Speaker 1: I always joke that Daniel Craig should send the Kennedy
Speaker 1: Estate a thank you note for having helped to make
Speaker 1: the Bond franchise into the international behemoth that it is today.
Speaker 2: Welcome to one day university talks with the world's most
Speaker 2: engaging and inspiring professors discussing their most popular courses. This
Speaker 2: podcast is your chance to discover some of our top
Speaker 2: rated lectures on your own schedule. I'm Steven Schragis, and
Speaker 2: we've put together some presidential recommended reads. American leaders of
Speaker 2: the past and present have appreciated a variety of literature,
Speaker 2: everything from plays to poetry to spy thrillers. But do
Speaker 2: their reading habits give us any sense of their strength
Speaker 2: as a leader? Professor Joseph Lutsey explores this in a
Speaker 2: one day university lecture titled The President's Book Club. He's
Speaker 2: a professor of comparative literature at Bard College, and he's
Speaker 2: written books covering topics from Dante to Italian cinema. Joseph
Speaker 2: says the idea for this talk came to him while
Speaker 2: he was studying dystopian.
Speaker 1: Literature a few years ago. I taught a course on
Speaker 1: banned and censored books and one thing I noticed was
Speaker 1: that in a lot of these dystopian worlds, one of
Speaker 1: the first things that the kind of powers that be
Speaker 1: would do. You see this in all this Huxley's Brave
Speaker 1: New World. You see it in Margaret at Woods The
Speaker 1: Handmaid's Tale, is that they would ban books. And I thought,
Speaker 1: you know, how interesting and sinister that when a government
Speaker 1: becomes a verse to freedom, it also becomes a verse
Speaker 1: to books and learning. And I thought, well, that's a
Speaker 1: connection I wanted to explore more. And then I would
Speaker 1: say the tipping point was there was this article and
Speaker 1: the Economists that I read shortly before kind of putting
Speaker 1: the talk together, in which they talked about leadership and
Speaker 1: leadership training. But they said, you know, instead of corporate retreats,
Speaker 1: instead of how to books by people in the business world,
Speaker 1: which of course have their validity, why not look to
Speaker 1: great literature for models. And I said, you know, I
Speaker 1: really want to dig into this topic and see how
Speaker 1: leaders themselves have approached the world of books. And that
Speaker 1: sort of got everything rolling.
Speaker 2: You picked a pretty logical starting point. George Washington obviously
Speaker 2: he was first. Yeah, but that said George Washington wasn't
Speaker 2: really known to be a scholar. Tell us about George
Speaker 2: Washington and the book or the literary work that really
Speaker 2: seemed to influence him.
Speaker 1: This is one of my favorite discoveries. I remember I
Speaker 1: went to a Fourth of July reenactment with my family
Speaker 1: near my house and we met the person who played
Speaker 1: George Washington, and we were talking with him and we said,
Speaker 1: you know, what's one of your regrets in life, mister Washington,
Speaker 1: And he said, not having a college education. And you know,
Speaker 1: my family joke, Well, he went pretty far in the
Speaker 1: world without one. But I think that image of George
Speaker 1: Washington as a man of action, not an intellectual. We
Speaker 1: associate John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, some of the earlier officeholders
Speaker 1: of the presidency with a world of books, not so
Speaker 1: much with George Washington. He was a general, he was
Speaker 1: an farmer, he was a statesman. Interestingly, though, I found
Speaker 1: that George Washington was very committed to the world of books.
Speaker 1: He designed his own book plate, he had quite a
Speaker 1: collection of books, and he also was a pretty passionate
Speaker 1: reader of one particular play. It's called Cato Cato by
Speaker 1: Joseph Addison and from the early seventeen hundreds, so It's
Speaker 1: one of those works that hasn't stood the test of time,
Speaker 1: but in its time, its effect was profound. Not just
Speaker 1: George Washington. It was a play about Cato, the ancient
Speaker 1: Roman who resisted the tyranny of the death of the
Speaker 1: Roman Republic when Julius Caesar became tyrant and Cato took
Speaker 1: his own life in defense, and so he kind of
Speaker 1: became a symbol to the American revolutionaries. Allegedly, George Washington
Speaker 1: had the play performed at Valley Forge. He sprinkled his
Speaker 1: letters with references to it. But it wasn't just him.
