could be living in a nation in that peters out somewhere east of the mississippi. we might not have gone to the west via erie canal en the continental nation, the spanish in the south, even russian influence from the northwest, why not have given us the country we have now. .. 

>> i think it's probably an essential, i'm not an expert in this area but i have noticed the development of the idea especially because people keep mentioning erie canal but i think it's a central. american infrastructure is falling apart. i don't think we have done much since the 1950s. another similarity between the erie canal and what we have now is that the canal was built during the country's first great depression. the canal project started in

1817, but in 1819 before much of it had been built we had the panic of 1819 caused in large part by flawed 19 policies. and that depression lasted into the middle 1820s, the precise building of the canal. what that depression did actually was allow for contracts on the erie canal to be taken at much lower prices. essentially kept construction costs down and he gave worked too well worth suddenly many unemployed people. and so i think if we do wind up creating a national infrastructure bank, we certainly seem to be heading in a similar economic direction right now. and it might be a good time to create such a bank and have, in this case, the federal government provide work to people, too many people who may be losing their jobs.

>> in the back. >> do i infer correctly that the original sponsor for more politicians and businessmen? >> bats, i would say, the original idea came from this failed first western, this first grain merchant of western new york and he failed because he had no way to get his grave from western new york back east. that was in 18 oh seven. in 1808 a couple of new york state senators get legislation passed to at least get a first survey done of a possible route, and that happens. both of those legislators -- they also happen to be western new york pioneered so it's certainly in their interest, but they also i think had a broader interest because they saw the great -- greater possibilities

of laying a canal through upstate new york, accessing their lands off course but also being able then to contact ortega manage of all that the interior of the continent has to offer. cohead. untenanted go-ahead. wanted to wait wait for the microphone. >> if someone were to transport i guess by steam once barges from new york or philadelphia to albany, and then to traverse the canal with mules does the canal company provided meals or what do i not understand about that? >> you mean the workings, how

the canal actually worked? >> yes. if one were to deliver once barges to the canal by steam, and the owner of the barges and have mules. >> they did. i mean, the barges that operated on the canal essentially the system was a barge and a mule. it was the mule that pulled apart along the canal. maybe i'm not understanding your question. [inaudible] >> supposed the party started in new york or philadelphia and they were told by steam up to albany. >> right. >> and they were left there. i assume, they would just be left there. and how did they traverse the canal to buffalo, for example? >> most goods would not come up the hudson river in barges. they would go up the hudson river, initially for a brief

period, but ultimately in increasingly larger steamboats, they had been invented in 1807 and the canal was inflated in 1825. so it was a separate segment, goodman from new york city up the hudson to albany and then they were transshipped to canal barges. to answer your question? >> i'm not sure i did. [inaudible] >> okay. go ahead. [inaudible] >> the mules were owned by the canal companies. and you have barges that took good and you also have barges that the passengers, but in all cases pulled by a originally by horses for the first couple of years, but then it was discovered that mules are actually, paul harder and longer

and in a more docile manner. anyone else? >> how many companies were there? how many canal companies were there? >> there were a bunch. initially, there were a couple of guys whose names escape me now who started the first passenger canal boats, and were actually -- intended to be monopolists. they were advertising line was one line on the canal. and so again, even in the 1820s, we have business interests that aren't necessarily headlined with the public interest, but eventually and actually fairly quickly a number of competitors emerged. and travel on the canal is very

competitive. not particularly expensive, but enough that people who ran barges made a lot of money even after they paid significant tolls, which is what wound up making the canal such a profitable venture for the state. [inaudible] >> hold on a sec. >> did the railroads put the canal out of business, i would think they would have. >> yeah. no no. it's a very interesting question. i think if the canal had not been built from 1870 to 1825 railroads start coming in in the 1830s. initially they can't really read arose can't really transport very much so they are not really competitor for barges, for heavily loaded barges for really a couple more decades, but it's a curious thing. once the canal was built and opened, that became the route

west. my office is a neighborhood that, a neighborhood that has lots of little places to eat. i wind up getting lunch all the time from the same deli in the bottom of the building. i could go to like a different license. i always go to the same place, and i think a lot of, that sort of human instinct, is what happened with the canal. once the canal opened and the way west was from albany to buffalo, that's how people went. and so when the first railroads were built in new york state, the first rail line was laid right parallel to the erie canal. and later the first interstate west through new york was laid right next to the railroad. and it wasn't until really after the civil war that the amount of freight carried by roads exceeded the amount of freight carried by the erie canal and other canals.

