Ascendant. Thanks so much. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Tonights program is a presentation of the guggenheimlehrman prize in military history, a 50,000 prize jointly administered by the Harry Frank Guggenheim foundation and the New York Historical society. It is thanks to the leadership of our great trustee, the lincoln and financial history scholar louis hillerman, that weve join with the Harry Frank Guggenheim foundation this year in trying to engage Greater Public discourse in wartime studies your i want to acknowledge mr. Lettermans vision of importance of understanding military history for all educated citizens and his work on have of our Great Institution and expanding intellectual endeavors. Thank you so much. [applause] i also want to note of encouragement and support of our extraordinary board share. In her philanthropic role, am has seen and understood vividly how the study of the steps to work, the conduct of military campaigns and diplomatic responses to work and play an essential part in the quest for a more peaceable future. Thank you so much for all you have done. [applause] i also want to recognize other trustees in the audience this evening. Glenn, russell, and thank him for the work on behalf of this Great Institution. And i want you to acknowledge the work of my colleague, our Vice President as library director, michael ryan in the administration of this prize. Tonights program will last about an hour. There will be a reception following the Program Enforcement gallery outside, and copies of the nominees books will be available for sale in our museums star. We are pleased to welcome Andrew Roberts active in your historical society. He is the distinguished fellow at the New York Historical society and a director of the Harry Frank Guggenheim foundation in new york. Is also the chair of the 2015 chechen committee for the guggenheimlehrman prize in military history. In 2012, Andrew Roberts was awarded the william penn prize, and in 2007 he delivered the prestigious white house lecture. Andrew roberts recent book was the 2014 winter of the award and 2015 when of the Los Angeles Times biography prize. Andrew roberts is the author and editor of 12 books including masters intimated, 19311945. We are also thrilled to welcome the nominees for the 2015 prize. Matthew davenport for first over there the attack of cantigny, americas first battle of world war i published by Saint Martins press. David preston for braddocks defeat the battle of the monongahela and the road to revolution published by Oxford University press. Nicholas stargardt for the german the german at war a nation under arms, 19391945, and t. J. Stiles for custers trials a life on the frontier of a new america. Published by alfred not incorporate the i would now like to welcome our great friend, Josiah Bunting, president of the Harry Frank Guggenheim foundation. The foundation as you may know support vouchers Scholarly Research on problems of violent aggression and comment providing Research Grants to establish scholars and dissertation fellowships to graduate students during the dissertation writing your pictures before i welcome to the site to the stage i want to remind you to please switch off anything that makes a noise like a cell phone. And now pleased to join me in welcoming Josiah Bunting to the stage. [applause] thank you, louise. And let me use this opportunity to extend on behalf of just about everybody in manhattan a bouquet. Her work and that of their colleagues in the transforming of this wonderful Old Institution into what it is today is absolutely fantastic. We are all in your debt. This is beyond any argument, the best state historical situation association in this country and its a real pleasure for us to be affiliated with you, louise khan and with roger and with all of you. You have heard a brief introduction of our chairman. Im going to reintroduce him and all of our judges. Our chairman and good friend Andrew Roberts known to most of you is quite simply the best diplomatic historian now writing. Not only is he a great writer and researcher but hes one of these people who appears like Charles DixonCharles Dickens to be able to write all the time ceaselessly at the quality of the writing and the history in the research and all of that kind of thing is always of a peace. So we look forward to hearing you, andrew. We have a wonderful panel of judges. I would like them to stand when i introduce them. Flora fraser, currently best selling writer, the current bestseller dr. Frieden of the washington family in america. General charles brower, former head of the department of history at west point, academic dean at the Virginia Military institute and author of what is regarded as the definitive history of americas war, Second World War in the pacific. Ralph peters, prolific civil war and novelist, a regular whos face must be from the community on fox news and the colonists for the new york post. Finally, patrick lang who could not be with us this evening, literally the father of arabic studies at the military academy at west point. This is a wonderful opportunity for us this evening. I would like to say one last thing about this program in military history. Its godfather is louis lehrman, as schubert earlier, our debt to him is inestimable good military history occupies a relatively low caste on the academic cachet total totem pole at most of our prestigious university. It is right down there with home ec in speech last night edges and university adjuvant interest in military history, they think you must be a relative of dick cheney or you want to rub