The Eric Metaxas Show - Connor Boyack (Encore)

Episode Date: July 5, 2022

Connor Boyack has written a new Tuttle Twins children's book that sets the record straight about America's founding and unique history and shares facts from "America's History 1215-1776." (Encore Presentation)

Folks, welcome to the Eric Metaxus show, sponsored by Legacy Precious Metals. There's never been a better time to invest in precious metals. Visit legacy p.m. Investments.com. That's legacy p.m. Investments.com. The Texas show with your host, Eric Mettaxas. Happy Independence Day. Folks, happy Independence Week. God bless America. If you know anything about me, you know that rather late in life, I have come to see the astonishing, almost preposterous blessing that is the United States of America. I've begun to understand it. And I want the world to understand it because America is not a gift for Americans. It's God's idea for the whole world, this idea of liberty and freedom and it's beautiful.

And of course, it's a checkered story like all stories. You know, the Bible has a couple of checkered stories in case you're wondering. But we need to know our history. and we need especially, especially to teach American history to kids. And when I say teach American history, I mean teach actual history, not kind of like lies and negative stories which are misleading and ultimately wrong, but actually true American history. And along those lines, I've just stumbled on a book, not literally. It's called America's History. It's a Tuttle Twins series of stories.

The author, Connor Boyack, is with me. Connor, welcome the program. Thank you, Eric, for having me. I appreciate it. Am I pronouncing your surname slightly correctly? I want to be clear. I am a boy that yaks a lot. So Boyack is how we say it.

Boyack. Connor Boyack. You may be known to a lot of people who are listening in or watching because of the Tuttle Twins. I'm guessing, yes? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. We've sold millions of copies now and you know,

you've promoted us in the past and Glenn Beck and others. So word has kind of gotten out, which is a really good thing. Well, the Tuttle Twins, tell my audience, because the book I'm looking at right here, it says it's a Tuttle Twins series of stories.

It's titled America's History 1215 to 1776. So folks, if you're tracking, that's Magna Carta. 1776, obviously, when we declared independence formally. So this is the first book in the series about America's history, 1215 to 1776. But before we get into the book, America's history, talk a tiny bit about yourself and about the Tuttle twins so that people understand what that is. So I'm a product of public school. I really disliked it.

I did poorly. I hated history. I hated economics. I didn't enjoy any of that. And it was later in life when I discovered a passion for these topics because I've realized that we teach them completely wrong. Young Connor had to memorize names and dates and facts and formulas and all kinds of things that had no relevance to him. So I didn't care. It was pump and dump and I moved on and I didn't appreciate what I was learning.

And so what we've done now in recent years is created a series of books for kids of all ages. We've got toddler books and teen books and all the rest called the Tuttle Twins. And we've sold millions of copies. Our goal is to help parents talk to their kids about the ideas of freedom in a fun, accessible way through storytelling. No kid likes to learn in a textbook and memorize stuff. All of our books are stories. And it's through those stories that we can teach some amazing and some complex and important ideas. Well, I love that.

So that's the Tuttle Twins. And the book that's in front of me on this very special week when we celebrate American independence, which everyone needs to celebrate, don't just have hot dogs, celebrate American independence, perhaps by eating hot dogs and blown off some fireworks. But talk to us about why you chose to write a book, America's History, 1215 to 1776. I think, by the way, that's very clever and wonderful. But tell my audience about that. Yeah, of course.

