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Speaker 1: On this episode of News World. Tomorrow is President's Day.

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Speaker 1: I wanted to take the opportunity to discuss how important

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Speaker 1: it is that we take the opportunity to recall the

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Speaker 1: founding of our country and what it means to be

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Speaker 1: an American CITs. I really believe that you cannot teach

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Speaker 1: American history without talking about George Washington, the founders and

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Speaker 1: the events of seventeen seventy six, and the Revolutionary biod.

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Speaker 1: The United States wouldn't be what it is today without

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Speaker 1: the Federalist Papers, Thomas Paine's Common Sense, the Constitution, and

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Speaker 1: the Declaration of Offense. My guest today has a new

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Speaker 1: book out about our uniquely American founding, entitled Land of

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Speaker 1: Hope and Invitation to the Great American Story. I'm pleased

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Speaker 1: to welcome my guests Wilfrid mccley. He is the Gt.

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Speaker 1: And Livy Blankenship Chair in the History of Liberty at

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Speaker 1: the University of Oklahoma and the director of the Center

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Speaker 1: for the History of Liberty. My guest is Wilfred McClay,

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Speaker 1: somebody who believes passionately in America. Bill McClay has written

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Speaker 1: numerous books, including his latest Land of Hope and invitation

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Speaker 1: to the Great American Story. Now, thank you for joining me.

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Speaker 1: President's Day is tomorrow, and I thought this would be

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Speaker 1: the perfect opportunity to have you on to discuss your

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Speaker 1: new book, Land of Hope. And I'm curious, as you know,

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Speaker 1: I'm also a historian by that group, I know that.

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Speaker 1: Actually I want to share with you. We have a

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Speaker 1: connection that you wouldn't necessarily know about, is that I

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Speaker 1: taught at Tulane for the first twelve years of my

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Speaker 1: academic career and was in the same department where you

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Speaker 1: received your PhD, that history department, So we have that

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Speaker 1: connection to Lane's a great institution. But I'm curious there's

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Speaker 1: a fellow historian. What dot you interested in history? Oh,

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Speaker 1: that's a really interesting question because I wasn't at the outset,

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Speaker 1: and I actually think it's rather rare that very young

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Speaker 1: people are drawn to history, except maybe through things like

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Speaker 1: the Civil War. And actually, I think the first glimmer

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Speaker 1: of historical consciousness in me came when I was a boy.

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Speaker 1: I grew up mainly in Maryland, but my maternal grandmother

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Speaker 1: lived in Charleston, Illinois, and we would visit her every summer,

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Speaker 1: and one day I was out wandering around the fair grounds,

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Speaker 1: saw a sign to the effect that one of the

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Speaker 1: Lincoln Douglas debates had been held there, and at that

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Speaker 1: time there was almost nothing but this sign to commemorate it.

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Speaker 1: We Americans are very funny about commemorating our history. Sometimes

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Speaker 1: it takes us a long time to get around to it.

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Speaker 1: But that just transfixed me the idea that on this spot,

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Speaker 1: this epical event had taken place, And so I was

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Speaker 1: sort of transported and kind of wandering around and thinking

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Speaker 1: about Lincoln and Douglas on a stage debating, And I

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Speaker 1: think that was a moment where I awakened to the

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Speaker 1: lure of the past and the reality of the past,

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Speaker 1: and the imminence of the past. But there's a much

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Speaker 1: more clear line of delineation. It was when I was

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Speaker 1: in college. What happened is one of my college friends,

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Speaker 1: fellow named Andy Reid, invited me to come up and

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Speaker 1: spend the fourth of July with his family on the

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Speaker 1: Upper East side of Manhattan. So while I was there,

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Speaker 1: his uncle Henry wandered over. Well, Uncle Henry, to any

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Speaker 1: of your listeners, was Henry Hope Read, one of the

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Speaker 1: great architectural historians and a classicist, an advocate for the

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Speaker 1: revival of the classical style. And Uncle Henry knew every

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Speaker 1: inch of New York City included Lower Manhattan, and so

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Speaker 1: we took us on a tour on the fourth of

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Speaker 1: July of Lower Manhattan and every building, every plaza, every street.

