The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Conrad Black: Canada, the U.S. and the Baron of Crossharbour

Episode Date: June 5, 2025

In 2006, TVO launched a new nightly current affairs program called "The Agenda." Its first ever guest was none other than Conrad Black, newspaper proprietor, member of the British House of Lords, and prolific author. As The Agenda winds down, we invite Conrad Black back to discuss U.S.-Canada relations and his life almost 20 years later.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Back in 2006, TVO started a new nightly current affairs program called The Agenda. And our first ever guest was Conrad Black, newspaper proprietor, member of the British House of Lords, and prolific author. So we thought it only made sense, 19 years later, as the agenda winds down, to get back to Black. And here he is, Conrad Black. Welcome back. It's good to see you in that chair. Thank you, Stephen. Nice to see you again. I thought we'd do a bit of a tour d'horizon here of Canada-U.S. relations, Canadian politics, American politics.

And because you've had such a fascinating life, maybe a few life lessons along the way. You good to go? Best is yet to come. Let's hope so. Sure. Why don't we start with what you said to me before we started? And that was just before the cameras were rolling, which is all this nonsense about

Donald Trump not liking Canada and having it out for Canada. How do you square that belief of yours with all of his talk about making us the 51st state? All he ever said about that was the 51st state, which he acknowledges, by the way, to be an underestimation of Canada demographically and otherwise. I suggest that it was gratuitously rude to say we should have the same senatorial representation as the state of Delaware, for instance. In response to Justin Trudeau who said, if you impose these tariffs, the economy will collapse and him taking notice that we have never in his time or many years before pulled

our weight in NATO, he was really saying you'd be better off joining us. I mean, if your economy is that vulnerable and you can't pay for your own defense, you'd be better off joining us. He never said anything about taking Canada over. I noted that in one of the Globe and Mail's articles about it, a perfectly fine article in all other respects, it used the word annexation six times. He never said anything about that. He didn't say I'm going to take Canada over. He was saying that he thought Canada was in such a state of vulnerability, it would be better off with federal union with the US.

Do you agree with that? No, I think we can make a better country here. But I do agree with him that we haven't governed ourselves well, but neither have they. I mean, if the US had been a well governed country, Trump wouldn't have been elected president either time. So this federal union... By which I mean all three times because he been a well-governed country, Trump wouldn't have been elected president either time. So this federal union... By which I mean all three times, because he undoubtedly won the second election too.

You believe that? Of course. With 81 million harvested ballots, and no way to verify any of them? I mean, come on, Steve. Let's go to grade one arithmetic. There were four million more votes in 2020 than in 2024. I'm not great at grade one arithmetic,

but I do follow the courts. And apparently, he went to court 60 times. He challenged it and lost every time. That was Rudy Giuliani's Punch and Judy show. Those weren't real cases. There were 19 lawsuits on the validity, the constitutional validity of the election, which requires the states

to make any alterations to voting and vote-cutting rules, the state legislatures. And the courts would not hear any of them. Not one of them was judged, including the Attorney General of Texas, who was joined by 19 other states. So you believe the election was stolen? Of course. It does happen in the US sometimes. So it was 1876.

Well, that's a long time ago. So probably it was 1960. And for all we know, 2000 may have been also. But let me get to that. You said federal union, a federal union with the United States. Do you think that makes any sense? Look, the president himself asked me this.

And I said, I myself would not vote for it, because frankly, I think we can actually build not a greater country, but a better country here. And I wouldn't want to give that potential up. But if you offered, as Helmut Kohl did to East Germany, power on the currency, I mean, despite all the people waving a maple leaf flag around, a lot of people would take that. It would be a nice incentive for them.

And if you promised retention of residential control, control of residential matters, so you didn't have the 20 million worst welfare cases in the US just crossing the border northwards and two weeks after a federal union. And also Canada's right to retain its gun rules. It doesn't have that tradition, which is an admirable tradition in some ways, but it leads to a terrible amount of gun violence of everyone having a right to bear arms.

