that would prove that would provoke prove both written that go toward france because of -- before france was ready to do so franklin had to persuade louis the 16th and french officials that the americans were in this for the long term. they would keep fighting until they won independence and in fact franklin and others tried to convince the spanish of the same thing but the spanish word fighting for through the spanish had an alliance with france and through france they indirectly supporting united states but the spanish were more skeptical and in the case of the spanish this brought up something that the french had and that is well okay maybe we will help the americans now but are we creating a monster cliques for the spanish this was a big deal because the spanish were happy to see the written weekend but they didn't want this powerful united states because spain had lots of territory in north america and if united states got too strong spain would have to defend this territory against the united states. as they say the basic listen to this as things are complicated and if you are the

i have thought of france in a certain way. and to him it was a france of the of the madonna and the tapestries and and and you know medieval greatness clearly. it's france of the day before yesterday and that concept of grandeur. french grandeur is synonymous with the goal. and i find that terribly attractive. where would you send someone who says? oh, i'm intrigued now. i want to know more about him. whether a number of biographies very fine biography about his memoir. yeah, remember is it's it's it's elegant literature. do you go i'm on other things to go with a great writer. he is this. as i say a throwback like caesar, he was a great soldier. a great civilian leader and a great teller of his own story. and right many of those on the world what about a biography? there are a number of there's a two volume actually in french. it's three volumes by man named and i'm forgive me. my pronunciation is not very jean blackout tour i believe is but two volumes that were that were the first volume was published in 1990 at the time of

was well known in france. as a result tom paine quickly gained entree to france's highest circles. almost immediately he took on a position representing calais in the revolutionary national assembly, a position to which he had been elected months earlier in honor of his authorship of "the rights of man." but that did not go as expected. paine spoke little french, and he had trouble keeping up as the french revolution rapidly radicalized and accelerated. paine made the great mistake of speaking up in favor of sparing king louie xvi from the guillotine, arguing instead it would be humiliating enough to banish the king to exile in the united states. that did not go over well in france. especially given paine's earlier critiques of monarchy and power. where is your boldness now, the french said to him. as robes led france into what we call the reign of terror, paine despaired, and then he picked up his pen. he drafted the first part of "the age of reason," the third great work for which this man is still remembere

and thomas paine spent the next decade in france, and never return to the land of his birth. and thomas paine arrived in france, armed with no one but for weapons of introduction, well-known. and as a result thomas paine quickly gained to the highest circles. he took on the position in the revolutionary national assembly. in the position he had been arrested in honor of his leadership of the "rights of man". but that's not what he expected, thomas paine spoke little french and he had trouble keeping up with the french revolution more rapidly accelerated. then thomas paine made the mistake of speaking up in favor of sparing people from the guillotine and offering and said that it would be enough to manage the king to exile in the united states. but that did not go over well in france especially given thomas paine's earlier critiques of monarchy and the harrison power and the boldness now, the french. and into what we call the reign of terror. thomas paine despaired. and then he picked up his pen. he crossed through the first pass a region and fail the great work from which thi

this concept of a tomb for the unknown soldier was one i was put to good use and demonstrated by france and united kingdom after the first world war. this was a tremendously costly devastating war in terms of casualties and there were significant concerns at the conclusion of the war that retrieval of remains from these battlefields could be in peril, potentially unexploded ordinance from a chemical weapons used during the first world war posed significant risks of friends and united kingdom had to restrict and chose to restrict how many other soldiers lost during the war could be brought back so those countries to pursue the creation of a tomb for the unknown soldier in their respective capitol. in london, and paris were great purpose, unknown soldiers so the people of those respective countries, united kingdom and france have a place and pay tribute to the ones they could not bring home to their families. it served as both a civics tribute and personal tribute for those to pay respects. so he had seen the success, the importance of this memorial and while the u.s. still undertaking th

germany and france changed their battle rifle no less than four times each. and while perhaps compared to modern weapons, it doesn't seem all that shocking in comparison to the 19th century. it's huge one particular memorable instances. it happens in 1884 when a french chemist. employed by the french army increasingly by the way with the industrial revolution the competition between european states. we begin to see the emergence of something. that's very much like a military-industrial complex with governments mobilizing academia. as well as engineers and working directly with industrialists to to create new and more sophisticated weapons systems and 1884 a french chemist named paul levier invents. what becomes known as as white powder poudre blanche? the very first smokeless rifle propellant. and with it completely makes every other every other and every other kind of ammunition in the world entirely. obsolete the white powder not only produced no smoke unlike black powder which produced a lot of smoke it also produced when combined with a smaller caliber bu

