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Your Land, My Land, Our Land · Q & A, Hosted by Jay Nordlinger

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Hello everyone and welcome to Q&A.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Jay Nordlinger and our guest today is Beverly Gage, the historian.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: She's a professor at Yale, the John Lewis Gaddis professor.
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  SPEAKER_01: Her field is American history,
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: particularly that of the 20th century,
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: I think,
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: though I don't mean to limit her.
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  SPEAKER_01: She's the author of several books,
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  SPEAKER_01: including a biography of J.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: Edgar Hoover that won the Pulitzer Prize,
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  SPEAKER_01: the Bancroft Prize,
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  SPEAKER_01: and yet more.
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  SPEAKER_01: Recently,
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  she served as a co-chairman of the Yale Committee on Trust in
• 0:37
  Higher Education,
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  SPEAKER_01: whose report has had national reverberations.
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  SPEAKER_01: Her latest book,
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  SPEAKER_01: published in time for our 250th anniversary,
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  SPEAKER_01: is This Land is Your Land,
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  SPEAKER_01: A Road Trip Through U.S.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: History.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: Wonderful title and subtitle.
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  nice to see you Beverly Gage thanks so much for joining us
• 1:01
  thanks for having me Jay
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  SPEAKER_01: do you like that song this land is your land
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  I do like that song I have a real fondness for mid-century folk
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  music as a rule but
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  I chose it as the title of the book because I thought it
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  captured at least part of
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  what I wanted to do in the book which is that it is
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  simultaneously a celebration of
• 1:24
  the United States and in its moment it was also a song of
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  protest and this book is
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  SPEAKER_00: in part about trying to put those
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  SPEAKER_00: two things together in this rather fraught moment of 2026.
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  SPEAKER_01: It was kind of a commie song, wasn't it?
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  SPEAKER_01: I was looking up its origin, I think, yesterday.
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  I think it was done in the period that Woody Guthrie wrote it
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  in the period when
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  SPEAKER_01: the Germans and the Soviets had their pact.
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  SPEAKER_01: And so he was anti-war.
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  SPEAKER_00: Yes, he was in the Communist Party orbit for sure during that time.
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  SPEAKER_00: It was also a little bit of a
• 2:02
  of a response to God Bless America,
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  which Irving Berlin had written two years earlier.
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  And that was understood to be the sort of pro-war America song
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  because he had been to Europe.
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  He was obviously rather concerned about the rise of fascism,
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  the rise of Hitler.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so this was sort of Woody Guthrie's rejoinder.
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  SPEAKER_00: But yes, it was in the era of the Nazi Soviet pact.
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  when the party line of the Communist Party was to stay out of
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  the war and focus on
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  SPEAKER_00: things at home.
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  SPEAKER_01: But this land is your land.
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  The song has now been part of our national treasury,
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  has long been part of that.
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  SPEAKER_01: Those old connotations, I think, are forgotten.
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  SPEAKER_01: We just enjoy it as a song, a celebratory song.
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  SPEAKER_01: Maybe he wouldn't have liked that.
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  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
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  SPEAKER_00: No, he also meant it in that way.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm adopting it as the title of the book very much more in...
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  you know the song everyone learns in preschool sure and also as
• 3:02
  a challenge to
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  people that you know this land is your land go out make what
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  you can of it think
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  about it be curious about it particularly in this
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  semi-quincentennial moment and
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  you say a road trip but that's such an American thing a road
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  trip you know if have
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  SPEAKER_01: you um
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  SPEAKER_01: Have you ever done the Maine to California thing?
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  SPEAKER_01: Have you ever done a cross country drive?
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  SPEAKER_01: I have not.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I feel it's really missing.
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  SPEAKER_01: I don't have a bucket list.
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  SPEAKER_01: I don't want a bucket list.
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  SPEAKER_01: I don't like the idea of one for me.
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  SPEAKER_01: But I think if I had one, that would be on it.
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  SPEAKER_00: I have done that.
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  SPEAKER_00: So I've done it, I guess, two or three times.
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  SPEAKER_00: Oh, my gosh.
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  Mostly when I was younger and could tolerate more punishment
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  than I can now.
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  SPEAKER_00: This book is called A Road Trip Through U.S. History.
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  It's really 13 different road trips that each one is a place
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  and a moment in time.
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  SPEAKER_00: So it starts in Revolution-era Philadelphia.
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  SPEAKER_00: It ends in late 20th century history.
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  southern california but it jumps around a lot in between so
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  it's actually arranged
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  chronologically rather than geographically and so you might not
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  want to follow all
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  of these road trips in quite the order that they are in the
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  book did you say 13 13
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  exactly did that not to do with did we have 13 american
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  colleges america it's been
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  SPEAKER_01: it's been it's been a while since i was in school
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  SPEAKER_00: That is what the historians tell us.
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  SPEAKER_00: Yes, there were 13.
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  I think in this case,
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  it was mostly a coincidence,
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  although a happy coincidence.
