booktv"'s web site. booktv.org. we want to thank him and the staff of mount vernon, virginia. here george washington's home for being with us on this sunday and independence day weekend. thanks for watching. thank you. >> next month, news analyst and fox news political analyst juan williams will discuss still rights and race relations in the u.s. culminating in the election of president barack obama. the documentary writer has authored or coauthored 6 books including eyes on the prize, thurgood marshall and enough. >> coming up on book tv, the

late robert mcnamara from 1995, talks about his book in retrospect, the tragedy and lessons of vietnam. afterwards, congressman and an nbc host joe scarborough on the budget ministrations, and the obama presidency. afterwards, it is on sunday night. books on the economy, the international financial collapse was predictable and is far from being over. allan ross tells us how second grader beats wall street jurors. what to do about the economic crisis. and henry waxman on is 35 years in the u.s.. go to our web site, booktv.org.

>> and nehr was held in chicago over the first weekend this past june. the first featured family properties, race, real-estate and the exploitation of black urban america. and >> thank you and good morning. i would like to welcome you to hour session of the 20 fifth annual show doggo tribune. and family properties, the exploitation of black america published by metropolitan books. i'm a professor at the illinois college of chicago. if i may, a few introductory remarks. for much of the 20th-century,

chicago has maintained a reputation as one of the nation's most segregated cities. it's african-american population consigned to the south side and two particular neighborhoods. the history of that segregation has attracted talented historians like james grossman. they have carefully chronicled how chicago's white population erected multiple barriers, to residential expansion and the story is not a pretty one. chicagoans relied on tools. they utilize restrictive covenants, banning the sale or rental of property to non-whites. when that failed they turned to bombings and in 1940s and 50s to arson and writing. city officials allowed the

construction of public housing only in already black areas while engaging in urban renewal programs that raise healthy black neighborhoods. banks redlined entire areas, occupied minorities were experiencing racial change. federally insured mortgages went overwhelmingly to whites in all white areas. a free market in real-estate was a complete myth. but if anyone thought accounts by the historians and just mentioned have told us all we need to know about the sorry history of housing in the city of chicago, this book quickly prove them wrong. family properties does not retell a familiar, depressing tale but instead skillfully and creatively leaves the story of neighborhood decline, economic exploitation and individual and community activism. the result, i would suggest, is a moving and eloquent account of the forces black chicagoans were

up against and the issues of reformers to combat them. family properties is organized around two and related themes, a neighborhood's decline and her father's crusade on its behalf. during the 1950s and 1960s, the west side community of chicago was demographically transformed as local whites migrated to the suburbs and southern africa americans moved in to replace them. population density increased, buildings deteriorated, crime levels rose. into this picture stepped a progressive, passionate, driven lawyer whose increasingly black and poor clients provided in a first hand education in the forces keeping african-americans impoverished and their neighborhoods blighted in the 1915s and 60s. he learned from his clients about the devastating effects subcontract selling, the restriction of african-american specific sections of the city

and their inability to procure mortgages, forced those committed to buying homes to turn to contract sellers, speculators who sold property on the installment plan. sellers systematically misled clients, grossly inflated property prices, concealed shoddy repairs, demand a large down payments, insisted on prompt monthly payments. purchasers who missed a single payment could lose everything. the seller could reclaim the property stan and repeat the process again and again. the process was widespread and had devastating consequences for individuals and communities. her father waged a lonely, and successful crusade against contracts selling and related practices in the courts, in newspaper columns, and television and radio appearances. this would have made compelling reading but the family connection to the story goes

deeper. is building's deterioration allowed his critics to charge him with hypocrisy and called him a slum worker. whatever else this book is it is not a romantic study of oppression and resistance. now a few words of introduction for our distinguished author, a native of the chicago area, buerle received her ph.d. from yale university and she is currently chair of the department of history at rutgers university. she teaches courses in the 1920s, the great depression, women's history and urban and ethnic history, among other topics, she is the author of each mind taking them, american women, sexual purity, and the new thought movement, published by the university of california press, 1999. articles have been in a variety of journals including u.s. catholic historian, journalist

history of sexuality and the american quarterly. please join me in welcoming buerle satter. >> that was a wonderful introduction. i didn't know until a few minutes ago that i was supposed to speak myself. i thought i would just answer the questions, what should i say? let me just say, the book is different from other books that deal with racial change in chicago, that deal with housing discrimination, i wasn't trained in those fields. if you heard eric talk about my earlier publications about sexuality and cultural studies, my first book is about the nineteenth century and women's history, that is what i was trained in.

i was not given the concerns and preconceptions and preoccupations that structure a lot of urban history because i hadn't read much of it. the book really grew out of talking to real people, looking at my father's papers, in the beginning, my brother had saved my father's papers after his death in 1965. i was only 26 when my father died, i didn't know him personally. i knew him as a very small child. i started with these papers that had been collected by a 15-year-old kid at his father at the desk. they were kind of random. they were pretty good but it was not a professional job, just what a kid could grab.

i went through them. i felt intimidated, i can't write this book, i don't know anything about this topic, i can barely balance my checkbook, i don't understand mortgages, i don't want to understand mortgages, i didn't think that was an interesting topic. once i understood that my father's activism was about keeping people in their homes and mortgages were going to have to be central one way or another, i thought oh know and i almost said let me put my father's papers in the archive and let someone else do it. i don't want to spend this time trying to figure out economics. then i realized i was the best person to write the book, not because i was going to glorify my father, not because of a personal connection but because i was bad at this stuff. it would mean that i would have to understand very thoroughly and i would have to write very clearly to make it work. someone who has been trained in

this, they use shorthand. i knew i didn't know anything. it made it easier to told a story in a human way based on the people i interviewed and the sources that i read. i pieced it together bit by bit. and i came up with a story of a whole city, the story of racial change on the west side, mostly about the most white speculators who profited from it, businesspeople and mortgage bankers and the people who fought to better their communities. i am just rambling but that was a big leap of faith for me to talk about this. but once i started talking to

people and started to understand how important it all was, that these were real people's lives, these were stories that hadn't been told, i knew it had to the happen and it took me nine years. it is not that unusual for historians to take a long time to do their research. i interviewed a lot of people, the interviews had to be transcribed, i had to study them and peace things together. my book, chicagoans who read the book recognize a true picture. i have been getting a good response mostly in chicago, i lived this experience and no one has ever made sense of it for me before. i made sense of it by staying away from the series, speaking to more investigative reporting, following the money which is

something my father did. back in the 60s and 50s, people were busy blaming african-american culture, like they do today for some extent for the decline of black communities and my father would say this is ridiculous. follow the money. where's the money going? who is profiting? that is what matters. we can't go into blaming people for theoretical ideas of what their culture is based on that are written mostly by people at the university of chicago and places like that who have no firsthand experience. i became more entire academic writing this book, because reading with the academics are saying verses what people on the ground are doing, this is so different. i have learned to trust a different group of people and i do think following how money

moves through the city, how power operates in a city is the number-1 thing to know. my father's story started me on this path. one of the reasons i thought i was not going to write this book is he died so young at the age of 49, that is the end of the story. 1965, what happened then? it seemed so truncated. then i found out about jack mcnamara, the activism that came after his death. i knew i had a story to tell. the activism, really brilliant, resourceful and wonderful people to be part of the story as well. i don't know how many people here have read it, but asking me to elucidate more of the story. >> i get the opportunity to talk to beryl for a little bit, then

we will turn over our remaining time to you all. you will know the microphone in the center of the room so when we open this for questions, please make your way to the microphone. you can line up and speak directly into it. we would appreciate that. let me begin with something that struck me when i was reading the book and that is the theme of discovery. there is your discovery of your father's story, asking questions of family members, piecing together things that perhaps people didn't want to talk about, but there was also, this is the core of the book, your father's discovery, you mentioned follow the money, the discovery of contracts selling, and its impact on african-americans in this city. this was an eye opening discovery that his own clients, we have a problem. could you talk about what he

learned on the ground as an attorney? clients come to him, what do they teach him? >> my father was a general practice attorney handling a wide range of topics, he wasn't a specialist in real estate in particular but what happened was a black couple came to him, they said we are being evicted from our house and we were wondering if you could give us a little more time, he said let me ask about this place. what did you pay for it? what is the general situation, what they told him is they had paid almost $14,000 for this property. that is high, he went over to city hall and looked at the records and found the person who sold them the property for

$13,900 had bought it himself a few weeks before he sold it to them for $4,300. and he thought wow! that is quite a marked up. the other thing is the men is sold him the property, the owner of the property, the guy who bought it for $4,300 and folded for $13,900 claimed to be a real-estate agent, had a real estate office, he sold them his own property almost quadrupled. this was all very shocking and the more he questioned them, the worse it got. not only did he do that, but he never told them he was the owner. he sold it to them on contract, on installment contract, which mean they put money down but

they wanted to get a $750,000 down payment. in the mid 50s you could buy a new house for $300 down, they were paying a reasonable down payment, it wasn't a small down payment. they would not get ownership until the property was paid in full. you explain this, i will explain a little more. he found this out and said to them, you're in a perilous situation. when he looked at have been stalin contract work, they had a stipulation that if they miss one payment the property reverts to the seller. if you're paying quadruple, the chances of your missing a payment are reasonably high. on top of that, the man who was the owner but pretended not to be the owner and acting like an initial real-estate agent acted as very tourney -- attorney. the price is high but maybe we

can pull off. he said i can handle this, i will save you a lot of money, i will be your attorney. this is a lot of bad behavior. once this was put together, my father was horrified. he and his assistant did some research and found the same man who sold them the property and was not allowed to take it back because they missed the payment had actually -- was throwing 30 or 40 other people who had missed payments that year, and 50 the year before and it was obviously a large scale situation where they reselling a lot of property, taking down payments and throwing them out again and reselling over and over, the same property. when they learned what my father

had found out, they decided, instead of stopping the eviction, we are going to go after this guy, try to stop him for unconscionable behavior. what he had done was not necessarily illegal, it wasn't necessarily nice but if you sign a contract you signed a contract. my father wanted to argue it was not illegal but it was unconscionable. claiming to be an attorney when you're not, claiming a fiduciary relationship once you are an attorney, you want to be a fun behalf of your clients and your self. that is what he discovered. he was horrified because he understood the implications. he understood that this meant african-americans who had no choice but to buy on contract or being subjected to several large scale rackets, exploiting and pulling money from their community that they needed and leading to the decline of

property, across chicago. >> so he pulls this thread and discovers a group of speculators who are deeply involved in exploiting a fairly impoverished group of chicagoans with few other options, he pursues their case in court, but also discovers this is not just a matter of a few bad apples, a few bad speculative the system and quality to this process, he runs against various burke walls, finds other attorneys and professionals in chicago to be remarkably unsympathetic to the cases of his clients. can you talk about that through larger participation of so many other professionals in this city? >> it wasn't a matter of impoverished clients necessarily. chicago was doing pretty well. that is the one of the things i'm trying to counter, the idea

-- there is a sense -- i see it on public television documentaries and things, that black people moved north, they moved to the north, they stayed before, they were poor people. is historically the that black people are by definition poor people. that is not what you meant but it is there, irritating. it is not factual. they are made for by certain unethical actors who are taking advantage of a structural situation set up by the federal government, the federal housing administration that created a nationwide blockage of mortgage money for african-americans. the husband and wife both work,

they were doing okay, they would have been fine if they didn't have to pay quadruple. they could have paid $5,000 for their new home which is what it was worth and what houses in the suburbs were going for. that is what is happening, that is the key to the story, it is about people who should have done every bit as well as white people similarly situated with similar jobs, but they can't because having to pay so much more for basic housing needs, as far as the complicity of the rest of the city, at the machine cities, judiciary is very tight, the political structure, it was an overwhelmingly light judiciary, they did not have empathy. some did come here and there. there was a judge or two who would say that is terrible, we will give them a break but most

of the time they said a contract is a contract and we just don't care. be on that, the speculator woyo would buy a house or property, they would pay $8,000 for a house and sell it to a black couple for about double, sometimes more. they collect the payments for a few years, maybe even just a year and already took the down payment and they say we are done with this, we want more cash, they would sell the contract paper to another investor. so for $12,000, they paid $8,000. the black family rose 16, sold to another investor, that guy is

going to say i am paying $12,000 for a contract paper in which people -- i have got a deal and the speculator got extra money. they would sell the paper to all kinds of professionals across the city. attorneys, judges, politicians, dentists, doctors, people who were not too interested in looking for a nice investment. that widened the circle of complicity greatly. so that is part of the story too. that is the way it is similar to today, a similar crisis where people are over indebted by mortgage bankers and brokers and the paper sold off and it is not their problem anymore. >> while we pursue the discovery or surprise aspect of this.

your father may have discovered a world of contract selling and widespread complicity in this process, you discover your father, a complex, sometimes difficult, often courageous man whose own involvement in real-estate was a source of some friction within the family, and exposed him through hypocrisy. >> the buildings, part of what got me interested in working on learning about my father was this mystery of the buildings. my father owned four apartment buildings on the west side of chicago. he had a heart condition from when he was 16, he always knew his health was fragile and he might not live a long life.

he became an attorney, invested in property as a way to protect his family. his properties were going to be the thing that would enable his family to survive. he would have to work less hours, anything. that was the investment for his future. he invested in a neighborhood that he knew, where he lived. he was working all day as an attorney, he would come in the evening and work a few blocks, working on his property. he had these properties. there redis buildings, some kind of -- i knew there was paint around the building. i was cognizant, there were no buildings. they were sold for and less money and nothing. my relatives were upset about it. if they thought my father did

something stupid and wrong around these buildings, somehow he had gambled his family's future on some buildings that didn't pay off and when he died and the buildings were worthless, weaver left with no security. i knew he was a crusader. i heard from his family that he helped black people with property. basically, how to described it? he was caught in the same cycle that any white property owner

faced once a neighborhood started to go down. wasn't exempt from the decline of a community. he couldn't stop it singlehandedly even though he knew what was going on. i need to explain what happens when you have a community in which there's a lot of controversy going on. you have a situation where people are paying quadruple for their properties and they can't miss the payment. they can't maintain the property, they often overcrowd the property to get more tenants in so they can keep their payments up because once you put the down payment and pay for several years you don't want to lose it all. contracts were active in the area where his pocket was located which is why he was going to end on fighting them, not only justice, but a process that was going to destroy his own future, his own community where he had put everything, he

had gambled everything in the hopes that it would sustain him. it was very personal freedom fighting the speculator is. he knew them well not only from seeking vencor all the time, but he knew block by block and house by house where they worked. this whole process, racial antagonism, the white people in neighborhoods where contract sellers were active, properties that were highly exploited prices to african-americans, they saw black people and immediately overcrowding the property, not maintaining the property, all kinds of jobs, kids running wild, why aren't they there for their kids, they have to work double shifts, how else are they going to keep up these payments? white people just see the results, not because of. if you could leave, you leave. my father couldn't leave. he couldn't leave for a lot of

reasons, one being the issue of hypocrisy, what he is going to tell people, if only we stay and fight everything will be ok but i am leaving. given his public posture it wasn't something he could do. when whites left these neighborhoods where selling was contacted, who is going to buy from them anyway? only speculator is. he despises people. he was stuck in a terrible downward cycle that he well understood but could do nothing about. if we didn't maintain them perfectly, under a microscope, people were watching people who didn't like him, furious fellow

attorneys. my father named the names. you have a faulty water fixture, you see the right up. it was a very hard situation. on his deathbed, basically said we have to hold on, we have two or three more years on the mortgage payment. it will help my wife, mai five children. after his death my mother couldn't hold on. she couldn't afford to. it was more than we could handle. it was a story in the book aloud how these get full. it was a horrible tragedy. it was important to tell the

story, in part because you can't not tell it, it is so central to the actual life of this real person. it is an example of what happened to whites in these neighborhoods. black people were exploited viciously. whites who wanted to stay as neighbors didn't have much choices. they could stay and watch the neighborhood's decline, they couldn't stop it because they couldn't get mortgage money for blacks, they didn't have that power. many didn't want to leave but they had to in this end. for many it was a very bitter pill and it made them feel driven out and it made them -- it created a lot of anger. the bad feeling in my family was not different from other whites who had lived in this neighborhood and felt that they had to leave whether they wanted to or not. >> the question of who is

responsible for neighborhood decline was heated discussed and was controversial than, and it remains with us today. your father took the position that structural forces are fundamentally at work, depriving black communities of their economic resources contributing to the spiral of deterioration. your brother, david, drew different conclusions after your father's death and he represents a very different political interpretation or spin on this process which is still with us in some political circles today. could you talk a little about his vision or his interpretation and we can open up to the audience to discuss. >> i hope it can conduct -- talk about the contract.

my brother, david, was 17, almost 18 when my father died, he was quite young, the oldest of the five of us. he was at the university of chicago. after my father's death he turned 18, he was a sophomore by then. he wrote an article about the west side of chicago, criticizing martin luther king's crusade. he basically argued the problem on the west side is there were too many wealthy recipients. wealthy recipients in have -- it destroyed them. they tore down the poverty in which they lived.

destructive behavior. the article. the 18-year-old sophomore, quite an impact, people loved it. white people loved it. part of why i question academics. there was a lot going on at the time, bad culture destroying communities. he picked up on it. he published in campus magazine. president of the school, people around the school, he then rewrote it and was published in the new republic, 18-year-old,

published this article. a very prominent washington post journalist who wrote about in a syndicated column. by 18-year-old brother became quite famous for saying this about the west side. an example of what the media will pick up and what they won't, my father trying to explain what was going on on the west side of chicago, he submitted his article to the new republic and was rejected. then they pick up and 18-year-old kid and say this is great. my brother was a great writer, a talented guy, it was beautifully written. later when i interviewed him about it he told me that it was an emotional reaction in some ways. he said he had been out to our

father's property and some of them, some of the units had been destroyed by tenants and he felt the tenants reach pack at these units, had contributed to our father's death by creating economic stress, by making it impossible for him to keep the buildings as he wanted to. so he set out to defend him against people who he thought had heard him. it was a very personal thing. in my book i show that destructive tenants and wealthy receipts are not always aligned. some welfare recipients are destructive and some are fantastic and some tenants are destructive and some tenants are great. they don't go together. my brother put them together and received great acclaim for it and even had -- i gather you have been studying this for many years. the kid was 18.

it was very shocking. that is how power works. i was initially surprised when i read the article as an adult, i don't blame him for it. but i think there is something about the way it was received that is indicative of the way the media rights what -- publishes what it wants to hear and is hardly uncritical because my brother changed the names and made up parts of the article to make it read better and no one ever investigated a single aspect of it. they should have. in a way, the article was another reaction to the pain, the transformation of these communities. what i am trying to talk about is these are human beings experiencing pain in their families, people who are suffering in all kinds of ways,

not just evil speculator is crushing good people, there is that, of course, but the repercussions ripple out in a wide, and complex way. people react in human ways to hurt and i write about that and try to make it 3-dimensional, that is why i included my brother's story in the book. >> we have time for a number of questions if you will come to the microphone in the center of the ring, keep your questions brief so we can get a couple of them in. >> good morning. can you hear me? where were the churches and synagogues? >> the alderman were in daily's pocket. there was basically one independent, dupree, who passed away recently, the other 49 voted with the daily and did

what daly wanted. black chicagoans call him a violent 6. they were in his control. they were no help. many of them were part of the system. they knew the building inspectors who could be encouraged to write up violations if a speculator wanted somebody out. so no help. the churches and synagogues, my father was a lot of them. their were mixed feelings among them. after my father's death when black west seiters organize, they got an immense amount of help from the catholic church and from some jewish synagogues, some protestant groups, that was in the late 60s.

by then, the situation had gotten so extreme that they were compelled to act. they were a little sluggish and more likely to fight for open occupancy than against new speculation. >> if it had been gradual in south side neighborhoods instead of a wholesale exodus do you think these neighborhoods would be better off or with their history be any different or do you think they were destined to decline? >> you have to understand the way the faa, federal housing administration, structured this whole thing. that was ultimately behind the wholesale estimate of whites and the decline of the communities. the way they worked was they would not insure mortgages in changing neighborhoods, by which they meant if a few black people

moved into white communities they would insure mortgages. i have a statistic in the book, out of 240 banks in chicago, they found one for loan to a black family moving into a white neighborhood, wanting to get out of the complete the pact black ghetto. they can't get out with the regular mortgage. they can't buy and at a fair price on fair terms of -- is less likely. they understood when black people were moving in the were buying on contract at high prices and had to overcrowd the properties, they also new -- white people knew that an area was redlined once blacks moved in. what they understood was suddenly they can't get -- it is

hard for them to get a loan. they have got to get out and away. the quicker they leave, the better. basically you have people going door to door saying blacks are coming. if you want to sell to me now i will give you $8,000 for your property. if you want to wait a month i will give you 7. if you want to wait two month i will give you 5. it is up to you. wait and get less or leave now and maybe get something close to what your property is worth. there was an idea that if only they stayed everything would be fine but they couldn't stay. economically it was too risky. they were often lectured by well-meaning racial liberals who said what is wrong with you? why are you running? they knew that they were the people being called in the middle of the night saying you want to sell?

speculator is, blockbuster's really pushing to get people out. does that answer your questions? >> i enjoyed reading the book very much. i was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the difference between the salt kolinsky kind of grassroots organizers verses the ruth brown organizers. i was fascinated by what i interpreted as kind of complex take. being the anniversary -- >> i have to be very fast but essentially it always -- a lindsay wanted to win. the forces that hurt black people are complicated. you can't always assume you will win. if you say i will only find what i will win, i will not fight for

things that keep black people down because it is too complicated. he is too -- he was too oriented towards winning in a way that meant he could only take on simple things. they were willing to take on highly complex economic points of exploitation. he would have said don't touch it is too complicated. don't say that if you're dealing with institutional racism. >> there is so much more in this book that we have not been able to touch upon today so i recommend that you go out of this room. there are copies you can purchase. beryl will be available to sign those books should you so desire. i want to thank our speaker today, i want to thank our audience for coming out. we appreciate it, thank you. [applause] >> we will be back with more

coverage from the 2009 chicago tribune after this short break. up next, a panel discussion on american outlaws with authors elliott born and john paulworth. >> what do you reading? >> i love to read more than anything. i don't get too much exercise. i lie on my sofa and read. i want to tell you, this is such an incredible year for reading and books. i am happy to have a chance to talk about this on c-span because i think c-span doesn't

bring enough fiction to you. i think fiction can be more true than books about policy or history. my two themes this year our immigration and south asia. two books are so popular on air and they don't need me to support them but i will tell you what they are. one is netherland by joseph o e o/neill who is part dutch and part irish. it takes place in new york. post 9/11. the second book is literary -- i stumble over the man, literary and potato peel society, which

is a book about world war ii. is a really delightful book about some women who get together and try to think of ways of sabotaging the germans who occupy the island. is part of britain and the germans actually occupy the island. and the third book which really doesn't need me to promote it is unaccustomed earth, that segways, represents both genress that i want to introduce today. one is novels about immigration, i find it a constantly

reaffirming the story about people coming to the united states to reinvent themselves. the other is the south asian writers. lahiri represents both of these trends. on immigration, i would like to start with wood burning which takes place in the 1850s and is about a group of mostly new americans who are working out issues in the united states, trying to settle into the new world, but it takes place in a few hours in the area around walden pond where a very depressed henry david thoreau actually starts a sword -- forest fire and everybody in the surrounding area is pulled in to

try to prevent the fire from burning down a beautiful town of concord. the hero of the day is a norwegian immigrant who has had a tragic event happened to him on the ship over to the united states, it is the way in which he can relocate himself in the united states by helping to subdue the fire and there are other characters as well, czech immigrants, irish immigrants and there are others who are becoming the composites that the united states will be, then another book that takes place a

century later is brooklyn buy o colm toibin, about an irish woman who comes to the united states, brooklyn, leaves her family, there is no work for her in brooklyn, it is a really lovely book about how she is able to settle in, find friends, then she is called by her mother to come back to ireland care, she has to decide which side of the ocean she is going to live on. you don't know until the end decision she is going to make. it has a little bit of mystery and a little bit of romance and it is a very lovely book. we are out of its i can't even show you a cover. we sold so many copies this

weekend. another immigrant novel is to the beautiful north, into the beautiful north. this is the second of his books that i have read, the first was hummingbird's daughter, which took place in northern mexico, this takes place mostly in the united states because it is about a mexican woman who comes to the united states to find seven men to save her town in northern mexico from bandits. she is under the influence of you brenner's the magnificent 7 and she and her gay friend traveled around the united states trying to locate the seven men who will fight the bandits. that is a really adorable. then there is some british immigration books. many of you know that britain is

changing since it entered the common market. it has become a center for emigration from all over from eastern europe as well as from south asia and two books that represent those two different areas, 1 is the road home by the british writer better known in the united states--should be better known in the united states. this takes place in london, a man from the former soviet union is trying to eke out a living, having left at a very bleak time in eastern europe. the second book also takes place in the kitchen, that is called in the kitchen by monica ollie. so i think this one is in paper,

the road home, and this is in hardback. which probably makes a difference to people. finally, she said ways into my other favorite john rowe which is south asian books. i have 2 year. one is cutting for stone which is about a physician, it is hard to describe because it is a very fat epic novel. we have gotten lots of people coming in to the store to say how much they love this book. he is a physician in the united states who emigrated here from ethiopia where his family were

protestant missionaries. a lot of this takes place in ethiopia and of what takes place in the united states in a hospital in the united states. it is lush, beautiful riding about medicine and about immigration and ethiopia in bad times, and it is a wonderful book. the other book, south asian book takes place in calcutta, it is called sacred games. in the tradition of life imitating art, what happened last year in mumbai, almost as if they were following a script from sacred games. sacred games is dominated by two major characters, an underworld boss who had all kinds of ties

to nationalist groups sell although he is interested in money, he is also doing the will of some of the fundamentalist hindu fundamentalist politicians. the good guy in the book is a police detective who is on the side of virtue and goodness and democracy and they are pitted against each other in this huge novel which is a wonderful book to take away on a trip. so those are my recommendations. i could go on and on but i tried to narrow it john and john. to see more reading lists and information, visit us at booktv.org. >> these are the best-selling

nonfiction books. the list reflects sales of july 3rd. catastrophe, dick morris and i've been mcbegan arguing against president obama's health care policies, you can listen to that this weekend on booktv. liberty and tyranny, radio talk-show host marc levin writes a series of critical essays about the influence of liberal government policy. malcolm gladwell makes the list for a thirty-second week. doug stanton writes about early battles fought on horseback in the afghanistan war in 2002. the book is horse soldiers. david kessler's book the end of overeating, and at booktv.org. bill o'reilly tells about how his childhood made him who he is today in a bold fresh piece of humanity. richard wolfe wrote about the candidacy of barack obama based

on interviews conducted during the 2008 campaign in renegade. magnificent desolation, buzz aldrin's story of the lunar landing. michael and elizabeth norman write a history of the world war ii death march called tears in the darkness. and the economic crisis in and then the roof caved in. ..

>> to see more summer reading lists and other program information, visit our website at the tv.org. >> and now more of the tvs coverage from the 2009 chicago tribune printers row lit fest. the second event of the day features elliot gorn the author of "dillinger's wild ride," the year that made america's public enemy number one. and john hallwas, the author of "dime novel desperadoes," the notorious maxwell brothers. [applause] >> one of the reasons i love books is that i and inept with things like this. i don't even know how to turn off my phone.

i've got it. i'm sure that will be great with books. this is an interesting one. the way many of these panels, together randomly likely throw a couple others name up and they fall down on the table and they say rick, go and interview these people. i don't think it was planned because what we are dealing with with these two fine books, "dillinger's wild ride" and "dime novel desperadoes," are subject, anybody in this room not know who john dillinger is? thank you. anybody ever hear of the maxwell brothers? i find this fascinating. i'm serious. this is a wonderful kind of thing. elliott, when you are thinking about, and i'm not sure how you go about it, but thinking about and writing about john dillinger, do you ever say before starting any research, well, a lot of people have thought about and written about dillinger?

