Hello and welcome to the Bookmark.

I'm Christine Brown, your host.

Today my guest is Arthur Garson, Jr., author of "5000 Years of Controversies: A Family's Journe Through World History".

Tim, thank you for being here.

Great to be here.

Thank you.

This book, this I know if you can see how big this book is, this is a large volume.

I mean, but it's 5000 years of history.

So it is it's going to be a large book.

Can you start just by introducing the book to us?

Sure.

Maybe start back with what's a pediatric cardiologist doing writing a history, sir.

That's that's a good place to start on.

Somewhere in the middle.

I wound up the provost of the University of Virginia.

Now, that's an odd job in.

And if you go and you ask probably 20,000 college students.

Water Provost is not one.

We'll be able to tell you what that is.

Generally, it's whatever the president doesn't want to do.

And so they're very different jobs.

I had a great I was the University of Virginia, had a wonderful president, and I spent most of the time recruiting deeds.

But after on the dock.

And so after about five years of that, it was go be a college president.

I don't think so.

Look.

Look at all the stuff that's going on right now.

Thank you.

Or go back to health care.

So I started at Health Policy Institute, got recruited to go back to history.

This was from Virginia, and I did that for a while and sort of said, all right, I'm ready to do something new.

Back as provost, I had put a group of people together of all things, you know, this was ten years ago.

On what are humans going to do when AI this is ten years ago, when AI emerges even more rigorous before GPT is before any of this.

What are humans going to do?

And what we decided was, well, you know, a bunch of really smart people should get together and figure out every year or two or every five years, what's the minimum amount a college educated human oughta know to stay with or ahead of AI?

That was what we decided to do.

And it was, you know, students and faculty and community members saying all kinds of folks.

And the first thing we all decided that was pretty vital is it should know something about world history.

Why not?

Why why wouldn't you say.

Now, the odd thing about this is the last history course I took was in sixth grade.

Unlike history.

And so I said to myself, okay, it's time.

If everybody says, well, let's start with history.

I figured, all right, I'm I'm done with the Health Policy Institute.

I'm going to do something when I write a history book.

But why did I write a history book for people who aren't historians?

And that's the purpose of this book, is to do a whole lot more than history.

So this is wrapped around it's a history book, but it's it's a play.

Each chapter is a short play of beginning at, you know, the first course with a mother, her 12 year old daughter and her 15 year old son.

50 times through history.

And each time the mother is teaching there in their own setting, there 2500 years before Christ on.

And so there's a page of sort of what the setting is.

And then the mother teaches her two kids in very colloquial play like, but facts that are probably not as many facts as your basic horrendous history book.

But plenty of historical fact, but wrapped into conversation and then dessert.

The father and the uncle have a fight, and I couldn't say 5000 years of fights.

So I said 5000 years of controversies.

And that's what it is.

The book is really about controversies.

The facts are great.

And, you know, it's important to get the setting, but the controversies are there to remind people, to remind students largely and the general public, that we can talk to each other.

We can debate this awful number that it is like in the last 13 years, we say 130,000 less words to each other than we did when we talk to each other.

So this is not magically a book that's going to say everybody has to talk to each other, but it's a book that says, and I've done that many debates.

Debates are tough.

I've done a couple.

And this takes the controversies through 50 of them, but with no answer.

So I hope now I've not had anybody say to me, Will you fool?

Chapter 17, you know, is absolutely for this.

Instead of that, I'm trying very hard to make it eighth grade and to make it even in the controversies, so easier than others.

Sure.

But the idea and, you know, the watchword.

Critical thinking.

The the idea is really my goal is to get to know historians and really students.

And I now have found how difficult it is to get a book to students.

I wish it wasn't, but it is.

And I don't know how I, I don't know where that's going to go, as I told you.

We've got 16 podcasts that are brewing.

Maybe that'll be allowed or maybe some.

Maybe that because I want students, just like when we were talking in that provost group of everybody need to know on, you know, foreign language that that got there.