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Speaker 1: He had stories to tell about which were obviously present

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Speaker 1: to him in a way that absolutely transfixed me. I'd

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Speaker 1: never met anyone like this. So Uncle Henry had two

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Speaker 1: effects on me. He made me take conservatism seriously as

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Speaker 1: a disposition that respected the past and sought to preserve

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Speaker 1: the past, at least what was best in the past.

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Speaker 1: But he also made me more historically minded. I suddenly

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Speaker 1: developed a keen interest in history, both of material culture,

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Speaker 1: of the built environment, but also of made me more

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Speaker 1: than anything, the American mind, and that suddenly became very

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Speaker 1: important to me to explore what made this country tick,

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Speaker 1: what's made us so special. So I ended up going

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Speaker 1: to graduate school at Johns Hopkins in American intellectual history.

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Speaker 1: And so that's how it all happened. In a very

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Speaker 1: rough compass. So when you're looking at American intellectual history,

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Speaker 1: were you primarily twentieth century or what period did you

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Speaker 1: focus on Well. I worked with Kenneth Lynn, who was

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Speaker 1: primarily a literary biographer. He did biographies of Hemingway and

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Speaker 1: William Dean Howells and Mark Twain, and so they're great.

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Speaker 1: Biography of Charlie Chaplin was his last book. He was

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Speaker 1: actually a long time colleague of Perry Miller, who was

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Speaker 1: the great historian of the Puritans, and so a part

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Speaker 1: of my task was to read and master all the

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Speaker 1: works of Barry Miller and everybody sort of surrounding that.

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Speaker 1: So I actually spent a lot of time working on

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Speaker 1: Puritanism and early American ideas, both religious and regular. So

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Speaker 1: I think in the end my studies were pretty far

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Speaker 1: ranging from that background. In that perspective, did you come

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Speaker 1: up with this whole notion of it's kind of an

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Speaker 1: optimistic interpretation of the American experience? I think I've actually

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Speaker 1: come to that more gradually, in recognition of the things

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Speaker 1: that are special. Some people were like the word exceptional

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Speaker 1: about us. After I graduated from college, I spent almost

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Speaker 1: three years working at the US Naval Institute, a job

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Speaker 1: for which I had no competency whatsoever. I'd never served

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Speaker 1: in the Navy, I'd grown up around Annapolis, that was

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Speaker 1: about it. But I walked in the door at the

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Speaker 1: right moment looking for a job, and they hired me,

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Speaker 1: and I ended up becoming their naval history editor, and

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Speaker 1: it got me interested in history and in historical research

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Speaker 1: and in that whole process. This was during the seventies

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Speaker 1: and a sort of post Vietnam kind of hangover. I

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Speaker 1: had sort of typical Vietnam era attitudes. And then I

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Speaker 1: started working with these naval officers and with the Navy,

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Speaker 1: and I was very impressed, and I still have an

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Speaker 1: extremely favorable, warm view of the Navy from that experience.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it was changing me politically, but it was

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Speaker 1: also making me more and more interested in history. Military

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Speaker 1: people tend to be interested in history. It's not that

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Speaker 1: surprising really when you think about it. It was Napoleon.

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Speaker 1: I think you said that you should always study military history. Yes,

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Speaker 1: you know, I didn't follow the current fashion of leaving

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Speaker 1: military history out of land of hope. It's not predominant,

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Speaker 1: but it's there, and it has to be to give

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Speaker 1: the whole picture of the degree to which struggles for

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Speaker 1: power between nations. So you rule the world. They don't

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Speaker 1: rule it exclusively or sovereignly, but there are a big

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Speaker 1: part of explaining what happens given everything that's been going on,

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Speaker 1: to write a book called Land of Hope is almost

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Speaker 1: you right in the teeth of all of the current

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Speaker 1: fads of the whole woke movement. That's a courageous decision.

