From our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Stephen greenblatt is a literary critic and shakespeare scholar who teaches at harvard. His biography will and the wor ld topped the new yorks best New York Times bestseller list. He speaks about the french essayist michel the montaigne. Pleased to meet you. Why did you write this . Booke central part of this is an addition of a particular translation of montaigne that lets you look over shakespeares shoulder as he was reading. The greatest french writer and the greatest English Writer of the renaissance encountered each other. Shakespeare read montaigne. Montaignepositive never heard of shakespeare. This is a magical, wonderful translation, and a wonderful opportunity that a colleague of mine, peter platt, and i sought to put together, these essays that were central to shakespeare, these translations of montaignes essays. Florio was an interesting character, the son of protestants. Began his life as an italian franciscan, but he abandoned the church, became a protestant, fled to england, and had a son, john florio, in england. After a series of complicated moves, the son went to oxford and became a major figure in translation. , but alsoor montaigne for italian tax and italian sources. Shakespeare probably knew this man. May not have liked him. It is hard to say. Thatt was through florio not only shakespeare, but virtually everyone in england, read montaigne. Said shakespeare was montaignes best reader. And extravagant thing to say. But he was certainly a passionate reader of montaigne. There was some connection, a surprising connection. After all, they are profoundly different. Not only france and england, an aristocrat, a french aristocrat, and a middleclass english playwright are not automatically soulmates. One had a more commercial sense. Much more commercial. Hide to make a living. Montaigne was a very wealthy man. A member of the aristocracy. Ande was active in politics many other things, until he retired to write his essays. At aspeare met montaigne deep level. Is right that they skepticism, aed wariness about religious orthodoxy, about hypocrisy. They shared a deep sense of what the human predicament was, what it meant to face the serious issues of life and death. Tell us more about montaigne. Montaigne was a remarkable man, the son of a man who was already wealthy. His greatgrandfather had made the family money in the wine trade, as the fit someone from bordeaux. Montaigne was the third son. Was not in line to inherit the title or the wealth. But his older brothers died young. Montaigne found himself in this peculiar position of inheriting being poised to inherit the family title, the aristocratic title, and the estate. The chateau. He was involved in an incredibly difficult time in france. France was absolutely falling apart. Ofwas in its iraq moment bitter, murderous hatred between the protestants and catholics. Montaigne was a catholic, but wanted to mediate. Wanted to keep the peace. Was a friend of very important people in power on both the catholic and protestant sides. And tried his best to do something to quiet the bitterness in the country. He started to read montaigne when . I came across montaigne when inas 20, this translation, england. It was bound in the Beautiful College i was at, cambridge. It had beautiful leather binding. It was not a serious interest. I got hooked. As anyone who loves montaigne to youhe speaks directly and shows you everything about himself. He does not hold anything back. One said he teaches you how to live. He teaches you how he felt he should live. He does not preach to you that way, but he shows you what he grappled with, and he feels like he is in the room with you. Is intermittent in england, but powerfully influenced francis bacon, thomas brown, people through the 17th and 18th century. Montaignes influence extends beyond anything literary. Montaigne invented, for the modern world, what it is to be biographical if frank. What it is to tell you about everything. And dislikes. Whether it is tasty salads, cantaloupe, what sex feels like, what he thinks about death, what he worries about, does not worry about. As he could,s far he said he would like to go all the way, portray himself naked, but he is not allowed. But he goes as far as he can. Why was he that way . It is hard to say. The funny thing about it is, for a man who was in some sense obviously willing to show thinkhing, he also i he wanted to she had the incredible idea, which gradually developed in him, that he could reproduce himself, as it were. Make himself into a book, that death by beinge completely here in these words and in these pages. He dreamt he would actually survive his disappearance through these words. And he came as close i think as any human being has ever come to being actually physically in these little marks on the page. You feel like he is there. He is there. And that is the opposite of shakespeare, the opposite strategy. Shakespeare was also worried about survival and was interested in survival through words. But shakespeare is the opposite type. We know almost nothing about shakespeare, despite the fact that i wrote a biography about him. He is very hidden. He concealed himself. He is not out there. And yet he did, in a different way, find a way of transforming himself into his characters, into other people. And montaigne helped him bring his characters alive. Montaigne helped shakespeare figure out what it would sound like, i think, to be authentically who you are. But it is a completely different strategy. I think shakespeare used montaigne, for example, in trying to create hamlet, the character who is the most out there of all of shakespeares characters, the most present. But it is not shakespeare. It is a character called hamlet, a danish prince. How do you prove that . It is harder to prove it in the case of hamlet. Things youints, could take to be fingerprints. Shakespeareans are always trying to prove things that are a little implausible. In the case of montaigne, there are at least two moments in which the fingerprint is very clear. King there is one. An amazing moment in king lear in which shakespeare was clearly reading an essay about oldage and an essay about the relationship of parents and their children. Essay,ay, a remarkable both startling essays by montaigne a remarkable essay on the relation of parents to their children. Montaigne says, if a parent is young and vigorous, it is ok to