10 Questions for David McCullough

In this Time Magazine interview historian David McCullough talks about his new book The Greater Journey and how the French influenced a generation of ambitious Americans.

Self-study activity:
Watch the interview and say whether the statements below are true or false.



1. The period David McCullough has written about in his book is most of the 19th century.
2. The people David McCullough writes about are politicians and high officials in the administration.
3. Augustus Saint Gaudens worked as a shoemaker.
4. The schools of art and architecture in Paris were far better than those in US.
5. Samuel Morse invented the telegraph.
6. Charles Sumner was an advocate for abolitionism.
7. David McCullough is currently working for the US Information Agency in Washington.

Hi, I’m Belinda Luscombe. I’m an editor at large at Time Magazine. Today’s 10 Questions answerer is David McCullough, the author of nine books. His newest is called The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris. Thank you so much for being here.
Thank you.
Now your new book is about a bunch of Americans who moved to Paris and they were a mix of professions, largely artists and writers. The effect it had on them and thus, I guess, the effect it had on America, it seems like a sort of strange subject considering our history. What made you think of it?
Well, I’m drawn to it because the big period of the experience of Americans in Europe and in Paris in particular about which very little had been done. And it’s the period of 1830’s and 1900. We know a good deal about the time when Franklin Adams and Jefferson were all in Paris and we’ve heard more than a great deal about the 1920’s and 30’s, the Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein time. And my feeling was that this period brought to France for a very specific kind of ambition a group of Americans who in many ways are among the most interesting and important figures in American life in that span of time. I also feel very strongly that history ought to been seen as a great deal more than just politics and the military and this was a chance for me to illustrate that with the lives of these individual people.
Who was your favourite character from the book?
Augustus Saint Gaudens is one of my favourite characters that I’ve ever written about in my writing life. Infinitely interesting man. Complicated. Immensely talented and important. An immigrant shoemaker’s son who was put to work at age 13. Street kid here in New York, who felt he had talent that could be, could be something. And he, and he was determined to excel. They all were in that period ambitious to excel, I think it’s the common ingredient in the outlook of these young people. Remember there were no schools of art, no art museums here, no schools of architecture. If you wanted to become an architect, there was no place you could study architecture, so you went to Paris.
Samuel Morse, he was one of the guys that fascinated me. How did he go from portrait painter when he went to Paris to the guy who invented like the single line telegraphs and the code?
Well, I don’t think in that day people saw that they had to necessarily belong to one category. The fact that Morse was a painter and a very gifted painter, a brilliant painter, did not mean that he couldn’t have other ideas. And while he was in Paris he got the idea for the telegraph. Now a man like Charles Sumner brought back another kind of an idea. He brought back the realization for him that we, in America, treated black people the way we did largely because of what we’d been taught, that treating black people as equals was part of the natural order of things because he saw it demonstrated in how the French students treated black students at the Sorbonne, where he was taking courses of all kinds. And that, that changed our history because Sumner, who was only a young lawyer then, decided to devote his life to politics and to the abolitionist movement, became the most powerful voice for abolition in the United States Senate. So if that, if the book were about that one man’s one experience in Paris and how it mushroomed him into a larger effect on the country, that would have made the point. But I wanted to make the point in a variety of ways because I believe so strongly that history is more than just soldiers and politicians.
Do you ever wish you stayed at Sports Illustrated?
No.
Never?
No, I loved being in Time Inc. I worked at Architectural Forum, which is no longer being published, and I worked at Time. I worked at three different places. I got wonderful training, made great friends. I learned a lot about writing, learned a lot about self-editing, which is the real point of it all, learning to edit yourself. But I was ready to move on and when President Kennedy was elected and he called on people to do something for their country, I took it very much to heart and went to Washington to work with the US Information Agency under Edward R. Murrow and that was very exciting. And I learned  a great deal there of a different kind.
Now from the point of view of the present, we look back, we look at history and we think, you know, often in a sort of childlike way how could people have possibly owned slaves, how could that happen. [Yes.] What was the thing? How could we have thought it was okay to not educate with it. [Yes.] What do you think? Our… the people that will come after us will look back and say, how, what where they thinking? How could they have done this?
How could they spent so much time of their lives sitting, watching television. You mean, they spend seven hours a day watching that? That is a really good answer, it’s not what I was expecting. David McCullough, thank you so much for coming and seeing us today.
Thank you very much. I’ve hugely enjoyed it. I truly have. Thank you.

