FATHER FIGURE. IN MOTION: 1/8 Travels with George: In Search of Washington and His Legacy, by Nathaniel Philbrick.
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 6 August 2023
⏱️ 9 minutes
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FATHER FIGURE. IN MOTION: 1/8 Travels with George: In Search of Washington and His Legacy, by Nathaniel Philbrick.
https://www.amazon.com/Travels-George-Search-Washington-Legacy/dp/0525562176/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
When George Washington became president in 1789, the United States of America was still a loose and quarrelsome confederation and a tentative political experiment. Washington undertook a tour of the ex-colonies to talk to ordinary citizens about his new government, and to imbue in them the idea of being one thing—Americans.
In the fall of 2018, Nathaniel Philbrick embarked on his own journey into what Washington called “the infant woody country” to see for himself what America had become in the 229 years since. Writing in a thoughtful first person about his own adventures with his wife, Melissa, and their dog, Dora, Philbrick follows Washington’s presidential excursions: from Mount Vernon to the new capital in New York; a monthlong tour of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island; a venture onto Long Island and eventually across Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. The narrative moves smoothly between the eighteenth and twenty-first centuries as we see the country through both Washington’s and Philbrick’s eyes
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is CBS Eye on the World. |
| 0:08.0 | Here's John Bachelor. |
| 0:10.0 | I welcome Nathaniel Filbra, the author of the exciting and comprehensive |
| 0:16.0 | news story of George Washington on the road. |
| 0:20.0 | It is entitled Travels with George in search of Washington and his legacy. |
| 0:26.0 | We begin in April 1789. |
| 0:29.0 | George Washington is an Elizabeth New Jersey getting on a barge that will carry him across |
| 0:35.0 | the vast New York harbor to the capital. |
| 0:38.0 | The capital of the United States just conceived as in New York at this point. |
| 0:43.0 | Not a very good even to you. |
| 0:46.0 | Congratulations. |
| 0:48.0 | George Washington has traveled from April 16th to April 24th from his home in Mount Vernon. |
| 0:55.0 | And he's now traversing the harbor, this vast confluence of rivers and sea to take up his post. |
| 1:05.0 | What do you imagine is his thinking, his mood, the inner Washington that it's hidden from us because Martha |
| 1:13.0 | burned his letters and her letters and also because he didn't write much in his diary about how he felt. |
| 1:18.0 | Good evening to you, Matt. |
| 1:20.0 | It's great to be with you, John. |
| 1:22.0 | It's a great question. |
| 1:24.0 | What is the inner Washington? |
| 1:26.0 | Some people suggested it didn't exist, but it did. |
| 1:29.0 | Washington kept a diary during his travels. |
| 1:32.0 | And in it, he reveals that he is an inner turmoil throughout his journey from Mount Vernon to New York. |
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