If you did that, you'd get a respectable vote. I don't think you'd win, but you'd make a respectable vote. But you have to stop acting, I said to him, as if it's like admitting Puerto Rico to statehood or something like this this is a g7 country when did you speak to him about this well he phones me sometimes that's particular conversations about 10 days ago 10 days ago yeah so you still speak oh yeah sure well I don't phone him no I bet he phones me occasionally what have you

told him when he asks or if he asks your opinion about all the tariffing he's doing on us these days? He hasn't put it that way. He's not particularly asked my view on that. Okay, so I will. What do you think about all the tariffs he's putting on Canada in terms of whether they make... I did tell him this. I don all the tariffs he's putting on Canada in terms of whether they make economics? I don't think. And I did tell him this. I don't think that he's treating us fairly.

And I think it was particularly outrageous for him to put us in the same sentence as Mexico. I mean, the United States does have a legitimate grievance with Mexico. Mexico, as you know, incentivizes American companies to shut down their factories, incentivizes them to build new factories five miles inside the Mexican border, takes parts from China, fabricates them in Mexico, and ships them back at a knockdown price into the US under the trade agreement.

Add to that that the Mexican government is clearly in colluding in this invasion of the United States, which the former regime tolerated, but has now stopped. But we don't do that. That was the point I made. We don't do any of that, and you shouldn't compare us to Mexico. And he took that point. He took that point. I'm not an intimate of his.

I have no standing to say that he pays a particularly great amount of attention to my views, but he does ask my opinion sometimes. As will I over the remaining moments we have. And I'm flattered, even though the position you hold is slightly less august than his. Nineteen years ago, you were in a studio, and we talked about whether Canada was meeting the moment and here's what you had to say. Sheldon, if you would, roll the clip. Canada is a country that I think has become accustomed to thinking of itself as sort of

a middle power and a secondary country and yet there are 191 members of the United Nations and Canada is undoubtedly one of the 10 most important countries in the UN and it isn't a middle power it's a very important country and I think I think we have to act like that. In the intervening nearly two decades has this country performed on the world stage in a way that you think one of the ten best countries in the world should have been acting? In the Harper years I think it did and in the Trudeau years, I think it has not. And we'll have to wait and see with the Kearney years.

But no, it's become a kind of joke in the world as a woke country and a silly country and one that doesn't pull its weight in the alliance and is descending the economic ladder. I mean, we're becoming uncompetitive. We have net capital outflows, which is scandalous for a rich country like this. But it's all the play for me. All people in all institutions fluctuate, so we haven't done mortal damage to ourselves. It's still 41 million well-motivated, talented workforce people in a treasure house

of a country with relatively stable political institutions. So as I say, it's all to play for. We just, in my opinion, have not been well-governed the last decade. And I like Justin Trudeau as a person. I just don't think he was a good prime minister. Do you think what you've seen of Mark Carney so far suggests that he has aims at making this a more serious country on the world stage? He does. He certainly does.

Unfortunately, I part company with him in some policy areas, but I think he's an able man, sincerely motivated to do well for the country, and I wish him success. You part company with him on what in particular? He's much too preoccupied with and takes an unsustainable view on climate matters. He's too socialistic. He got rid of the carbon tax.

Yeah, having championed it for 20 years. But I mean, he can read the polls too. But I would say that I was on that Davos scene for a long time, just in my area, the media. Indeed, I succeeded the late Bob Maxwell as head of the media section. And it was a useful place for me to go to talk shop with Rupert Murdoch and people like that. But the mentality is a sort of a dirigious mentality, a kind of unelected officials will tell people what's good for

them. And I fear that he is a bit affected by that viewpoint because of some things he said. I don't know him personally so I can't comment on that. Never met him? I met him once. I don't know if he would remember it. No reason why he shouldn't. But just to shake hands with.