Thank you. It started two and a half years ago. I went on Amazon and eBay, and I bought a whole bunch of social. studies books for, let's say, grades three through eight. And I wanted to understand how were they talking to kids today about the Constitution, about the Revolution, the Declaration of Independence, and all these ideas. So I buy these books. They start flipping through all of them. And the books do a wonderful job at teaching what I'll call the superficial stuff of history. Who said what and when and when was this battle thought and what muskets did they use and, you know,

what was the quote we're going to memorize from this letter. What these books did a horrible job at, in my estimation, is teaching substantive history, the ideas, the philosophy, the Judeo-Christian influence, the Greco-Roman influence. I mean, John Adams has this great quote where he says that the real American revolution happened in the 15 years preceding the first shot being fired at Lexington and Concord. It was the intellectual revolution. It was the ideas. It was John Locke. These books hardly talk about that at all. So we wanted a book that could teach kids not just what happened, but why it happened, the ideas of the past. We talk about all the time, I know your viewers know the quote,

those who don't learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. The fundamental problem is we're not talking to kids today in a way where they can learn from the past. We're just teaching them about it. And that's how our history education gets dumbed down. It's how we're pumping out socialists out of our high schools. And so we wanted a book that could focus on true history, the ideas of history, and in a way that can be applied to our world today.

Well, I always say, I just did an interview about one of my own books, Is Atheism Dead? And I thought to myself, in the interview, I was saying that when you learn the truth, it's exciting. Because I think a lot of us maybe we're a little confused and we think, well, who's to say what the truth is and it's complicated and whatever? In many cases, that's not true. In many cases, it's astonishing and it's empowering and beautiful. The story of these ideas. that lead to what we call the United States of America and the ideas themselves are really exciting. And when you get it, you think, wow, this is great. How come everybody in the world doesn't have this? And then you start thinking, and how come most people in America aren't even aware of this? Because when the ideas start clicking and you understand the genius of what we call American-style self-government, you think, how come it took so long for the world to get this? And then you kind of think, on the other hand, why did we ever get this?

Like, why do we have the gift of liberty and whatever? And then you inevitably see God's hand in it. And so ultimately, it's very exciting. So I'm thrilled that you're focusing on the ideas because once you communicate these ideas to kids, once you get this, you're done. You're not going to unget it because it's powerful. So now this book, did you write it? And again, the book is called America's History.

Connor Boyack is the author. it's an illustrated book looks like a textbook for what, fifth graders or fourth graders? Or how do you think of this as, what kind of a book is this in your mind? Yeah. So, I mean, our book, what we're focusing on really is a family resource. What we found with our other Tuttle Twins books is that they go for kids age like five to 11, but we've got like 16-year-olds reading it. It's beneath them in terms of format, but the ideas are fresh and exciting and presented

in an interesting way. We get parents all the time who are like, holy cow, I never learned this stuff. in school, you know, I'm learning all kinds of new stuff now. And so this particular book is for kids. We're saying about age seven to 13, but really it's for the whole family. It's to say, let's read this together at the dinner table. Let's have a discussion. Let's recognize God's hand and the influence of the Bible on the early founders and the pilgrims and all the rest that created this amazing society. But more importantly, let's have a discussion and we have prompts in the book to facilitate this to say, how does this apply to our world? Learning from the past is only, you know, interesting.

letting it be informative of what we should believe and do in our world today. So we want to empower kids and their parents to say, this stuff should motivate you. It should change you. It should empower you. It's about remaking our world today for the better, not just curiously learning about stuff that randomly happen in the past, it's to say, what can we do with those ideas in our present to make a better future? And I just want to say, before we go to our first break, I've written 30 children's books.

and I have learned many of the things that I know today from reading children's books. I didn't read the Narnia Chronicles until I was 30 years old. And I learned theology and things from those books. People said, those are kids' books. Not really, folks. Anything that you can read, it's for you if it excites you. And I think people should never, adults should never, ever, ever be ashamed to read. books that look like they're for young people. I think of my friend Sally Lloyd Jones

wrote the Jesus storybook Bible. I cannot tell you how many adults the penny dropped. And they go, whoa, I never heard this before. That's amazing. Reading it, you know, to their three-year-olds. And so I know that's true of the book that I have in front of me. It's called America's History, A Tuttle Twins book. Connor Boyack is my guest. We'll be right back. In case you haven't been paying attention, the Biden administration has caused a financial crisis and they have no clue how to fix it. Oil prices have skyrocketed. And when oil prices go up, the cost of transportation and shipping spikes, leading the prices of goods to rise. And when we're already seeing record inflation, that's the last thing we need. Our economy is in trouble and you need to take steps to protect yourself. If all your money is tied up in stocks, bonds and traditional markets, you are vulnerable. Gold is one.

