Today I have a special guest with me, Philip Lee, who's written a number of books on Southern history.

One of them, I actually have in my hands right now, called Southern Reconstruction.

I haven't read the whole thing yet.

I look forward to doing so.

What led you to write on this

subject? Because I mean this isn't something that someone usually wakes up one

day and says yeah I'd love to be blacklisted from academia I'm going to write

positive things about Southern history and you seem to have done that

writing positive but accurate books. What made you interested in this to begin with?

Well I guess you know

interested in this to begin with? Well I guess you know as I get older I care less

about what people think and more about you know what what do I want to

accomplish and what I felt was with the Confederate

monuments that they were getting kind of a bum rap and even though the

Confederacy was set up to perpetuate slavery at least for the first seven states.

But there was still a lot to admire

in the leaders, particularly the military leaders.

And there may be a day come again when we'll want the kind of character

that some of those leaders provided.

If you look, for example, at World War I and World War II and Vietnam,

a number of the soldiers that went there, at least some of them, were inspired by Confederate

leaders. One of them was Dwight Eisenhower.

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