1
00:00:09,840 --> 00:00:13,800
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast. I'm Tom Keane. Daily

2
00:00:13,960 --> 00:00:17,560
Speaker 1: we bring you insight from the best in economics, finance, investment,

3
00:00:18,000 --> 00:00:23,480
Speaker 1: and international relations. Find Bloomberg Surveillance on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud,

4
00:00:23,600 --> 00:00:33,680
Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot com, and of course on the Bloomberg PIM

5
00:00:33,680 --> 00:00:36,320
Speaker 1: and I Digress. And we do this for all of

6
00:00:36,320 --> 00:00:40,360
Speaker 1: you of Bloomberg Radio worldwide and across this country, and

7
00:00:40,400 --> 00:00:44,240
Speaker 1: PIM we do this for our Apple podcasts and Spotify

8
00:00:44,400 --> 00:00:48,120
Speaker 1: as well. Russell short Of has written The Jewel of

9
00:00:48,159 --> 00:00:52,560
Speaker 1: this Fourth July Revolution song, a story of American freedom.

10
00:00:52,600 --> 00:00:56,920
Speaker 1: It is about six people involved in our revolutionary war,

11
00:00:57,000 --> 00:01:00,040
Speaker 1: and we are thrilled we're joining Russell short Off and

12
00:01:00,120 --> 00:01:04,000
Speaker 1: Brown University. Gordon Would is well. Wonderful that both of

13
00:01:04,040 --> 00:01:06,760
Speaker 1: you on. Russell, let me give you first word, although

14
00:01:06,760 --> 00:01:09,520
Speaker 1: I'm sure you'd like to hear from Professor Would and

15
00:01:09,680 --> 00:01:14,240
Speaker 1: as well. Russell, you have six different, different different people

16
00:01:14,360 --> 00:01:18,840
Speaker 1: in your book. How did you choose them? Well? First

17
00:01:18,840 --> 00:01:20,679
Speaker 1: of all, thank you very much Tom for having me on.

18
00:01:20,800 --> 00:01:22,800
Speaker 1: And I have to say what an honor it is

19
00:01:22,880 --> 00:01:26,560
Speaker 1: to be sharing your microphone with a great Professor Would,

20
00:01:26,560 --> 00:01:29,319
Speaker 1: whose work I have admired forever and I also want

21
00:01:29,360 --> 00:01:31,560
Speaker 1: to just get in a quick thank you to him

22
00:01:31,680 --> 00:01:34,280
Speaker 1: for doing me the honor of blurb ing the book,

23
00:01:34,280 --> 00:01:37,360
Speaker 1: which I'm sure made a lot of people who otherwise

24
00:01:37,360 --> 00:01:39,840
Speaker 1: wouldn't have given it the time of day. Um Uh,

25
00:01:40,400 --> 00:01:42,880
Speaker 1: take a look at it, short, Short has taken the

26
00:01:42,920 --> 00:01:46,200
Speaker 1: lives of six very different figures and woven them seamlessly

27
00:01:46,280 --> 00:01:52,880
Speaker 1: together into an engaging, readable, and surprisingly complete account. I'll

28
00:01:52,960 --> 00:01:57,040
Speaker 1: add lib here Russell of the emotion, the passion, the gore,

29
00:01:57,400 --> 00:02:02,360
Speaker 1: the anger in the fragility of our American Revolution, Professor

30
00:02:02,360 --> 00:02:04,760
Speaker 1: Wood says a tour to force Russell, how did you

31
00:02:04,800 --> 00:02:08,520
Speaker 1: pick the six people? Um? That the whole idea was

32
00:02:09,440 --> 00:02:13,000
Speaker 1: to pick people from different walks of life, because of course, uh,

33
00:02:13,200 --> 00:02:17,560
Speaker 1: it's it's the revolution was about everyone. And yet we

34
00:02:17,600 --> 00:02:21,120
Speaker 1: tend to get the perspective of of the men in

35
00:02:21,120 --> 00:02:23,760
Speaker 1: the powdered wigs. So I wanted to and their perspective

36
00:02:23,800 --> 00:02:27,680
Speaker 1: is important, and I wanted to include uh them as well. Um.