one of the best ways to protect your retirement. No matter what happens, you own your gold. It is real, it is physical, it's always been valuable since the dawn of time. Legacy precious metals is the company I trust for investing in gold. They can help you roll your retirement account into a gold-backed IRA where you still own the physical gold. They can also ship gold and precious metals safely and securely to your house. Call Legacy at 866-5281903 or visit them online at LegacyPMInvestments.com. Folks, welcome back. God bless America. Happy fourth. This is the week that we celebrate one of the greatest things in the history of planet Earth, the beginning of the United States of America and a way of life that had never been tried before, barely imagined before. The more you understand it, the more you actually want to celebrate and do backflips, but you don't need to do a backflip.

talking to the author of a new book, America's History, 1215 to 1776, Connor Boyack. It's an illustrated book. It looks like a fun textbook. Connor, tell us again, like the age range roughly, even though I just said this is actually for everybody because everybody's responsible for this information. If you're an adult who can read. But what is the, you know, when people pick this up, this looks like a textbook for what age? Yeah, we're targeting kids age roughly 7 to 13.

Right. We've got when you buy it, we've got companion curriculum so these kids can do like activities and worksheets and projects. We've got an audiobook so they can listen as they read for those who like that. So we're really trying to just say, hey, mom, hey, dad, you're doing it at this home. You're worried about, you know, critical race theory or whatever garbage is being taught in your school. Here's something you can do at home to have true history taught to your little kids and then talk about as a family. what we're really after Eric is just those family discussions. That's where this stuff gets reinforced.

We don't want the kid to learn something at school. Come home. Mom says, what do you learn today? I don't know, nothing. We want mom and dad and the kids together to be learning these things and have a conversation. Around the dinner tables of America, that's how we save the country. And so that's what this book is aimed to do is to kind of get into that family and say, here's something you can talk about to appreciate America and talk about what we can do today to make our country better.

Okay, and so this book, and I said earlier, it's called America's History. It's a Tuttle Twins book. Connor, are you the creator of the Tuttle Twins or one of the creators? So I'm the author of the books, and then my partner is the illustrator. So it's the two of us that have been making now, I think, about two dozen books. We've got, you know, toddler books. We've got like the ABCs of the American Revolution and all these fun little board books. We've got books for teens.

So this is the latest in our offering. And really what it's all about is to say, schools aren't teaching this stuff anymore. And if they are, they're not teaching it well enough. We've got to take matters into our own hands. How do we talk to kids about entrepreneurship and free market economics and property rights and true history? So that's what the total twins is all about for kids of any age, no matter how they like to learn. We're trying to produce resources so that those families are empowered to learn the truth. Well, I hope you have some idea of how happy it makes me personally that you can,

guys are doing this. It's spectacular. It's a gift to the country. And, you know, I just want to say, too, that not only are some kids not learning these ideas in school, some of them are learning the opposite of these ideas. Some of them are learning propagandistic ideas about America and about the free market and so on and so forth. And I think, you know what? I wouldn't have a problem if some of that were true. But the fact is, it's not true. The more you learn, the more obvious it is what works, what blesses people. If you care about the poor, you know, a virtuous free market, you can't get better than that. But you need to understand what that means.

And so obviously, in the book, you talk about that. So you start at the beginning, you choose 1215 and then you end in 1776. So this is kind of like the prequel. But this is all the ideas that lead up to this magnificent moment, 1776, that we're celebrating. this very week. So let's start at the beginning, 1215. There are people listening to this program. They've not heard of what happened in 1215.

