>> we're also going to find other ways to deliver the news to people, but you're not going to take us away because i think there's an increasing realization on the part of the public that the only place that you get really solid, good reporting and original information is out of newspapers. the rest of them all just talk about what we do. >> author is frank, his new book "never a slow day: adventures of a 20th century reporter." >> thank you. >> up next, historian and journalist paul johnson joins booktv for a live three-hour "in depth" interview. he'll take your calls and e-mails. ♪ >> the next three hours is your chance to participate in a discussion with british author and historian paul johnson.

mr. johnson has written dozens of books including "modern times," "intellectuals and a history of the american people." his latest is a biography of winston churchill. and now "in depth" with paul johnson. >> host: paul johnson, in your book "modern times," you kick it off this way: the modern world began on 29, may, 1919, when photographs of a solar eclipse confirmed the truth of a new theory of the universe. two questions. why that date, and why that event as the beginning of the modern world? >> guest: well, the world had always been governed for 250 years by newtonian physics. and professor einstein introduced an important

modification of that. this was his general theory of relativity which he produced in 1916. but he also said there are three tests by which this theory can be tested. if it fails any one of them, then we must scrap it and look again. he laid down these three tests, and the first and most important of them had to be made by observation during a solar eclipse, and that had to wait until the end of the war. and it wasn't until 1920 that an expedition was sent out to watch the eclipse and take measurements which could demonstrate whether the einstein theory of relativity met the test. well, it did so. and that introduced a new era in physics which, incidentally, was to lead to the creation of

nuclear energy. so i thought that was a good way to begin my book, "my history to have modern times." because ultimately, scientific theories and theories of knowledge have more importance than kings and queens and battles and presidents and so forth. and the beginning of the era of relativity was an important punctuation date in human history. >> host: so how cataclysmic was that event in 1919? >> guest: how, sorry? >> host: how cataclysmic, how big of an event was that in 1919? >> guest: well, it was a very big event for scientists, less so for ordinary people. though gradually the idea spread that space wasn't in straight lines, it tended to be curved. and that relativity was a very

important concept. unfortunately, people, a lot of people, misunderstood the significance of the term relativity, and they tended to translate it into moral terms. so we got the age of moral relativism in which people began to move away from absolute standards of right and wrong and accept relative standards. the communist theory announced in the '20s was that what mattered was the morality of the party. rather than absolute standards. and hitler adopted the same sort of attitude when he came to power in 1933. so there was a gradual spread of moral relativism which was extremely sinister for the human race and led to many inequities. so that was one consequence of

the 1919-1920. >> host: paul johnson, are we still in the modern world, or are we in a postmodern world? >> guest: i don't like this term postmodern because it's meaningless. we are in the 21st century, and a lot of things have happened since the beginning of the modern age as i describe can it with einstein which have transformed the world in a number of ways. but some of the dangers that i outlined then are still with us and certainly the question of moral relativism is still with us. there are all kinds of people who want to bring out systems of morality which go counter to the absolute values of right and wrong which are enshrined in, for instance, the ten commandments which we've inherited through judeo yo

christian morality. so that is one point. it's interesting, of course, that one of the lessons that einstein introduced when, with his general theory of relativity was he said every theory was a hypothesis, and that needs not just to be confirmed by observations, but it also needs to be false final because if it -- falsifiable because if it can survive tests of falsify about, then it's much more likely to be true. mere confirmation doesn't mean that the theory is true. but if it can survive, if it's shaped so that it can be falsified and can be subjected to falsification tests and if it survives those tests -- and he laid down the three tests that i mentioned -- then it's much more likely to be true. now, we get today in the theory

of manmade global warming something which doesn't really fit einstein's standards. in the first place, it's a very vague theory which is constantly being expanded and added to to accommodate new information, and can in the second place, the people who support it say that though it's been confirmed hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times, but it hasn't been devised in such a way as to be falsifiable. so it doesn't really meet einstein's standards. and at the moment there's a great deal of evidence coming in to show that the theory, in fact, the false. and that was to be expected. if you're going to have a general theory about the universe, it must be made very precise. it must meet all these standards. it must be falsifiable, and those who hold it must be just as anxious to look for evidence

