WEBVTT - An Interview with David McCullough 0:00:00.560 --> 0:00:03.760 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:13.720 Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:13.800 --> 0:00:15.960 I'm to blame a truck recording and I'm fair Dowdy 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:19.640 and listeners are always asking us to mention or recommend 0:00:19.760 --> 0:00:23.160 historical biographies and other books that they might enjoy, and 0:00:23.160 --> 0:00:25.480 in this episode, we're gonna do a little better than that. 0:00:25.960 --> 0:00:28.479 We were lucky enough to have the opportunity to talk 0:00:28.520 --> 0:00:32.040 to Pulitzer Prize wing author David McCullough recently about his 0:00:32.080 --> 0:00:34.480 new book, and we've included a portion of that discussion 0:00:34.479 --> 0:00:37.640 here in this podcast. Yeah, and we were obviously excited 0:00:37.680 --> 0:00:40.360 to get the chance to interview Mr McCullough, but we 0:00:40.360 --> 0:00:43.520 were especially excited when we found out his latest book, 0:00:43.640 --> 0:00:47.239 called The Greater Journey, is really a collection almost of 0:00:47.320 --> 0:00:50.880 miniature biographies that covers so many people through this large 0:00:50.920 --> 0:00:55.200 span of time eighteen thirty to nineteen hundred Americans going 0:00:55.240 --> 0:00:59.440 to Paris to perfect their trade. Really ambitious people not 0:00:59.520 --> 0:01:02.040 just going to travel, not just going to to see 0:01:02.040 --> 0:01:05.000 the world, but to become something new and make something 0:01:05.000 --> 0:01:08.200 of themselves. Yeah, and they held a variety of professions. 0:01:08.200 --> 0:01:11.640 They were doctors, artists, writers, politicians, and the book really 0:01:11.680 --> 0:01:15.640 covers their journey, their experiences in Paris, and also what 0:01:15.680 --> 0:01:18.360 they brought back to America with them, probably most importantly 0:01:18.400 --> 0:01:20.759 what they brought back how they shaped their own country. 0:01:20.800 --> 0:01:24.520 And even though it has those large overarching themes that 0:01:24.560 --> 0:01:28.240 I mentioned, it's also a personal book too. I really 0:01:28.280 --> 0:01:30.760 thought it as a visual book, partly because it is 0:01:30.800 --> 0:01:34.960 about so many writers and artists and architects. I kept 0:01:35.000 --> 0:01:38.160 on looking at pictures because we were working from from 0:01:38.160 --> 0:01:42.000 proofs that didn't have paintings and illustrations included yet. But 0:01:42.120 --> 0:01:44.399 it just very much came to life in front of 0:01:44.400 --> 0:01:47.040 my eyes. Yeah, and to me it seemed a lot 0:01:47.080 --> 0:01:49.400 like a travel narrative, and not just because of those 0:01:49.480 --> 0:01:52.240 visual aspects that you mentioned, but also just because of 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:54.440 the feeling you get. You can feel what it's like 0:01:54.600 --> 0:01:58.200 to be one of these protagonists arriving in Paris for 0:01:58.240 --> 0:02:00.880 the first time and experience seen all of these things 0:02:00.880 --> 0:02:03.160 that anyone who's ever traveled, I think can really relate 0:02:03.200 --> 0:02:06.120 to that. Mr McCullough himself has described it as a 0:02:06.200 --> 0:02:09.280 literary historic guide book, and that's sort of a different 0:02:09.280 --> 0:02:13.760 way of thinking about history books. And it is unique 0:02:13.880 --> 0:02:17.720 in McCullough's own work. I'd say he's written several biographies, 0:02:17.760 --> 0:02:21.560 he's