37
00:02:28,000 --> 00:02:30,640
Speaker 1: But I did it over a long period of time because,

38
00:02:30,639 --> 00:02:34,720
Speaker 1: as it turns out, unless you were one of those

39
00:02:34,760 --> 00:02:39,959
Speaker 1: powdered wig people, um, it was it's difficult to find

40
00:02:40,000 --> 00:02:43,280
Speaker 1: people whose lives are well documented a slave Native American.

41
00:02:43,720 --> 00:02:47,640
Speaker 1: These people's lives were not, by and large well documented,

42
00:02:47,680 --> 00:02:50,239
Speaker 1: So it took me a couple of years of kind

43
00:02:50,280 --> 00:02:52,840
Speaker 1: of auditioning people for roles in the book. And I

44
00:02:52,880 --> 00:02:56,000
Speaker 1: had to find people who were from diverse backgrounds, whose

45
00:02:56,040 --> 00:02:59,520
Speaker 1: lives were well documented, who I cared about um and

46
00:02:59,560 --> 00:03:01,760
Speaker 1: who you know. The trickiest part is I wanted to

47
00:03:01,800 --> 00:03:05,120
Speaker 1: find people who, in some way or another cross paths

48
00:03:05,120 --> 00:03:07,840
Speaker 1: with each other, so that because I care about writing

49
00:03:07,919 --> 00:03:10,120
Speaker 1: narrative and I want to care about the reading experience,

50
00:03:10,120 --> 00:03:13,359
Speaker 1: and I wanted it to read as as one as

51
00:03:13,400 --> 00:03:17,240
Speaker 1: one narrative. Gordon would, I walked across George Washington with

52
00:03:17,400 --> 00:03:21,160
Speaker 1: James Thomas Flexner of Another time and Place. You are

53
00:03:21,280 --> 00:03:24,880
Speaker 1: our arch expert of the core research of the Revolution,

54
00:03:25,360 --> 00:03:30,079
Speaker 1: including your work on Benjamin Franklin. I was thunderstruck early

55
00:03:30,200 --> 00:03:35,000
Speaker 1: in Revolution song professor would of how fragile in what

56
00:03:35,120 --> 00:03:40,600
Speaker 1: a failure George Washington was discussed that Gordon would, Why

57
00:03:40,720 --> 00:03:45,400
Speaker 1: was George Washington such a failure early in the war. Well,

58
00:03:45,440 --> 00:03:48,800
Speaker 1: he he was facing the greatest power in the world

59
00:03:48,920 --> 00:03:52,680
Speaker 1: with a rag tag army that had very little experience.

60
00:03:52,720 --> 00:03:55,360
Speaker 1: It's amazing that he did as well as he did.

61
00:03:55,720 --> 00:04:00,480
Speaker 1: But uh, it's just extraordinary that he learned how to

62
00:04:01,080 --> 00:04:03,640
Speaker 1: how to fight the British in the course of losing

63
00:04:03,640 --> 00:04:06,640
Speaker 1: those battles. You're thinking particularly of the Battle of Long Island,

64
00:04:07,040 --> 00:04:11,280
Speaker 1: which was a near disaster. Uh, and he escaped by

65
00:04:11,320 --> 00:04:15,520
Speaker 1: the skin of his teeth and very lucky. Uh So

66
00:04:15,600 --> 00:04:19,080
Speaker 1: he The first year of the war was terrible for

67
00:04:19,120 --> 00:04:23,040
Speaker 1: the Americans, and it looked like they might just fail,

68
00:04:23,400 --> 00:04:26,960
Speaker 1: but they didn't. And he uh he managed the uh

69
00:04:27,600 --> 00:04:31,960
Speaker 1: the Battle of Trenton, and and that that brought back

70
00:04:32,040 --> 00:04:37,599
Speaker 1: the uh, the morale of Americans at that crucial time. Russell,

71
00:04:37,680 --> 00:04:39,880
Speaker 1: you go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and you

72
00:04:39,960 --> 00:04:44,479
Speaker 1: pull down their perfect restoration of Washington crossing the Delaware

73
00:04:44,520 --> 00:04:47,200
Speaker 1: with James Monroe on the boat. It's all that you know.

