The History of Literature Podcast is a member of the Podglamorate Network and LIT Hub Radio.

Hello, Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in 1803, in a nation of 5 million people, about a quarter of

whom were enslaved. It was a new government then on its third president.

Three weeks before Emerson was born, the country had made a purchase,

530 million acres of territory,

doubling the country's size for three cents an acre.

There were no cars or electricity, of course,

and for the first 27 years of Emerson's life,

there was no railroad. It was a place that took its cultural lead from

Europe, which had 150 million people in population centers like Paris, which had a

half a million or London, which had over a million.

New York City had just 60,000 people, which was more than double the size of Boston.

Slavery existed and women could not vote.

No internet, no television, no radio, no smartphones.

Emerson once gave a speech entitled, The American Scholar, which Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. called

America's Intellectual Declaration of Independence.

But it's fair to ask the questions, what can Ralph Waldo Emerson possibly

have to say to us today?

Why should we even bother?

How could a man born to a world so different from ours speak with relevance, let alone

insight? James Marcus has been reading Emerson and exploring these very issues.

He helps us understand who Emerson was, what he wrote about, and why we should care.

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