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Speaker 1: What led you to decide to do that? Well, a

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Speaker 1: couple of things. Most of what I wrote I wrote

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Speaker 1: for specialized audiences and all of that, and every now

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Speaker 1: and then I would write for a general interest publication,

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Speaker 1: commentary or the American Scholar or something like that, And

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Speaker 1: often I wrote about how deplorable the state of history

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Speaker 1: was because we were so fragmented, and historians didn't write

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Speaker 1: for actual readers. They just wrote for one another. And

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Speaker 1: all the complaints that many others have leveled And at

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Speaker 1: a certain point it began to feel, you know, I'm

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Speaker 1: not accomplishing anything with this moaning and groaning, that at

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Speaker 1: some point I should try to do something better. If

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Speaker 1: I end up falling on my sort, at least I

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Speaker 1: can sort of suggest a direction that others could go

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Speaker 1: to reintegrate history, to mend it, to make it into

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Speaker 1: the resource for national cohesion and towards a fullness of life.

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Speaker 1: That it really is meant to be. So there was

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Speaker 1: always that in the background. And then the College Board,

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Speaker 1: the people who administered all the events placement tests, came

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Speaker 1: out with a revision of the US History standards, and

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Speaker 1: they were really radical. They eliminated mention of George Washington

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Speaker 1: and James Madison, if you can believe that, They greatly

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Speaker 1: deemphasized the Constitution, the debates about the Constitution, the various

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Speaker 1: sources of historical background for the Constitution, the rationale for it.

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Speaker 1: This was radically the emphasized in favor of more or

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Speaker 1: less economic explanations of American development, lots of emphasis on

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Speaker 1: the slave trade in its role. Let me just ask you,

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Speaker 1: for SI, how do you describe the emergence of America

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Speaker 1: without Washington? Beats to me. Maybe one point to make

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Speaker 1: here is that I decided going into this that one

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Speaker 1: of the things I had to do was to make

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Speaker 1: this primarily a political history, because the political history of

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Speaker 1: a nation is really its backbone. My field was intellectual history,

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Speaker 1: but I really felt that the history of the formation

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Speaker 1: of our institutions had to be front and center because

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Speaker 1: what I wanted the book to be was a preparation

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Speaker 1: for citizenship. It's really for high school students, although it's

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Speaker 1: found a lot of other readers, somewhat to my surprise.

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Speaker 1: But it's basically to give a historical foundation to the

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Speaker 1: proper ideas about what it means to be an American citizen. Obviously,

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Speaker 1: how do you leave George Washington out of that? How

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Speaker 1: do you leave great political leaders? How do you leave

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Speaker 1: the whole question of statesmanship? Of what statesmanship is the

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Speaker 1: peculiar kind of wisdom, prudential and situational wisdom that is

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Speaker 1: the property of a statesman. The best way to teach

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Speaker 1: those things is by the way Plutarch did through examples,

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Speaker 1: and Washington there's no better example of a kind of

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Speaker 1: extraordinary I mean, we are so blessed to have had

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Speaker 1: him as the father of our country. As we say,

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Speaker 1: it's not clear to me that we would have survived

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Speaker 1: without him. Getting back to your question about what made

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Speaker 1: me write this book is the College Board actually did

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Speaker 1: roll back a lot of their innovations. But in the meantime,

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Speaker 1: the big time publishers, and there are really only three

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Speaker 1: of them, publishers of textbooks, had already revised their textbooks

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Speaker 1: in light of what they anticipated to be the new

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Speaker 1: version of the APE Exam, some people started coming to

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Speaker 1: me and saying, you know, we really got to develop

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Speaker 1: an alternative textbook, and my answer was always the same.

