please welcome ann thornton vice provost and university librarian. good evening. it's.

good evening and welcome to the bancroft prize program. columbia university library is co-sponsors. this important event with the columbia department of history as our dedicated historians say, the work of historical scholarship is never finished and we reexamine it through present day lenses. today, especially today, it seems it seems important to lift up that critical work of examining and reexamining history. history is happening right now, and i am grateful for all of the hard labor that goes into researching and writing history, including not only the history in, but also the labor of librarians, archivist sites, curators, editors, and other workers whose critical work, work and support deserves to be acknowledged.

a jury is chosen each year by our history to award the prizes to outstanding historians of the americas. one of the leading historians and that department is selected to chair a panel of three jurors representing the finest scholars in the field from excellent research universities across the country. this year, we are especially pleased to expand the winner's circle of prior awardees of the bancroft prize, and we are joined here by a good number of these winners whom you may identify at the reception by their light blue lapel pins. so winners, circle members, please stand up so that we can celebrate you as a group. we're also pleased that c-span's

american history tv is continuing its partnership up with us this year by filming tonight's program for airing and archiving on its website. we will circulate word to all invitees to this special event when we have confirmed dates for airing and online access, we are really pleased that so many guests are joining us tonight for the bancroft prize program here at the forum. i want to acknowledge the support out of my colleagues who are here from the office of the provost and the support of executive vice president amy hungerford, who has joined us tonight. thank you, amy, for being here. we also want to especially acknowledge the members of columbia's 1754 society who have elected to remember the university and their estate planning. tonight's ceremony features two distinguished winners this year as well as our dissertation prize winner. and we will learn through

insightful discussions between the jurors and the book prize winners about the remarkable eras in our nation's history that their winning publications examine and hear from the authors how they frame the historical lessons that their research illuminates, the importance of the book. the research into both primary and secondary sources conducted by these winning authors and the new understanding that has been created through their quantum machines is what we are here to celebrate. the endowment left to columbia libraries by the visionary frederick bancroft enables us to continue to acquire rare archival material and makes it possible for us to continue supporting scholarly research that's conducted by the by historians from around the world. we had a wonderful prize jury this year, and i'm going to sit and enjoy the program along with all of you and turn things over

to them. thank you. please welcome michael witkin, professor of history and chair of the 2024 bancroft prizes jury. i thank you for coming. i want to start off by thinking the columbia university library staff, led by ann thornton, which were fantastic in helping us get through this program or take on this task. we got something like 228 books this year, so it was quite the long list. and the faculty, the staff of the library were instrumental in making sure those books kept coming and to the point where i wish they stop, but, you know, this was also the thing where i remember i wanted to do a profession where i could read a lot and i picked the right lane. i want kind of circle back to

what people are about. the introduction and was the bancroft prize and point out isn't just a prize in nonfiction writing this is a history prize shared by historians, professional historians who weren't just thinking about a well written book, but are really thinking about the craft of history. and so really paying attention to the research, paying attention, the craft of exposition, historical writing, argumentation, and, you know, the bancroft is a is a prize that i think historians really relish. and we can take it to the bank that the the books selected for this are the best books in american diplomatic history for that year. and so one of the first things i had to do was pick a jury and i picked two outstanding colleagues, maria montoya and manisha sinha all introduced them quickly. and then we'll turn to the first book for two books, i guess go through both books. maria montoya is the global associate professor of history at new york university. she's a former dean of arts and

sciences at nyu. she's also the past president of the western historical association and a fellow at the american antiquarian society. maria earned her b.a., m.a. and ph.d. at yale university, and she's the author of numerous articles on the history of the american west environmental and labor history, latino history and american expansion. her book, translating property. and that's what leon graham in conflict over land in the american west. from 1840 to 1900. he's also the author of or one of the main authors of the history textbook global americans a social global history of the united states. and she's currently working on a book about the workplace of their own progressive management of workers and their families in colorado's coalfields. we're coming with oxford university press. i also asked manisha sinha to join me on the panel. she is the james earl and shirley draper chair in american history at the university connecticut and president elect of the 2024 society for historians, the early republic,

which she was born in india and received her ph.d. from columbia university, where her dissertation was nominated for the the bancroft prize. she's the author of the town of revolution of slavery politics and ideology in antebellum south carolina, which was named one of the best books on slavery and politico and recently featured in the new york times 1619 project. her second book, the slaves cause a history of the evolution of abolition, was longlisted for the national book award in nonfiction and won numerous other awards. and she is currently just finished a book called the rise and fall of the second american republic reconstruction 1968 1820 forthcoming with liveright press in 2024 and i chose to mention that graciously accepted to be on the committee to kind of round out so we could take on this kind of enormous task or i'm a scholar of indigenous and early american history. many, manisha, focus on slavery in the 19th century and the early 20th century. i think focusing on the 19th

