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- [00:01]
A
Hi, Bill Kristol here. Welcome to Bulwark on Sunday. Very pleased to be joined today by Kevin Levin, Civil War historian, American historian with excellent substack Civil War Memory, which I recommend everyone read and subscribe to. Written several books on American history. And I guess, Kevin, your most recent book. Not recent, your forthcoming book is out in September. Say a word about that, because I think it sounds fascinating.
- [00:25]
B
Yeah. Great to be here with you, Bill. Forthcoming book, September with the University of North Carolina Press called A Glorious Fate, the Life and Legacy of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw. So many of you probably remember him from the movie glory in 1989 with Matthew Broderick, Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman. But first biography of Shaw to be published in about 25 years. So I'm really excited about it.
- [00:46]
A
Yeah, that's great. I've admired the Shaw Monument and the Boston Common. And as I was saying to you before the show that I was up just doing something else in Boston, I guess, about half a few months ago, and walked over to look. I said, you're saying near the Commons. So looked over to look at it again. Really a fantastic. And that was put up. I mean, he was famous right after the Civil War in real time, right?
- [01:08]
B
Absolutely. He becomes a martyr to the emancipationist cause almost immediately, in large part because of his mother. And she's largely responsible for that memorial in the Boston Common that was dedicated in 1897. Still, I think our greatest piece of Civil War art, perhaps after the Lincoln Memorial.
- [01:25]
A
Wow, that's an interesting way to think about it. You've written about this a lot. The centrality we'll get to Trump in the 250th and all that, but probably better to begin with something a little more the centrality of the Civil War to American history. I mean, that really is something that took me. I understood it at some level, but I didn't really come to grips with it. I wouldn't say until maybe a few years after I began studying some of this stuff in grad school.
- [01:47]
B
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it is still in some ways that central event in our history. I say that even, you know, as we approach the 250th, but you can't escape that language in our public discourse. We're debating, still debating monuments and Confederate monuments and other Confederate symbols. That language is pervasive still in our culture. And as a historian, I'm fascinated by that. And so it's the reason I sort of explore on my substack and elsewhere, the whole question about memory. How, how do we Remember the past. Why do we disagree about certain aspects of the past? What does it tell us about sort of that national identity?
- [02:26]
A
There's that wonderful Orwell quote that I guess everyone has now used in the last 10 years. And so I hesitate to use it too much, but it is very apt, I mean, from 1984. What is it? Who controls the past, controls the future. Who controls the present, controls the past. Really. It's one of those things I read in 1984 when I was a kid, and I've read it subsequently and thought a bit about it some. But really, I would say, honestly, the Trump era and the attempts to, I would say hijack the past in the present in order to control the future kind of really brings it home. But I suppose that's something we've been doing for. That's. It's an eternal truth, not just a Trump era truth, right?
- [03:00]
B
Oh, I think that's absolutely right. In fact, you know, as much as we talk about what's happening during the Trump era, I think it is important to remember that, you know, our history has always been controversial. We've always disagreed about certain aspects of how we teach it, how we remember it, how we commemorate it. The Civil War is obviously, like I said, central to that process. And, you know, it's always been politicized, and we should remember that. That said, I do think that we are witnessing something quite different over the last few years, and so it's definitely worth exploring.
- [03:36]
A
So say a word about what we're witnessing over the last few years. I do. I will come back to the Civil War Amendments. I know you have some interesting thoughts on the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, which. Which have celebrated Raider the crime commemorated what, 15 years ago or so?
- [03:48]
B
Obviously.
- [03:48]
A
So. But, yeah. What's the core of what strikes you about this? The Trump attempt, Pretty organized attempt with Freedom250 and the diversion of federal fines. It's not like people. So just treat it as if it's just a few tweets by Trump, but it's not. There's a lot of money and a lot of federal agencies involved and so forth to shape our understanding of the 250th.
- [04:09]
B
There was certainly a lot of organization and thinking that went into this, and we can go back, I guess, to the end of Trump's first term. That's when he formed Project 1776, which was at the time a response to the 1619 project out of the New York Times. And, you know, when he came back into office in January 2025, you know, he restarted that project and then shortly thereafter created his own sort of 250th organization or movement called the Freedom 250, which, of course, stands in contrast to what Congress authorized back in 2016, which is the America250 organization. And so it was very clear from the beginning. I think there was a lot of anticipation as to what extent Trump would try to hijack the 250th. I certainly didn't have any answers at that time. But when he created the Freedom250 sort of organization framework, it was pretty clear to me that he was going to attempt to go as far as he could in terms of branding the 250th right to sort of stamp his own image as much as possible on that. And I think that is what. That's what's new about this. Again, you know, we talked before the show about the bicentennial, certainly controversial, certainly politicized, but we didn't see the Nixon administration sort of create its own organization at that time. Right. There were a lot of funds that were appropriated. But again, Congress, I think, took the lead, and I think that's very different from what we're seeing this time. And we're seeing this play out in, you know, on a daily basis right now, as we approached, what, just a few weeks away to the. To the official 250th. So a lot has already happened. You know, we can talk about, you know, the problem with the National Park Service, the Smithsonian NEH Grants, and then also, of course, the extent to which Trump is really going to impact how Americans in their respective communities will actually experience the 250.