74
00:04:47,200 --> 00:04:50,080
Speaker 1: It's whether it's Stan Freeberg comedy or it's what we

75
00:04:50,240 --> 00:04:53,800
Speaker 1: learned in school. It's not reality, is it. I mean,

76
00:04:54,040 --> 00:04:56,880
Speaker 1: how did they, Russell Shorto, how did they really cross

77
00:04:56,920 --> 00:05:01,280
Speaker 1: the Delaware? Uh? Well it wasn't. I mean, if you

78
00:05:01,720 --> 00:05:04,680
Speaker 1: if you're you're taking the famous painting which was on

79
00:05:04,720 --> 00:05:09,800
Speaker 1: the cover as as that's your reference. Um, if there

80
00:05:09,839 --> 00:05:11,720
Speaker 1: are several things wrong with that painting. For one thing,

81
00:05:11,760 --> 00:05:14,080
Speaker 1: they haven't as I recalled, there's an American flag that

82
00:05:14,120 --> 00:05:16,960
Speaker 1: they're holding, which didn't exist yet in the painting. Um.

83
00:05:17,640 --> 00:05:20,600
Speaker 1: And Uh, they were crossing at night, so if you

84
00:05:20,600 --> 00:05:23,159
Speaker 1: you know, if they if you were being literal about it,

85
00:05:23,200 --> 00:05:25,360
Speaker 1: you probably wouldn't be able to see that, to see

86
00:05:25,400 --> 00:05:28,080
Speaker 1: the figures. So it was and it was actually the

87
00:05:28,120 --> 00:05:32,280
Speaker 1: recrossing coming back that was the that was the surprise.

88
00:05:32,360 --> 00:05:35,239
Speaker 1: I mean he that was Washington's brilliant maneuver to cross

89
00:05:35,320 --> 00:05:38,680
Speaker 1: back and surprise them. Uh. And that again is one

90
00:05:38,680 --> 00:05:42,320
Speaker 1: of these skin of the teeth moments where he pulls

91
00:05:42,480 --> 00:05:45,680
Speaker 1: Um pulls victory out of the jaws of defeat. The

92
00:05:45,760 --> 00:05:50,800
Speaker 1: fragility of the revolution, professor would was this because the

93
00:05:51,040 --> 00:05:54,080
Speaker 1: politicians didn't they have their back? I mean, you are

94
00:05:54,080 --> 00:05:58,800
Speaker 1: are expert and Benjamin Franklin. Do we blame the early

95
00:05:58,920 --> 00:06:02,719
Speaker 1: years of the revolution on John Adams and Benjamin Franklin

96
00:06:02,760 --> 00:06:05,480
Speaker 1: the others? Did they Did they get what was going

97
00:06:05,560 --> 00:06:08,640
Speaker 1: on out in the battlefields? Oh? I think they did.

98
00:06:08,760 --> 00:06:12,600
Speaker 1: I think they they What's incredible is the confidence they

99
00:06:12,600 --> 00:06:16,400
Speaker 1: had that they would win. I find that, you know

100
00:06:16,480 --> 00:06:19,719
Speaker 1: the fact that they were taking on the greatest power

101
00:06:19,720 --> 00:06:25,159
Speaker 1: in the world with with no experience, very little military help,

102
00:06:25,279 --> 00:06:30,040
Speaker 1: and and constant problems. Nonetheless, they had this confidence right

103
00:06:30,080 --> 00:06:31,960
Speaker 1: from the beginning that they were going to win. In in

104
00:06:31,880 --> 00:06:34,760
Speaker 1: in some sense they were right. I think the British

105
00:06:34,839 --> 00:06:38,680
Speaker 1: had an almost impossible task. I know that's difficult to

106
00:06:38,920 --> 00:06:41,920
Speaker 1: appreciate in the in retrospect, but I think they had

107
00:06:41,960 --> 00:06:45,719
Speaker 1: an impossible task to put down rebellion three thousand miles away.

