#499 – Gary Gallagher: American Civil War, Slavery, Lincoln, Grant & Lee

“And one of the texts I was going to have that I assigned in the class was Huckleberry Finn. And a lot of the students said they wouldn't read Huckleberry Finn because they knew it had language in it and they didn't want to see those words.”

“I think if we ignore history, we're going to be doomed to repeat it. I think that's, we should never censor books. We should read books. We should read Mein Kampf. We should read books that capture a certain moment in history, even if it's a hateful moment in history, even if it's a destructive moment in history.”

“Or do you want to escape? I listen to a mixture. I listen to some history books, but I also listen to some mysteries and some. So fiction is also. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And some books that I think I should listen to and haven't ever gotten around to reading. I did Moby Dick that way.”

“literature that you think is wrong. And you need to, for me, the Union War was trying to rescue something that I thought people just don't understand anymore is what union meant to that generation.”

“you have the Kansas-Nebraska Act, you have Dred Scott, you have the caning of Charles Sumner on the floor of the Senate. You have Uncle Tom's Cabin earlier in the decade in 18, and the impact that that had on attitudes towards slavery doesn't create a bunch of abolitionists, but it creates a bunch of people who rethink their thoughts about slavery.”

“So the classics also? Oh, yeah. But I've never read War and Peace. And I don't think I ever will. I think I would have done it by now if I was going to. We're making a statement today. I like, I like a person. It's not, not always, but I like short books.”