Speaker 1: Patrick Henry's great speech give me Liberty or give me
Speaker 1: Death is lifted from Cato by Addison Nathan Hale the
Speaker 1: American Patriot, when he said I regret that I have
Speaker 1: but one life to give to my country. That also
Speaker 1: comes from Joseph Addison's Cato. So it was an example
Speaker 1: of how a forgotten literary war could actually be in
Speaker 1: the dna of American democracy. And that was a kind
Speaker 1: of thrilling discovery for me.
Speaker 2: Before we move on to the next president, I have
Speaker 2: the word etiquette books written on my notes here. What's
Speaker 2: going on there?
Speaker 1: Well, you know, George Washington had a particular genre of
Speaker 1: books that he was quite devoted to, and that was
Speaker 1: etiquette books. He loved to read etiquette books, he collected them.
Speaker 1: These were books that we think of Emily Post in
Speaker 1: the twentieth century, These books that teach us how to
Speaker 1: gracefully accept or decline a dinner invitation, or I imagine
Speaker 1: the updated version of Emily Post would be like how
Speaker 1: to gently unfriend someone on Facebook. Obviously that wasn't something
Speaker 1: that George Washington thought about, but these kind of etiquette
Speaker 1: questions obsessed Washington, and I think it's in keeping with
Speaker 1: his image as someone who knew how politically to say
Speaker 1: and do the right thing, who took the quality of
Speaker 1: dignity and decorum very seriously and sort of trained himself
Speaker 1: in the images of these early etiquette manuals.
Speaker 2: Second up on deck, it was Thomas Jefferson. Now, this
Speaker 2: one's not a surprise. This is a man who all
Speaker 2: of us think of as a dedicated reader. You've done
Speaker 2: the research to document exactly why we think of Jefferson
Speaker 2: as a voracious reader, and that his thoughts were even
Speaker 2: reflected in the Declaration of Independence.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, look, no surprise here, and you know,
Speaker 1: Thomas Jefferson, who founded the University of Virginia, was considered
Speaker 1: a person of letters in his age. In his library
Speaker 1: reflected that a wide range of interests, including the fields
Speaker 1: like botany, wine making, philosophy, history, and whatnot. So that's
Speaker 1: no surprise.
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 1: What was a surprise to me was looking at the documents, say,
Speaker 1: a very famous document, the Declaration of Independence. Do you
Speaker 1: think of aligned by Jefferson? We hold these truths to
Speaker 1: be self evident, that all men are created equal, that
Speaker 1: they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.
Speaker 1: That among these are life, liberty in the pursuit of happiness.
Speaker 1: That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men,
Speaker 1: deriving their just powers from the consent of the government.
Speaker 1: Now that's a bit of a mouthful. It's a lot
Speaker 1: of eighteenth century political discourse. But I had been teaching
Speaker 1: in Bard's first year seminar program, and we were reading
Speaker 1: some of the founding figures of political philosophy, and two
Speaker 1: figures in particular that i'd been teaching, John Locke and
Speaker 1: Jean Jacques Rousseau. I saw how their ideas were permeating
Speaker 1: Jefferson's writing and the Declaration of Independence. Let's take this
Speaker 1: notion of equality, for example, that Jefferson talks about. Now,
Speaker 1: one of the engines for that comes from John Locke's
Speaker 1: idea of thela raza, which means the blank slate, This
Speaker 1: idea that you know, all people are created equal, that
Speaker 1: no matter where you're born or when you're born, there's
Speaker 1: a kind of neutrality to human nature. And you know,
Speaker 1: we take it for granted now. And of course it
Speaker 1: wasn't expressed politically in the eighteenth century because the eighteenth
Speaker 1: century had terrible forms of inequality, including the evil of slavery.
Speaker 1: But as an idea that informed the Declaration of Independence,
Speaker 1: that idea of equality from Jefferson has to be informed
Speaker 1: by Locke's notion of the blank slave. And similarly, when
Speaker 1: Jefferson writes about the governments are instituted among men, deriving
Speaker 1: their powers from the consent of the government, that that
Speaker 1: idea of consent is so essential to social contract theory
Speaker 1: of the eighteenth century, and that's where thinkers like Jean
Speaker 1: Jacques Rousseau were so important, where they basically came up
Speaker 1: with a model saying that when we enter into society
Speaker 1: through consent, we agree as a people to give up
Speaker 1: our individual rights in the name of the collectivity. That
Speaker 1: can only happen if we consent to do so. So
Speaker 1: you can see in just one densely written paragraph of
Speaker 1: the Declaration of Independence, you can see the swirling of
Speaker 1: intellectual currents from major thinkers like John Locke and Jean Jacquesrousseau.
