H.W. Brands

speaker

313 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard May 2026 last heard 12 May

H.W. Brands’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in May 2026 with 1.

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They all sort of lowered themselves to the same level of competing voices.

Whereas Washington's silence put him, it seemed, above them.

Well, one of the things I will say is I write history in order to make the people of the past understandable to people in the present.

And the way I do this is to show the world through their eyes.

So this is what Washington was thinking.

This was Washington saying.

This is what Washington was doing.

I make a point, in contrast to many other historians, I make a point of not standing in judgment over my characters.

I will tell you, the readers, I'll tell you what he did, what he thought, what he did.

If you want to make a judgment, you can.

I'm not going to.

And so I'm going to give you enough information so you can make whatever judgment you want.

But in answer to this question,

We've got this towering figure on the one hand and a slave holder on the other hand.

And I would say that in Washington's day, those two were inseparable.

If Washington had not been a slave owner, he would not have achieved what he achieved.

And the reason I say this is that

If you lived in Virginia in the 1770s, 80s, and you were a person of means as he was, then you had slaves in your workforce.

If you were a big planter, they worked in your fields.

If you were a gentleman who didn't have much property, they still were your servants.

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