But imagine it's ten years from now.

Do you really need to speak that foreign language, or is it really in your right ear and you're speaking through your left mouse and then so on.

I when we talked about AI, I, I know very little, not enough to be dangerous because I don't even know that I don't even know that much, but I know enough to say the word inconceivable.

And I every time I talk about it, I actually.

Chapter 50 is on AI.

Chapter 50 was fun.

49 was fun.

One was fun because I had to start somewhere.

That was fun.

I, I decided I didn't make a climate change.

Chapter one is the pyramids.

And about 400 years after the pyramids, Egypt stopped just boom.

That was the end of the of the First Intermediate Period, called when the Nile stopped and Egypt needed the Nile.

Nile stops.

Right.

And what it turns out had happened is a bunch of in Ethiopia, of all things south, where the Nile source of the one of the sort of sources of the Nile.

A bunch of volcanoes similar about one right after the other.

After the other.

Completely blocked out.

The no rain on and the I gather the right climate conditions.

No Nile flow for seven years died.

So the controversy, I figured, well, you know, what's the other end of that?

The gods.

And so chapter one on is a a if you're then on okay the gods.

And so I went through what, what they thought at the time about the gods which god.

And then I sort of gave the father and he said, well, maybe we'll call this climate change.

Obviously it wasn't, but it I mean, obviously I think it was and, fairly well documented.

So that was fun.

50 was fun because it's 30 years from now, and I, I don't know a whole lot of history books that go 30 years in the future.

But my book, you know, you make the rules, my book said, see and, they, they start now.

So they started 20, 25.

And they, they were dinner, regular old dinner.

They got typical controversy.

And in 2030.

So there for dinners and in 2035, this person shows up named ten.

And the one of I think the father the uncle brings him says, well, I'd like to introduce introduce you all the ten, which for those of you, that's my next on.

And so Tim shows up at dinner and, says very little, and the uncle introduces him and says, you know, he didn't talk much, but but he's a really interesting guy when you start to get him talking.

He didn't talk much at the first.

He didn't talk too much at the second.

But then it got to be 30 years from now and they start talking about, you know, sometime pretty soon we're going to have these androids where there's no human parts at all, and you know that.

And of course, the at that will never happen and forget it and all that.

And so they get to the very end and and so Tim, what do you think.

And says, well, I am one that's in the book.

So, you know, like I said, my book always.

So it was fun in those ways to write.

It was a written enough stuff in this my 10th book, tooling, Health Policy and the rest and cardiology.

And I, I never obviously, I never wrote anything that was shortened for everybody but me.

Was that fun?

Was that was it difficult to change gears from from such different writing to what as you do?

It's a lot of dialog.

I mean, so it's it's very different.

It is.

It just sort of happened.

I didn't, All right.

I know, because I've read a whole bunch of books on how to write, and, a lot of them, they don't talk about how to write a history, but a lot of them talk about novels.

And you have you should write the story and then put it in the dialog, and I, I just put I just did the dialog, so I, I found it easier to write the dialogs and the introduction for each chapter, because I wanted the introduction to actually be well written prose.

I don't do well in prose all that much, so I really had to think about getting really good writers.

So the the introductory page for me, it was harder than a sort of anybody can talk to each other, which is what what was fun about, I think, to your goal about trying to get people who are interested in history into history.

I've always found two of the best tricks or ways to help people is to to have them put themselves in.

What must it have been like?

You know, what can you imagine?

And and then this book does that so.

Well, it just it plops you right down.

So I'm at the dinner table with this family, which which makes it more real, I think.

I think a lot, a lot of young students maybe have the tendency to, oh, two states in a book.

You know, it doesn't have to do with me, but it does, because there were people just like me experiencing these things.

What would they have talked about?

That's my hope.

And it it really.

Anybody out there that can get the book into high schools let me know I you know, it's too bad.

I, there's a I found out that I'm not even there.

High schools in Houston that might want me or it.

Neither one.

I can't go in and the book can't go in on it.