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  SPEAKER_00: And also,
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  SPEAKER_00: it occurred to me as I was wrapping up that Yale,
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  SPEAKER_00: where I teach,
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  SPEAKER_00: has a 13-week semester.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so I think I'm just used to thinking in rhythms of 13.
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  Having taught there for more than 20 years and having designed
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  courses over that
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  SPEAKER_00: time,
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  SPEAKER_00: I think I may have internalized the 13-week semester.
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  SPEAKER_01: We're not afraid of that number.
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  SPEAKER_01: Do you intend for,
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  SPEAKER_01: obviously this is a book to learn from,
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  SPEAKER_01: but do you intend this book as,
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  SPEAKER_01: does it give suggestions,
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  SPEAKER_01: might people take these trips?
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  SPEAKER_01: Is there some of that spirit in that?
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  SPEAKER_00: In the book?
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  to really delve into these important chapters in American
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  history and each chapter
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  it's a place it's a moment in time but it is intended to get at
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  some fundamental
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  SPEAKER_00: dilemma or tension or moment
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  SPEAKER_00: and Upward and Upward and Upward
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  SPEAKER_00: Susan C. Very much so.
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  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
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  it's not civic education in the sense that it's not saying
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  there are three branches
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  SPEAKER_00: of government and here's how they work,
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  but it is civic education and that it's really a prod to
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  citizens and to anyone
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  SPEAKER_00: who's curious about this country.
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  SPEAKER_00: Susan C.
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  SPEAKER_00: Not to just sort of sit at home online,
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  but go out and engage the country as it actually is explore it
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  be curious about it.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's fundamental part of civic participation.
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  I was looking at all the prizes that your Hoover biography
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  received,
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  and it's quite a list.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I thought I'd ask you this.
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  SPEAKER_01: The Pulitzer Prize is the most famous prize.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's known by the public.
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  SPEAKER_01: But I wonder if you especially valued the Bancroft Prize,
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  SPEAKER_01: which is,
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  SPEAKER_01: is that sort of your Nobel,
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  SPEAKER_01: you guys who do U.S.
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  SPEAKER_01: history,
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  SPEAKER_01: is that the
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  SPEAKER_01: Is that the biggest thing one can win in the field of American history?
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  SPEAKER_00: It is among scholars who do American history, U.S. history.
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  SPEAKER_00: The Bancroft Prize is the big one.
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  so I think it's less well known to the public but within the
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  world of historians
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  it's the big prize and it was also meaningful for me because I
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  was extremely happy
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  to win the Pulitzer Prize but that was a prize in biography and
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  sometimes there's a
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  question of whether you know biographies can also win history
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  prizes and in this
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  SPEAKER_00: case you know the Bancroft Prize really is a is a
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  is an affirmation that biography can also be kind of deep,
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  thoughtful,
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  argument-driven history.
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  SPEAKER_01: I think I've known a couple of Bancroft winners,
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  SPEAKER_01: I need to check this,
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  SPEAKER_01: but Steve Thernstrom for sure,
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  SPEAKER_01: and I think Gene Genovese.
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  SPEAKER_00: Did he win for Roll Jordan Roll?
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  SPEAKER_00: He might have,
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  SPEAKER_01: but maybe confusing with,
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  SPEAKER_01: he was the first,
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  SPEAKER_01: it's interesting,
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  SPEAKER_01: he became such a conservative later in his life,
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  SPEAKER_01: but I believe he was the first Marxist historian to head the
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  SPEAKER_01: Organization of American Historians.
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  SPEAKER_01: So I can Google this.
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  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that seems totally plausible and on brand.
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  SPEAKER_00: I don't know offhand if it's true.
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  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
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  SPEAKER_01: About Hoover, I want to ask you a couple things, J. Edgar Hoover.
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  Is it confusing that we have these two famous Hoovers in the
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  20th century?
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  SPEAKER_01: And we're always having to,
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  SPEAKER_01: you know,
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  SPEAKER_01: we have the president and the great food administrator and so on.
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  SPEAKER_01: Then we have the FBI director.
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  SPEAKER_01: Have you had to
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  SPEAKER_01: and Upward and Upward and Upward
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  SPEAKER_00: It was actually a source of confusion at the time as well.
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  SPEAKER_00: And there were a number of newspaper articles,
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  SPEAKER_00: particularly as J.
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  SPEAKER_00: Edgar Hoover was a young man during the Herbert Hoover presidency,
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  SPEAKER_00: but was becoming better known.
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  And so actually a bunch of the DC papers would do articles that
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  were like all the
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  SPEAKER_00: Hoovers of DC,
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  SPEAKER_00: most of whom were not related to each other at all.
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  SPEAKER_00: And those two were completely unrelated.
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  Beverly,
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  I won't ask you to recapitulate your book,
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  but I'd like to ask you this.
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  SPEAKER_01: Was there anything good about him?
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  SPEAKER_01: I think we're pretty well acquainted with the bad.
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  SPEAKER_01: Was there good about him and his FBI directorship?
