Gilbert Cruz: Hi, it's Gilbert. Before we start the show, I want to let you know that we are going to be talking with the author of Project Hail Mary in an upcoming episode. I know that New York Times readers voted this book one of their top 100 books of the 21st century. And more importantly to some, there's a movie adaptation starring Ron Gosling that's coming out in just a couple of weeks. So, I'd love to hear from you. What questions do you have for Andy Weir, the author of Project Hail Mary?

Gilbert Cruz: I'm Gilbert Cruz. This is the book review from the New York Times and today on the show we're talking to first-time author Bob Crawford. Bob has spent the last two decades touring the country as the bassist for the band The Avett Brothers. Offstage he's been obsessed with something other than music, American history. In 2016, he launched a history podcast called The Road to Now. A few years ago, he launched another podcast, a series dedicated to John Quincy Adams, the nation's sixth president and son of a founding father. And now, Bob has transformed his obsession with John Quincy Adams into a new book that is out March 10th. It's called America's Founding Son, John Quincy Adams, from President to Political Maverick.

Gilbert Cruz: So, deep inside your book, you you make the following admission, which was somewhat frightening to me. Um, I have quote I have spent hours of my life watching C-SPAN. Uh, I have to Are you okay? Is everything all right? Why you spend so much time watching C-SPAN?

Bob Crawford: I am not in this season of my life anymore. I am in the season of my life of hardcore parenting, parenting a special needs child, you know, parenting a 14-year-old also, uh, and then, uh, being in this band that that travels a lot and then doing two history podcasts and, you know, I'm in a different season, but there was a season in the mid 90s where I was in college. And in college, you have this schedule and it can be open sometimes and you come back to to wherever you live at this point and you lay on the couch maybe for hours. I can't imagine what that's like anymore, Gilbert. I can't imagine that. Uh, and I remember in the mid '9s, we're talking Nuke Gangrich era, the Clinton administration, laying on the couch, wa just watching C-SPAN for hours, and it would be like this soothing drone of uh of of constructive monotony and uh yeah, so my se my C-SPAN watching days go back go way back.

Gilbert Cruz: So, you you uh you know, a lot of people know you and have seen you on stage as part of this band, the Avet Brothers. Um, and it's a it's sort of a funny reversal of roles. You know, for a lot of people, cool dads in their 40s, noodling around on on the guitar on the weekends is sort of their hobby. The way they relax a little bit and sort of let their mind wander. Um, you're a musician with this popular band. Uh, and you've made American history your hobby, your sideline. Um, and I'm curious, what was the order of operations here? Like what came first? Was it your interest in history, your interest in music?

Bob Crawford: Uh, probably interest in history. Uh, because that goes back to, you know, being 8 n 10 years old. um going on family vacations and uh stopping at rest stops and there would be a kiosk and it would have all the local local his like the little pamphlets of the historic sites that were nearby and I would collect those and so we would come back from our summer vacation and I'd have like you know 30 40 whatever I had many of them and I would like just lay them out on the floor and look at them and and I don't know I don't know there was just something about like there would be one you could just I can't remember specific place but like there are these like it would have these like these wax statues of a Native American or you know some uh painting of of of a battle on them and it just kind of like uh I was just captivated by it uh for some reason.

Bob Crawford: I it just it just was a comfortable pl just and it is today it's a comfortable place to go and even if it's like the subject matter is not comfortable it's in fact you know the subject matter of the book it can be it's very uncomfortable and it's um and we live in uncomfortable times Uh, but the idea of of going there sometimes can help soothe or at least occupy or redirect whatever is going on here. You know what I'm talking about?

Bob Crawford: what I've realized is and I think that's that's kind of the point of this book is that people haven't changed. Mhm. Like I really feel like that's like uh the what' you learn Bob like doing this and I learned like like our technology has changed but the but the human heart hasn't changed the human capacity for greed or hate uh or to do harm to another human being or the human capacity to do good and to feel try to do better uh that hasn't changed at all and I think that there is something that connects us to people who came 50 years, you know, our our grand we we think about our grandparents generation and then we like imagine our greatgrandparents, what maybe we knew them, maybe we didn't. What was their life like? And then you can keep going back further and further and we are connected uh to to our past.

Gilbert Cruz: I'm curious before we sort of talk intensely about JQA John Quincy Adams. um about how your interest in history sort of was was was bubbling out during those particularly those early years on the bus or wherever you guys were using to tour. Paint paint a little picture for me. It's it's early days of the band and you are in the back with a giant history tome.

Bob Crawford: Okay. So 2004 2005 probably we're in Iraq the nation the United States is is in fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and um at the same time David McCulla the I think he considered himself just a writer but we we consider him a historian uh put out these books this John Adams biography and this book about the year 1776 right in that same time period, I think 1776 is when when I really got hipped to this. And so on at one moment I'm watching um the what were mired in the slog right of of what became the the Iraqi war and uh on TV there's um images of prisoners at Abu Gare being uh forced into pyramid like just being dehumanized by American soldiers. And then at the other channel, I'm watching David McCulla probably on C-SPAN, uh, talking about history, talking about American history, and he's doing it in a way that is very human, that really connects like like I just I talked about earlier like how we like how we are the they we are they and they are us, right? And he's talking about like, you know, our our American history. And I just love the way how eloquently and humanely he speaks about spoke about history. And so that that's where I had this idea like wow, how do we get from here to here?

