this summer book tv is asking what are you reading? will right now i am reading on my kindle, which i have given up paper for convenience when i'm traveling and reading on my kindle, which is electronic books i can download through a wireless connection. i am reading soul of the age which is a new biography about william shakespeare. years ago i had a chance to visit england shakespeare theatre and i've become a shakespeare than in my old age. i wish i felt as strongly about studying shakespeare when i was in school. maybe i would have gotten better grades. but that's what i'm reading now.

usually what i do is i get a big fall list of books and stack them on my night table and i don't seem to make very much progress. but, you know, i like all sorts of books, ranging from books about lincoln. there is one that i have read recently i really like a lot called lincoln's soared. it's not about his military prowess or fighting a civil war. it is about his use of words which they called his sword and it does really well done. he was an extraordinary writer and speaker, and this is about how he hoaned those skills. ..

they ask for your born in 1959, is that why it is the year everything changed and i say, no, i was born in 1954 but they give for the compliment. it is true i don't look as old as i am, and secondly that ask what is your next book, is it going to be about 1964 which leads me to think maybe they don't think what i'm doing is serious and that i don't take what i'm doing seriously. no, the genesis of this book, a lot of people say in their acknowledgements beside a story how they came to read a book and it's usually quite frankly

indented in. but this is actually the real story that many years ago and seven men occurred to me that i lot of my favorite ground-breaking books, movies, record albums, all came out of 1959. it is like miles davis blues and the shape of jazz, norman mailer's advertisements for myself, the first french new wave films, sitcom ragged -- and i used to wonder if this was a coincidence or something about the year that made all these things coalesce where something broader going on a. so i casually began looking into that question and came to the conclusion that yes there are actually not just a lot of very cool things going on, but that they all converged to form a pivotal year. i mean not quite literally -- i mean that literally, the country was going in a direction and at that point is shifted into

another direction. not all the changes were apparent immediately. the woody allen joked about how the guy who says i have to get back in italy because the renaissance is beginning, it's nothing like that, but there is a pivot and you can see in retrospect that things do change. and so i am -- i worked for a hardening in the hours after it drew some of the book is about so i'm just going to read from that although i will leave out, if you're reading along, i believe that little bits of it does slow things down in the world rating. on january 2nd, 1959, a soviet rocket carrying that live there wednesday it -- space capsule, known as the train, blasted off on the the cosmodrome in kazakhstan accelerating to 25,000 miles per hour the magical space known as the escape of velocity, sailed past the moon and pushed reverse or. becoming a tourist man-made objects revolve around the sun

and the celestial bodies. the next issue of time magazine held at the feet as a turning point in the multibillion-dollar year history of the solar system. for one of the sun's plan it had at last a of a living creature that could break the chains of its gravitational field of flies of the lenox set off a year when chains all sorts were broken, with fervor and apprehension, not just in the cosmos of politics, society, culture, science and sex. if you and to call the breakdown of beers and space, speed and time and other barriers piper transgression. 1959 was a year when the shock waves of the new grip the scenes of daily life and humanity stepped into the cosmos and also, and dared the conception of human life. when the world shrank but then not need to expand exponentially. when outsiders became insiders, when categories or cross and taboos trampled and when everything was changing and everyone knew it, when the world as we now know i began to take form. just two months before that the jet age ford in today with a

brand-new boeing 707 took off with great when they're on the first nonstop jet fighter crossed the atlantic to paris, on the runway first lady and the eisenhower declared i christen thee before smashing a bottle of ocean water across the plane's nose and sharing with a crowd of thousands to the runway while the band play that the star spangled banner. in "the new york times" and the news over quote the possibility of hurdling and ocean from one continent to another from one world to another and half a dozen hours, age-old of bombings that our own traditions because of the jazz are here. now with the new heir apparent in the way we were thrust into the space age, the russians and americans thrusts and the space race all year long back-and-forth come each side trumpeting some in triumph with alacrity. outer space and lightning speed in amid the popular conscious. mass-circulation magazines and newspapers ran lengthy articles explaining the new geography of solar orbits and galaxies.