>> yes, sir. and what surprised me actually when i came to the end of the book, thinking about a lot more has been written since i began. and so the amount of material is increasing. it's not decreasing. since the turn since the turn-of-the-century there have been several books on dillinger. good books. in other words, maybe i should have thought about it more before i get into it. but i thought i might have something new to say. there are good books, and i think this is one of them. but i think i tried to emphasize the context a little bit try to understand dillinger in the '30s and understand why as you begin, why we still remember him today. >> i think in both cases, these books are both remarkable job of setting time and place. and sort of showing how time and place influenced these guys. the maxwell brothers. this is one of those doors i kick myself and had a lot about. i do the everly sisters.

why didn't i write sin and the second city? this is just a remarkable story, and in the time these guys were famous. what happened? you are both historians. how do something just get buried in the dust of history waiting for you to come along and find it? >> it's a fascinating question, why do we remember as a culture what we remember. and get fascinated with it, and forget the things and people that we forget. very fascinating question. and appropriate for this particular volume because, yeah, the thing with "dime novel desperadoes" is its almost a stunning rediscovery because here you have outlaw figures who were as well known in their own time as the james brothers or billy the kid. and everybody sitting here knows about the jane's brother and billy the kid. there have been three dozen movies, for example, on billy the kid. i don't how many books. he was a small time atul russell

out of the southwest, in the new mexico territory. killed a couple of the deputy sheriff and his gait from jail and so on and so forth. you have in the midwest, from illinois, the maxwell brothers who were smalltime basically forcehorse thieves. got into a gunfight in wisconsin, dropped two sheriffs from two different counties in the street. it was the same era incidentally as the famous gunfight at okay corral that everybody sitting here also remembers, has heard of. probably see movies about. brothers against brothers. supposedly the herbs were the good guys. you need to talk to some historic if you still think so. brothers against brothers in wisconsin. a maxwells against the coleman brothers. and the maxwells were crack shots. they could have been circus performers. they drop the call was right in the street. killed two shares in two counties. touched off a largest manhunt

for outlaws and american. >> to parallel here, werther and fbi and most wanted list, these two guys would have been what dillinger was. they would have been the most wanted men in america. >> yes, sir. can in a sense they were for a while among the most wanted. for example, in the background of this book, he talked about contacts in these two books. in the background of this when you have a little bit of the billy the kid story, the gunfight at the okay corral. they are all placed in the same main year as the climax of the maxwell story, 1881. also president garfield a shot in the back july 2, 1881. same time charles could go die slowly through the summer and eventually passes away in september. all of this violence going on in america. and right in the middle of it is the maxwell brothers. billy the kid is killed that summer.

he gets paid five article in "the new york times." is so famous, even though he is in new mexico territory, that he gets a page five article, billy kidd, notorious bandit who killed. went and maxa was lynched in wisconsin he was page-one, new york times. >> today's running. >> lew as a historian have got to admire this guy, this kind of discovery. >> is the sort of thing you always hope to find in the archives. that kind of story. that's what is wonderful. it's a good question to the u.s., rick, about what gets remover and what is forgotten. and also how things get remembered and forgotten. dillinger for example is always remembered as an outlaw. a metaphor for which we understand and to which people understood i should say in the '30s is as an outlaw. he is more often called an outlaw that a gangster. so it is in that same, brought tradition. but by the same token, we forget

certain things. a good example is the james brothers and jesse james, how in the recent biography, fairly recent biography, he brings back that which is forgotten. is remembered at this the desperado an outlaw. and he is not remembered as part of the missouri border wars after the civil war. that part of bringing back the redeemer governments, the old southern governments. and basically started, start of the process of instituting segregation and jim crow. he is part of that. jesse james is politically aligned with that configuration. so some of it is serendipity, remember and what we don't remember. of course, one thing dries out another. there were bank robbers as successful as john dillinger. there were people probably as bloody as john dillinger. somehow, his charisma, whatever it is, history gets remover.

but there are also other reasons why i remember certain things and not others, why they serve certain kind of as stories, as in niche. they serve, they become stories we want to believe. we would rather think of outlaws in the old west. that's become part of who we think we are as americans more than the midwest or more than wisconsin. >> he hit on something right on the mark. that's absolutely true. the particular social context in that place in that time has much to do with what we remember or who and what we are who we forget. in this particular case, billy the kid, for example, was from what we now call the wild west, the old west, the far west. a place that is always sort of gloried and it's outlaw types. on the one hand they wanted to eradicate them, this ambivalence about them. on the other hand they want to lionized them, celebrate them, see them as heroes because they

embody certain to use his term, he is exactly right, american myths. boldness, manliness. all those things were in outlaws. remember, these guys are on the wrong side of the river, for one thing. they were on the illinois, wisconsin site. the old west, which the frontier had gone from here by the time they were here in post-civil war days. this had not yet called the midwest. it would not be called the midwest for the first time until the 1890s, that it was moving towards mentally thinking of itself as the midwest. in other words, and what he was saying in illinois and wisconsin and so forth, we are like the east coast. , here and invest in our cities, by your farmed out here. this is a. this is wonderful place to have a future. and so we are not across the river out there where you hear all the stories about violence and cattle rustling. no, no, no. we're not like that. so if there is nothing like that. the maxwell brothers, if i mention frank ran to you, there

would be handle up here about franklin who supposedly killed about 60 people, and exaggeration like with billy the kid but he did kill six or seven and was quite a remarkable outlaw, gunfighter in the illinois area also. same time as the maxwell brothers. plane down all of this kind of stuff on our side of the river. >> it is interesting it takes the formation of the organized crime to bring the midwest back up to its lawless, floppy lawless point we love and admire. how much is a newspaper, and in your research for both of these, the press as always beavan in those days, the press somehow and can be responsible for the glorification or the mystification of these that would separate these from, you've got a very good point about the midwest also. but we are a shrewd reporter for the tribute out in the day might

have taken these guys and done that. do you find, especially as to historians, is that the press and coverage of the characters that influences the future image and winds up burying other people? >> one of the things i tried to do in this book was talked probably a low bit more about the press and other books have. dillinger's father, he used to say that he should be credited, his son should be credited with being the greatest circulation bild in history. it was true. reporters that it really lacked onto this story. and just reported it day after day, it was an exciting story of bank robbers and jailbreaks and shootouts and so on. but it absolutely is a story about the development of the press and the building of the press. actually the tribune, it's not a glorious era in tribune, the tribune's history. actually the tribune was a leading newspaper in criticizing or being very, very looking

scans at what was the growing power of what became the federal bureau of investigation. the tribune was very, very critical of how the bureau handled the dillinger story. but it's very much, the story is very much based on the development of the press and on the press, the wire services especially picking up the story, carrying them nationally. the same thing when dillinger dies, headlines all over america for days it is page one news because it's a sensational story. gets page-one overseas. it's page-one in latin america. gets page-one and you're a. true story. >> exactly. and in my book, also, in other words, the exact same thing about the press and its impact is throughout the book. in fact, i can't name another book on outlaws, and i have read many, that so focuses on the creation of figures in the press, as in this particular case. in fact, in general my vision of things as a writer, i see a

world of chronically shallow comprehension of complex human beings. and i use really the maxwell brothers as an example of that kind of thing. in other words, we are all struggling against shallow social comprehension of who we are. so i say in effect, okay, let me give you the case of the maxwell brothers who are engaged in the same struggle that you and i are engaged in, but with much more horrific results. and let's look at their struggle. and so i am concerned about how the press and how storytelling as a whole shapes public comprehension of people, often for the negative. and so the story begins with young ed, in a downstate jail. he has been arrested. and with a local article on him, that says local desperado and so forth, a man who is destined to be a killer, etc. etc.

he makes comparisons to him to figures that we would gynecol sorgynecollike jack the giant kd so forth. a row of sort of figures. what has the guy done to earn the? he stole a suit of clothes from a local store. c.? and so what does he deal? what would a modern judge do in that case? a modern judge would say it, you know you shouldn't steal clothing from a store. now don't do that, or report to the local officer of the court once a month for the next six months or do 20 hours of community work at the local ymca, and don't do that again. i don't want to see you in my court. what do they do? they sent him to joliet. and i take you into different chapters inside juliet. if you don't know anything about juliet or 19th century prisons, you are in for a shock. terrible dehumanizing place that

produced outlaws and severe violence men because of the nature of the place. again, it reinforces my notion that the public in many different ways contributes to the creation, not only the public notion of figures, but also the actual creation of figures because of the social condition that we provide. >> this is why i want you each to talk about now, and i had an interesting panel here yesterday talking about the mob and what makes it permeable. and many people in the audience, its nature, it's nurture. these are, make no mistake, bad people, however romanticized they may be and however we think of this. the circumstances, dillinger do you believe, elegant, but going to prison thing because i know a lot of people who have gone there and come out much worse than when they went in. the talk about dillinger's background. what's your theory on that?

was a board to be bad, as they say? >> some previous biographers, and it really is a biographer, previous biographers have talked about dillinger, written about dillinger as someone who was, yes, born to be bad. and when you read the accounts of descriptions of him as a kid, they come right out of the movies. and you realize these are accounts of john dillinger. no one could know that about john dillinger. these are, whoever write to these accounts, going back to his time, is writing out of the movies, which are very, very popular in that era. when you try to get as close as you can, and you can't get that close. the sources are great. you probably would have gotten in some trouble in his life. but basically i think the weight of the evidence is he was a fairly average kid really. there is no doubt that prison was the important and formative thing for him.

yeah, he committed a crime and it was a violent crime. it was a stick up. when he was 21 years old with an ex convict ed singleton. and held up an old man, like dillinger's father, and elderly grocery store owner. makes you think. and for that crime was sentenced to a possibility of 20 years in prison. first time offense. he served nine, nine years. and what couldn't be more clear is that that's where he really learned about crime. that's what he hung out with the guys who became the dillinger gang. that's what he figured that when he got out, on the outside which banks to rob, what counts to go to, who to hook up with, what cars to think about getting. what cars are fast and so on. how to play the game of ambiguous jurisdictions, police jurisdictions. and from there, to then break

his friends out of the indiana state pin so that he would have the gang together that basically formed in jail. there is no doubt, there is no doubt that prison was a school of crime for dillinger, for the dillinger gang. i don't think there can be any doubt about that. >> it sort of nurture to want the ones that instinct. >> absolutely. there are reasons, good reasons to incarcerate people, don't get it wrong. but we shouldn't act as if there are consequences. and our things to think about your. especially as we continue to incarcerate more and more people in america. >> these guys were very simple relative backer. there is nothing, nothing in there if you read the book to a certain point, or a certain part of it when these guys as kids, i wouldn't think they were destined for desperado dumb. >> let me speak to this issue that you have asked and elliott has addressed very nicely.

"dime novel desperadoes" is the senator and a philosophical issue. in fact, it's the most widely discussed issue or controversy in the history of all philosophy. and that is, do people have free will and they said they choose to do this or do that, this person or not, or do we have, are we creatures of determined, are we more or less forced to go this way or that way i forces beyond our control. believing, it's the most widely talked about issue in all of philosophy, but for example at the 640 page oxford book of free will, for example, by oxford university press. i think at this directly. i used the maxwell brothers again as an example of that because incidentally to summarize things, very briefly that are very huge and complex. eminence is now streaming in, a variety of different fields, psychology, sociology and so forth, genetics, that are showing that we don't have the

free will that normally we have thought that we had. we don't. we are creatures who are in pinched upon by forces, especially as things affect our identity. in other words, what you can do for a job or could never do for a job for you. who could you stand to live with as a spouse or could ever stand to live with as your spouse. those kind of things. expressions of who you are, those are really -- you are a product of force is driving you. let me read this little section, and elliott or rick can comment on it. from the book, from the middle of the book. ed maxwell was lynched, one of the brothers is ledge, one is gets away. it is ledge sets off a nationwide discussion. i say this. ed maxwell did not create or

want the psychological problems, social conditions and public attitudes that produced him. and the same was true. they were faded to be themselves. and poverty, chain, alienated, insecure, self absorbed young men who resented authority, and loved guns. those factors and penitentiary to dehumanization, which they also did not choose, shape their experience, including their sudden response to armed strangers in the street who pulled guns on them and could have shot them down. if the causal history of a violent act extends back well past the immediate provocation to the powerful unchosen forces in the perpetrators life, what response by society is appropriate? and what must also think about our own lives, as far as that is concerned? and bbb, the weight of scholarship in those fields is now coming down hugely

introduction to the oxford book of free will will tell you that. come again hugely to the fact that we don't have anywhere near the free will to choose major things in our lives, as we have assumed in the past. >> i will comment on that. got, does that depress me. [laughter] i'm surprised i didn't become a criminal, so many of those things. that's fascinating. and you are on the oxford. >> i have taught courses with this ride of a mix, focus, where i build them into my books. when i see a particular case that will support or bring this issue out, but this very matter that you raise, to what degree are people responsible than? and juicy, yes, if you and i were growing up as impoverished disrespected, sons of tenant farmers on the front here in illinois, we would probably have not become outlaws. why? we have a different genetic mix.

we have a different psychological issues related to our childhood and so forth. we have all those different factors that are interacting. we must think of the human self as a complex of different forces, that is very different from person to person. and for some people, poverty, disrespect and so forth, can trigger this kind of behavior. and to us it will trigger that. show somebody that we really can make a contribution. >> some else it will trigger presentment. elliott, what do you think of that? it's fascinate. >> and it's a depressing, you're right. [laughter] >> i wouldn't disagree with the notion that there's an awful lot that determines who we become in our lives. the part that i would want to separate out and think about more is, you had mentioned genetics for example, who we are biologically. i don't think it's important.

i think it's we don't know about so much about that. i think again, just thinking with my script with john dillinger, it matters who he is terribly personally, his upbringing, his home in indianapolis and indiana for example. it also matters very much that he goes to prison in 19 for, at a very, very prosperous moment in american history. at age .1, and he comes out almost 30 years old at the worst moment of the great depression. he comes out and there is a 25% unemployment rate. he comes out, and this is the moment in the particular history of that economic cataclysm, unlike our own which begins with bank failures. that's one that the bank failure really doesn't come until just before dillinger gets out of prison, the '30s. i'm sorry, 1933 when things start to collapse and massive numbers. and that's very, very important. the banks are the enemies, in

peoples mind at that moment. there is much more than today rage, anger. that's a piece of the story also. so the context really does matter. it matters very, very much and i don't want to make it totally deterministic. obviously most people don't start doing situps. but it's very, very important. >> i absolutely 100% agree. contacts, social context and a cultural context, which is the ideas that we have in our mind, how men should behave, how women should behave, what america is all about. these are colter that we carry in our head is key, and the social conditions of the time, whether it's depression or not, these guys, my guys for example, were also young men trying to get started during a depression, the 1870s, for example. the greatest depression that we have had up until that time in america. so again, that impacted them as i point out very greatly. you've got those factors that a portion of the population at

least has in common at a particular time. and those are very determining factors. especially for certain people, they tended me up on their genetic and psychological mix. >> that the times in which have the ability to push someone, just far enough. there is a video that is fascinating about the guy who was attempting to rob a quick word or something. and a guy pulled a shotgun out, remember this? a guy pulls a shotgun on him and the guy pleads for his life and said look, i only lost my job and i was just trying to get something to be. and the owner of the store gives them $4 a loaf of bread. i think you're so right about this, that the times, if not make the criminal, at least be the final straw, the last little push. >> we need to ask ourselves. what did as a coulter, as a society, what is our responsibility knowing this now, what should we be doing?

we can't remove all adverse social conditions, although we should work on it. what about our culture? way, why does america related to this, and i even bring it up, is the fact that america is the most violent developed nation on the earth, by far. nobody else even comes close. why is that? do we have a bad social conditions everywhere? well, no. but our culture has always glorified manliness with a gun. man, you mess with me and you are messing with the ultimate. i point to plug you. we have always glorified that pic if you have that as part of your build system, part of her deeply held, i use it like scholars do, deeply held belief, you are going have huge gun violence. >> so what can we do? one of the things, we should be deconstructing some of these myths that lead to prompt, negative behaviors. that's one thing that we can do

as a culture. outside of address social issues, for example, and help people deal with her their psychological problems and so on. we've got to address things in several different ways. >> just before we open us up for questions, and i'm sure you have many. you two guys must be great teachers pick do you get that sense, do you get the sense, i'm serious. i would love to take a history class or one of you to. teaching and writing. you have written point for books. this is your 24th book. is this a balancing act for you? do you know what i mean? >> that's a tough question. i'm not a great teacher. i just phone it in. they are related to each other, there is no doubt about it. i think maybe sometimes faculty members make it seem as if they are so integrally related more than they are because there is always a tension between in terms of where you put the time. you know, to really be good in a

classroom you have to put in a time. you have to spend time with the students, not just in the classroom, but preparing individually within. all of the things that go with that. and that takes time away from the writing. so you do constantly feel attention. but they feed each other in terms of, if i think as both john and i both care about who our readers are. i think we are both trying desperately not to just write for narrow academic audiences. been in some ways that is something that does work for you, that you are at least trying, trying to think about someone who is not quite as a first in the subject, how do i make this explicit will and understandable. and at the same time try not to sacrifice as some analytical rigor, try not to sacrifice what you have to say. that's a trick but that, that is i think common teaching and writing. . .

it is helpful. talking about this topic, talking about illinois outlaws, it has hardly ever been studied before. i talk about them in various community starting a few years ago and finishing this book. on a couple different occasions after talking about things, someone downstate near st. louis

was talking about a place where another gun fight takes place in the book, in calhoun county and in a certain area, a remote county where illinois and mississippi come together and when i was done speaking, a 93-year-old man comes that to me to shake my hand, i thought this was a wonderful talk and i wanted to tell you i own the land where the gun fight took place. not at the time because it took place earlier but he bought it from the guy who owned it at the time so he heard about the maxwells and that gun fight where they killed another sheriff or supposedly did. from the actual owner and other locals when he was a young guy. so the don't that and later i interviewed him and got more information. it is always exciting for me. >> i have a story like that. the next -- the last book wrote

was about john jones, the labor organizer. after i finish the book i was in trinidad, colorado and i went into the historical society and there was a pretty old woman running the place and i mentioned i finished this book and she said i dress up and go into schools and play mother jones and she points to her husband which was more decrepit than she was, his mother heard mother jones speak right out there. she never heard a woman's where so much. >> before we take questions on a study that these books, there's nothing more exciting to me because my father wrote these things, scholarly sound, narrative nonfiction. do not be put off by the notes and other things. these two are good reads.

it is not at either university. i like reading it. you get a sense that they can blow off the good narrative. we would love to take some questions. step up to this microphone. you will be next, right here. >> about the media picking what we give our attention to as crime, there was a memorial day massacre which was never played up in comparison with the valentine's day massacre and i think this is to protect the capitalists and the tribune would be an example of that. i disagree, there are good reasons for incarcerating people, there are better reasons not to because i don't believe

in locking up the innocent. but then jails are used to work the blood tax and promote wars and wars cause criminal enterprises that cause more damage than the criminals do. you use -- to frame innocent people in order to keep going, american death squads. in order to keep going, the american death squad which affects american and international foreign policy. >> what was the question? >> was it really john dillinger who was killed? >> good question. >> the identification of the eye color was not that of john

dillinger. >> thank you. >> i cloud up when someone dies, the eye color changes. there have been books written. this is part of the john dillinger legend, john sayles, the film maker, even wrote a short story with that premise called dillinger in hollywood, there was a very bad movie starring, who was it, i forget, called dillinger and capone with that premise that dillinger escaped. those who were close to him who had every reason to think it was him, his family, for example, no one at the time, none of those folks objected, none of them said it wasn't john dillinger who was lying there. he looked not as good as he might have after plastic surgery and being shot four times and so on but the evidence is that was

dillinger. it is not very good evidence that it wasn't. >> i want to ask one question. excited to have this book come out at the same time that johnny depp is going to? starring johnny depp in a new movie. >> it is bound to get more attention which is great. >> it happens to -- i was aiming for the same thing they were which was the anniversary of dillinger's death, everyone show up at the biography theatre on july 22nd this year, there will be a bagpiper, it will be tremendous. >> this is very fascinating. i picked up a correlation from both of you guys that john mallinger was more of a victim of his environment as opposed to

and actual -- the maxwells stole suit in the prison. is it really a victim? are you a victim of your environment? or put them in the same situation, to not become a criminal? it would not take much for me to become a criminal. >> everybody has their own complex configuration of those things, not only genetic predisposition, but also psychological issues and they will differ from person to person. you take people who are so different and put them in the same kinds of pressures and cultural norms and you are going to get different behaviors, but that doesn't mean they're not responding to severe pressures to do what they do and be who they are and we need to comprehend that, among other

things, so that we have better justice administration. more effective. >> it is a really good question. there is no doubt that people will react differently. i don't mean to silence the question the way to think about it is in terms of contingency. it is not as if someone decides to be a celebrity criminal. it is a slippery slope. it is circumstances, there are circumstances under which some people take the first step, and the first step having been taken, there is a logical second step, he commits the first crime. i can't imagine committing that first crime, i can't imagine hitting an old man to try to take his money but maybe if i imagine a little harder, they repair will be some circumstance under which that will happen. if something happened that put me in jail for so long, and the

guy who was more responsible than me hires a lawyer and get off in two years, dillinger said make a clean breast of it, it will be fine or go well, he says nine years, his buddy serves a year and gets two. you can imagine that circumstance, one thing leading to another. in the middle of the great depression when earning a living was very difficult, do you see what i am saying? i don't mean to say any of us would do it but a lot of us could do it. >> my question is this. an offshoot to what we are talking about for the max lows and dillinger, external circumstances, prison, there is a direct correlation to morality and religion and i was, the moral compass, i was wondering if either of these books or fellows in the books didn't have

any organized religion or anything like that in their lives? >> good question. >> i discussed that background for the maxwells, they did have religious protestant parents, they were in a predominantly religious environment in the home. but there were other factors also involved, that are too complex for me to say. i have talked about this a number of times to classes, there are other ramifications besides the justice issue. to this matter that modern scholarship is showing much more driven to be the way we are than previously assumed. for example, think of the religious systems that we all know about, christianity, islam, which have stated it is a matter

of free choice, you either choose to be a follower of jesus or you go to hell, there is your choice, with islam, you choose to be a follower of jolo and the corps on or you're going to go to hell. there it is. you are totally responsible. is long, or christian, they come out of a christian culture, their parents were christian, they have since psychological issues that blend with christianity nicely and so forth. if that is true, what extent, what happens to this issue, if i choose wrongly i get punished for ever and ever in a bad place when, in fact, it is really a question of course, of culture and pressures and so forth and

so on. don't forget that those religions were developed long before we had a notion about those pressures on our lives, on our choices, and it is creating an issue. no wonder the concept of hell in christianity keeps going -- in terms of the number of people who buy it, goes down. every time i look at some statistics, u.s. catholic or whenever, it goes further down. >> what about dillinger? what was his religious -- >> he was raised a churchgoer in annapolis. the family moved to moresville, he was still attending. same story about him when he got out of prison at age 30, one of the first things he did was go with his father to services, the

pastor, who was a quaker, delivered a sermon entitled the prodigal son, and he wept through this whole thing and went up to her and shook her hand and said you don't know how much good your sermon did me. within a month he was out. >> we have time for one last question. >> it seems to me we are missing the robin hood quality that makes these characters so interesting. bonnie and clyde were the same way. those of us in chicago can remember, there are always good stories about what our capone did. as part of the appeal. >> this is more true with some lawbreakers than others. another one of my books called the bootlegger, a story of small-town america, deals with a robin hood type figure who was

idealized by his local community downstate during a roaring '20s, was a confirmed bootlegger and crook who beat people up and committed murder and so forth, most of the locals continued to idealize him precisely because of this problem hood factor. all sorts of stories developed that he was giving money, taking care of the 4 in his town and doing other things like that. is partly an expression of what people want to see. figure comes before the public, and the public wants to see certain things, they invest certain things in that figure. it is true of these guys all so but especially true in the bootlegger. >> i couldn't agree more. there is a pattern we plug into,

this idea of a historian who talks about this in books that he wrote several years ago. the robin hood figure, the myth of the robin hood figure. opposes the normal lot of the state or the community. we believe it much more selectively. the lender is a good example. i don't think many people, just a few years ago, floyd leaving a $1,000 deal. you find little evidence that people believe this sort of thing about dillinger, not that he robbed from the rich and gave to the poor, is that he robbed from the rich. there was anger in those guns. that is a big part of the story.

>> my book is called dime novel desperadoes because my two guys ended up being the anti heroes of a dozen dime novels, the of what became a hero for the first time in eighteen 81. jesse james, billy the kid, the maxwell brothers from illinois. very few other outlaws ever made it into dime novels were fictionalized story in which they became heroes. it shows the public ambivalence toward those figures, wanting to find boldness, independence, resistance to a 40. most people felt put upon by authority. here is somebody who is willing to stand up and say you are not going to shove me around. they admire that and all of a sudden, books that are selling like hotcakes across the united states. >> i am really sorry i never had the opportunity to be in one of your classes because i see what would have gotten out of it. a joy that you wrote these books, these at two fine books.

gentlemen? [applause] >> coverage from the chicago tribune printers fest will continue after this short break. next, historians tom campbell and david stewart talk about abraham lincoln and his legacy. >> after 50 years, the trover books shot, two blocks from the u.s. capitol, is closing. one of the co-owners, out schuman, is here. why is trover closing? >> the publication, media industry has changed and we are not selling books like we used to. >> who's your competition? >> our big competition is the internet, detailing what people are buying on the internet and maybe even more important, what

people are not buying because they have the information highway on their desktop. >> people in washington, trevor is an institution. how would you describe for over bookstore to people outside washington. >> for me it is my life, family business. i grew up catchiering here as a little kid during summers. i have been here 26 years. it is most of what i know. we have had a lot of great customers over the years, we are in a great location. we have always specialized in political books. in general we sell a lot more non-fiction than fiction. >> who are the folks who have come for book signings, customers on capitol hill? >> we have had colin powell, cal

ripken, hillary clinton, lots of important people, mostly in the political arena more so than fiction authors. >> do you have a specialized selection of books because of your location on capitol hill? >> i think location has driven the specialty to be focused on political books. >> what is going to happen to this space after you leave? >> we have a lease for this to become a restaurant. >> al schuman, looking at the selection of books you have your, where are these books being bought? is it the internet, the big box stores? >> i don't know. i think in a lot of cases, the books aren't being bought any more because people have the information at their desk that we use to sell, and still do, a good number of directories and that type of thing and a lot of that has gone, not necessarily

internet but by way of cd-rom and internet online. a lot of things people are not buying, sales are down because people are using maps sites, newspaper sales are down, magazine sales are down, in a lot of cases, product margins are down also. on top of sales being down, profits are down on what we are selling. >> independent bookstores in general, do you have any thoughts on their survivability? >> i didn't think i would be one of the one that didn't survive. and i hope people who have independent bookstores in their neighborhood will support them while they are there instead of lamenting their departure after they're gone. >> what is next for the schuman family? >> don't know. i have been doing this 26 years. i actually have a degree in

chemical engineering from carnegie-mellon and i worked in that field for a couple years before coming into the book industry but i am far from being able to probably go into that. i am not sure what my future holds. >> al schuman is one of the co-owners of the trover books shot. >> next week on books tv, live coverage of the 2009 harlem book fair. later this month, the newberry library is an independent research library with holdings of red air and unique printed work. the book fair is in chicago. the california literary arts society brings readers, writers and booksellers to the beach for the ventura book festival. this september in georgia, you can go to the decatur book

festival. celebrate local culture and literary history in st. augustine at the florida heritage book festival. at the brooklyn book festival look for authors jonathan and ed. let us know about book fairs and festivals in your area and we will lead them to our list. e-mail us at bookstv@c-span.org. >> books tv is asking what are you reading? >> i've the co owner of politics bookstore in washington d.c.. i got into the business because i love to read more than anything. i don't do too much exercise. i lie on my sofa and read instead. this is an incredible year for reading and books.

i am happy to have a chance to talk about this on c-span because i think c-span doesn't bring enough fiction to you. and fiction can be more true than books about policy or history. my two themes this year i immigration and south asia. i am not going to talk about three paperbacks that are so popular, they don't really need me to support them but i will tell you what they are. one is netherland by joseph o e o/neill who is part dutch and part irish. it takes place in new york post

9/11. the second book is the literary -- i always have to stumble over the name -- literary and potato peel society, which is a book about world war ii and is a really delightful book about some women who get together and try to think of ways of sabotaging the germans on the island who occupy the island. it is part of britain and the germans, the nazi occupy the island. the third book that doesn't need me to promote it is an accustomed turf. represents both sean rushs that

i want to introduce. the great lies of the south asian writers. lahiri represents both of these trends. on immigration, i want to start with wood burning that takes place in the 1850s. they're working out issues in the united states, trying to settle into the new world, but it all takes place in a few hours in the area around walden

pond where a very depressed henry david thoreau accidentally starts a forest fire, and everybody in the surrounding area is pulled in to try to prevent the fire from burning down the beautiful town of concord. the hero of the day is a norwegian immigrant who has had a tragic event happened to him on the ship over to the united states. it is a way in which he can relocate himself in the united states by helping subdue the fire. there are czech immigrants,

irish immigrants and others who are becoming the composite at the united states will be. another book that takes place a century later is brooklyn. that is about an irish woman who comes to the united states to brooklyn, obviously, and leaves her family, there is no work for her in brooklyn, it is a lovely book about how she is able to settle in, then she is called by her mother to come back to ireland and has to decide which side of the ocean she is going to live on. you don't know until the very end what decision she is going to make.

it has got a little bit of mystery and little bit of romance and it is a very lovely book. we are out of it so i can't even show you a cover. we have sold so many copies this weekend. so let me see. another immigrant novel is to the beautiful north -- into the beautiful north. this is the second of his books that i have read. the second was a hummingbird's daughter, this takes place mostly in the united states because it is about a mexican woman who comes to the united states to find seven men to save her town in northern mexico from bandits. she is under the influence of you burner's the magnificent seven, she and her gay friend travel around the united states trying to locate the seven men will fight the bandits.

so that is a really adorable both. there are some british immigration books. i think many of you know that britain is changing since it entered the common market. it has become a center for immigration from all over, from eastern europe as well as south asia. two books that represent those two different areas, 1 is the road home, rose tremaine is a british writer who should be known in the united states. this takes place in london, a man from the former soviet union is trying to eke out a living having been through a bleak time in eastern europe. the second book also takes place in the kitchen. that is called in the kitchen by

monica ali. this is in paper, the road home, and the new monica ali is in hardback which probably makes a difference to people. finally, monica ali seques into my other favorite genre which is south asian books. i have two here, abraham cutting for stone, which is about a physician. it is hard to describe because it is very fat, and the novel. we have gotten -- lots of people are saying how much they love

this book. a physician in the united states immigrated here from ethiopia where his father -- protestant missionaries. of lot of cutting for stone takes place in ethiopia and the law takes place in a hospital in the united states, it is lush, beautiful riding about madison and about narration and it is about ethiopia in bad times. ..

