Welcome to Kurt Affairs. My name is Dathan Robinson. I am the editor-in-chief of Current Affairs

Magazine, and I am here today.

I am joined by the legendary historian Harvey J.K.

He is professor of Democracy and Justice Studies at the University of Wisconsin Green Bay.

And he is the author of a number of books, including Thomas Payne and the Promise of America,

the Fight for the Four Freedoms, What made FDR and the Greatest Generation truly great,

including the book, Why Do Ruling Classes Fear History?

And including the book, Take Hold of Our History, Make America Radical Again.

And take hold of our history, Make America Radical again, has a blurb from the legendary TV producer, Norman Lear, creator of All in the Family, who says, no one has ever

loved a nation more or spanked it harder for straying from its premise than Harvey Kay. And the reason

I love that quote is that it does really capture one of the central

themes that runs through all of your work, all of these different books that I've cited that

you've put out over the years, which have a common underpinning, which is trying to dig out

and redeem what is best and most noble about American history,

while, as he says, spanking the country hard for its various transgressions.

So Professor Kay, thank you so much for talking to me today.

Oh, thank you.

The latest book that you have put out is a kind of recapitulation,

take hold of our history. That title really, really captures what sort of comes up in the Thomas

Payne book, in the Four Freedoms book. You have that wonderful question. Why do you rule in

class is fear history? It seems like as a historian, this is how I'm going

to characterize you and then you could correct me if it's an unfair characterization. As a

...