening to check out, i think its eriklarsonbooks. Com, you have an al concern testify bask which is faction and you drive the naked consumer as a book you like but nobody else did and i seriously doubt that but ill take a look at that. So welcome and really thank you for being with us. Guest thank you. Host we should just get right to it, and i want to because were having this conversation today of all days i feel like shy ask the question, im sure is on everyones mind and that is how did Winston Churchill celebrate cinco de mayo. No im kid. Ing that would stump me. Host youre right. That was not one of the things we discussed. In all seriousness, we of hearing this event on zoom as opposed to in person, which i would have loved because were on lockdown, quarantine, house arrest, choose your term. In the face of this Global Pandemic, and so i just want to read a paragraph from your book to set the theme sear. You wrote churchills notion of what constituted an office was expansive. Often generals, ministers and pfaff members would find themselves meeting with churchill while he was in the bathtub. One of his Favorite Places to work. Also liked working in bed and spent hours there each morning going through dispatches and reports with a typest seated anymore. Always present was they box, a black dispatch box that contained reports, corporations and manipulates from other officials requiring his attention. Reprepareished daily by his private sect. Clearly Winston Churchill was sun who mastered the art of working from home. Something were tall struggling to do these days, and so maybe not the place that these conversations about your book usually start but aim curious whether you think churchill would would have something on us on working from home. Guest put it this way. I were Winston Churchill and doing this zoom interview i would be in the bathtub. And actually churchill had no sense of vanity and like lie would have been completely naked doing it. He was an ace work at homer. The guy would get up relatively late in the morning and work in bed. He had his typist, his personal secretary, nearby with a at all times with a type writer taking notes. He would more than likely have a cigar and also frankly more than likely would have this is very appropriate for today would very likely have a tumbler full of water and whiskey. Verse little whiskey but a whiskey and water. Host its interesting you talk about we tend to think of this enyuck relationship, friendship, partnership, alliance, whatever you want to call it, between fdr and church chul and the Communications Going back and forth between washington and london and the summits but i was it was interesting reading in your book how a lot of the early conversations in d. C. , when churchill first enters office, is about the drinking and sort of some of his over the top nature of his personality, and sort of i guess people were wondering, is this somebody we can take seriously. Guest drinking has always been something people have noted about churchill, but is it a mistake to ever think he was a drunk or an alcoholic. Certainly was not. In fact, his very close private secretary, wrote later oregon that he had never seen churchill drunk or even in any way with his faculties limited by alcohol. Churchill himself once said to clem mennine, he said ive taken a lot more than alcohol than alcohol has taken out of meche thats how he felt. One think about the working a home aspect. Resonates today is churchill in this period spent a lot of time at the Prime Minister country home, and actually later began divides his time between two Country Homes which a number of peopling also doing. He he would have been very likely quite at home with this whole situation. Host and i was struck that the i did not know this checkers was donated by somebody to the government, was that correct . As a camp david more of a traditional country home, suppose. Guest an american donated it well before the war, back in i believe he donated it in 1914 . Dont quote me on that one. But anyway, donate to hold the government. The idea being that checkers was to be used no work was to be done there. Host thats the other thing. Guest no work done there a place for Prime Ministers could sort of just enjoy the bucolic country side and let their faculties restore. Churchill took that very differently and decided to make this his country command post and packed it every weekend with guests and booze and fun. Host so i have to when he first heard this was the sung of your next book i wag intrigued. I had quite a lot about this first year of churchills being in office and that the finest hour, and the blitz and so forth and i think recently i read i think Andrew Roberts biography of churchill and i feel like a lot of us are even if were not specialists, we have been inundated with booked about this great historical character and i might have skipped this book had it not been written bit you. Having read your other books fit like he is going to have a new angle, new incite, insight, some new frame. Was it daunting . Did you write but churchill because there were too many books written about Abraham Lincoln. Guest i was totally undaunted. Let me be clear, it was not actually churchill that drew me to do this book. Churchill kind of became a entered the party a little late in the process because what happened is that i had decided for a variety of complicated reasons white be very interested to look into how it was that people actually got through the day during the blitz, during the german air campaign, including the portion we know as the blitz. How did they actually do it . And the reason was, we have my wife and i moved from seattle to new york city, and noticing i moved to new york city i had this epiphany what 9 11 has been like for new yorkers versus what the rest of us who perhaps watched in realtime experienced. A world of difference. Not just the sense and sights but also the sense of violation, having your home city attacked and that made me start think can about writing about how people got out there the blitz. 