that it is false as they look for evidence that it is true. so that is one lesson that we ought to learn from the beginning of modern times and apply today. and we don't seem to be doing it. >> host: well, mr. johnson, let's jump from the beginning of modern times to the end of a history of the american people. and this is how you conclude that book, which is nearly a thousand pages. the great american republican experiment is still the cynosure of the world's eyes. it is still the first, best hope for the human race. looking back on its past and forward to it future, the august ris are that it will not disappoint an expectant humanity, and you wrote that in 1997. after the last 13 years, does that still hold true? >> guest: yes, very much so. one of the things i have learned through studying history and my study of history has embraced the ancient world and the

medieval and early modern world as well as the modern world, one of the things i have learned is that if you have a society which is truly free, not just in having elections, but in allowing people to speak their minds and to do their work in an atmosphere of intellectual and academic freedom, if you have that kind of society, you're much more likely to survive because you're much more likely to produce new ideas leading to new inventions, new and better ways of doing things and better ways of increasing the general wealth. and so the particular wealth of individuals. if you have that freedom, then you're in with a much better chance can than societies which haven't. now, at the moment you have the united states which does have that freedom, it has a very large number of entirely free universities to begin with, it

has a free media, it has schools where freedom is taught and practiced and, of course, it has a free political system at all levels. the united states is, we are told, in danger of being overtaken by communist china. now, communist china is not a free society. it's much freer than it used to be when, in the days when communist rule was absolutely absolute, but it is not free in that you can't always speak your mind, you can't always do the work you want in the way you want, you can't always listen and hear what is going on in the airwaves and so forth. the -- recently there's been withdrawal by google because they weren't allowed to operate freely, and that is one indication of what chinese cultural civilization is like. now, although china has advanced

very rapidly, i think in the long run the united states will stay well ahead and probably increasingly ahead simply because it has that kind of free society which china doesn't. i would put more money, myself, on india coming up. i think probably during the process of the 21st century india will overtake china in terms of production and productivity and inventiveness and so on because the indian society is much more of a free society than china's. it's much more, it's much closer to the united states society than china's. and, therefore, it has this precious gift of freedom from which springs these enormous material benefits. >> host: do you think the indian example that you just cited could be, perhaps, because of its former association with the british empire? >> guest: i think to some extent that helped.

i think the indian mind is much more diverse and enterprising than the chinese mind which tends to fit into certain categories. so that, of course, is helpful. but what britain did in the two or three centuries when it was running india was to give india the notions of political freedom and, above all, intellectual freedom. i think we had a very big influence on the educational system thanks to the great historian thomas mccauley who devised it. we had a great influence on the indian educational system. and that is a very precious legacy which we left the indians and which they have exploited and are exploiting to the full. so that is going to give them the edge, and i've noticed that although china has leapt ahead in the traditional smokestack

industries as we call them, the sort of productive, mechanical industries producing consumer goods and semidurables and durables, on the intellectual side, on the really high-tech industries india has tended to concentrate on those and is going ahead on those. so as i say, my money would be on india to overtake china, but i still think that the united states will remain well ahead of the field. >> host: paul johnson, are americans unique? we tend to think of ourselves as unique. >> guest: well, i think you are unique in that you've had a different history. you see, the european powers and, indeed, the asian ones, too, their history goes back a very long time. and we don't know about the origins of many of them, even despite a lot of historical research. the united states is a different

matter. of course, there were the indigenous peoples before the european, europeans arrived in the 16th century. nevertheless, it is possible to trace the origins of the united states from its very first beginnings and to show how it evolved, what were its earliest documents, what were the key events that took place during its formative years and so on. that in itself is a form of uniqueness. you anemic to the world. unique to the world. but secondly, right from the very start there was this element of constitutional freedom and political freedom. when the founding fathers came across on the mayflower, already while the mayflower was still