>> i have sort of a follow-up question to that actually witches, are there any bits of the erie canal that are operational today for commerce rather than just historical reasons? >> right. as i think i mentioned, but birkenau is the current condition. the large part was done for the 1830s to the 1860s, and then from 1905 until 1917 the current canal was built, which is the canal for motorized barges and the mules go away, no motorized barges. and the current canal is essentially much straighter, much, much broader than the original canal. and there is -- i've been on the canal and there is now, probably not for several decades has there been very much commercial activity on the canal. it's almost entirely pleasure boaters. and there was a brief insurgents this past summer when gas went

up to -- when oil prices spiked in some shippers briefly apparently shifted to erie canal barges which are much cheaper than trucks on interstate, at least when gas is over $4 a gallon. but that quickly went back to the situation we have now which is mostly just pleasure boaters on the erie canal. okay. anyone else? things very much for coming and i hope you enjoy the book. [applause] >> he is the author of water for gotham, a history and associate editor of the encyclopedia of new york city.

>> the summer book tv is asking what are you reading your. >> i'm charles gibson at abc news. the book i am most looking forward to this summer is to come out august 11. i have the date circled on my calendar. pat conroy has a new novel coming out. is called south broad. that is an area if you know charleston, south carolina, in that grand old city, that knows very well. when he writes a novel, it is occasioned for celebration. so south abroad comes out august 11, and i hope to have it read by august 12 or 13.

there are a couple of other books i'm going to be the summer. janice lee has written a book called the p. and a teacher, a novel set in china that i am told is very good. marilyn robinson has written a follow-up to her great book of a couple of years ago. this book is called home. is a further story of the prodigal son returning. her first book was so eloquent that i look forward to reading this one. on steinhauer has written a spy novel called the tourist that is highly recommended and on my bookshelf. it is a spy novel, but that's what you read in the summer. good spy novels. as long as i have this occasion, to other books that i want to recommend i read in past summers, but i think are a joy for anyone who picks them up. one is in the book thief by marcus. if you haven't read it you should. it's different than anything i have read, and with marvelous insights into the human condition. and then someone knows my name by lawrence hill. it is a fictionalized

autobiography of a woman sold into slavery who chronicles her life in magnificent fashion. someone knows my name, the book thief and as i said, that conroy's south abroad that comes out august 11. >> book expo america, new york city 2009 we are here with john. what is a publisher do? >> the publisher is just a title i have. i run in print at basic books so we have editorial, marketing, publicity, design and i just end up making the final decisions on things. i say a lot of yes or no is what i do all that long. >> what you say yes or no to? >> whether we are going to

acquire a book, how much we will pay for, but then the resources we will put into marketing and promoting it, a final call on which jacket, i like this jacket better than that one, what the price will be, how many we should print, ship. a bunch of small decisions. it all adds up to big decisions but a bunch of small ones along the way. >> how long have you been in books and where did you come from before basic? did you always want to be a publisher? >> no. i was in retail. i ran a bookstore in washington for 10 years and finally decided i enjoyed the book business so much i wanted to try something a little different in retail. publishing was the obvious choice. you're going to date me here, i think this might be almost 20 years of a book expos. about half of them in retail and have been publishing a. >> let's talk about some of the book she said yes or no to. decisions on i should say. here is the travel memoirs spent a lot of people know rick steve's because he is europe to

the backdoors of travel series. he has the best travel books on the market. rick is actually very active and the travel guide is not appropriate to have a lot of political activism in travel guides. this is a long essay on the fact that when you travel that you actually are committing a political act, and when you travel you should -- you should consider where you are going and how you behave when you're in a place, and americans need to basically travel better. you can learn as much from the culture that you are going to visit, and then you see the cover has the suitcase on a. any ideas that when you come back from a place you should bring back as much of that place is possible. make america a more interesting place, make you a more interesting individual. so it's a political essay on travel. back to the idea of you being publisher. the cover, did you make that decision? how do that, about?