I'm pretty sure that if Mark Carney met Conrad Black he'd probably remember that. Look, he's a perfectly amiable man to see. I mean, politicians usually are. Do you agree with him that we need a complete revolutionary reset of our relationship with the United States? A substantial one, yes. I would say that. I mean, look, I think it's complicated. It is so ingrained in this country to be self-conscious about our relations with the U.S. that what we really need to do is emancipate ourselves and be a little more spontaneous. But to do that, we have to become strong in the world. We need a military appropriate to our size as a country and to the role we want to play. We need positive cash flows. We need greater

economic growth. We need more swiftly rising per capita income. We're losing ground all the time to states that when I and even you were younger, you know, were behind us. And if we did these things we would be much more confident in relations with the US would to many To a large extent would correct itself But yes, I mean if what you're I think really saying is should we seek greater Access to other markets and things the answer is yes But on the other hand it's a huge advantage to have that colossal market right beside us.

But we're not exploiting it properly. Do you trust Mr. Carney's economic bona fides, given his background, to be the guy to make those kinds of transformative changes to our economy? I trust his bona fides, but I don't trust his judgment. I thought that he was a catastrophic governor of the Bank of England. He made a complete mockery of the much-vaunted independence of the Bank of England. He made a complete mockery of the much-vaunted independence of the Bank of England. He became a parrot for David Cameron and his chancellor,

George Osborne. And he was the inventor of Project Fear. And he tried to terrorize the British public into thinking that the grass would grow in the streets of the city of London, right in front of the Bank of England if it left Europe. And the fact is it's done better than Europe has since it's left, even though it's had a series, unprecedented in their history, of five incompetent failed prime ministers

in eight years. Britain never had that before in all the history of that office, going back to Walpole in the 18th century. I'd like to ask you, as a guy who's originally from the province of Quebec, what you make of the current situation where the forces of separatism in the province of Alberta are significantly higher than those in the province of Quebec. What do you make of that? Well it's an economic rather than a cultural phenomenon as you know.

So there are different types of separative sentiments. But I find myself, let me put it this way, I understood and never ridiculed the idea of the independence of Quebec. I always understood French Canadians had had it in their minds that ultimately they'd like to have their own country. That's understandable. I think a greater vision is by cultural countries

and much larger countries. In the case of Alberta, they have been discriminated against. And there has effectively been a war conducted against their principal industry. And I think the present premier there, Danielle Smith, is our best, most capable politician in the country right now. And she is not putting herself

at the head of one faction or another in the upcoming referendum she's promised. So she's positioned to be the head of Alberta, whether it's a province or a country. But I think we should all understand that they have legitimate grievance and it has to be addressed. Nobody likes air pollution or water pollution or any pollution, but on the other hand it is potentially by far our greatest industry and we're handicapping ourselves as well as particularly punishing Alberta and Saskatchewan by not maximizing our ability as a country to profit from the petroleum industry.

And if Alberta seceded, their objective would not really be to set up the Republic of Alberta, or the dominion of Alberta, or realm of Alberta. They would move quickly into the US and this country really would fall apart. So we'd better know what we're dealing with here. So if Quebec pulled in, it's a French country, and you could do something with what's left. But if Alberta pulls out, the whole thing is coming down. In your view then, what does the current Prime Minister need to do to ensure that Alberta doesn't want to leave? Build the pipelines, give a better tax treatment to the industry, oil and gas industry and

those tempted to invest in it. And well, being extremely vigilant on environmental matters and doing the necessary to make sure we have high environmental standards. Let me just check and make sure I heard you properly because to my knowledge she hasn't promised to have a referendum on this. She's promised to lower the threshold by which a citizen's initiative can come forward to have a referendum on this. I think those are different things. Yeah, you, I may have misdescribed it and I accept your correction.