written books that focus precisely on a single building 0:02:21.560 --> 0:02:24.880 event or a single year, even with seventeen seventy six. 0:02:25.200 --> 0:02:28.200 Yet this book has such a broad focus. And so 0:02:28.520 --> 0:02:30.480 the first thing we wanted to talk to him about 0:02:30.600 --> 0:02:33.200 was how he picked a topic like this in the 0:02:33.240 --> 0:02:36.000 first place. And here's what he had to say. Well, 0:02:36.040 --> 0:02:39.600 I've been very interested for a long time in the 0:02:39.720 --> 0:02:43.440 part of the American story that has taken place in Paris, 0:02:44.200 --> 0:02:52.280 and particularly the period between the post Jefferson Adams Franklin 0:02:52.840 --> 0:02:59.440 time of the eighteenth century and the Gertrude Stein Scott 0:02:59.480 --> 0:03:03.840 fitzger Old Hemingway time in the nineteen twenties and thirties. 0:03:05.040 --> 0:03:09.200 For one thing, it's been largely overlooked, and for another, 0:03:09.639 --> 0:03:15.959 the people who are part of that story are immensely 0:03:16.080 --> 0:03:21.880 important to American life, American history, and the way we are, 0:03:22.200 --> 0:03:26.960 and their time in Paris was instrumental in what they 0:03:27.040 --> 0:03:31.560 became and therefore instrumental in the way we are. And 0:03:32.000 --> 0:03:36.640 I also feel very strongly that history isn't just about 0:03:36.840 --> 0:03:41.760 politics and the military or social issues. The great deal 0:03:41.800 --> 0:03:45.400 of it, of course, is but it's also about art 0:03:45.560 --> 0:03:52.480 and music and medicine and philosophy and learning and poetry, 0:03:52.000 --> 0:03:57.840 and its history is human, and and the arts and 0:03:59.040 --> 0:04:04.560 the creative nature of a society are an immensely big 0:04:04.600 --> 0:04:08.440 part of the human experience. We found that point really interesting, 0:04:08.560 --> 0:04:11.240 especially how he says that history is human, because this 0:04:11.360 --> 0:04:13.880 is such a human book. There are, as we mentioned, 0:04:13.880 --> 0:04:16.799 so many protagonists in it, and so we were curious 0:04:16.839 --> 0:04:20.279 to know how Mr McCullough picked who to include. Well. 0:04:20.320 --> 0:04:24.480 I could have could have included maybe a hundred and 0:04:24.520 --> 0:04:27.240 twenty people, but of course that wouldn't have been a book. 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:30.400 That would have been a catalog, and I had no 0:04:30.520 --> 0:04:34.880 interest in writing a catalog. I also had no interest 0:04:34.960 --> 0:04:38.799 in writing about tourists or people who went to Paris 0:04:39.040 --> 0:04:42.440 for business purposes or because they were assigned to go 0:04:42.560 --> 0:04:47.480 there by our government, with one or two exceptions, because 0:04:48.080 --> 0:04:52.400 what happened to those one or two exceptions was truly exceptional, 0:04:52.440 --> 0:04:56.479 particularly Ellie Hugh Washburn, our minister to Paris at the 0:04:56.520 --> 0:04:59.960 time of the Franco Prussian War. But by and large, 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:05.360 most of my characters are men and women of talent, 0:05:06.160 --> 0:05:10.200 in some cases exceptional talent, who were ambitious to excel 0:05:11.320 --> 0:05:17.440 in their chosen careers, not ambitious necessarily to become famous 0:05:17.560 --> 0:05:20.880 or rich or powerful, but to excel to be the 0:05:20.920 --> 0:05:26.040 best they could possibly be. And that's a wonderful pursuit. 