hold on. When a parent grows old, when a father begins to decline, and the sun has come of age, the father should give, basically, everything to the son, and reserve enough to go on, bush should not hold on and hold on. Oldage will spoil the chances of the young to have a career. Parents should give it away to their children. This is, of course, before University Tuitions that made parents give it away to their children at an early age. In montaignes world is what it means to hold on. You should give it up. Shakespeare quotes those words, but he gives the quotation, in effect, to the villain of the play. A villain who says, i hope this is not just an essay, he says. There is a clear allusion. Is of the things that fascinating about that particular moment is that i think shakespeare must have her garden montaigne as exceptionally regarded montaigne as exceptionally naive about the parents chances of getting it back if things go wrong. Maybe it is being middle class and not an aristocrat. You argue he influenced the tempest. A clear fingerprint, and unmistakable fingerprint. Comespeare, in that case, even closer to simple quoting of montaigne. Again, and not thing happens. He gives the quotation to a very charming, sweet, bubble, but who doesve aristocrat, not really understand anything about the natives. He gives, from montaigne plus great essay on mechanicals, about the encounter of the old world and the new she gives minds he gives lines describing how wonderful the new world is, america. Shakespeare gives those lines to a character in the play that has a character who is, in effect, an anagram for cannibal, taliban debauched, who was murderous. You see shakespeare take someone he loved and was influenced by, and turn it and use it. You say shakespeares borrowing is an act not of all marsh, but of aggression of h omage, but of aggression. If you are going to swallow something, even something you love, you have to chew it up and break it down before you can swallow it. I think the aggression is a peculiar form it is real aggression, but oddly loving. Even babies by the that they that theye the nipple suck. I think shakespeare loved montaigne and also wanted to tear montaigne in pieces. About that was it simply a mind to mind thing . Or was there some jealousy on shakespeares part . Jealousy, perhaps not, but a very strong sense of, here i am, fromdleclass fellow stratford, from a provincial town, trying to make his way in london. By i have to stain myself performing in public in the way that i do. Here is this aristocrat in a chateau, in a tower, who is communing with the ancients, and who is really in, and who is deep. But this is not me. This is not who i am. I think it is the meaning of two different very sensibilities. There are some fundamental similarities. Deep similarities. Deep ways which they saw eye to eye, i think especially in the way, the believe in the power of the everyday, the importance of living in the everyday, of understanding that that is what you have. Not dreams. How is that present in shakespeare . It is present in thousands of tiny touches in shakespeare, as well as some grants touches. It is present in the sense that in the grandest sense, in a play like romeo and juliet, that you do not have another world to look forward to. You have this world, right now. This is it. There is nothing beyond this world. Also present in the innumerable ways in shakespeare in which characters are touched by the ordinariness of life. Takest it means when hal pockets, of falstaffs and finds candy and receipts, the detritus of the everyday. It is that eye that shakespeare had for what it means to live an ordinary life in the midst of extraordinary events. Were skilled both at seizing upon anything that came their way in the course of wideranging reading and observation. Both applied a brilliant prized brilliant perception over systematic thought. Both were supremely adaptable and variable. Embraced thed and isolations and contradictions within individuals, the ironies and discontinuities even in those who claimed to be singleminded and single hearted. That is well said. They are both spectacular magpies, but there is a huge difference in one respect between them, at least in these regards. Sharing these things, shakespeare believed in the power of stories. Montaigne believed in the experiment of just laying out, without story, without narrative, just what is passing through him. Basically, i do not need a play. I do not need a story. He did not believe. This is what life means to me, and you will understand what i think about the world. Shakespeare says, i will write a play. I will create characters. I will make a story. Graph all the contradictions of life to the conflicts between the characters. You admire one more than the other . Perhapsire montaigne more than any writer i have ever encountered. He is an astonishing human being. An astonishing human being. And a decent human being. But i think that shakespeares that montaigne has an inadequately valid sense a eagle of evil puts finger on something in shakespeare that is not very visible in montaigne. Montaigne knew that there was evil. He lived in evil times. But he did not grapple in the way shakespeare grappled with the most terrifying aspects of the human condition. What do you want to know about shakespeare you dont know . One would like to know everything about shakespeare. At this point, you know almost nothing. As a person, we know very little about him. Was he a performer at the theater . Know was, but we do not adequately what he performed in. There are posthumous handsy played adam, the old servant, in as you like it, that he played the ghost in hamlet. It seems he pulled back from performing later in his life, probably to concentrate on his writing. We do not know what he thought power, or about the religious claims. Interestedrimarily in a literary reputation or filling the theater, or making money . I think he did not believe they were alternative visions. Making money, which he was very interested in, was bound up with life,is longterm afterlife, would be. I think earlier in his life he thought that poetry probably, lyric poetry, would carry him forward. And he was not famous. He was quite famous in his own time as a great lyric poet. I think as he developed as a playwright, he understood his longterm prospects would be in the commercial theater, and that there was no gap, no division between doing well in the commercial