>> a police detective who is on the side of virtue and goodness and democracy. and they are pitted against each other in this huge novel, which is a wonderful book to take away on a trip. so those are my recommendations. i could go on and on and on, but i try to narrow it down. and thank you for asking me. >> to see more summer reading lists and other program

information, visit our website at booktv.org. >> and now more from the 2009 chicago tribune printers row lit fest. this next panel features orville vernon burton, author of the age of lincoln. , campbell wrote fighting slavery in chicago. and david o. stewart, author of impeached, the trial of andrew johnson and the fight for lincoln's legacy. >> thank you very much. we have a full program and a live program. we have three authors today. one is a practicing lawyer and a lover of history, tom campbell, who was very interested in the surprising aspects of illinois history. he is going to focus mainly on the period leading into the civil war. david stewart is a trial lawyer for 25 years and an award-winning writer, both skills are apparent in his book

impeached, the trial of andrew johnson. and then finally, orville vernon burton, professor emeritus at the university of illinois, now professor at coastal carolina university. professor burton's thesis covers the whole period before the civil war, during and after. he calls at the age of lincoln. so let's begin with tom campbell. people sometimes think that the abolitionist were concentrated in new england. but it turns out that chicago also was a hotbed of abolitionism you tell us about that. >> thanks, gary. you're quite right. illinois had a contrary of activists who are very involved in abolition. and it really started in 1835 with the assassination of elijah lovejoy. lovejoy was an editor in saint louis. he was publishing a paper where he thought slavery was a sin and he was going to make that his life crusade to agitate against

it. and the problem he had, obviously, was in missouri was a slave state and it didn't go over very well there. and the mob threatened him so he was going to move his press across the river to alton, illinois, because illinois was a free state. and he thought he could publish his views more freely there. didn't work out the way he hoped. the mobs came. they destroyed his press. they assassinated him. that touched off to every action in chicago. charles dyer, one of chicago's first citizens. he was a doctor who came here to be the position for the militia at fort dearborn. he called a public meeting to protest the assassination of lovejoy. and it wasn't just the killing of an abolitionist, but the silencing of the press. and these people viewed the press as part of the machinery of democracy. so this was a great battle for him, and he quickly identified the others who would stand with him there and it became a core

of people who did several things. first, they found an abolitionist newspapers. they started western citizen, which published for about 12 years. that became part of three west, and three west was succeeded by the tribune. so at least as of this morning, there is still a success in one of their newspapers, publishing in chicago. they also ran the underground railroad, and i traced some of the exciting stories that happened in chicago as slaves were brought through chicago on to canada. they wanted to get into canada because even though illinois was a free state, they weren't savior because of the fugitive slave law. there were a lot of skirmishes between abolitionist and fugitive slave catchers and stuff like that. and then they also started the political parties with the political party followed by the free soil party and ultimately the republican party.

dire in fact ran for governor as a candidate for the free soil party. he had a great sense of humor. he said i didn't ask a single man to vote for me, and none did. [laughter] >> but the anti-slavery society, gary, your museum has them in a book of the anti-slavery society. so here in chicago you can go to the chicago history museum and see the proceedings as they went along and protested veriest things like the black laws. i know david is going to be speaking a bit about the black laws and their insidious in fact. >> why don't one of you just defined the term so we know what they are. >> sure. in addition to being opposed to slavery, the abolitionist were very upset with all the harsh measures that were against the blacks. for example, an illinois in 1848, we passed a constitution that had a provision in it that band free blacks from coming to the state of illinois. that provision was not repealed until after the civil war.

and there were harsh measures that prevented blacks from serving on juries, testifying and things of that sort. so the anti-slavery society would pass resolutions. of course, that went nowhere. but they did strike gold when they caught up with the republican party, and as the court is where lincoln comes into the picture. and lincoln wrote the platform that brought the republican party together in 1856. you will recall the nebraska actually touched off, it destroyed the whig party, the democrats, and it was all over the issue of the spread of slavery. and lincoln was shrewd enough to articulate a position that we are opposed to the expansion of slavery, but we are not going to disturb it where it already exists in the slave states. anti-fashion that position which brought the party together and they were able to win the election in 1860. and the other thing i discovered in my research was decameron

club, which carry your museum also has the minute book of decameron club. there is a lot a dispute over wide the pennsylvanians in the second ballot in 1860 convention went for lincoln. and these same people who of course had been card-carrying republicans formed decameron club telling pennsylvanians they were big supporters of his. and they were holding meetings. and when you come to chicago we are going to be here to support you. and they change the name of the club about four days into the camera and, lincoln club telling the pennsylvanians that lincoln was their choice for vice president. so you have to wonder how gullible the pennsylvanians were because these were all, everybody that spoke at the meeting. but at any rate, there is one of the strange that explains what the pennsylvanians did. that of course got lincoln elected, which gave him the power to do what he did to abolish slavery. >> so would you say that lincoln

was actually parsed by the abolitionist circle in chicago? >> no, he clearly kept them at arms length because the abolitionist were viewed as agitators, but they coalesced with the republican party wants the republican party came along. up until that time, the democrats derided the liberty party and the freestyle party as the one idea tried. there one idea was the abolition of slavery. and that was more than the nation was ready for, and the republicans instead came up with this stop the expansion of slavery. andy abolitionists ultimately got out and realize if they were going to win an election that was the ticket. >> i also remember former book, fighting slavery in chicago, there was one instance of the sale of a slave in chicago. >> that's right, gary. we were talking about the black laws. and, in fact, if you didn't have

three papers and couldn't prove you were properly free, a black could be arrested and held and sold into slavery. and as occurred in chicago. the sheriff came out. the abolitionists were besides themselves. they printed signs and went around the town to get people to show up at this auction. so the day came and a big crowd assembled. and the sheriff said, you know, what am i bid ask what am i bid? nobody would speak a. he said i would have to take this man back to jail if i don't have the. and finally the brother of the mayor said i bid $0.25, and he produced a shiny quarter, boston and said you are now free. go, go. and everybody applauded. so that was the one instance of selling a slave in chicago and it caused quite a commotion, as you can imagine. >> now, on a more serious note maybe, i i think your research has also shown that lincoln as a practicing lawyer actually was on different sides of fugitive

slave cases. and maybe that's worth pausing for a moment. >> sure. actually as a lawyer one of the things that astounded me i ran across the fact that lincoln had handled probably six runaway slave cases before he was on the runaway site. but he was on the side of the slaveowner and taking aside these people were property and should be returned back to their slave owner. which causes you to ask how could lincoln or any illinois boy for that matter, take that position. while illinois was a free state, there were exceptions and you could have properly indentured servants or you could have slaves in transit, and in the madsen case, lincoln argued that these were slaves in transit. a man from kentucky was merely, planning on taking them back. but the slaves in transit doctrine is a supreme court dealt with it was if you were from kentucky and your slave escaped in illinois and you are on your way to new orleans, that was a slave in transit and that did not previously. in advance in case that lincoln

lost, manson had brought his legs in and they work in illinois for more than a year on his part in illinois. the court said that's not in transit. so he lost, which is maybe a good thing. >> why don't we move ahead to the immediate post-civil war era, the time of andrew johnson. and david stewart, i remember when i was a kid, and i read john f. kennedy's profiles in courage, andrew johnson reputation at least than was changing. it was improving from that of being sort of a backslider in the area of slavery, emancipation, to someone who is almost a sympathetic figure. someone who is being railroaded by the radical republicans of the day. i think your book makes a very different argument. who was your andrew johnson?

>> well, he was a guy who was compared a lot to abraham lincoln. it was inevitable since he succeeded lincoln. so it happened and it's really happened a lot since. and when he became president, this terrible convulsion we had over the assassination, and those people didn't know very much about johnson. really, they do two things. one was that when all of the southern senators and southern representatives seceded with their state in 1861, when the civil war was about to begin, andrew johnson was the one man who didn't. he stood by the union, was a very courageous thing to do. and he incurred great risk back home in tennessee. the other thing they knew that when he had been inaugurated as vice president just five weeks before the assassination, he had been drunk and had given a humiliating and degrading speech, which was totally incoherent.

and was a very bad, sort of milestone for his presidency. because whenever he did something controversial, a lot of people would just sort of shrug and say, well, he is drunk again. he and lincoln had very similar backgrounds. they were both very poor boys. johnson had never attended school a day in his life. but they have big differences. tom has talked a little bit about some of the moral ambiguity that lincoln dealt with in the slavery issue. he was capable of speaking of slavery in moral terms. his famous statement that if anything is wrong, slavery is wrong. johnson had none of those feelings. he was a slave owner himself. he never really questioned slavery at a moral level. they also had a big difference as people. we know lincoln so well in terms of his stories, his little

jokes, and very instructive. and andrew johnson was not a funny guy. there are no andrew johnson jokes. there are no andrew johnson self-deprecating remarks or antidotes. i really loved, and theirs is just not a thing. [laughter] >> his bodyguard is god a describe him as the best hater i ever knew. james k. polk, a fellow tennessean, the president, described him as very vindictive and perverse in his temperament conduct. he was not an easy guy to get along with. and this led to such terrible trouble. and this is a think the kennedy book, profiles in courage is something i take after at the end of my book. there's really been a misunderstanding after the civil war, there was a real reaction, one of the catchphrases of it is the north won the war and the south won the peace.

there was, that johnson was right and letting the south do what it wished and not protecting a freed slaves very much and there was this terrible risk of oppression of the white people by the freed slaves. johnson talked about the risk that the south would be africanized, which was a pretty horrible phrase. and he said he was doing just what lincoln would want to do. and lincoln had said in his final months in you be a man, you let him off easy. but i think any event what happened was that johnson tried to let the southern states of easy but they adopted black codes of the sort that tom was describing, which included really almost a the restoration of slavery. the blackman had to have labor contracts. that would run the whole year, and if they didn't have one or they violated the contract he would be imprisoned and loadout to work for free. sort of a grateful country forward restoration of the slavery. they were denied all of the civil rights that we would expect a citizen to have. and the southerners, when they

came time, in 1865, to choose congressmen and senators, they had chosen in many instances a formal confederate officials. device president of confederacy was picked as a senator from georgia. confederate generals return as congressmen and senators. this enraged the northerners. what had their sacrifice and four, and followed to create greater power? or restored to power. the very people who had caused the civil war. and johnson became in transit over this is issue. he really had it mystical view that states could not be. he ended up, it daggers with the congress for almost three years. my view is that kennedy got it very wrong in his portrayal of not only johnson, but also

there's a remarkable piece of his, kennedy's version of this where he described, focuses on the boat of a senator from kansas, edmund g. ross, of you who have read the book and as a child i read it many times. will remove ram. is sort of a backbencher and inconspicuous fellow who was the one vote, and johnson only escape conviction by one vote. he was the one boat who saved johnson tied. and kennedy calls is perhaps the most baroque moment in american history. which is an astonishing statement at some level. but then when i dug into it, it was remarkable because, and we don't have time to go through this, there is considerable evidence that ross is boat had been purchased. his seat had been purchased. that's when senators were elected by state legislatures, and his kansas state legislature had been bribed to elect ross.

and there were a number of transaction, political patronage and possible cash bribes related to ross that suggested his vote was for sale and he sold. and. this is a piece of story that i hope people will take notice of. the perspective to have on johnson is difficult. he faced terrific difficult problems, almost as tough as the civil war itself. but because of who he was in the way he approached them, his antagonistic view, he is a really narrow mindedness, i think he ended up making many of those situations worse. it was a terrific missed opportunity for the country. >> as i was reading your book, david, i almost lost track of how many times they tried to impeach johnson. can you give us just a thumbnail survey of what it was like?

>> well, they started -- people start talking about impeachment dish when he had been in office for about a year. and we had never impeached a president, of course. there had been four judicial impeachment, only two of which had been successful. and there were hearings that were quite scandalous. they try to tie johnson to the booth assassination itself, which was really ridiculous. and it seemed that the impeachment thing would die. and every time the impeachment push was threaten to die, johnson would do something else outrages that would cause it to flame up again. finally, in the end of 1867, an impeachment resolution was brought to the floor of congress, a house of representatives. and was defeated. by a pretty substantial vote. a majority of the republicans, who were the party who didn't

really like johnson voted against impeaching him at that time. and it was really an act of will, and active determination on johnsons park to insist that the impeachment be revived in early 1868, i tempted to replace edwin stan as secretary of war with a very unacceptable candidate, and did so in a way that flouted the laws that were in effect at the time. congress had clearly signaled that if he didn't do anything outrageous they would not impeach him. and he couldn't help himself. he went ahead and did it. and without that, thank goodness, otherwise i wouldn't have had a book. [laughter] >> our third author is the writer of two pertinent books. the first is what i think is the best lincoln present that you can give to yourself during this bicentennial year, because it's the real lincoln.

orville vernon burton has edited the essential lincoln, speeches and correspondence. so put this on your shelf. we're not going to discuss it because we're going to turn instead to the age of lincoln. you heard something about the age before the civil war. you've heard about the aftermath. what's unique about burton's perspective is that he sees the whole era, before, during and after the war, and far beyond, really. as turning on lincoln himself, calls it the age of lincoln. and james mcpherson, for example, says that this is a bold new pieces of the civil war era. so tell us why you see this whole era as the age of lincoln. >> it matters profoundly, gary, when a period of history is said to the unit in. that is a historian who is a.

especially you're talking about the 19th century. or i want to do was put together a section of conflict, the civil war, and reconstruction. to blend all these strands together i used abraham lincoln as a fulcrum. the idea that we are flowing in the period, particularly lincoln's formation and ideas leading in the civil war, how they are changed during the civil war and over time. and particularly something we haven't looked at as much as i think we should, and that's what were the influences, good and bad, that lincoln's ideas had after the civil war. i think we are fascinated by the civil war. is the bloodiest war in our history. it's also of course i think about the central issues that are about the identity of america, brings into stark relief. that is, what is america, or to use the phrase that bill clinton is rather notorious for an

changed a a little bit, it's about the word us, not is. but us. and i think that's what lincoln is about, who we are. and it's critical in this time period abraham lincoln said that the central act of his administration, the greatest thing he did was the emancipation proclamation. i hate to disagree with lincoln, but i think, in fact, while it's important, what was really critical was lincoln's understanding of liberty and freedom and personal freedom. abraham lincoln acyclic expanded and went beyond the founding fathers and andrew jackson's idea of liberty and freedom. and incorporated that into the constitution. in other words, i like to say that he dug what was our mission statement, the declaration of independence, and put it into, in fact, the constitution. and a change, not only the united states, new birth of freedom, but the world itself.

what we think about as personal liberty and freedom. if you look at the constitution at that time, there are guarantees to the state, if you look at the reconstruction amendments, 13, 14, 15 minutes, legacy of lincoln, did you see the guarantee of personal freedom. it's inspired the world ever since. one of the things that i argue in the book is it's not just lavery, which of course is central and cost of the civil war, but people were concerned about a lot of other things. early on they were worried about how the west, and by the west of a mid- illinois, at that time, could fit in with a settled east. different sorts of people and things. that was as much concern as slavery which early on was a national phenomenon. and then it becomes something i think we missed and not paid enough attention to. unfettered capitalism. will. what's going to happen now and america that leading intellectuals, north and south, were concerned how could you have a virtuous system ship,

particularly when new types of immigrants were coming in, working for wages, not as weather had been before, and not working for themselves. so could their vote be controlled, and we missed to easily abraham lincoln who was awake and the henry clay of mirer, moving back from the idea that one had to have property voting to andrew jackson universal white, male suffrage. and i think that was a real dilemma for people as to how this republic could work. and we also forget just how much all the rest of the world wanted this idea of democracy and republic to filter all the major monarchs did today was very critical time, i think, probably the most critical time we've had in this country at the time. and abraham lincoln in his generation did what i wish we did more of. they read their history. and they knew that every single struggle to put together a republic or democracy fell apart when people became more wealthy.

and the distribution of wealth. and it parallels our own time remarkably in terms of the extraordinary distribution of wealth. you have some who were just extraordinarily wealthy as you are moving at a changing economy, as we are today, and so many people being left behind at the same time. i also center religion in the age of lincoln. i think is critical in the 19th century to understand why men would go off and die in the civil war and to also understand why women would send men off to die in the civil war, to understand the 19th century you have to understand religion. i argued at the time of millennialism. this radical belief that you could bring on the millennium and bring back jesus christ if you could reform american society and prepare it as a utopia for the return of christ. and that leads to all sorts of reforms, including what tom has written about in terms of abolitionism, just one part of it, but a central and critical part of it. and i sort of cold side what i

call the age of lincoln with his this millennialism, and i see it sort of, it takes much less influence after the civil war, but with the populist parties 1896 campaign i see a real millennial strain that is there. and it's also the last major political part into the civil rights movement into, in fact, put the rights of african-americans forefront and to argue and struggle for them. and the civil war was about, in fact, not only the identity of america but the fate of african-americans. i think that can be read in a larger way, and that is what is the role of people who proceed different in a democracy or republic. which leads to the ideas that we struggle with with race today, sort of the unfinished business of reconstruction, the unfinished business of what lincoln would have done as president, which i have strong ideas about.

i have been an expert witness. i think i could make a good totality of circumstances case. it would have been a very different world with lincoln's commitment to the rule of law and opportunity for people. lincoln's own change on race, which i try to document and what i call the essential lincoln in his own words, but this great flexible mind of his as he learned more about race and african-americans in a different way. those are just some of the ideas. there's a lot more that i could talk about. there is a website. i would encourage you to look at all the age of lincoln.com, or the age of lincoln.com where i have a lot of discussion. i try to marriage the internet was above there. and you can e-mail me if you have any questions. we don't have time here. and i will respond. i will promise. i also guess i should warn you, just how much stock you want to put in my ideas. if i'm someone who was a history

of the american south for 34 years in illinois became a lincoln scholar and moved to south carolina. [laughter] >> well, the age of lincoln is all about connecting dots. and it's a fascinating kind of exercise, as you see the dots leading to lincoln and then they shift occurring. and in the dots leading past. let me just ask you. mentioned the populist party. let's given a. who is in the book? >> tom watson. >> who i think epitomizes how the dots lead in sort of conflicting directions. >> tom watson is an interesting character. he in fact was a populist out of georgia. and it is the southern populist effect for the most radical and race relations is what we would think of a good way for quality and opportunity. it's a tragic story and it's a great, there have been a number

of studies, tom watson and raring revel, dated. it is a great book, one of the great classic works in history, which looks at how watson actually changes from this very idealistic crusader for at least a black rights and political rights. very much into lincoln i think manner. and later what we think of as the southern demagogue who plays the race card. i want to say that the civil war, there are two legacies that we have not looked at very well. i think one is that hatred inspired. we forget what war does to people. war, you have to learn to hate your enemy, i think, because you are killing them. and edward wilson in his 1962 patriotic gore, told us about this uncivil society that comes off with water so we have paid enough attention because we like to book in our american history with civil war and india with

the happy few. there was a lot of hatred. the other thing that comes out is idealism, north and south, like with watson. but also in illinois i think is the legacy of lincoln that, in fact, changes illinois for the state that it had it's a black coat do in fact when they repealed as part of the moving away from the equality that came about with lincoln and the civil war. they repealed these amendments, or at least make them ineffective and say that they aren't effective for equal rights, for blacks. a state like illinois then passed its own state code to say that african-americans have equal rights and can vote. and i think there's a something we really miss when we talk about the great black migration after the civil war, and later that we see african-americans coming to illinois and chicago and other places for jobs. i think they also are true heirs of the age of lincoln and the

rule of law, even though we may not have lived up to it there was an opportunity to have the vote and equal treatment in illinois that aloud, i think, one of the reasons we have had so many people move from the south to a state like illinois. and it was changed with this legacy of lincoln. >> well, i have a co- moderator. , wileen mackevich, who for many years was the executive director of the chicago humanities festival and is now serving a national role as the executive director of the abraham of lincoln bicentennial commission. do you have thoughts on the sweeping view that we have heard, before, during and after the civil war? >> i have been fascinated by the stories that we heard today about abolitionism in chicago and about the impeachment trial of andrew johnson, of course, vernon burton's view of the age of lincoln which goes beyond 1896. but really, when you come down

to what people have been looking at is this bicentennial year we can talk about the economy because we are in the midst of the worst recession, if you will, or the worst recession certainly since the last depression. and so there have been a great deal of concern among historians to look at lincoln's economy. and there we find some extraordinary things because, of course, as berman points out and others, lincoln always was a whig. as a wiki believe in deficit. he believed in public works. he would have strongly supported this extraordinary obama campaign. he strongly would have supported funding for museums because he believed that people should know their history, otherwise it just wouldn't happen that we could be a civil society. so the issue of the economy is very important. lincoln's education is something that's very important that we have a man who went to school, what, for a year or so and yet he turns out to be our greatest president at our greatest theologian. but most important he is the

most beautiful writer that we have ever ever had. so where does that come from? and the thought is that maybe the idea of lifelong learning. we want to examine the processes of it doesn't take into account that lincoln was a genius to we will have all genius in our public schools in order to save one year of ruling is enough. but that's the story of education. religion. a very complicate the story that vernon traces very well in his book. but also take into mind that lincoln never uses jesus christ. he talks about so many things, love, forgiveness and caring that we talk about in terms of christianity. but the idea of using jesus christ is just not there. been the thought is, well, was he really a christian? and the thought is among many people that if jesus is central to christianity, then maybe lincoln was an observer, he sat in the pew with his wife in the presbyterian church, but he may not have been a christian.

i thought. but ultimately the ultimate rate, the truthful way, the real way that we in this 200 birth of your looks at lincoln through the prism of race. i like to say, well, lincoln probably would have voted for obama. but my greater question is, would obama have voted for lincoln? and what i mean very simply is what would obama have found in lincoln? it's no secret that he would have found a man from kentucky, a man from a border state who uses the n-word, who does all kinds of things that would mark him as a racist. perhaps not a racist in 19th century terms, but in 21st century terms, definitely a racist. but what happens to lincoln is the most extraordinary thing. is he has a friendship that emerges over time with a great american, perhaps the greatest

speechmaker in the 19 century, frederick douglass, the man who freed himself as a slave to. friendship grows. lincoln says he wants him to know from frederick douglass what he thinks of the second and not go. he calls them my friend douglas. invite him to the white house. all of these things, the friendship is singularly important and it is put together by a variety of people who trace the story of frederick douglass and lincoln. but essentially this is the way i choose to answer the question about would obama have voted for lincoln and would lincoln have voted for obama. i put it on the friendship. if lincoln was capable of this great friendship, and he clearly was, then obama could have seen in lincoln a man who was capable of appreciating this multicultural society. he would appreciate a society in which we have election, a population that is making its own sense of history.

and where else is a better place to start than with lincoln and his speeches, and the kind of self-made man that suggests that everybody can have a dream. that's the american dream. and that we can fulfill it today as we did in lincoln's time. so those are the thoughts that i have as executive director where i have been privileged to look at and hear from, perhaps hundreds of authors who are writing about lincoln in his 200 earth day year. but to examine the big question of and raised. clearly it's not where we would have wanted him to be at the very beginning. but he does give his life, the right for blacks to vote, and that is something i think that is hard to remove from him. so that's my thoughts, gary. >> thank you, wileen. now we'll open it up to questions from the floor. does anyone yet have a question reqs otherwise i will ask one

myself while you are thinking about the question. yes? >> come on a. >> i have some. this land of lincoln has over 100 suns downtown where obama cannot legally sleep except in jail. how much did abraham lincoln contribute? is he guilty or not for that? second question, could andrew johnson read? third question. was lincoln an atheist who put god on the money? >> well, you know what? i think is a question for each of us. [laughter] >> let's start with the one that i think is the briefest question, could andrew johnson read? >> i could take a long time. he certainly could read. it's a wonderful story. he was self-taught.

i was struck by wileen's remark about lincoln being a self-made man. that is stevens who was a great johnson hater was told that johnson was a self-made man and stephens said well that's good to hear otherwise god almighty had a lot to answer for. [laughter] >> but johnson thought himself to read by hanging out in a tailor shop rather like barbershops are a center for conversation and mail company. and he had more trouble writing. that was always a lifelong problem, a contrast with lincoln. but he was a very smart fellow. and the things he knew, he knew extranet will. he could recite long poems. he understood, he was familiar with classical history. not the greatness of mind of lincoln, but it shows you that, a motivated person can educate

himself pretty well in the back and poverty in the 1830s and 40s. >> tom, let me ask you the question, can lincoln be implicated in some of the continuing issues regarding race? >> well, there's no question that he accepted -- he grew up in a state where i indicated with that 1848 amendment to the constitution, racism was prevalent. and while he articulated a division of equality and reached into the declaration of independence to do that, there was obviously some tension there. you know, in the debates, douglas would chide lincoln and say, how can you say all men are created equal, and that can't mean a black man. that was written by jefferson. and jefferson owned slaves. but lincoln had an answer for that. he said no, jefferson was also the author of the northwest ordinance which said there shall be no slavery in the northwest territory.

so the idea of the founders was that the ideals are all going to be equal, and we have to put slavery on the road to extension. so it's not a happy story. there is clearly the charleston debate and stuff like that pic you are going to find them very racist sounding statements of lincoln. but he was being goaded all the time by douglass, who must mean that you want to marry blacks in august of. and that certainly was something people were not prepared for in that day. and lincoln paid lipservice for it. >> and then you touched before on the question of lincoln's religion. and i take it you don't believe he's an atheist. what about his beliefs and prominence, is that a belief in god? >> let me just add to that. i think we have to be careful looking from the 21st century to the 19th century about race. the amazing thing about lincoln,

i think it's a better story because for years of the mythology was, you know, he's an abolitionist sort of born this way. he learns. he learned from his experience. he grows tremendously on the issue of race. i argued at the end of his life he is leading the nation to a better place on race. but it's his exposure to learning what other people. including he is ahead of the nation. he is pretty well crucified for a speech he gave right before the lincoln, douglass debates right here in chicago where he gets up and he says, you know, we're going to do away with basically everything, go to the declaration of independence. all men are created equal. all men. and he is crucified by douglass and everyone else, even republicans telling him to back off. but i think that tells us where he was and where he was getting there. and he is always leading the nation to it. very quickly, on lincoln and religion. lincoln is a very private man about particularly his faith. i have argued that lincoln and back was a great theologian of

the 19th century because he understood god, in fact, the red god as read the old testament in a corporate relationship. as opposed to the predominant protestant idea that came out of the great awakening, the second great awakening of an individual relationship with god. and i think much to understand about lincoln is his own belief. and i think that's how he reconciled his faith, that he, in fact, was being used by god, had been called by god to do something special here and that he he didn't do it wouldn't get done. lincoln knew his bible so will. he had read it so well, that we often miss it because as we grew up in sunday school or in our learnings we read about moses who sees the burning bush and said i can't do it. guides as i will go with you to israel. and he goes and does it. or jonah, who has to get, that juices in his eye from the inside of the will. with the bible is just so full

of instances and the theology of where god calls people to do, and they don't do it and it doesn't get done what is a thousand years or 2000. and lincoln knew those. i have examples on the website if you want to look to it. lincoln, even though he was never, ever, as i can tell ever said this was god's will, even in the second and audio when the war is over. if this is god's will, he understood, in fact, that we don't know god's will. but at the same time that he was being used as part of god's will as he did not follow through that it may not happen, or happened there. that may not answer your question, but i have tried to deal with this in the age of late and a little bit in the essential lincoln where i was time to get out where lincoln himself, his ideas and relationship with god. both he and jefferson davis, president of the confederacy, are fascinating because you look at both of them, jefferson davis was not a very religious either before the civil war. but when you think about their responsibility for all these deaths and suffering, i think

they look to a higher power in a way to explain their lives and what they were doing. >> we are reaching the end of the program. wileen, do you have a final word? 2 a couple of comments about the subject of race. it is such a complicated subject. lincoln is a man of mystery. he is also a man who was very, very comfortable with the idea that he could change his mind. w. e. the boy said he loved it so much because he was big enough to be inconsistent. that's really a clue to lincoln and race. because he could grow. he could be the person who did not support the idea that the fugitive slave law in wisconsin, which it had to be clear, was unconstitutional. at the same time he could detest slavery. at the same time he could fight the war over slavery and realized that emancipation is what he really was all about in the end. so that the complicated story of race is at least as complicated as religion. perhaps the economy is less so.

and perhaps the education store is less so. but lincoln is ultimately a man of mystery. we will not only be celebrating him and looking forward to understanding him even more. this 200th year and perhaps on into the 250th birthday as well. >> thank you very much. >> thank you for attending today's discussion and support the chicago tribune's commitment to literacy. a book signing will take place in the art room as you exit this room to your left is the first room on your left. [applause] >> are taped coverage from day two of the 2009 chicago tribune printers row lit fest continues after this break. coming up next, paul butler, author of let's get free, a hip-hop theory of justice.