out somebody. But in fact when the american secretary of state in 1947 was asked to speak at the 200 anniversary of fun at princeton university, almost all of his speech was about probably the greatest military and political story who ever lived. Politics and war and those things which lead us into Armed Conflict are part of the human condition, and we ignore our obligation to familiarize ourselves with their history and the history of military affairs and wars. Thats why we are here this evening to recognize its foremost practitioners. Dr. Roberts, ready . [applause] ladies and gentlemen, its a greahonor to be back here at the New York Historical society. The last time i was here a few months ago, they allow digital copies of my book. A lady came up and said that i had the authentic accent of a british hollywood villain. [laughter] the great thing was i think she meant it as a compliment. Today we are going to be interviewing these four men who have written really superb history books, absolutely anyone of them, the judges agreed today, could have won this prize. There isnt a second rate work amongst them. This is all really first class history writing, and military history writing. Im going to be into just more of inside like to call them up so that you know who is who. I do know if you can tell if they can set any particular chairs, but nonetheless the first of them is Matt Davenport was written about the battle in 1918. This is matt. [applause] mat with the newest wizard and this is a passing book about the first battle that American Forces from the American Expedition lead force fought in the First World War. Our next finalist is t. J. Stiles, the pulitzer prizewinning biographer of general custer. [applause] next i would like to introduce David Preston who wrote a book about a battle that im not going to pronounce correctly. You had to come and tell me thats why the last time im going to get that right. Mr. Prescott. [applause] and mr. Peston is a professor at the citadel in South Carolina to lastly i would like to introduce to you professor Nicholas Stargardt whos written a book called the german at war which is a fascinating insight into German Society between 19391945. Thank you very much. [applause] the first thing i would like to do is to ask all of you the same question. Its a pretty straightforward but anybody likes to know, what led you to write this particular book at this particular stage in your careers . Matt, this is your first book so what made you choose this particular subject . I knew a veteran of the battle when i was growing up. He was a friend of my grandfathers who fought in the Second World War and they both fought with the big red one, except this man had fought in the First World War and he would say i was the first of the first. On his veterans cab was cant pronounce it like an american phonetically of which will go and i said cantigny pic i did know what it was. Years later in a holistic history of world war i i saw the Nick Navarrette was americas first battle and victory gives the german army in either world war i thought i would like to know more. I look for a book on and i couldnt find one and a research more, and after learn more and tracked down some relatives i thought maybe i could write the book. So thats how i think intuit. David preston. Yes. My first book dealt with the uruguayan people in the colonial era. The book very much come out of that project. I gained first of all a healthy respect for the significance of braddocks but i became very intrigued by this set of characters who are at braddocks defeat of 17th at five also went on to significant careers during the American Revolution. Obviously, George Washington first and foremost but also a ratio gates, the victor at saratoga, Daniel Morgan the victor, charles lee, and also thomas gage, the future commanderinchief of the british army. The project first began as for a kind of elected biography that would tell the story of the french and indian war and its connection to the American Revolution through the lives of these individuals. However as i started to research the book including here at the New York Historical society i came to see that there was still so much to be told about the story of braddocks defeat and the decisions of all of the different players, the french and british empires, all of the different indian peoples drawn from half the continent, especially the french and indian side of this whole story had never been fully explored. Nicholas, you have been writing this book for 20 years. Spin which may be think i was going to write this book at all. The previous one was daunting enough which was an attempt to write the history of the war and the holocaust through childrens eyes. And they didnt want to do the shortcut of anything rather elderly adults about their childhood. I wanted to go look for drawings which i found first in prague. In fact, that was the suck in if you like for the project were i found these drawings, extraordinary pictures mainly by teenage girls aged 13, 14 before they were deported to auschwitz were almost all of them were gassed. That was something i never thought about. They are very movie i wanted to use them as historical sources. I set off on this harebrained project which took 10 years and after that i wanted everything to do with the holocaust, nazis, children. I got intrigued about one thing which was as part of the work if you want to situate german children, your situate against their parents and that adults aside ended became clear to me that German Society going on with this were virtually to defeat of saddam historical