Key:
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10 Questions for Mika Brzezinski

Author and Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski talks about her food addiction, obesity in America, and how writing her book Obsessed transformed her life and that of her collaborator, journalist Diane Smith.

Self-study activity:
Watch the interview and say whether the statements below are true or false.




1 Mainstream scientists support Mika Brzezinski's ideas.
2 The problems that an obese woman and those of a woman who is skinny with eating disorders are fairly similar.
3 Chris Christie is a politician.
4 Diane Smith weighs 265 pounds.
5 Mika Brzezinski implies she had weight problems.
6 Mika Brzezinski's family used to be fond of McDonalds.
7 Wealthy people are usually thinner.
8 Soda pop is unhealthy.
9 Mika Brzezinski used to live on a farm.
10 Mika Brzezinski used to eat junk food in secret.

Hi, I’m Belinda Luscombe from Time. Mika Brzezinski is a best-selling author and journalist. The co-host of Morning Joe on MSNBC, and she’s written a new book about food and her own feelings about food. And I’m delighted to say that she’s here with us today. Thanks for coming.

Thank you.

You say in the book that you’re addicted to certain food. Can you explain how we can be addicted to food?

There’s actually a growing amount of science out there about certain ingredients being toxic, and sugar is one of them. And I actually add in and back up with the help of doctors and nutritionists the word addictive, which I don’t think mainstream science is ready to completely embrace that. I am, and when I confronted a friend about her obesity, we put together this book, worked on it together. She actually penned a chapter in it, but we did the research together and we discovered that there is not that big a gap between the problems that a woman who is obese confronts and the problems that a woman who is skinny with eating disorders confronts. And it revolves around an addiction to certain foods that give a brain reward, that give a physical feeling of exuberation, that you can get anywhere else if you suffer from this addiction.

You’re not worried that we are pathologising what might just be a, a problem of habits.

So, can I challenge you, and we can get into it a little bit?

Of course, my pleasure.

Okay, do you think that Chris Christie is undisciplined and just has bad habits?

It would seem unlikely that a man in his position could get to be governor of New Jersey to be completely undisciplined.

Right. So Diane Smith, an Emmy award-winning journalist, brilliant woman, do you think that she could get to 256 pounds because she’s undisciplined and just has bad habits?

Again, it seems unlikely, could be a metabolism problem which, which isn’t not necessarily though the same as addiction.

I think once you find your way into the abyss of obesity, your metabolism is destroyed and then you do have a problem. But getting there is not a lack of discipline. Getting there is not a habit problem. There is a science behind what is happening in our country, and for me to get to where I was, to look the way I did on television, you wouldn’t believe what I put myself through. So if I had to put myself through that to get there, I understand why Diane was obese. And I say was, because she’s lost a lot of weight by virtue of what we’ve done.

So, the sort of things you put yourself through, your book describes what, you were always hungry, pretty much always hungry, always thinking about food?

That was, those were the safer, more healthy days, yeah. I mean, at the height of it, I would run 10 miles and then eat a lot. Or I would just totally go crazy and eat all weekend, and then hate myself, and starve myself and exercise like crazy. It was ridiculous, it was no way to live.

Were there be certain foods that set you off more than others?

The smell of certain junk foods that I grew up on, like McDonald’s fries or Domino’s pizza or all those just hideously unhealthy foods that we would eat as families to be happy in America. My family didn’t, so I felt I was being deprived, so I went out to find them.

Should food not be so cheap, is that part of the problem?