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  SPEAKER_00: I set out to write a very fair book about J.
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  Edgar Hoover not to redeem him not to paper over any of the
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  truly terrible things
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  that he did with the FBI but to ask that question as well and
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  so I would say I
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  found a few things that really intrigued me in terms of giving
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  a broader picture of
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  SPEAKER_00: Hoover's life and legacy
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  SPEAKER_00: One is that we tend to think of him as a villain,
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  SPEAKER_00: I think,
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  SPEAKER_00: and quite rightly,
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  but that makes it really easy to forget that in his heyday he
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  was the most popular
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  SPEAKER_00: public servant in the United States,
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  SPEAKER_00: particularly in the 1950s.
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  SPEAKER_00: in the 1950s.
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  SPEAKER_00: During the Red Scare and its aftermath,
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  SPEAKER_00: he was the great anti-communist figure that people rallied around.
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  McCarthy was very controversial and Hoover had his own
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  ambivalences about McCarthy.
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  SPEAKER_00: He stood in his moment to be the more reasonable,
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  SPEAKER_00: institution-bound,
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  SPEAKER_00: law-bound,
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  SPEAKER_00: true government-serving anti-communist.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so he was incredibly popular.
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  SPEAKER_00: He had these popularity ratings of something like 92% approval rating.
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  SPEAKER_00: It was really outsized.
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  SPEAKER_00: So I think we lost that part of his history,
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  SPEAKER_00: which is important not only for him,
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  SPEAKER_00: but for what it says.
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  SPEAKER_00: and Upward and Upward.
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  SPEAKER_00: He was a believer in the administrative state.
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  He sort of came of age in the progressive era saturated with
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  all of these ideas
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  SPEAKER_00: about what professional government service could look like.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now, while he was in office, he kind of took these progressive
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  ish ideas about administration and bureaucracy and the
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  executive branch and all of
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  SPEAKER_00: those sorts of things and combined them with his deep,
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  SPEAKER_00: deep conservatism on any number of issues.
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  And it's really the intersection of those two things that I
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  think built his FBI,
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  SPEAKER_00: gave it the character that it had.
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  But I think he really was a true believer in sort of the
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  nobility of professional
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  SPEAKER_00: government service.
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  SPEAKER_01: And he was, as I understand it, he was a rather effective crime fighter.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I'm speaking of murderers and kidnappers and such.
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  We tend to think of the political,
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  but the FBI puts away a lot of bad guys,
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  I suppose.
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  SPEAKER_01: I wonder what he'd think of Kash Patel
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  SPEAKER_00: Well, that is one of the questions of the moment.
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  SPEAKER_00: So I think that he would be somewhat appalled by Kash Patel,
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  SPEAKER_00: largely because Kash Patel really came in saying that he wanted to,
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  SPEAKER_00: in some sense,
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  SPEAKER_00: destroy the FBI as it existed.
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  SPEAKER_00: I mean, Hoover was a deep institutionalist.
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  SPEAKER_00: He believed in the bureaucracy.
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  SPEAKER_00: He believed in procedure.
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  SPEAKER_00: Everybody wrote everything down and he was also,
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  SPEAKER_00: you know,
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  a kind of iron man and a man of iron will and wanted to be in
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  control of that
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  SPEAKER_00: bureaucracy,
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  but he really believed in the institution itself and in its
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  nonpartisan nature.
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  SPEAKER_00: So he made deals with all kinds of presidents,
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  SPEAKER_00: but he was there under Democrats,
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  SPEAKER_00: he was there under Republicans,
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  SPEAKER_00: whereas Kash Patel is so closely identified with,
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  SPEAKER_00: you know,
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  SPEAKER_00: not only a particular political figure,
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  SPEAKER_00: Donald Trump,
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  SPEAKER_00: but with a very
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: And Hoover tried very hard throughout his career to be,
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  SPEAKER_00: if not apolitical,
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  SPEAKER_00: which he was not,
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  SPEAKER_00: but to be nonpartisan,
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  SPEAKER_00: to work with Democrats,
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  SPEAKER_00: to work with Republicans,
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  and to preserve the FBI as a place that would be understood as
• 14:08
  being nonpartisan.
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  SPEAKER_01: Beverly,
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  you know how sometimes often people ask questions to which they
• 14:15
  think they know the
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: answer?
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  SPEAKER_01: This is not one of those cases.
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  SPEAKER_01: I grew up with a general view of J.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: Edgar Hoover and Martin Luther King,
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  SPEAKER_01: but I honestly don't know the answer to this question.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: Did Hoover behave badly in the matter of King?
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'm really not sure.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: 100% yes, yes, yes.
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  I think the worst thing that the FBI did and Hoover was aware
• 14:45
  of all of the
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: surveillance,
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: they were wiretapping King's phone,
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: they were bugging his hotel rooms and recording his sex life.
• 14:54
  and then using that material in fact to conduct
• 14:58
  counterintelligence and sort of
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: intimidation efforts aimed at King.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: The most famous is that in late 1964 the FBI composed
• 15:10
  an anonymous letter that was sent to King along with a reel of
• 15:15
  tape from his hotel
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  SPEAKER_00: rooms where he was engaged in extramarital sexual activity.
