I'm Bob Crawford.

I'm Ben Sawyer, and this is the road to now.

In more ways than one today, Bob.

Yeah, it is always in more way than one for us, Ben.

And this week, the road kind of doubles back a little bit to talk to an old friend who has a new

book. Our guest today is John Grinspan. He's a curator of political history at the Smithsonian's National

Museum of American History. He's also the author of a book, The Age of Acrimony, that we discussed last year.

Before we get into your new book, John, that we're really excited to talk about, I got to ask you

about this. A couple months ago, it's Sunday morning. I'm drinking my coffee. I'm watching

meet the press, which I do every Sunday morning. And Mitt Romney's on.

And he's talking about this book he is reading The Age of Acrimony. Did you know he was reading

the book? And did you have any sense in your imagination that he might mention it on national television.

I had no idea. I was, honestly, I was at the gym. I wasn't paying attention. I don't watch

Sunday morning news, but my brother is a news junkie and started texting me. It was really kind

to him, and we were able to get together and meet and talk history. He's a fascinating guy who really thinks a lot about history and has all these charts on the wall of his office that show different phases in world history. He's really clued in. And it was, it was great to connect with him. So that was, yeah, that was a highlight. That was very fun. Did he ask you what you're working on, what you were working on presently? You know, when you're working on something, it's not a question of ask. It's like just talks everyone's ear off until they get bored of it. So he was kind and interested. What a great guy. So that was, I have nothing but good things to say. I'm just curious if you sent him a copy of Wide Awake, The Forgotten Force that elected Lincoln and spurred

the Civil War, your new book, which comes out the day after this interview airs on May 14th.

Did you get to share this with him?

I was lucky enough to, I'm giving out to everybody.

You know, this is something I've worked on for 17 years. I've been so psyched about this project for so long that like, stop me on the street. I'll give you a copy. There's just that, that energy at this point. You know, I thought when Bob told me that story when we were hanging out this weekend, I said, I guess this is a good time to have a politician reference a good history book

they're reading because there probably isn't much competition in terms of other politicians

mentioning good history books they're reading. So it seems like you've kind of got one of the few

guys left in prominent in politics who was reading history. You know, it's funny. At the Smithsonian,

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