>> children's author emma walton hamilton, what's the key to writing a children's book? >> gosh, i would say respecting children as readers and not talking down to them. it's all about trusting their judgment and their intelligence and hopefully speaking to what and for that interest them and what they are passionate about. >> what our children interested in? >> just about everything that a dolt are interested in, for the most part. their world around them. growing up. learning new things. music, art, sports. you name it. all the same things we are interested in. >> how many children's books have you written? >> i have written, well, just now about to release the 17th children's book that i actually go right with my mother, believe it or not. >> what to like working with your mother?

>> is a great pleasure. we weren't sure it would be such a great pleasure to begin with. we were both bossy, opinionated leaders and we thought mother-daughter working together, this could be tricky. but happily we play to each other's strength and we had a great time working together. and it turned out very well seen and your mother is julie andrews picked julie andrews, what part of the book do you write? >> the structure as much as anything. i think, correct if i'm wrong, i think i am more the flight of fancy. i think i do the image making, the openings, the closings. i do the big picture and emissary must have a finish to the end of the first act where do we go from here? and she makes me focus on the shape of the book. but the actual sort of images and things probably are my strength and a emma's is the

structure as much as anything. we seem to call them at each other. at least i think we give. >> why did you start writing children's books? >> i started as a complete surprise to i started, it was a game i was playing with my children. and i had to pay a forfeit. i was the first to lose again. i said oh, what will my forfeit the? and my eldest daughter said write a story, write us a story. because i used to love to scribble and write things. and i really honestly thought, oh, i could just write a small thing like an aesop's fable or something very short. and then i thought no, this is my stepdaughter and it might be a wonderful way to help us along. and i came up with a little idea and kind of kept fleshing it out. in the next thing i knew there was a book. if it hadn't been for blake, my husband, like edwards, i don't think i would have ever finished it.

i didn't have confidence. i didn't know what i was doing. but he said it doesn't matter. is a great idea. each page is coming. and i have been hooked ever since and that was four years ago just about. i have been writing ever since. >> how many children's books have you offered? >> we have done 17 together. >> and you have done for on your own. >> four on my own, plus a memoir. so we go back and forth really. and we have more coming. >> emma walton hamilton, do you live close to each other? do you e-mail each other? how do you do it? >> unfortunately we live most of the on opposite coasts. and we always work best when we are together and love to be together whenever we can be, but we have come very reliant on modern technology. and we use webcams for a lot of our work sessions. we logon together at the same time and we can gauge. >> poor mom has to get up three hours earlier.

in la she will say, mom, 10:00 is halfway through my morning. can you get up at seven? and i say, no. well, i think i can. >> she does very well. >> and i do my best. and i am not as alert on my computer as she is but i do my best. >> is there a link of children's book should be? is there a certain length? >> it depends on a. >> what age do you write? >> we write all ages. with three minutes audacity i might say. we write picture books. we write young adult novels that we write chapter books for middle grade readers. and our latest book is an anthology for all ages. a poetry anthology. called the julie andrews collection of songs pulled and lullabies. >> this one is actually quite thick. >> very thick. >> is the first book with our lovely new publisher, little

brown. they actually came to ed would you consider doing an anthology for us. >> and we had so much fun we're doing another one actually. >> we are. and an enormous response. obvious they are favorite books. we have had fun with them all our life took my father instilled me about poetry. i hopefully instilled in all my kids. we read to each other. we give poems as gift to each other. all our lives we have done that. and suddenly here we are we have to put out our favorites. and the first choices, which were about 20, were really easy. and then after that we had the most wonderful journey of discovery, finding what we really loved. >> digging back into our memories, and damn anthologies. >> and we eventually came down to nine separate themes, and before each game there is a peace that we wrote naming why we love this theme.

whether it's optimism, the countryside or naked. and white each choice of paul or song lyric within that theme resonates for us, what memory it associates with. >> and we always as a family exchanged poems for fun and as gifts at birthdays and special days and holidays and so on. so we sort of challenged each other to write a poem to and we got up her courage and added a few more. >> now, emma walton hamilton you have some of your children your, grandchildren are they your focus group? >> absolutely. >> actually you were when i was writing on my own. and then of course now all the grandchildren are tremendous help. >> not only our focus group, they help us know what's working and what's not working, of course you could also provide a tomb in the source of ideas for us. and many of our books were inspired by --

>> for example. >> the dump truck series which is the first surgery collaborated on was inspired by my son who was a passionate truck lover. and would only read books about drugs. and we were having trouble finding a little bit more than nonfiction, you know, the bulldozer goes crotch kind of books. so we wrote that serious for him. we are working on a new series now with little girls in mind, inspired by my daughter. >> and, ms. anders w. have also written a memoir. this is the first half of your life, right? >> yes. it goes to my coming out to the west coast of america, for the very first time, and my first movie. it's about the first and third of my life, and it took a long time to do. i would never have done it if she hadn't been so generous with her time to push me and to make me do it and helping with the. >> is there a second half, a

second or coming out? >> a lot of people are asking that. to be real honest with you, i don't know at this point. it took a long, long time to write the first part. maybe one day. >> emma walton hamilton, what's your favorite children's book? that you have written. >> that i have written? or i have read? >> either one. >> well, the book that for me was a formative book growing up was that was just my favorite. go back to and read unready gays. people often ask us what you are favorite of the books we have written, and it's so hard to answer. is like saying which is your favorite chocolate in a box of chocolate or which is your favorite child, you know. because you love them all for different reasons. but i would say that i am particularly proud about the one we just finished which is a real labor of love and so beautifully produced for his.

>> an enormous amount of pleasure to put together. i love the music and poetry. and find that a lot of the songs that i have associated with or even songs that i love, and i haven't atchley song, have sometimes the most beautiful lyrics. and i usually choose songs for lyrics first and foremost. and in the melody. it's a beautiful melody. it just, everything comes together. so i always felt that lyrics for songs are sometimes poems in themselves. so i have included a lot in this book. i'm hoping that children will discover for themselves, or adults, well, that's a beautiful poem, who wrote it? and they realize if they saw. and want to go and listen to the music. >> and mothers finally, is it important to teach young children to read or be exposed to read? does that make a difference? >> we are passionate advocates of literacy and four letters a.

we do everything we can in that respect. >> and i would say it's not so much encumbered upon parents to teach their children to read. they may well learn that at school. what's incumbent upon us is to teach them to love reading. and to read to them and with them as often as possible. in that way they will very likely grow up to be lifelong readers. >> i have to boast a look at what she has written a most wonderful book and self published it for rating worms. and it is just about that. raising children who love and find the joy in reading, and keep it constant as school years go by. and how difficult it becomes win a signed as a head. sometimes they are very boring. how do you teach a child, love, reading. her book is just wonderful. >> people are interested in finding that book or other children's books that you all have written, and this newest one. or can they go? >> thank you for asking that they can go to our website which

is julie andrews collection.com. or any other books in the collection. >> emma walton hamilton and her mother, julie andrews. thank you. >> thank you very much. >> now more from this years chicago tribune printers row lit fest. during this event, author paul butler talks about his book let's get free, a hip-hop theory of justice. 2 i'm delighted to be here to have this opportunity to discuss with paul butler his new book, let's get free, a hip-hop theory of justice. i read the book twice, and found it extraordinarily provocative, interesting, and accessible. and i very much recommend it to people who want a fresh perspective on some of the issues concerning our criminal justice system.

. . >> hurt you in ways that you still haven't touched. i would be curious, if you could elaborate upon how this experience changed your understanding of the american criminal justice system.

>> first of all, it is an honor to be here and a special honor to have this session moderated by professor stone, i have admired his work for a long time. he writes, especially, eloquently about civil liberties and part of the concern, my concern about our criminal justice system is a civil libertarian concern that the government is way too powerful and uses its misuses its power and i speak from what i know, as professor stone mentioned, i was a prosecutor, and, during the time that i was making my living mainly by putting african-american men in prison, i got arrested myself. and, so, it did fundamentally change the way that i looked at the criminal justice system. in part, because i was arrested for a crime, of which i was

innocent. that fact turned out to be probably not the most important in terms of the ultimate result. which was that i was acquitted. i was declared not guilty after a jury trial. equally as important, was the fact that i could afford the best lawyer in town. the fact that i knew how to present myself in a courtroom, i prosecuted people, in the very courtroom that i was being prosecuted in. so, i knew that in addition to preparing my testimony, carefully, make sure my shoes were shined and my haircut was conservative, that was back when i had hair... [laughter]. >>... and so, and i had session connections, i -- it was an amazing kind of ride, the experience of being arrested, cuffed, taken to the holding cell, again, for a crime that i hadn't committed. but, when it was time to call

the lawyer, that is when my privilege kicked back in. i knew so many lawyers, that it took a long time for me to actually decide which one i was going to call. and so, i had all of these advantages, most people who are charged with crimes, 14 million people, a year, get arrested in the u.s., and most of them don't have the benefits that i had. so that certainly made me think differently about the work that i was doing, and, again it didn't mean that i was sorry for everybody who got locked up, some of the people i'm thrilled are still behind bars. that is where they deserve to be. but, there were a number of other people i thought maybe prison was not the best thing for them and it wasn't only my experience, of being arrested that made me have this change of heart, if you will but it was also my day-to-day work and wondering what good it was doing, locking up all of the nonviolent offenders. >> you note the u.s. has the highest rate of in course racial

in the history of the free world. why is that so? >> part of it is cultural. frankly. so, for whatever reasons and some people traced it back to the pure tans, our society is very punitive. we are big followers of -- we like retribution, although, khan might say we nor at especially close followers, because, for him proportionality was important. it was important that the punishment fit the crime, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth and that is where we have gone wrong and in addition to the puritanical culture, we have this dysfunctional politics of criminal justice. where politicians think the way to get votes is to lock up more and more people, so, we have much stricter sentences than other industrialized nations,

really, more strict than virtually any country in the history of the free world. so it is significant that the answer, because there is sentence that people are less law abiding here, than in other places because they are not. people here obey the law just as much or just as little, as people in other nations. but, our sentences are much more severe. and we send many for people to prison here for crimes, in other country, where they wouldn't be locked up. >> does that suggest the rate of conviction in other countries, is more or less the same as here, just that we -- incarcerate a higher percentage of those convict and put them in jail for a longer period of time. >> i have seen more statistics, again, relating to people who break the law, than natural convictions but when look at crimes for which people break the law, and, especially, violent crimes, we are pretty much on level with nations in

western europe. our homicide rate it greater but that is because people here have more access to deadly weapons, especially guns than people do in other countries, so what social scientists have done is to look at statistics for things like assaults and especially also with nondeadly weapons, to measure whether we are actually more violent than other places and it turns out we are not. we are just again more punitive in terms of the way we treat people, once they are convicted of violent crimes. >> do you have any idea what percentage of those people who are currently incarcerated were convicted of violent offenses. >> yes. about -- somewhere if you look at both state and federal prison it is roughly around 50, 55%. so somewhere around half of the people who are in prison are there for nonviolent victimless offenses and, then about half are there for violent crimes, so it depends on again whether we are talking about federal and state, and the number of --

various from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and so, some jurisdictions are getting a lot smarter, about locking up, or not locking up nonviolent offenders and in those jurisdictions, again, prison i think is used more appropriately for the really dangerous people, and, that is people who are going to harm others or steal from others. >> so what percentage of the people in prison today, in the u.s. are there on drug offenses? >> again, if we look at state prisons, it is about, somewhere i believe around 40%. and if you look at federal prisons it is 50%. and, many of these offenses are nonviolent drug offenses. so, we are talk exclusively people who are there for again, what i would consider victimless crimes. and, you know, people ask, well, isn't that hard-core drug offenders? and this answer is, some, yes. but, mainly, no.

they are actually people who are locked up for marijuana possession, even in this day and age and believe it or not, in california, marijuana possession, under the three strikes law, actually counsel as a third strike. because, drug offenses are considered serious offenses, so in california, there are few people who are serving life sentences, for marijuana possession because it was their third strike. >> you argue that we've reached the tipping point, and i thoughtives a particularly interesting observation in the book, by the way, in terms of incarceration in that the current situation is counterproductive. and, that locking up so many people makes us less rather than more safe. can you explain that? sure. so the idea is, prison stops people from committing crime. to an extent. so when we look at the way that crime went down, in, say, the

1990s, incarceration went up, people say, oh, cause and effect and the reason that crime went down is because incarceration went up. and it is true that the rising rate of incarceration is responsible for some of the drop in crime, but, not most of it. so, what happens is when you get to a pointed where too many people are locked up, that is what i call the tipping point. it turns out that that actually increases crime. so, why is that? began, keeping in mind about half of the people who are locked up are there nor nonviolent offenses -- for nonviolent offenses, it is mainly young men, who are going into prison, and then being incarcerated, sharing space with hard-core criminals. murderers, rapists, robbers. like a finishing school for criminals. so, you take all of these nonviolent offenders, you lock them up with all of these hard core guys, and they come out, worse, usually, not better.

they don't get rehabilitation, they don't get access to drug counseling so it's not a good environment, if you are trying to stop people from committing crime. so, then there is this factor that professor stone's former colleague, tracy meres has writ en about, social norms, overcriminalization when you look up so many people in minority communities, about one out of three young black men now has a criminal case in my city, the district of columbia, about half of the young black men are under criminal justice supervision, they are either on p probation or parole awaiting trial or are in prison and what do you think happens to a society when more than half of the young men are locked up? what do they think about the law? turns out that you don't have much respect for the law. because they know these guys,

these guys made mistakes, yeah. the guy sitting in the corner, standing in the corner, they knew he was up to no good but this is also the same guy who helps the old lady up the stairs with her groceries and so, they see all sides of the young man and they understand that the most responsible way to treat his problems, probably isn't to lock him up and so it leads to this break down in respect for law, because you have a choice, you can respect the law, you can feel good about the law or you can feel good about your neighbor and you can respect your neighbor and most people choose to respect their neighbors. so, overcriminalization changes the norms about the law. the criminal justice system, and how it works. prison loses its deterrent effect. going to prison, almost becomes a rite of passage, for some young men. if you are a young black man, born in 1990s, statistically, you can expect that at some point you will be locked up. and, so, again, it changes the

sense of what is appropriate, less respectful, in the criminal justice system, and creates all of these men, overincarceration, creates all of these men who are very difficult to employ. about 600,000 people a year leave prison, 600,000. they need jobs. in order to live responsible, noncriminal lives, it is very difficult for them to get jobs. i always think i have a cousin, good kid, has not been involved in the criminal justice system, about 20, 21 years old and if i'm a manager of starbucks and have a choice between hiring this guy, or some guy who is -- been out of prison, just come out of prison, you know, got a ten-year gap in his resume, maybe could do the work adults still i'll go with my, the 20-year-old fresh faced kid from college and if i think that and i'm this progressive guy, with all of these, you know,

progressive ideas about criminal justice, how does the manager in starbucks feel? so, you create all of these people, again 600,000, and it is hard to employ and finally just the way that mass incarceration breaks down families. most of the men and virtually i think 80% of women, who are in prison have kids. and, we know if you have children, if you are a child and your apparently is in the criminal justice system, there is a likelihood that you are going to end up there as well. so, long answer, to your question, but, ultimately it breaks down families, it destabilizes neighborhoods. and creates disrespect for the law and we can't quantify it exactly. but we know that when you reach the point where it is too much incarceration again that actually turns out to increase crime. >> i saw interesting data a week or two ago, about personal

happiness, these are basically social scientists, who give people little devices, and ask them every couple of hours, to simply report, how happy they are on a scale of 1 to 10, and you do this with people across society and get all sorts of samples and you can tell what makes people happy and unhappy, and, what are the -- one of the things the particular data was focusing on which was interesting, is that when people first enter prison, they become very unhappy. for about 3-6 months, and then they get acclimated to the environment and they actually wind up being less happy than they were before they went into prison, but not nearly as unhappy as they were in the first 3-6 months and after they are released and as long as time goes forward they remain as unhappy as they were in print and that really is, sort of an independent confirmation of the intuition, about -- this is not just, when you get out of prison you go back to normal life.

you remain in a crippled live and will lead people to doing things that are anti-social including committing more crimes and you say in the book and i quote ending the war on drug is the best way to stop ms. incarceration and would make neighborhoods safer. what would the world look like, to end that. >> there would be less crime, fewer people in prison and less violence, so, why is that? and ironically, there are probably -- would be fewer people who use drugs. so if you look at a country like the netherlands, where marijuana use is decriminalized, actually fewer kids smoke pot there than they do here. so the war on drugs began in the late 1970s, early 1980s.

where we started locking up a lot more people for using drugs. most of the history of the country has actually been perfectly legal to use drugs, during the 1800s, you could go to the drug store, and gets opium and get cocaine and you could buy marijuana from various sources and the criminal law was disinterested. it didn't mean that people thought it was a good idea to use those products, it just wasn't seen as a punishment issue. and that changed and a lot of the reasons of the drug laws changed, are very related to racial subordination, you can look at the criminalization of opium, and tie back to concerns in san francisco, that chinese men were using opium to seduce black women, concerns about marijuana are very related to mexican field workers coming to the united states and concerns

that marijuana made them go crazy and similarly, with cocaine, and african-americans, especially in the south and there is this real racialization in the history of the criminalization of drugs. so, what would it mean if we decriminalize drugs now? again, one possibility that is fewer people would use drugs. i always thought the best "just say no" campaign for the reagans, remember nancy reagan, just say no, on stuff, and if she really wanted the people not to use mayor want the best thing for her to do would have been to go on tv and smoke marijuana! [laughter]. >> because that would have made it real uncool for people do it! [laughter]. >> one of the things that happens when you send all the messages, you know, the propaganda, how bad certain drugs are, is it makes it more interesting to people and they want to see what it is like. and so, a real possibility is

fewer people would use some drugs, and we'd also get rid of a lot of the violence that is associated with the drug market, now. so, a number of economists that made the point, that if you look at the reason why there is violence associated with drugs, it is really more violence associated with the drug trade. so, when you create an illegal market, for a product people want, a so-called black market people are always going to find a way to get this product. it is just the transaxle costs of it go up and the product is more expensive, and there is more competition and there is violence associated, with getting that. and we saw this, in the very city, in the 1920s with al capone when alcohol was criminalized and al capone was nothing but a drive by shooter and there was money associated with the illegal product, alcohol and so, he used

violence, to wipe out his competitors, and if you could do what we do now, which is to go into a liquor store, and get al kol, again, you don't see the same kind of violence. so, seagram's and budweiser, they duke it out with super bowl commercials, not with drive-by shootings, and so began a lot of the violence is because the drugs are illegal. and, the other thing, people ask, when i used to think about whether black jurors should acquit or convict black defendants who are guilty of using drugs, i suggested that they be thoughtful about whether they wanted to convict people, black jurors whether they wanted to convict black defendants for drug use people would ask me what would the african-american community look like if it didn't lock up its drug users and my

answer was, it would look like the white community and most people who use drugs, black, white, asian, latino, don't get locked up and statistically most of you in the room probably used an illegal drug at some point in your life and chances are you were not locked up and so, it doesn't -- this lock 'em up regime, this part of our culture, doesn't stop people from using drugs and the vast majority of people who use drugs don't get involved in the criminal justice system, which -- really part of the luck of the draw and part raising class and the sky one fall down if we thought about our own friends now who use drugs and think, would it make sense to lock them up? and the answer is probably no. and so, there wouldn't be more, i think disastrous consequences to society, if we adopted that approach as a national policy. so, especially if you --

thinking more about health care than about criminal law, to deal with the problem people who miss use drugs. >> to come back to one of early points you made there about the race based explanation for some of the changes in the drug laws in the u.s., how then does one explain the fact that other countries, with very different racial situations, i assume, tell me if i'm wrong, i assume adopted laws about drug usage more or less at the time we did without having those racial issues. >> certainly, the reasons aren't exclusively racial, why we lock up drugs and i also don't want to suggest that it is great that people use all drugs. so, there is certainly a problem with people misusing drugs. and, there is -- again i think of it as a public health problem so we're collar with the kind of

attendant ills of hiv transmission, and the dysfunctional families that are -- abuse drugs including alcohol. so, there are certainly public policy considerations lots of countries have thought about in criminalizing drugs, race in the u.s. was one explanation and wasn't the only explanation and in none of these countries is it easy to enforce drug laws. again, drugs are this mall substance that you can hide virtually any where and it is something professor stone thought about as well, in order to find them, and it also gives them enormous discretion, since, again we know lots of people use drugs, and they are hard to find so police have to think about where they want to devote their resources.

where they want to exercise their discretion and often we see them exercising the discretion and whatever, the subordinated population, in a -- in a country is and in the u.s., race is one way that we subordinate some groups and, certain classes in other ways and it wouldn't surprise me and i haven't seen statistics, so i can't say it definitively, professor but it wouldn't surprise me in other countries, that have a criminal response to the drug issue, that poor people are disproportionately locked up, and, also, other kinds of outsiders, minorities, in those jurisdictions. are disproportionately locked up. >> earlier you mentioned jury nullification and you spent a good deal of time in the book talking about jury nullification and i think it would be interesting to hear more about what the history of that concept is and how legitimate it is and how you think it should be used. >> okay, so, how about, a

thought experiment first. so, it is 1853, and, we are in -- let's say chicago. and, you all are jurors, in your -- and you're sitting in judgment of a man accused of violating the fugitive slave act. so, what this man has done is to help a slave escape. and that is actually a crime. it is a crime the supreme court has said is constitutional. so you are sitting as jurors, you take an oath, to apply the law, and you hear the facts of the case, and the facts of the case are that four men, two black and two white, walked into a courtroom, where a slave was the subject of a property, basically a property detention hearing to send him back. he escaped to boston. and these men peacefully took

the slave from the courtroom, and put him on a train to canada, where slavery is illegal. that is a crime, what these men did. so, let's say that you all are members of the you're. the guy admits his guilt. he says, yeah, i did it. you don't have to play long but if you want, you can. ladies and gentlemen of the jury: how many of you would convict defendant stone for his act? all those who would convict, punish him, raise your hands. so, a couple of hands, pencively going up and how many of you would acquit him, raise your hands. >> thank you! power to the people! >> you just exercised jury nullification and what that is is the idea that if jurors think the law is unfair, they don't have to apply it. even if technically the person is guilty.