>> that was from perseus. we struggle because we knew it couldn't look like a conventional travel guide. it couldn't have a single destination but we also didn't want it to seem too overtly political. we wanted it to seem accessible, a little fun, old-fashioned. so that's actually a suitcase that rick steve's owns and we put stickers on it. it's not a stock photo that we found. we put it together and then decide around. i like the way it's clean, but it's on. >> some of our viewers are at the bookstore so they know a lot has been put into these covers? >> covers are one of the toughest things that we do because everybody has a legitimate opinion about what works as a cover. sometimes i'm doing is just filtering through the many different legitimate voices and just trying to pick the one i think is going to help us in the long run. >> all the books we're talking about here on the table are out right now, these are spring titles. >> that's right. this show is usually to talk about all books that don't also bring spring books that had just landed. that book just published last

month. >> two books on the economy. two divergent takes on the economy? >> robert frank to just simple by things i would say a liberal economist. he writes for "the new york times." here that cornell and he has done this economic national is the second book he has done for us and it's a collection, pieces about how to think about the current prices through economic terms. he helps people with their vocabulary to help them understand all the garbage that you hear in the news, just sort through it. been on the other side you have tom sold to a conservative economist out of the hoover institution in california, a very widely respected. both of these men are enormously respected. we said we would like you to write a book on what's happening in the economy and he said without a doubt i need to write about the housing crisis because in his opinion the housing crisis is what precipitated the

entire economic boom bust. >> so we have some travel, we have the economy and we have this book by chris mooney about science in america. >> chris mooney is a science journalist and he wrote a book for us to couple years ago called the republican war on science. and now he has moved onto the idea that we have a problem with scientific literacy in this country. i think the argument he would make is that when you read the front page of a big daily paper and you look at the problems that this country faces, and enormous number of them are scientific problems or i should say they are problems that have scientific solutions. and one of the things that we are struggling with in this country is that we don't have the capacity, the infrastructure to build scientists who can help solve these problems. this is an argument saying we need to increase the scientific literacy in this country, and that includes some obvious things like our education system but also means that scientists have to do a better job of talking about scientific solutions to our problems in accessible terms to the public.

>> you mentioned that this is the convention where people come out of talk about their fall books, balding the biggest season in the industry when you release your largest titles. >> that's right. consumers sort of come out to spend for the holidays is the assumption, so when i was in retail the assumption was you did about a fourth of your business in november and december. publishers do tend to push their biggest books for that type of your. a lot of illustrated books come out. for us, because basic doesn't do illustrated books we do a lot of history and science and psychology, things like that so we can to put the most as we like to say gift he and the jargon of the industry and the geekiest books that come out that time of year there are two. >> i want to add real quick. here is something, book buyers, librarians, media, this is what you put together so they know what's coming out and you can essentially pitch him on the

book. >> right. publishers think in terms of seasonal that. most publishers have two or three lists a year. this is the fault list, and what we do is descriptive copy for every book. it has a bio of the author, jacket, just sometimes its quotes or examples from the book. i think you summarized it perfectly. i think the main tools for booksellers but the publishers use it for media, authors and agents so they can see what individual publishers are doing. we have to plan books into the marketplace six, nine months ahead of time. so you have to have something that is sort of polished for this so the retailers and publishing books can see what the final book will look like. some of these books, they are still being written so we don't have a finished book to show. >> talk about two of them. >> eugene rogan is a historian, saint anthony's college adox are. this is what we think will be a major new history of the era,