century and 20th century. so we were able to sort of kind of cover the field with with text coming in and with 228 selections. it was it was quite a task. but the text that we had, the books were looking at, like i said, were some of the best in history. it was a difficult decision making process. the both the books that we selected take on the subject of american power and the idea and also the idea of america in the world. i think is a way of thinking about it with continental reckoning, elliott west explores this of explosive growth of the republic, you know, leaving behind the revolutionary era and entering into the sort of era of expansion. and we can think about this in the sense that in 1840, as americans thinking about the west could still look at ohio and and michigan and wisconsin and in iowa. but beyond that, they were thinking of the great plains as sort of a wasteland. indian country and a place that was sort of not inhabitable. and the thing that sort turned

that around is not only the discovery gold, but the mexican-american war, which suddenly opens up the continent to american expansion at a time when the country is dispersing and population and when 1800 the population of the republicans around 5.3 million by 1840, that population has grown to 17 million. and one of the things that professor west chronicles is the expansion of that population surging into the west, a desire for access to the pacific market, the knowledge of transcontinental crossings that come with the discovery of gold and the transfer to the crossing of the great plains, and then also just the sort of sense of racial and social superiority that's fueling this sort of rise of american expansion, the desire to sort of take ownership of the continent becomes a transcontinental nation and. we can see similarly with with fire and rain, which a moment when the sort of american sense

of national security entitlement is also at the center of this analysis and analysis of the subject of the nixon administration's handling of the wars in vietnam, laos and cambodia, and really the diplomacy surrounding those war. those wars were nixon and kissinger are essentially desperately seeking the cooperation of the soviet union and china find a face saving exit from the vietnam war and as a consequence sort of reshape american diplomacy in the service of that goal, that self-serving goal. at the same time, however, she goes beyond this, the policy level of analysis to explain how these wars affected the everyday lives of american citizens, paying for the price, the hubris, paying the price for the hubris, and the fraud of the nixon and kissinger administrations and their self-serving diplomacy around the war with that kind of gentle introduction, let me read you the jury statement for elliott

west, and then we will introduce the militia in order to come out and have a quick conversation continue. as i mentioned, elliott west tells the epic story, the birth of the united states beginning in the mid-19th century, the stories, the history of america's western expansion, a searing narrative explaining how the republic became a transcontinental nation. this outcome was not inevitable. the country did not grow organically across the western landscape of north america. instead, the united states worked hard using new technology like the telegraph and the railroad to impose the spatial and political order across the trans mississippi west, the republic colonized indigenous nations and obliterated their homelands, refashion their territory into new states that were incorporated into the union along with the resources of the west. gold, copper, petroleum, coal, uranium. exploiting these resources while repopulated in the west resulted in the most expansive environmental transformation in north american history. the united states. in undertaking this transformation, had embarked on a long and often painful process of unification following the

violence and chaos of the civil war, expanding rapidly into the west, the nation absorbed spanish and mestizo populations, and the newly acquired southwest asian major chinese immigrants in the west coast as well as a newly emancipated african-american population. in short, in order to integrate the western half of the continent into the republic, the country had to undergo a radical transformation in a vast racial, social and political reordering that redefined the definition of citizenship and redefined the relationships between government, industry and the people who created the modern united states. with that, i'd like to introduce eliot and alicia to come up and discuss continental recommend. thank you, michael, for that introduction, and thank you to the columbia libraries for hosting us today. it's a real pleasure, eliot, to

talk to you about your bancroft prize winning book, continental reckoning. i have long admired your work and just to see this, which i think is really your magnum opus right. very ambitious synthesis of 19th century western history. a broad history of that period. that is also beautifully written. so my first question has to do with simply why you chose to write this broader history. the books that i have admired a lot, your previous books like the contested plains and the last indian war, the nez perce war, were mainly indigenous history. so you chose to write that broad order history of the west rather just an history of the west from the indigenous perspective. so i want you to talk a little

