John J. Miller on "The First Assassin": History, Poltics, & The Future of Publishing

The author of two previous non-fiction books (The Unmaking of Americans and Our Oldest Enemy), John J. Miller has worked for The New Republic and National Review (he has also contributed to Reason). Now he has published a novel, The First Assassin, which bestselling author Vince Flynn has said is "like Day of the Jackal set in 1861 Washington." Rich in historical detail, the story takes place as "a new president takes office, a nation begins to break apart—and Colonel Charles Rook must risk insubordination to stop a mysterious assassin who prowls a nervous city. He will need the help of an ally he does not even know he has: Portia, a beautiful slave who holds a vital clue, hundreds of miles away." Reason.tv's Nick Gillespie recently sat down with Miller to talk about contemporary politics, his novel, and his decision to publish the book via Amazon's CreateSpace program, which represents a new step in self-publishing. Filmed by Dan Hayes and Meredith Bragg; edited by Hayes. Approximately 8 minutes. For downloadable versions of this and other Reason videos, go to http://reason.tv

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• reason.tv
• reason.com
• reason.org
• reason
• magazine
• foundation
• john
• j.
• miller
• the
• first
• assassin
• abraham
• lincoln
• civil
• war
• novels
• createspace
• amazon.com
• national
• review
• nick
• gillespie

[ErikNikolai]

YouTube abbreviates the title of this video to "John J. Miller on "The First Ass". :-)

[vinoberg]

My link to this was "John J. Miller on "The First Ass..."

I am grossly disappointed.

[HEIGHTSIXFIVE]

Crap! I wanted REAL history on assassins! Not a book or video game! (But just for kicks, the Assassin's Creed games ROCK!)

[787Bisurdaddy]

What's wrong, don't have anything of value to add to the conversation?

[msqtube]

relax, ... don't you have some spelling tests to grade or something?

[ohbobsagetpiss]

Me neither.

[787Bisurdaddy]

Lincoln was racist; his idea of ending slavery was to put them on a boat and send them back to Africa. He talked openly about the inferiority of negroes and his preference of white people to be above them.

He shut down dissenting newspapers, imprisoned northerners, suspended habeas corpus, forced the south to remain part of a union that they voluntarily joined, etc. Many, many people that were alive at the time called Lincoln a tyrant. He was a very hated president.

[787Bisurdaddy]

Slavery was the Civil War's WMDs.

[787Bisurdaddy]

Ugh. I don't like this video. "Champion of human freedom"? How can Nick just sit through that bullshit? Going to war with your own country, getting 620,000 people killed, suspending habeus corpus, shutting down dissenting newspapers... doesn't sound like championing human freedom to me.

And let's not forget that Lincoln didn't actually free any slaves in border states, and that Britain ended slavery 20 years before the US did WITHOUT resorting to violence.

[Thorbie]

C'mon really? National Review the most dangerous magazine in America? In terms of conservative magazines, The Weekly Standard is far far worse than the magazine started by the anti-drug warrior William F. Buckley. I'll even go as far to say that National Review is quite libertarian for a conservative magazine. It's ideology hovers around Goldwater and Reagan. Regardless isn't there other magazines out there deserving of your title? The Nation, Newsweek, The New Republic...People, lol?

[GOPsithlord]

Cheers to John J. Miller from a fellow English major. I might very well give his book a look.

[032125]

There should be no doubt that the institution of slavery was repugnant to a free society (and to humanity as a whole) , but it was also backwards and inefficient.

Had the states been allowed to secede I think that they would have eventually done away with slavery as the rest of Europe did, without was, and without 600K+ deaths, raping, burning, and pillaging.

To claim that states rights is only a cover for racism is an egregious oversimplification that ignores the will of the founders.