it is a power that jurors have, based on the 5th amendment, double jeopardy clause which says you cannot be tried for the same crime twice. so the supreme court, has reluctantly conceded that it is a power that jurors have, no juror has ever been punished for engaging in the, and, in fact, in the early part of our constitutional tradition, it was actually a proud esteemed part of our practice, it was seen as a check, the idea that jurors could judge the law as well as the facts, was seen as a check, on the power of the prosecutor. so, many of you learned in civics class that the story about john peters ing errs ing protested colonial rule and he was absolutely of seditious crime and a jerry of his peers acquitted him and, we're taught that now in american history as

one of the har bingers of the american revolution, a proud part of our tradition and after that it was a routinely, part of criminal trials, that jurors learned about their power to nullify and did it in a and fudge -- in fugitive slave cases, during prohibition they did it in alcohol drug cases as well when people were charged with illegally distributing alcohol, some jurors acquitted, because they didn't think the prosecution was fair. so, it's a right or actually a power, probably, better said than a right, that jurors have, and here's where the stuff gets kind of weird. in the late 1800s the supreme court decided the case, that said even though jurors have this power nobody has to tell them about it. so, it's a power that people have they cannot be told about,

so, it is kind of some weird da syringesy code angel and demons-type stuff that you have to learn about the power. but, you know, people seem to ged it. a actually learned about it, from jurors in the district of columbia when i was a prosecutor, we tried some nonviolent drug cases, and when i was in prosecutor school, learning how to prosecute cases from experienced people, they told us that sometimes we persuade a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that a defendant was guilty, but, if again if it were a nonviolent drug case, the jurors might sometimes acquit. and the reason they would do this is because they didn't want to send another black man to jail. and the experienced prosecutors who told us about this said it dismissively, rolling their eyes, these d.c. jurors, here we are trying to get their kreetens off the -- cretans off the street and they don't have the

good sense to lock them up, but when i was teaching, a came to believe the jurors were doing a cost-benefit analysis about who id made the most sense to lock up and it didn't make a lot of sense to lock up some nonviolent offenders and so, they had a little bit of power, as jurors and used the power, the best way they know how. so, certainly, jury nullification has a storied history and we're familiar with the bad exercises of that power as well. so, famously, in the south, civil rights workers were met with violence, and, white supremacist jurors acquitted in those cases and turns out the jury nullification is like any other power to be used for good, or could be used for evil and one of the things i sugar, in the book, let's get free, is that -- a way that i think jurors, now, can use the power of nullification, to make the criminal justice system better. >> to add a thought on that, the

ambivalence the legal system has about jury nullification is really about whether it is legal to do this or not. in the sense that, in a sense what the jurors are doing are disregarding the law and making an ad hoc decision about justice on their own, and to instruct the jury they have the power to do it doesn't veto it it to be used in all sorts of ways that are bad as well as good and you can hypothesize situations, like the civil rights workers which is not a hypothetical and it is not clear whether we want jurors to have the power or not and the compromise, the courts have reached is essentially to say, well, if convicting somebody really turns their stomach enough they are prepared to disobey the jury instructions, then we'll let them do that but we don't want to encourage that kind of behavior because it is like a loaded gun and you never know where it will be used and against whom it will be turned and it is a really interesting element of the law in terms of how the legal system has

attempted to permit it but to discourage it at the same time. >> and, that is why i think when look at the places where we see it now, so, famously it happens a lot in drug cases and cities with the majority, minority populations, so, d.c., baltimore, the bronx in new york, the effect i think is it makes prosecutors more careful about their cases they bring, so, if it is a low-level case against a kid, who made a dumb mistake, jurors are going to be concerned about the effect of a conviction. and, prosecutors know that. so, again i think they are the -- the system works as it should. this part of this constitutional design of checks and balances, prosecutors have an extraordinary amount of power, they are probably the most unregulated actor in our legal

system. so, there needs to be some kind of watchdog constitutionally jurors are one of the checks, and, when we think about whether it makes sense, again, in d.c., when these jurors were acquitting some guilty black people, these were mainly elderly african-american jurors, they would come to jury duties in their sunday go-to-church clothes and it was a big deal for them to be on a jury and they knew if they acquitted somebody that it's not like when the guy got out he was going to go live in georgetown or foggy bottom where the this is -- or the nice neighborhood where life, he'll go live in anna costa and one of the low income communities where many of the jurors came from and so, they really, i think, were being thoughtful about whether it made sense for them to lock this guy up because they knew he might be tl be their neighbor and i gave the criminal logical explanation

about the tipping point when you look too many people up it actually makes the vetoes less safe but these jurors lived experience and they understood this tipping point in a way that i never could and so i think ultimately, not sending some of these young people to prison was an act of self-interest. and, just real quickly, there always is concern about the bad exercises of jury nullification when there are exercises of, let's say, racism, if we look at those, they don't really seem to occur in response to good jury nullification and it's not like, when people, jurors acquitted the murderers of medgar evers, let's say, it's not like they thought, there are jurors elsewhere in fugitive slave cases, they didn't convict so why should we convict. that is probably not the way they thought about things and so, again, that kind of again

what i would say is bad nullifications stems from different kinds of motives than just a response to good nullification. >> another response that you recommend to the injustice, of the criminal justice system, is you suggest people should not be snitchs. what do you mean by that? >> right. so, the don't be a snitch movement is famous mainly because it has been expressed a lot in hip-hop culture. and, the first thing to do is to distinguish between snitchs and witnesses. so, witnesses are ordinary citizens, who see a crime, and report the crime. and i think most responsible citizens including members of the hip-hop community, support the idea of witnessing. it is a civic virtue, and snitchs on the other hand are people who get some kind of reward for helping a prosecution, for helping a

criminal case against somebody else. so, snitches are essentially tattle tails but they are paid tattle tales and the reward they get is cash money or a benefit in their own case, and so, they are criminals, often, that is how they know about other crimes because they were right there watching it go down or helping it go down, and, what the prosecutor says, well, if you help us make a case against joe, we'll give you a break in your own case. so, the concern is first of all, they are not reliable witnesses. and again they've got an incentive to help convict somebody else, so, there is a concern about how trustworthy their testimony is, but the other concern, and i think it also relates to professor stone's writings, is they create this environment that is down right unamerican. neighbors are supposed to turn against neighbors. we had this culture in some communities now of citizen inform manlts.

and if you see something, that one of your neighbors does, turn him in, maybe there is something in it for you. and, again, that also creates this destabilization, if you remember some of those statistics i told you earlier in d.c., half of the young black men have a criminal case, and so that means that in virtually every home, in some communities, there is be a incentive to look out and see if can report what your neighbor is doing, so, i don't at all endorse witness intimidation or any violence against anybody with information. but, the point is, that you don't always have to help the government make a case against somebody else. and, in fact, sometimes, when you do that, especially with snitchs, when snitchs do that, there are reasons to be concerned that it is ultimately not in anybody's best interest. >> would you take at a step further and in the book you encourage people not to be snitchs but would you propose a rule of evidence that made it

admissible? any evidence that was obtained, through the expectation of benefit, from the report. >> i wouldn't. sometimes, snitchs again because they are inside, if you will, they have valuable information, what i think we need to be is more judicious about the kinds of cases in which we allow snitch testimony. so, i support a policy of not allowing snitch testimony in, say, drug cases but allowing it in cases of violent crime. so, a couple weeks ago, some young men in new york were indicted for conspiring to blow up a synagogue, and snitchs helped make the case and again you never know, you can never know exactly what is happening, just from reading the prosecution version of the facts which is all we have now but, what the prosecution is saying, is that case was made by snitchs

and we don't know how far it would have been or how much the government was intergating but if there is a -- intergaiting but if there dpdz inter gaiting, but if there is a violent crime, by witness, in those cases it is appropriate and is about using those resources more intelligently. . >> suppose one of your students said he's thinking of becoming a prosecutor and believes this is the way that he can make a contribution to society an address some of the concerns you raise in the book. how would you advise him? >> i'd say don't do it. reluctantly. >> a trick question. >> i was a prosecutor, in the district of columbia, representative the government in criminal court, and used that power to put black and latino people in prison. like a lot of prosecutors that was pretty much all i did. really enenjoyed the work.

to my surprise. i had gone in as this kind of undercover brother, who was -- had these concerns about the criminal justice system but hoped to make a difference from the inside and as i say undercover, brother, i am nodding at sam greeley who is in the audience who wrote the well-known book, "the spook who sat by the door" about an african-american man who joined the cia and is a classic book. mr. greenly, it is an honor to have you here. [applause]. >> and so, i was the prosecutorial equivalent of the spook who sat by the door and i hoped being on the inside i could make a difference. but, i found out rather than change the culture, the culture changed me, like a lot of lawyers, i like to win, i was competitive and the way that you get ahead, in a prosecutor's office is to put more people in

prison. prosecutors again, i said earlier are the most unregulated state actor and have a lot of power but it turns out it is the the head prosecutor who has the power and the line prosecutor has to do whatever she says and she has to answer to this dysfunctional politics of criminal justice. so, you know, this is a rough analogy. but, take it for what it is. to me, the argument that people who are concerned about criminal justice should be prosecuted, is not all that different from saying, if you were an abolitionist, back in the day, when slavery was legal, a good job for you would have been as a slave driver. and why is that? well, you had a lot of discretion, right in you didn't have to punish everybody, there was -- if there was an especially deserving slave you could cast a blind eye while she

escaped, you could exercise your discretion and that is harsh and i don't think criminal justice is the same as slavery but i think that our system now, is unjust and it turns out that people who collaborate with it, end up not doing a lot of good, so the cases where you think you can make a difference, say the nonviolent offender, first time, turns out there is already a policy in place, and you can't deviate from policy and we call them defendant's cretins and douche bags and people i wept to law school with would have been shocked to see me in those circles and they do good work, helping victims of crime but turns out that is not the majority of what they do. so, people say sometimes, well, if everyone really listened to you, that would be prosecution offices were filled with all hard-core types.

i don't think that is a danger. first of all, because unfortunately everyone never listens to me! [laughter]. >> and second of all because, you know, there are good men and women on both sides of the issue, so i think there always will be fair minded people and there are prosecutors, who are concerned about inequities in the criminal justice system but, unfortunately i think they get it wrong. they are ultimately not on the winning side of improving criminal justice. >> let's open it now for questions. yes? >> remind you to use the microphone. >> do i need a microphone? >> yes, you do. >>. >> thank you. i see a person, make i'm a cop, and i say, hey, look, murphy, this douche bag has got you a

joint, and maybe it's that person's like third offense. and now this draconian machinery begins to roll. does this draconian hammer hit as hard on blacks as it does at whites? looking over the spectrum? and if not, why not? thank you. >> sure. so, i live in d.c., and if i take the metro to the national institute of health and ask who actually uses drugs, they tell me that about 13% of people who use drugs are african-american and turns out, that blacks don't use drugs more than any other group in society. if i then take the metro to the department of justice, and go over to the bureau of justice statistics and say, who is locked up for that crime, about 60% of people who are locked up for drug crimes are black, so, 13% of people who do their

crime, 60% of people who do the time. so, there is clearly some inequities in law enforcement and some of my police officer buddies concede this and they say, yeah, we enforce the drug laws, more on vigorously in the african-american community, out of the sense that it is good for that community, it is better for that community, it is really, an interesting economic argument law enforcement is a public good, like a park, like a good school and the more you have of it the better and of course it doesn't turn out that way, again, maybe if we use incarceration smartly and if there was rehabilitation, it would. it turns out again, african-americans are disproportionately incarcerated, for drug crimes. >> thanks for coming today. the prison industrial complex aside, you mentioned something that -- you said it three times, about prosecutors are really an unchecked thing. when a prosecutor knowingly puts

an innocent man away, so the innocent man didn't commit a crime, if the prosecutor -- the prosecutor must have committed a crime. is there anyone who thinks about that in law school, have you written about knowingly prosecutors, have to get somebody? >> well, again, in my experience, most prosecutors are fair, so, they one knowingly bring a case against someone who they thought was in sent. i don't know very many prosecutors who would do that. if they do it, if they do it knowingly, again, if they sponsor for example perjury, that probably is a crime and this larger issue is prosecutors have an obligation to play by the rules. and they have a lot of power with regard to how much evidence the defense gives, in some -- and gets in some instances they control the kinds of information that goes to the defense. and there is a concern that they

don't always use that power in the fairest or most appropriate way. so, again i'm not sure the prosecutors need to be prosecuted themselves for crimes but i think that the ethical rules need to be beefed up. >> this will be our last question and you can cup up afterwards and talk to him about other questions. >> do you propose that juror nullification be used as an individual check in a case where there seems to be unfairness or injustice or are you suggesting it be used as a groundswell to maybe shock the community to take a closer look at drug enforcement. >> right, great question. and, so, in my book, and also if you go to the web site, which is let'sgetfreethebook.com. let's get free the book.com, there is a proposal for martin luther king jurors so they

engage or think about nullification in nonviolent drug offenses and a typical case of a person charged with possession of drugs or sells to another adult, a small amount, think about whether wanted to convict the person if you are on a jury and it has two purposes to answer your question and one, is just preventing some individuals from going to prison, when prison is not going to do us or them any good. and the other part is as a political protest. to send this message to the powers that be and especially the politicians, we the people are fed up with this criminal injustice system, and so we're going to do what we can to make a difference and sometimes, they need to hear that message, loud and clear, so it's kind of like civil disobedience except it is legal. so, not everybody has to do that.

during the 1960s not everybody sat in at the lunch counters and some people engaged in other actions, but, all of that together combined to make the system work, so, professor stone's former colleague, barack obama, he gets it. he understands this, during the campaign he talked about this counterproductive warehousing of nonviolent offenders. so, we just have to help him make this change. because this is also an important issue for the 500,000 people who are now locked up for nonviolent drug offenses, they also i think mirror the you a decent -- merit the you a decenty of hope and jury nullification is a minor and perfect way we can help bring that hope to them. [applause]. >> thank you. >> that was author paul butler discussing his new book, "let's get free, a hip-hop theory of justice."

coming up after the break, joe starita, author of "i amy a man" chief standing bear's journey for justice. >> malcolm gladwomen's "outliers" makes the list for a 32nd week. doug stanton writes about early battles fought on horseback in the afghanistan war in 2002. the book is "horse soldiers." then, david kessler's book "the end of overeating." also on book tv this weekend, and at book tv.org.

bill o'reilly tells how his childhood made him who he is today in "a bold fresh piece of humanity." richard wolffe wrote about the candidacy of barack obama based on interviews conducted during the '08 campaign, in "renegade." and magnificent des relation," buzz aldrin's story of the lunar landing, his 8th. michael and elizabeth norman write a history of the world war ii baton death march called "tears in the darkness." and, david faber looks at the economic crisis in "and then the roof caved in." for more best-sellers go to nytimes.com. >> 2009 books expo america book sellers convention in new york city and here with stacy lewis out of san francisco, what do you have coming out this fall. >> this fall we have a couple books coming out from angela

davis. a clicks of essays, her first book that has been published in four years that covers themes she's particularly interested in, racism, sexism, and the prison industrial complex. and then, particularly, interesting, book we are publishing with angela is a new edition of the narrative of the life of frederick douglass, an american slave which contains douglas's narrative as well as essays by davis that were part of a course that she taught at ucla in the '70s. so, it really brings to life that essay and will also include a new essay written by her this year. so we're hoping that people who have read the narrative before, take a look at this book as it will be enriched by the new and this old work. and we're also publishing the awakener, a long awaited memoir

by helen weaver, about her life with jack care back and lenny bruce and alan ginsburg in grenwich village in the 1950s and was involved in the publishing scene and more than focusing on kerouac and the beats it presents a bigger picture of literary life in new york in the 19 '50s in grenwich village which continues to always seem to be of interest and we're excited about that one. and then, our latest book that came out is called "the peep diaries" how learning to love watching ourselves and our neighbors, and whats this author is talking about is at one time, everyone was interested in pop culture because everyone is fascinated by celebrity. but he coined the term, peep culture in that the focus is gone from -- has gone from celebrities to the to yous can on yourself, that you actually can be the celebrity and you can do that by blogs and web sites and youtube videos and so it is

a commentary on what that change in technology has created for social and culture life in the u.s. and it is very entertaining and he actually inserts himself in lots of scenarios, he blogs all the time and he's actually -- was abea today, twittedering people's secrets, people were asked to -- if they wanted a copy of his book today and we asked them to tell us a secret, and then how -- hal went ahead and went on the twitter account and twitted i guess -- tweeted those secrets. some of the new nonfiction. >> and regular book tv viewers, knows city lights as a bookstore and your publishing offices are on the second floor of the bookstore and how did it start and who founded city lights. >> city lights publishing was actually started in 1955 by lawrence furling-getty and many people know -- know who he ishs

one of the most radio nouned poets in the world, and he began this publishing company with a collection of his own poems, called pictures of begone world, the first book in the pocket poet series which has gone onto continue publishing, we have 60 books in print right now, in the series. >> so, tell me a little bit about the bookstore and the publishing house. how does it work? is it -- the connection between the bookstore and the publishing house. >> i would say that at one time, most of the people that worked in the publishing company had worked in the bookstore. this person that is now the editorial director, lynn katzenberger worked for over 15 years in the bookstore and is now leading the way publishing excellent books for city lights and we're in the same building and it is quite symbiotic and the books we publish, very much reflect the types of books we

carry in the store. the commitment to progressive politics, literature and translation, and new voices, and gay and lesbian literature, poetry, poetry in translation. and if one were to look at the city lights list, or think about the books i was talking about, and then walk through the store, you would get the same sort of sense that it is the selection there is being care rated for you and that is a very specific and intentional thing done by bookstore buyer paul yamazaki and andy bell lower, the assistant buyer and store manager and a whole host of other people working in the bookstore, so, i think that the mission is one and the same that continues through the bookstore to the books we publish. >> now how old is mr mr. farlen-getty. >> he is 90 and we celebrated his 90th birthday, with him, and

at this point, i would say that any poetry that we're publishing is vetted by lawrence and has to have his approval but the great thing that he has done is that he has not kept the company to himself, he has delegated work to lots of people like myself and let us kind of continue his vision in our own way, so at this point, we hope to see him, you know, he comes into the office, maybe a couple times a week to check mail and whatnot. but he's busy painting, he's still writing, he's kind of pursuing his own stuff and when i first started at city lights, he would come into the office every day. so, that was -- i'm glad to have had that privilege to see him and work with him. >> stacy lewis, thanks, making director, city lights bookstore in san francisco into thank you.

>> thank you. >> this summer, book tv is asking, what are you reading. >> congressman joe barton what is on your summer reading list. >> you think with the library of congress i would have i have a list overth at the library i take home to texas but i really go to the used bookstore in waco, off of franklin, called golden's and have a table with 20 old paper books, for a dollar. and i go and just kind of comb through those and get 20 of the biggest, fattest fiction and nonfiction paper backs they have, and sometimes you get a tom clancy novel, sometimes you get a mystery novel, and historical... i just finished reading a book called "vortex" which is a hypothetical fictional book about an up rising in south africa. by larry bond. and, i am reading right now, a

political novel by an author, allen drury, he did "advise and consent" and all of that and this one is called, something about... tyre and nineveh or something, but it is a hypothetical about a campaign for presidency, in the this 1960s with racial unrest and an antiwar party tearing the country apart:

>> welcome all of you this afternoon to our session at the 25th chicago tribune printers row lit fest. our session today focuses on a tragic moment in an even longer tragic history of the u.s. government and native american

relations in the united states. our speaker today is joe starita, who is the author of "i am a man," chief standing bear's journey for justice. published by saint martin's press in 2009. joe starita was an investigative journalist in new york bureau chief for the miami herald, one of his stories won a pulitzer. it was a pulitzer prize finalist. today, he is a professor at the university of nebraska's college of journalism. and he is the author in addition to the book were are talking about today of the dolomites of pine ridge, an account of four generations of lakota sioux family that garnered second pulitzer prize nomination and one mountain and planes booksellers association award. deal will talk to us briefly about his book, i will engage in conversation with him about it, and we will open up to the audience. please note the microphone in the center of the hall, wynette

behind it and speak from there, if you will. please join me in welcoming joe starita. [applause] >> thank you very much. it's a great honor for me to be here and i thank all of you for giving up sometime on early summer sunday to come and participate in these events. it's nice to know for all of us that books still have value, books still matter. and that you still appreciate them. so i thank you for coming, and i hope that you will have questions at the end because i want to hear from you. and i'm not here to hector you or to lecture you or to come in with don't have the dese i know the last word about the history of indian relation. yes, i am here to have a conversation with you about a subject and a specific story that i am very passionate about. so feel free to ask any questions that you like when we get to that part of the program. so again, thank you very much.

imagine, if you will, imagine gathering of the body of your only son and putting it in the back of a rickety buckboard wagon. and gathering up 21 of your tribe, including nine in and 19 women and children, and with the body of your only son in the back of his rickety buckboard wagon, began walking north of oklahoma and south dakota on the afternoon of genuine second, 1879, into the teeth of a fierce blizzard with the temperatures 27 below on the road up ahead. imagine, burrowing into haystacks in northern oklahoma and kansas each night and tunneling into these haystacks and putting the young children and elderly people inside these openings in the haystack and then crawling in your cells at the very it to keep from freezing at night.

and imagine gathering of field corn by day and boiling it over an open fire to survive. and imagine walking day after day and week after week and month after month because you have promised your son in the moments before he died that he would take his body back to the ngaio breeder river homeland where your fathers and mothers, grandfathers and grandmothers are all buried. and imagine you have done this for three months and you are today short of reaching the ancestral burial grounds along the river, which forms the border between south dakota and nebraska. and the army catches you. and they put the bay at net to your back and the margin omaha and put you in a stockade. this is essentially what happened to chief standing bear and his people, the parker, which is a small tribe and an obscure tribe living along the ngaio burrill river that is the border between nebraska and south dakota. and what happened at that point

is something that is very unique in our history. and i would maintain that you can learn a lot about a country, you can learn a lot about a country, about how it treats its very elderly citizens and how it treats its very young citizens but also about how it treats its indigenous citizens. and for one moment in the last quarter of the 19th century there was this remarkable confluence elements, all of which came to a head in a long nebraska in the spring of 1879 involving this one elderly indian chief who simply was going back home, wanted to go back home to bury his son. and instead of motion all of these really interesting events that over time, i became very obsessed with, and it's a part of american history that i think is really fascinating. and so i spent four years

getting up at 3:00 in the morning to go back to the computer because i wasn't sure that this paragraph was right. it was still too a little anemic or i wasn't sure at this sentence was off. and they get doing is over and over for three, four years, because i felt so obligated to give this man his due. and to make sure that i presume everything i could to tell his story as honorably and as accurately and as correctly as i could. and so i just think it's a really, it's really one of those great moment in american history where you can look through the window that's a standing bear created, and you can learn a lot about country and this particular point in time. and i think this story has a lot to teach us, because there's a lot that we could have learned from this story. there's a lot that standing bear

and had to deal with indigenous people, tribal base people, that we could have learned from and should have learned from and hopefully still can learn some. something from. and one of those things that i don't think, you know, i'm a key argument that this is a one of those doors you can put in mothballs and just consigned to a couple of months and in 1879, because what happened in this case involving this middle-aged indian chief who was merely trying to bury his son, and instead ended up in a federal courtroom, there's a lot that we can learn from that story. and that there are things that happen in a store in 1879 that still resonate very loud and clear today. and one of those things that resonate pretty loud and clear is that one of the things that happened with standing bear wasn't the government back in washington was relying almost exclusively on the intelligence provided by its field agents out in nebraska and kansas, south

dakota. and it was basing its policy decisions on what these intelligence agents were telling them, what these indian agents were telling them. and the indian agents, out on the prairie, had got it all wrong. they were telling the truth about the situation. out in the western united states at that time. they had told in this particular case, the government that the ponka she's had all agreed to move from their land, their beloved homeland, and none of that wasn't true. so the government was making bad decisions based on bad information that they got from their field agents. does this ring any bells in modern times, in the early years that the government in washington was taking information that they got from their intelligence agent and they fixed the policy that that information but it turns out the information was wrong. the ponka didn't want to leave their homeland, are you kidding me? this beautiful river valley where all of their ancestors

were buried? where they had come to know all the different kinds of trees and plant and animal life. all of which was incorporated into who and what they were. the ponka religion as most native religions it was something you live. it wasn't confined to the first five pews of a church between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. on sunday. it's what you did when you were walking along the river at 330 that afternoon or what you were doing on tuesday morning at 11:12 going through the forest, or what you were doing at 7:00 at night when you are picking to choke cherries from the prairie. all of that was a part of their religion. they had voluntarily agree to leave this homeland that had come to define who they were? wendell berry, anybody know the name. very interesting essay probably in his 80s now who wants that if you don't know where you are, you don't know who you are. think about that. that's a pretty interesting,

there's a lot of information contained in that phrase. if you don't know where you are you don't know who you are. the ponka new where they were and the where they were, the river valley had come to define who they were. and so in the early spring of 1877 when the government decided because the policy had been fixed in washington and it was time to clear out all of these people and move into what was then called the indian territory, and we now know as oklahoma, the ponka didn't want to leave their homeland. it's who they were. they have become inseparable of the river valley. as the civil had in florida, as the apache had in mexico and arizona. and just try and standing bear refuse to leave until the government brought in the soldiers and they put the bayonets to the backs of the ponka. they turned their faces south and they marched for 60 days

from south dakota to oklahoma. and many, many ponka died on the way down. once they got to oklahoma no provisions have been made, no homes had been built, no land had been set aside basically they were dumped in a creek bottoms of oklahoma. and these were northern people, and they were not acclimated to this heat and humidity and mosquitoes the size of volvos that began to swarm over their tents in the crease and ravines of oklahoma, in one year, one third of the tribe had died. 750 had come down and in one year a third of the tribe had died from malaria. and on christmas week, 1878, the chiefs only son, his only son, a 16 year-old boy named bear shield lay dying on the bottom of an army canvas tent in a creek bottom in oklahoma. before his eyes closed in death, bear shield that his father to cover of the book, chief

standing bear, to take his body and to bring it back to where the people had lived for more than two centuries, to return his body to the soil of where their ancestors lay very. and that is what set this whole trip in motion. eventually led standing bear to have his day in court. in a federal courtroom in omaha, nebraska. and it's the first time in the history of our country that an american indian chief, who would have been labeled an enemy combatant, an enemy combatant. that's no question that's what standing there was in the spring of 1877. he would have been labeled an enemy combatant of his time. and yet, through the intercession of a great deal of support from americans, this man who had no legal status in the united states, who was not a citizen, who was not even a person under the law, he still

was somehow allowed to have his day in court through what the lawyers called a writ of habeas corpus. and again, it strikes me as unusual that an enemy combatant of his time in 1879 could have found a way argue his case in a federal court where there are, in excess of 200 people at guantánamo now, who have been in jail for enemy combatants, in the 21st century, eight years. and they have not been tried. and it's another conversation perhaps, but it's just interesting to me that an american indian chief in 1879 down an avenue to get to a federal courtroom where more than 100 plus years later that system seems to have broken

down. so i find that a little interesting as well. i guess another interesting parallel between this case that occurred in 1879 and now is i think you have to think about whether or not you can simply walk in and impose an american style democracy on these ancient tribal -based societies. we have been trying for more than 200 years to impose my one way or another a certain philosophy of life, a certain political way of life on our indigenous people. and we are still working at that. we are still trying to perfect that. and we've had 200 years of practice. and it's kind of a mixed report card, i would argue. we've done some things very well, and we still haven't done some other things quite as well as we probably would like.

and so i'm wondering, i'm just wondering out loud, if it really is possible to that easily and that cleanly and that simply, simply come in and say we are here, we want you to have american-style democracy and not pay attention to the complexities and difficulties of doing that to these ancient tribal -based societies that have their own chiefs and their own warlord and their own way of life, and it's been so interconnected and rooted for so many centuries that maybe we shouldn't get this idea that it can be done that easily. maybe that's something else we could have learned from standing bear. but at any rate, it's one of those great american stories that i think we as a people and we as a culture and we as a country are very privileged to have it we are very privileged to have access to these kinds of stories. there a tremendously rich vein

and they are really a rich part of who and what we are. and so anytime that we have access to a story that can help teach us about how things were a hundred 30 years ago but we can still learn from them today, those are stories that we ought to embrace and cherish. and i think one of the great things about the standing bear story, and i don't want to tell you the whole story because we don't have that kind of time. but i think one of the great things about this story is that standing bear was brought to trial, and for today's a government prosecutor got in his face and kept asking this american indian chief, who had no legal rights, who had no citizenship, who had no status, he kept asking him who are you? who are you, standing there wechsler did you come from? who are your people? what do your people believe in? what kind of a guy do you worship? who is your god? and why are you here?

and standing bear tried his best equipped to an interpreter to enter those kind of questions, but ultimately after this case had run its course, for one brief moment in the last quarter of the 19th century, standing bear created this meter through the help of a whole lot of people, he created this mere and this middle-aged father who simply was going to bury his son, he unwittingly forced america to look into the mirror and ask a lot of questions about itself. questions that needed to be asked if we are to be a great country. and those questions that he metaphorically was able to hold up and ask him this meter were questions like who am i? who are you? who are you? what kind of a country do you want? what kind of country do you have now? what kind of drink you have to make a better country? what is your definition of freedom? who is your god? and what are your god believe

in? and what are your values? you've been asking me all of these questions, now i want to know some things from you. what is freedom? what does it mean to be an american in 1879? and those questions either literally or metaphorically had never been asked before. had never been asked before. until i think is real interesting that we have the kind of dynamics, and we have the kind of country and the fluidity that we can take advantage of all of these different kind of ethnic groups that really are our strengths. and if we pay attention to what different people and different ethnic groups have to say, we can learn a lot about ourselves from those situations. and if we're smart enough and if we care enough, and if we pay attention enough, we can take all of those lessons and we can apply them to the 21st century and to the lives that we now live. so that our children and our

grandchildren can have a better life, and can learn more about this increasingly complex world that we live in. where it's not going to cut it anymore to say that these are the bad guys and these are the good guys. this world isn't that black and white. it's got a lot more gray in it than that. and if we are to be a kind of country that we want to be, we need to pay attention to the kinds of stories and lessons that the standing bear's of our country have provided us. and i am very confident that we are the kind of country that can do that, that we can take advantage of the cultural and richness we have and apply it to the greater world out there, if not for the sake of us, for the sake of our children and grandchildren. i'm very confident that not only can we do that, but we have to do that. we have to do that. so thank you very much for letting me share those thoughts with you. >> thank you.