bit about what motivated you to write this broader synthesis. i mean, i'm thinking as a graduate student reading walter prescott webb's great plains and more recently, richard white's book, which is more of a textbook, how does your synthesis actually differ from that? and what motivated you to write this broader history? well i certainly have been very interested in indigenous native history. more recently, but earliest interests were in different areas. i was fascinated with social history, with history, the family and childhood and community fascinated with environmental history and in other areas sort of jumped around a lot and then picked up a lot of other worlds, of course, to tomorrow will be my 79th birthday tomorrow. so happy birthday. so your well, you know, you accumulate a lot of information over your work catalog. and so i thought to try to bring

that together and to try to give it some shape, try to it's a very complex period is also happening all over the place. so but more than that, i think if there's a common concern of historians of my particular cohort and generation, it is to try to encourage and encourage us to bring the american west more centrally the american narrative. so often the past considers kind a peripheral area. but in fact, i think we argue especially the period that i look at the second half of the 19th century, basically it's really an area that is both critical to understanding how the united states moves into this new direction toward modern america in many ways. one of the most illustrative ways to understand that process, to what's going on in a lot of ways to get the best sense of where america was heading, best place to go was montana or someplace out west where i was trying to get that point across

as well. and so then you do it beautifully. and what a nice way to celebrate your birthday, right? with the bancroft prize. so just, you know, i i'm a civil war historian, trained one a little bit. and read this book, dissenters the civil war, a little bit more about the transformations in the west as being really important to understanding the growth of the modern american nation state, modern american society. and i was thinking back to turner's four year old frontier thesis. he tried to do the same thing, but you do it rather differently than him. and i. i want you to talk a little bit about that, too. well, for all his, i am a great admirer of turner in many ways, but i sure hope no one would think that i'm arguing that the

birth of the west emergency american west those years was somehow more important than some. i'm not sure how you go about overestimating the importance of the civil war. you but the point i'm trying to make is that the civil war is so compelling, the story is so compelling and so dramatic. there's such a narrative, beautiful narrative structure to it, that it tends to out shadow overshadow everything else. that's going on. but in four stories, it's become the sort of this historiographical black hole, you know, that sucks everything into it. and as i said a moment ago, i think we need to remember that things were happening. carter literally lost the title. this is a story of continental importance. and at the same time that those events unfolding in the fifties leading to the civil war, during the war itself, during the aftermath of the civil war, a lot was happening out west. that has its own story, its own narrative, but also was continually sort of in conversation with the east. so to really understand what was

happening during what we call the civil war era, we need to look at everything that was happening across and the military history. if if we talk about the military, you know, the victory of the union of the confederacy, the west was a footnote to both, but all kinds of other things were happening during that period. and until we balance step out a little bit more, i think we will still be sort of hindered, blinkered, somewhat to understand what was what was happening. yes. and that is something that i really appreciated about your work as unlike turner, who said, well, you know slavery, civil war may be not that important. you really understood this as a parallel process and you talked about the significance of both these transformative events in, 19th century united states history. so my third question has to do with your very famous thesis, which i think would really in this book, which is this notion of a greater reconstruction,

normally think of reconstruction as the period immediately after the civil war. and you argue for this greater reconstruct in looking at events in the west from the mexican war right up to the end of, you know, the attempt to establish an interracial democracy in the south, that that that inform this expanse of land that the united states gets, that that is really something you you argue we must look at and you are, though, quite mindful of the problem of them both as similar processes. as you said in one of your books quote the two missions graded against each other. so one of my favorite lines from this book, western indians or their own category, they had not come to america. america had come to them. so what do you think. this is, i think, one of the most influential ideas in the united states history. now, your notion of a greater

stemming from western history. what do you think are the are the pitfalls maybe of that idea, but also some of the the promises in terms of reinterpreting united states history? mm hmm. well, it's basically a fairly simple idea, but it's full of all kinds of cross-cut currents and contradictions, complexities. one of the exam arguments about the great parts degrading against each other. i think some suggest is that the period, if nothing else, from 1850 to 1880, let's say, experienced by far, by far the greatest expansion of the embrace of who was an american, who were to be citizens, bringing so many more people in in terms of numbers, but also so many different beginning, obviously, with emancipation. 4 million people brought into citizenship, but also the acquisition of our wealth brought indian peoples in, hispanic peoples in the southwest, asian peoples into the far coast with the gold

rush. what do we do this right? i mean, it posed a real crucial question how does a republic work? how does our form of government work when you have that level of conflict, a level of diversity? well, i don't think basically what i found was the federal government's answer to that was, well, we have to establish this common cultural ground. right. so everybody if everybody holds the same ground that they can all take part in this process. and how do you do that? well, it's going to be a common language. well, it's got to be a a common embrace of their free holding capitalist market economy. it's to be we're going to do it through education of children. so these variety of ways, you know, and what fascinated me was this basically the same approach was taken toward freed people. and native peoples. so we're taking this basically the same approach toward these different groups to try to come up to this answers to this