Well, bad food shouldn’t be so cheap and good food should be more cheap. People should have access to good, healthy food and you shouldn’t have to be a millionaire to be able to eat healthy. And you notice, really, really, really wealthy people who want to eat well, look amazing, and they’re incredibly thin. You know, it’s…, come on, we can do better than this, I think. But, you know, when Mayor Bloomberg tries to put a tax on soda pop, which to me is liquid poison, and I can’t even imagine serving that to your children a few times a week, I can’t imagine why any parent would do that, but you see people absolutely throwing their arms up in the air and their hair on fire when he wants to make that more expensive. It…, maybe we do need some broad sweeping policies that are radical, I’m sorry. Someone give me a better idea. This shouldn’t be so hard.

Do you, you know, your mother raised you, she was, she was a traditional cook, she cooked, she cooked deer, she would cook like deer…

She cooked everything. We had eggs from chicken, from chicken hatch…

So you had a completely healthy, you know, options and yet you went to…

I could see it through the woods from my bedroom window, the 7/11 across Old Amminion Road, that was about two acres away. We lived in this little farmette, but there was a 7/11 around the corner from our house, and then I would go off there and get like pizza in a pocket and choc, Coco Crispies and Captain Crunch, and a pint of coffee Haggen Dazs which I would eat under a tree alone.

So for your daughters , you’ve just moved further away from the 7/11, you make sure they can’t get there?

Yeah, they actually look like they’re gonna make their own decisions. For my daughters this book, the truth, and they will have to make choices. But it’s a tough society to grow up in and eat really well and feel good about yourself, I think, as a girl.

Mika, thanks so much.

Thank you.

Key:
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10 Questions for Sarah Ferguson

In this TIME interview, the Duchess of York discusses her new book and television show, and says her 'addiction to approval' is what led to a major lapse in judgment when she was recorded on tape accepting cash for access to her husband.

Self-study activity:
Watch the video and say whether the statements below are true or false.



1 The name of Sarah Ferguson's TV show is Finding Sarah.
2 Sarah Ferguson feels she's been badly treated by the tabloids.
3 Sarah Ferguson called the man who tricked her the fake sheik.
4 Sarah Ferguson felt there was something wrong with this man.
5 It was Sarah's daughter who really took the suitcase with money.
6 Sarah is considering remarrying Andrew.
7 Beatrice paid $132,000 for the hat she was wearing at the Royal wedding.
8 Sarah talks about sport at the end of the interview. 
 