[applause] >> i want to start by picking up an image that you used, and you have chief standing bear holding up a mirror in response to the question he asked, and metaphorical mirror and poses those questions back. the issue is what do white americans see when they look into that mirror at that particular moment in time. now, it's clear that some, a fraction, perhaps a small fraction, of white americans take some sense of responsibility for the tragedy that has befallen native americans at the hand of u.s. policy. that this is also a moment in which an aftermath of the civil war, reconstruction is over and to put it crudely, the white south has won the peace. this is a period in which racial thinking is about to get more

intense, and the believe in the superiority of anglo-saxon white civilization is about to get even stronger. so some white americans are willing to accept some responsibility for what has befallen the drive and for native americans by generally, but many americans, white americans don't accept that. could you talk about the aftermath of this case, and/or how white americans responded to this case, this situation and what follows? >> blow, i mean, this is one of the things i love about the story. we all know that typical beginning, middle and end when most of the stories we have heard involve native america collided with the forces of manifest destiny. we know how messy and ugly that intersection is and it always ends up the same way. what i love about this story is, i actually as a white male, as a white american male, i can learn about this story.

i can absorb the story. i can't embrace this story without feeling as though i had to go spend the next 27 years in a confessional. maybe one year, maybe two years, but not 27. not 27. and why is that? well, this is, one of the real dimensions i love about this story is, and i believe this and i have always believed this as a journalist. i had a great deal of faith in the american people. and as a journalist for 31 years i have always believed if you get the people to write information, they will do the right thing, all under almost all of the time. let's see how that applies to standing there. you can look at the entire 19th century of the united states of america, and you can find very little -- this is the century that began with these devastating smallpox epidemics, 1802, 1803, a teaser for. smallpox epidemics that came close to wiping out the entire

tribes. is a center that ended as many of us know in the frozen creek bed a long would knee creek. between those small talk evidence of 1803 and 1804 and the massacre at wounded knee creek in the center of 1890, not a lot of good has happened with these two forces came into conflict. but that's one of the beautiful unique interesting things about standing bear is that there was something about this man, there was something about these people, his people, the ponca, there was something about this moment where all the stars were lined up right inmate of 1879. and in that time period, where all of these different categories of white people rallied around standing bear's like. why is that? why is that? why at this particular point with this particular chief did these categories, the endless categories of white people say look, we can't, we have to draw the line here. we cannot accept this. this is a grotesque miscarriage

of justice and i as an american am not going to accept a. that's not who i am. i am not going to let this happen. who were these categories of white? let's start with a white neighbors and rated up in northeast nebraska. standing bear and the ponca neighbors. they were furious when they heard the government's decision was to take the people marched into the indian territory of oklahoma. they rebuilt against it. they hated the idea of the ponca leading. the ponca had become their friends and neighbors. thomas jefferson had this vision of an american, after he got the louisiana purchase from napoleon, he had a vision that he was going to transform this country into a whole new world order, a whole new society. and it was going to be built on twin pillars. pillar number one was an educated scissoring. pillar number two was an agrarian -based citizenry. and he believed with all of his heart that the fundamentals of this new country, what would become known as jefferson monee

and democracy would resides largely in the american west, or most of this new land at a come from the louisiana territory and it was going to be populated with people who really cared about the land, the new have to work the land and who are going to become educated. and one of the great ironies is that the exact kind of person he wanted to be the bedrock of jeffersonian democracy were already there. were already there. the ponca were exactly the kind of people that could have made this work. so when they were being physically removed from their homeland, the white neighbors and ranchers were fears. they wrote the local newspaper. we can't let these people go. they are our friends and neighbors. when we were starving, they knew how to grow crops in the niobrara river valley. they got us through the winter. their corn crops, their pocket, they're squashed. if it weren't for the ponca who really know how to grow crops up here and we don't yet, we would have started last winter.

why are we sending them away? the church faithful, the church faithful. because standing bear realized that in order for his people to survive, he was going to have to accept certain things in the new world order. and those were, they were going to have to adapt. abell going to have to learn english. they were going to have to find out more about the white man's god, all of which they did. and the one thing that they always were consistent about wanting from their first contact with white america, was they didn't want to be a sponge on the government. they didn't want government handouts. they didn't want government help. they thought, just leave us alone. and if we can survive by growing crops in the niobrara river valley, we will. and if we can't, that's on us. it's not on you. so they were basically everything that thomas jefferson was looking for. smaller government, know how to

use the land, don't want the government on our back, don't want handouts. and they were rapidly becoming christianized. and standing there understood this. he understood this as well as anybody. so when the clergy, when the bishops, when the church faithful got wind that they were moving they were furious. these are rapidly becoming christian people. the indian agent assigned to the ponca reservation road the commissioner of indian affairs, a guy named ezra eight, you can't make a trend make up these names. [laughter] stick he was complaining to the commissioner that they were now more ponca attending his church than there were white people. and you are sending these people away? what, are you crazy? so the bishops and the church faithful are now angry at the government for removing the ponca. the ranchers and farmers are angry because they know how to grow crops. when the lawyers in omaha first heard about this case, they got

really interested. how did they even know about the case? they knew about the case because the brigadier general, a guy named general george crook, i would argue one of the most complex fascinating and interesting man in america in the 19th century, who had had this three, four, five year duel between his military conscious and his civilian conscience. and he was increasingly unable to pull the trigger blindly on the orders he was given. and when he was told by his commander, philip sheridan, the man who point the phrase the only good indian is a dead indian, who said i don't care if their pledges hang off from frostbite. i don't care if they are starting. i don't care if they are we. i don't care if they are diseased. your orders are to turn their faces out and march them right back to oklahoma. he did not want a precedent to be set, that any indian group in oklahoma if they got tired of life there, felt, well, we're just going to pack up and move back to our homeland. he did want that precedent set.

george crook reached a point where he decided that on this moment, his civilian conscience was going to drop his military conscious. so what did he do after he got his orders from sheraton and he looked at the ponca and said this is a death sentence. after midnight, one early spring evening in march of 1870, excuse me, 1879, he writes 4-mile south of fort omaha were the ponca are being incarcerated. and he knocks on the door of the assistant editor for the omaha daily herald. a guy that he knows. a guy named thomas henry tables. and the guy you couldn't possibly make up a few on the most possibly hallucinogenic drug, you could not invent a more outrageous character that thomas henry kibbles. [laughter] >> he invites them inside and the general says, i think i have a good story for you. he proceeds to tell him the

story of this middle-aged father who was trying to bury his son. that's all he wants to do is take the body of his son. now the bones of this to the bluffs along the niobrara river valley. and when thomas henry kibbles, this abolitionist, this preacher, this crusading zealot newspaperman gets a whiff of this virus, he gives the total diseased. and he goes off and start. interviews, he start writing story after story after story but george crook, george crook was the one who set this whole thing in motion. you have to understand the context of this. i have been a journalist for 31 years, and for 31 years, i have been waiting for a brigadier general to knock on my door, to call me up, to e-mail me, too texan, to tweak me and it's never happened. and i'm tired of waiting. i'm not even going to count on it happening any more.

. . . >> maybe chicago. it got into the "chicago tribune." and then it goes to boston. and then it goes to new york and then it goes washington and pittsburgh and philadelphia, and, pretty soon, now, you have an entire east coast that is up

in arms, about the treatment of this middle aged father, trying to bury his son, and imagine how much standing bear must have loved his son, and his country, and his homeland, and his values, to do what he did? and now, that story is resonating from boston to new york to washington to philadelphia. and, these people are saying, wait a minute, wait. this isn't our kind of america. this is not what we are about. we are in the going to let this happen. and, so, senator henry dawes, u.s. senator from massachusetts, gets all of these letters from constituents demanding a congressional investigation and this is a miscarriage of justice and we have an opportunity to right a wrong and now senators are cupping to standing bear's defense and e pretty soon to make a long story short there is an investigation, there is a trial and ultimately, the

president of the united states, in the form of rutherford b. hayes, gets all of the information, from all to have the commissions, all of the inquiries, and gets good field intelligence and accurate field intelligence, and, makes the decision the ponca have been wronged and we're not that kind of a country and we are big enough to admit mistake and we executive order, before he leaves office, he legally through this executive order, reestablishes the ponca as the legal owners of this tract of land, along the river, where once the judge sets standing bear's people free, he continues on with this buckboard, and ultimately ends up burying the remains of his only son, the son that he had invested all of this hope in, to be the bridge between the old way of life for the ponca and the new way of

life, repatriots these bones to the rolling green hills along the white chalk gloves of the river. >> let me ask a follow-up here and you use the phrase, we are not that kind of country but the story that you describe in your pages and here today is on one level a humanitarian story. story of father, story of people dispossessed, essentially, injustice done this em them by the u.s. government and, in this ---to-done to them by the u.s. government and in this one instance maybe justice is not done but the ponca are allowed to return and they've received a degree of sympathy and support, less because of the notion of rights, it is wrong for the u.s. government and white americans to dispossess native americans than this one particular group of native americans, peaceful, agricultural, beginning to christianize, we, white america can recognize them, in a way

that we can the not recognize other native american groups, and we can do something for this one group, set that right but american, native american policy, does not fundamentally change, at least the assumptions behind it are still alternating between exterminate and assimilate and the act that follows in the 18980s some, many might argue was not exactly a victory for native americans and native american culture and i guess my question is to what extent is this a story, very specific to the ponca and to what extent can you generalize from it with regard to native american history in the years that follow the resolution? that is an excellent question and, you know, when rosa parks refused to give up her seat on the bus, by way of -- by way of answering, when rosa parks refused to give up her seat on

the bus, the law did not change the next wednesday, okay. we were wrong, for the last 200 year, and, rosa parks didn't give up her seat on the bus to a white man, last monday, so, by wednesday, we're going to have a whole new attitude towards civil rights in this country. from now on, we're not going to be having a colored-only fountain in birmingham, and, a colored-only balcony in the movie theatre and -- in tupelo. the point is, that you need a lead domino to fall and then it will take a while for the other dominos to fall and that has been kind of the history and even though this ruling was only, the legal ruling was only specific to the ponca and not all the other tribes, it did begin to set in motion, it began to set in motion what ultimately would lead to citizenship

rights, for all native americans, that came about in much later, 1924. but, the significance, the historical significance of this is, what it did, this question, had been hanging over the united states for 103 years. the question being, what do we do with these people? yeah, they have been here a long time, they have been here -- they were here before there was a may flower, long before there was a may flower. they have been here forever. and, the question, that has been hanging over our head forever is, who are they? how do they fit into our country? and, what do we do about them? and, that question had been dodged. for 103 years, it was kind of swept under the carpet, and every once in a while, well, we'll march the cherokee off to oklahoma and if, if 40% of them die or whatever, that is the way it goes. and then, nothing would happen for another ten years, and that

question had never really been confronted. and never really been answered, and one of the significant things about the standing bear case, and the stand -- and standing bear is that it focused for the first time in the nation's history, this vigorous robust debate on that very question. who are these people, and what are we going to do with them? are they citizens? who deserve the constitutional protection that african-americans now have and that all white men have? or are they wards of the government? people who should be herded up and kept in oklahoma and we'll give them seed and we'll give them a plow and make them dependent on us. so, for the first time in 103 years, we had been a nation, this new country that was beginning to flex its muscle and would become a major, major player on the world stage, for decades to come, was confronted with the question of, what do we

do with these native people? should we free them like we did standing bear? should we keep them in oklahoma like we have with everybody else? should we make them dependent on the government? should they be government wards? should they be citizens? should they be independent farmers? should they be people who just slowly, what sheridan pretty much said he want, people who should slowly die off at the margins until there are no more native people left for to us worry about and one of the things standing bear did was focus the question into a vigorous, robust debate that was debated all over the country, in newspapers, magazines, amongst citizens, and it took a long time, for the citizenship to come but it is -- the head waters of citizenship began in the spring of 1879, at a courthouse in omaha, nebraska. >> thank you. we have a few moments for questions, from the audience. there is a microphone in the

center, please walk up, and pose your questions. >> remember that was your -- that was your promise you would have good questions ready to go! we will not do it all up here! yes, sir. >> first of all, i appreciate your passion about the subject, immensely. i wanted to ask you, one thing, see if you can clarify, two things, one was, you mentioned that at least some people seemed -- didn't view this indians as human. and i wanted for you to clarify that, in terms of if there was a turning point in terms of the people getting behind them, if they always believed they were human and switched that and the other thing how important, mentioned the stories started to get to chick and got to the east coast and how central to that was just the human story, a man wants to bury his son, at a certain place? you know, was that -- that sounds like a sticky story, like, you know, rosa parks, doesn't want to leave her seat. was that an important concept, because i'm sure, it happened

before, you know, and all of it happened before and never boiled up to the story that got so much press, so if you could comment on those two issues. >> yes. i mean, the reason this happened is because standing bear was a uniquely compelling figure and a uniquely compelling character and when the decision was made on may 12th, the judge, judge elmer dundee, in may, of 1879, when standing bear was allowed to address the court, the first time it had ever happened in the history of the country, the federal judge allowed standing bear to stand up in the final, after all the lawyers finished their closing argument and speak to the courtroom. the judge didn't like indians. he liked hunting grizzly bear and they had to find him and bring him back to the court. and brigadier general george cook spent all of his life fighting indians and when standing bear finished his

remarks and it is in the book, the clay mack tick chapter is chapter 6, the color of blood, when standing bear finished his remarks, dundee he was powerful andel consented that the grizzly bear-hunting, indian-hating judge wept on the bench. he coughed his face in his hands because he was so struck by the sheer power and eloquence of standing bear's words. and, general crook buried his head and jumped up and rushed over to shake standing bear's hand. well, so i mean, yeah, there is something compelling about the story and there is something compelling about standing bear himself, and the two of those married together, created, yeah, i mean, you know, created a -- an environment where it appealed to a lot of people. yeah. it hit their hearts and they reacted in kind. so that's absolutely true. >> what about the... [inaudib ]

[inaudible]. >> this is a landmark case, because, this -- yes, that is true and in this case -- and this case established for the first time in the 103-year history of the country that the judge, elmer dundee declared an indian from this point on is a person, has to be regarded as a person under u.s. law. and someone who is afforded the same constitutional protection as other categories of human beings, and it sounds preposterous now but it wasn't until may of 1879 that these people who had been on the land forever were declared to be a person under the law. and entitled to the legal term is the equal protection amendment, this equal protection clause of the 14th amendment. and standing bear essentially had his right of life, liberty

and pursuit of happiness, violated by the united states government, when they put him in fort omaha. >> one last question. >> yes, sir. >> do you think the government had a sense that they could somehow use the trial to their advantage? is that why they let it go forward? it seems like there was a building momentum... >> the government thought there was no chance they could lose. there was no chance they could lose and you know why they thought there was no chance they could lose? 22 years earlier in the dred scott decision, i don't know -- if that rings a bell, but a black man had gone to court trying to get his freedom, and the supreme court basically said, are you kidding a black man? getting his freedom? no. you are not getting your freedom, the supreme court ruling was for dred scott chief justice roger taney, in his majority opinion, said, that a negro has no rights.

a white man is ever bound to respect. and, that decision emboldened the government to think, well, if a black man doesn't have any rights, a white man is bound to respect, can you imagine where that puts the american indian? no chance we'll lose this case. well, that is what you love do you the underdog, right. >> and on that note, it is my unfortunate task to draw this session to a close. you know that the book is available, out in the hall for purchase, and joe will be signing the book, after this session, so, my thank you to you, the audience, and thank you to joe starita for this conversation. >> thank you. >> thank you. [applause]. >> i would just say, somewhat shamelessly... that $4 out of every book that is sold, i put straight into a scholarship fund for native american students. in south dakota and nebraska, they can use for either a

two-year or four year college scholarship, so, i hated to be that shameless, but, i am also intent in sending as many of these kids to college as i can and so there you have it. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> [applause]. >> book tv's coverage of the twain "chicago tribune" printers row lit fest continues after this break. coming up, authors theresa amato and rick pearlstein. >> here's a look at sum up coming book fairs and festivals, over the next few months:

>> joseph lowndes, in your book "from the new deal to the new right" you argue modern conservatism was founded in the south. why. >> the reason i make the claim is often people talk about southern strategy and the capture of the south by the g.o.p., after the 1960s, beginning with goldwater and then, in nixon's 72 election,

but i think in some ways, the situation is the reverse, that southerners played a key role in the development, both first in the conservative capture of the republican party itself, and, then, republican ascendence nationally and in certain ways, a combination of southern segregationist politics and northern economic conservatism were blended over time by various political actors in a way that allowed national language of kind of racial resentment and opposition to federal state power and the democratic party generally. >> well, two questions arise from the answer, number one, how did they blend and when did this begin? >> i think the story begins, decisively in the 1940s, the 1930s in congress, there is a conservative coalition which comes together, after 1936, to resist some of fdr's political imperatives but really it is after world war ii, when during

the truman administration, when he begins to push for a federal employment practices commission, and desegregation of the military, that you have southern political elites, suddenly declare independence from the national democratic party. and, running the dixiecongratulate, where states revolted in 1948, the strategy was to try to get enough electoral college votes in the south, to throw the national election into the house of representatives which didn't quite work but began a process of separating southern democrats from national democrats, generally. and from the grilling ratio liberalism of the national democratic party and what happened then was that conservatives in the north frustrated with eisenhower and frustrated with the -- what they saw as the me-tooism of the republican party in the new deal era, began to look southward for allies, and kind of a new coalition, to rebuild a

conservative party and push back against the new deal and so, "the national review" magazine, for instance, begins inviting segregationists, writers and journalists and others to hand ed torld and write articles for "national review," and some conservative republican strategistses begin to try to build a republican party in the south which had not ever been a viable party, you know, certainly not after reconstruction and both at the level of kind of intellectual discourse and party strategy begins the 1950, northerners begin to look southward. >> so the shared interests were economic. >> economic and racial, i think. partly, it is southerners, southern segregationists saw -- segregationist elites saw it would be regional unless they could find allies outside the region and could convince southerners loyal to the new deal they needed to abandon their democratic loyalty for a

politics that would really resist the racial liberalism of the national party and so i think, probably, the northern conservatives who didn't have a big stake in race prior to the 1950s, began to find ways to see how racial politics would animate northern audiences, and begin to peel off segments of the white working class and others from the -- kinds of a hegemonic democratic party and it is kind of both i think. >> who were some of the leaders of this movement? >> i trace in the 1940s to dixiecongratulate leaders, charles wallace collins in particular. >> who is he. >> the intellectual guru of the dixiecongratulate revolt who, not only dixiecrat revolted and one who seeks to convince john thurman mond and other southern elites they have to articulate a conservative anti- government

politics, as well as kind of a racial anti-government politics and he's one of the leaders. and in the 1950s and 1960s, buckley, william f. buckley who is not often remembered, that he really makes dramatic efforts to drink southerners into the conservative coalition, and he pens an editorial in 1957, arguing that denial of the vote to black citizens in the south is perfectly justifiable, because these people have not reached a level of civilization, that would allow them to participate democratically. and buckley is nor figure and goldwater, clearly, is someone who when he runs in 1964, outside of his own state of arizona, only wins a hand. of deep south states, nowhere else in the nation is he a strong figure. >> why did he win the states. >> in the 1964 election, one of

the major issues was the great civil rights bill johnson proposed and goldwater's opposition to the civil rights bill. was one of the things that was used by his southern supporters, over and over, to try to get his -- votes for him and really, it was civil rights in south for him articulated as kind of a strong constitutionalism and a -- states' rights and individualist ideology. >> what is the southern strategy? how would you define that. >> people refer to it as the southern strategy and they begin with either goldwater or nixon and the idea that is northern republicans hope to win over southern voters, and to win southern states, and -- in national elections by pushing the race issue, by articulating kind of a -- either coded or open language, of -- for nixon's anti-bussing, for goldwater's

opposition to the civil rights bill, and, so that is what people are referring to, when they talk about this southern strategy. but, again, what is missed in that is the agency and activity of southerners themselves, who help but this on the table. and provide a language of racial politics that will play the not just in the south, but, in, you know, gary indiana and detroit, michigan, and baltimore, maryland, and in philadelphia, pennsylvania. where issues of open housing, open unions, other anti-discrimination measures, things that are focused directly on race, potentially can reap a broader, wide audience. >> so, how do you get from the new deal, to the new right today? >> the new deal to the new right today? well, i begin by -- the story i tell is looking at elements in and outside of the new deal and

southern democrats and northern republicans, conservative republicans and western republicans, who begin to bring their political perspective together in opposition to the new deal, and, to finally a place whereby 1980, reagan wins, decisively and by '84 even more so and the beginning of i a national realignment and national regime change which we think are at the end of now. >> ronald reagan kicked off the 198 so campaign i believe in mississippi. why was that significant? >> well, it wasn't just in mississippi, it was in a county in mississippi where the site of the three civil rights workers, james chaney, and andrew goodman and michael schwarner were slain by klansmen in 1963 and this was a place that was steeped in racial history and steeped in meaning for mississippians and trent lott brought him to

guiness beach there and reagan says in the beach, like you, i believe in states' rights, which is, high cough meant a number of things but a certain message was carried forth. >> what is the state in your view of today's new right or conservative movement? >> i think we are kind of in a twilight of the reagan revolution, and, in fact, many of the soldiers of the revolution say the same thing. pat buchanan, newt gingrich and others, that i think what happens in american political history is -- certain ideas dominated and certain political imperatives shape the landscape and over time they start to wayne, as new political questions arise, and new circumstances arise, and new players come onto the scene, to change political identities. and i think, now, in some ways, like democratic liberalism in

the 1970s, the republican right has kind of run out of gas, or is in an era of splintering and, major internal fights, over the future direction of the party. i mean, it was interesting to see in the primaries, the republican primaries, you had a whole range of candidates and none of whom could fully creditably claim conservative credentials and yet all of them invoking reagan over and over. >> what does it mean for the south. >> you know, the south is very much in play in a way that it has not been in a generation and in the last national election, presidential election, you sa it in north carolina, and actually, north carolina, south carolina, georgia, mississippi, and across the south, i think, black voters are playing a more decisive role than they have and latino voters are playing a more decisive role and white voters are themselves more pragmatic and part of it has to do with changing political identities and part

with strong enforcement of the voting rights act in the south, more so recently which opened up a lot of territory to exciting change. >> this is your first book, what is your day job. >> ii'm a political science professor, i teach at the user of oregon in eugene. >> and what are you teaching. >> i teach american politics, and right now i'm teaching a course on comparative conservatism, u.s. and europe with my great colleague, cass mouda and teach a course on racial politics. from the mid 20th century to the present. >> when it comes to comparative politics between this u.s. and europe in conservatives, what is this difference. >> one difference is that, america was founded on kinds of liberal ideas, classical liberal ideas in a way european states don't have, and so, here, if you look at the origins of american conservatism and you see strains of hamilton, hamilton's ideas about manufacture and capitalism and markets and centralized power and jeffersonian notions

of anti-statism and pastoralism, blending together into a conservative movement in the 20th century and here there is no clear torrey tradition. whigs lacked a air stock tracy to fight with or a mob to defend against and in some ways you do not have feudal traditions, and, in the same way. >> professor joseph lowndes of the university of oregon from the new deal to the new right race and the southern origins of modern conservatism. >> now more coverage from day two of this year's "chicago tribune" printers row lit fest, the next panel includes theresa a amat toy, author of "grand illusion" the myth of voter choice in a two party tyranny and rick perlstein author of kiks nixon land.

>> thank you. i met richard nixon when i was 13 years old and he was campaigning in bloomfieldfield, new jersey, and the 1968 campaign, i guess, republicans can still -- could still go to new jersey in those days and he gives a speech and at the end of the speech, went up to him -- handed him a pad, and a pen and asked him for an autograph and he tried to sign it with the wrong end of the pen. [laughter]. >> i should have figured it would not end well. and this flipped the pen around and got an autograph:

>> all of the chaos and mayhem and anger and anxiety that rick writes about in "nixonland" all came home to roost in the campaigns that theresa was involved in 2002004. rick perlstein is the author of "nixonland: the rise of a president and the fracturing of america." he also wrote before the storm,

barry goldwater and the unmasking of the american consensus. and he is working out on a about ronald reagan. theresa amato is the author of "grand illusion: the myth of voter choice in a two-party tyranny." she was the campaign manager for ralph nader's presidential run in 2002004. "grand illusion" looks at how the u.s. political system freezes out competition from third parties and independent candidates. and i want to ask each of them together is just a snapshot of their books before we get into conversation about them. rick. >> sure. my book is a sequel. the first book was called before the storm and it was about the rise and the forces that made barry goldwater the republican nominee in 1964. of course, goldwater was very conservative. he lost in an enormous landslide to lyndon johnson. and all the pundits declared that conservativism was done for. they would never win another

election and the republican party had any sense, they would purge the conservatives and eight years later, richard nixon of coors wins a 49 state in a landslide either greater than lyndon johnson. "nixonland" is what happens up in the intervening eight years and why. and argues that the political divisions that we know now were forged during the 1960s years in blood and fire. >> well, "grand illusion" is part memoir, part exposé, part history, part reform and how we can conduct elections in the united states and the barriers to entry for third parties and independent. everybody grows up under the myth that anyone can grow up and be president in the united states. this is true if you are a democrat or a republican, but not necessary to get your a third party or an independent

because we have so many structural barriers in place today against unfair competition for third parties and independents. everything from the ballot access systems, we have $0.51 of the state determined ballot access rules that are byzantine and mind-boggling and make it almost impossible for third parties and independents to try to compete on a level playing field. we have to some extent a hostile media and press towards a third party and independent candidates. we all grew up also with almost an internal bias because a lot of people are hereditary voters or learned in grade school that we are a two-party system. and everything from the federal election commission regulations to how we conduct presidential debates and the presidential debate commission, is an exclusionary rules that don't really invite third party and independent candidates to put their alternative voices and put

alternative choices for the american voter on the ballot. so this is somewhat of both the history of informed by my perspectives, running both ralph nader 2002004 presidential campaigns at the national level, but also informed by two decades of public interest advocacy at the local level, at the national level, and how the government interacts with citizens and what choices you have. >> your book is just out late it's already made some news. the book says that terry mcauliffe, who was the head of the democratic party, the dnc at the time, essentially tried to buy out ralph nader in 2004 offering him, i want you to tell us. but it's interesting, offering a deal if he would stay off the ballot in 19 key states. can you tell us what happened? >> sure. there was about half the population in the united states who didn't want ralph nader to

run for president in 2004. to put it in historical context, because of the scapegoating and what i would call the spoiler meme that occurred after 2000. because people thought, and i think erroneously, that ralph nader was somehow be dispositive cause between whether george bush or al gore won in florida. and if you have any sense of how difficult it is for third parties to actually compete, i liken it in the book to blame a startup in the garage for whether microsoft or apple has more market share. it's very difficult. and in florida, there were eight, third parties on the ballot. and all of them got more than the 537 votes different between george bush and al gore. but the only person who was quote blamed for this was the person who got the most votes, and that was other third parties, and that was ralph

nader. so in the historical context, there were a lot of people, if you're a straight democratic party line or you thought george bush was, you know, the worst president to hit the united states of america, that were very afraid that there would be a repeat of 2000. and instead of targeting some of this year at what i think it should have been appropriately targeted, and that is our partisan administration of elections, the incompetence and a vast imperfections that exist at the state level in terms of voter registration databases, how we purge registration, how we don't have standard amongst the state for what counts as a vote or how a recount should be conducted, or how people are able to actually cast their ballot. and all of these other kind of things that go into play for how a vote is counted. that sets the context, getting to bruce's question though, so a

lot of people tried to make sure that ralph nader didn't run in 2004, but of course the democratic party first amongst them, and yes, there was a phone call that i was on in june of 2004, and terry mcauliffe basically wanted ralph nader to say, stay out of his 19 states. and offered unspecified resources if he would only campaign in 31 states and stay out of 19 states. now, the whole conversation made me extremely uncomfortable. of course, ralph nader is not for sale. he proved that over four decades of you wasn't going to say oh, yes, of course not. he didn't get into that at all. instead it was a 50 state campaign. and terry mcauliffe started naming the states that the nader campaign of 2004 had to stay out of. and said that they supported the litigation that had occurred that day in arizona, to basically make sure that ralph was going to get, you know,

tested, litigated, every paper clip, every staple was going to be tested on the petitions for how to get on the ballot in the battleground states. and so it turned out, over the course of the next 12 weeks, that we would be sued some two dozen times by the democrats and their allies across the country to make sure that ralph nader and peter miguel, were not a choice for american voters on state ballots. and of course, we thought as hard as we could and made sure that we got on most of those because a lot of this was trivial, frivolous kind of litigation and i don't know how many people here have spent half their workdays over the course of 12 weeks starting their mornings with servants and sums of a claim against you. but not fun way to begin your

morning being sued by the democratic party or its allies across the country. and the idea behind it articulated by some of the 527 groups was to make it difficult, drain our resources, make it impossible for us to run in the united states of america. i imagine there are a lot of people who wish they had succeeded. there's no question that if nader had not been on the ballot in florida, bush wouldn't have won the election. i know you have been asked this question a lot. you talk about in the book. there are probably a lot of people out there who want to ask it to. why shouldn't ralph nader bear the blame for the election of george bush? >> well, the assumption in that question is that all third parties, if you cut the margin of difference between one of the two parties, shouldn't be allowed to run. that's the reduction of the assumption in that question, in that for some reason it's

preordained, your vote as an american voter, is preordained to go to one of the two major parties and not any other kind of party. which issues we don't have a good understanding of the history in our country, and i am sitting next to a premier historian here to check maybe nader should have seen these two candidates and said one was better than the other and stayed away. >> personal, that's not his you. it may have been that one was better than the other, but only at the margins of in terms of what he looked at, every major regulatory agency in washington, d.c.. you know, he would've said that both parties want and they weren't doing a good job. and that every four years we got ourselves into this lesser evil kind of choice. well, i'm going to quote for the democrats because they're not as bad as republicans. i'm going to vote for the republicans because they are not as bad as the democrats. but what about the concept of open competition? when you go to the store do you only want to buy one of two

flowers or do you only want to have one bird or another bird? what about having a political echo diversity, you know? and a concept that we are stuck in this two party system. its first not prehistorical he ordain. it and there's nothing in the constitution that says that the word party doesn't appear in the constitution. and to store do, we had lots of parties who have sent members of the parties to congress and have run at the local level and at the state level and what not. it's only been in the last pretty much fiber six decades that we have made it almost impossible to send somebody from a third party for congress these days. and so, you know, in the terms of why, you know, why blame ralph that nobody blamed pat buchanan about new mexico. i mean, take any other third parties who ended up with more than 537 votes.