• 15:22
  And they sent it to King in the hope that,
• 15:24
  as King interpreted,
• 15:25
  that he would kill himself.
• 15:27
  People at the FBI later said it was really to try to drive him
• 15:31
  out of public life.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: But it's a terrible letter.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: We have
• 15:36
  a copy of it that actually i hope to find in the in the
• 15:39
  national archives an
• 15:40
  unredacted copy and it's just it's degrading it's racist uh
• 15:44
  they were invading his
• 15:46
  private life um it was really a pretty terrible and devastating
• 15:50
  campaign dirty pool
• 15:52
  absolutely and unlawful i'm i'm i'm guessing outside many parts
• 15:56
  of it yeah right
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: yeah yeah yeah um finally on hoover and i
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: I couldn't care less.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, I honor the old American idiom, I could care less.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: The things about idioms, they're idiomatic.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so I like the phrase, I could care less.
• 16:14
  I could care less,
• 16:15
  but just was he in fact gay,
• 16:17
  as people say,
• 16:18
  or is it impossible to determine?
• 16:20
  Well it's an interesting question so I think it's impossible to
• 16:23
  determine in the
• 16:24
  sense that we do not know in any explicit way who he actually
• 16:29
  had sex with if he
• 16:30
  had sex with anyone at all ever but his whole life was
• 16:35
  structured around intimate
• 16:37
  relationships with other men and many of those had a real
• 16:44
  romantic depth to them
• 16:45
  the most important relationship of his life was his
• 16:48
  relationship with Clyde Tolson
• 16:51
  who was the number two man at the FBI and they traveled
• 16:55
  together they ate all of
• 16:57
  their meals together they were real social partners neither one
• 17:01
  of them dated women
• 17:02
  and so at the very least it's a very intimate social same-sex
• 17:07
  partnership they
• 17:09
  certainly would never have described themselves publicly as
• 17:12
  being homosexual and
• 17:14
  Hoover as the head of the FBI spent a lot of the 40s and 50s
• 17:19
  even into the 1960s
• 17:21
  helping to investigate other gay people in government and help
• 17:24
  to drive them
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: actually out of government,
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: which was federal policy for a long,
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: long time.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: Well,
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: Beverly Gage,
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: you are the John Lewis Gattis professor at Yale,
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: and it must be interesting to hold a chair,
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: if that's the right word,
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: name for someone who's a living,
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: breathing colleague.
• 17:45
  that's right I would have thought I would have thought I'm you
• 17:50
  you must know him
• 17:51
  well I'm guessing I do yeah I've known John for since the since
• 17:57
  the day I arrived
• 17:57
  at Yale actually before that I believe that he chaired the
• 18:00
  committee that hired me
• 18:01
  at Yale and so we've worked together off and on for a while he
• 18:07
  had created this
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: program
• 18:08
  He's been a guest on this program marvelous guest where did you
• 18:10
  grow up where are you from
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: I grew up outside of Philadelphia in Delaware County,
• 18:36
  which is right then down by the Delaware border near the
• 18:40
  Philadelphia airport is
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: where I grew up.
• 18:43
  The town of Swarthmore is probably the most famous town around
• 18:46
  there that was near
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: where I grew up.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: And did you read,
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: when you were a girl,
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: did you read history like a fiend or did that come later?
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: I would say both yes and no.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: I was a big reader and read pretty widely.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: I read some, you know, sort of middle brow history series.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: I remember reading all the John Jakes books on the Civil War.
• 19:11
  which was really big in the 80s when I was growing up and of
• 19:15
  course Philadelphia is
• 19:16
  a really history saturated city but I was a classical musician
• 19:22
  in large part as a
• 19:23
  kid and so that was the main part it's also a great classical
• 19:25
  music city so I spent
• 19:27
  a lot of time doing that and it was really in college that I
• 19:31
  dropped all the music
• 19:32
  and got interested in history you're too young for Ormandy
• 19:36
  right I heard Ormandy a
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: fair amount
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but he still moved large.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: My violin teacher was in the orchestra.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: You're a child of the Mutti era, I'm guessing.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: Correct, correct.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
• 19:54
  that was a very big deal when this dashing young Italian took
• 19:58
  over the Philadelphia
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: Orchestra.
• 20:00
  um the violin was your instrument is your instrument I was a
• 20:04
  violinist and a
• 20:05
  pianist and then a conductor in the kind of late teenage stages
• 20:09
  of it all wonderful
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: and where'd you go to college
• 20:13
  I went to Yale for college and I went in part because Yale was
• 20:17
  and I think still is
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: this great hybrid where there's a wonderful school of music,
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: but also a real liberal arts education.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't want to go to a conservatory.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, the moment I got to Yale, I basically stopped.
• 20:31
  I quit most of the music stuff I was doing and turned my
• 20:34
  interests elsewhere.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: Did you, in fact, major in history?