afloat in the mid atlantic, they held their first as it were constitutional meeting in which they decided certain things they were going to do when they started the colony in massachusetts. so right from the very beginning there was an element of constitutional freedom in the make-up of america, and that is the second element of uniqueness in it. there is, however, a third. although it is true that the first settlers of the united states came from england, mainly from the west of england and from east anglia and they were very much english people, from a very early point in the evolution of the united states they began to attract settlers from other parts of europe. first in the never netherlands and germany and so on. and gradually, that settlement

coming from the whole of europe spread and spread and spread until really by the time that america achieved it independence, it was already very much a multiple society coming from many different nations and absorbing the culture and interests and languages and vocabulary and ideas of all these different nations. and then gradually in the 19th century it intake spread to the whole world, and that has continued. and the united states still receives a very large number of immigrants from all over the world who quickly create very, very prosperous societies. now, that is the third element in the uniqueness of the united states. it's always been a country which is not homogeneous in that sense, but take thes it people from -- takes its people from

all over the world and absorbs very different cultural ideas and inspirations. but it also manages through what was first called in the 1890s the melting pot system, it manages to homogenize to some extent these peoples so that it does have a common culture and a common sense of political morality. and that is a very, very important element in the uniqueness of the united states. >> host: welcome to booktv's "in depth." this is our monthly program with one author, and we look at his or her body of work, and this month is historian paul johnson who is joining us from london. we want to put the numbers on the screen so you can participate in this conference. 202 is our area code, 737-0001 for those of you who live in the very snowy east time zone or the central time zone. and if you live in the mountain or pacific time zones,

202-737-0002 is the number for you to call. you can also send paul johnson an e-mail at booktv@cspan.org, or if you're a twitter user, you can follow booktv and send a tweet to paul johnson at twitter.com/booktv. here are some of mr. johnson's books, and as you can tell from this first 15 minutes, we've covered -- we've dipped into several different topics, but "a history of the american people," this is about a thousand pages. "modern times" is another book, "churchill" -- this is his latest, and then there's this trilogy of books that we will also talk with mr. johnson about, "the creators," "intellectual cans," "and heros." he's also written "a quest for good." a lot of mr. johnson's writings

are infused with different religious thought which we'll also talk with him about. mr. johnson, before we leave america, uniqueness and america in 2010, i want to read this quote from the former president of poland to you. he made this statement on january 29, 2010, at a campaign event in illinois. and this is what he had to say:

>> guest: well, that is one man's opinion. and i don't share it. there are times, there have been many times in the last 50 years or so when american leadership has tended to flag a bit. when it's lacked articulation or it lacks courage or it lacks perception. and there are times when it gives very clear leadership. for instance, under jimmy carter i thought american leadership rather flagged and lacked inspiration. and articulation. but then under president reagan it came back again in a big way, and reagan led the world, helped, of course, by two other great figures, margaret thatcher and pope john paul ii. and the three of them together managed to destroy the great

seemingly impregnable soviet empire and reduced soviet communism to rubble. so that was a case of a resurrection of american leadership. you can -- it's a matter of opinion whether it flagged again under bill clinton and then was resurrected again and whether it has flagged again under president obama. pram's had a year or so in office, and the feeling in britain, for instance, is that he perhaps talks too much and thinks too little. so you could say there is a flagging of american leadership too. however, underneath it all i don't agree that america is lacking in political or other morality.