Speaker 2: We're going to jump forward a little onto Abraham Lincoln. Now,
Speaker 2: this is someone we all know of as a voracious reader,
Speaker 2: and we know of him as completely self taught. What
Speaker 2: we don't know a lot about is his thoughts about Shakespeare.
Speaker 2: Can you discuss Abraham Lincoln's relationship to the Shakespearean tragedies
Speaker 2: Hamlet and Macbeth.
Speaker 1: To Lincoln loved Shakespeare, He carried in with Shakespeare with him.
Speaker 1: He quoted from the plays He's on record for just
Speaker 1: showing how passionate he was about Shakespeare. But you know,
Speaker 1: there was a little bit of surprise in Lincoln's devotion
Speaker 1: to Shakespeare. And I think it comes from what you
Speaker 1: said earlier, Stephen, about Lincoln as the kind of prototypical
Speaker 1: self made man. Lincoln is one of those figures becomes
Speaker 1: a lawyer by studying for the bar, on his own.
Speaker 1: He grew up on dirt floors the whole incredible rise
Speaker 1: of Lincoln, and I think that that backstory shaped the
Speaker 1: way he approached Shakespeare. For example, he said, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't care too much for the famous soliloquy of
Speaker 1: Hamlet to be or not to be, because I think
Speaker 1: he didn't have that much in common with Hamlet. Hamlet
Speaker 1: was the prince of Denmark. He was to the manner
Speaker 1: born as they say. Lincoln instead said he related to
Speaker 1: He loved Macbeth, and he loved the speech in Hamlet
Speaker 1: where Claudius as, oh my offense's rank, where he basically says,
Speaker 1: I know I'm guilty, but I'm not going to give
Speaker 1: up the crown. And it got me thinking about, you know,
Speaker 1: what was it about Lincoln and Shakespeare? And I think
Speaker 1: part of it had to do with Lincoln's moral brilliance,
Speaker 1: his conscience, the fact that you know, he believed that
Speaker 1: then evil of slavery had to end. America went to
Speaker 1: war because of that. But he also felt the weight
Speaker 1: of all those deaths of Americans on his conscience. But
Speaker 1: where I think Shakespeare really drives Lincoln. Think of a
Speaker 1: speech like the Second inaugural address. It's one of the
Speaker 1: most extraordinary speeches in American history, where Lincoln basically says, look,
Speaker 1: the North is basically going to win this war militarily,
Speaker 1: but ultimately it's a war in which both sides have
Speaker 1: lost because both sides fighting were American and so that
Speaker 1: speech is just this remarkable work of rhetoric when he says,
Speaker 1: all knew that the interest of slavery was the cause
Speaker 1: of the war, and then he said, neither party expected
Speaker 1: for the war the magnitude of the duration, which is
Speaker 1: already attained, neither anticipated, and he goes, you notice the
Speaker 1: repetition of neither. There each looked for an easier triumph.
Speaker 1: Both read the same Bible. And then he says, and
Speaker 1: crushing that rhetorical crescendo, the prayers of both could not
Speaker 1: be answered. And then he says, but let us not
Speaker 1: judge lest we be judged. It's an amazing the use
Speaker 1: of the pronouns, the sort of all both neither, and
Speaker 1: then this kind of deflating sentiment at the end that
Speaker 1: this is a war that has taken so many lives.
Speaker 1: It's not the time to criticize, but it's a time
Speaker 1: to heal. And I think that that moral vision of
Speaker 1: Lincoln was nourished by his understanding of a writer like Shakespeare.
Speaker 1: Shakespeare was a brilliant student of human nature, and he
Speaker 1: understood that often our virtues are bound up with our vices.
Speaker 1: And I think for Lincoln to think with and through
Speaker 1: Shakespeare's plays over his lifetime enabled him to cultivate his
Speaker 1: own moral vision that led to astonishing speeches like the
Speaker 1: Second Inaurgal Address, where literally the fate of the United
Speaker 1: States and the Union was on the line. The stakes
Speaker 1: couldn't have been higher.