common problem. and when you think of it that way, we're after the same thing, right? in both places, pursuing the same goals. and what do you end up with? you know, slave people or freed indian people or dispossessed and confined or reservations rights are given to some people. rights are taken away from other people. the same purpose, the same overall goal thought this way. eric foner, professor foner, i believe is here. he makes a point. his wonderful book on reconstruction. if you if you listen to free people themselves, one of the things they found most compelling, you know, the work excited most about it was simply the freedom to move to go different places unthinkable before right. that was to be a was in many ways the greatest benefit. the same process the government is saying to any peoples you

can't move anymore. you've got to go right there and you've got to stay right there. furthermore, you can't leave unless you have passes. so it's just it's like a plantation. the roles the roles are reversed, and yet it's the same, basically, they're pursuing the same thing. so to me, that's a that represents both the commonality, both the opportunity to understand this and in terms of explains so much, but also the the complexity of it and the but many ways or just the, you know, bizarre and occasionally horrifying consequence of this. when you look at it again from coast to coast. yeah, yeah. it's it's it's it's a really interesting sort of disjuncture between notions of sort of citizenship and sovereignty. yes. and i guess in that sense, one can really see the difference between african american and native american history at that particular moment and these

somewhat colonial wars that are being fought in the west at that time. we have very little time left. but i loved your metaphor of laboratory, which you use for the west, for, you know, for science, reconstruction of race, but also environmental history, politically, economy, governance. you are able to show how the west is really a laboratory for american democracy and for the growth of american imperialism, even as they go, you know, once you have that continental expanse, you go to the pacific right. and acquire a formal overseas empire. so you have exactly according to this ticker tape to go here. you have exactly 2 minutes to answer that. well, first, it really surprised one of the things i really learned a lot about that i didn't realize was the role of

science. you mentioned that the west was arguably the hottest area to be in the field, and brazil did feel sort of a laboratory in that. but it brought, i think, a of the metaphor works more broadly in that as you're suggesting, this is not an original idea. richard white, you mentioned his book. he has a different metaphor. he says the west was the kindergarten of the modern american state. and that's what i'm saying. the acquisition of that land, the kind of challenges that it represented, forced the federal government to take on new authorities to experiment with new powers, to adapt to accept new responsibilities. and so you find all kinds of new institutions forming that new roles of the government acting out in this. eventually it spreads in the end of the pacific itself. so what's occurred to get to the earlier point? you can't if you want to understand the west is heading during this time know the transformations that are going. go west and you'll see them, i

think. yes. that's certainly one of the greatest contributions, i think of of this book. and as you can make out from our very short conversation, it's an amazing book that does important things. i have, you know, five or six more questions, but i'm afraid i'll have to pepper eliot with that sense at the reception. and maybe since our time is is over. but but really thank you so much for being with us here today and for talking about your wonderful, heartbreaking breaking book. i think this book really does redefine the way in which we look at united states history. so thanks again, eliot. thank you. sitting here with you. now, i'd like to introduce the conversation between maria montoya and carolyn woods. they'll be discussing

eisenberg's book, fire and rain, nixon, kissinger and the wars in southeast asia. the jury prize that this book provides a sweeping, panoramic, ultimately -- portrait of nixon and kissinger as architects of the wars in southeast asia. fire and rain at once is at once a biography of these two men working desperately extract the united states from the war in vietnam and simultaneously a compelling history that explores the human cost of this conflict for the people of vietnam, laos and cambodia. this war was also a tragedy. the men and women who fought on behalf of the united states. isenberg offers an unflinching examination of the moral consequences of the policies pursued by nixon and kissinger, arguing for a reconsider of their actions as part of the corruption and lawlessness that led congress to seek the impeachment of the president. she also reveals that american persistence in vietnam was not conditioned by the need to achieve strategic credibility in order to check the ambitions of china and the soviet union. instead, the nixon

administration's position on a range of issues from nuclear arms control to the future of taiwan, were dictated by the need to secure the cooperation of these two communist powers in arranging a face saving exit from the wars of southeast asia for the united states. maria and professor rice. great. thank you much, carolyn. this book was just incredible. as i read it. it was it was a page turner from the very beginning of it. and it's the kind of book where you think, you know, the history so, so well. and to me, i kind of came away thinking that this was two books that united by a conundrum. right. how, on one hand, could the united states be fighting this war against communism in vietnam and at the same time through these back channels making