0:05:26.240 --> 0:05:30.160 And in all cases they had very interesting lives, and 0:05:30.200 --> 0:05:34.479 in some cases are surprising if they spring out of 0:05:34.520 --> 0:05:39.400 seemingly seemingly nowhere, like Augustus St. Gauden's who was the sculptor, 0:05:39.440 --> 0:05:45.719 who was who was an immigrant shoemaker's son, or George 0:05:45.760 --> 0:05:49.479 Healy who was an Irish kid from Boston with no 0:05:49.600 --> 0:05:54.599 money and no contacts in France, no knowledge of French, 0:05:55.320 --> 0:05:57.680 who went off because he was determined he was going 0:05:57.680 --> 0:06:01.799 to become a painter. And we had no art schools 0:06:01.800 --> 0:06:04.719 at that time, we had no schools of architecture, We 0:06:04.800 --> 0:06:08.000 had no museums where one could go and look at paintings. 0:06:08.600 --> 0:06:11.320 If you wanted to to be tops in your field, 0:06:11.680 --> 0:06:15.760 in the field of art, architecture, sculpture, you almost had 0:06:15.800 --> 0:06:19.000 to go to Paris. And those are the people that 0:06:19.200 --> 0:06:24.120 interested me. And I should say too, very importantly that 0:06:24.839 --> 0:06:27.840 how much of what happened to them did they themselves 0:06:28.279 --> 0:06:32.480 record in letters and diaries? That was all important And 0:06:32.480 --> 0:06:34.960 in the case of all the major characters in this book, 0:06:35.000 --> 0:06:39.760 everything is drawn from their letters or diaries, or the 0:06:39.880 --> 0:06:43.640 letters or diaries of their friends, or their wife or 0:06:43.680 --> 0:06:48.159 others who were close to them, and so they in 0:06:48.240 --> 0:06:53.000 a sense have left this rich record that, as I 0:06:53.040 --> 0:06:58.039 said earlier, has been surprisingly overlooked. I have, I have 0:06:58.160 --> 0:07:02.560 worked with all kinds of rich materials in my historical 0:07:02.640 --> 0:07:06.279 research and research into the lives of some of the 0:07:06.279 --> 0:07:09.760 biographies that I've written, but I don't know as I've 0:07:09.760 --> 0:07:14.160 ever had such a wealth of richness of material too 0:07:14.720 --> 0:07:17.240 to work with as I have for this book, and 0:07:17.280 --> 0:07:21.280 I've enjoyed it immensely. That point that he makes about 0:07:21.480 --> 0:07:25.440 primary sources like letters and journals using sources that contain 0:07:25.760 --> 0:07:30.480 protagonists own words as research that comes across I think 0:07:30.600 --> 0:07:32.640 very clearly in the book, and it made us even 0:07:32.680 --> 0:07:35.360 more curious about his research process. We wanted to know 0:07:35.440 --> 0:07:39.840 what that process entailed, especially since this story happens on 0:07:39.840 --> 0:07:42.400 two different continents. We wanted to know what did the 0:07:42.440 --> 0:07:45.600 research in Paris involved, and and the state side research 0:07:45.640 --> 0:07:48.280 as well well. I just spend a good deal of 0:07:48.320 --> 0:07:51.239 time in Paris, but really it was more to soak 0:07:51.360 --> 0:07:57.000 up the place to to uh absorbed as well as 0:07:57.040 --> 0:08:01.760 I could everything about Paris and all seasons to know, 0:08:02.240 --> 0:08:08.560 to know that setting as thoroughly as one can. The 0:08:08.680 --> 0:08:12.080 real research, however, is all here in the United States. 