57 consecutive nights of bombing. How did people get through mitchell original thought was maybe ill just write but the typical london family. So i thought about that. Then i thought, wait a minute why not the quintessential london family, church hill, his family and advisers and see how they get through the day and much nobody had actually done that, decided to take a close look at that daytoday experience, and thats what really helped me get through it. But was i daunted . Oh, yes, how much material had been written but churchill and how much good stuff also. Andrew roberts, my favorite at the churchill scholar, a brilliant writer. So much material had been done i early hand had to make a strategic decision how to purr su reveach. The idea of reading everything that had ever been written but churchill or by churchill which itself would have been a hurricane leann task would take me a decade and by the time i got the ten inch year i wouldnt be done because eight more books would come out , so i did meat a strategic decision that i was going to simply read as much as could i to get a sense of church hill and the landscape in that period and then dive right into the archives to see what was really there. Thats where i feel he most comfortable with original materials and thats how i managed to pair pare things down. Every sungle day for the last four and a half years i did not in fact ask myself what am i doing. Host well, it was very interesting to see how it did feel like portrait of churchills orbit and you had these we were often seeing churchill and that historical moment through the eyes of his personal secretary or his daughter or other advisers that sometimes are not quite we dont necessarily see things through their perspective as much and some of the other accounts ive read. You mentioned churchills own writing. One thing that astonished me reading the roberts biography i had never realized just how prolific the history he wrote after the war ask the tact that throughout his life he would always get himself out of financial holes by his own writing and he was so prolific, and commanded quite a lot of money for his journalistic writings in a way i had not appreciate snead his writing got him out of the financial hole. This is one thing but churchill chat is so remarkable, i is that he was extremely well read, an extremely talented writer. And also quite good painter, but he all this went into that machine that was children churchills brain and it all really helped him in this process of trying to lead the nation through this particular through the crisis of the gerrymanderran air campaign. German air campaign. Host its interesting you said you gravitated dudders this moment by think can what it must have been like to be in new york on 9 11 and then multiply that by 57 nights of the blitz and so forth. And then your book comes out in early 2020 and of course, we are now the entire world is fighting off this Global Pandemic, which is an existential challenge to our societies thats quite different from war, although we see people reaching for this analogies. The analogy it that is unquestionable is the need for leadership to mobilize societies to meet the crisis at hand, that requires extraordinary efforts and sacrifices, and so i want to ask you about that, and whether theres a secret sauce that church chill residents leadership, and before we get to to that, maybe just sort of set the scene, may 10, 1940, amazing day in history, its where your account starts, 80 years from this coming sunday, i was also thinking about that in preparation of this. So just sort of set the escape of describing what it was that the uk and Winston Churchill were facing. Guest so 1940, which is when the action starts in my book, was the day that churchill became Prime Minister, the greatest day in his life, i think even he would agree. The thing he wanted most of all. He became Prime Minister owing to something of a rebellion in the house of commons or the consent this was that neville championer loin was not up to the challenge of dealing with hitler and germany but that same day was the day that hitler the socalled phony war ceased to be a phony war and became a hot war when hitler invadedded the low countries. Heres a situation where churchill the greatest day of his life and also one of the darkest days in the history of the world. This did not daunt churchill. Churchill thought this this is like add spice to the challenge, the idea of being in charge of this great empire at such a dire time really kind of thrilled him. So, he becomes Prime Minister. Appoints the cabinet. This is a crucial element. Talk about the people he appointed, the main characters in the book who i think in other works have been relegated to simply the secondary posture. He immediately is confront talk but excess stenshall threats the presumption that once germany consolidated its hold over france and the britished and den shear forces become expelled. The entire strategic picture would change. Prior to france falling, the assumption was that france would always stand, that this would keep the they would not have the endurance fly to brian. Suddenly with france falling there were german air bases on the coast of the english channel, minutes away from england and london, something that planners in britain had never even speculated on. So you had hat threat and the very real fear that hitler, germany would innovate in a crosschannel attic. Seemed to most people to be a certainty. That if germany