[ applause ] thank you. Let me just start by asking, what sparked your interest, your passion for history . I believe you grew up in massachusetts near concord and a number of historic sites. Did that play a role in it . No, i dont think so. I just was interested in stories. I read a lot. I had a Terrible High School teacher, i must say, in i went to waltham high school, and he was horrible, but it didnt dampen my interest. I just read history and enjoyed it. But as dave said earlier, i had planned to go into the Foreign Service. I graduated from tufts. I was going to serve my three years at air force as a rotc and go to fletcher school. Its connected to tufts. Its part of georgetown. An fso, Foreign Service officer training school, but my experience and being arbitrarily treated by the federal government in the military soured me on working for the government so i decided i changed my mind in japan to apply to graduate school, and ive never regretted it at all. Any book that youve written that you felt was particularly challenging or perhaps you wanted to start off by finding or proving one point but along the way you found something quite different . Well, no, im not sure they found something different. I had a sense already of the outline of the period that we became a much more Democratic Society by the early 19th century and that this transformed our culture in fundamental ways, and that became my book, the radicalism of the revolution. And the emergence of a middle Class Society in the north changed changed things. And we forget that people like Martin Van Buren didnt think much of the founders. Its lincoln who rescues them. Martin van buren said, look, weve got to forget about those guys back there. Were aristocrats. Were living in a democratic world. Van buren is the first man to become president who had no credentials whatsoever. Thats not to say he had never won a battle, never been a great political figure, he had never written any great document. He was a master politician. He organized the best Political Party in the state of new york that catapulted it into the white house. Van buren represented a whole new generation that disparaged the founders because they were aristocrats. Its lincoln who when people prior to the civil war when people talk about founders, they didnt mean washington and jefferson, they meant john winthrop, william bradford, john smith. The founders of the colonial, 17th century founders. After the civil war, largely as a result of lincolns foundation, the founders become the men that we celebrate. I think its an interesting transformation. Youve written this on this point, and ill get back to your writing style, but youve written this and its been said about you time and time again by book reviewers, professors, your colleagues, that a lot of historians found the founding to be kind of dull and not worth writing about. Its already been explored, especially post 1776, but you were different. You devoted a half a century to writing and studying about the founding. What made you see it differently than almost every other historian of the time and see that it wasnt a dull period after 1776, that was just a first inning . Well, thats a good question. I think i was when i came to brown there were only nine members in the history department, and we didnt have anybody teaching the colonial period, the revolution or the early republic. The next person took off around 1830, Andrew Jackson the Andrew Jackson administration, so i felt incumbent upon myself to teach a course i called the colonial period. On the revolution, i said, i have to give a course on the early republic. By working up that course i suddenly saw the whole period from 1760, 1750 to 1820 as a whole. And i saw a transformation taking place that was extraordinary. In a way, the specialization of training in graduate school, you either were colonialists and you stopped with the revolution or you stopped with the founding of the constitution or you were an early republic and you started with 1789 but most people were not trained to think of the whole period and i think that that having to teach that course forced me to think of the whole period in a new way. And i would attribute it to that. You and i talked before about one of the alarming things happening on College Campuses is were no longer focusing on the founders while the American Public in general, i think because of the sales figures of a lot of the Prominent Books that have been john adams, some of the mccullough stuff, a lot of the public seems to be enthralled with the founders not so much on College Campuses anymore. Would you let folks know whats happening in terms of the lack of teaching of the founders . Yes. Unfortunately many of the leading institutions, im not i have not been replaced, and thats true at harvard. Brad baylor has not been repl e replac replaced. Princeton has no senior person teaching revolution. At yale she wrote a book on hamilton. Her interests have gone into the early 19th century. Im he not sure if anyone teaches the american revolution. Its declining. The dead old white males, what do we have to do with them . Our world is and i must say much of the graduate education now is focused on race and gender issues, thats understandable, those are issues that are part of our time, but it means the founders themselves are neglected. And i think thats unfortunate. Fortunately, there are these people who are part of your program who have no academic credentials, david mccullough, ron chernow, lynn cheney, there are dozens of others who are writing the books that you people read. Joe ellis and i are rare birds. That is, were academics who happened to write this quasi Popular History that reaches out beyond the academy, but for the most part most historians are writing for each other. Theyre like physicists writing papers, and to try to read an article in william mary quarterly or one of the historic journals requires knowledge of what previous historians have said because theyre talking to each other. And thats understandable. Theyre trying to expand the discipline, and good things have come out of that, but it does mean that they neglect their responsibility to reach out to the public. Physicists dont