0:08:12.160 --> 0:08:16.920 It's at university libraries. It's in the Library of Congress, 0:08:17.040 --> 0:08:23.120 or Massachusetts Historical Society, the Virginia Historical Society. I think 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:31.679 that some thirty six institutions altogether have been involved in 0:08:31.680 --> 0:08:37.680 in the total body of my research work. And in 0:08:37.720 --> 0:08:42.200 some cases they were documents or portions of documents that 0:08:42.280 --> 0:08:47.040 nobody literally had ever looked at. And and often the 0:08:47.760 --> 0:08:51.520 most revealing material is to be found in what might 0:08:51.520 --> 0:08:54.960 be called the secondary characters, not the major characters, but 0:08:55.040 --> 0:08:59.720 those who, much as in a play, deliver lines, deliver 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:09.360 explanations or descriptions that bring to bring the the principle actors, 0:09:09.360 --> 0:09:13.960 the protagonists and what happened to light into vivid into 0:09:14.040 --> 0:09:18.680 vivid focus the way nobody else has. So those those 0:09:18.720 --> 0:09:22.000 people have been of huge importance to me also, and 0:09:22.120 --> 0:09:28.000 I researched newspapers, photographs, paintings. Paintings are very important source 0:09:28.679 --> 0:09:31.520 for one thing, because, unlike black and white photograph, they 0:09:31.559 --> 0:09:34.760 give you the color of someone's eyes or the or 0:09:34.880 --> 0:09:37.559 the tone of their complexion, of the color of their hair, 0:09:38.679 --> 0:09:41.360 and so forth. And since a number of these people 0:09:42.160 --> 0:09:47.920 were themselves painters, that's of considerable consequence as well. So 0:09:48.000 --> 0:09:51.520 we're always interested in the secondary characters in history. A 0:09:51.520 --> 0:09:54.280 lot of times they do write the most interesting stuff down, 0:09:54.400 --> 0:09:57.360 and Mr McCullough himself had noted that in the source 0:09:57.440 --> 0:10:01.199 notes for a Greater Journey. He wrote of Charles Beecher, 0:10:01.320 --> 0:10:03.880 who he was the one, even though he's the less 0:10:03.920 --> 0:10:06.360 famous brother of Harriet Beecher Stow, he was the one 0:10:06.400 --> 0:10:09.720 who wrote the detailed account of her time in Paris, 0:10:09.800 --> 0:10:12.520 something that makes her story really come to life. So 0:10:12.600 --> 0:10:15.800 I was curious if there were any of those secondary characters. 0:10:15.800 --> 0:10:18.640 Obviously it didn't quite happen for Charles Beecher, but any 0:10:18.679 --> 0:10:23.160 other secondary characters in the research process that really became 0:10:23.400 --> 0:10:26.440 primary characters in the book once who to Mr McCullough, 0:10:26.559 --> 0:10:32.240 just deserved their own mini biography. Yes, indeed, that's a 0:10:32.360 --> 0:10:38.079 very perceptive question. Gussie st Gunn's the wife of of 0:10:38.200 --> 0:10:42.760 Gus st He was Augusta Augustus and she was Augusta 0:10:43.559 --> 0:10:47.400 Gussie sat guns went to Paris with her new husband. 0:10:47.920 --> 0:10:50.560 She was a bride in Paris, which was unusual for 0:10:50.960 --> 0:10:54.240 American women, and she did not speak for him. She 0:10:54.360 --> 0:10:57.720 was a painter, so she was eager to be there 0:10:57.840 --> 0:11:00.719 for that reason as well. And she wrote over two 0:11:01.200 --> 0:11:06.199 letters back to her parents describing their life, their days, 0:11:06.320 --> 0:11:12.319 their problems, their shortages of this or that, and and 0:11:12.320 --> 0:11:15.080 and what she was struggling with and what she was 0:11:16.160 --> 0:11:19.880 worried about. She was quite deaf, and her deafness was 0:11:19.920 --> 0:11:23.320 a very serious handicap, and so she was dealing with 0:11:23.400 --> 0:11:27.000 that as well. But those letters are all at the 0:11:28.120 --> 0:11:32.480 at the library at Dartmouth College, and I thought they 0:11:32.520 --> 0:11:35.319 would be of use and that they would be interesting. 