nasa lingo, blastoff, countdown, a okay, switch into the everyday lexicon. madison avenue pick up on the one is with advertisements touting new products from cars to telephones to floor waxes as a jet age, space-age, the world of the future, countdown to some of. and tomorrow promised to be not just another day but a new dawn, the air is rising on political star job is joe kennedy would run for president on a slogan of leadership for the six days period of the first time that the pitcher was defined in terms of the decade which although both pope but in either case great change. kennedy presented his use of/7]e virtue of another reversal of an of describing himself as a man born in this century, a keen to explore the new frontier. the phrase was a reference to frederick jackson turner classic as a of 1893 the frontier in american history, which argue that the american character is restlessness energy and dominant individualism the product of the frontier is a mass of tennis with this prospect of continuous expansion westward.

each step siring new opportunity for compress, settlement and perennial rebirth. by the lefty's this frontier have long been filled and settled in land out of space and as prospects of seemingly infinite expansion set off a new wave experiencing on earth. the space program itself and the markets it seemed certain to generate sperm scientists to develop new technologies most notably the microchip. an investor smaller computers which are transforming the size fish and into the routine of daily life. disenchantment with galvanized generation of artists to crash through there on a set of barriers and attracted a mass audience that was ugly respect of to the class. a new comedian, satirized the was forbidden topics of race, religion and politics, novelists and loosening the language of glenn the bounders between author and subject, reported in literature. rebel is phil mcginnis sean

improvise movies outside the confines of hollywood studios. painters created a new kind of our industry downside to the canvas. jazz musicians improvising a kind of music that broker the structures of 37 them. new record label motown laid down a jazz of elected rhythm-and-blues that incinerates black culture into the mainstream and inspired a barack and roll and supplied the soundtrack for the ratio recalls an intermingling is that i had. these currents were quick and by a series of expensive garments 86, the new u.s. will rise on a series of investigations of racial discrimination in voting housing school. and the supreme court issued rulings that lifted restrictions on free speech and literature, toward the and a figure the food and drug administration held hearings resulted in the approval of a birth control pill which unleashed a revolution in women's lives and sexual activity and unbridled and spontaneous. it's the thrill of the new intensified and thereby under current trend, adding space

loomed as frontier not only for satellites and rockets but for missiles and h-bomb's. and so the year also saw panic over paula shelters, fear of missile and escalation of cold war. nikita khrushchev premier boasted that his defense factories are churning out nuclear missiles like sausages and the u.s. congress the joint economic committee held five days of public hearings on the effects of a limited nuclear attack. scientists are detecting hazardous levels of radiation in milk as a result of age bomb tests in the atmosphere. in a physicist toward a country and tantalize cross with mayor of on launchers on how to try and survive and win a nuclear war. it was this twin precipices, the prospect of endless impossibilities an instant annihilation, both teetering on the edge of in a decade that gave 1959 its distinctive swoon and ignited its creative energy. the latter half of the preceding decade especially from 1945 to

47 when america credit the bomb when world were to emerge as a sprawling global power also marked a different turning point but it would take another dozen years before the nation sat out or stumbled fourth and a clear direction before it responded to the shifting contours' and redefine itself in the light and shadows period, by the other generation those that grew up to depression and war until the satisfied with a false peace up all of bands that shippers. to revolt by dissident is a new era promise and palpable fear. it was in the late 1950's that the war years adolescents and young soldiers came into their own, approaching the ages of 30 or 40, too young to show their elders at a power but old enough and so consciously so to claim the sick in the future and to make themselves heard. the rockets reached a crescendo in the next decade, the '60s, the sexual revolution, free speech, rock-and-roll, campus uprising in ratio rise -- erupting against a savage war in

southeast asia and a spectacle of landing a man on the moon. in all of these cataclysms' spring out of the impulses or ideals of the baby boom generation but rather from the revolts and revelations of 1959 and many of the new instigators are well aware of a severance and took inspiration from the president's apparent the chilly pivotal moment of history are those his legacies in door. and as the mid 40's received into abstractness out to an late '60s you look puzzled shutters events of 1910 to nine continue to resonate in on time. the dynamics of our enemies but years ago and continue to animal life today between the prospects of infinite expansion and destruction it seemed to be shifting to a new phase crossing at another part frontier. in a dramatic and someone is coincidental parallel the emergence of outsiders elected on a promise of hope and change, though barack, born in the year of kennedy's inauguration pushes the concept of outsider to the extremes. it the more significant parallels of the conditions