So let's start there. Yeah, we thought of calling this the 1215 project to counter the 1619 project and their effort to reframe history. And that way, America's story, we feel like, begins in 1215. Why? Because America was formed through colonization.

We all know that. But why did colonization happen? Well, it happened because of exploration. You had Bespucci. and Columbus and all these people traveling across the seas in search of something. They were looking for products. They were looking for spices and all kinds of things. Well, why?

Well, it's because of trade. It's because of Marco Polo and the Silk Road that really exploded this idea of free trade to make people's lives better. And so then people went further distances in search of more things they could trade. And that then led to colonization, which led to America. So we really liked this idea where America's story actually begins with this idea of free trade. and looking for how to make a better world through collaboration with other free people. And so that then moves us forward into how America was formed. So that's why we start way back in the day.

We certainly talk about the Magna Carta and all the pilgrims and others who kind of came here. But we wanted to help people understand because oftentimes he talked to like Ron Swanson, you know, and he'd say, America starts in 1776. That's the birthday. Well, you know, what was the gestation period before that, right, that led to America being born? And so we wanted to go back earlier to say, this is where it all started. we end with the Declaration of Independence, teeing us up for hopefully a second volume in our series that we'll put out next year that goes moving forward from 1776 onward. Well, you start the book with Marco Polo, obviously, but Marco Polo, as I can read from your book, was born in 1254.

So that's, he is a seminal figure in all of this stuff. but let's go to 1215 since the book starts in 1215. And just briefly talk to my audience about what happened in 1215. Why is that such a big year that this book starts 1215? Yeah, that was the year in which the Magna Carta was signed. The king was pressured by the barons into basically acceding and recognizing that they had rights. This was a written document where for a long time things were given through verbal promises that were reneged. and claims that were not fulfilled.

And so this was an effort for people in power to assert themselves to the king and say, we have rights. They should be recognized. They should be respected. The Magna Carta is an amazing document. You can call it kind of like an early ancestor of our constitution in a lot of ways.

And it's a document we don't often talk to kids about. They don't often recognize or understand that this thing even exists. And so that was the kind of the first experiment in the written protection of rights. Granted, there were a lot of imperfections. a lot of inadequacies, you might say, in the Magna Carta, but it was a bold effort and a landmark event that centuries later led to, you know, the U.S. Constitution, which, as you pointed out, Eric,

is not just for America, it's for the world. You know, over 200 countries have adopted some form of our Constitution, some of its language in a whole or in part. And so it all kind of began with the Magna Carta, and that's why we wanted to recognize that early document as so critical to the formation of our own country. I think it's important to say. Actually, I wrote a book mainly for adults called If You Can Keep It, The Forgotten Promise of American Liberty. And in that book, I deal with what you're dealing within this book for kids, which is that the idea of America is really God's idea for the whole

world. So when people say, I believe in American exceptionalism, it doesn't mean I believe I am better because I'm American. It means that I have the privilege of living in a country whose idea are better, and I can't take any credit for them, but these ideas are meant for the whole world. And we in America, we want the whole world to have, if possible, what we have. But in order for the whole world to have it, we need to keep it, which is why Benjamin Franklin said, a republic, madam, if you can keep it, and why I titled my book, if you can keep it. Because keeping the republic is vital so that we can share these beautiful ideas with the whole world because we care about the rest of the world. And the idea of keeping the

republic for me at the center of it, which is why I'm so excited about your book American history and what you're doing, is that we've got to teach these ideas to kids and to each other. And we've got to go over and over and over these things so that nobody is confused about how wonderful this is, how it works. So let's go through this. I mean, you talk about what happened and Roneymead in 1215, you talk about Marco Polo. But as the years go by, how do these ideas slowly lead us to 1776, to the miracle of 1776? Well, certainly you had the exploration of the pilgrims, the, you know, seeking refuge for religious freedom from the persecution they were experiencing. You had a lot of chartered colonies of people for corporate reasons or for freedom reasons coming to America, looking to better their lives, you know, through hard work.