Okay, thank you. But I think you can see where she's headed here. Well, she's got a faction of her party that, well, let's put it this way, she doesn't want to get Jason Kenneyed, right? Yeah, and that's a good, I mean, I don't want to get Jason Kenney right yeah and that's a good I mean I don't know disrespect to Jason he's a friend of mine also but that's that's it but I don't think that's the whole explanation I think she I mean you know I'm not we're all unlicensed psychiatrists particularly where politicians are involved but I think she

not only doesn't want to find herself riding two horses at once and falling between them, she also, as an Albertan, feels that it's time to raise the ante rather than as Albertans feel, with some reason, they have been a kind of a doormat for Ottowans paying no attention to, in their case, legitimate regional ambitions, which are, by the way, legitimate national ambitions. Everyone in Canada should want us to make as a country as much as we can out of our oil and gas resources. Let me follow up on something you just said a moment ago, which is you thought she is

the best premier of the 13 in the country today, and I'm curious as to why you don't have Doug Ford at the top of your list. What I think I said was the best politician we have in the country, which didn't exclude Ottawa. Oh, OK. Because, look, again, Doug's a friend of mine. There used to be a time, Stephen, when I first knew you and I knew all the premiers.

And I mean, I literally knew them all. But you've now mentioned an absolute majority of the ones I do know but I think Doug is not as fast in his feet or as imaginative as she is and he's not in the firing line the way she is I mean three straight majorities steel and auto wonder massive I told him he's the FDR of Canada. I mean, two propositions garde, you know. Not yet, not yet. No, he hasn't got his fourth yet.

No, but you know, no one else but Roosevelt had three terms. But his technique is different. He's a subtler and less, I want to be careful here, this is not a pejorative thing, but his leadership style is different. Daniel sort of gets in front of the bank a bit more than Doug does. He's the mayor too, Rob Ford very well, and despite the problems he had, I always admired him as a mayor. He cared about the people, he returned every phone message he ever got, which is an astonishing feat for you to do a job like that.

No, I'm pro the Fords, but I think right now she's more on the firing line and I think she's managing it extremely skillfully. She may have cost Pierre Poliev the prime ministership. Do you accept that as a thesis? I wouldn't have thought so. I would have thought actually Doug did more to do that. But look, I think it was Trump who cost Pierre the headship of the government. He didn't mean to do it, but you know the United States is like a great beast. What did Pierre Trudeau say? Like sleeping with an elephant or something? I mean, it twitches a bit. Donald Trump couldn't care less who the Prime Minister of Canada is.

And he doesn't spend five minutes a week thinking about Canada. I mean, he likes it, but he doesn't think about it very much. And he didn't mean to influence the election. He didn't particularly think he was. He sure did. He surely did. Yeah. But that's, by the way, not a flattering comment on the maturity of our voters

or our politicians. I mean Carney, look, all's fair in politics and he won the election doing it so I'm not knocking him. But this business of his about, you know, virtually standing on the Ontario shore of Lake Ontario shaking his fist at the Americans as they tried to cross. We'll fight in the beaches and the hills and streets and so on. This Churchillian thing of Trump is trying to break us. It's all nonsense. It really disappointed me as a citizen that anybody took this foolishness seriously. One more question on Doug Ford.

Fireman ready. I wouldn't have thought that he would have been your kind of conservative. Is he? No, but you know, I understand that the political party in a large jurisdiction is a pretty big tent, so I'm not intolerant of other factions. No, but if you had your way, what would you have him do that he's not doing? I'm a little reluctant to get into criticizing these guys. I think in general he's doing a good job, but I think he's an indistinct conservative.

I think he could do more incentivizing the economy, though he's done, I think, very well in job creation. I admire the fight he's putting up to maintain the auto industry. And I think he's going to have to perhaps take more drastic measures to succeed in that. But look, my kind of conservative is a little more of a person who goes out and sells

conservatism the way Reagan and Thatcher did, and in a way, Pierre did. And in Pierre's case, he sold it as greater liberty to the individual. No, I'm not harsh. I'm not heartless. I'm not cutting benefit to needy people or anything like that. I'm promising greater liberty for you with the money you earn.

And one of the problems we've had politically in this country is we don't have a real conservative party except for Harper. We haven't had one since Robert Borden federally. And we got into this business of the liberals winning four or five elections in a row, and then they would lose one, basically because of their hold on Quebec. Now, Mulroney ended that. But we've still had these conservative leaders who essentially say, I'll do the same thing as the liberals, and they'll do it better.