surrounding the two young president's, global power, disbursing cultures right ring, the world shrinking, and science poised to spawn in dreams and nightmares again in obama's time our time they appear mosses live -- five. the distribution of global power which one lead policy-makers to get by with little knowledge about russia and may be china began dispersing in the late '50s to the point where ignorance of small countries like vietnam and cuba goddess into deadly trouble. today the collapse of power centers brought on by the end of the cold war requires political elites to know about original tribes of a separatist enclave, a stateless terrorists to say nothing of an inch into dependencies, climate change, energy alternatives and other aspects of security that have nothing to do the traditional gauges of military balance. cultural power is also devolved as this all this seems so during 50 years ago in painting literature, music and film the idea that anything can be art, anyone to be an artist of any language permissible, went out

of art as connecticut artists and either age or ethnicity determines eligibility have insinuated themselves into the mainstream. the next round of sponging, already under way in blogs, itunes comedy books, twitter, news feeds, flicker and who knows what new forms to come, is not only broadening further the boundaries of our but shatters final barriers between artist and audience, public and private, spectacle and line. in science and technology the trajectory from 1959 to 2009 and likely honored into the future is one of ever expanding expectations of what is deplorable and the galaxies to subatomic particles in everything in between to the point where we seem on the verge of touching it and is he in all directions. the microchip which brought forth the digital age with as many computers a multi-purpose cellphones and instantaneous access to everyone everything everywhere we of the next few decades are revolutions and artificial intelligence, men and ships and other devices of minuscule size yet gargantuan

prospects and power of the devil applications can scarcely be imagined. advances in biological research which in 1959 with the birth control pill in up wilson and the coming years three jann verdes has said that accordance the long postpone human death with thomas was consequences. there was and always will be a dark side to this juggernaut to tamara, just as of woodside of rockets and satellites was eight bombs and missiles so biotechnology can also yield biohazards and bioweapons appear to bring augmentations my humanize the soil. the omnipresence of on-line networks can erode the sense of self while the infinite fracturing of cultures threatens to wipe out the concept of a shared culture nation or world. in the summer of 1959 allen ginsberg degenerations visionary poet of exuberance and duma wrote in the village voice no one in america can know what will happen, no one is in real control, america is having a

nervous bringdown there for there has been great exultation to spare, promises, suicides, secrecy and public gaiety. among the poets of the city. you might as well have written it today. [applause] unwed i am willing to take any questions, discuss and ambulances. explores the mysteries of the galaxies. yes. >> about. c-span: [inaudible] -- it came before the '60s and everything that happened there were they thinking -- what kind of an era did they think of themselves as being in and did they think of themselves as during or conformist? indymac i think actually in the

late fifties there were people who sensed that something was happening. norman mailer who i've plunks in and out of this book as sort of a very strange but nonetheless prophetic writer of age road in this book advertised price of which came out in 1959i detect the whispers of a change or revolt underlie revolution in iran and nobody could quite put their finger on. at the time there was a mass media. in 1955 about half the country own televisions, by the end of the decade about 70 percent, it was something still do. transistor radios for news, there were just putting your radios and cars. things are going on in six different walks of life. you didn't necessarily know about any more than anyone but in each of those walks of life there were glimmerings, people did see that something new was taking place did sometimes this was explicit. for example in the realm of jazz

which i write about charlie parker died in 1955. he invented the art of bebop, the art of taking blues and the balance and improvising on the court changes of the music. he died and for the next four years everybody in jazz was saying, who is the next rally parker? what is coming next? what is going to be the next change? so when miles davis came along with improvising an ornate came with completely free jazz, there ridley some people receptive to the change, they were looking for the change. i think just the act of the jets streaming across the oceans in a matter of hours, of rockets going up in space also made people look for changes. william burroughs and one of the letters and several of the letters he wrote to friends about the time he was writing "naked lunch", this very grazing out of the command in 1959, it said the in the space era or sometimes called the space time

era, we must find new ways of writing. there was this notion that things are going to be so different we would have to change the way of doing things. so there was that sense and i think it through and out of watching rockets and jet planes, but there other things for example, the microchip. while it was introduced to the public in 1959, nobody really quite recognized -- except the people who invented -- didn't recognize how significant it was up there and i read that in "the new york times" article the next day reporting on the show them mentioned the three developments and inventions that the show -- one was the microchip but it was mentioned last. in two paragraphs. the invention that took up half of the article was this thing that westinghouse was developing that would allow people to drive across the country without their hands on the steering wheels. their summit in the interstate highway system so they were going to put to tie to radar

transmitters on on the median strip of the highway and there would be a detector on your bumper and to detect what was going on and you'll get a signal of whether you should go straight return the car. this was seen -- if you have seen things like the jensens -- this system are now because it did not get off the ground. but then again the microchip might not have gone off the ground and this is a lesson by the way for what kind of technologies now that we are looking for things to remove our dependency on one wheel when, the microchip needed economies of scale. it was a very expensive thing at the time. it probably would not have taken off the ground except that john kennedy ordered we are going to the moon by the end of the decade. this created a market for these chips you are going to go to the moon, you needed guidance systems and it could and put these guidance systems using normal transistors' which would take up a space larger than any rocket ship.