0:11:35.920 --> 0:11:40.160 But as I read into them, and as as she 0:11:40.480 --> 0:11:47.760 opened up herself to her parents and consequently therefore to us, 0:11:47.800 --> 0:11:50.680 she became more than a minor character. She became a 0:11:50.760 --> 0:11:55.480 very important character. And I found her to be an 0:11:55.480 --> 0:12:00.200 admirable character as well as extremely interesting. As he man 0:12:00.240 --> 0:12:04.040 being hearing him talk so admiringly about Gussie, and they 0:12:04.080 --> 0:12:07.640 just wonder if he had a favorite protagonist in this story. 0:12:07.720 --> 0:12:09.679 And he kind of turned it around on us and 0:12:10.080 --> 0:12:13.319 turned it into the old historical question, that classic question 0:12:13.320 --> 0:12:15.480 of who would you have lunch with? If you could, 0:12:15.520 --> 0:12:17.840 And this is what he had to say. I was 0:12:17.920 --> 0:12:24.320 fascinated by Emma Willard uh And and Elizabeth Blackwell, the 0:12:24.400 --> 0:12:28.319 first woman to become a doctor. If I could spend 0:12:28.400 --> 0:12:32.640 time with one of my characters or any length of time, 0:12:32.679 --> 0:12:37.640 I suppose it might be Oliver Wendell Holmes or Charles Sumner. 0:12:37.760 --> 0:12:42.480 Charles Sumners immensely important figure in American history. He was 0:12:42.520 --> 0:12:46.160 the great voice for abolition in the United States, and 0:12:46.200 --> 0:12:49.800 it's the most powerful voice for abolition really effectively in 0:12:50.120 --> 0:12:53.160 the country. And the idea that he went to Paris 0:12:53.280 --> 0:12:55.840 because you just simply he didn't know enough, and he 0:12:55.880 --> 0:12:59.800 went over there to attend lectures at the Sorbonne uh 0:12:59.840 --> 0:13:03.800 And it was then that he discovered that black people 0:13:04.679 --> 0:13:08.720 need not be treated any differently than anyone else and 0:13:09.280 --> 0:13:12.760 wondered why, as he recorded in his journal, that we 0:13:12.840 --> 0:13:15.560 did so in this country at that time. And they 0:13:15.600 --> 0:13:19.120 asked himself again in the journal, is it because of 0:13:19.360 --> 0:13:22.280 the way we've been taught? Or is it in the 0:13:22.360 --> 0:13:26.440 natural order of things to have no bias, to have 0:13:26.600 --> 0:13:29.960 no prejudice, Because he saw the black students at the 0:13:30.000 --> 0:13:36.120 surban Um had exactly the same kinds of ambitions for 0:13:36.160 --> 0:13:40.400 themselves as he did. They dressed no differently, they they 0:13:40.400 --> 0:13:44.160 were treated no differently, And it was an epiphany for him, 0:13:44.200 --> 0:13:46.440 and he came home determined to do something about it, 0:13:46.520 --> 0:13:50.160 and he certainly did. I'm very interested in what they 0:13:50.200 --> 0:13:57.040 brought home physically, literally or figuratively, and what he brought home, 0:13:57.240 --> 0:14:01.000 needless to say, was of immense value, just as the 0:14:01.000 --> 0:14:05.800 the training that the young American architects received it the 0:14:05.920 --> 0:14:09.360 cult of Bose arts in architecture had a huge impact 0:14:09.520 --> 0:14:15.400 on the look of American cities and and people like 0:14:16.760 --> 0:14:21.000 John Singer Sergeant and Mary Cassatt paintings. Their paintings now 0:14:21.000 --> 0:14:25.000 are our treasures and to be seen in most of 0:14:25.040 --> 0:14:28.760 the major museums of our country. They stand out as 0:14:29.720 --> 0:14:37.480 as geniuses, American geniuses, and they only achieved that not 0:14:37.600 --> 0:14:39.920 just because of their talent, but how hard they worked. 