the reduction, you know, the question is you can't have a certain party run. or you're only stuck with two parties. and do we really want the united states government or the state governments telling us that we can only have two parties in the united states of america? >> brick, you wrote that "nixonland" is the america where two separate and irreconcilable sets up apocalyptic fears coexist in the mind of two separate and irreconcilable groups of americans. you say do americans not hate enough to fantasize about killing one another in cold blood over political and cultural disagreements. it would be hard to argue they do not. have the "nixonland" and, has not ended yet. so you're talking about the apocalypse. you're talking about a tyranny of democracy. we're in obama landau. it's not nixonland. an african-american candidate got 65 million, 56 million votes

for president. got elected. mccain and obama together got 98.5% of the votes. there was no great demand on the right or on the left for third parties in this election. i think bob barr and nader together got a little less than 1% of the vote. you go to the second city review, and the title is america all better. so what i'm asking you is whether barack obama blows a hole in both of your theories about where the country is going. >> let me get on that one. [laughter] >> it's been a fascinating year. and a year of enormous transition. we are really lucky to be alive and be able to, i was going to say open a newspaper every morning, put on a newspaper every morning and watch history happen. i wrote that line we are living in nixonland still. prebudget in the 2008 it came

out in the middle of 2008. and now i really do think it's fascinating question. by the same token, barack obama offered a stimulus bill that also include the biggest tax cut in the history of our country. and didn't get a single republican vote. and in fact, the reaction to it was tea party protests around the country arguing that barack obama was the biggest tax hike in the history of america. literally, people not seeing what was playing in front of their face because they were so driven. they were so notched into these partisan categories. meanwhile, just this past week we have a doctor whose work is literally saving women's lives, late-term abortions with children who would be born deformed. and he was shot in cold blood after the entire kansas republican party, the entire right wing of that party made that doctor, doctor george

tiller, the subject of vilification for over 10 years. we have seven law enforcement officer so far in the term of barack obama who have been shot by men who are terrified that barack obama is going to take their guns away. i don't think that the kind of divisions i'm talking about have by any means of entrance and. barack obama vision is to build consensus. and whether he is going to be able to cross these bridges and build consensus is, again, very much still an open question. >> and two acco rick. by no means have our election systems fixed to the extent to really counteract any of the problems i have been talking about. we have here even with the

democrats, take a look locally in illinois. we have democrats in power at the state. they run both houses. in congress, we have a democratic administration. they run both houses. the senate is now almost filibuster proof at 59. and they still can't take a bold actions against the credit card industry, for example, and cap interest rates. so even on substantive matters, we have a quote unquote opposition party that has now become the ruling party and ruling with an abundant majority. and they still can't take brave actions against corporate interests in washington, d.c.. i would argue that the system hasn't changed at all because we still have campaign finance problems, both locally here, which we didn't fix. and nationally. we have our politicians marinating in corporate campaign contributions. and they do not have an interest

ultimately at the end of the day to cut off their funding. and the reason why is because we have systemic problems. not only do we not have federal financing or state financings like some states do, but we have a winner take all system. and when you have a winner take all system, what you have is almost an incumbent protection on and on and on. anywhere between 95%, 98% of our people and congress are returned. why haven't we had a significant overturn it our congressional level? because of redistricting. if you take a look, if you ask yourself the question of why do we have these people in power, and did you move up the food chain to see systemically where's the problem, the problem comes back to you, a winner take all system where you have to have 50% of the votes in a congressional district. and so you don't have competition. people know it's almost a

foregone conclusion in the vast majority of our races here, who is going to win the election. such that there's not competition. even other major party doesn't show up in most of these elections because they know they are not going to win that particular geographic district. and so we have a lot of people who are protected. government cycle, election cycle after election cycle, to go back. and even when they have a major force or control all the mechanisms of power, still will not say no to the corporate pay masters. >> let me ask a few. is this really a structural tyranny, or is it a lack of demand? since 1928, we've had to report he or independent candidates on every presidential ballot, only twice have you seen a third party candidate get more than 10% of the vote. as we mentioned in this last election, third parties were

barely, barely heard of. i want to ask you, our people pretty comfortable with the two-party system? >> i'm glad you asked that. again, because you originally said to be a democracy. i want to make sure it's not a journey of democracy. iquique we need more democracy. it's really that tyranny of the majority that has suppressed the minority. and that if you take a look at the systemic problems we have in place, everything from the campaign-finance system to the presidential debates commission, to the really odious, heinous ballot access laws that we have across this country that would make other countries blush if they -- we are so far the outlier out how we dictate who can get on the ballot and offer their candidates to the american people, that it's almost incomprehensible that we have gotten to this state. in part, demand is that david bye to what extent there can be

a chance for political supply. and there is no fair level playing field of competition in the united states if you're a third party, independent trying to run for the presidency. if we had much easier times of being able to get, forgot, on some of the free media, the bandwidth that is dominated by the broadcasters. right now, ross perot, rebrand? he had to go by his commercial. he could afford to buy those commercial. most third party and third party candidates cannot afford ontologically that they have. and so until we fix some of the systemic problems we are not going to get very viable third party and independent candidates and list yourself financed multimillionaire. >> it's really striking how little structural democracy there is in the american system. i mean, if senators from the states representing 11% of the

population decide they want to band together and filibuster a bill, that senators representing 89% of the population wanted, they could filibuster it. that's because we have a senate that granted two representatives to every state, whether they have 10 million people or whether they have 10 people. now why did that come about? it wasn't an accident. the idea that we would have minorities protected by these checks and balances. now, what was the minority that the founders were interested in protecting? it was the slaveholding state who would not allow themselves to join a union without what was called and the ability of the constitutional convention, the grand compromise. and it's been an ongoing struggle every decade, every century of american history ever since to expand the possibility of the popular bill being recognized, of course until about 1913 i think it was,

senators were elected by state representatives. you couldn't even go for a senator if you were an ordinary citizen. so the struggle for democracy in america is ongoing. i think theresa is onto something very important. i'm not sure ralph nader is perhaps the best witness for the prosecution, essentially because he did such a brilliant and important job of holding regulatory agencies to account when he was the guy who was a national figure siting for those issues. and now that he has made himself a presidential candidate, he has become unfortunately very and factual in the most important work he has done. but absolutely we need more democracy in america and we're not going to get it until it's very popular for the. >> do look very close to the 1968 election, george wohlstetter can put 5% of the. was this a good thing for democracy? >> that's an excellent question. when i look back, actually third parties in america most

frequently in our century have been basically formed by southerners hoping to hold the balance of power in the electoral college so they could basically broker who the president would be. they were never successful. it started way back in 1948, strom thurmond ran. tonight to win or doing an majority of the electoral college, they would have to say well, we will vote for you in the house of representatives because that's who decides the tiebreaker if you, you, promise not to grant civil rights to african-americans are he was quite exquisite about it he was going to try to become president without a majority of the vote. and it a difficult thing. i would like to throw it to theresa. i think often because we do have, what is really an unfair system. if you get 49.99% of the vote, you get zero power in america.

so whoever gets .0001% of the vote and controls that, you know, can literally tip the balance. it's not a fair system. but often people will try to tip the balance and have balance and have done it most successfully have been people who don't necessarily wish all of the citizens in our country will. >> so, i'm glad that you went back there because we should ask ourselves, you know, why in the 21st century we still have an electoral college. >> excellent question. >> there's an excellent book out called fixing elections. that was written by stephen hill. and there have been, there's a national movement even going on now with the national popular vote plan, people who have tried to work around the electoral college. stephen hill points out that when our constitution was written, it was cutting-edge. but today it's horse and buggy. and there have been in the last 200 years all kinds of different

mechanisms for how to conduct elections that are far more choice maximizing, that are far more representative of the will of the people. why don't we have a direct vote for president of the united states in the dawn of the 21st century? why don't we had that? and why do we have other alternative votes, you know, maximizing systems like instant runoff voting, or there's a different range of phones you could try. cumulatively, etc. because we don't learn about them, because there is no organized constituency to move these, to move these issues. and these are the systems that trap us into the lack of competition. we have an uncompetitive democracy, precisely because unless you think you can get 50 points or 1% of the vote, it's almost hard to even start trying. and even voters know, why do we have a situation where we have close to 100 million no-shows. and as for the presidential

election. 100 million no-shows to vote for president of the united states. why do we have that? because people are figuring out that their vote doesn't count in one state or another if they're a blue state or a red state. and the system forces the candidates to go to only a narrow spectrum of state, cater to those voters how the people in ohio feel, or the people in florida feel. and that's where all the money goes, that's where the ads go. that's where the campaigns go. and those who are the people who are spoken to we started i'll. is i will reflective of the united states of america? >> when abraham lincoln said so that government by the people, for the people, other people does not perish from the earth as the mission of our civil war, that was what america really was the only democracy in the world. and blessedly, new democracies ever since then were accelerating especially after

world war ii, have proliferated. and everyone faced a choice, what kind of constitution would have. well, america is supposed to be a shining city on a hill. how many of those countries chose a bicameral legislature, the three branches of government, to parties. how many chose to integrate the united states constitution instead of a parliamentary system where a minority group has a much better chance of getting things through, when in congress if you have 50% plus one in a single chamber of the legislature you can actually have majority rule and get things like health care or something like that. why hasn't any other country chosen that? >> because that system did not particularly an effective way of registering the public will. >> how many chose an electoral college? let's answer the question. none. no one did. not one country since 1974. we have been in this great wave of democracy building and

democratic nation across the world. you know, the united states and this is where the title of the book comes in, we live under this illusion that we are the model of democracy for the rest of the world. none of these countries. we are talking 30 plus at least. >> we don't even ask them to. >> no. spec we didn't tell iraq that you should have a constitution like ours. they have a parliament like england's. >> which is what it is an illinois. we impeach the governor and we try to change legislative leaders into more transparency and open government and what we found out is they will take a whole lot of shaming. [laughter] >> i think a lot of people in florida of 2000 were shocked to find out that the supreme court said we had no constitutional right to vote. it was up to your legislatures to let you vote for president. >> a lot of ideas i really like in the book about opening things up. one i was worried they can buy was the idea of none of the above vote option.

. . how many people who have gone to votes and have found elections were there were not more candidates and then the open seats?

right, there is often no competition whatsoever on the ballot. >> remember win michael moore rant wifi this plan in every open seat for congress and the united states? >> one of the ideas mentioned the book and we have tried to push it and have gotten nowhere on is the idea of reducing the and buy something or somebody other than the people who have a vested interest in redistricting. and iowa i don't know how much closer you looked at the iowa's system. were essentially a computer gets involved and you try to create competition whether then incumbent competition. >> i was not a perfect system in their but we should get to the point where we have nonpartisan the drawings of the ballot. here we flipped a coin so you know if the democrats when it is going to favor the democrats and the republicans when it is going to favor the republicans for the next decade. you are going to be stuck with however the coin flip cannot

immediately point where i would prefer we got to a point where we had representation and then you would have a situation that translates into something different. i want to just not tie this to the electoral system because the electoral system translates directly into the substantive issues of what you get to see and hear and debate in our legislatures across the country and in congress. look most recently, senator max baucus had a hearing where they were going to talk about reforming the healthcare system and you had all these people and he said everybody is going to be represented and still the people who support single-payer, a good majority chunk of people, didn't even have a seat at the table. because one option was deemed not to be in a seat at the table. if there were members of congress elected who came from districts that have a proportional representation and

you have different parties there you would have seen single-payer at the table because they would have ensured single-payer caught a seat at the table because they would have been representing districts or parties that have that as part of their platforms otis important to put the entire, the election system into the context of how that translates whether you are in favor of this proposal or not. the question is should it be heard? should there be somebody there representing the acquisition? i don't care if you support one or the other or what not to say we can't even have a voice presence in our halls of congress is ridiculous. >> rick, what is the nicest thing you could say about richard nixon? [laughter] >> he was a very good father. his daughters both spoke very highly of him but aside from that as a politician seriously, tried to write a book that is sympathetic. that shows empathy toward

richard nixon. this is the guy that is 60% of the american people, not just the american people, 60% of the american people who chose to vote in 1972 which had the lowest turnout in any election of to the point decided he represented their aspirations, so i would be insulting those americans if i said nothing or final in this man. i think what is most admirable about richard nixon was quite simply his courage and his physical courage, his spirit of courage. he refused to back down when forces more powerful than he tried to trample upon him. you know, physically speaking out was the most profoundly manifestant when he was in south america in 1958 or 59, i forget which and the mob started throwing stones at him saying death to nixon fargo he looked them in the eye and said i dare you basically, to say that to my face and he talked down ahmad.

politically, a great example in 1952 when he was under a cloud for what were supposed to be financial improprieties, probably warrant and the latest of the republican party made him go on tv until he had to resign. he didn't resigned and in fact he turned it back on his tormentors, said they were just as responsible as he was, stayed on the ticket. one thousands and thousands of telegrams, 90% supporting him staying on the ticket and he did that practically without notes. he did that practically without preparation. the red light on the camera went on, he steered it in the eye and the biggest tv audience up to the point and he won his case. that is a lot of character. there is a lot not to a smyre but we will save up for another time. >> i think rick there are a lot of liberal democrats in washington d.c. that long for the days of richard nixon substantially in terms of what

got passed and signed in legislation. you go back to the late '60s, early '70s you will see the freedom of information laws, the osha, the clean water, go on and on the the kinds of things that richard nixon signed into law. >> the policy environment was a lot further to the left. it is a pretty complicated question though. i don't know how much time we have. >> we will take some questions from the audience and just a minute. i would ask that you go to the microphone in the center aisle and well you go to the microphone in the center aisle i will ask one more question. ricky ride in the book is less than the '60s, liberals get in the biggest political trouble when they resume their reform as an inevitable concomitant of progress then it is then they are they are most likely to establish their reforms by top-down bureaucratic means of blindsiding and backlash ensues. you have a president running general motors and the president was pushing national healthcare

in his foot a trillion dollars in tewes federals stimulus. is there going to be a blindsiding backlash? >> i don't think that is a particularly good example. we are talking about reforms that were supported by the previous president. it is a pretty good consensus among large parts of it leads people who know what they are talking about in these sorts of things that we have no choice. and, i was thinking more of things like for example the experts in the psychological field and social workers sangwell, the kids really need to learn about sex education so basically school districts instituted quite mild and thoughtful sex education programs and there were these blinding backlashes because the idea of the government basically reaching into what was seen as an area of instruction in life that was seen as the pride of the family was something that

brought about great panic in great backlash. i think that what barack obama taking these kinds of emergency economic measures that metaphor is the wartime president and people will rally behind him. i no word about the backlash there. >> yes sir. for mr. perlstein, i read nixonland it was a great pleasure despite the subject matter. it was not without a sense of humor, black humor of course but anyway, i was muhlstock by reading the book, there were many references to liberal republicans, conservative democrats. those are not phrases you hear any more. >> like the seiberg elephant. >> it is just kind of like, if you can maybe clarify kind of what, how again you don't hear these words and are these people

just cynical opportunists, are they true believers? your conservative conservatives, your liberal liberals but like you said-- it is very fascinating and the whole structure understood ideology and has shifted over basically the period of richard nixon and ronald reagan. the way people were terrified, pundits and experts, people wrote editorials. i like to say the david berger's of the day but of course they were david broder. [laughter] we are terrified of the idea of passions running away with us and the reason for that was because they had known the experience of fascism and they had known the experience of your of turning into a-- by demagogues reaching out to people's most passionate and sting so the theory at the time that you learned in college in political science was both parties had to have an equal number of liberals and conservatives. they had to be these ideological

and they were. in new york you had a senator like jacob javits it was probably the most aggressive civil rights centers. he was a republican. the democrats had someone named theodore bilbo it was the mississippi senator who wrote separation or of modernization, take your choice. one of the great dramas of american history that i certainly can't tell in five seconds or 15 seconds or 15 minutes is why that sensibility broke apart. actually a lot of it probably had to do with the way politicians change the way that they tried to put together coalitions that included 50% plus one of the electorate, and it probably would not have shaken out either way, the broker system or the ideological sense them had we not have that winner-take-all system. it was one of those complicated questions. >> and how they raise money and who they had to raise money from

in order to run. so,. >> we are in a lightning round now. we have five minutes left in several people who want to ask questions. i'm going to rescue to keep the questions succinct and the answers as well. speak to questions. when, i am hearing the word tyranny in it kind of shocks me. why did gentleman over from uganda at my house for dinner and he said i can't wait, everything went well. people just voted and then went on their merry way but anyways, i don't hear you putting any responsibility on the voters. 100 million did not even show up for calument and their multiple candidates for president in florida. i don't think the problem is a structural tyranny. everybody is allowed to go vote. you can look at whatever media and you want to get and i don't hear any, people are getting what they are voting for or not voting for. the problem for me seems to rest much more with the voters and i would like to hear you respond.

mr. perlstein, in terms of people not getting along, the casey bring up with the position being shot, this is absolutely the exception not the rule here in this country. given the polarization in number two at scenes and i would like to hear your response but it seems to me you vilify the legislators. it seems like they were doing what democracy calls four, not the person who shot the doctor and yet he is there vilified. >> quickly, what the legislators in kansas did was say that a man who was saving lives with murdering people for money and i think that is beyond the pale in the democratic republic so that is what i have to say about that but i will pass over to theresa. >> at the end of the day, it is the individual voter end of reform in the united states as woodrow wilson was on this thing

starts at the ballot box. i am paraphrasing him. but you have to look at the context in which the individual voter grows up, lives, sees the choices. the flip side of voter rights, of candidates rights in the structure that we encourage, everything from how you grow up learning about what kind of system you living in the united states to whether you are ever taught to go and have some kind of emphasis placed on the importance of the vote, whether you've learned that people died for the right to vote and to expand the franchise in the united states, whether you are, and whether it is considered a premium in your household primarily because that is where we learn most of our civic habits or in schools and in terms of whether you go and exercise your vote but it's the end of the day it is also the structure and the system. does this system allowed to have

more than one or two choices? >> united states, i think the answer has to be yes and that we have to start looking at how the system on fairly narrow as those choices. >> yeah, for theresa, i am large and sympathetic to your argument, especially against the electoral college but just as the devil's advocate how would you respond or what would your solution be to the idea that if we got rid of the electoral college we would have a new situation where all of the media attention, candidates visited etc would only fall in the highest density population areas, in large areas of the country would be essentially ignored? >> i heard a very good answer to this the other day because somebody had also raised this and i encourage people to educate themselves about this by looking at the national popular vote plan, what do you agree with that are not. they do present the pros and cons of the electoral college and how it works, but if you add up all the major, think of all the major cities, chicago being

one of them it comes of two comet comes out to be a very small percentage in terms of population of the fuld united states. we are a really big country and there are a lot of people still to live in downstate illinois, who live in rural areas, who live in smaller sized cities and live in suburban areas that etc so it is not just all of the resources would be focused on new york, l.a., chicago, houston, what not because so the vast majority is still out there that would have to travel and it is a shift of say, okayed you prefer just to have the candidates go to florida and ohio or do you want them to go across the country to try to get the votes of everybody? they still have to get the individual voter. >> this is a question both for theresa and rick, mostly four theresa. in your opinion has there been or is there presently a country whose political system we could emulate on some level, the

country at the present moment or throughout the broad scope of history? thank you. >> at the risk of looking like i am not answering the question, i am not going to pick a particular country but i think there are systems in various countries and you know, i am leery of the idea of transferring one said of the roula to another because i have been part of, when the berlin wall fell and when the iron curtain fell further was a big rush of lawyers who went to these other countries that were newly, the new democracies and said hey, look at our system and hey we do this year and we do that there. there is a predicate for some of these particular. people would say that is nice but in this country we don't have an independent judiciary, so our system is based, taking

someone else's system without taking all the other features of it is very difficult but you can say that there's certain features you would like to see preston i would like to see proportional-- proportional-- >> it sounds like a short answer is no. >> i would have to dodge it too because one barack obama-- >> we want to get our last question in. we are out of time. >> my question really is about democracy and as we try to bring our country towards a true democracy some of the things that are happening to california voters are really interesting. they are being proposition to death and it is to the detriment of their government so how do we correct that while still trying to move towards an actual democracy? >> barack obama spoke and kyber on the subject of democracy. he said a few things. he said no country can impose democracy without a loan from another country. he said democracy nonetheless is

indivisible and has the access bridge in of all the people but it has to come out of institutions in the history of each country's so yes, there is no one perfect democracy. as far as california the tragedy there is that basically the proposition system becomes a democracy by tv, whoever can buy the most tv commercials and the most manipulative ones can win the 50% plus one so that we have a situation where liberty is almost impossible because proposition 13-- bedell they can do is figure out a way to keep themselves from falling into the sea so it is always a challenge. >> that is going to have to be the final word. thank you all for being here. please give a hand to rick and theresa. >> we will be back shortly with the finally sent from book tv's coverage of the day to at the 2009 "chicago tribune" printers row lit fest.

it features adam cohen, author of nothing to fear, fdr's inner circle in the 100 days that created modern america.

>> this summer booktv is asking, what are you reading? >> i'm gerry connolly burgoine the congressman from the 11th district of virginia and i am

here to talk about books. i myself am a very avid reader. i read on average at least a book a week. sometimes two. and, most of my consumption is history and biographies. i have a stack of books on one side of the bed that i have read in the last year and i have got another step on the other side of the bed that is to be read in the coming year. and, i particularly am fond of american history and have read a number of booker fees in the last year. i read a wonderful book by joseph weilin, the last crusade. john quincy adams career here in the house of representatives and in many ways historic hands i think, very few historians have written about that. mecca exclusively in john quincy adams career. he spent 17 years here in the house of representatives after serving as president and had a distinguished career, was an

outspoken poets-- opponent of slavery and in many ways was somebody who foresaw of the disunion that was going to occur over that great subject, and he was just a stalwart on the subject. and he was a fierce defender of the constitution and american rights and of course defended, defended the black slaves who had been in the famous incident and john quincy adams took that case to the supreme court and prevailed in a year when nobody thought he could, so it is a fascinating story of john quincy adams and his time's presidential, and i think it is one of the few books ever written about that period of time in his life. a book that i just finished reading when i got here to the house is of course, the house historian's book about robert remini's book called the house,

which is a short history of the house of representatives itself, which is the greatest institution and have lots of interesting characters. of course a great history swelling around this place and a wonderful read for those of us in congress this last year. i went through a bout of reading about ancient rome, so i read anthony everitt's to books, cicero and augustus, wonderful biographies of two critical characters. adrian goldsworthy's biography on julius caesar which was so good. also a great read. bob harris's book called imperium which is about cicero and then i couldn't get enough of ancient rum soggy bread every novel in every short stories of

their team has done. he created this fictional character of the history behind it is this mystery detective during that time period, especially during the time of julius caesar augustus, so i have had a lot of fun reading about history and even going to fiction, to further informing about that great time period in terms of ancient rome. i think in this time of barack obama one must read, doris kearns goodwin's book, a team of rivals which is the great story of how abraham lincoln not only bested his rivals but then had the intestinal fortitude to bring all of his rivals and to his cabinet, each of colm thought he was smarter than lincoln in each of whom thought he should be in the swivel chair and not abraham lincoln. it is a great story and really eliminates a lot of our american

history. and other book i read this last year or so it is a book on a number of military histories. david halberstam's book, the coldest winter which is a wonderful story published posthumously by a great writer on the korean war. not of since lot of single volumes on the period of history and really well done. rick atkinson is working on a trilogy and he is published the first two books on the second world war, and specifically the first volumes on the american involvement in north africa and the second volume is on the italian campaign which was a bloody, bloody affair and does not give a lot of attention in history and obviously it deserves a lot more. rick atkinson, a journalist with "the washington post" is a luminescent writer, a wonderful wonderful piece of history and great, great writing. , a book i would recommend for

people who want to understand what went wrong in iraq is a book called fiasco by tom ricks. he has since written a sequel which i think is called the campbell. fiasco is really a great book in terms of peeling away what happened in iraq and essentially the united states made some very critical mistakes and we are paying a heavy price for it even now. the first was the inadequacy of the troops that went into iraq, which meant that while we could topple the regime we could not restore law and order, so when mass looting occurred, american troops all too often found themselves frankly standing on the sidelines having to watch it because it was not their mission and we did not have enough troops-- truett to do much about it. it significantly eroded a rocky confidence in who we were in what we were about.

secondly, paul bremer who was then sort of the guy in charge or put in charge by rumsfeld and bush overturn some decisions of the american military had been trying to make in order to restore law and order and to essentially try to rebuild some kind of structure. the first was his decision to disband the iraqi military, which had been at odds with what our own military was trying to do. by doing that of course he essentially created a couple hundred thousand unemployed families, whose main source of income was an armed military, trained military and thus fueling sympathy for the insurgency and frankly providing a source of weapons. in the third great mistake was the decision to ban all members of the baathist party which had

been the dominant party in iraq since the time of saddam hussein. from serving in the new government. it might be a understandable that you want the senior members of the baathist party precluded, but to go down to the low-level bureaucrats who had no real choice if they wanted to advance, had to be members of the baathist party, to ban them too, again treated hundreds of thousands of unemployed folks who know also were very hostile to the united states and were sympathetic to the insurgency. those three big problems, those three bad decisions on the part of the previous administration and specifically paul bremer, really made, really helped shape what was then going to happen and of course that we are in the longest military engagement in our history, and although things

have finally started to show some improvement on the ground, when you read this book, fiasco, you realize that if we had made some different decisions, frankly the outcomes would give them much more positive and we might not have lost as many american lives and iraq might not have lost as many iraqis lives in the ensuing seven or eight years. >> to see more summer reading lists and other program information visit our web site at booktv.org. >> next, author adam cohen wraps up our coverage of the "chicago tribune" printers row lit fest with a discussion on the creation of the new deal. his latest book is nothing to fear, fdr's inner circle and the 100 days that created modern america. ..