so that created the market, that produced the demand, produced the economies of scale, lower the price and within a few years we had a pocket calculator. which was invented also home by taxing clear who invented the microchip. so it thinking about sometimes it takes government intervention to get things that a revolutionary under way. >> [inaudible] the calculator was its, arizona, intend to and other technologies. canaccord our rocket firings rose going to lead to i wonder? who knows in the future. >> i was going to say, will i was in high school either sophomore year to year in 1959. i don't know whether -- what i

would have thought a summit only it was such a pivotal year but i guess when you are in high school you always think this is the most exciting in the scariest time possible. in are you close to the time when the youth culture dramatically transformed in? when it wasn't -- when was it that the rock and roll star of phenomenon, johnny ray, elvis, and so forth and the way these turned into colts by television and what ever else? buddy holly. >> buddy holly died in february 1959. ellis was on ansel and a little bit before but remember shocked -- shot above the waist of viewers at home could and see what was really -- the source of his appeal. demographics produced -- to the '60s were when the people of that age came of age, but you

remember in rock-and-roll. motown was started in 1959. and motown inspired a group called the silver beatles in liverpool to stop doing the buddy holly thing interests are doing more of a motown, more of a rhythm-and-blues and collected thing. the beatles' first albums, all of them have original songs. they included, please, please, me, please, mr. postman, money that is what i want, those are all motown tunes or when motown did a tour in 1962 in london, the beatles were among those who waited in the airport to see these people and people had never heard of before. >> not another question but just a comment. you're worse stories article explains are great. i love them, keep them coming. >> thank you.

>> i think this sounds like a brilliant book and i want to get into a time machine and go back into seems like to paint a portrait of a more exciting time and. today's era seems almost bland by comparison. what i wanted to ask you is, what would you comment about the economic egalitarianism of that era? you know, paul krugman has said that the fifties are part of what he calls of the great compression when you have a strong middle-class with one sao rating of family and have a lot more free time, and i am wondering if there is a link between the bad end of the creativity that was also flourishing. i don't think alan ginsburg could afford to live in manhattan is really not even brooklyn today. >> that is really new. i lived in manhattan in 1974 for $125 a month on west eighth street between fifth and sixth avenue.

but it is a good point. all of the artists, there are these thriving artistic communities most of which were around east eighth street and east ninth street and fourth avenue, around what is now called esther place. they all hung out there. in the cost very little money one. there are good things and bad things, nobody was producing much well either been nothing cost anything. the you could live a on a nothing salary back then. one thing that did happen it that makes people a bit urgent, all to the fifties there was this postwar prosperity and toward the end of the decade there was a recession. pretty deeper recession in 1958 in 59, eisenhower was president. eisenhower was the oldest man to be president up to that time ever. he had a heart attack, he had a stroke, the tories secretary of state john foster died of cancer

in the summer of 1959. people looked at this as stodgy and now look back and eisenhower as actually being smarter than people thought of that time, but he was old, he was dodging, he was without energy and he had his meeting with khrushchev. khrushchev who was only a few years younger than he seemed dramatically younger, full of energy and boisterous. so that sets the stage for the kind of a youth culture and for the attraction to kennedy, to a man who is young and as he put it was a born of this century. so this undercurrent of rebellion that was going on with was a reaction to the backdrop of a space is in conformity that marked a large part of the 1950's. i'm not trying to explode the myth that was there, what i'm saying is that the changes that

came were in response to that quite a bit earlier than that -- what i said earlier about how people in the '60s took their inspiration of things of the late '50s, a good example is c. wright mills, the columbia university sociologists best known for -- in 1959 he wrote an essay called letter to the new left. there was no new laughed at the time but he was kind of imagining one. there was an undergraduate at the university of michigan and tom hayden who read that as a ticket as inspiration. it was basically the source for the statement which was in the manifesto of the sts and the new left. and in his memoirs he makes no bones about this, he said it c. wright mills was my image, a combination of james dean and it seemed to be speaking to maine. norman mailer was also -- when

he showed up at the chicago demonstrations in 1968 young people cheered him. that was because of advertisements in 1959. he had not written the seventh that he became better to be known for then. so there was definitely these people were a model for what happened later. in in the back there. >> i'm trying to collect my memory is and try and recall what major events happened in 1959. i can think of it 1958, i can think of a 1962, 1958 the change of the new constitution and french republic, and i think in 62 when eisenhower chancellor of germany died in and have been -- germany has paid its dues basically and from now on we're at the ready to take off.