and industry. You had a lot of experiment in self-government. The colonies were in a lot of ways independently managed because of global circumstances, the French and Indian War, Parliament, taking a hands-off approach. And so you had this very unique set of circumstances that allowed for people for perhaps the first time ever in the world to kind of make their society as they wanted it rather than inheriting old forms and being bogged down by dictatorial decrees. And so, So that led to a lot of innovation in government and self-government. It led to a lot of, you know, different declarations and constitutions. And certainly the writings of John Locke and others who were fanning the flames for these principles that you talk about, you know, life, liberty and property and helping people understand that they are free individuals, not subjects of the crown, you know, not citizens of a government.

They are free individuals with rights of their own to understand. all these things leading up in the centuries before the revolution. It's why John Adams says that the revolution happened before the first shot was fired at Lexington and conquered and not after. What happened after was just the manifestation of the mindset shift that these people had been going through. We're going to go to a break. We're talking to Connor Boyack, B-O-Y-A-C-K. The book is America's History, 1215 to 1776. We'll be right back.

Hey there, folks. Eric Metax is here. As you know, our friend, and he's a real friend, Mike Lindel, has a passion to help everyone get the best sleep of their life. But he didn't stop by simply creating the best pillow. Now Mike has done it again by introducing his My Slippers. My Slippers, they're unbelievable. I know all about them.

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Call 1-800-978-3057. Use the promo code Eric or go to Mypillow.com, click on the radio, listeners, square, and use promo code Eric. The offer will not last long, so order now with promo code Eric at Mypillow.com or call 800-978-3057. 8057. 8-78-3057. Folks, welcome back. Have you heard of the Tuttle Twins? Well, now you have, in case you hadn't. There's a new book out celebrating American independence, a brand new book called America's History, 1215 to 1776. Did you get that? 1215 to 1776.

Connor Boyak, the author is my guest. Connor, what you just shared about how, you know, the centuries leading up to 1776, it's impossible if you're a genuine free thinker not to see what looks like God's providence. I mean, the idea that there's this continent, that there are these problems in Europe that lead people to get on boats that a few centuries earlier they weren't able to do this, but now they're able to sail across the Atlantic and to form these free societies and to kind of experiment with the idea of freedom. They're too far away for King George or others to bother them, so they have the freedom to mess up, to figure it out, whatever. All of that really seems providential. It's kind of amazing that this was able to happen so that as the decades pass, they begin to get the idea, hey, hey, we think we know how to govern ourselves. We think maybe it's possible we could govern ourselves.

What do you say? I mean, it really is almost funny to me how it happened. I think that's right. The circumstances were extremely unique. I also see God's hand in it. And it's why I'm especially concerned about the sense. state of the school system and history education today, to have this birthright, this blessing that's been given to us. And if we are just kind of discarding that or dismissing it or ignoring

it, if we're not teaching kids these powerful ideas to appreciate them, to understand them, to defend them when they're being attacked, then what are we doing? We're trading away the birthright from mess of pottage. And here we are, you know, in modern America where people don't even understand these ideas. And so for me, as I surveyed the landscape and I see, how far I think we've fallen, how far, you know, things have been dumbed down for kids today. To me, it's a red flag. It's a warning. It's shouting from the rooftops to say, parents, you need to understand things have gotten bad.

They're talking about all kinds of stupid stuff in the schools. We have to take our own initiative. And the problem, Eric, that I've experienced over the years of doing the Tuttle Twins is that a lot of these parents who, like me, are products of the public school from years past, they feel inadequate in their own understanding. They feel like, well, how do I talk to my kids about something I never really learned that well or what I can do? And so that's why what we're trying to do is to say, hey, mom, hey, dad, no worries. You're going to learn together with your kids. Just read these books. They're fun stories.

