You are one of my favorite historians. This is like a dream come true to say with you.

At your service, it is great. You have written so much, and I want to hit on a lot of

these. The idea of the decline in Western history, Joseph McCarthy, how the Scots invented

the modern world, the rule to rule the waves, how the British Navy shaped. I've got questions

on that one. Gandhi Churchill, I am fascinated by those two. One of my favorite books of all

time is Freedom's Forge that you wrote, How American Business Produced Victory in World

War II, The Cave and the Light, Douglas MacArthur, and 1917, Lenin Bice. I know you do. I know

you do. My feeling is an historian, you can't afford to despise your figures, what you're

trying to do is get inside their minds and figure out why they did what they did and what

the consequence of what they did. Was it a good thing or was it ultimately a bad thing?

I think we have to say about Wilson ultimately, he was a lot of bad things. A lot of bad things.

He was a bad guy, the way he loved the clan and all of that stuff.

That was part of the times, I think, and also part of his background. There are many things

to dislike about Wilson. A lot of his thinking on things like race is very, very different

from what we think. Not so different from the way a lot of people did at the time, of course,

particularly if he came from Virginia, rural Virginia as he did. But the thing that's so fascinating

about Wilson is that he was a man so utterly convinced of his rightness, of a level of self-righteousness

that would allow him, in his own mind, to lie to people that would allow him, you know,

the means, the ends justify any means. That's very much part of Wilson's personality.

Very much. Very much.

And I guess what I don't like about him and some of the people that surrounded him and

the progressive era that he really kind of pushed forward is that era again. And we're

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