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Speaker 1: I agree with you. I hope you find somebody, because

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Speaker 1: I wasn't about to volunteer for doing it. Writing a

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Speaker 1: textbook doesn't get you anywhere in the professional academic world,

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Speaker 1: and a lot of times it doesn't get you even

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Speaker 1: make you any money. It just sits there. So I

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Speaker 1: wasn't especially inclined to do it. Plus, as you said,

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Speaker 1: it sets you up for being attacked by everybody. That

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Speaker 1: actually hasn't happened to me. I've been attacked a respectable amount,

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Speaker 1: but not a great deal. You want to be attacked

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Speaker 1: at least enough that they're a lot, yes, right, right right.

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Speaker 1: You want to have that flag that lets you know

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Speaker 1: you're or the target, and I have had that. No.

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Speaker 1: I noticed that you also produced a teacher's guide. Yes,

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Speaker 1: and there's also a student workbook that's based on the

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Speaker 1: student Guide, which is impressed as they say, so that'll

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Speaker 1: be a may available in a month or two. I

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Speaker 1: mean you're offering a full purpose sort of package, which

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Speaker 1: Baton been among teachers well as it happens. There's a

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Speaker 1: county in South Florida public school system in South Florida,

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Speaker 1: Martin County, I believe it is that is adopting the book,

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Speaker 1: and they asked me if I would speak to be

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Speaker 1: a zoom with a group of their teachers, and that's

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Speaker 1: what I did, and it was wonderful. It was just wonderful,

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Speaker 1: and they asked good questions, often probing questions. But I

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Speaker 1: don't think they'd ever heard anybody talk about history in

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Speaker 1: the way that I did, in the way I tried

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Speaker 1: to in the book. And it's essential to the right

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Speaker 1: kind of patriotism to have a knowledge of the American

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Speaker 1: past and a sense of one's connection to it. We

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Speaker 1: don't have a whole lot of public school systems jumping

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Speaker 1: on board yet, but I'm really committed to doing what

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Speaker 1: I can to promote the book and try to promote

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Speaker 1: the use of it. The reaction we've gotten so far

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Speaker 1: has been good. I'll tell you a counterexample which is

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Speaker 1: more indicative of what we're facings. I was invited to Scarsdale,

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Speaker 1: city Hall about the book, and my host invited in

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Speaker 1: the superintendent of schools and the head of social studies

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Speaker 1: for the county and all these fairly high ranking people

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Speaker 1: in the public school establishment. They have very good public

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Speaker 1: schools in Scarsdales, you can imagine they all found a

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Speaker 1: reason not to come. There was a whole collection of

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Speaker 1: African American young people with their teachers from a parochial

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Speaker 1: school in Yonkers, I think who were there, but public schools.

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Speaker 1: They didn't have time for me. And I expect to

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Speaker 1: get a lot of that, particularly in Blue states. I

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Speaker 1: think there's a kind of lock in the whole establishment,

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Speaker 1: including the books that are assigned, and it's going to

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Speaker 1: take a while, and in some places we may never

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Speaker 1: be able to get a hearing. People like homeschoolers. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: they have been very responsive. And I know that world

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Speaker 1: a bit because my wife and I homeschooled art two kids,

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Speaker 1: and I was able to actually kind of draw on

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Speaker 1: some names of people whom I had read sort of

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Speaker 1: advising how to order your child's criculm, that sort of thing,

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Speaker 1: to promote the book. So yeah, I have a lot

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Speaker 1: of homeschoolers who are very much drawn to the book

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Speaker 1: and to our approach. But I have to say, you know,

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Speaker 1: and I think you'd agree with me about this, So

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Speaker 1: the book is fairly even handed. This is not a

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Speaker 1: uncritical study. Endorsement that I'm proud of stuff is from

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Speaker 1: Gordon Wood, who is arguably the most important living historian

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Speaker 1: of the United States, and Wood says, this is a generous,

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Speaker 1: but not uncritical story of our nation's history. It ought

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Speaker 1: to be read by every American. Explains and justifies the