so britain, france and italy horrified by the prospect of a second world war. i agreed to the deal and famously britain's prime minister neville chamberlain assured the world that the pact guaranteed peace in our time. so it was under that cloud that americans across the country had their first federal armistice day holiday. in new york on that day in 1938 mayor. fiorello laguardia and other dignitaries broke ground for a court of peace, which would stand on the grounds of the 1939 world's fair. some cities plan festivities that were more like victory celebrations then commemorations of peace. in baltimore, for example, there was a reenactment of the battle that gave the americans their first big victory in the war. the day's newspapers took note of the disturbances of the peace in europe. the atlantic constitutions headline read germany is winner on armistice day and the story flushes out the thought quote germany risen from defeat appears on the way toward mastery of central and southeastern europe a gigantic world armament races on japan is trying to digest

we talked about france. france is a great partner. france has the largest easy in the indo-pacific of anyone and i've operated with them across the globe since i've been doing this business and they're a great partner. so the expansion of these security relationships with allies and partners is the key, and it's not just in the indo-pacific. laura has a number of pacific nations with coastlines in the pacific that we both talk to because the region is important, for the security, the stability, and the prosperity, globally. thanks. >> so we have to end it there. it's a perfect note, really, on which to end it. thank you, to all of our panels. thank you, audience, and let's -- [ applause ] >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government, funded by these television companies and more, including cox. cox is committed to providing eligible families access to affordable internet through the connect to compete program, bridging the digital divide one connected and engaged student at a time, cox, bringing us closer happen. >> cox supports c-

so the my work has also been on france and in france your famously in the french revolution. there was the wake of the revolution have moved to like destroy every building that had to do with the monarchy or with the church because both of those received as repressive institutions. they were both overthrown their abilities were all nationalized. and so there's this initial movement that that very quickly gets turned around and people start talking about it as von dalÍzma or vandalism is the way we were translated, right? and certain people argue for the fact that although they are monuments to but they were called despotism. still they represent the ingenuity the creativity the hard work of the french people and so therefore and and artistic prowess. and so therefore they are deserving of being preserved. and so that there's a this effort then to stop the kind of demolition and the kind of fewer of wanting to get rid of the imagery from you know, a regime that seed is very repressive. so so that i mean that's an example i think right of of how there's a legitimate. oh. resen

even with a difficult country like france which you asked about, and there are always a little bit of the outlier and they had already -- withdrawn from the nato military command by the type reagan came along. as david -- and in some ways historian of the intelligence community, one of our best most successful intelligence programs in the entire cold war came from the great technology partnership with france over the farewell dossier, right? and again, great book that can be read on that. even if there are other frictions at the surface level there can be some deep quiet potent joint cooperation on the tech front. so i think there's a great precedent for the biden administration to take a page from the reagan playbook. david: and i want to ask you to close out this discussion about technology partnerships because you really are at the cutting edge of that in a company like boeing. this administration sometimes speaks language that we associate with industrial policy. kind of centrally managed white house directed efforts to mobilize and direct the private sector. do you worry about th

do you think this is a good idea, a, b, do you think it's realistic when we have countries like france, like india, that are pretty darn resistant to some forms of cooperation. and what would you do, if it is a good idea, what would you do to make it better? >> i think it's a great idea. again, i strongly affirm it. this goes back to thinking about, you know, in our area of great power competition, what are americas asymmetric advantages? and two of the big a symmetric advantages that we have that, you know, china and russia, for example, largely don't. first, is our alliances. and if we doubt that, just look at the view from beijing or moscow. if you are she jinping, who are your closest friends in your neighborhood? well, maybe north korea, maybe cambodia. it's not a very good list, right? if you are putin, who are your closest friends? belarus, maybe serbia? this is why those guys are spending so much time trying to, you know, split and break apart and undermine and weaken our alliances. even if america doesn't appreciate how important our alliances are, the bad guys do. and that ge

however, facebook whistleblower frances haugen revealed that on the very same day we released a report march 24, facebook produced an internal study confirming that a tiny number of accounts were responsible for more than half of anti-vax content on their platform. so they were lying, while the american public was suffering under covid and people were dying. the members of this committee have seen the same tactic some social media executives time and time again. you have correctly determined and as have legislated in the uk, australia and other allied nations of social media compass cannot self regulate and we need new legislation. there is no silver bullet, that's right. section 230 shows the limitations to a single solution based on one core principle. it did not predict nor deal with the harms we are now seeing emanating from social media. there will need to be a range of approaches to transparency and accountability, to manage social media into place that balances dialogue, privacy, safety and prosperity. -- to nudge. the bills being considered today would collectively represent a

and road to france stairway. and and because she was in a hospital ship when they arrived at normandy at omaha beach. she was then needed to help with the medical teams to go onshore and help to ferry back the injured soldiers back on board the ship for treatment it meant she was one of the very very few journalists who actually was set foot on omaha beach. on that normandy coastline at the beginning of the invasion and she certainly out scooped her husband ernest. yeah who was on board one of the little assault crafts and making up stories about how he had personally liberated from all right? and i think all of them. you know when they came across. hardship or suffering even when? it wasn't their job. they they would try and help. i mean, i think that was one of the well, one of the many harrowing things about being a journalist then and now is you find yourself in a situation where? a huge numbers of people are or hungry or injured. and you kind of do what you can and it's a tiny amount, but i don't think any o