That's too bad to me.

I mean, you know, the world won't go on and told.

And maybe, you know, somebody will hand that.

Maybe not the school, but maybe a grandparent or a friend or an aunt or somebody will see this book and think, I know just the young person that that whose hands need.

I hope so, I really do.

I you know, there's I hope also a bunch of because this really is not a fictional I mean it's hard to know what to call it on, but the only thing fictional about it is the words they use to describe the true nonfiction history that I didn't.

The first eight books I read were world history texts, and I took notes on I. I probably, who knows, but I took notes on absolutely everything I read.

So the those history books and it's fascinating to see how different they are and what they pick to talk about and what they pick not to talk about.

And obviously certain I did the same thing, right?

I mean, in however, you know, because each chapter isn't that long.

So I did the same thing.

What I, I did the dialog with the thought of, okay, what do people really need to know about this?

But I could certainly be wrong 106% of the time.

But what I also like that you did is that, you know, each chapter is its own self-contained moment.

And then I think this was really clever.

You put the bibliography right there in that chapter.

So, you know, say you and your family or a student is reading the section on the Vietnam War.

They don't have to flip all the way to the back of the book if they want to know more about that, if they if this has sparked an interest right there.

The next page is a list of of reading material that they can go get more of a full source.

Could I read that to you?

Yeah, it it was fun.

I, I, I don't, you know, I, I don't see volume two or addition two because it I as we were talking about before on trying to pick podcasts.

Strange.

Okay.

What and I only picked 16 because I couldn't get it below 16.

I kept trying to get to 15, couldn't do it and certainly couldn't do five.

And you know what's most important?

And well, I asked, you know, Lauren is wonderful.

The publisher, and you know, asked him, most important.

Yes.

My wife.

You know what?

What are the five big deals?

William Vickrey I sort of got to 15 that maybe, but it's the fine words.

I left me out.

I left the end because it's it's more fun than history, and somebody's really going to pay whatever a thing.

So I left that out because, so you mentioned a lot if I can't imagine those history books.

Yes, you read the textbooks, but as you said, hey, you probably read a lot more.

Definitely.

This is I just can't imagine the research that was done.

Well, it was funny.

There's a guy in I live in the high rise, and, there's a guy that I see occasionally, and, you know, we had over for dinner and he said, you know, I, I need to, you know, have a drink and you need to tell me how you found the researchers.

Well, I said, say that again.

And he said, well, you know, eight 1020 how many people, how many people did you get to do this?

And I said, me, John, what?

And I said, me and I'm very expensive, so I don't think you can pay me enough to whatever.

But yeah, I mean, the wonderful thing and I, you know, you read books by people about writing and there's reasons people write what are which is money, right?

People, you know, professional authors want all that money.

And now I'm like, Lauren does the publisher does I get it?

Sure.

But that was not a driving force.

Nor did nor ever anybody have a deadline.

So I could write when I wanted.

Usually it was, you know, about six hours a day.

And, you know, obviously did the research.

It was each chapter at a time.

So I did the research, wrote the chapters, didn't go back.

I probably remember about an eighth of it.

And but I, I, I got into it and I just sort of I, I did it, you know, I think somewhere in the middle we went to Norway to see the northern lights and then not see it said, oh, of course, our son Joker, friend of mine, we were there.

So we went 250 miles north of the circle, the place, of course, people in Virginia.

So we're going to the place and its three in the morning and, you know, got the 26 layers of stuff on it.

And they there's eight of us in this band and the driver says we're there where they are.

So they're charging look up.

I said, we need you're there.

Fortunately, somebody was standing next to me and said, okay, fool, you gotta you can't see it with your eyes.

You've got to put your camera to it tonight, something.

And if you do that, you'll see and assures the devil that's but paying.

I want it to be based, do you know?

Oh, hey, there, there.

Anyway, I did not.

And somebody the next day sent me a New York Times article that came out that day that said, okay, everybody, if you're going to go prepare for looking through your camera anyway, I didn't I. Long story.