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: I majored in American Studies with a history emphasis.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 20:44
  And who were your influences,
• 20:46
  let's say,
• 20:47
  or professors who meant quite a lot to you?
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I worked with a lot of professors.
• 20:53
  I mean,
• 20:53
  because I was adjacent to the history department as an
• 20:56
  undergrad,
• 20:57
  they mostly were not
• 20:59
  Happily,
• 21:00
  people that when I came back as a faculty member,
• 21:02
  I had been in their classes.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: There were a few of those.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: I worked a lot with Robert Steptoe, who did African American history.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: I worked with a lot of junior professors who are no longer
• 21:16
  at Yale because when I was an undergraduate,
• 21:19
  junior professors cycled through pretty regularly.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now I have a job that in some genealogy once belonged to John Blum,
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: who was the great political historian at Yale for many years,
• 21:35
  but I actually didn't cross his path at all when I was there
• 21:39
  and only got to know
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: him a little bit later when I came back as faculty.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: Barbara, that's an interesting term, political historian.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: Are you such an historian?
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: I think so.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's the job that I was hired into.
• 21:56
  And political history has had a very interesting evolution over
• 22:00
  the last few
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: decades,
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: really three or four decades.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: It used to be kind of what history was.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: You wrote about presidents.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: You wrote about big political happenings.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: You wrote about wars.
• 22:13
  And then there was a turn and an expansion toward many other
• 22:17
  forms of history,
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: cultural history,
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: social history.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: And for a while, political history sort of fell out of fashion.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: It did, I remember that.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: One popular phrase was bottom up.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right, exactly.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: May I just say, Beverly, I just found that kind of history so boring.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: Just as a reader, maybe that's bad of me, but...
• 22:40
  yeah it's just so dull important it often didn't have a
• 22:43
  narrative it didn't have a
• 22:45
  narrative thrust in the way that other kinds of history and
• 22:48
  political history often
• 22:49
  does you have these you know dramatic moments of battles
• 22:52
  assassinations wars right
• 22:55
  and social history is often about how everyday people
• 22:59
  experienced the world and
• 23:00
  lived their lives I mean political history now as a category
• 23:04
  I'm actually in
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: and Upward and Upward and Upward.
• 23:34
  political history has had this comeback as a bigger and I think
• 23:38
  much more fruitful category.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: Did you stay at Yale for graduate school?
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: I did not.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: I graduated.
• 23:48
  I spent a few years as a reporter in various guises and then I
• 23:53
  went to graduate
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: school at Columbia.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: And what is the subject of your dissertations?
• 24:01
  I wrote my dissertation about an event that took place in New
• 24:04
  York in 1920,
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: which was a bomb attack on Wall Street.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: It was a really dramatic terrorist event in its day.
• 24:14
  It killed about 40 people,
• 24:16
  wounded hundreds of people in the financial district.
• 24:19
  blew out all of the windows shut down the financial markets so
• 24:23
  it was a really big
• 24:25
  event and then that became a lens into about a 50 year history
• 24:31
  before that of these
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: really violent clashes
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: in the United States over capitalism in particular,
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: the rise of anarchist violence,
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: of certain forms of labor violence.
• 24:44
  And so it was about that Gilded Age and Progressive Era debate
• 24:48
  about capital
• 24:49
  and about Wall Street and about some of the violence that was
• 24:53
  part of that story.
• 24:55
  I was in graduate school in New York when 9-11 happened and I
• 25:01
  was already working
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: on that dissertation and so to see another act of
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: violence really put,
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: again,
• 25:10
  the question of terrorism and political violence front and
• 25:13
  center in the same
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: neighborhood was sort of a dramatic coincidence.
• 25:18
  I thought it meant I had good instincts as a historian,
• 25:21
  but so it was in that moment too.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: Who were the perpetrators in 1920?
• 25:27
  Well so part of the interesting thing is that it was never
• 25:30
  solved so it was a huge
• 25:32
  huge affair and I think it's one of the reasons people don't
• 25:35
  remember this event as
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: well because it didn't have its big show trial in the end.
• 25:40
  The most likely culprits were some Italian anarchists who were
• 25:46
  in the same circle
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: as Sacco and Vanzetti
• 25:49
  who had also been arrested earlier that year for something
• 25:52
  totally unrelated.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: But they were part of an anarchist circle,
• 25:57
  mostly Italian immigrants that was quite committed to these
• 26:00
  dramatic acts of
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: violence.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's the most likely story.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: It was a friend of theirs who did this, but no one was ever convicted.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: Beverly, as I sit here today, that's what they say in courtroom dramas.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: As I sit here today,
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 26:16
  I don't think I could define syndicalists That was such a big
• 26:20
  word in our lives
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: What was a syndicalist?