Hi, I’m Belinda Luscombe. I’m Editor-at-large of Time Magazine. Today I have the privilege of asking 10 Questions of Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York. Few people have led an interesting a life as the Duchess has, or have seen the kind of wild swings in popularity and fame she’s experienced. And she’s written some of it down in a book called Finding Sarah, which is also the name of her TV show. Duchess, thank you for talking to Time.
Not at all, thank you, Belinda.
So last time many people heard about you, it seemed like you were on tape accepting cash for access to your husband. Would you like to explain what you were thinking, how that came about?
Well, actually, it’s… you’re right to say it seemed like that, and it was last May. And, of course, that was then and that was, as I’ve said many, many times now, it was a big lapse of judgement. But it wasn’t for access to Andrew.
So…
But it’s very nice of you to give me the opportunity of clearing that…
Well, I would like to…
… because the tabloids, you know, we mustn’t forget that it was tabloid journalism at its best. It was total sensationalism, cruelty.
Do you think you get a harder time from the tabloids than other famous people get?
I’m in a microscope. I mean, I have my whole life as a microscope, therefore some people weigh into it, some people weigh out. And, you know, it was just a very, very seriously cruel act which, which broke my heart.
You talk in the book a lot about, and you mention it there, you know, that you had a massive lapse in judgement, which anybody can have. But it did involve somebody giving you money, did alarm bells not go off?
I think, Belinda, this is not a tabloid interview, so don’t make it, don’t take it down that road. We’ve discussed it.
No, but I’m wanting to see why… I mean, most people…
We’ve discussed it, I don’t want to discuss it…
… with a suitcase full of money.
No, no. It wasn’t a suitcase full of money, and I think we’re gonna drop it right now. Thank you.
You cannot answer, waved on, but when you found out that this fake sheik as you call him.
I didn’t call him a fake sheik. He is called the fake sheik ‘cos somebody else, the press, called him that. The, the… he is a journalist. He is a… whatever he is, and he came to me by a friend who had been my friend for fifteen years, who introduced me to him as his, as her father’s best friend. He told me about the divorce of his family and that his children were so sad. In fact, he had no children, and I’m a very good mother. I am also a philanthropist and a humanitarian, and when someone tells me that they’ve got children that are brokenhearted because of a divorce, I spent nearly three  hours talking to him about his children that didn’t exist. My instinct was that I couldn’t understand why he was so upset and nervous. So I asked him why his leg was twitching, and his eyes moved strangely, and he said he was so upset about his children. In fact, my instinct should have been then and there to walk away. My instinct, I overrode my instinct due to, as Dr Phil says, my addiction to people-pleasing. I did not accept a suitcase full of money in order for it to be, you know, for my own good. It was in order for me to fulfill that addiction which is to make sure everybody is paid, my debts were paid, and everything was cleared. It wasn’t a suitcase full of money and you oughtn’t to say that. You should know better as an editor-at-large.
So you were at… I think when you got the phone call, actually it was your daughter who got the phone call saying it was a…
I, I can’t, I really would rather if we were going to talk about the book, we’re going to talk about the book, and the future and my going forward. I think I’ve addressed your questions, and I don’t wish to go forward on those.
Okay, all right. One of the big things of the book, and I think it must come out too is your family, the affection you have for your daughters and the real affection and admiration you still have for Andrew.
And he for me.
And he for you, indeed.
Let us remember that there’s two sides to every story.
Absolutely. And that becomes… you write glowingly about him and you talk about how close you are. Have you ever considered getting remarried?
No, I don’t. I think our fairy tale will end in the way where we are right now. He’s the oak and I’m the cypress like Kahlil Gibran said in the Prophet. And we, we grow to the light, and we both encourage each other to, to, with honour and respect for each other to grow. And I think that’s exciting.
Have you got to meet Catherine at all yet?
Not at all.
I’d like to hear what advice you had for her.
Wouldn’t dare to, too busy. And I, and if it was about mothering, yes, I’d love to give advice. But about anything else I don’t think I’m in a position to.
So speaking of mothering, your daughter got a taste of, you know, being in the tabloid eye… with her, the hat that she wore to the wedding. Did you give her advice about that?
No, I was in Thailand. I’m proud of my daughters so the fact that Beatrice turned the disaster into triumph by selling it for $132,000 for Unicef and Children in Crises is the most extraordinary achievement. And it was all her idea.
The book and the TV show is like a journey of self-discovery. It’s like finding Sarah, and the Duchess a journey, what have you discovered, what have you discovered about yourself?
It’s not about me, really. It’s about me talking and learning about what it is to let the mind’s thoughts rule you in your day. Are you going to change it and become more positive, are you going to change it and not believe it? Or are you going to indulge into believing the negative thoughts that come into your head? So I will’ve… I’ve learnt this Dr Phil tells me, so are you gonna sit on the bleachers or are you going to be in the center of the playground in the football field? And I’ve decided to be in the center of the football field.
Even though that comes at some cost?
Whatever! It is what it is. As the media can be a powerful tool or a vicious weapon, both are the same really, depends how you use it.
Okay, well, thank you very much…
Thank you.
… Duchess for your time.
Thank you.

Key:
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10 questions for Daniel Yergin

Energy expert Daniel Yergin speaks on peak oil, fracking and how to power the U.S. Economy in this Time Magazine interview.

Self-study activity:
Watch the video and say whether the statements below are true or false.



1 Yergin doesn't think the world is running out of oil.
2 Yergin doesn't think we should be careful with energy resources.
3 The Japanese are planning to turn towards nuclear energy again.
4 As people live longer and longer, that means that oil consumption is going to increase in US.
5 The Chinese buy more cars than the Americans.
6 Yergin is in favour of the shale gas industry.
7 The US very much depends on coal.
8 Yergin seems optimistic about a growing awareness towards energy consumption and preservation.

Daniel Yergin is an energy expert and economic expert, an international relations expert, a Pulitzer prize winner, the author of many books and today’s subject of our Ten Questions. Welcome, Mr Yergin.

Thank you.