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Speaker 1: right kind of patriotism. And that's exactly what I set

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Speaker 1: out to do. It's really for everybody. I have not

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Speaker 1: gotten a lot of flag from people who've actually read

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Speaker 1: the book about it being biased or polemical. I am opinionated,

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Speaker 1: and I do write a few hobby horses, such as

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Speaker 1: I try to give Calvin Coolidge his due, which I

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Speaker 1: think almost none of the existing textbooks do. They rely

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Speaker 1: on cliches from the Arthur's Lessinger era of historiography. But

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Speaker 1: for the most part I try to be fair. I

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Speaker 1: try to be fair to FDR, try to be fair

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Speaker 1: to many of the most more contra verrsual figures. To

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Speaker 1: what a shef You think we're still the land of Hope? Oh? Well, look,

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Speaker 1: I do think we are. For several reasons. The obvious

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Speaker 1: one is people are still lining up at the border

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Speaker 1: even as we speak to come into this country. They're

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Speaker 1: not doing it because they want to have the experience

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Speaker 1: of living in the most racist and most oppressive regime

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Speaker 1: in human history, which is what you would think if

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Speaker 1: you paid attention to what the pundits on the left say,

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Speaker 1: and much of the historical profession says. So there's an

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Speaker 1: obvious way in which we are a magnet to much of,

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Speaker 1: if not all, the world, still as much as ever.

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Speaker 1: So there's that sort of an obvious point. But the

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Speaker 1: tidal land of Hope has several balances to it. And

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Speaker 1: one of the things I really meant to convey in

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Speaker 1: it is that we are I think unique among the

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Speaker 1: nations of the world, as a characteristic of our national life,

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Speaker 1: or a national disposition, national character, whatever you want to say,

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Speaker 1: this sense that no one should be compelled to live

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Speaker 1: out their lives within the confines of the conditions of

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Speaker 1: their birth, That upward mobility is the rightful aspiration of

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Speaker 1: every American, and that the idea that people should be

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Speaker 1: condemned to the conditions, the economic and social conditions of

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Speaker 1: their cultural conditions of their birth is an athemat to

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Speaker 1: almost everybody. Very few Americans think otherwise about that. This

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Speaker 1: is not true around the world. This sense, that and hope,

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Speaker 1: I think is the way of describing that aspirational quality

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Speaker 1: to our national outlook. We are a hopeful people. And hope,

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Speaker 1: of course, can be theological, it can be secular, it

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Speaker 1: can be strictly material. All of those things operate in

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Speaker 1: our history. I think that someone asked you to give

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Speaker 1: a brief description of America, if you've stuck only to

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Speaker 1: material or visible or tangible things, or even the history

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Speaker 1: of institutions, you wouldn't have captured America at all if

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Speaker 1: you left out this aspirational side to us, which is

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Speaker 1: very real, and it is a spiritual quality and not

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Speaker 1: one that strictly is deducible from our many material blessings,

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Speaker 1: which are indisputable. But there's this spiritual quality, and it's

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Speaker 1: a restlessness. At times, it's susceptible of being disappointed. I

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Speaker 1: think some of the most dramatically disillusioned people who rail

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Speaker 1: against America actually do that because their hopes were not realized.

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Speaker 1: That is a land of hope, and that can sometimes

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Speaker 1: mean being a land of disappointment because Ultimately, it's your

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Speaker 1: enterprise and maybe conditions beyond your control that steer you

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Speaker 1: in the end towards whatever it is that you're going

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Speaker 1: to achieve. And we're not always good at accepting our defeats,

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Speaker 1: but that's part of life. Still. I think that the

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Speaker 1: hopefulness hope springs eternal, especially in America. It seems to me,

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Speaker 1: so I think this, If we ever lose this aspirational quality,

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Speaker 1: I think we're another people were changed people, but I

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Speaker 1: don't see it happening, not yet. That's fascinating. So in

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Speaker 1: very real sense, you have produced a book to balance

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Speaker 1: off the onslaught of the academic left and their incorrect

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Speaker 1: interpretation of how the United States came to be the

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Speaker 1: most open society in history? Will that be a fair summary?