america is a highly religious society with complete freedom of religion and very flourishing churches and all kinds of religious organizations. and i don't think there's any lack of morality there or is there lack of moral leadership. i think the american people tend to sometimes they make collective mistakes, but generally speaking they speak out loud and clear on the right side. so i don't agree with the, with the opinions expressed. >> host: mr. johnson, how many u.s. presidents have you known, and does a u.s. president carry almost absolute weight worldwide? >> guest: well, i've known most of them since mr. truman onwards. some i've known better than others. i knew mr. nixon very well and

your last president i knew quite well too. the present one, mr. obama, is quite difficult to get to see, and i haven't met him yet. so i'm reserving judgment on him. but i think this is an office which is unique in the world because it's the only office in the united states which everybody votes for. so the person who is elected president of the united states has a unique claim to represent the nation. the nation is a very big nation of over 300 million people, it's a very rich and powerful and productive nation, so inevitably the president of the unite is a very powerful figure, indeed. and the constitution of the united states does give him enormous powers.

of course, he is to some extent limited by congress and by the judiciary, but he still has very, very large powers. so the president of the united states is a figure in the world that has to be reckoned as probably the most powerful person on earth. >> host: how is it that you've gotten to know all the presidents since president truman? >> guest: well, for many years i have been an active journalist crossing the atlantic many times, taking part in international events, covering american elections and so forth, and so occasionally one is privileged to be invited to the white house and to meet the president in person. which is always a very memorable and dramatic occasion for an individual, humble journalist like myself. >> host: what other world leaders have you gotten to

though? >> guest: well, i've over the course of the years i've met quite a lot of them. general de gaulle, the man who brought back france from the dead as it it were, twice. once in 1940 when france surrendered to the nazis and he came to britain and created the free french, and he saved france's honor. and then again in 1958 when france was nearly submerged in the algerian crisis and taken over by the army, general de gaulle once more rescued france. and it's very rare, i think, for any statesman to rescue his country twice over. so meeting de gaulle was a very important event in my life and a very great privilege and

experience. and, again, i met general, dr. ard nower who redeemed germany after the second world war and rebuilt germany, was a very, very important statesman. i met degas prix who did roughly the same sort of thing for italy, and i met others. i met famous and sometimes rather sinister clown, nikita khrushchev. and i saw him make his famous speech in which to the emphasize his points he took off his shoe and hammered away on the rostrum. that gave extraordinary indication of his rather savage determination and his willingness to believe that he was always right. so he was an interesting fellow to meet too. and i met mr. nehru who was the creator, to some extent, of

modern india, and he was a very interesting person because he went to an old-fashioned english public school as we call them, you call them private schools. he went to the harrow. and in many ways he was a typical old health care arovian. but-also very much an indian of the bra man class, so he was another very interesting person to to have met. i've been privileged to meet quite a few of the big shots, and that has helped me in my work as a historian because to meet the people who make history is, gives you interesting insights into how history is made and, therefore, how history ought to be written. >> host: did you ever get a chance to meet your hero, winston churchill? >> guest: yes, i did. and i was very lucky, indeed.

because when i was about to go up to oxford, i was a young man of 16, churchill came to my hometown. he was going to make a speech nearby, and he was staying at a rather exclusive little hotel in the town, and the manager of the hotel knew my mother. and he said -- this was in 1946. churchill was then out of office, but he was still leader of the conservancy party. and the manager said to my mother, if paul would like a chance at meeting winston churchill, if he'd be in the lobby of the hotel at quarter past nine tomorrow morning when he's about to set off to make his speech, i'll seal that he's well placed so he has a chance to talk to him. and churchill dual ri appeared. -- dually appeared.

he was lighting his si far. and to -- cigar. and to light his cigar he had specifically-made giant matches. i've never seen anything like it, they were quite pieces of timber. and anyway, he was lighting his cigar, and he came over, and he gave me one of his giant matches. so i was encouraged to say, mr. winston churchill, sir, to what do you attribute your success in life? and churchill looked at me, and then without any hesitation at all he said, conservation of energy. never stand up when you can sit down, and never sit down when you can lie down. and he then marched into his limo and drove off to make his speech. and i've always remembered this. of course, he followed his own advice because he spent the morning as a rule in bed, but he wasn't idle. he was comfortable, but he was