In your new book, The Quest, you don’t seem that worried about the world running out of oil. Can you explain why?

Because I don’t think the world is running out of oil. It turns out that when you apply technology the resources that were not accessible or were not economic, as times goes on people crack the code and, and add to the supplies. With that said it’s not we’re saying the resources there, there’s still a lot of things to worry about above ground.

How are you feeling about the story around nuclear energy?

I think Fukushina has definitely changed the nuclear story. Prior to that, people were talking about a nuclear renaissance, the Japanese themselves were talking about going to 50% of their electricity from nuclear, they’re now saying we’re going to have a different kind of mix, going to look for more renewable, other alternatives. We’ll use more gas to generate electricity.

What do you see for our cause down the future?

Well, people talk about peak oil, that we’re gonna run out of oil. But actually I think that in the United States we’ve run into what we might call peak demand. We’ve had the high point of oil consumption, and our oil consumption’s gonna go down. It’s gonna go down because we drive more efficient cars, people are not gonna continue to drive more and more miles. It’s gonna go down because of demographics, because the population is ageing and they drive less. And also we had a big surge in the United States of driving as women entered the labour force, not they’re at the same level as men, so…

A little higher in some cases.

Yeah.

Yeah. But, on the other hand, as you point out in your book all those Indians and Chinese are gonna start driving.

China now consumes more energy than the United States, and it’s really astonishing to see what’s happened in automobiles. In 2000, there were 17m cars sold in the United States and just about 2m in China. Last year, there were 17m cars sold in China and 11m in the United States.

The government gave a $500-m loan guarantee to the company that makes solar panels that went out of business very shortly afterwards. Can we have a manufacturing industry within the United States that can make these things economically compared to, say how cheaply they can make them in China?

For the solar panel manufacturers, they’re competing with Chinese manufacturers who are very driven to drive costs down. The leading solar company a few years ago was in Germany. It really has just been knocked on its back now by the Chinese who are big beneficiaries of German renewable energy legislation. So… but this is a part of a larger picture of how we compete and on what basis we compete.

There’s a lot of promise and controversy around shale gas. What do you think needs to be done so that we can extract the gas in shale and protect the border?

Well, it’s gone from being virtually nothing a decade ago to being 30% of our natural gas production in this country. It’s a major part of our energy mix. It’s developed rapidly, brings us a lot of energy security, and were we not doing shale gas, we would be we would be spending tens and tens of billions of dollars to import liquefied natural gas. And by the way, this also has creates several hundred thousand jobs at a time when jobs is the number one economic issue in the country. But, with that said, you know, it has to be done in an environmentally sound way, and the public has to be convinced of that.

Could there be a lot of green jobs, or is that a…?

The thing is we have a really big complex energy system that sits underneath our -$14 trillion economy. It doesn’t change overnight, so there are green jobs and people have them but I don’t think they’ve been as plentiful as had been expected and it really depends upon  the pace at which renewables themselves grow.

I come from a country that loves its coal, loves it coal and has built a super duper cappuccino fueled economy totally pretty much on coal. Is there a danger with building an economy totally on a sort of a fuel sort.

Yes, we, your… Australia is also, of course, now that they’ve built it internally, but Australia’s economic growth and the strength of the Australian currency is related to the exports of coal and these other raw materials…

Uranium.

I mean, so much of what’s happening in the world economy now is really being set by what’s happening in China. 20m people a year are moving into cities, and these cities are coming from nowhere, and they’re the biggest cities in the world. When you see what’s happened with the price of oil, often now it will move in terms of what’s the latest manufacturing data from China.

Do you get really annoyed when you see people doing really energy wasteful things?

People say, well we waste energy and obviously we can look around and find it. But what strikes me when you look in the last 30 years what’s happened is we’ve become twice as energy efficient as we were in the 1970’s. If you go in the campus in Massachusetts Institute of Technology five or six years ago, there was not an Energy Club. Now there’s an Energy Club and it has several thousand students in it so, kind of this…

I bet that’s the party scene. The Energy Club, MIT.

They go…

Pushing the ladies away.

They go way past nine o’clock at night, I bet. It’s that wild.

Ok. Great. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Key:
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