108
00:06:45,760 --> 00:06:49,680
Speaker 1: We found that difficulty in Vietnam, and any nation that

109
00:06:49,760 --> 00:06:53,520
Speaker 1: tries to UH to deal with it with an uprising

110
00:06:53,880 --> 00:06:58,120
Speaker 1: thousands of miles away, UH has has a real has

111
00:06:58,120 --> 00:07:00,560
Speaker 1: a real problem, and a British face that right from

112
00:07:00,560 --> 00:07:02,840
Speaker 1: the beginning. You know, I look at this Russell, and

113
00:07:02,920 --> 00:07:04,520
Speaker 1: just to finish up here and we'll come back with

114
00:07:04,560 --> 00:07:07,320
Speaker 1: my colleague Pim Fox. Is what Russell? You have a

115
00:07:07,400 --> 00:07:09,039
Speaker 1: scene and this is so great for those of you

116
00:07:09,120 --> 00:07:13,040
Speaker 1: coast to coast. Russell Shorto takes you to Parliament where

117
00:07:13,200 --> 00:07:17,400
Speaker 1: Edmund Burke and the Whigs. Basically, Russell explained to the

118
00:07:17,480 --> 00:07:20,960
Speaker 1: elites of Britain, you're not going to win this thing.

119
00:07:21,040 --> 00:07:24,040
Speaker 1: Tell us about the courage of the Whigs to stand

120
00:07:24,080 --> 00:07:26,720
Speaker 1: up in Parliament and say to Lord North and the

121
00:07:26,760 --> 00:07:29,720
Speaker 1: rest this isn't gonna work. Well, what I think is

122
00:07:29,760 --> 00:07:32,520
Speaker 1: fascinating about the situation in England, and one that was

123
00:07:32,600 --> 00:07:34,760
Speaker 1: one reason I wanted to have one of my six

124
00:07:34,800 --> 00:07:38,600
Speaker 1: people be a British in this case the George Germain,

125
00:07:38,680 --> 00:07:41,680
Speaker 1: the men who really ran the war for Britain. Is

126
00:07:41,880 --> 00:07:45,680
Speaker 1: that then you get the sense of how divided Britten was.

127
00:07:46,320 --> 00:07:48,600
Speaker 1: The leadership was where you had a lot of Whigs

128
00:07:48,720 --> 00:07:52,520
Speaker 1: in Parliament basically saying, wait a second, we invented this

129
00:07:52,720 --> 00:07:55,280
Speaker 1: Enlightenment stuff and now they're using it against us and

130
00:07:55,280 --> 00:07:58,520
Speaker 1: guess what they're right? So, uh, you know, when you

131
00:07:58,560 --> 00:08:03,440
Speaker 1: have that kind of almost split personality among the British Parliament,

132
00:08:03,480 --> 00:08:17,040
Speaker 1: that adds to the difficulties in England. Faith to professor

133
00:08:17,080 --> 00:08:21,680
Speaker 1: would if I could, first, Gordon, would you invented and

134
00:08:21,800 --> 00:08:25,560
Speaker 1: demanded with great courage in the sixties that we go

135
00:08:25,680 --> 00:08:30,080
Speaker 1: back to the original research of the revolution, take us

136
00:08:30,160 --> 00:08:33,760
Speaker 1: back there to what it was like to actually go

137
00:08:33,960 --> 00:08:39,600
Speaker 1: into the actual documents and archives of the revolution that

138
00:08:39,720 --> 00:08:43,640
Speaker 1: have been forgotten by so many scholars. Well, I'm not

