The American Century

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THE MAKING OF AN AMERICAN HISTORIAN | PAGE 1, 2, 3
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You end the book in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall, but when you think of all that's happened in America in the last eight or nine years, how would you represent those years?

Well, it's too early to tell, because although there's a combination of journalism and research here, I wanted to be able to put history in its proper perspective. For instance, in 1987 we had the stock market crash, and I was ready to write about it, but I excluded it, because it was an event that came and went. If you think about the next 10 years, if I did extend it, I'd probably do a profile of Bill Gates. He probably will still be significant. You can't be absolutely sure. I probably would discuss the antitrust case, as I discuss many antitrust cases in earlier parts of the century. I probably would discuss the consequence of America's involvement in the overseas wars; I'd discuss one or two things there, I'd go into Bosnia and Kosovo.

Would you discuss the Clinton scandal?

Oh sure, definitely Clinton. I mean I've touched on the Clinton thing in the sense of alluding to the effect of the mass media on politics. Impeachment was never intended to be used for things like this. The wording, as you know, and if you don't I'll tell you, is "high crimes and misdemeanors." It's got to be in that category. So the present attempt to impeach Clinton is lowering the levels of proof for impeachment and this is a serious challenge, a constitutional challenge, because it's really an effect of trying to elevate the Senate over the presidency. So if every time a president is caught with his hand in the knickers or his hand in the till, it's going to be a call for impeachment. And if the partisan nature of the present debates continue, we'll have a constitutional effect which is not good.

The American system, imperfect as it is, depends on strong presidential leadership. Not only do you have the checks and balances of the states vs. federal government, of the House and the Senate, all the Congress together, against the president. You've got the checks and balances written in the Constitution, the courts and the Supreme Court. And now to introduce into this process a whole new entity called the Special Prosecutor -- which, by the way, the Democrats are just as guilty as the Republicans of creating -- is to distort the Constitution. And then on top of that, to use this partisan process to lower the levels of the standard of impeachment, you're altogether making a monkey of the Constitution.

What do you think of Kenneth Starr?

I'm highly critical of Ken Starr. He's a prurient person conducting a vendetta. Although that's not the whole truth about him, I just wonder by what possible rationale can you include in what you've sent to Congress, knowing it's going to be released, remarks allegedly made about Clinton's marriage or the fact that he masturbated. They're not relevant to the crux of the case, which was the nature of the sexual relationship. The fact that Clinton masturbated has nothing to do with the nature of the sexual relationship. The fact that he made some remarks about his marriage has nothing to do with it. So it's all put in there to wound, and a lot of that stuff is completely irrelevant. It's just dwelling on every single priapic moment.

Have you thought about your book being used as a textbook?

Yeah, absolutely. I'm not doing anything about it but I would love for it to be taught in schools. That's one of the reasons I wrote it.

This book is beautiful, it's accessible -- and yet at the same time, from what I could read, it seemed to have a progressive slant to it, much more than a lot of popular history books. And I wondered when you were putting it all together, did you have qualms and struggles about how you were going to pitch this politically?

That's a very good question. Ken Galbraith says on the back of the book, "politically detached." And you use the word "progressive." The Washington Post reviewer said "liberal." The four-letter word. Actually, I didn't start with any specific perspective -- I'm not an ideological person. And as a historian I wanted to be as detached in one sense as I could. But the process of writing was also a rather radicalizing process because when you look at what happens to people and individuals, whether it be William Jennings Bryan or the Wobblies, or the blacks, it's very hard to investigate and write and look at those things without recognizing that they were right. It takes someone like William Jennings Bryan, who advocated railroad regulation, redistributing income tax, to make the vote for women. And he was howled down as a raving beast for these things. Or you take the attitude toward Martin Luther King, or Woodrow Wilson, who was pursued across the country by people trying to break his spirit when he was advocating the League of Nations. If that's progressive, I'm in favor of these things. Most of the country was at the time, and the voting in the Senate against Wilson misrepresented the popular will. So I'm always -- pretty well always, unless it's a mob -- in favor of listening to the popular will.

N E X T+P A G E+| How writing "The American Century" radicalized Evans