and heads -- this is his third book. the last one was e day, the one beforexd that was american

ferrell. so i feel like i lived with this book nothing to fear. the book has extraordinary resonant. when you concede this book did you see the resonance it would have now? >> i didn't, but that has never been a criteria. he moved to chicago and we were looking for a book idea and you said there hasn't been a big book about mayor daley. that was enough. you don't always think about timeliness. i started writing a book in the

middle of the bush administration and the reason was everyone was fighting over the new deal. new deal was the fault line in american politics. president bush began his second term with a promise that he is going to work to one do social security which was really the crown jewel of the new deal. i like writing history that speaks to to day. why not go back to the origins of the new deal, see why it came about, why it was seen as necessary and that could inform the debate that was going on about whether to rollback part of the new deal. as it turned out, very lucky timing, we ended up getting a democratic president who is very combative -- charismatic like fdr who was very ambitious for his first 1 hundred days, there were a lot of parallels the tween the fdr story in the beginning of the obama story. >> as you think about the beginning of the fdr story venue

set the stage? >> people are looking to the current president to fix things that as bad as things were, they were so much worse in 1933 when fdr was sworn in for the first time. in many ways you could argue it was the absolute depth of the great depression. the stock market had fallen 85%. unemployment was 25% and there were bread lines in the big cities, farmers were near revolting because it didn't pay for them to plant crops in many cases because crop prices were so low. there was no social safety net so things were really bleak. every bank in the country had been closed under a state bank holiday because there were runs on the banks, people had been

losing their life savings in bank failures. things were really grim. >> you have called the new deal, in this wonderful book, the third revolution. can you explain how that idea came to you? >> i think you could argue there have been three great revolutions in american history, the first, the american revolution that separated us from england, the second, the civil war which redefined what it meant to be an american citizen. for the first time there was a uniform standard that applies across the country, the southern states were not different anymore. this was the third because america was very different after fdr than before. the reason i say that is under herbert hoover and all the way back, the federal government had been remarkably small, unbelievably small. the entire federal budget was

under $5 billion. the federal government really protected the country militarily and delivered the mail. all of the other things we think of, the federal government doing, regulating the stock market, making sure there is a safety net in place, the whole litany of the regulatory state didn't exist. fdr created that and defined a new responsibility of the federal government to the citizens. i would say that was the third revolution because america is very different now. >> the subtitle of your book, fdr's inner circle and the hundred days that created modern america. at what point did you realize the inner circle of fdr was really sort of -- so critical to the new deal, the making of the new deal? >> when we read about the new deal in school, it is very much tolls as an fdr story.

there is a predisposition in american history to look to president and great men, occasionally women, as being the moving forces. i certainly thought of this, fdr as wonderful inaugural address, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, is great leadership. the more i look into what is going on, it is remarkable how he was in many ways as a writer then said, the master of ceremonies. was the people around him who were developing the programs that became the new deal, who were coming to him and said we need this kind of bigger cultural plan -- agricultural plan, fdr chose among them but it became clear as we look into it that a group of people, four men and one woman, really were in many ways the real story behind the 100 days. fdr was very important, i wanted

to bring them back into history. >> they are not detected as amama list. >> when you write history is through the prism of the time your living in. he had clear views and surrounded himself with people who shared his ideology. what was fascinating to me and very positive was to see that as the are approached government completely differently. he was a progressive and head of the we associate with the new deal but he had other conflicting views. he was very concerned about budget deficits.

he was a fiscal conservative and he liked to have people around him who reflected the contradictions in his own mind. he did have a progressive. three of the big ones i write about, henry wallace, the agriculture secretary, and the first federal relief administrator, and most of all, frances perkins's labor secretary, reflected his desire to help the victims of the depression but at the same time he had a budget director, louis douglas, one of the most conservative democrats in congress, the most conservative, who did not believe there was any money for these new deal programs and he was going to fight the progressives, to send mail. fascinating that fdr wanted douglas in the mix, elevated the budget director to cabinet level and when you look at the bill that emerged during 100 days, the first law was passed, solve the banking crisis, which had to be done, the next thing fdr did when he had the leeway to choose a problem was he cut the federal budget by 25% which is remarkable. it is not what we associate with

the new deal but that was part of his thinking. he wanted people around him, reflected the complexities of his own mind. >> i have to talk about my very favorite character in the book, she went to my alma mater. frances perkins. >> an amazing figure. when i started the book i knew she was the first cabinet member, i knew she must not have done much of importance because why is that the only thing we know about her? they have also named the department of labor building after. jackie robinson didn't do much. what is remarkable, looking very closely at the period, she was the driving force between so much of the new deal, later on, beyond the 100 days, she shared the commission des created social security and argued with

fdr even when he was governor, when she worked for him there, there needed to the social security but during the 100 days when we look at who is arguing, we needed a welfare program for all those people in bread lines who were starving, who said we needed a public-works program. that was frances perkins. she was a remarkable position to do that because she has an amazing life, she was born into a conservative family in western massachusetts. they didn't really want her to go to college, she went to mount holyoke, her father didn't want her to take a job. if she took a job, as a teacher, she took the job teaching outside chicago, but she also came in on weekends and vacation time is at work with jane addams. she became a reformer in chicago and went on, move to new york, became an expert on factory safety, and one day she was having tea and a wealthy friend's house in greenwich

village and the butler came in and said there's a fire outside. they all run outside and frances perkins personally witnessed the fire, saw the 136 women who jump to their death to escape the flames and she became the leader in factory reform after that. as i say, if there is one voice throughout the new deal that was really pushing for the values we now associate with the new deal was frances perkins. when fdr after her to join the cabinet she wasn't sure she wanted to go. the word they use at the time, a spinster. she was married, had a daughter, her husband was mentally ill, institutionalized, she was eager to keep the private, wasn't excited about going to washington, was afraid that the press without her husband.

she said i will go if you promise to support this laundry list of progressive values. he did promise, and just about all of them became law and they are what we now associate with the new deal. >> my favorite is harry hopkins. >> another wonderful guy. to be working on these people when i was looking at the current cabinet. harry hopkins, he graduates from college at the age of 22, he decides to move to the east side, the poorest part of the country, the most densely immigrant pack area, he becomes a social worker. he combats tuberculosis which was a major problem in tenement slums and he heads of new york's

first welfare program which fdr put in place. when fdr create the federal welfare program, hawkins becomes the relief administrator. his whole life was about social work, helping the poorest people, it is a model we don't really associate with top positions in the federal government today. >> we talk a little about douglas. what was his back story? >> he had an amazing back story. it was shocking to me to realize this was someone that fdr not only brought in to the cabinet level but fdr loved lewis douglas. in the beginning he was his favorite. he told people the first couple months of his administration, he hoped douglas would succeed him as president. knowing that, it was remarkable to see he was not only very conservative, he came from a

family of copper barons in arizona who badly mistreated their workers, his father and uncle were responsible for something called the busy deportation where they rounded up all of the union organizers who had come to there copper mines and all the sympathetic workers, at gun.-- at gun point, but the long road cars, left them in the desert of new mexico potentially to die of thirst or starvation, they received by the army but it was a terrible incident in american history. that was douglas's background, his father, his uncle, the influences on him, very surprising douglas in the mix. and one of the tensions in the book and in the 100 days is the clashes between douglas and frances perkins. frances perkins is saying we need public works programs and as soon as she convinces fdr, douglas sneaks in and says we don't have the money for it.

in her oral history, frances perkins describes how she outmaneuvered him. the great example of this is the big bill that ends 100 days, national industrial recovery act. the one thing frances perkins said, they were creating a crazy scheme of government business partnerships, the supreme court struck it down pretty quickly. every meeting, frances perkins said there's a large public works to put the unemployed people to work. douglas kept saying there wasn't money. frances perkins prevails, she convinces fdr to the $3.3 billion of public works into the national industrial recovery act. a huge victory. as she tells an oral history, when it is about to be introduced in congress, she is looking over the drafts of the bill and sees that a public works provision has been taken out. chinos that it was douglas. i have to meet with you and sets up a meeting with him over the

weekend and she talks to the secretary to make sure that douglas's meeting with fdr earlier that day, she knows that fdr is often open to -- speaks to him last. shea scheduled meeting with fdr after douglas left. a very important new deal figure riding by the phone. douglas has the scheme to separate it out and kill it and now is the time she convinces him, she gets fdr to paul wagner who is waiting in his office, and fdr says francis convinced me you have got to put it in and keep in. that tension between perkins and douglas was a rich part of the 100 day story. >> which reminds me of that great story, the inauguration

day story. cabinet officials were really obscure, no real special plans were made for them. they got frances perkins through the mud. >> it is considerable considering the pomp and ceremony associated with the federal government, i start the book with frances perkins appointed to the cabinet, labor secretary, she realizes no one has reserved a hotel room for her. there are no more hotel rooms, she knows someone who knows someone who runs a hotel, she gets her own room, no one tells her how to get to the inauguration. everyone who knows how to get to the capital goes, and i begin the work early on with the scene of her and henry wallace from iowa, they are waiting outside the church and no one told them how to get to the operation,

they have to hail a cab and the cab gets stopped in traffic and it ends of that perkins and walls, two of the most important new deal figures, have to run through the mud, they finally get to the inauguration platform but fdr is halfway through his speech, they didn't get to hear him say the only thing we have to fear is fear itself and this continues the following monday. the first day that perkins is supposed to take over the labor department and do this important work, no one told her where it is, she has to look of in the phone book, she gets the address and there's a great scene in her oral history, she is coming and the labor secretary did not want to leave the office and she said he thought she would go back to new york, she was not going to start so soon and she literally has to show up and she has someone get boxes for the ongoing labor secretary, she has to start packing these boxes.

it is fun, colorful history, but they were almost kids putting on a show. no rules, they were winging it in little ways, created a climate in which they come to fdr with huge bills that really reshape the entire government, that was fine because it was all being remade from scratch. >> henry wallace was a fascinating character. he is one of stood turtle's favorites. >> the later henry wallace ran for president as a real progressive. the 1 hyundai's, a farmer, fresh off the farm from iowa. remarkable figure, a farm journalist, third-generation to run the family farm journal, he does -- he was this great farm

experiment her. one of the early as believers in hybridization and sold the country on the importance of hybrid seeds and very politically active. he is writing these articles and doing his experiments. and something he did completely on the side, when he couldn't get seed companies to make hybrids see that he thought was important, he proved they were hardier and better, a couple friends met in the house, that hybrid seed company, in 1987, close to $4 billion, something on the side, he was a remarkable guy. >> he is the fifth, kind of lost to history.

he was closest to fdr, his face was on the cover of time magazine, he was a speech writer, he was fdr's closest aide. he wasn't so ideological. he was about writing the statements to introduce in congress. he becomes a casualty as a number of other people do. he and fdr don't see eye to eye on what his role should be. he ends of leaving after 100 days. he helps fdr and then becomes very embittered. he moves to the right. when it came time for me to write the book hoover institution at stanford, very ironic, he was a goldwater republican and a fierce critic of the new deal by the end. he was one of the five most important figures but not remembered as a great new dealer. >> the only papers were a

surprise for you to find, but what else surprise you in the reporting of this book? >> for a historian, it is always fun to read papers and leaf through them because you never know what you are going to fine. the wallace papers in iowa were incredibly fun. i was really interested in perkins. i wanted to figure out -- i decided the key to this would be heard daughter. the daughter was there at the inauguration. the daughter was there throughout her entire career, i wanted to see what she had to say. i did talk to her son several times. i was hoping someone -- she is never quoted anywhere. i do find a footnote with perkins's daughter, and it was

in but file, very exciting. i hope she will describe the scene at the inauguration, what her mother was like. the subtleties of her character. i went there in august, i fill out the farm -- form. they actually bring me this folder, the interview had been done by someone who was writing a book about perkins', but this woman very generously gave many interviews that she did for the book to the library for other stories. it is a historian's dream, her father was institutionalized,

she hated her mother. her mother had told the two women who ran her school not to teach her how to read. on and on. it was a disappointment. it was actually helpful because perkins felt very conflicted about her later life. she was responsible for social security. she felt very bad about how her daughter's life unfolded, particularly that her father wasn't able to help, and regretted some of it. that was a lot of insight into her as a person. >> if you will approach the microphone, that will be wonderful.

>> i want to thank you for your wonderful daily book. >> thank you for your wonderful -- >> right after the elections of barack obama i happened to be driving through westbranch, iowa where the cougar papers are. i asked the same question i will ask you, is it true that fdr refused to meet with cougars to engage, basically announce what his economic policies were before his inauguration in march with the intention of wrapping the bad economy around hoover's neck? >> they didn't cooperate. there is a bit of a debate among historians about who to blame for that. there is plenty of blame on both

sides. essentially, i hope he agrees because what i hope we will cooperate on will mean abandoning 90% of the new deal programs those who for was trying to make it a cooperation on his own terms. fbi didn't want to cooperate because he did not want his own administration to begin with the taint of such an unpopular president as hoover was, and he rightly thought why not start with a more -- it would be a more democratic congress, certainly to enthusiastically agreed the legislation. he did delay. lot of it was strategic but it was in no way personal remark by any grudge.

fdr's open mindedness was reflected in the fact that the first bill, a flurry of legislative activity that has never been equaled, the emergency banking act saved the banking system, it was drafted by hoover holdovers, fdr was happy to work with them, because they were able to do progress of things their old boss wouldn't sign off on. they didn't cooperate, i don't blame fdr for that. >> i have the two part question. can you describe the motivation of roosevelt to run for the presidency, and you talked about the backdrop, talk about that first elections and the second question, what was the role of the media in shaping a new deal? >> two great questions.

fdr is someone who loved to lead, he was a cousin of the roosevelt, and the roosevelt name was elevated. people were looking to him when he became governor. this in the was likely would become president. a lot of his political career, he had polio, he was disabled. after he got it, he didn't think he would be able to do it. he thought he would have to be talked into it by eleanor and louis how, is chief aides, to convince him to do something as grueling as run for governor and president. i do think he was a natural born leader, very charismatic figure, like to be in charge. polio had a big effect. francis talks about this, it was 5,000 people but it is all in line, it is worth rummaging

through, she talks about -- she knew fdr, they were social friends, traveled in the same smart set in manhattan. this upperclass harvard kid, she got to know him again when she was lobbying with state legislature for minimum-wage for women in particular and he didn't support her and she thought he looked down his glasses that people and environmental stuff, he didn't want to help the neediest people. she saw how much he change, she describes, when he first campaign for governor, he had to talk to a union audience and watching as these men had to carry him up the fire escape, the only way he could get there. he was smiling all the way through it. she felt terrible watching the scene.

she said this change him and made him compassionate for people and it really contributed to him wanting--particularly during the great depression, because people needed that kind of compassion which he had. it is a combination of all those factors that persuaded him to run. the media was a factor. there was a lot of media who hated fdr but it is also remarkable how much diminished the role was compared to to day. today obama can't do a thing without everybody screaming at him. it wasn't like that. there was a small press corps, fdr taunt them effectively. he had the first real press conferences where the press could ask questions without writing them down first, they were all taken in. perkins -- she was afraid the organ to reveals stuff about her husband. she didn't like them in general.

she did home press conferences but her innovation is she decided not to have shares, tchy wouldn't stay very long. >> my question is off of your opening remarks, when you were talking about roosevelt being the third great revolution, and there is a thread going through, i would argue the american revolution actually included the movement from the articles of confederation to the constitution. based on this, if you look at each revolution, there is an increasing centralization, responsibility by the central government enforcement by the central government, and i will ask to think forward to this point in time, where do you think things are going based on what you are seeing?

>> great question. i think that this centralization has had its ups and downs. a down was the reagan administration, another down, more recently. when i was writing the introduction, the last figure at the beginning. it was right as the banking crisis was starting. lehman brothers had failed. president bush, the most conservative president we have had in many years, was a no question, we have to have a federal bailout of the bank's to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars, that is such a rooseveltian idea. hoover did not believe in that federal government. hoover believed in federal government with federal budget of less than $5 billion, small role. there was almost no one talking

about that. no question during the reagan years we rolled back a lot of the role of the federal government, regulations, some of that during the bush administration, mentioned the desire to one do social security, we saw with the banking crisis, there really are no cure representatives of that old you any more in the way everyone has the fdr view now. >> anyone should step up if they have further questions. in the meantime -- >> we have a follow-up. >> i am also thinking about the california fiscal crisis. it is that. very bad. i am wondering, are we going to start looking at a federal government that is going to be increasingly taking over the role of the states with a variety of things they are having? any comment on that? i am thinking may be that we are

having a fourth revolution. >> interesting, because normally we hear the state's talking about states rides. the states don't want the federal government -- sort of like all those bankers on wall street believe in the free market until they lost all that money, suddenly they didn't believe in a free-market any more. we are seeing that with state too. they didn't want the government--federal government to tell them what to do, suddenly when they are going bankrupt, they believe in the federal government as well. we are going to see this back and forth. i don't think the states want a larger role for the federal government in policing everything they do, they just want cash. in a crisis they may get some cash. >> clarify one thing, when he contacted polio, did that make it easier for him to work with others with a different views or did it bring his views in line with frances perkins's views? >> interesting question.

i think the former. i think it made him more compassionate and understanding of different types of people. if you talk about the previous fdr and the legislature that had his views and didn't want to support her legislation. one of the remarkable things about him as president is the way in which he brought everyone in. he brought the republican leaders into the white house and democratic leaders had reached out for any good idea. the great example is the fact that it was really people who wrote most of the first banking bill, he was open to any good idea wherever it came from. i think that has to do with the illness. perkins says that before he had the illness, he really thought he was better than other people but once he got it, he looked on anyone as in some ways better than him because they could stand up and they could walk and he couldn't and he had more of an understanding that everyone

had something to contribute. that made him more open-minded. >> we have just one minute to go. what do you think fdr would say to obama? >> i think he would first of all be very pleased with how things of gone so far and see a lot of his own influence but i also think he would say be really bold. we have seen some boldness so far but the things fdr did in the 100 days, the richest legislative period in american history were so extraordinary, the first agricultural bill that paid farmers not to grow grappas, the first federal welfare program, the first public works program. we have seen a lot of gold this by obama but nothing that has reshaped government yet. i think fdr would say seize the moment. >> nothing to fear, thank you.

>> this concludes book tv ads taped coverage from the 2009 chicago tribune printers fast. for more information on book tv programming, visit booktv.org. >> here's a look at some upcoming book fares and festivals over the next few months. next weekend on both tv, live coverage of the 2009 harlem book fair. later this month, the newberry library, an independent research library with holdings of unique printed work, their 20 fifth annual book fair is in chicago. california literary arts society brings readers, writers and booksellers to the beach for the ventura book festival. this september in georgia, you can go to the decatur book festival. celebrate local culture and literary history in st. augustine at the florida heritage book festival.

and at the brooklyn book festival, the 4 authors jonathan and ed. let us know about book fairs and festivals in your area and we will add them to our list. e-mail us at booktv@c-span.org. >> brand in new york:how city in crisis was sold to the world. when you think of new york city in the 50s and 60s, what do you think of? >> i think that new york in the post world war ii period was in a position of pre-eminence in the united states and its fortunes were rising for a time. it was a famous kind of working-class city to quote another book. it was the city that had a lot

of business during world war ii and its industries had been employing many new yorkers and it was also a growing media capital. it was expanding its office infrastructure, it wasñrñi8h gr iáterms of the united nations, it was getting a lot of international attention in a new way, politically. and it was part of -- it was seen as the capital of a resurgent u.s.. following world war ii. very much so. its star was rising in that period. >> what happened in new york in the 1970s? >> complicated question that has global, national, local reasonings behind it, political, economic, cultural, it was a period -- on many levels. it was a period that began in

the 1960s, the decline. and really reached and a deer in the mid 70s, that had to a deer the mid 70s, that had to do at the local level, mismanagement of funds, complex story over which historians debate. it had to do, on the one hand, the city government spending a lot to build massive amounts of high end private sector office space and residential buildings, as well as maintaining its level of social spending at a time when revenues were shrinking. that created a crisis for the city's budget.

new york was not alone. there were many cities in the period in which cities across the country and the world were facing bankruptcy to do with a global recession, do with inflation, recession and inflation in combination, the global oil crisis. it was a complex time and it was a time when the fortunes of cities in particular, given the federal government, were put in this difficult position. they were having to find new sources of revenue. >> was new york losing population in the 50s, 60s, 70s? >> there was suburbanization going on in the nineteenth century in new york, in the surrounding suburbs. one thing that was occurring was the rise of suburbs more widely in the united states and the expansion of suburbs. there was a loss of population to the growing sun belt region that was going on since the 50s.

the west and southwest of the united states. and the sun belt was also, the suburbanized sunbelt was the base of a growing, more conservative political movement in the country, which saw new york, despite in this period its strength, cited as reflecting an old guard form of civic populism, if you will, that the republican party, the right wing republican party, was trying to supplant. new york was losing population to some extent, as well as finding itself in competition, in serious competition with other cities that were more in that republican audit. >> your book, brand in new

york:our city in crisis was sold to the world, you talk about the crisis of the 70s and the response. how severe was the crisis and the response? >> the crisis of the 70s was extremely severe. the city went into technical bankruptcy. as a result of which -- the crisis on the one hand was produced by the local national global circumstances but was also produced by the reaction. it was a crisis that not only be felt n.y. but was produced as a result of the reaction to it so involved the imposition of very harsh measures which cutbacks social funding like fire protection and sanitation and education and final city services, laid off public-sector workers, led to increased exodus of people in corporations and businesses from new york as a

result of these cutbacks. very severe. to this day, the reaction byñiñe city, the degree, what some people call the track tony and severity of the reaction has been questioned. >> what do you mean by draconian? >> there was a calculus. under intense pressure from the ford administration, the famous new york city drop dead at line, which was something ford was saying to you -- new york and many cities, he didn't literally say it but the federal administration was saying in a sense that cities were no longer getting the resources that they got under the model cities program is in the 60s and a

municipal funding they once got. there was intense pressure on the city to privatize, and downsize its public spending and increase its competitiveness and attract new investments, as opposed to taking a route which would involve trying to maybe -- similar to the approach of the middle of the century and what obama is talking about now, investing in a stimulus package that could have grown the middle class of the city and the working class of the city, there was a calculus that if one had to be lost, what could be lost was the kind of quality of life for the working and middle-class of the city in order to bring in new funds into the city in the form of new corporate headquarters, tourism and a new upper middle class into the city. so there was a restructuring of the priorities, the budgetary priorities and ultimately new

forms of incentives were provided for investment and relocation and tourism. at the same time, that money was cut from social spending for existing residents and workers in the city. >> what was the effect today of those changes? >> i think it created -- what some people started to call in the 1980s a dual city, a city that was far more divided and unequal be to -- between class's, a city that was fes, a more focused on the center rather than the outskirts. marketing and media were used in concert with these new

priorities, and so it created a new kind of imaginary -- in new identity for new york. no longer was it this famed working-class capital, now it became -- really represented as a more police, luxury tight city, and a city that couand a prominently placed in advertisements. >> you talk about the famous new york -- i love -- what was the effect of that? >> that campaign had two phases. the initial phase of that campaign, the famous campaign devised by the artistic director of new york magazine and a great graphic designer in his own right, i think that it stimulated a kind of solidarity with new yorkers, made people

think about what were the essential priorities -- things about new york state law and would be sorry to lose, when i said this was a severe crisis, there was media, there was a lot of height nationwide, to the glee of some people, that new york was going to cease to exist. there were satires about new york sinking into the ocean, the same as seen in planet of the apes, the final episode where you see the torch of the statue of liberty rising above the sand. there were a lot of caricatures of the city, in which the city ceases to exist. i love new york really responded to and anxiety about that for new yorkers. many new yorkers were those teachers themselves as well as amongst the nation and how

people identify with i love new york, this idea that there was something about the cosmopolitan nature, the grittiness of the city, playing around with the font of the campaign. the newspaper style fond, the early newspaper, television campaigns, featured prominently, broadway stars and broadway shows from a chorus line, what remained to be theñi great musicals and productions which originated in the 70s and 80s, and there was also -- character% who gave their services for

free, there was a sense of creativity and vitality of new york in association with broadway and times square. that was the first phase. in the second phase, this was a campaign launched by the state, now is called the empire state development corp. department of commerce, they shifted focus largely away from this intense personal identification with new york and an invocation of the crisis itself to much more bland jt and downtown finance and the skyline of the city in association with the natural escape you could have in the rest of new york state. that was part of the planning all along, the early phase was so much in the midst of the

crisis -- and the business side of the campaign was what was focused on. from the beginning, i love new york was the front stage of this deeper restructuring i was talking about. that became more and more clear as the campaign went on. i was also talking in the book about this transition, another side of the campaign that was less publicized that involved, instead of having broadway stars perform, involved having ceos of major corporations talk about why they love new york, there is a 30% tax break for relocating to the state, all of these different kinds of deals corporations could get. that was the reason they love new york. >> what is new york today? >> i love new york was very

successful in many ways and was held by perhaps one of the most recognized city marketing campaigns globally, and was copied enormously, so much so, that was allowed in the early phases, it was not copy written until later and was allowed to travel. i think there was an effort following 9/11 to brand the city, there was a feeling among a more professional cohort that the brand value of i love new york had been watered down and they needed a new, more resonant kind of brand in order to do the kind of business development that they envisioned. so they read branded, immediately following 9/11, with very patriotic imagery, and given the loss of the world trade center towers, which had figured prominently in a lot of the commercials, the skyline in

particular, the second phase of the i love new york campaign, that had to be completely revised, there was an intense focus on the statue of liberty and the association of patriotic red, white and blue infinity logo with the statue of liberty. so a resurgent patriotic image with bloomberg, there has been a shift again. in an interesting way. bloomberg has spoken about the need to see new york as a luxury city again. there has been a lot of marketing along the lines that was done in association with the effort to to attract the olympics to new york, that was done in association with the republican national convention, that had been done in association with a lot of events that had been hosted by a much larger professionalized marketing apparatus, that has

been produced under his administration. there has been a lot of luxury like images that have been produced, and there has also been a new campaign called this is new york, which interestingly associates that luxury image with a very utopian vision of a diverse city that harkens back to the early days of i love new york. that juxtaposition of a kind of utopian longing with this luxury oriented modification, is one of the things that makes these campaigns so successful and allows people not to think so critically about them as i think they should. >> as a sociology professor santa cruz, why are you writing a book called brand in new york? >> i recently relocated to santa cruz, not that i wouldn't have

been interested otherwise. i lived in new york for 20 years before moving to california. over the course of living in new york, i became very fascinated with the sociology of the city, the history of the city. i was myself a mediamaker, the representation of the city, and i became fascinated with this period, which i see as really formative, in the contemporary form than new york takes, and the juxtaposition, on the one hand, draconian cut backs, and on the other hand, these investments in marketing, the image of the city, resources for the livelihood of the city were being taken away. so while in new york, that really fascinated me. i have taken that with me to california and tried to convince

people in santa cruz that it would be important and it has resonance because cities around the country, when faced with crisis, have a lot of these decisions to make about how to represent themselves. >> miriam greenberg is the author of branding new york:our city in crisis was sold to the world. here is the book. >> after 50 years, the trover books shop, two blocks from the u.s. capitol, is closing. one of the co-owners is here with us at the book shop. mr. schuman, why is trover closing? >> the business is down to the point where we can't keep the doors open any more. the publication industry, media industry has really changed, we are not selling books like we used to. >> who is your competition?

>> i want to say every competition is the internet. >> they telling what people are buying on the internet, maybe even more important what people are not buying because they have the information highway on their desktop. >> people in washington, trover in stan institution. how would you describe trover books for to people outside of washington? >> for me, it has been my life, a family business. i grew up cashiering here as a little kid during the summers and i have been here 26 years, so most of what i know, we have had a lot of customers over the years in a great location. specialized in political books, we sell more non-fiction than fiction.