You'll talk about them. You'll all learn together. And I want to say, because sometimes I think there are people out there. Maybe they've read my history books or this or that. They have some idea about me. Like, oh, Eric went to Yale or whatever. Let me confess, ladies and gentlemen, in case you have some fake idea about who I am. Most of what I know today, I came to as an adult.

many years after I graduated high school and college, and you should never be ashamed to learn something today or tomorrow. Don't pretend like, oh, I'm too old. Nonsense. Most of what I learned about America, about history, about ideas, about God, about the Bible, I learned as an adult. And I have to tell you, it's in spite of my Yale college education. It's in spite of that that I was able to learn this stuff. And it's in reading books like this book, which looks like it's for kids, whatever. But, you know, you have some stuff in here, for example, about John Locke. And I think everybody should know who that is. I barely know anything about John.

There are all kinds of holes in my background. And I confess this because I think we need to learn this together. Things have gotten so bad that we all need to get excited about learning now today for our kids, for the future generation. So let's start there. In the book, you talk about John. Locke. Give us just, you know, just an overview, a nutshell version of who is this figure? And how does John Locke, a philosopher, figure in the development of what we call the United States of America? Yeah, as you point out, he was a philosopher. He was an author. He wrote much of his writings in secret

under a pen name or anonymously because what he was writing about would be and was deemed by many to be treasonous in light of, you know, being ruled by the king under the British crown. And so he was writing about these ideas. He has many different essays and books that were very famous. And second to the Bible, his writings were like the most read by the Founding Fathers. They didn't have the internet and social media and TikTok and all the rest. They just had stuff to read pamphlets and newspapers and the like. And his ideas spread like wildfire through the colonies.

Again, like we were talking about earlier, these unique circumstances where they had been experimenting with self-government, trying to figure out how this should work and why, you know, the British Crown ruling them was a problem and so forth. And here comes John Locke with the philosophical foundation to give them the support they needed to say, no, what you're doing has moral strength, what you're doing is right. Here's the confidence you can have in taking a few steps further into the darkness and have confidence that what you're doing is the right thing. And so it was a big moral and intellectual support for a lot of the early founding fathers who were taking bold action to have kind of the philosophical intellectual justification for them to stand up to the

strongest government in the world. So John Locke basically single-handedly shifted the mindset of these colonists to no longer see themselves as subjects of the crown but as free individuals. So he deserves far more credit than any of the social studies books out there are giving him. And more than him, it's the ideas, which again, those are the ideas that we can learn from and apply to our world today. That's why we wanted to highlight them in our book to say, like, this stuff matters. We should be reading John Locke still today. Yeah, I mean, it's incredible.

When did he live exactly? I know you've got all this stuff in your book here. I'm flipping through. I'm trying to remember, I know he's in the 17th century. Actually, when we come back, we'll have those facts for you. Exactly. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll be right back. The book we're talking about,

it's a Tuttle Twins book, America's History, 1215, 1776. God bless America. We'll be right back. See the curtains hanging in the window. In the evening on the Friday night, little line of shining through the window, lets me know everything's all. How did America get to be America?

Good question. If you want to know the answer, I'm speaking with Connor Boyack, who's written a book called America's History, 12-15 to 1776. That's the gestation period of this country. We were just talking about John Locke. What was it about John Locke that led him to write what he was writing?

I mean, he was born in the mid-17th century, so obviously long before most of the founders were born. But what was it about John Locke that led him to write these things that really helped our founders to have the courage to do what they did. John Locke certainly had his own influences. He didn't necessarily innovate all the ideas that he shared. So there were other, you know, free market economists and Spanish fathers and classicists and others who have been talking about these ideas.