I didn't take the didn't take any of the book stuff.

So I mean, when I was on vacation, I was on vacation.

I also like there's a, there's a familiarity, I think, in maybe, maybe your mother didn't teach you history at the dinner table, but, maybe your dad and your uncle did argue over things after.

Shout out to my uncle who might be watching this.

We called him uncle.

Know at all because he did know it all.

Or what?

He didn't know he could make up very convincingly.

So there's a little there's a familiarity in this idea of those, those dessert conversations or or as a kid, you're kind of overhearing the adults discuss things and you don't maybe fully understand it, but it's exciting.

And you want to learn and you want to you want to eavesdrop and nothing else.

So my father graduated from high school at ten, graduated from college at 14, and went to his father's reservists.

And that was the family business, very successful family business that no way in the world.

How far away from brass can you get?

Pediatric cardiology.

I think I'll be a doctor.

My brother.

Wasn't quite.

Yeah.

Went in and it wasn't fully.

When you live west, there's a point to this.

I trust me when you live with a guy that smart.

And they measured his IQ at 182.

It was the first, but who knows what it would be measured now.

It was the first.

I think it was the first year that they had an IQ test that they had that that test on British or wrong.

I mean, that's true.

And you don't get to have opinions.

And so this was actually a reaction to that of we're going to have people who are going to argue about something and who are not come to a conclusion rather than living with somebody who's always, right.

So this was not this was a reaction to that brilliant guy, funny guy, fun to grow up with.

But that wasn't dinner.

I was going to ask if you had a favorite, but you said you couldn't even narrow it down to 16 favorites.

So you do you this you.

If you've been through billions of books, in order to start it, there's this immense activation energy to start.

So the first chapter sort of was my favorite because, you know, without a without the first chapter in our second chapter.

So the first and the last for very different reasons, were favorites.

I, I there I, I have I had to be careful in picking the 16.

Just there's a lot of ethics in this and this wonderful for an ethics course.

You know, as you pointed out, the neat thing about it is the chapters are completely separate.

So you can pick one and 26 and go back to three and doesn't matter.

The, the ethics there, three in the middle all about sort of the ethics of war.

And with suddenly I hope different ways of looking at one was dropping bombs on.

They knew at the end of World War two that they were dropping bombs on civilians.

They knew that they did it on purpose.

Okay.

On little hard for me to write the other side of and but, there was a very at least it was attributed to the world leaders that he insisted on doing that.

No.

Okay, so that's the other side.

Obviously, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there's another side to those.

Should they or should they?

And the other one is penicillin that people don't think about much.

But we have the formula for penicillin and didn't give it to the Germans.

And another sort of in the three in a row, and they're all about sort of more, but they're about different.

I, I don't think that I got into the ethics of war capital w I don't think I did that.

No, it it was focused.

I which I think I appreciate because some questions are maybe too big for, for the, the way you're trying to tackle it.

I'm going to have to interrupt though.

Unfortunately we're running short on time.

Oh, so in our final in a final minute, what would you hope people take away from the book?

All right.

I'd like them to take away process.

I'd like them to talk to each other.

I'd like them.

I mean, right now there's data that high schools teachers have quit doing debates in high school.

The, the the notion.

So I would hope that teachers and parents would come away with this and use it for process, use it for a play, use it for a debate.

I'm going to our University of Virginia next week, and I'm going to be with a professor teaching a debate.

We're going to have a debate in class.

And that's what I'd like.

People, if I would do it at home, was try to, you know.

Oh, what did you do yesterday?

No.

Let's pick a chapter, read it.

And.

Well, I hope that happens.

I, I hate that we're well, we're talking less to each other because that's that's vital, as you say.

So I really do hope that this sparks some of those conversations.

Again.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for being here.

I really appreciate you coming in and talking to us about this book.

The book, again, is "5000 Years of Controversies" So that's all the time we have for today.

Thank you so much for joining us, and I'll see you again soon.