and he has taken an interesting approach. he chose to start this history in the 15 hundreds, and his concept there was that is when the ottomans first conquered the arab lands and one of the defining characteristics of arab history is that they have frequently been an occupied ethnic group. so he decided that was the key, it rather than start with mohamed were other histories have started, this was the defining moment. what he would argue his that arabs value history in ways that those of us in the west we don't think about it. first of all their history is much deeper and richer. for most of their history they were a dominant power, and i think one of the things that's going on in the middle east now is arabs are seen that the west sort of looks down on them. that's something that's very inconsistent with their history. so it's very important to understand arab history if you want to unravel what's happening in the arab landed a. >> and this author lives in

oxford england. would you bring him your. >> we will bring them here. it's funny because history is a little tough to get media because the media sort of obsessed with what's in the news, and even though i try to make the argument you why this is relevant to the news that will be a bit of a battle when we tried to pitch it. books about the economic situation is a little easier to tour and get media. we thought this was such an important book that we would bring them over and we will get some of the media for that. >> the second book. >> this is a book by seth. he was quite well-known in certain circles. he writes regularly for "the wall street journal." he decided that americans don't know enough about the american constitution and you can buy a constitution for a dollar. they are sort of short books but what he decided is people don't read the constitution because they don't understand the context of it. so his idea is to do and

annotated context. each amendment and each article of the constitution, he goes back and looks at the historical context in which the amendment or the article was written. he looks at the way it's been applied throughout history. he looks at it in terms of how the court has applied. i wish i had this book out right now because he would be real quick to comment, we're all talking about course interpretations of the constitution. since we know there will inevitably be another supreme court justice to be nominated and approved. we will be ready to roll this out. he is a very well known conservative and journalist. we think it's going to get a lot of attention. >> former bookseller, current publisher. basic books. thanks so much. >> we're heading over right now to the eye ayn rand institute which is always set up your for some reason and we're going to find out we will talk to jeff

here. i just, what you name and your position? >> jeff,. >> why is it that i ayn rand always seems that bob up in sales when there's an economic crisis? >> sales get bumped up since the beginning of the year, and that's directly as a result of the story and the ideas in the book. this is a book about the not-too-distant teacher when the creative people of all stripes, all talents and all abilities decide to go on strike against the world that does not appreciate their value and their contributions. and the world very much like the one we are currently facing economically. >> what do you think of the current response, of the policy response, to the economic situation we are currently facing? >> total disaster. the whole premise behind the response is that the free market is the essential problem here is

the unfree market that has produced the economic catastrophe that we are in, and that is a view that is dramatized as well is made very clear in her works such as capitalism, and is the unknown deal. if you look at those essays and what they were examining in the '60s, you will see that the basic principles, the basic subversion of the market, the basic decision to go away from independent judgment, the basic view that you don't have a moral right to keep the product of your own efforts. those are the issues that the book consolidates, and those are vital issues relative to our current crisis. >> when you see the crowd out here at the la times about best, what are your thoughts and how does it compare to previous years? >> i'm glad that there are so many people reading and still

reading. it's gratifying. and as far as the ayn rand response, every year it gets bigger every year people come up and say, you know, i'm going to read, read think that the. i remember reading that in 10th grade or i remember reading that when i first got married. i'm going to revisit that and whether they do, but now what's happened because of the economic situation they are saying, you know, ayn rand was really right. there is something about her novel about what's going on here. what, aren't you writing on the ways? that's what they say. >> what are you currently reading? >> i'm currently reading short stories of the boca. a great brilliant writer. >> why? >> beautiful prose. i'm not really wild about his content and i'm reading his short stories, but i get hooked on paragraphs and then i'm there for the end. >> and finally what's the website in case people want to

contact your. >> the website is ayn rand.org. >> thanks for spending a few minutes. here's your book back in it and now live coverage from the 2009 chicago's printers row lit fest. the first event of the day features author johan van overtveldt and his new book bernanke's test: ben bernanke, alan greenspan, and the drama of the central banker. >> bosin and in the end class l. class . .