Listening to America

In an interview recorded on October 29, 2024, Clay interviews the eminent classicist, Edward Watts of the University of California, San Diego, on the collapse of the American narrative. The old narrative that began when Columbus bumped into the New World and then moved through the colonial period, the American Revolution, the Westering movement, the Indian Wars, and America’s reluctant intervention in the 20th century’s two world wars has been discredited by the cultural revolution of the last 30 years. It is now possible to imagine an American narrative that would satisfy most of the constituencies of the United States. What happens when a nation loses its capacity to understand its mission, values, and history? Professor Watts is one of the world’s leading experts on the collapse of the Roman Republic. How did Rome recover after its disastrous Civil Wars? Can America learn from Rome’s example?