0:14:40.000 --> 0:14:44.520 I think that's one of the one of the many 0:14:44.600 --> 0:14:47.160 things I learned from the four years I spent on 0:14:47.200 --> 0:14:53.400 the book, is how hard these brilliant people worked, and 0:14:53.720 --> 0:14:59.600 without exception. And John Singer Sergeant, who probably was the 0:14:59.640 --> 0:15:02.520 most naturally gifted of them all, he was a prodigy 0:15:02.560 --> 0:15:07.880 and painting, worked harder than anybody, never really never stopped 0:15:07.880 --> 0:15:11.040 working his whole life. So I made a note of 0:15:11.160 --> 0:15:14.000 the part where he mentioned Oliver Wendell Holmes, because one 0:15:14.000 --> 0:15:16.560 of the most striking scenes in the book was where 0:15:16.600 --> 0:15:20.400 Holmes returns to Paris as a much older man. He 0:15:20.480 --> 0:15:23.560 of course studied there as a youth, and he's just 0:15:23.640 --> 0:15:26.960 sort of struck by the fact that so much is 0:15:27.000 --> 0:15:29.720 the same, yet so much has changed, and he he 0:15:30.080 --> 0:15:32.680 considers that his own fountain of youth. So we were 0:15:32.720 --> 0:15:36.760 curious if Mr McCullough himself has been visiting Paris throughout 0:15:36.800 --> 0:15:39.520 his lifetime. It just seemed very personal in a way. 0:15:39.760 --> 0:15:42.640 Here's what he had to say. I have gone there 0:15:42.680 --> 0:15:50.120 for fifty years, and I went back just last fall, 0:15:51.440 --> 0:15:57.240 and I can tell you I am just about exactly 0:15:57.320 --> 0:16:00.800 the same age that Holmes was, and he went back. 0:16:02.240 --> 0:16:06.880 And when I wrote that scene, uh, there was a 0:16:06.880 --> 0:16:10.640 lot of empathy at work because I know exactly how 0:16:10.720 --> 0:16:15.080 he felt. And I particularly loved when when he went 0:16:15.120 --> 0:16:18.000 to the old cafe that he and his friends at 0:16:18.040 --> 0:16:23.400 all attended, which is still there, the procope Um, that 0:16:23.520 --> 0:16:25.480 he said, you don't have to go to Florida's to 0:16:25.640 --> 0:16:29.960 find the mountain of youth. It's right here. And I 0:16:30.000 --> 0:16:34.400 have felt that strongly in Paris. I think lots of 0:16:34.440 --> 0:16:39.600 people do. Um, there is something quite magic about it. 0:16:40.480 --> 0:16:45.360 And uh and they all they all said it one 0:16:45.400 --> 0:16:52.880 way or another without exception. And I think that's a 0:16:53.000 --> 0:16:55.920 way that I tried very hard in my work to 0:16:55.960 --> 0:17:00.360 get closer to these banished people, the imminent and if 0:17:00.360 --> 0:17:05.439 you will, and and one of the ways you do 0:17:05.520 --> 0:17:12.000 it is you go where they were. The setting of experience, 0:17:12.600 --> 0:17:17.760 of any human experiences of the utmost importance to understand 0:17:17.920 --> 0:17:25.080 not just what happened, but the mood or the the spell, 0:17:25.560 --> 0:17:30.720 or the or the challenge that a given setting presents. 