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: I can't remember
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: Well,
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: syndicalists were in the main,
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: so with any word that comes out of the left of that period,
• 26:35
  there are lots and lots of people who would debate exactly what
• 26:39
  syndicalism is.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: But it was in part a commitment to direct action,
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: to direct engagement with employers,
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: rather than kind of moving through the political system.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: So it was partly tactical.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: And then it was also a vision of
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: what the IWW,
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: the Wobblies embraced,
• 27:00
  which is the idea of one big union that you were going to kind
• 27:03
  of organize vast
• 27:05
  groups of workers together into something with enough
• 27:09
  institutional heft to kind of
• 27:11
  counteract the weight of these big new corporations that were
• 27:15
  coming into being.
• 27:18
  Beverly just before we got on the air so to speak I recorded a
• 27:22
  a podcast with
• 27:24
  Conrad Kotak the anthropologist and I asked for his sort of
• 27:28
  personal pantheon of
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: anthropologists are there historians of the U.S.
• 27:35
  throughout our history ones you especially prize and admire or
• 27:41
  influenced by I mean
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: do you have a little lineup maybe a
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 27:49
  I actually often require my graduate students to go back and
• 27:55
  read earlier versions
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: of history,
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: histories that are stylistically
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: is an extraordinary book to read in its passion.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: He could write.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: He could tell a story, that one.
• 28:34
  And then another mid-century figure who I like to point to is
• 28:38
  Richard Hofstadter.
• 28:40
  Richard Hofstadter,
• 28:41
  who was both a political historian in the formal sense.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: his first big book was the American political tradition,
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: made a big splash,
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: although he had written a few things before that.
• 28:54
  But I really admire him as a stylist,
• 28:57
  as someone who was able to kind of engage
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: and Upward and Upward and Upward
• 29:27
  um but yeah this is this is probably unfair to him to
• 29:30
  Hofstadter but um you know
• 29:32
  how it's sometimes said that people get one line uh people know
• 29:35
  uh the public knows
• 29:37
  one thing about them and I associate him with the paranoid
• 29:41
  style I was going to say
• 29:43
  that's his one line yeah exactly yeah but I I should get better
• 29:47
  I should get better
• 29:48
  acquainted with him I I should um this is a big question I have
• 29:53
  on my list I um
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: I guess when I was quite young,
• 29:58
  I think a lot of us were taught or given to understand that
• 30:02
  America was a unique
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_01: nation,
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_01: an exceptional nation,
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: built on an idea,
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: welcoming,
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: largely welcoming of people from all over the world.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: Is that true, Beverly?
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: Is it part of our mythos?
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: Is it true, do you think?
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: Are we in fact unique?
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think probably every unation is unique in one way or another.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: So the word that's often used is exceptional.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a little bit different than unique.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: Exceptional doesn't mean just
• 30:41
  is not just that you have a distinctive history and historical
• 30:45
  trajectory and set
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: of forces,
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: which I think is certainly true of the United States.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: Exceptional often is taken to mean,
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 30:53
  we have a special mission or we are better or we stand outside
• 30:58
  of history.
• 31:00
  And so those are claims that are very hard to measure in some
• 31:06
  nuts and bolts set of
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: historical terms.
• 31:10
  I do think that American exceptionalism has had lots of meaning
• 31:15
  over time,
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: and that meaning has really changed.
• 31:19
  Often it's been something that's really motivated Americans to
• 31:24
  engage their own
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: society,
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: to live up to their best ideals,
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: to try to figure out what those ideals are.
• 31:32
  And so I am not someone who thinks that American exceptionalism
• 31:36
  is only a kind of
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: pernicious tool of
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: empire and oppression, as I think at least some people do.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's something meaningful in it,
• 31:47
  both as part of the way that the American story has been
• 31:50
  narrated and as a kind of
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: form of civic challenge that says,
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: can you live up to the best parts of your national tradition?
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Beverly, let's talk a little bit about higher ed education.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: and your committee studied,
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_01: I think I have a little list here,
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_01: grade inflation,
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_01: tuition prices,
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_01: admission policies,
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_01: political bias,
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: self-censorship.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_01: I want to ask you about grade inflation.
• 32:25
  I won't make you go through the list,
• 32:26
  but I have a view of this that may be wrong.
• 32:30
  And I want you to tell me whether it is you're in close touch
• 32:34
  with college
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_01: students,
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_01: with universities.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't been to college in
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: quite a long time.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_01: Here's my impression of impression of grade inflation.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: You tell me whether it's right or wrong.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: There is a time when there were gentlemen Cs,
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: students got Cs,
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: maybe Ds occasionally,
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_01: Bs,
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_01: As.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: These days, these top schools are so competitive.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_01: There's so much competition to get into them.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_01: And the students are so bright, or at least very, very well prepared.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: And they're so studious.
• 33:08
  I mean they're almost fanatical they're such good students and
• 33:12
  in my day Beverly I
• 33:14
  can't really remember studying much I mean we didn't I mean I
• 33:20
  barely studied I
• 33:21
  think K through graduate school but I mean my gosh these guys
• 33:25
  are just maniacs in
• 33:27
  how they study and how much they care my you tell me whether
• 33:31
  this is wrong don't
• 33:33
  they earn these A's because they're sort of a better class of
• 33:36
  student than
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_01: previous generations?