Gilbert Cruz: Where did you go after McCulla? And then how did that lead you eventually to starting a podcast?

Bob Crawford: Sean Wentz uh the rise of American democracy Jefferson to Lincoln. That is like the that is that was the the big turning point. Like there's definitely I wrote about this period that like the period that he like really writes about that just got me. So that's where you realize oh the characters like oh man these guys are they're you know the good, the bad, and the ugly. Um and just how just like this we have the revolution and we have the civil war. Well, the Civil War didn't just happen out of nowhere. Like what? like the echoes of the revolution and there's all these convulsions and that generation leaves leaves the stage and they leave the stage to the next generation and then the next generation like they they don't have a lot of the ideals of the founding generation like like you know the son this the next generation always messes everything up like it seems like and but but this is like this is where the parties come in and this is I Literally, this is where the parties like the political parties, the political parties are formed and and the infrastructure of a political party and and um debates over the bank and the tariff and slavery. And so I found that period between Jefferson and Lincoln and the way Wentz is just this, you know, you know, when you read a book and it's just so deep and I think this was like 700 pages and it is an encyclopedia uh of this time period and so that was hands down the book that that um that kind of put me on this path.

Bob Crawford: Doug Brinkley historian Doug Brinkley I'm name dropping here. He told me that his mentor told him abandon chronology at your own peril. And I always think about that that line abandon chronology at your own peril. and chronology is your friend. Well, you know, Gilbert, I thought when I pitched this, I thought I would be put with a writer to be totally honest with you. This was my vision was that cuz I love research and I love talking about history and I love the scene imagining like the scene like you know and I the the this at the moment like when I was pitching this I thought that they would I imagined because my agent even said well they might want to put you with a writer. Uh, so I thought maybe they would put me with someone who what they do every day is write. And together we would write this book, but when I finally was offered to write this book, they were like, you know, you you're going to write this book. Like, no, you're you're writing this book, so I wrote the book. Yeah.

Gilbert Cruz: Let's talk about this man that you spent so much time with. Um, John Quincy Adams. He to me uh before reading this was most famous for being the first president who was a child of of another president. Um, obviously to you he was more interesting than that and I think to readers he will also be more interesting than that. When did you first realize that? What was it that led you to to this man?

Bob Crawford: It was Winsa's book and realizing that after he was president, he went into Congress, which is happened one other time. I'm talking not being a congressman and then becoming president. I mean being president and then taking another holding another office. The only other person who did that was Andrew Johnson. Other than that being unique and rare... when you really dig into his life... you see he makes this amazing turn, you know, inside of himself. And um and then you get to his death and that's the the cherry on top of the Sunday cuz he has like the most epic death uh in America. So he's been in Congress for 17 years. He's now 80 years old. Uh he was against the now we're talking 1848. He's against the the Mexican war from the from the start. And so Adams... yells no, like against it. And then he's he's like getting up to speak and the people notice like he's his hands are shaking and he's trying to hold on to his desk to pull himself up and he falls over... He says, "This is the end of Earth, but I am composed." And he slips into a coma and he dies 2 days later in the capital.

Bob Crawford: Adams, he did us all a solid because he kept a diary from his teenage years until his death. And this diary I have read runs 14,000 pages. My favorite diary entry from Adams is, I believe, November 2nd, 1837. And he says... I was visited today by Mr. Thomas Monroe and, uh, he suffers from, uh, hypochondria... and he said, "Um, my doctor says I suffer from the blue devils. Do you know have you ever suffered from this?" And Adams, who had lost two sons, two adult sons, says, "Oh, yeah. Yeah, I I've suffered from the blue devils. What I do is essentially says, uh, uh, work, you know, I I I occupy myself with physical activity and mental activity."

Bob Crawford: He's far from a perfect man. Uh but but he's so human. Like he's he's so so like us. Like he suffered he he suffered depression and um just the the humanness in his in his diary, not to mention like the actual historical narrative is just incredible.

Bob Crawford: I am in the midst of reading a great book right now. Moby Dick. Yes, for the first time. It is exciting. It's amazing. Jill Leapour okay she's the best write writing history historian that hands down... her book These Truths is just I recommend it to everyone who wants to learn about history because her writing is like butter. Like like it is so smooth and so good.

Bob Crawford: I want everyone to read uh James Bradley's uh Martin Van Beern book... Alexis Co, um You Never Forget Your First about George Washington... I do love older bio presidential biographies. Like I think I think in the older history books, historians were more apt to let the quotes speak.

Gilbert Cruz: this summer is the 250th anniversary of this nation's birth... how are you reflecting on this sort of impending anniversary?

Bob Crawford: democracy is always in crisis. And so I want people to if you don't know anything about American history, I want you to embrace this year... nothing is ever inevitable like uh 300 years is not inevitable. 275 years is not inevitable. It wasn't inevitable in John Quincy Adams's time. Um, and it's not inevitable now. Uh, so that's kind of how I look at it is like is like uh democracy is always in crisis. The future is always uncertain.