0:17:31.800 --> 0:17:35.360 And I've always felt in my work that I had 0:17:35.400 --> 0:17:39.480 to go soak it up myself. When I was writing 0:17:39.480 --> 0:17:43.080 about Panama, I had to spend time in Panama, feel 0:17:43.160 --> 0:17:46.399 that heat, feel the humidity, wonder try to imagine as 0:17:46.440 --> 0:17:48.000 best I could what it would have been like to 0:17:48.359 --> 0:17:51.560 work in a climate like that. And when Sumner and 0:17:51.600 --> 0:17:55.720 others talk about the the bone cutting chill of a 0:17:55.840 --> 0:18:01.080 Paris winner, that damn chill air the huts right through 0:18:01.240 --> 0:18:04.320 to you, I knew I had to go there and 0:18:05.080 --> 0:18:10.240 experience it. I didn't realize that we experience it every 0:18:10.240 --> 0:18:15.520 single day, day after day for several weeks. I don't 0:18:15.520 --> 0:18:18.920 think the sun came up once and for more than 0:18:18.920 --> 0:18:23.760 about ten minutes. But when I read Sumner's account of 0:18:23.800 --> 0:18:26.320 how he was trying to get warm by the fireplace 0:18:26.920 --> 0:18:32.400 wearing his overcoat inside, I was very, very much more 0:18:32.520 --> 0:18:35.080 sympathetic than I would have been if I'd been just 0:18:35.119 --> 0:18:40.240 sitting at home trying to imagine it. And conversely, on 0:18:40.320 --> 0:18:45.199 a beautiful spring morning, to walk through the garden of 0:18:45.200 --> 0:18:50.320 the Tuileries and the Luxembourg Gardens, it's you could be 0:18:50.359 --> 0:18:54.400 transported in time in a matter of seconds. Hearing Mr 0:18:54.480 --> 0:18:56.719 McCulloch described Paris as a good indication of what you're 0:18:56.720 --> 0:18:59.640 in store for if you read the book, and Paris 0:18:59.680 --> 0:19:01.520 is so much at the center of the story. You 0:19:01.640 --> 0:19:04.199 learn so much about the city through the experiences of 0:19:04.240 --> 0:19:06.880 the Americans spending time there, and some of the histories 0:19:06.960 --> 0:19:09.520 of the French people in the story as well. But 0:19:09.600 --> 0:19:12.320 you also learn a lot about America too, So it 0:19:12.359 --> 0:19:15.200 made me wonder whether Mr McCullough really thought of this 0:19:15.359 --> 0:19:18.600 as more of a history of America or a history 0:19:18.640 --> 0:19:22.080 of Paris. Here's what he had to say. I see 0:19:22.119 --> 0:19:29.600 it as a book about the lifelong adventure of learning, 0:19:32.000 --> 0:19:36.400 and part of learning is to get out of our realm, 0:19:36.560 --> 0:19:40.960 out of our milieu, out of our of ourselves for 0:19:41.040 --> 0:19:45.280 a while. I also see it as a lesson, a 0:19:45.400 --> 0:19:52.240 reminder that so much of what we feel and proudly 0:19:52.320 --> 0:19:58.399 but not always correctly is strictly an American creation or 0:19:58.520 --> 0:20:03.280 invention or way of seeing things are thinking, isn't at all? 0:20:04.800 --> 0:20:11.520 People people past that magnificent statue of General Sherman at 0:20:11.520 --> 0:20:15.000 the corner ninth and Fifth Avenue, New York, they think, ah, 0:20:15.040 --> 0:20:18.640 there's a great American figure and done by a great 0:20:18.680 --> 0:20:22.760 American sculpture. Well, if if it were possible to pick 0:20:22.800 --> 0:20:24.480 it up and turn it over and look at the bottom, 0:20:24.520 --> 0:20:27.879 you see made in Paris, made in Paris, by an 0:20:27.880 --> 0:20:32.720 American in Paris. Vanuel Hall in Boston one of the 0:20:32.760 --> 0:20:37.919 most popular historic sites in all of our country, and 0:20:38.000 --> 0:20:42.560 rightly so. Up on the stage, filling the most the 0:20:42.600 --> 0:20:46.840 whole backdrop of the stage is a huge painting of 0:20:47.640 --> 0:20:52.879 Daniel Webster's reply to Hayne, Senator Haynes, done by the 0:20:52.960 --> 0:20:59.480 Boston painter George Healy in Paris. Enormous painting was painted 0:20:59.480 --> 0:21:03.080 by the while he was living in Paris. Paris was 0:21:03.119 --> 0:21:07.600 the cultural capital of the world, the