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_01: Or is that bunk?
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think there's a lot to be said for that.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: So our committee,
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: which was a committee of faculty,
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: our big charge was to examine the question of trust in higher education,
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: both as it applied to Yale and as it applied to higher ed more broadly,
• 33:57
  and to sort of think about what an institution like Yale might
• 34:01
  have done to
• 34:02
  contribute to declining trust and also what could be done maybe
• 34:06
  to improve
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: some of that situation.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so grade inflation was just one of the issues that came up,
• 34:12
  I would say both externally in terms of how the public thinks
• 34:17
  about higher
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: education and also internally.
• 34:20
  It was one of the pieces of higher ed at this moment that a lot
• 34:24
  of people were frustrated by.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that there is a lot of truth to what you're saying,
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: that students are incredibly serious,
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: they're incredibly well prepared,
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: and it is so hard
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: and Upward to get into these institutions at this moment.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yale had about a 4% admit rate this year for undergraduate,
• 34:44
  which means 96% of the people who apply are rejected for one
• 34:49
  reason or another.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: So to thread that needle,
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: you have to be really serious,
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: really prepared,
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: really smart,
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: and really good at what you do.
• 34:59
  And so I think that really is by and large true of students at
• 35:04
  a place like Yale.
• 35:05
  the problem comes that grades are intended to be a mechanism of
• 35:11
  communication and
• 35:13
  that communication is supposed to be a form of communication
• 35:16
  from faculty to
• 35:17
  students about kind of where they sit compared to their peers
• 35:22
  but in particular
• 35:24
  whether they've fully mastered the information if there are
• 35:27
  areas for improvement
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: and then it's also a
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: mechanism of communication from the university to the world at large,
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: in many cases,
• 35:39
  particularly to employers or to graduate schools about what
• 35:43
  this student learned
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: and where they sit in comparison to their peers.
• 35:49
  And so that's really the problem with this concentration of A
• 35:54
  grades and a few A
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: minuses,
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_00: the occasional B pluses that no one knows what these grades mean anymore.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: and Upward and Upward
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: and Upward and Upward and Upward
• 36:33
  that 4.0 GPA,
• 36:35
  it's actually distorting how they choose which classes to take.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: And at Yale, anyway, students can sort of choose their classes.
• 36:45
  There's a student-run online database that is the main way that
• 36:50
  students choose their classes.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: And they can actually sort their classes for, you know, how hard is it?
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_00: What's the grade distribution?
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: And they can kind of select their classes that way.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: So there's also within the institution, I think, a desire to
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: to make this a little bit more equalized so that it's not,
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: distorting or encouraging students to kind of play this this GPA game.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_01: Beverly, did I hear you use the phrase grade compression?
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_01: What's that?
• 37:21
  Well,
• 37:21
  that just means that the grades are all now within this very,
• 37:25
  very narrow band.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: So they're almost all A's and A minuses.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: So that's partly inflation, but it also means you don't have a choice.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_00: One funny proposal that we heard,
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: it could have worked,
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: but it didn't seem to solve the problem,
• 37:38
  was to add an A plus so that you would actually have then a
• 37:42
  wider distribution,
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: but that I think wouldn't solve the inflation problem.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, a B-plus is now practically catastrophic.
• 37:53
  If I had gotten a B-plus in some science,
• 37:56
  I would have thought I was ready for the Nobel.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_01: I sometimes like to say,
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_01: if you were a czar,
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_01: if you could just decree,
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_01: sometimes I ask myself,
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_01: if you were a czar and could make,
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_01: say,
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_01: two,
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_01: three changes in education,
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_01: What are your priorities?
• 38:16
  If you could just decree it without collaboration,
• 38:20
  without consent,
• 38:21
  just do it.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_01: What do you think?
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that is, of course, not the nature of committee work.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: Far from it.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: This was an opportunity,
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: as big a one,
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: I think,
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: as faculty committees get,
• 38:38
  to really say some of these things because higher ed is under
• 38:43
  so much pressure from
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: so many different angles at this moment.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I think there is a real desire not only for self-scrutiny, but for
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: plans moving forward.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I would say the number one issue is cost,
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: the cost of higher education in this moment,
• 39:02
  and whether or not people understand that this is a cost that
• 39:07
  is relative to the
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: value that you're getting.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: So that would be one thing to take on.
• 39:12
  It's just much more expensive to get a degree in the United
• 39:16
  States than it is
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: almost anywhere else in the world.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_00: And
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: that has helped to make some really excellent universities,
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_00: but I think as a social policy,
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_00: it's not a great one.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I would take that on.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_00: I would get rid of, this actually was one of our committee
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_00: and Upward and Upward and Upward
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: and Upward and Upward and Upward
• 40:06
  and it was great it was really wonderful because those are not
• 40:11
  only devices that
• 40:12
  distract the student themselves but they distract everyone else
• 40:16
  in the classroom
• 40:17
  because if you're on a laptop and you're shopping everyone
• 40:20
  sitting behind you can
• 40:21
  see that you're shopping and it's just incredibly pernicious to
• 40:25
  the classroom
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: environment so as a teacher that is a big one that I would take on.