- [06:15]
A
Yeah, I mean, I think there's sort of two things going on. Maybe it's worth separating a little, which is one is, I mean, Trump being a. Whatever he is, a narcissist or something, you know, wants it to be about him. So that's one thing. And that we've never had a. That degree of narcissism in the Oval Office before. Sure. Or people may have had that degree, but people didn't feel they could express it, you know, and didn't have a whole administration with full of people helping him carry out his narcissistic wishes. But then there's also the more ideological project, which one associates, as you say, with that Project 1776, with Claremont, with the whole school of thinkers, if you want to call, and historians or quasi historians and organizations that have tried to put a certain kind of. I don't know what to call, you know, patriotic and edifying and whatever whitewashing, one might say stamp on American history and on 250. So, I mean, say a word about each of those aspects and correct me if I sort of have been optimistic that Trump's isn't shaping our understanding that it's sort of failing. I mean, it's, it's, it's a, it's a. I don't like it, and it's annoying and it's, you know, whatever. But anyway, take whatever, pick up whatever, whichever of those things you want.
- [07:22]
B
No, I think, I think you make a good point. I think the way to understand Trump's attempt to frame and control this 250th narrative is a sign of the extent to which, the extent of the changes that we've seen in different respects over the last few decades. So you can look at, for example, what students are learning in the classroom. We can certainly talk about the limitations and the problems of public education. But there's no question that what kids today are learning, the overall narrative that they're learning is a very different one, much more inclusive, much broader, much more complicated than what their parents and especially their grandparents learned. The National Park Service, much broader than
- [08:01]
A
what Donald Trump learned.
- [08:02]
B
No question about that.
- [08:03]
A
I mean, so much about, of him is about what he vaguely remembers. I don't know how much he attended school, but, you know, what he vaguely remembers from the 50s and 60s. Right.
- [08:11]
B
Or misremembers, we could say, but also the National Park Service, the kinds of sort of interpretations that you will find at places like Civil War battlefields or presidential homes, et cetera. Again, much more sort of expansive, much more willing to address some of the more complicated questions that, of course, we were unwilling as a nation to address not that long ago, and especially, of course, in connection to the issues of slavery, issue of race, et cetera. So I think, you know, those, you know, we certainly seen those types of changes over the years, and I think what we're seeing now is an attempt to push back the clock, and I don't think it's really working. I think, you know, the way most people consume history, it is, you know, think about just the amount of information available on the Internet, social media. We can talk about the problems and limitations there as well. But to try to control it, to create a central narrative, I think is incredibly difficult and I would argue a lost cause. And I think it's also safe to say, and I'll end here, the way most Americans are going to experience the 250th early next month is in their own communities. Certainly what Trump has been doing, whether it's a UFC fight or, you know, a prayer service to, you know, mark the nation as a Christian nation. Not too long ago, they might get a lot of media attention, but how Americans are actually going to experience some aspect of the 250th is going to be much more local and have nothing at all to do with what's going on in Washington, D.C. i was struck,
- [09:55]
A
I wrote a little item for morning shots 10 days ago or so, just making the point you made and saying that was good and that Americans really should not let Trump shape. They should enjoy their local ceremonies and also they should enjoy July 4th. Honestly. They don't have to be like us and they don't have to ponder, you know, read up on the history of the. Of July 2nd and July 4th and John Adams's letter and all that. And Jeff, they can just have a good time and appreciate being in America and think a bit about what America has accomplished over the centuries and all that.
- [10:29]
B
Yeah, absolutely. It might be enough on July 4th just to be able to connect with people in your own neighborhood beyond the whole issue of politics, to remind ourselves that perhaps we do have something more in common with one another once we can actually get beyond the divisiveness of our. Of our current politics. Perhaps I'm an old fogey and sort of.
- [10:48]
A
No, no, I think.
- [10:49]
B
But I want to go there.