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Speaker 1: It is? Let me say this, though there are in

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Speaker 1: some ways it's like Mark Crane's statement about Wagner's music

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Speaker 1: that it's better than it sounds. There are a lot

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Speaker 1: of academics who are better than one thinks. And that

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Speaker 1: revealed itself, I think with the sixteen nineteen Project controversy.

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Speaker 1: Now here's the interesting thing about that. That was in

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Speaker 1: New York Times. That was a journalistic enterprise. That's probably

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Speaker 1: giving them too much credit, but we'll call them in

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Speaker 1: journalistic enterprise. And they were attacked by historians, by most

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Speaker 1: of whom, all of whom I think are on the

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Speaker 1: left to one degree or another, for inaccuracies, for making

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Speaker 1: the claim that the Revolutionary War was fought principally to

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Speaker 1: defend the institution of slavery completely false. There's no evidence

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Speaker 1: for that, and The Times has not yet really backed

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Speaker 1: away from They altered some things on their website without

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Speaker 1: saying that they were doing so, but they have not

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Speaker 1: really budged on this. And here's the interesting thing. The

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Speaker 1: historical profession has not risen up to defend the sixteen

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Speaker 1: nineteen brodgect. A lot of people are just keeping quiet

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Speaker 1: because their political propensities are with the left, but they

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Speaker 1: know that as a piece of historical writing, what The

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Speaker 1: Times produced is shoddy and unworthy of respect as history,

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Speaker 1: so they just are keeping quiet about it. There's a handful,

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Speaker 1: and some of them are Sean Willands of Princeton I

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Speaker 1: think is the leading figure, although Gordon Wood has been

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Speaker 1: involved in James McPherson and some others, and he's about

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Speaker 1: as left as you can get he was the guy

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Speaker 1: who organized they petition to impeach Trump among the historians,

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Speaker 1: and the same time he was doing this other stuff.

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Speaker 1: He's not motivated by ideology. He's motivated by a sense

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Speaker 1: that you just don't go around presenting as history things

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Speaker 1: that are false, even if it furthers a cause that

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Speaker 1: you may believe in. I want to encourage your listeners

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Speaker 1: not to completely give up on academic historians that a

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Speaker 1: lot of times, when they're working within their field and

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Speaker 1: they're bound by canons of argumentation and evidence, they're more

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Speaker 1: responsible than when they start going cracker dog and kind

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Speaker 1: of just wandering around thinking that they could be sort

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Speaker 1: of freelanced intellectuals. That's when the trouble really starts. You

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Speaker 1: are a member of the US semi Quincentennial Commission, which

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Speaker 1: is planning events for our two hundred and fiftieth anniversary

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Speaker 1: of the Signing of the Dead Pushman PENSI. How does

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Speaker 1: that commission work and do you think that it's a

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Speaker 1: useful step towards thinking seriously how America involved. I am

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Speaker 1: a member, and I think the commission is very fractured.

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Speaker 1: So far, we've already been meeting for a couple of years,

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Speaker 1: and I think we're still sort of organizing the deck chairs,

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Speaker 1: so to speak. But I think in due course it's

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Speaker 1: difficult in this environment, is the political environment, to work

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Speaker 1: our way towards the things that we agree about, and

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Speaker 1: I think that's going to continue to be a problem,

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Speaker 1: but it's not an insoluble problem. Interestingly, the Commission is

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Speaker 1: a mixture of public officials and private citizens and so

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Speaker 1: called stakeholders, people in various organizations that have one interest

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Speaker 1: or another in this celebration. Some ways, the politicians have

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Speaker 1: been the most useful in kind of moving things forward.