Speaker 2: After the break, an inspirational poem for FDR and a
Speaker 2: spy thriller for JFK. We're going to go to FDR,
Speaker 2: and you've explained in your talk how one work, in
Speaker 2: particular Rudyard Kipling's poem if is something that FDR carried
Speaker 2: with him his whole life. Actually, you want to give
Speaker 2: us some detail on that.
Speaker 1: As you know, I love tennis, and besides my fantasy
Speaker 1: to play at Wimbledon Center Court, which will never happen,
Speaker 1: every person who walks onto Center Court passes under a
Speaker 1: plaque with the lines if you can meet victory and
Speaker 1: defeat and treat those two impostors the same. You know
Speaker 1: that basically it's not about winning and losing, it's how
Speaker 1: you play the game. And that's a poem by Rudyard Kipling,
Speaker 1: who's much better known as the author of the Jungle Books.
Speaker 1: Now that home If became a kind of mantra for FDR.
Speaker 1: And it's a poem basically about overcoming obstacles, overcoming challenges,
Speaker 1: and holding your head high and not letting other people
Speaker 1: see you suffer. If you can talk with crowds and
Speaker 1: keep your virtue, or walk with kings, nor lose the
Speaker 1: common touch, if you can fill the unforgiving minute with
Speaker 1: sixty seconds worth of distance, run yours is the earth
Speaker 1: and everything that's in it, and what is more, you'll
Speaker 1: be a man, my son. So that's just a brief
Speaker 1: citation from the poem. FDR was so drawn to this,
Speaker 1: and I think we can kind of understand why personally,
Speaker 1: as we all know or any of us who's spent
Speaker 1: any time thinking about FDR, he suffered from polio and
Speaker 1: he couldn't walk for most of his life. And Stephen,
Speaker 1: the way I think it's so fascinating is that politically,
Speaker 1: it's not like we can say, oh, he's citing IF here,
Speaker 1: but I feel echoes of IF in some of his
Speaker 1: greatest speeches. When in his first inaugural address, which I
Speaker 1: think is his greatest speech, in nineteen thirty two, we
Speaker 1: were in the midst of the depression. It was the
Speaker 1: interwar period. Fascism was on the rise in Europe. This
Speaker 1: was not a good time in the world. The world
Speaker 1: was descending into darkness and it would end up in
Speaker 1: World War Two, and Americans were starving. There were runs
Speaker 1: on banks, Ninety percent of the stock market had gone
Speaker 1: down at one point. He says in that first inaugural
Speaker 1: a dress. He says, in such a spirit, on my
Speaker 1: part and yours, we face common difficulties. They concern, thank God,
Speaker 1: only material things. And I think that's the message that
Speaker 1: so many Americans needed to hear then, because the sense
Speaker 1: of despair and pessimism was so rampant, and here you
Speaker 1: had a man saying saying, we'll get through this. These
Speaker 1: are only material challenges. And I think a work like
Speaker 1: IF that poem helped fuel Roosevelt's sense of resolve and ingenuity.
Speaker 2: Jumping forward again. We're moving quickly now all the way
Speaker 2: to JFK. Now this is the only president who won
Speaker 2: a Poetzer Prize, although as you know, that's a somewhat
Speaker 2: controversial issue, not necessarily going there. Even beyond that, though
Speaker 2: one of his favorite books was about a British spy,
Speaker 2: a name we all know. You want to tell us
Speaker 2: about that job.
Speaker 1: Kennedy's really interesting. Yes, you know, he does win a Pulitzer.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of controversy around it because there's the
Speaker 1: talk that he got help writing it, etc.
Speaker 2: Etc.
Speaker 1: Bracketing that. We can say one thing about John F.
Speaker 2: Kennedy.
Speaker 1: His love of literature was genuine. I mean he loved
Speaker 1: to read. In fact, early in his career his dream
Speaker 1: in some part was to be a writer, and he
Speaker 1: was seriously committed to the world of books. And he
Speaker 1: was a writer he did right throughout his life. So
Speaker 1: there was a more playful aspect to his love of literature.