overtures to china and to the soviet union? and you just pull that really beautifully. and one of the things we talked about, you said in your introduction was how important teaching was you and how you felt like you could not have written the book, the way you wrote it, without all the experience you've had with your students. could you talk a little bit how you see scholarship in teaching, working together? thank you and thank to columbia university for hosting this event. i am, a graduate of arts and sciences here. i was totally influenced by my teaching because i had all of these students and i was teaching that period of the vietnam war and sort of about and kissinger, although i was always interested, a broader context of those two people. and my students were relentless in saying they didn't, that they kept saying it all the time, you know, how come richard nixon,

who is such a good politician why doesn't he just blame the democrats and get out of it? right. like that's what's going on? and couldn't understand. this is such a failing is failing for 40. like how did that go on. and he gets reelected and he goes like, what's that about? and then they really couldn't understand. and i think is most important for me, actually. they couldn't understand the connection between the vietnam and laos and cambodia situation and the relationship was developing between with with the soviet union and with china. it just made no sense to them. and when i was first thinking about this project, actually. i was thinking, well, you know, it would be really to look at the transcripts of, those experiences. and i remember, john, half wilson, a well-known nixon scout, that you will never see this ever, but actually you can anybody can see it. so all of those things were de. all those negotiations.

and you have to be a little crazy to keep reading them. but you have to say but. and one of the other things that happened in this case and will probably never be replicated is that in aftermath of soviet union collapsed, they made their records available to the u.s. department. so not only the transcripts of those conversations, but there was a russian record as well. dobrynin writing home. so that whole side of things i don't think i would have ever really focused in on it if students weren't so persistently saying, you're not explaining it right. and i guess the other that was very important to me in my teaching and turned out to be very helpful, is that i came to understand that when i was teaching things about foreign policy that in and of itself just reading about the policies wasn't that interesting. and because what students wanted to know was what happened, that they wanted to understand what

this policy of that policy, what happens a result of that policy. and i thought over the years, you know, i pushed and more in that direction. so a really important part of my book i think is really about impact of the policy, which is, i think what's been missing. to some extent, some of the books that have been very excellent in other ways. so, you know, looking at what happened in cambodia, laos, vietnam, what happened to, our own soldiers and actually really not just saying it in a cursory, which is what usually happens, but really trying to convey to readers like some of the things that really happened, you know, what was meaningful it. and i think that's one of the most elegant things that this book does is that it takes policy on one level. but you really see it impacts both american soldiers, americans society and the people of those countries as well. and i think that was a bit sort of two separate strains. the historiography. you bring them together in such an elegant way. i also like you, just adds that

i learned from that. so i recently i was so interested in, you know, what happened in cambodia, not you know, i was on this campus when that happened. you know, everybody was horrified. but what what actually went on when u.s. troops came and very specifically happened in laos. and so as i started to like, look at that and try to find sources, which is one of the challenges finding sources could help you really grasp some of what was happening. it also enabled me to understand policy. i mean that because i began to really appreciate that the extent to which the people that were making decisions. washington were so from the human reality. i mean, they really didn't want to know that. and if a reporter for example was covering things of that sort, they just hated the reporter. they wouldn't, you know, they assumed right out of hand. the reporter has nothing to tell us. and that that lack of interest and curiosity about what

actually happening to people, even to our own soldiers, is part of why they ended up doing things that turned out be very counterproductive and stupid. and it was only when i started looking at this i'm thinking, they don't realize it, you know, but you know, they don't realize it because they don't want to know about these things. i think there's this horrifying line you have where kissinger actually says, i to the secretary of state after at the my lai massacre. should i look at these photos? i mean, it's just it's this gut wrenching moment in the book. it's very if i just could know i was shocked. i mean, one thing people here, some folks may actually know this, which is that henry kissinger had to give up the transcripts of his telephone calls. he had claimed them as actually, you know, his personal property. but he just didn't get so that we know where he got the idea. you can see him on the you. what was he saying on the telephone? and so that was like one of the most incredible things i hear is the my lai story all over the newspapers at that point, or really the photographer, the