but i can't recall and maybe you can what events would make 1959 pivotal would to the world at large. >> well, i have a three page time line at the beginning of the book and you are free to come up and study. i went over quite a few of them at the end -- the beginning of the jet age, the space age, etc., the microchip, birth control pill. >> a microchip was invented -- committee this was american centrist. >> it is true, i would have to rewrite for the bridge in addition. kim atwood >> when did psychedelic furs become influential in the screen writers like to see the influence in "star trek". and also tries son, out of limits, how early was that?

and enthusiastic about the lsd therapy. >> one thing that i deeply regret and i have received a summit agreed on the home front for is that i did not mention the twilight zone even though its premiere in 1959. i was going to come i could figure out how to -- if i look at everything in 1959, but after the fact i did come up with the way that i could have put that in. it is interesting, one thing that did happen in 59 is the beginning of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. ..

frank drake in fact doing just that at a big observatory in virginia. he, on his own, had come up with the same idea and started putting together the machinery. they were going to use and 88 telescope. he got some employers and tape recorders and stuff like that and they started doing this and the experiment went on for a few months. nothing happened that then the next year the organization cpi began and grew out of this

experiment, which at least in the popular consciousness group of in this article of nature magazine. so, that definitely i decided not to cheat. leary is to his experiments in 1960. i was thinking is there some way i can finish this but i decided to let it go. but, you know, of the beats were heavily boroughs and all kind of psychedelic and harder drugs as well. you know, ginsburg wrote the first part of the how will, he and his own acknowledgment. drugs were very much a part of this, both i wouldn't say for better or for worse, but for more stimulating or less stimulating. you know, there was a lot of self-destructive behavior going on with alcohol and drugs among some of the more creative people

at the time. and carol was a buddhist, ginsburg was a buddhist. the first thought best thought sort of thing. it was definitely in the era. definitely. yes? >> -- women's options were there any precursor or wrongdoing that became as women's liberation in the sixties and fifties or 59? >> not much. but there was a crucial event, and it was instigated by two women. the pill was started, it was the child of margaret singer, this firebrand socialist suffragist who had been getting herself arrested since the 1920's and who latched on to planned parenthood as a big cause. she created what became the planned parenthood foundation. she was putting out pamphlets

instructing women in the art of contraceptive devices in the 30's and 40's and getting arrested for it because it was illegal. even to talk about these things, much less for a doctor to administer or prescribe it. in some states these laws were still on the books until the early 70's. but around the early 1950's, she met a scientist named gregory at a dinner party and new york. he was a guy who got thrown out of harvard because he had done artificial insemination in rabbits and caused a big stir. he had gone off and formed his own homeland and margaret sanger says durham you know what always had a fantasy of somebody making a magic pill that would keep women from getting pregnant and he goes well, you know -- this was just the beginning of the age of research into hormones. he goes well, we might be able to do that. so she got a hold of her friend,

katherine mccormick, who was the widow of one of the richest man in america. the some of the guy who invented the international harvester. she inherited millions and millions of dollars. she was also very smart herself. she was the second woman to graduate from mit and she did it with a degree in biology. so she put up the money with this. she met with pinkus, asked a very scientific questions and said how much money do you need and she wrote him a check for $40,000 on the spot and kept giving him over the course of a lifetime about a million dollars. so they did these experiments on rats and worked and then they needed to do a human experimentation. now, the standards of ethics back then or now what they are today. so they went to housing projects in puerto rico and tested for side effects, to test for side effects they took really women and insane asylums and was in to test for the contraceptive

sponge test for side effects, and they needed a doctor for this, so they got dr. shom rock. remember the show, this guy was dr. brock. it sounds like an ayn rand name, dr. rock, just solid. he had a mane of white hair. he was the leading obstetrician in the day. he had done things to help get women pregnant so he put his name on this because he also was a -- was a fan of the idea of birth control. against massachusetts law, he tried, he asked for volunteers in the women's clinic to take the spill. so it got reams and reams of data. in fact it was the data that was submitted to the fda is the largest collection of data that had ever been submitted for a new drug. the fda of the time was nothing. it had three full-time scientists and seven consultants and this was during the fifties which was this revolution in biological research going on.