have to do that. Theyre proof of what theyre doing comes in the in the invent of the nuclear weapon. But historians cant just talk to each other, theyve got to reach out. Its the kind of discipline that needs to be spread to the general public, and i just wish more of them would attempt to do that. But thats not how you get ahead in the academic world. You write for your peers, and in essence the quasi science. Given this lack of focus on the founding now on so many College Campuses and as someone whos not only writing about it, teaching about it, but engaging audiences like this, as a consequence, what would you say is one of the things that the public gets wrong about the founders . What mistakes . What misplaced assumptions do we have about it . Its not just the general public, but i think the greatest danger in historical writing or historical reading is to assume that the people back then are like us, and be thats why i always quote to i always quoted to my graduate students that opening line of l. P. Hartleys great novel, the go between. He said the past is a foreign country. They do things differently there. And i think that should be the mantra for graduate students when they start or anyones reading. Dont expect those people to be like us, and if you do, youve create an anachronism. You read back into their behavior. Its hard for us to understand hamilton engaging in 11 duels. 11 duels. He only exchanged fire in one which was deadly. We dont have duels anymore, but you need to enter another world to explain why that was considered to be a necessary and rational action for him to be involved in these duels. They usually got involved in negotiations and eventually they would resolve without exchange of fire, but to enter that world you have to open yourself to a different world, just as if you go to france or italy or even england and say immediately notice that theyre not like us and start complaining, then youre missing the point of foreign travel. And its the same the same thing is true going back into the past. Go with an open mind. Try to understand why they do things differently. On that point in trying to get back into that historical mind set, ive spent my adult life studying the founders, and i still feel like i dont understand George Washington and i dont really know thomas jefferson. This is one of the topics we discussed last week with professor ellis. Would you say that washington and jefferson are difficult to understand, difficult to know and maybe intentionally so, they made it that way, and how do you then go about researching them and unmasking them and presenting them to us . Well, i agree that both of them are difficult. I mean, i think theyre very different people. Washington, as i say, was caught up in the these values. He was an auto didact. He wanted to be the perfect gentleman and he worked at it. The first document we have in his collection is the rules of civility. 16yearold kit carves these out from a french miss manners book, how he should behave. Dont stick your tongue out when youre talking. A whole host of things. He was going to be the perfect gentleman. You know, he had a disadvantaged background by his standards, and he wanted to learn to be an aristocrat as far as 18th Century America had aristocrat. So he worked at it. Jefferson has the same goal, but jefferson was really he was by far the most knowledgeable person in america. He knew more things, i think even more than frankly. He knew more and knew more things than any Single Person and he has a sense of separation from his peers. You know, why does he build this house on montacello . It was kind of a crazy thing to do. It was impossible to bring water to it. He wanted to be above his peers, and he saw himself as different from them and was obsessed by that. Just wanted to be better than they were, smarter. He knew more. He read more widely. He was a connoisseur of all the arts and i think tried to show off a little bit. They all bowed to his judgment. Even wine. I mean, after president s began consulting him, what should i order for the white house, mr. Jefferson . He just knew about the world and told them about it, and they respected him for that. And i think theres nobody that came close. Washington certainly knew that jefferson was more knowledgeable, more intellectual than he was, but washington had other talents that jefferson respected. He was a born leader. He just exuded leadership. He had, as adams said, the gift of silence. That is knowing when to keep quiet and not make a fool of yourself. Washington was extraordinary and by far i think the most impressive. I mean, we group all these founders together, and weve done a terrible thing by collapsing washingtons birthday into president s day. His he stood head and shoulders, both literally and figuratively above them all. They respected him as their superior, and i think we need to recognize that. He simply was and explaining that is not easy because how many battles did he win . I mean, what is it thats the secret of his deal . I think its a complicated story, but it can be explained. And i think i think hes just the greatest of the president s that weve ever had. He certainly should be number one, and he was the greatest of these founders. Earlier in the greenroom you and i were talking about world war ii and a new book and we were talking about the gifts and genius of general montgomery and the gifts and genius of general eisenhower. You had some interesting assessments that you made. Right. Would you share that with the audience . Ive been reading just recently a biography of montgomery by nigel hamilton, a wonderful biography, and very defensive of montgomery but critical, too. But at any rate, montgomery became aware of montgomerys great talents as a field commander, but his inability to deal with people. He lacked all political skills. And if he had been the commander in chief, the thing would have been a mess. You have eisenhower who has almost no field command experience or ability, but he was a genius for bringing diverse views together and satisfying a bunch of egos. What struck me as im reading about eisenhower and montgomery is that washington combined both in himself. He was a field commander. He