Hi, I'm Jeff Sickinga, executive director of the Ashbrook Center, and this is the American

idea, where we discuss the ideas, people, and events that have made America what it is today.

We believe that by understanding our history and our principles, we can better

live up to the promise of the American founding and preserve our ongoing experiment in self-government.

Welcome to the American Idea.

I want to welcome everyone to this episode of the American Idea.

Today we're going to be talking about a very important figure in American history, particularly

American history in the 20th century, but perhaps a figure about whom there is not as much

correct, accurate, well-grounded understanding of than maybe any other figure in the 20th century, I would venture to say.

That figure is Herbert Hoover.

Who was Herbert Hoover?

What was his importance?

And what are the myths about Herbert Hoover that we might need to investigate a little bit more?

And to join me for this conversation is a person who I would... about Herbert Hoover, that we might need to investigate a little bit more.

And to join me for this conversation is a person who I would argue,

no one in the world knows more about Herbert Hoover than our guest today, George Nash.

Dr. Nash is an independent scholar.

He's an American historian, of course, a well-known interpreter of American political and intellectual movements, particularly American conservatism.

He is a senior fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal and a widely published author.

He has published a number of books, a couple that would stick out, I think, to our listeners,

and certainly were important for me in understanding 20th century intellectual history.

One in particular, the conservative intellectual movement since 1945.

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