so it took a little while and the guy who asked them the questions at the hearing was also catholic and a little, had more problems against it but it came out one thing -- in 1957 g.d. searle, the company that made the birth control pill called an aveda at the time, they got it approved by the fda but only for reduce of what do they call it, some kind of diseases, minstrel disease, minstrel aches or something like that. well, naturally about 1.5 million all of a sudden get diagnosed with menstrual problems taking this bill and it's so popular that even though at the time 17 states outlawed contraception and the catholic church, which was publicly very active against took the plunge and applied for an fda approval

as a contraceptive drug and that's what happened in 59. and it's interesting instantly millions of women started taking this drug. you couldn't even see through the 60's there was real feminist consciousness. almost anywhere in american society but all of a sudden when in -- the birth rate goes down i think because of the pill. more women and smaller numbers of the beginning but more and more are hard in professional jobs because somebody in a faded for job application doesn't have to worry that some spontaneous sex with a husband might and with a kid and that's the end of her career. gloria steinem, leader of the founder of the feminist movement and found it the magazine wrote her first freelance article in 62 for "esquire" magazine and she talked about how the pill had created she called it the new autonomous girl. and this all thomas girl would think about love, work and even

marriage and the same weightman do -- men do. feminism wasn't even on anybody is agenda. but i think without the pill it really couldn't have formed the material base for any political agenda in the coming decade. anything else? yes? >> do you like the 50's better or the 60's? [laughter] was there some aspect where the restraints of the time made the experimentation better for -- >> that is an interesting question because one thing that happened in the 60's was it started going a little too far. you know, when they first played free jazz it wasn't just anything that came out of his horn but people started playing

jazz it was just would never came out of their horned. when william burroughs was writing these strange collaged with literature there was a structure to it, too, but people just started putting mishmash together. the new left initially was a philosophy of political participation. now they never figured out how to get anybody to follow them, but as -- as the revolutionary movements of the early 60's did not find a corresponding response in the political system, this led to nihilism, like its, so forth. so i guess you're right. i, you know, for some bizarre reason and it's not just because i was born in 1954, have always been attracted to the 50's partly as a counter intuitive thing. flexible when you mention feminism people don't think of it this way. feminism really blossomed in the 70's. the 60's were nothing for

feminism. the 70's when things really started happening. take the 50's and the 70's are underrated decades for social and cultural phenomenon. >> [inaudible] that's it? okay. thank you very much. [applause] happy to sign books. >> fred kaplan is the offer of daydream believer is how a few grand ideas wrecked american power. he writes the war stories column for slate. he was formerly a reporter for the "boston globe" and has written for "the washington post," new yorker and the atlantic. for more, visit the books website at 1959thebook.com. childrens author emma walton hamilton, what is the key to writing a children's book? >> ghosh, i would say respecting children as readers and now talking down to them if

anything. it is basically about trusting their judgment and their intelligence and hopefully speaking to what interests them and what they're passionate about. >> where our children interested in? >> just about everything adults are interested in for the most part. the 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've written -- well, just now about to release the 17th children's book that i actually cowrite with my mother believe it or not. >> what's it like working with your mother as a co-author? >> it's a great pleasure. we were not sure it was such a great pleasure to begin with. we are very bossy and opinionated and we thought mother and daughter working together this could be tricky but happily we played to each other's strengths and we have a great time working together and

it's turned out well. >> and your mother is julie andrews. julie andrews, what part of the book do you write? >> what part of -- >> do you write? >> emma is the structure if anything and i am, tell me if i'm wrong, i am more of the flights of fancy. i do certainly the image making, the openings, closings. emma -- i do the big picture and emma says we must have a finished, this is 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 are probably my strength and emma is the structure as much as anything. we seem to complement each other at least i think we do. >> i do, too. >> why did you start writing children's books? >> i started as a complete surprise. i started as it was an answer to

a game i was playing with my children and i had to pay for it. i was the first to lose the game. i said what will life were to be, and my oldest daughter, jennifer, said write a story. write us a story because i used to love to scribble and right things, and i honestly thought that's going to be simple. i can just write a small thing like 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 respond, and i came up with a little idea and kind of kept flashing it out and the next thing i knew there was a book. if it hadn't been for blake, my husband, blake 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 kept saying julie, it doesn't matter. it's a sweet idea. keep the pages bill. i've been hooked ever since and that was 40 years ago just about, so i've been writing ever since.