was out there in the field often quite dangerously so. He put himself in positions he should never have done, but he was able to make decisions, command decisions, but at the same time he had this enormous political skill. He knew how to mend his political fences. He kept the congress on his side and even though there were plots, not amounting to much to kind of unseat him in favor of gates who was the victor at s saratoga, nobody pressured him too much because he was such a superb politician. That is to say in a good sense. He knew how to keep diverse interests together, and i think he held that army together. Theres no doubt of that, almost by sheer personality. In addition to all the accolades that professor wood has, when you talk to historians and talk about him, one of the things that always pops up is hes such a good guy, nice guy, and hes so humble. Backstage earlier this morning when we were talking about this before we exchanged our analysis of washington based on the jerges in world war ii, professor wood tells me, let me qualify my comments, im a novice in world war ii. You dont need to qualify your statements. In terms of thomas jefferson, you know, when youre reading jefferson, hes so complicated, so complex and, you know, he sometimes seems as though hes writing with an eye to history and hes writing as if he doesnt really want us to know him. The other person who seems so complex is ben franklin. So could you share with us on these two, what pops out to you when you read jefferson . And i think you i read in one of your books when you were talking about ben franklin might be one of the most complicated and complex of the founders. Yeah. Franklin, of course, is world famous. He was by far the most famous american in the 18th century. You have to think of it you know, he made major original contributions to science, pure science on electricity and if there had been a nobel prize in the 18th century, he might have been a contender. So its not that kind hes not a tinkerer. Hes not an early version of thomas edson. Hes a real scientist. The fact that he was an american stunned the world. They thought of america as a bunch of mongrel people who were hardly capable of any kind of acts of civilization. Most of the western european aristocrats, so when franklin makes this achievement hes celebrated. Dr. Franklin. Hes given honorary degrees and celebrated as a great genius. The fact that he had no education, no college made it even more impressive. And, of course, he was ironic and sly enough to play that role to the hilt, and of course he was i think our most famous diplomat. He almost single handedly brought the french into the war, extracted loan after loan impoverishing the french government creating the background to the french revolution simply by creating this role that the french aristocracy fell head over heels. They were caught up in radical chic. They were singing songs in favor of america and liberty. This was in the 1780s without any awareness of the future consequences of this and franklin played that role. He would show up at the court of versailles which is the most protocol ridden court in all of europe and he would show up in a plain linen coat with no sword, none of the dress that youre supposed to wear at versailles. It would be showing up like today at the court of saint james in front of Queen Elizabeth in dungarees and a tshirt. That would be the kind of thing that but the french aristocrats loved it. They just celebrated. And he played his role to perfection. And i think was able to bring the french kept the french going, not just with their army but, of course, more important was the money. They loaned america enormous amounts of money. Franklin but the interesting thing is franklin came late to the revolution. He really wanted to hold the empire together. He spent most of his adult life up to 1776 in england itself and of course his son became a notorious loyalist, governor of new jersey. New jersey. Franklin comes very late, and only i think its the the british aristocrats had given him a big position under secretary of state in the american department, for example, he might have been lost to america because he loved london. He loved england. And its only because they turned on him and i think angered him so deeply that he he became an american. He only leaves from you know, from 1757, despite a brief 12month period in 1764, from 1757 to 1775 hes in england. Hes in england. He thought it was okay. He didnt like it. He thought that would cause some problems. Well, empires cost money. Weve got to he was stunned. He got a friend appointed stamp agent in philadelphia. It almost cost his friends life because the mobs attacked him. Franklin had a very hard time adjusting to american opinion. He was way behind it, but he finally caught up and then becomes a super patriot as a consequence. When he first arrived in may of 1775 and is elected immediately to the continental congress, many people thought he was a spy, a mole. Thats why he writes this famous letter to his friend, you are my enemy and im yours and he circulated it but never sent it, because he wanted to show that he had cut his ties to england. He had to disabuse people of his loyalties to england, so he becomes a super patriot attacking the king. And people were kind of stunned at how vicious he was. Thats because he came so late to the revolution. In terms of jeffersons complexities, one of the things we talked about last week with joe ellis is who can we learn more from today, jefferson or an adams, and i think on this point the two of you have a slight disagreement. Could you share with us . Yes. I just finished a book on adams and jefferson, which is due to come out later this year, so i know these two guys as well as i know anybody because ive Read Everything theyve ever written. Adams is a realist. Hes contrarian. He does not believe that all men are created equal. He says all men are created unequal, and from birth hes all nature, not nurture. Jefferson set forth i think the basic premise of americanism, which is all men are created equal. Distinctions that emerge are due to environmental circumstances. Now jefferson takes that back when he comes to discuss slaves, but by