ever attained air superiority over the channel there would be an invasion. You can imagine taking control of britain at this time when not only has hitler begun invading various countries in europe and succeeding and crushing them, but now suddenly he i facing what could be a threat in terms of invasion across the channel, what hellish prospect for any normal mortal but not for churchill. He took this on with a verve and a gusto cat him that through time and time again in subsequent months. Host and we were listening to snippets of his speech and his oratory we have been exposed to and there have been lot of hollywood renditions. Theres obviously he had a gift of language. When you think of the his recipe for leadership, their the tendency focus on the oratory the able to leverage the english language shouldnt be snubbed estimated but what is most underestimated. Was he a great commune tater or how much of a ratio of elements and guest it was a mix of things. First of all, we are all familiar with the orator, the great lines, never has so much been owed by so many to so few. That wasnt the strong point of his speech. That line did not necessarily have the same resonance is does now. Basically a speech, just a speech, but the thing that made churchill particularly excellent at communicating not just news and information but also communicating also a sense of need for courage is how we get a taste of that at the opening speech of dunkirk. A great story teller and he was telling as you heard in his opening moments, he was telling it as a story, as this is what was happening, this is how it was unfolding, sort of a thrilling story if you think but it. But what he would do is give you give his audience a sober appraisal of the situation, not happy talk, just a really down to earth sober sometimes too server and too detailed and scared the heck out of the audience on occasion, but then he would follow with comments about, real grounds for why people should be optimistic, how this problem of the blitz, of dunkirk, of the potential for a german invasion, how this can be resolved, positive reasons for optimism and not happy talk, real ground for optimism and then would come this rhetorical flourish at the eastbound would have people rising from thunder estates and saying im going to be part of this. Were going to take the guy on, goddammit and were going to beat hitler. But another almost to churchills leadership. A couple. This comes into act to communicate. Being a great leader of history he had this ability to put people to place people into the grand epic of british history to make them feel as if they were part of this great island story as he would put it. Thats very important to make them all feel part of this thing, this great tradition they had, and also he had a real understanding of the power of symbolic acts. Even something as simple as refusing to call hitler by his name. He would say that man or that wicked man, which very subtle, very tiny thing but very powerful thing. Dont if you dont identify, if you dont demonize your enemy, makes them seem like this unimportant presence, off in the distance. Then the other end of this continuum, the power visiting bombed out areas and showing himself there, showing himself surveying the damage, talking to people, expressing emotions, not afraid of weeping in public and also showing his resolve simple my by being there. He was engaging in a courageous act and showing defiance. This is a very, very powerful thing. Just to give you a contemporary example. I had to laugh in a film way the other day when we saw Vice President mike pence at the mayo clinic without a mask when everybody else around him was wearing a mask and to think of the of the optics, possibly appeals to a tiny slice of america maybe bet somebody like churchill would be wearing the mask and saying this is what we do. That power of sim pollic acts and if you engage in symbolic acts that create dividends you dont wear a mask when your audience knows damn well you should be wearing a mask, thats problem. That undercuts your credibility as a leader. Churchill had this acute sense of the power of symbolic acts. Another example of that is he certainly seemed to be utterly fearless and frankly i think fearlessness is infectious, as i would argue can be when there were air raids churchill was more than likely to go on the nearest roof and walk the air raid and bring people with him, including staff. Thats the kind of leader he was. Host ive actually been to the bunker which they now expanded to a nice museum in london that was there for him and then to read that he wasnt going to be very not going to spend much time there. Guest he only spent three nights there. Host one thing that fascinates me, and i dont maybe talk about this as a source is the extent to which we have some realtime information on how people responded to his speeches and so forth through the project the Mass Observation, something i first learn about reading britains war, a book about the homefront and describing this Mass Observation phenomenon. I guess a sociological project. Can you describe that . And todays equivalent would be social media or peoples google searches. Talk but a that. Thats fascinating. Guest so, Mass Observation was a social Sciences Organization that was founded before the war, the point being to create as its founder said to create a social psychology of ourselves. The idea being to recruit hundreds of diarists to write but daily life in britain. One way that the diarists were to kind of sharpen their skills was to describe things on their mantlepiece, that kind of daily personal detail. So, here are all these diarists, submitting them to Mass Observation for analysis, and then the war starts, and then the diarists continue to keep their dia