139
00:08:43,679 --> 00:08:46,480
Speaker 1: sure that it's been forgotten, because it is the most

140
00:08:46,520 --> 00:08:50,200
Speaker 1: important event in American history. Your bar none, uh and

141
00:08:50,320 --> 00:08:54,360
Speaker 1: not only legally created the United States the Revolution, but

142
00:08:54,559 --> 00:08:59,040
Speaker 1: it infused into our culture almost everything we believe in

143
00:08:59,200 --> 00:09:03,439
Speaker 1: our highest inspirations at noblest ideals. So the Revolution has

144
00:09:03,480 --> 00:09:07,800
Speaker 1: always been um an important event for Americans. And even

145
00:09:07,840 --> 00:09:11,880
Speaker 1: though we may think of July four just a time

146
00:09:11,960 --> 00:09:15,880
Speaker 1: to have a barbecue, we should not forget that this

147
00:09:16,040 --> 00:09:19,440
Speaker 1: is the most important day in the history of the

148
00:09:19,520 --> 00:09:22,120
Speaker 1: United States, and since the United States has become the

149
00:09:22,200 --> 00:09:24,480
Speaker 1: greatest power of the world has ever known, it's probably

150
00:09:25,559 --> 00:09:28,959
Speaker 1: not only important day for us, but maybe important day

151
00:09:29,000 --> 00:09:31,880
Speaker 1: for the world as well. Kim Well, I just would

152
00:09:31,920 --> 00:09:35,400
Speaker 1: like to put to both of these scholars the question

153
00:09:35,480 --> 00:09:39,920
Speaker 1: that you know, we study the Revolution, we praise the revolution.

154
00:09:40,840 --> 00:09:43,800
Speaker 1: I wonder if we've learned from the revolution, because we

155
00:09:43,880 --> 00:09:47,360
Speaker 1: always seem to be, at least in modern times, not

156
00:09:47,440 --> 00:09:52,120
Speaker 1: necessarily on the side of other revolutionary movements around the world.

157
00:09:52,760 --> 00:09:56,240
Speaker 1: And I believe your referenced Vietnam just a moment ago.

158
00:09:56,840 --> 00:09:58,800
Speaker 1: And I'm wondering if you can each give us your

159
00:09:58,800 --> 00:10:02,320
Speaker 1: thoughts about whether there's a contradiction in the way that

160
00:10:02,400 --> 00:10:04,520
Speaker 1: we look at the revolution and apply it to our

161
00:10:04,559 --> 00:10:08,760
Speaker 1: current situation in the world. Professor Gordon Well, I think

162
00:10:08,800 --> 00:10:14,280
Speaker 1: that we have become since, especially since nineteen forty, a

163
00:10:14,320 --> 00:10:18,040
Speaker 1: status quo power that is trying to maintain the order

164
00:10:18,080 --> 00:10:20,720
Speaker 1: in the world. So we're not looking for revolutions. Although

165
00:10:21,400 --> 00:10:25,760
Speaker 1: we were very supportive of the Arab Spring, perhaps prematurely

166
00:10:25,880 --> 00:10:29,520
Speaker 1: since it didn't amount too much. Uh. It was it

167
00:10:29,640 --> 00:10:34,240
Speaker 1: was a fear of communism in in ninety that led

168
00:10:34,320 --> 00:10:37,120
Speaker 1: us into career and then into Vietnam. The fear that

169
00:10:37,280 --> 00:10:40,680
Speaker 1: the Communist Revolution, which was a rival to our own

170
00:10:41,280 --> 00:10:44,960
Speaker 1: ideological rival to our own that that we feared that

171
00:10:45,040 --> 00:10:47,560
Speaker 1: they might be taking over the world. Now we're no

172
00:10:47,640 --> 00:10:51,280
Speaker 1: longer fearing that kind of that kind of threat, but

173
00:10:51,360 --> 00:10:56,960
Speaker 1: we're worried about terrorism and and disturbances elsewhere. So we