Well, if people want liberals, they'll get real liberals and not pretend ones. And by the way, I've often supported the Liberal Party. I'm not hostile to it. It's by far the most successful political party in any large democracy since the start of the Laurier or end of the 19th century. But I like conservatives who actually sell conservatism

the way Reagan and Thatcher did. Again, this is a different country, a smaller country. But that's not what Doug does. That's not his method. It's a populist thing, which is fine, but it's not actually saying this is why we're different. Is Donald Trump a conservative? Populist conservative, yes, but only in certain areas. He's a low tax man, certainly.

But he's a high debt and deficit guy. Well, he's a person who sincerely believes you can cut the deficit on a variation of the Art Laffer curve. You can use economic growth but you've got to be genuine about it and not just make trivial gestures. As an economic conservative on the tax side, yes and it remains to be seen if his idea of how to cut the deficit will work.

But look, the fact is when Lyndon Johnson cut taxes, and even when Ronald Reagan cut taxes, eventually, quite promptly in Johnson's case and eventually in Reagan's case, the deficit did come down. So we've got to give Donald a chance before we say that he is actually a tolerator of deficits. On social matters he's become one I would say, somewhat socially conservative. Do you believe him? I mean when he says he's pro-life you don't really believe he's pro-life right? No I think he is. I mean I don't think he's opposed to. I think his views are similar to mine.

I'm not enthused about abortion, but they will happen. And those that happen should be unstigmatizing, and they should certainly be conducted in a proper medical fashion. That is not the view he advances these days. I disagree. I think that those are his views. He's not trying to abolish abortion.

He's giving it to the states to decide. Do you ever wish he would behave better? Yes, I did. Have you told him that? Yeah, he asked my advice. Look, he does ask my advice and he doesn't always follow it by any means. But he asked what advice I had for him to sort of maintain the dignity of the office. And I said, why don't you look at some newsreels, just get your staff to string together an

hour of newsreels, different situations of Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan. I mean, at a certain point, you've reached the greatest office in the world and the fact of occupying the office is a huge asset but you've got to maintain the dignity of the office. That doesn't mean you have to do without a sense of humor. He is, he authentically does have a terrific sense of humor. He's very amazing. He's even more amusing in person than he is publicly. Do you ever find yourself though watching him on television and when he gets into a real

weave thinking to yourself, Donald, stop being such a bloviating horse's ass and just act more normally. Please, you're kind of abusing the dignity of the office. Do you ever find yourself thinking that? I do, fortunately, much less now than I did in his first term. But yes, I do. The way I say it to my wife is, can you imagine Roosevelt or Eisenhower talking like this? I mean, you know, at some point, I mean, god damn it, you're the president, you know. As

Roosevelt said, the head of the American people and you have to act like it. But with that said, you know, like you or me or anyone else, the longer you do the job, the better you get at it. He's much better than he was. I would like to ask you about you. Well, that's not my type of work. Well, it might. You never know. Because you've had truly one of the most fascinating lives of anybody who's ever lived in this

country. You have run big companies. You have met important world leaders. You have made lots of money. You have written many fabulous books. And most famously, unlike I would say 99.9% of our guests here, you were a guest of the American taxpayer, as you'd like to refer to it. You did some time. We talked about that on this program 12 years ago during another one of your visits. Sheldon, the clip if you would. I went through a very humiliating experience being fired from the business that I built with my associates

and indicted and convicted and sent to prison, released and sent back to prison. But the Bureau of Prisons and the federal court in Chicago said I was an exemplary prisoner, commended me for what I did when I was there. I did the best I could. I've done the best I could throughout this thing. And I believe that there is some likely reason,

insusceptible to my discovery of it, though it is, for such a downfall as I suffered to have occurred. And I accept that, if I may say so, in a completely humble way. I mean, it's an accident of life. I followed up on that interview asking you why. Why the downfall? What possible reason would there have been that was sort of more

