Hi, this is Josh Marshall, and this is the Josh Marshall podcast. We have something pretty different today.

We are going to talk to one of the preeminent Civil War historians,

American Civil War historians of the last 30 or 40 years.

His name is James McPherson.

I believe he's an emeritus professor now at Princeton University, but again if you go back to the late 20th century in the early 21st century, one of the preeminent historians of that period of American history.

Now, this is not, as you know, this is not generally a Civil War history

podcast, but the reason that I wanted to talk with McPherson is that many people, and you've probably heard of this yourself, talk about the way that the 1850s, the decade before the outbreak of the U.S. Civil War in 1861, has some

discomforting, challenging parallels with our own time.

You have a period of extreme political polarization, some creeping

of violence into the political sphere, and in a broader sense a failure of governmental institutions

to absorb and sort of litigate the disagreements that are inherent at any political moment.

So I wanted to talk with McPherson about what were the 1850s like, what were the basic dynamics,

and at least implicitly, is that period similar to ours?

And I guess in the background a more frightening question do we have a

Civil War coming in in the American future

So that's what I wanted to speak with McPherson about and we are going to get to that in just a moment.

Before then, talk briefly about the news of this week.

Obviously we have a former president George H.W. Bush passed away.

I guess is it Saturday night David?

Late Friday night.

Okay, late Friday night.

And was lived a very long life, was 94 years old.

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