Speaker 1: Being a president and having access to the corridors of
Speaker 1: power proverbial and literal, he got to meet people like
Speaker 1: spies and former spies, and one of them that he
Speaker 1: met was you guessed it, Ian Fleming, the author of
Speaker 1: the James Bond series. So Ian Fleming told Jeffkasey, and
Speaker 1: I think you like my books in so many words,
Speaker 1: and JFK did love them and told the nations you
Speaker 1: should give these books a chance. So I always joke,
Speaker 1: you know that Daniel Craig and his fellow actors portraying
Speaker 1: James Bond should send the Kennedy Estate a thank you
Speaker 1: note for having helped to make the Bond franchise into
Speaker 1: the international behemoth that it is today.
Speaker 2: Do you have a line or two to say about
Speaker 2: any of the most modern presidents Nixon, both Bush's, Obama,
Speaker 2: Trump or now Joe Biden.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, look, some presidents are readers. The nation
Speaker 1: would wait anxiously every year for Barack Obama to publish
Speaker 1: his recommended readings, and it's very clear that Barack Obama
Speaker 1: was very serious and thoughtful reader of literature. Then, of course,
Speaker 1: on the other spectrum, you have Donald Trump, who openly
Speaker 1: says that he's not a reader, and that's public records.
Speaker 1: So you know, you get the whole gamut recently, as
Speaker 1: you did historically for every FDR, for every Abraham Lincoln,
Speaker 1: there was like the likes of Warren Harding, who was
Speaker 1: rated as a terrible president historically and also considered one
Speaker 1: who wasn't fond of books. So there's this sense of
Speaker 1: huge discrepancies throughout the pre of those who are book
Speaker 1: people and those who are not book people.
Speaker 2: Here's the bottom line. Are great readers also great leaders?
Speaker 2: Is that a fair conclusion to reach.
Speaker 1: It's a very good question, Stephen. It's sort of the
Speaker 1: proverbial eight hundred pound monster in the room. And I've
Speaker 1: thought a lot about this because that's where I sort
Speaker 1: of started my research, was is there a connection between
Speaker 1: good reading and good leading? And I believe that there is.
Speaker 1: I think Harry Truman, who is a very fine reader
Speaker 1: and came to power a very difficult time after World
Speaker 1: War Two. Truman said, look, not all readers are leaders,
Speaker 1: but all leaders are readers. So I think the first
Speaker 1: thing that reading does is it shows your curiosity and
Speaker 1: your spirit of collaboration. The second thing I think reading
Speaker 1: does it shows your humility as well. When you open
Speaker 1: a book, you're basically admitting that the world has something
Speaker 1: to teach you, that you are open to new ideas,
Speaker 1: and I think that's sort of an allegory for being
Speaker 1: open to the input of other people in your organization.
Speaker 1: So it's a wonderful kind of sign. I think I've
Speaker 1: talked about reading as an act of curiosity and collaboration,
Speaker 1: an act of humility, But ultimately, I think its greatest
Speaker 1: gift for leader is the perspective that it gives you.
Speaker 1: It allows you to see the world through other people's eyes.
Speaker 1: You know, I often speak with my students, you know.
Speaker 1: Social media is more of a mirror. It reflects your
Speaker 1: interest back at you. Literature is this prism in which
Speaker 1: your ideas come into contact with those of others. It's
Speaker 1: like seeing the world with an additional set of eyes,
Speaker 1: and that I think is the most precious thing for
Speaker 1: a leader, to have the perspective of the people that
Speaker 1: he or she or they are meant to serve, and
Speaker 1: to see the world through their eyes. I think literature
Speaker 1: gives you that extra set of eyes.
Speaker 2: Joe, I got to tell you, if there's one thing
Speaker 2: you know how to do, it's end to talk. You're
Speaker 2: the best at it. Thank you so much for doing this.
Speaker 1: This has been a real pleasure.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Thanks for joining us here at One Day University.
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Speaker 2: episode and watch Bard Professor Joseph Lucy's lecture on the
Speaker 2: President Book Club, as well as his talks on celebrated
Speaker 2: authors like Edgar Allan, Pope, Jane Austen, and many more.
Speaker 2: Join us next time when we preview King Charles's coronation.
Speaker 3: Whenever there's one of these events that criticism is made,
Speaker 3: like money could be spent in a better way, and
Speaker 3: Charles I think he heard some of that, but at
Speaker 3: the same time, he wants his day in the sun.
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