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Speaker 1: Americans love to hate politicians with some reason, but it's

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Speaker 1: really been interesting to watch how some of the politicians

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Speaker 1: who when they can attend meetings and they can't always attend,

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Speaker 1: they just have so many claims on their time, but

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Speaker 1: how well they manage the process of working towards some

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Speaker 1: kind of workable middle ground. Whereas all the rest of

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Speaker 1: us were appointed. I was appointed by Paul Ryan when

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Speaker 1: he was Speaker, and Nancy Pelosi had a raft of appointees,

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Speaker 1: and Harry Reid and then McConnell. So I think they're

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Speaker 1: sixteen of us that came through that process and then

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Speaker 1: a group of public officials and a lot of ex

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Speaker 1: official members who never attend Secretary of State and that

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Speaker 1: sort of thing. But I'm hopeful about it. I'm really

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Speaker 1: glad we're doing it. We're making the effort. It isn't easy.

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Speaker 1: I think the spirit of the thing, if it's going

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Speaker 1: to be successful, is going to have to in some

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Speaker 1: way emulate the spirit I tried to capture with Land

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Speaker 1: of Hope, a sort of sense that we are all

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Speaker 1: part of a very, very great story, one of the

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Speaker 1: greatest stories of human history. And you may feel a

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Speaker 1: little bit disaffected about it at this point in time,

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Speaker 1: but it's a big story and spanning many, many years,

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Speaker 1: and in some ways the full significance of it can

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Speaker 1: only be understood if you see it as a uniquely

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Speaker 1: significant event in the history of human kind. And so

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Speaker 1: I think we're working our way towards that. But you know,

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Speaker 1: one of the things about history, and it's something about

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Speaker 1: Land of Hope, is it doesn't go all the way

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Speaker 1: up to the present. I really leave off the detailed account,

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Speaker 1: and it's not super detailed books. I meant it to

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Speaker 1: be something that would be attractive to young readers and

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Speaker 1: very readable, but it really leaves off the detailed account

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Speaker 1: with the end of the Cold War, and then I

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Speaker 1: have more sketchy, impressionistic accounts of events, mostly looking at

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Speaker 1: the ways in which we are struggling to reconceive our

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Speaker 1: role in the world in the wake of the Cold War.

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Speaker 1: And it's not the only way I could have organized

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Speaker 1: that material, but I think it works pretty well, particularly

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Speaker 1: given the fact that history courses almost never make it

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Speaker 1: through the book to the president, so why not acknowledge

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Speaker 1: that fact? Well, I want to thank you. I think,

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Speaker 1: both as a historian and as somebody who really cares

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Speaker 1: about the better understanding of America is a patriotic adventure

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Speaker 1: that I think you have made a major contribution. I

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Speaker 1: hope it's very, very widely adopted. I think it's a

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Speaker 1: great concept, and I would look forward in the future

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Speaker 1: when you have additional projects, to having you back on

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Speaker 1: to talk some more about the nature of America and

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Speaker 1: the nature of American history. I can gradually that's a big,

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Speaker 1: audacious undertaking, and I'm very impressed with the way you've

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Speaker 1: done it. Well. Thank you, mister speaker. As someone who

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Speaker 1: has done some audacious things in his own life, I

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Speaker 1: think that is a very high compliment and we'll just

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Speaker 1: all keep going. Thank you, And it's a pleasure and

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Speaker 1: an honor to talk to you, and I hope you

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Speaker 1: keep it up. Thank you to my guest Bill McClay.

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Speaker 1: You can read excerpts of his new book, Land of

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Speaker 1: Hope and Invitation to the Great American Story on our

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Speaker 1: show page at newsworld dot com. News World is produced

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Speaker 1: by Ganwich, Sweet sixty and iHeartMedia. Our executive producer is

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Speaker 1: Debbie Myers, our producer is Garnsey Stone, and our researcher

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Speaker 1: is Rachel Peterson. The artwork for the show, who's created

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Speaker 1: by Steve Ending. Special thanks to the team at gingwis

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Speaker 1: This is Neutral