What John Locke amazingly did was to synthesize, summarize, consolidate, and explain very succinctly the ideas of what we now call classical. liberalism. So John Locke is considered the father of liberalism. Liberalism in its true sense about liberty, not neo or modern liberalism that is really just socialism and communism, but this classical liberalism, the style

of the founding fathers, resting on, again, these pillars of life, liberty, and property. So John Locke had his own philosophical mentors and people that he was reading, but he's credited, I think, mostly with really being the person who can explain most succinctly the power

of these ideas. And it was, again, at the time where when he started writing in the, you know, mid to late 1600s, the ideas had enough time to percolate through newspapers and tracks that when you had the founding fathers and even their parents, this earlier generation right before the declaration, they were reading this stuff, reading it to their kids, teaching it in schools. And so it had time to kind of bake in the American colonies where these kids, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington and others, when they were growing up, they were learning, you know, from John Locke.

And again, kids today aren't being taught about this guy at all, which is just a travesty. And we do need to understand how this all happened. It didn't just boom, happen. It took time. And you see all these figures, you write about the glorious revolution, the English revolution of, what was it, 1688? I always get my damn embarrassed about this kind of stuff, 16, whatever it was. But how you see this process, which in many ways is kicked off because of the

Protestant Reformation. People start reading the Bible for themselves. It starts giving them ideas. They start thinking about the nature of things. And it leads to slowly this kind of these ideas percolating through history until we get to our founders generation. But so it didn't come out of nowhere. These ideas ultimately, I think we can say, come out of the Bible fundamentally.

Yeah. And I want to be clear about something, too. These ideas do kind of manifest from these sources, but for the folks listening and viewing out there, right, one thing that I struggled with when I was young, I didn't have, you know, education much beyond college. I struggled with history because it was learning timelines and when did this happen and who was this person and what did they do. And so with this book, we've gone to great lengths to make sure it is not a textbook. We're not drilling you with facts. It is a story. Eric, I read Bonhofer a few years ago.

and was hooked because it was a story. It was presented through storytelling in a compelling way where I felt like I was reading a novel. And yet here I was reading history along the way. That's what we've tried to do with our book is present in a narrative form so that these kids. They're not feeling like, oh, here we go. I have to learn all these dates and these names and stuff.

No, like you're going to absorb that along the way. Right. But you're going to be part of a story that carries you forward. Well, God is a God of stories. The Bible is not a book of rules. It is a book of stories. And it is ultimately a grand story. God is the God of history.

And I think that it's important for us to realize that that is God's idea. Stories, communicating via stories, as Jesus did, that's God's idea. And since he created us in his image, he knows better than anyone how to communicate. And so I think communicating in stories, it's just. just God's idea. It works, and it's powerful. And so, as you're saying, this is not a standard textbook. I mean, it looks like a textbook because it's big and beautiful America's History, 1215, 1776. But it's a series of stories. And if you learn the stories, everything else follows. We just have a few minutes left. We're talking to Connor Boyack, who is the author of this book.

So what is your sense of American history today? As you go through these ideas and you say, you know, what did you discover in a sense, even though you knew a lot of this before? But what did you discover? I think I rediscovered what we've discussed in that is God's hand and the providence that a lot of the founding fathers recognize, this miracle in a lot of ways for the circumstances. I think what had faded for me in years past was the appreciation for how remarkable, in the true sense of the word, that all of these events where you get used to it.

You just, it is what it is. And it's this status quo in America. Let's go set off fireworks and, you know, have our barbecue. But when you really these stories, when you see these people going through and you see someone like Thomas Jefferson who, yes, had slaves, yet at the same time was bemoaning slavery and trying to figure out ways. to move away from it, right? He was a thinker way ahead of his time, right? Like, we don't appreciate enough the ingenuity and the amazing, educated enlightenment of the people who helped form this nation.

So what I hope, the gift that we're trying to provide families with this book, is to say you can appreciate that too. You can understand these ideas. And more importantly, you know, they can be empowering to your life today. It's one thing to just read history and say, oh, that was interesting, right? No, we want to empower you to have. make a better world today. And that's what our goal is with our book. And I do want to say again, folks, it's hard not to see God's hand in these stories.