metaphysical if you like. And I asked you what do you think's going on here? And you said no, it's too soon for me to weigh in on this yet. So I'm hoping given that we're 12 years since that last interview you may have a better sense and be prepared to discuss what happened there. We are as you are we're getting into religious matters here. And I'm in that tradition, tends to consider that to be a private matter. But I would, it's a fair question. So let me see if I can address it. I would not qualify as a fervent or pious person, but I do believe that there is a divine intelligence that,

up to a point, can be propitiated. And it's certainly worth a try. And believing that, it does enhance a person, in this case, my own confidence that, indiscernible though it often is, there is a purpose to otherwise inexplicable things even horrible things like a plane crash or something and If you are asking me if I have a better idea of what the purpose is the answer is no because I

since I Accept that Since I accept that, let me put it this way, I came to the conclusion many years ago that I had been mistaken in thinking there were no spiritual forces in the world and there was nothing other than what we see. I believe that's a mistake and I believe it's harder to embrace that than it is some form of belief in the country view. That being the case, I would regard it as kind of presumption on my part to say what the purpose is.

But I can go this far. I actually feel that, and if I can say this without being morally self-important, that in some ways I became a more substantial person as a result of it. It was a great challenge and I don't want to be histrionic, but it was extremely difficult at times. But I got through it and my wife and my family got through it. And all in all I feel I did my best with the bad hand of cards I was dealt. On the question of the guilt or innocence by which it came to happen that that downfall occurred, that I think is generally recognized now to be nonsense.

The US government has effectively apologized for it. And the official position of the US government is that those charges should never have been laid. And the statute under which I was convicted was by a unanimous Supreme Court with only one recusant and the judgment written by Madame Justice Ginsburg, who was a liberal judge, found the law ultra viris to the united states congress and unconstitutional beyond the powers of the congress and unconstitutional i mean unconstitutional itself in any case beyond the powers of the congress and you've got a presidential

pardon as well i did and in the u.s. system you have a uh... you know my authority for this is the president who gave the pardon. On advice of his counsel, after extensive discussion with Alan Dershowitz, who was acting for me, and you have a pardon of mercy where there's no comment on the verdict. It's just enough is enough. Let this person, let them get on with his life.

Or you have a power of expungement where you actually say this was an injustice and that's what I have. By every normal measure you are a wealthy man. But you don't have the wealth you once had and I wonder if you regret that. I do. I do. I'm working hard to make more money.

What are you doing to make more money? Well, I'm an investor and a financier, but I stay generally out of public companies. Do your books make you money? Yeah, a little bit, but I mean, unless you're, you know, J.K. Rowling or Tom Wolf or something, you're not going to live well on what you make as an author. You have just written your second volume of The Political and Strategic History of the K. Rowling or Tom Wolf or something. You're not going to live well on what you make as an author. You have just written your second volume of The Political and Strategic History of the World. You're now up to the year 1661, is that right?

Well on what's published I'm up to 1661. Yeah, but what I've written I'm up, I'm almost at the end, I'm into the 1970s. So how many more volumes are there going to be? Just one more. One more volume. Yeah. And how, if all three volumes together will represent how many more volumes are there going to be? Just one more. One more volume. And how many, if all three volumes together will represent how many pages? A little over 3,000. It's the history of the world.

You know, I'm not a pamphleteer. No, I get it. But I remember the last time you were here I said to you, why don't you ever write short books? Well, I've done that. You said, I have done that. And I said, what do you consider short? You said 600 pages. No, no, no, but since I was here, it's a long time between invitations, if you don't mind me saying so, since I was here I published two short books. I did my manifesto for Canada. You can read it on

the plane from here to Calgary. And my history, what's it called, forgotten history, it's history of human rights in Canada. You can read that on the way back in the plane from Calgary. So they're little books. People tune into this program to get advice on what books to read. So well done, keep plugging away, that's good. Well, you beat Mel Brooks, that's for sure.