decried that and had the same which increasingly sounded like an alibi that all germans had been defeated. The german armys first huge defeat in stalingrad in late february for three but some of the turning point was as if you couldnt say you were not there but you could say we did not want to be there and we are waiting for all to be over. Ask yourself, how does a whole society go on with total war for over two more years . These are huge periods of time in huge amount of commitment. And t. J. , what drew you to custer . Failure really was the starting point. I was, i am very fascinated and have been throughout my writing career with the way in which the American Civil War and reconstruction period are so often separate and get the only one source. The United States interest to warrant one in and ends at a completely different place. Its both the war and the consequences of the war. That completely changed American Society and american ideas. After writing about jesse james which was very much civil war and reconstruction, the rise of the corporate economy and that transformation in the same period, i wanted to write about the idea of civil rights of racial equality as was written into the constitution by the civil war generation. I could come up with a book that would succeed in doing that. I began thinking about the larger expanse of the United States and begin thinking in terms of biography which i love to write, and how you can develop great things in biography. I went from think about how custers life as a great travelogue of history, the rise of modern wall street at one end, the death of slavery in the south and east of preindustrial pneumatic people waiting sometimes successful campaigns of businesses in the great west. Custers life carries you back and forth. I realized the book, his life is not the temporal frontier, that in many ways including aspects of his military career his life was about the book under the birth of the United States. His personal difficult in adapting to those changes. And you do go into the central fact that his death, the one thing that we know so much about, the ultimate failure in a sense, not just because he died but because he lost the battle as well, you have as your epilogue rather than a sort of central feature of his existence. I would like to ask both you and also david, because you are both writing about battles of the indians won, and won them so successfully, massacre, serving in little bighorn but also at monongahela. The idea, hasnt it been historically pretty racist to present these great indian victories as effectively having been the result of mistakes made by their white opponents . It strikes me that both at the reno inquiry and also the braddocks defeat which was given to it back in 18 century, they were almost, in both cases, attempting to sort of take away from the inherent truth, which is about the indians won these battles superbly. To what extent you would say that is true . I think that is absolutely correct. The way in which i examine the little bighorn as you mentioned is through this court that was held two years later, and i leave aside the battle entirely to come back to the way americans try to reconstruct it. Other than have a narrator who carries you through the battle, they are, hard to understand. To the process of discovery its. The fact that it takes place offstage after very intimate narrative of this figure who recorded his life so well. And that the court itself tells you what the narrative is. Its what did we do wrong . Its on the us military and then from selfconsciously white, United States thinking about how it messed up. And custer himself is one reason why that battle is famous. Other figures have died in there. I dont get it wouldve become quite the culture so cuts going into a significant. But again with custer been this controversial figure in his lifetime, the army wants to know what he did wrong, and we overlook the essential fact that as the historian of the indian wars noted, its not so much that the army lost or custer lost, is that the indians won spent that brings us to braddocks defeat. To what extent was the braddocks defeat as opposed to the french and indian victories . Historians have written about braddocks defeat have always approached it from an anglo centric perspective. I think that is partly a function of ethnocentrism as you observe. The earliest accounts of the battle that emerged, the reason they were shocking in the line minds of many britons was yours accounts suggested there were only as many as 300 native warriors. So the shock was a such a large British Force could be so decisively beaten by so small in number of native warriors. Nonetheless, the battle is very much a testament to the real military power that native people still possess in 18th century america. The other way that reinforces the anglo centric perspective is simply the source material, that for the british, i imagine as well for the u. S. Army in the 1870s, there was a lot to explain, a lot of fingerpointing, a lot of blame. What of the things that all of these books have is an awful lot of slaughter. We have the 66 percentage of people of braddocks army who were killed or wounded, 100 of course in the case of custer and the group around custer at little bighorn, 10,000 german soldiers a day dying in 1945 up until the end of the war in 1945. And some 1600 out of the 4000 american soldiers killed or wounded at cantigny. Matthew, can you give us a sense of what it was like to fight a day after day, it was a two and half the battle but, of course, there was much more going on afterward, w