in the fall into france on the part of the germans. and there was big bill knutson the man on the president of general motors of the time is invited to the white house to discuss conversion of the u.s. economy to a wartime footing. legend has it but it's not legend of the flat out truth. roosevelt asked mr. knutson how long will it take to convert our economy from world time production, knutson pulled out his computer, which in 1940 was a pencil and a scrap of paper, that is how we did computations in those days. and he said well mr. president looks like 18 months. if you're counting that's june 1941 knutson said the president enchant the economy would have it on a wartime footing. now in the fall he really gets going. he reinstates the draft for one year only assuring americans your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign oars. this road the money quote from that fall 1940 speech. it is a promise roosevelt will keep although it seems unusual to say that hopefully we can talk about that we talk about the actual attack. he decide

even with a difficult country like france, which you asked, about their obviously outliers and they have withdrawn from the nato military command by the time reagan came along, as david has agreed, someone in the intelligence committee will, no one of our best, most successful intelligent programs and the entire -- with france is the farewell dossier. again, a great book that can be written on. that, so even if there is going to be other functions of the service level, there can be some deep quiet, potent, joint cooperation on the tech front. so i think there is a great precedent for the biden administration to take a page from the reagan playbook. you really>> and i want to ask s caret to close out the discussion about technology partnerships, because you really are at the cutting edge of that. a company like boeing. this administration sometimes speaks a language that we associate with industrial policy. kind of centrally managed white house directed efforts to mobilize, direct to the private sector. do you worry about that taking up all of the obvious benefits that all of the panelist

and usually it's associated with france. the philosoph says they're called the philosophy in france. there's an english enlightenment scottish enlightenment, right, but it's it's largely understood in its european context. what i want to suggest today and over the course of the next two classes. is that the enlightenment in america? in the american colonies in the 18th century. looks very different. from the high enlightenment of the 18th century in europe where you just have a bunch of people sitting around in coffee shops talking about ideas and sort of reading the loads. you read the latest piece by vote rousseau today. why? yes, you know pass me the decaf right very different. in america, so let's think about the enlightenment in america this way and some of you've had me for the us survey class have been there when i've done this but not everybody has had me for that class. raise your hand how many of you want to make a better life for yourself how many of you want to improve your life? yeah, i mean every hand in the ro

a captive at the nbn foo and so going back to paris a lot over all the years lots of vietnamese in france now. i'm just curious if you maybe you didn't treat that maybe that's all you know before the vietnam war. i didn't reality but i'm just kind of curious about comparing contrast. we try to spend as pd officers. we try to get libraries open in english teaching. well the french had french libraries it and the military back when i was in you know in the military they were teaching us to learn french to go to vietnam not vietnamese was a lot easier for one thing, but just maybe any observations at all. what did we do right that the french didn't the french laws to war the french had tremendous soft power investment. they had all kind of opportunities they could have built on. but they didn't just maybe some observations. well, i i write about dnb. to in the book because i feel like it's such a pivotal moment that i do a kind of a flashback to understand to explain a little bit. what kind of vietnamese thinking there is because i think it helps us to understand what what followed the the l

coming from california, i realize seeing mickey mouse in france is no substitute. in terms of sanctions that really hit the russian state, we almost gave him a pass. >> so, what should the u.s. do on sanctions? >> i think we do need to keep our powder dry but it has to be plain to russia that the nordstream pipeline is over and their access to western capital markets is done if they invade ukraine. the number one deterrent is the ukrainian military. not with americans anywhere near the front lines. it is and we have to provide them with weapons and assistance now. it's that military, not that russia couldn't defeat them but will the russian populous accept the kind of casualties that the ukrainian military can impose? e russian president when he argues support of the west for ukraine is nato expansion, and something he sees as a threat to his country? guest: well, i do think we have to have understandings of not having missiles right up against the russian border. we reacted rather intensely when we saw nuclear missiles based in cuba, 90 miles, separated by an ocea

thank you thomas for joining us from france. thank you virginia for joining us here in new york and the book comes out next week. again there's the cover on the left. on the other side, >> we all have a mutual friend who helped design the cover . >> that's the brilliance of alana newhouse . >> great job and this is a great one. >> thank you all so much for this, what a pleasure. >> it's such a good book. congratulations on it. everyone listening, just by. there's the storytelling we didn't get into about the 19th century press especially, it's really compelling. >> feel free to follow all of us on twitter but of course log off and spend some time away from this to get avoid getting too much for result. i thank you all for joining us. guest hosts interviewing top nonfiction authors about their latest work. >> host: so great to be here today. thanks for having me on this wonderful show and interviewing the writer of american-made, farah stockman. it's a remarkable piece of work, farah. >> guest: thank you so much. >> host: so it's