174
00:10:57,000 --> 00:11:00,040
Speaker 1: are in that sense as status quo power, trying to

175
00:11:00,080 --> 00:11:07,439
Speaker 1: maintain the order in the world. Russell short of your thoughts, Yeah, well,

176
00:11:07,960 --> 00:11:10,520
Speaker 1: the fact that we thought a revolution doesn't necessarily mean

177
00:11:10,559 --> 00:11:14,040
Speaker 1: that we should support every revolution. The revolution was fought

178
00:11:14,120 --> 00:11:18,960
Speaker 1: over UH, certain beliefs and ideals about individuals and individual

179
00:11:19,000 --> 00:11:22,520
Speaker 1: liberty and therefore society that in a government that would

180
00:11:22,520 --> 00:11:25,600
Speaker 1: maintain those uh. And that goes back to into the

181
00:11:25,600 --> 00:11:30,640
Speaker 1: sixteen hundreds, that that building wave of awareness and the

182
00:11:30,679 --> 00:11:34,440
Speaker 1: American Revolution in the late seventeen hundreds was that was

183
00:11:34,480 --> 00:11:40,480
Speaker 1: a great explosion or of of a feeling and of

184
00:11:40,840 --> 00:11:45,160
Speaker 1: collective will in that regard. Uh And ever since then,

185
00:11:45,240 --> 00:11:46,800
Speaker 1: I think we've been trying to make good on it.

186
00:11:46,880 --> 00:11:51,240
Speaker 1: I mean, the revolution was h was about certain things,

187
00:11:51,400 --> 00:11:55,920
Speaker 1: and it succeeded and it failed in in in making

188
00:11:56,640 --> 00:11:59,760
Speaker 1: those freedoms possible. And ever since then we've been trying

189
00:11:59,760 --> 00:12:01,680
Speaker 1: to make good on it. So we have the fight

190
00:12:01,760 --> 00:12:05,000
Speaker 1: over slavery, the fights over civil rights. I think that's

191
00:12:05,040 --> 00:12:08,360
Speaker 1: why I am said early in my book that I

192
00:12:08,400 --> 00:12:11,320
Speaker 1: think the revolution, the American Revolution is is ongoing and

193
00:12:11,360 --> 00:12:15,080
Speaker 1: we're still fighting the granularity. Russell Shorter of your book

194
00:12:15,320 --> 00:12:17,319
Speaker 1: of the Six People. In your book, whether it is

195
00:12:17,360 --> 00:12:20,960
Speaker 1: an Indian spanning the Seneca of western New York over

196
00:12:21,000 --> 00:12:23,360
Speaker 1: to the Mohawk and the Eastern New York and how

197
00:12:23,400 --> 00:12:26,679
Speaker 1: they go back and forth of the British is profoundly

198
00:12:26,800 --> 00:12:31,120
Speaker 1: focused on a black man on the Islands of New

199
00:12:31,240 --> 00:12:35,080
Speaker 1: York who ends up in Connecticut. Tell us a little

200
00:12:35,080 --> 00:12:39,400
Speaker 1: bit about his path from Africa and how he became

201
00:12:39,559 --> 00:12:44,120
Speaker 1: free and independent. Yeah, he was born brotier Furo in

202
00:12:44,200 --> 00:12:49,040
Speaker 1: West Africa and his village was invaded by an African army,

203
00:12:49,240 --> 00:12:51,240
Speaker 1: and they took him prisoner and took him to the

204
00:12:51,280 --> 00:12:54,280
Speaker 1: coast and sold him into slavery to a ship that

205
00:12:54,360 --> 00:12:56,880
Speaker 1: happened to be from Newport, Rhode Island. So he ended

206
00:12:56,960 --> 00:13:01,040
Speaker 1: up having living out his life in New York end

207
00:13:01,080 --> 00:13:05,800
Speaker 1: in Connecticut, and um and uh that he became. His