army photographer who had photographs that right. and he kept those photos. and then i think he turned them over to life magazine. so the whole country is looking at that. and he calls up the secretary kissinger calls up the secretary defense and says, what's your game plan? what's your game? and the secretary lands. you know, these pictures, henry, they're pretty bad. it's bad. and then he says, do you think i should look at them? and and laird says, well, maybe not, but you know and, you know, obviously, i think it's probably fair assumption that he ultimately did look at them. i think the basic attitude of that right in that encounter, you know, when you have all this stuff going on, it's not just what's in life magazine, right, but what's on television. you know, you're seeing american soldiers that are weeping on television while they're talking about what's happening and the other indifference to that is actually pretty stunning, even

for me. i want to shift gears a little bit and talk about your archive because i think that's one of the amazing things about this book. and for those of us who work in the 19th century, we kind of know what we're getting into when we start a project, we have a sense of what the archives going to be. your archive shifted dramatic early. all kinds of new information came in and there was sort of a political element to the archives you were using and how you were dealing the nixon library. so could you talk a little bit about how your archives shifted while you were working through this? well, for me, intimately shifted, because so much more became available and actually that same thing happened in my first book where i didn't. there are all kinds of things that never were going to the light of day and then they appeared. you know, taking eight more years of my life and that. so i'm not writing any but that's really what hap that's really what happened here was that so much more material wise than i had ever understood. and when i began the project,

for example, i didn't realize how much i could learn about u.s. relations with soviet union or with china. and and, you know, you have to i mean, in the one hand, it was quite a lot of concentration to do it. but on the other hand, it's pretty fascinating because are really two things that are going on. there which one that i think probably lots of folks here who lived through it now, which is that those trips were great politically and they understood that. right. i mean, nixon was running for office the second time and he didn't actually have that much to show for it. going to china, going russia, being a very dignified leader, making a good impression, which he did. so the public relations part of that was important, but the extent to which he asking the chinese i mean, soviets to intervene with there with north vietnam to get a certain kind of peace agreement is actually shocking. and i have one sentence in my

book which. it's sort of astonishing because the one person and as time goes by, the two of them get more and more to listen to people. but to the bitter, they listen to al haig, who so he the three of them, you know, are like, you know, especially in the last stage of negotiations with north vietnam. and it's very tense, really, about what's happening. and meanwhile, insanely, al haig showing the transcripts, those negotiations he's showing them to the russians and their them from the state department, which is really quite amazing that he was doing and, you know, and then this is one sentence from al haig and is that he he said he sends a message to kissinger. haig actually back in washington. and kissinger is in paris. and al haig writes him and says, the russians are going to bat for us.

and i'm looking at that. you know, we're talking about a situation in which 20,000 americans have died because it most americans honestly believed that it was important. and to you know, to convince the russians and the chinese that we were formidable nation and that they would be deterred from taking other actions. and i'm just using that one sentence. but it's not just one sentence. it's this whole event. it was very i could go on forever in 500 pages, but i saw reading that, reading that material and just looking at the exchanges that were going back and forth, you know, it was just extraordinary and really, did you know i was an antiwar person back then? you know, i still have good feelings about columbia 68 and so forth, but even as a friend, which i think is happening right as we sit here, but you know even as somebody that was the antiwar i actually felt like

when was reading things that it was really shocking i was very startled by what i was seeing in the negotiations with the russians and the chinese. and substantively, this isn't just a matter of personalities, but one of the things i try to talk about in the book is how kissinger handled the salt talks, for example, which a lot of people are saying is very boring. but actually the extent to which his handling of arms control was being reflected was related to what they were trying to get out of those meetings. and and similarly, kissinger in china and in terms of his conversations with the chinese leadership, are very, very similar. i mean, there is a real sense that's being conveyed to the chinese government that we don't care about taiwan anymore. right. but i mean, another you know, if you look at what's happening right now, you would never imagine that. but basically, you know, he's saying it's sad, you know, that this has to happen to shanghai

shark. but that's the way it is. so it's not just a matter of like personal style that i'm talking about, it's that actually i'm very substantive issues. they were willing to make concession lines and some of them, you could say, were okay. but in terms of the way national interest had been defined, they were going way off and, you know, trying to make sure that their reputation is going to survive everything has happened, right? we're just about out of time. but this book is just truly a masterpiece. i think both of them both eliot's book in your book were such pleasures to read. and and one last thing i wanted you to talk about is like this book has a wonderful hook at the beginning where you start with the impeachment and you sort of leave thinking he was he was impeached. but for all the wrong reasons, for all the wrong reasons. and so i just thank you for bringing that to the forefront and making us rethink something that i thought we all knew

fairly, fairly well. and thank very much. congratulations.