>> how many children's books have you authored? >> emma, we've done 17 together -- >> and you have done four of them on your own. >> four of them on my own, plus a memoir. so, we go back and forth freely. and we have more coming. >> now, 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 year on opposite coasts. we always work best when we are together and love to be together whenever we can be but we have become very reliant on modern technology. and we use web cam for a lot of the work sessions. we've all gone together at the same time and -- >> we can see each other and it's killing because poor mom has to get three hours earlier. in l.a. she would say mom, 10:00 is halfway through my morning, can you get up at seven? and i say well, i think i can. >> she does very well. >> i do my best. and i am not as the target on my

computer as she is, but i do my best. >> is there a certain length children's books should be? >> say that again. >> is there a certain length -- what age do you write for? >> we right for all ages but, you know, with tremendous audacity i have to say we bright picture books, we right young adult novels, we write a chapter books, we write middle grade readers, and our latest book is an anthology for all ages, poetry anthology called the julie andrews collection of poems, songs and lies. >> this one is actually quite thick. >> it's very thick. >> it is the first book with our lovely new publishers who were part of their group and they actually came to us and said what you consider doing an anthology for us? and we said -- >> we had so much fun we are doing another one after this. >> we are and it was enormous fun to compile.

our favorite poems, we've been interested all our lives. i hope we installed it to our kids. we grieved each other and give poems to each other pretty all of our lives we've done that and suddenly come here we are to asked -- asked to put down our favorites and the first 20 were really easy and then after that we had the most wonderful journey of discovery, finding what we really loved. we challenged -- >> digging back into our memory and family anthologies. >> we eventually came down to nine separate themes, and before each thema there is a piece we wrote explaining why we love this theme. let's say it's optimism or the countryside or nature. >> and what each choice of poem or song lyric within that theme resonates for us, what memory associates. >> and we've always come as a

family, exchanged poems will perform and as gifts and special days and holidays and so on so we challenge each other to write a cullom and we added a few of our worst in there. >> now you got, emma walton hamilton, you've got some of your children here, grandchildren. are they your focus group for children's books? >> absolutely. >> i think it's the key -- >> actually, you were when i was riding on my own and of course now all the grandchildren are tremendous help. >> not only our focus group. i mean, they help us know what's working and what's not working of course but also provide a tremendous source of ideas. and many of our books were inspired -- >> such as, for example? >> the dump truck series which we collaborated on was inspired by my son, sam, who is a passionate and truck lover and would only read books about trucks and we were having trouble finding those that have a little bit more than just

nonfiction, you know, the bulldozer goes crunch kind of books, so we wrote that ceres for him and we are working on a new series with little girls in mind inspired by my daughters. >> and ms. andrews, you've also written a memoir. >> yes. >> this is the first half of your life basically? >> yes, it goes up to my coming out in the west coast of america for the very first time and my first movie. but it's about the first third of my life, you know, and it was -- atoka long time to do. i would never have done it if she hadn't been so generous with her time to push me and make me do it and help me with it and so on. >> is there a second half, the second third coming out? >> a lot of people are asking that you get to be really honest with you, i don't know at this point. it took a long, long time to write the first part.

so, maybe one day. >> emma walton hamilton, what is your favorite children's book that you've written? >> that i've written or that i have read? >> either one. >> well, the book that was for me the formative book growing up was norton jesters the phantom tollbooth, that was just my favorite go back to on rainy days and so forth. and people often ask what is our favorite of the books we've written, and it's so hard to answer. it's like saying what is your favorite chocolate in a box of chocolates or what is your favorite child because you love them all for different reasons. but i would say that i am particularly proud and excited about the one we just finished, the anthology, which is a labor of love and so beautifully produced. >> it's given the enormous amount of pleasure to put it together i love the music and poetry. and i find that a lot of the songs i've been associated with or even songs that i loved have

sometimes the most beautiful lyrics and i usually choose songs with lyrics first and foremost. and then the melody if it is a beautiful melody everything comes together. and so, i have always felt that lyrics of songs or sometimes poems, poems of themselves, so i've included a lot in the book. i'm hoping children will discover for themselves, or adults, well, that's a beautiful poem, and then realize it is a song. >> and want to go and listen to the music. >> and want to listen to the music purists can as mothers, finally, is it important to teach young people to read or be exposed to reading? does it make a difference? >> we are passionate for literacy. we do everything we can in that respect. >> and i would say that it is not so much incumbent 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