He did the History of the World part one in his movie, but he never got around to part two or three. Yeah, no, you get that, you know. And my friend Simon Seabeggiore's history of the world isn't real history of the world either, it's a mean volume. Will you ever write a book with somebody who is a very good author and to whom you are married? Barbary Meehl.

I've suggested it to her, but she is not enthused about the idea. Why not? Well, we have different styles. And I think she's, generally speaking, a better writer than I am and a more competent writer to write about a variety of things, like a good columnist should be. I tend to write more or less about things

I know something about and and but I'm a relatively fast writer and she's extremely fastidious and you can see it in the quality of what she publishes but she doesn't crank it out as fast as I do so I think it could be an editorial challenge. Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter once said or I I guess she said it, that when she wrote a book with him, with her husband, the former president, they almost divorced over it. I can't believe that. They were married for 70 years. Yes, very happily from all you can say.

Writing a book with your spouse brings it that close. Well it does. I mean, she sometimes helps me with editing. She's editing for her and not for me. That's a problem. Last question. You are 80 years old now, which I can scarcely believe and I bet there are days when you can't believe it either.

I still don't. I mean, I have to pinch myself. I feel the same as I did 30 years ago. So what do you still want to achieve in life? Well, I want to go on, I want to go on replenishing my fortune a bit. I don't want to be crass, but what I went through doesn't do wonders for your net worth. It's horribly expensive, especially in the United States, and they ruined my company.

My associates and I worked 30 years to build one of the great newspaper companies in the world. It's completely destroyed. I mean some of the units still function though not any of them with the strength that they had in our time. But so I just want to build up more so that I'm more comfortable and secure in my declining years and have something to leave my family. I'm not a person who was ever chiefly motivated by money and I don't need a huge fortune by today's standards and I have no ambition to that but I wanted to rebuild things a bit. And I think when this book, the third volume in this series, is over, I will have almost run

my course as a historian. I started with biographies, then I went to national histories, and now I'm almost through a history of the world, political history of the world. But I might have a stab at philosophy, which would require me to read a lot more about it before I wrote about it. But that would be more of a hobby than a preoccupation. This very large three-volume set that I'm just finishing, second volume, which you kindly mentioned, I had to get that off my chest because I thought, and you haven't asked me

this question, do you mind if I answer a question you didn't ask? I thought that it was worth making the point that you don't have to spend 20 years reading 4800 page volumes of things like the Cambridge ancient medieval and modern history to get a grasp of world history. You can put it into a much more concise form without it being slipshod and superficial and you can make it a tolerably interesting read even though you're putting an awful lot of facts into a relatively short space. So I'm trying to make a point here. The fact is when this series is through, I don't expect many people to read it from the

first page to the last but it has a good index and anything you want is there and it's in context. It's not like Googling something where it will give you an old time encyclopedia where it gives you a sketch of whatever it is the subject is but it relates it to what went before and what followed and just how it happened. There is a certain logic to history. You can get it condensed enough.

You can see how each phase played into the next one. The key is to get enough consolidation that you have a clear pattern of sequence, but not so consolidated as just a 30,000 foot altitude fast flight over things. So that's what I'm trying to do. I think I've succeeded, but obviously I can't be like the guy approving his own expense account. We've got to see what others think, but the reviews that I've had so far confirm that. You look like you've still got lots of gas in the tank. Oh, I'm in fighting trim. I'm all ready to go. And one of the many things I learned from my father is

it is a mistake simply to retire. I mean he was a very successful man. He retired at the age of 47 and he essentially died of boredom prematurely in the 60s. And it would change occupations even involuntarily sometimes, but don't just sit in a rocking chair and start rocking. I mean, if that's your occupation, you're not going to do it for long. You're clearly never bored. Are you happy, though? Yeah, pretty much.

I wasn't always, but I'm quite happy. Thanks. Good. Well, we're very happy whenever you show up in the studio and accept our invitations to be here. We've had many great conversations over the years. And there, Steve, and although we don't agree on all public policy matters, you've been a good friend,

and thank you for having me. Not at all. It's been our pleasure. Pleasure's mine.