- [10:51]
A
I think there's a lot to do. I was gonna say, I mean, the response I got to this fairly. I thought straightforward and little item was pretty. Was more than usual. I mean, I just. People clearly want that. Want what you're saying and they want to kind of go to have that sense. I take it from your account. I mean, I just. On the new understand the current understanding, if I can put it this way, July 4th, the Revolution, the Civil War, etc. You think on the whole, it's been a. I mean, some of my conservative friends, you know, oh my God, Howard, Zen has taken over our history and now it's all kind of quasi Marxist and so forth. I'm not actually, I don't agree with Howard Zinn on various things, but you think on the whole the. It's been a healthy kind of complexifying and deepening of our understanding. Not a kind of. Not a woke count, not a woke hijacking to which Trump is merely engaged in counter Woke hijacking.
- [11:39]
B
Yeah, I think that language of wokeness, at least coming from Trump and others at that sort of, in D.C. within that circle is really an attempt to. To. To use history to serve a certain politics and a certain political agenda. I think if you want to find the quote, unquote, wokeness out there, the sort of the Howard Zins, if you will, you'll find it. But I don't know to what extent, and maybe this is just something we'll have to wait to better understand. Looking back on the 250th, I don't get the sense that that is where most Americans are right now. That's not to minimize the differences in how we are approaching the 250th. But it's hard to know to what extent that sort of broader left agenda, if you will, is defining or to what extent it is defining. I don't get that sense. When I walk into most bookstores, for example, you know, I see a lot of sort of what I would describe as mainstream sort of narrative scholarship. Think about who won, you know, the. The latest Pulitzer Prize for history, and that's Jill Lepore for her recent sort of synthesis, a really nice accounting of the history of the Constitution. She attempted to put out a similar book about American history a couple of years before, called these Truths, and it did fairly well. So I think there is a hunger for really good history and history that is not attempting to push a certain political agenda, whether that be a liberal or conservative one. And I'm also reminded of the loss of the historian Gordon Wood in the last two weeks or week. You know, we really need, I think, voices like his at a time like this, even though, of course, even his scholarship has come under criticism in recent years. But, you know, look, that's part of what we do when, you know, we're engaging in sort of reviewing books and thinking about history critically. And I think I'll just, I want to say this. I think that critical thinking about history is something that the Trump administration has worked very hard to stamp out. Right. And that is, I think that should be our bigger concern, that what it's trying to do in rolling back sort of our understanding of the past is to roll it back to a point where it was this very comforting narrative about 1776 and about American history generally. And we don't really need to do that, I think, to have an embrace, an account that allows us to see both progress and, of course, the work that still needs to be done.
- [14:24]
A
No, I think it's two very important points. I am struck. It's one thing, look, if Trump wants to have a more quote conservative view of American history and think that Jole Flor or whatever has gone too far in the other direction, fine. And he could have people, he can give such speeches and he could even encourage others to. And certainly supporters of his defense of his can. But what's offensive I think is. Yeah, the attempt to suppress dissent. I mean not so far, hopefully too much literally suppress dissent. A little bit of that in terms of funding and in terms of removing things from the Park Service, you know, from government funded bookstores and placards and poster, you know, and memorials and so forth. So rewriting the official history, but also to suppress more broadly, to suppress the sense of making it seem vaguely unpatriotic and illegitimate and you're not a good American. If you have a more critical view of this part of the founding or of this event, this period in American history. I think that the hostility to criticism that really is un American, I think one could say. And yeah, and that's one of the more offensive parts of it, I'd say. The other thing is, I mean I'm old enough to go to have gone to grad school when there really were Marxists and there really was a Marxist school of interpretation of the founding property rights. Charles Beard, I mean neo Marxist, quasi Marxist or something. But you know, Hamilton very bad because he was ally of the capitalist class and while others were wealthy landowners. Some of that certainly could be true, some of it not, whatever. But I'm struck how much the more modern, more pluralistic, inclusive, whatever his historians and historical products, how patriotic they are. I mean it's a liberal form of patriotism, which I think is good, but it's not. I mean you can't say the musical Hamilton is anti American. Right?
- [16:05]
B
That's right.
- [16:05]
A
That's the single most, maybe the single most popular, I don't know, event, you know, an impactful product of American popular culture in the last 15 years. You can't say that the biographies by as you say, all these best selling biographies of various founders and Ron Cherno and all these people, you know, or people in the 19th century of Grant and of you with Robert Gould Shaw and others. These are not. They're most. I'm struck by that. I mean I think they're. The right wing critique is just silly. I mean it's evident that these, that these are books that deepen one's understanding of America. But also I think the end probably one's attachment to America. If you read and these books are popular. That's encouraging, isn't it? That the citizenry want to read about these things?
- [16:49]
B
Absolutely. I'll throw in Nikole, Hannah Jones's name. I mean, I think if you want to pin the conservative response and sort of understand Trump's and the Trump administration's response to, you know, in terms of wanting to control the 250th narrative, I think you can.