2025-07-14
41 分钟Welcome to Intelligence Squared, where great minds meet.
I'm producer Mia Sorrenti.
In August 2017, over a thousand neo-Nazis, fascists,
Klan members and neo-Confederates descended on a small southern city to protest the pending removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee.
What happened in Charlottesville?
And how did so few see it coming?
What does it reveal about the myths we tell ourselves about America?
In this episode, we speak to Debra Baker.
Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of Charlottesville, about the harrowing events of August 2017,
when a violent far-right rally turned a quiet college town into a national flashpoint.
But rather than focus solely on the extremists, Baker turns her lens on the city itself,
its institutions, its history, and the people who tried to stop the violence before it began.
Let's join our host, Maithili Rao, with more.
Welcome to Intelligence Squared, I'm Maithili Rao.
I know of very few places more beautiful than Charlottesville, Virginia.
The city is nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and it's laden with history.
It was once home to Thomas Jefferson.
Jefferson was the third president of the United States.
But in his view, his greatest accomplishments,
the three single achievements he wanted listed on his tombstone,