In the same way when you read the stories in the Bible, you just say, wow, look at God's hand in history. Look at how he moved Moses. He moved Abraham. And there's this story that's working itself out. We don't understand why God did it that way, but he did it that way. and it's beautiful and it's redemptive, and it's using broken, sinful people like Thomas Jefferson or Ben Franklin or anybody. These are people exactly like us. And in the end, it's beautiful and it's redemptive,

and it's important that we all know it. So, Connor Boyack, thank you. The book is titled America's History. It's a Tuttle Twins book, America's History. And again, let me say, God bless America. And, Connor, thank you so much for your time. Folks, literally today, over the weekend, this week, we're celebrating the 4th of July. This is the time we celebrate Independence Day.

It is one of the most amazing things, 1776. I've written about it in my book, if you can keep it. I recommend the book, not because I wrote it. I wrote it to get these ideas out to my fellow Americans. We've got to understand what we have is amazingly beautiful and fragile and important, and we need to defend it and fight for it. and spread these ideas around the world and certainly spread them in our communities. We need to keep the republic.

Albin, what do you have to say about this issue of 1776? Well, this is the anniversary of that's 246 years. So if you get an 82-year-old guy, okay, today and go back to the day that he was born, on that date, you find another 82-year-old guy. You go back to the day he was born. And on that date, you can find another 82-year-old guy. That's three 82-year-old guys back-to-back-to-back. You get the 1776.

And that shows you just how young this country is. Three back-to-back, 82-year-olds. My father's 95. We don't even need it. We don't even need an 82-year-old if we get my dad. He blows the mouth. In the 70s. In the 70s.

Now, it is really, it is an amazing thing that, look, there are people, we just, there's a video. You looked at it the other day. I saw it. There's a guy, this was in the 50s on TV, an old man remembering being five years old, sitting in the theater the day Lincoln was shot, hearing the shot, seeing John Wilkes booth. I mean, this was, this was in the 50s.

This just happened for many of us. there's so many things like that. History is so beautiful and it's so important. So I just want to say, folks, as we celebrate this important day, this important time 246 years ago, it is vital that we take time out to learn our history, to celebrate our history. I don't know what to say other than I wrote a whole book about it because once I really understood this, which was quite late in life, I flipped out. I said, I cannot believe. I didn't understand this before. It wasn't taught. You're not getting it from Hollywood movies. It's not in the culture very much. We need to get these ideas out. How do we keep the Republic? So my book is titled, If You Can Keep It, the Forgotten Promise of American Liberty. But this is very, these ideas are exciting when you understand them. And I feel like for most of our history as a country, we've been excited about these ideas. We've taught these ideas. We put them into movies and Frank Capra. put them into his movies. And in our lifetimes, Albin, most of this has been lost. And I want to say,

folks, the truth is always the truth. You can never really lose it. You can forget about it, but it's always there. And the truth of the greatness of this country, what this country has meant to people through the centuries, to people like my mother and father who got choked up when they passed the Statue of Liberty in the 50s, when they had the privilege of coming to this country and raising kids in this country. That's something that it never really goes away. We can just take our eyes off of it. But we need to celebrate it.

We've just got a couple of commercials to do here, and then we're done. Nutrimetics.com, the entire month of July, everything, 30% off with the code Eric. Everything, 30% off with the code Eric. Folks, that's huge. They decided to do it for every person. product, use the code Eric, nutrometics.com. Take advantage of that. Also, please go to SalemNow.com. Lots of

spectacular movies to see there. The Matter of Life. Sorry, the Matter of Life is one of the movies at SalemNow.com. If you want to celebrate America, there are all kinds of things at SalemNow.com. 2000 Mules is there. God bless you all, and God bless America.