• 40:34
  Beverly here toward the end I've I read in your bio I think
• 40:37
  that you're working on
• 40:38
  a biography of Reagan and I want us has he driven you nuts get
• 40:43
  I think he drove
• 40:44
  Edmund Morris nuts so enigmatic was he but Reagan disagreed was
• 40:49
  I think Mike Deaver
• 40:51
  told the story that some historians wanted to have a talk with
• 40:55
  Reagan and Reagan
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_01: said why
• 40:59
  and Deaver said well to figure out what makes you tick and
• 41:03
  reagan said i'm an open
• 41:05
  book mike i'm an open book that was what he thought of himself
• 41:10
  is he driving you
• 41:11
  nuts or do you have a well i'm pretty early in the project yet
• 41:16
  so uh so i'm i'm
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_00: still quite uh quite interested and quite um
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_00: drawn to it.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_00: I will say that in some sense,
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_00: though I am a biographer and this is a biography,
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_00: I am less interested in Reagan as the individual.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_00: What was in his heart of hearts?
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm interested in that.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_00: But
• 41:37
  I'm really interested in him as a vehicle for telling a big
• 41:42
  story about the scope
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_00: of 20th century politics,
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_00: one that will get to the end of the Cold War.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_00: J. Edgar Hoover died in the 70s.
• 41:50
  And I'm particularly interested in the ways in which debates
• 41:54
  over communism and anti-communism
• 41:57
  really structured the politics of the 20th century in a way
• 42:00
  that I think are
• 42:01
  different from what came before and from what came after and
• 42:05
  that's such a through
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_00: line in Reagan's life you know from the moment that he comes
• 42:11
  comes to Hollywood in the 1930s and then is swept up in the
• 42:16
  labor politics and
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_00: testifying before HUAC.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's really the strain that I'm most engaged with.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it does have a lot to do with who he was as a person,
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_00: how he understood his purpose in the world.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_00: But it's a little bit different from like, was he a nice guy?
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_00: Was he a mean guy?
• 42:34
  I mean,
• 42:34
  it seems like he was generally,
• 42:36
  you know,
• 42:36
  interpersonally a pretty good soul.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I so look forward to reading that book.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to end with this.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, everyone thinks his own field is important.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_01: He'd have to.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_01: Why else be in it?
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_01: Everything's important.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_01: Dentistry, chemistry, physical education, the writing of fiction.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's all important.
• 43:07
  I guess I think of the phrase the uses of American history I
• 43:10
  sometimes worry but I
• 43:11
  often quote Charles Rosen the late pianist scholar who said the
• 43:17
  depth of classical
• 43:18
  music is perhaps the oldest tradition of classical music and I
• 43:22
  know that throughout
• 43:22
  all the generations that we haven't had that many generations
• 43:25
  in America because
• 43:25
  it's such a young country but it's always we're losing a sense
• 43:29
  of our past a sense
• 43:30
  of our history and I'm sure that especially older people like
• 43:33
  me have said this in
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_01: every generation
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_01: That doesn't mean it's not true.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_01: I'm thinking of lower education in particular, not college.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_01: I'm thinking of elementary school and junior high and so on.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_01: From what you can tell,
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_01: are you satisfied with the teaching of US history,
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_01: with how it's going in our country,
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_01: or do you think we're deficient in this area?
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well,
• 44:00
  I think there are lots of brilliant secondary and elementary
• 44:03
  school teachers out
• 44:04
  there who are really animated about teaching the American past
• 44:08
  in all of its
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_00: complexity.
• 44:11
  Of course,
• 44:13
  in the field that I'm in,
• 44:14
  you always want to see more of that being done.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I do think in recent years,
• 44:18
  there's been a turn away from the teaching of history toward
• 44:23
  kind of skill based
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_00: jaynordlinger jaynordlinger
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_00: to the degree that historical education can also be civic education.
• 44:47
  I think there's no question that there's a lot less of that
• 44:50
  going on in American
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_00: schools at the moment.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_00: So one reason that I wrote this land
• 44:56
  is your land is to encourage families to go out with their kids
• 45:02
  on these road trips
• 45:03
  to historic sites to explore some of this history on their own
• 45:08
  and to learn what to
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_00: bring back to the classroom,
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_00: what kinds
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_00: and Upward and Upward.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_00: and Upward and Upward.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_01: Ladies and gentlemen,
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_01: I am Jay Nordlinger,
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_01: who has done Q&A with Professor Beverly Gage,
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_01: whose new book is This Land is Your Land.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_01: I love that phrase.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_01: A road trip, love that phrase too, through U.S. history.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_01: What a pleasure this is.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_01: What a pleasure to speak with you.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I look forward to our next conversation.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, great.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Jay.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_01: So long, everyone.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_01: Till next time.