AN EVENING WITH RON CHERNOW, PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING HISTORIAN

Commonwealth Club World Affairs of California

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This program is part of our Good Lit series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation.
Celebrated historian Ron Chernow’s 2004 biography of founding father Alexander Hamilton inspired Lin-Manuel Miranda’s wildly popular “Hamilton.” Now America’s preeminent biographer turns his attention to the Civil War and Reconstruction with a new biography of one of history’s most compelling presidents, Ulysses S. Grant. Grant has one of the most complicated legacies of any Civil War hero. Though a famously successful general, he was a failure of a businessman and a notoriously corrupt president. Moreover, according to Frederick Douglass, Grant was “the vigilant, firm, impartial, and wise protector of my race.” But he was also a virulent anti-Semite. He vanquished the Confederacy, and yet he was continually defeated by his own alcoholism. Join us for a nuanced psychological portrait of the man Walt Whitman called “nothing heroic ... and yet the greatest hero.”
Ron Chernow’s work captures the complexity of monumental chapters of history, from the nation’s founding to the upheavals of the Gilded Age, through the lens of great individuals. His landmark biographies of J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, Alexander Hamilton and George Washington earned him a dizzying array of awards and nominations in American nonfiction literature. He is the recipient of a National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and the National Humanities Medal, awarded by President Barack Obama in 2015.

Опубликовано:

23 июн 2024

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Комментарии : 21

@briankelly1817 6 лет назад

The audio is so low. I have to turn up the volume all the way to hear whispering conversation.

@northover 5 лет назад

visit the new Grant Presidential Library at Mississippi State University in Starkville, MS. Opened in November of 2018, the library is a ten million dollar extension of the University's Mitchell Memorial Library

@georgecromarty5372 4 года назад

Dr. Chernow - - wonderful, brilliant scholarship, but please work with a diction coach, sir! It's not just that you were poorly fitted with a seemingly inaudible microphone, but you have a slight tendency to mumble. Your work is so wonderful - - I want everyone to hear you, sir! Please try to double the "brightness" (treble) of your voice and pronounce more clearly (I am partially hearing impaired). Thank you very much and God bless!

@Baczkowa78 Год назад

Why all the criticism about Dr Chernow’s command of speech. Ridiculous.

@georgecromarty5372 4 года назад

To the host on stage: The content is wonderful, but you, too, tended to fall into a very low volume, slightly mumbling style of speech. As a result, I had to work very hard to listen to this presentation. Both of you spoke in a monotone, though his had far less variation in tone than yours did. If I may suggest - - because I love the Commonwealth Club presentations - - please pay attention to the speaking style & tonality. Honestly, you would have done the speaker and all of us a big favor if you had told him that the sound system isn't picking up his voice, and ask him to pronounce his words with greater clarity, or more loudly, and not to give such incredibly lengthy, run-on sentences. Lastly, the speaker hardly looked at you. Most of the time, he was staring at the floor, and only occasionally looked at the audience or at you. I know it's hard to change this in mid-stream, but perhaps you could monitor these speakers briefly and offer them a couple of speaking suggestions in the future if they need it, as this gentleman most certainly does! Thank you very much for considering this suggestion! I offer it with great respect and admiration for the work you all do.

@tntramzy12 3 года назад

Hahahaha bro you are the biggest wierdo. Who cares where he is looking

@jon00769 3 года назад

The sound is fine. Whoever uploaded/mastered the video left the mix level down. Like if 0dB is your target, this is at -6dB. Both speakers are boring and sound like they're on their way to a nap. It sounds more like a personal conversation rather than one meant to be heard by an audience.

@DanielWhitten 3 года назад

This is perhaps the silliest and most ludicrous critic comment I have ever read. I'll take lengthy and run on sentences by possibly the greatest biographer/historian of our time all day. It's not difficult to turn up the volume. I see him constantly looking to the interviewer as well as to the audience. I've watched numerous Chernow interviews and yes he does have a tendency to look ahead towards the floor... but it's not distracting. It's not like he is looking down in his lap! Why is this a problem and why would you even suggest the interviewer try to fix these issues? The whole point is to be comfortable, discuss, and learn. I think you'd be a pretty annoying interviewer but I doubt you've ever been one.

@jimlaguardia8185 Год назад

Chernow is a great writer but weak speaker. He should take speech lessons from McCollough.

@JRobbySh 6 лет назад

He describes Lee’s views on slavery, or rather of blacks. But they are common to the educated class of his generation, both in North and South. Northerners could be hostile to slavery as an institution while being deeply prejudiced against blacks. Slavery was the material basis of the great wealth and power of the southern aristocracy, and feeling against its expansion was based on a desire to limit that power. This did not translate to the notion that blacks as a race were equal of whites anymore than the English Aristocratic acceptance of their servants “downstairs” as equals. Quite the contrary, they accepted as scientific fact the ranking of the races of mankind which put the whites on top and the blacks on the bottom. Indeed, Charles Darwin in his book, The Descent of Man, thinks of blacks as the least evolved of the human races.

@nora22000 5 лет назад

Judy S. Explaining, justifying, apologizing for the worst of white supremacy, even at that time, must be an exhausting task. It was already an outdated concept at the time of the American Revolution, as Ben Franklin--who was tasked with setting up the culture of the new country--noted that slavery should be abolished within the next few decades to avoid a surely predictable conflagration. Anyone who wanted to could easily have known better.

@TheRobdarling 2 года назад

citation for your claim please.

@jonathanbaggs4275 2 года назад

Yes - anti slavery did not mean pro-black. This is what modern students of the war and Era simply do not grasp nor explore although the records and pronouncements from northern states' leaders are numerous. For those seeking citations - do your own homework. The answers are out there.

@dstorm7752 5 лет назад

Too bad Chernow is simplistic in his hatred of Trump, showing he has zero objectivity.

@leoren2685 5 лет назад

Doesn't take much to know Dump is an idiot. Maybe it's you who has zero objectivity.

@phen0mejon99 4 года назад

A Trump supporter saying someone else has no objectivity... That's rich

@tntramzy12 3 года назад

D storm what does he say about Trump?

@jon00769 3 года назад

Ironic, given Trump has simplistic views on everything. I know plenty of educated people who support him, but all conceed that he's useful idiot. His cabinet runs the executive office.