read with them as often as possible that way they will very likely grow up to be readers themselves. >> she's written the most wonderful book, and self published called raising bookworms and it's about just that, raising children to love and find the joy in reading and keeping constant as school years go by and how difficult it becomes when assignments are handed to you and sometimes are very boring how do you keep a child's love of reading alive and sparkling. and her book is just wonderful. >> will of people are interested in finding that book or other children's books that you all have written and dismissed one, where can they go? where should they go? >> they can go to the website which is julieandrewscollection.com and also raisingbookworms.com. >> julie andrews and emma walton

hamilton, thank you. >> thank you very much. consider a confrontation in mississippi and 1863. at the author says was the most important -- one of those is yale denver is the press and there are four new titles that yale university press has out and chris rogers is the executive editor. what would you like to tell about the conservatives? >> the conservatives is one of the first histories right up through the bush administration. and it, you know, covers really the ideas and personalities that

have evolved and how much it's changed over time and really almost come full circle to the colonial period. and in a very almost symmetrical cents. so, each sentry really had a different notion with the conservative ideology was. and i think the beauty of the book is the sort of balanced mom ideological objective, historical view of the conservatives through time over three centuries. >> who is patrick allitt? >> patrick allitt is a historian from australia. he is a professor at emory university, and this is one of his areas of specialization. >> mr. rogers we are going to put you on the spot. who are the first to gentleman featured on the conservative covered?

>> thank you for asking. that's a very good question. as john f. kennedy would say to it next question. [laughter] >> well, let's move on to the myth of american exceptional as. >> okay. that is a fine book by godfrey, who is a british scholar who has specialized in american history throughout his career. he is most famous for his book on 20th century america that is a beautiful study of the 60's. this is sort of his love letter to america. he is almost like alistair cooke and his long association with the development of america in the 20th century come and what he is arguing here is that america is not well loved for its exceptional qualities throughout the world and always has been.

and that we have always lived our political lives internationally as an exceptional nation both morally and politically. and he is troubled that we have sort of taken the notion of exceptional was some in recent years and turned it into rationale for a preemptive strike in iraq for example. and he expresses worry that we have maybe overstepped the bounds, the boundaries of what we can and cannot do in the world under the banner of exceptional a sum. >> is that one of the reasons kind for the artistic fade act. exactly right. >> two other titles we want to quickly ask about. number one, peter'swar. >> peter's war is one of the more delightfully written books

and george malcolm is a terrific historian. she's at george mason university law school. and there is -- this reads like a novel. i mean, it is almost fictive in its style. there are no footnotes. it's a compelling story about a 12-year-old boy who's a slave in concord new hampshire -- concord, massachusetts literally on the eve of the british coming through. the might of paul revere's ride. >> and its nonfiction? >> and its nonfiction and it's based on archival research and it follows peter's story. he sleeps on the eve of the revolution. and he joins the continental army, not the british army. most blacks who did these could join the british army because the british were known for abolitionism. and they were antislavery. and so -- and it parallels

another slave who escapes around the same time and same geographic area, who joins the british, and that sleeve and is up back as a slave after the war. and peter doesn't. so he fights in the war. he's almost like selig, woody allen's selig. he is some of the main evens the american revolution, the major battles and all of that and it has a happy ending. he does become a free black in delinquent at the end of the war. >> and finally, comanche empire. >> comanche empire is the one we are most proud of. he received his degree from university of helsinki and did an astounding study of the comanche from 1700 to 1850, so it's got 150 years of time frame for the coming and she completely dominated the southwest and de -- what comes

through is their intelligence, their decentralized political organization, their escape from disease because they were nomadic. they would insulate whoever they captured but if you wanted to become a comanche they had kinship rituals and you could just become a comanches of the members swelled and they were the largest group, they were the first to understand the horse and its importance in the western economy and the buffalo, and so they were very well armed, well funded and very smart. and so they out dueled their rival tribes, the apache especially, and they absolutely ruled the spanish and then a anglos who came in to try to take over. and then finally the american government in 1850 said send all the troops you can and let's get the comanche problem settled. and they basically took care of the comanche. but for 150 years they've ruled. >> you're listening to chris rogers executive