way we might say, 0:21:07.720 --> 0:21:10.560 I think fairly that New York is the cultural capital 0:21:10.560 --> 0:21:13.639 of the world today in our time, has been since 0:21:13.680 --> 0:21:19.280 the end of World War two. And and also you 0:21:19.359 --> 0:21:24.280 have to remember how behind we were in medicine and 0:21:24.440 --> 0:21:31.479 in training, in art and music and and and in ideas. Uh. 0:21:32.480 --> 0:21:35.320 The Surbane was probably the greatest university of the world 0:21:35.359 --> 0:21:39.160 at that time, and of course it had France had 0:21:39.200 --> 0:21:42.879 the policy, which seems almost unimaginable, that if you're a 0:21:42.920 --> 0:21:46.040 foreign student, you could go there for nothing, as you 0:21:46.080 --> 0:21:50.800 could study at their medical their great medical college university. 0:21:50.920 --> 0:21:54.000 The occulta medicine for nothing if you were if you're 0:21:54.000 --> 0:21:56.760 a foreigner, and so many of these young Americans were 0:21:56.800 --> 0:22:00.439 taking advantage of that. So it was great getting to 0:22:00.480 --> 0:22:04.119 conduct that interview with the David McCullough and UH, a 0:22:04.280 --> 0:22:06.600 pleasure to read the book too. I really enjoyed it. 0:22:06.680 --> 0:22:09.080 And you guys are in luck too, because our interview 0:22:09.080 --> 0:22:11.119 actually went on quite a bit longer than that, and 0:22:11.160 --> 0:22:14.760 we asked him some questions about his personal career and 0:22:14.840 --> 0:22:18.840 some insider tips on his research style. So there's gonna 0:22:18.840 --> 0:22:21.880 be a whole another podcast coming where he'll talk about 0:22:21.920 --> 0:22:24.400 all that, and we'll also discuss some more of our 0:22:24.480 --> 0:22:27.320 favorite parts about this book in the meantime. If you 0:22:27.359 --> 0:22:29.320 do have a chance to read the book, it's called 0:22:29.359 --> 0:22:31.880 The Greater Journey Americans in Paris and it just came 0:22:31.920 --> 0:22:35.480 out it did, Or if you have any opinions or 0:22:35.600 --> 0:22:37.480 things you want to say about some of the protagonists 0:22:37.480 --> 0:22:39.600 that are included we've named if you here, we've talked 0:22:39.640 --> 0:22:42.440 about a lot of them on this podcast before. We'd 0:22:42.440 --> 0:22:45.080 like to start a little book club discussion book club 0:22:45.200 --> 0:22:47.760 esque discussion about it, and you can contribute to that 0:22:47.880 --> 0:22:51.879 by visiting our Facebook page or hitting us up on Twitter. 0:22:51.920 --> 0:22:53.480 That wouldn't be much of a discussion, but you know, 0:22:53.480 --> 0:22:56.040 you could leave us a comments discussion or we should 0:22:56.040 --> 0:22:58.960 brief comment, or you can write us at history podcast 0:22:59.040 --> 0:23:01.480 at how Stuff Work Stoff Calm, or you can join 0:23:01.600 --> 0:23:03.680 us on the blogs and talking about it. I think 0:23:03.800 --> 0:23:05.680 probably the best place to do it. Yeah. I think 0:23:05.720 --> 0:23:08.320 we'll be contributing some thoughts there about it, and you 0:23:08.359 --> 0:23:11.320 can look up those blogs by visiting our homepage at 0:23:11.400 --> 0:23:18.280 www dot how Stuff works dot com. Be sure to 0:23:18.359 --> 0:23:21.119 check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the future. 0:23:21.480 --> 0:23:23.800 Join how Stuff Work staff as we explore the most 0:23:23.800 --> 0:23:28.400 promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The House Stuff Works 0:23:28.440 --> 0:23:31.680 iPhone app has arrived. Download it today on iTunes