208
00:13:05,880 --> 00:13:09,200
Speaker 1: name was changed to Venture Smith and UM. It's a

209
00:13:09,200 --> 00:13:13,760
Speaker 1: remarkable story because, for one thing, his story is fairly complete, uh,

210
00:13:13,880 --> 00:13:18,280
Speaker 1: going back to the problem of sources, um, from beginning

211
00:13:18,320 --> 00:13:24,120
Speaker 1: to end, and it is this continual search for freedom

212
00:13:24,160 --> 00:13:28,400
Speaker 1: for himself. Un once he's enslaved, he does everything he

213
00:13:28,480 --> 00:13:31,400
Speaker 1: can to work for freedom and for himself and his

214
00:13:31,480 --> 00:13:34,840
Speaker 1: family eventually buys himself out and his family out of slavery.

215
00:13:35,000 --> 00:13:39,000
Speaker 1: But it's transpiring against the backdrop of the American fight

216
00:13:39,080 --> 00:13:42,440
Speaker 1: for freedom with within this Gordon Wood is when we

217
00:13:42,559 --> 00:13:46,520
Speaker 1: walked away from the revolutionary ward James McGregor burns the

218
00:13:46,600 --> 00:13:51,080
Speaker 1: giant of Williams College marks that day where Jefferson and

219
00:13:51,200 --> 00:13:54,880
Speaker 1: Adams died. But did it happen before that? When did

220
00:13:54,920 --> 00:14:00,959
Speaker 1: we move on from Russell Shorto's revolution song? Oh? Well,

221
00:14:01,000 --> 00:14:05,320
Speaker 1: I think from the very moment that the Declaration of Independence.

222
00:14:05,640 --> 00:14:09,000
Speaker 1: I think it marked a major turning point, not only

223
00:14:09,040 --> 00:14:10,880
Speaker 1: in the U s history, but in the history of

224
00:14:10,880 --> 00:14:13,960
Speaker 1: the world. We have to understand and I think it's

225
00:14:14,559 --> 00:14:16,920
Speaker 1: it's a problem for us today because we look back

226
00:14:16,920 --> 00:14:20,720
Speaker 1: and these founding fathers, many of whom were slaveholders. Slavery

227
00:14:20,760 --> 00:14:23,440
Speaker 1: existed at the time of the Revolution, and it seems

228
00:14:23,480 --> 00:14:26,560
Speaker 1: embarrassing that they didn't do anything about it. But I

229
00:14:26,600 --> 00:14:31,320
Speaker 1: think we have to get the context correct. Until the Revolution,

230
00:14:31,400 --> 00:14:35,640
Speaker 1: the American Revolution, slavery was largely taken for granted by

231
00:14:35,640 --> 00:14:39,320
Speaker 1: the world. It existed for thousands of years, went back

232
00:14:39,360 --> 00:14:43,720
Speaker 1: to antiquity, and now it becomes a problem. It coincides

233
00:14:43,760 --> 00:14:47,520
Speaker 1: with the American Revolution. The first anti slavery convention in

234
00:14:47,560 --> 00:14:50,680
Speaker 1: the history of the world is held in Philadelphia in

235
00:14:50,760 --> 00:14:54,160
Speaker 1: seventeen seventy five. That's not a coincidence. So we have

236
00:14:54,280 --> 00:14:59,720
Speaker 1: to understand that the American Revolution coincided the questioning of

237
00:15:00,000 --> 00:15:03,320
Speaker 1: slavery and the opposition to slavery. Now, it takes a

238
00:15:03,440 --> 00:15:09,200
Speaker 1: civil war for us to eliminate slavery, but certainly the Revolution,

239
00:15:09,280 --> 00:15:13,400
Speaker 1: as Lincoln understood better than anyone, it was the revolution

240
00:15:13,880 --> 00:15:18,360
Speaker 1: that lay behind the Civil War and the and the

241
00:15:18,400 --> 00:15:25,640
Speaker 1: and the inconsistency of slavery. Uh, it's incompatibility with American values.