theater and having the life that has led to this conversation 400 years later. The book is called montaigne, the florio translations of the essays. Thank you for having me, charlie. Pleasure to see you. Nicholas wade is here. He was a science reporter and editor at the New York Times for over two decades. Social book that argues behavior varies among human races due to slight genetic differences. Predicts an explosion the of which we have not known in decades. Hich we have of w not known in decades. Has it triggered an explosion . I knew it would be a controversial book. There have been quite a lot of negative reviews. But there have been more positive reviews than i expected. Book, if it is successful, will lead to a change in attitudes on many. Ajor issues whether there is any explanatory role of evolution in our presentday societies. Do you understand when some people believe it is a racist argument . I adamantly reject the idea that this is a racist argument. I think race does have a biological basis. But that does not mean you can make any racist deductions from that area. The idea that one race is superior to another, and inherently superior you cannot draw that from the genome or the fact that there is a biological basis for race. This is your argument in a troublesome inheritance. I am trying to interpret the major finding we have from the human genome, which is that we can see Human Evolution has been very recent, very extensive, and it has been regional. It has been regional because the populations on each continent have adapted to different local circumstances. In this sort of reflects the fact that we have not one evolutionary history, but five, according to the five major races. A theorys in some way of economic and social inequality . Iti think to some extent does explain why some societies are more successful than others, although i should hasten to say that i am not denying the vast importance of culture. Aam just saying there is genetic element in our social behavior, and this may underlie the fact that societies differ from each other. If you look at south korea, to take one example, which has had a kind of modern economic is that an argument to be made for something . I think there you have a natural experiment between north korea and south korea. Yettly the same people, and one country is poor and the other is not. Genetics cannot does not help you there. I think genetics helps you in a much sort of road or brush sense. Broader brush sense. Over longer time scales. I think you can see various social transitions in human society. For example, the transition from when we were hunters and gatherers to when we were a settled society. 185,000 years for us to settle down. Why did it take so long . Certainly not because our ancestors could not see the advantage of settling down, but because a change in social behavior was required. It probably took so long because it required that long for the change to evolve. , evolutionary differences between societies on the various continents may underlie major and otherwise imperfectly explained turning points in history, such as the rise of the west and the decline of the islamic world in china. Explain that. World and china. Human societies have very distinctive characters. Which is usually true. It is attributed to culture, but that is a half but this is. Differences that are quite longlasting, you may begin to suspect a role for genetics. Chinese society, for example, has been distinctive for a very long time. The first civilization. I think there is reason to argue it has a genetic asis basis. This is a slightly complicated argument, so let me unpack that. We are a very social species, so we have many ingrained social behaviors. Very young children, before their parents try to socialize group,ant to belong to a and they want to obey its rules. They want to punish people who violate the rules. All these behaviors who probably have a genetic racist genetic basis, it is social behaviors like that which underlie the institutions in our society. The institutions of law and justice and Police Forces rest, tobases, on our willingness obey rules and enforce them. Also, if all social institutions are based genetically, instinct and behaviors underlie them, anything with a genetic basis can be changed by evolution. By changing the lever level of conformity, the radius of trust, the transition from a Tribal Society to a more modern society the ways in which changes in social behavior can underlie society. You wrote, the evolution of human races is another common to followh, destined the flat earth into oblivion. Others basedy their opposition to racism on the idea that there is no biological basis to race. It seems to me that is the wrong way of looking at it. If you hate racism, you oppose it always as a matter of principle, so you do not care what the science says. You can have the science develop without imposing any constraint on it. Did you approach it with some hesitation . It is a controversial subject. One risks upsetting people who have long held views. That a matter of principle gets people upset. What is the longheld view that this upsets . Review starts in the 1950s, and was the work of an anthropologist called montague, who believed racism was the basis of all evil, and if he could get people to drop the would solve the problems of imperialism, colonialism, and antisemitism. To a great extent, he was successful. He persuaded social scientists they should not use the word race, or it had no biological component. This came to be incorporated into the social science attitude. It became quite widespread on campuses. And in intellectual life generally. We can see from the genome that this is not the case. There is a biological basis for race. It is not particularly surprising. It seems to match up with a common sense expectation. If you take the genome of someone with mixedrace, say an african american, you can assign each segment to an african or european ancestor. Would be impossible if races did not exist. Chapter eight, jewish adaptations. Can you explain why jews of european descent are overrepresented among top achievers in arts and sciences . Why is that . That is a question to be answered. Certainly, jews made enormous contributions to our civilization. You have had 22 of the population but 30 of nobel prizes in the century. There is something that is worth explaining. The usual explanations or cultural. Mothers,ring jewish the res