242
00:15:25,880 --> 00:15:29,800
Speaker 1: Russell one final question on revolution song. Bloomberg will celebrate

243
00:15:29,840 --> 00:15:31,760
Speaker 1: the fourth of July and the shores of the Charles

244
00:15:31,880 --> 00:15:34,880
Speaker 1: River up in Boston. And one of the great hallmarks

245
00:15:34,880 --> 00:15:38,160
Speaker 1: of your book is the distance from Boston to New York.

246
00:15:38,720 --> 00:15:42,000
Speaker 1: There was a cultural divide. It wasn't the Hudson River.

247
00:15:42,040 --> 00:15:45,280
Speaker 1: I'll let you decide. Maybe it was the Connecticut River.

248
00:15:45,800 --> 00:15:49,400
Speaker 1: But but it was amazing the distance of New England

249
00:15:49,520 --> 00:15:51,680
Speaker 1: from the rest of the country in the time of

250
00:15:51,720 --> 00:15:55,760
Speaker 1: your book. Well, that was the speaking of the Hudson River.

251
00:15:55,880 --> 00:15:59,640
Speaker 1: That was the British initial British strategy was if you

252
00:15:59,760 --> 00:16:02,520
Speaker 1: take control of the Hudson River, then you are They

253
00:16:02,840 --> 00:16:05,320
Speaker 1: thought that New England was the hotbed of the rebellion

254
00:16:05,320 --> 00:16:07,720
Speaker 1: and that that would sort of cut New England off

255
00:16:07,760 --> 00:16:10,520
Speaker 1: from the rest of the colonies. So there was that

256
00:16:10,520 --> 00:16:13,360
Speaker 1: that sense, But there was also I think a different

257
00:16:13,360 --> 00:16:16,960
Speaker 1: sensibility in New England and in New York, and I

258
00:16:17,000 --> 00:16:20,440
Speaker 1: think New York that goes back to the Dutch period.

259
00:16:20,480 --> 00:16:23,600
Speaker 1: New York was always there. He gets his second book

260
00:16:23,640 --> 00:16:26,960
Speaker 1: in there, see how he's Russell's Russell selling both Russell

261
00:16:27,000 --> 00:16:31,560
Speaker 1: selling both books today. Professor would if if we're selling

262
00:16:31,600 --> 00:16:33,920
Speaker 1: books that I I would like to give a shout

263
00:16:33,920 --> 00:16:37,600
Speaker 1: out to Professor Wood's latest book as well, Friends Divided,

264
00:16:37,640 --> 00:16:41,280
Speaker 1: which all the period of the revolution uh in a

265
00:16:41,360 --> 00:16:44,680
Speaker 1: biographic and it's in Goodwill Hunting. I'll let you know

266
00:16:44,920 --> 00:16:47,840
Speaker 1: it is. You should watch that movie and check out

267
00:16:47,880 --> 00:16:50,480
Speaker 1: and find those moments when they speak about Professor Woods.

268
00:16:50,520 --> 00:16:52,960
Speaker 1: We will do that. Gordon would thank you so much

269
00:16:53,000 --> 00:16:56,200
Speaker 1: from Brown University into Russell Short. Thank you. It is

270
00:16:56,240 --> 00:16:59,680
Speaker 1: always I can't say enough folks about Revolution Song, a

271
00:17:00,000 --> 00:17:07,720
Speaker 1: story of American Freedom. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg

272
00:17:07,720 --> 00:17:13,680
Speaker 1: Surveillance podcast. Subscribe and listen to interviews on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud,

273
00:17:14,040 --> 00:17:18,280
Speaker 1: or whichever podcast platform you prefer. I'm on Twitter at

274
00:17:18,320 --> 00:17:22,560
Speaker 1: Tom Keene before the podcast. You can always catch us worldwide.

275
00:17:23,000 --> 00:17:24,119
Speaker 1: I'm Bloomberg Radio