making telephone calls, he was dictating telegrams, he was dictating letters, he was receiving people, he was shaping what he was going to do in the rest of the day. in other words, he was conserving his energy because he was lying down, but he was very active at the same time. and i think one of the great things about churchill -- and it's a point i make strongly in my little book -- is that he always worked very hard, indeed. the whole of his life. i especially wrote my book to be read by young people. that's why i've made it so short, because young people are not always keen on reading long books. but i especially directed it at young people. and one of the lessons i'm anxious to impart to them in that book is always work hard. follow churchill's example. he worked hard all his life. he played hard because he

realized that exercise and recreation is important to the efficiency of your work. so he played hard as well as he worked hard. but always he was at it, and he led long days full of activity, and that is one of the principle lessons of his magnificent life. >> host: well, another thin volume that you've written is about george washington, the founding father. could anyone else have done, in your view, what george washington and winston churchill did can during their political lifetimes? >> guest: no. no. i think one of the great strokes of luck which the united states had was george washington. of course, it had the fundamental luck of occupying and exploiting a uniquely rich and fertile country, wonderful

agriculture, all the minerals you could possibly want, and plenty of space. so that was the primary stroke of luck which the american people have had. but i think to have george washington was another very valuable and unique streak of luck. because george washington was two things. he was a general, and he was a statesman. and he pursued the kind of strategy during the long war of independence, and it was a long, very exhausting war, he pursued the only kind of strategy which was open to the american people, and he won the war. but he then went on to supervise the constitutional arrangements, and when the constitution was drawn up and approved, he was voted into power unanimously. he went reluctantly, perhaps,

but he recognized that he had to do it. and he implemented the constitution. he made the constitution work. and it's because of his laying the foundation stone not just of the constitution it, but in the way it was actually applied in practice that the constitution of the unite has worked so well and suitably amended, it's lasted a quarter of a millennium, 250 years or more. and all that is to some extent due to george washington. now, at the time some people did not have a high opinion of george washington. john adams, for instance, was very critical of him and thought he was stupid and so on. i don't think these views will bear examination once you get down to what george washington actually did. he was not a showy man, he was not a brilliant man in the sense that he was having flashes of

wit or intuition of so on, but he was sound, solid, patient. he had judgment. and those are the things you really need. so i think, i can't imagine any other figure who could have performed those military services and those constitutional and statesmanlike services with a wonderful way that george washington did. so just as we owed a great deal to churchill in 1940, so i think in the 1770s and the 1780s and '90s the united states owed a unique debt to george washington. >> host: well, let's take some calls for our historian guest, paul johnson. mike in tucson, arizona. you are first up. please, go ahead. mike, you with us? all right. we have lost mike. let's go to boston.

doug in boston, please, go ahead. >> caller: hi. i wonder if paul johnson approves of the laws in europe that lock up historians for having a skeptical viewpoint on certain aspects of the second world war? specifically, david irving who i happen to consider a pretty damn good historian, and i'd be interested in his views. thanks a lot. >> guest: well, i lived through the second world war. i was 10 when it started, and i was 16 when it ended, so i remember it very vividly, indeed. and there were lots of things we didn't know then which we know now. but there will be arguments over various aspects of the second world war which will go on as long as there are historians in history. fortunately for churchill -- and this is quite an important point -- he got his word in

first. in 1945, i remember this vividly, having led us to victory he was decisively rejected, or rather his party was, by the british electorate. and he was dumped into opposition having held supreme power for over five years. he was suddenly dumped into opposition, and the opposition labour party was given a landslide victory. and when that happened and on that same sad day for him, his wife comforted him by saying, well, darling, maybe it's a blessing in disguise. and churchill replied, it appears to be very effectively disguised. but his wife was right because not only did churchill recover his health in opposition where he wasn't subjected to the strains of government and,

therefore, was able to go on for another 20 years, but he also had the time to write his great history of the second world war. it wasn't completely finished by the time he returned to power and office in 1951, but nearly all the work was done. and, therefore, he got this huge work finished, and it was published early in the 1950s. now, this was the first great history of the second world war by one of the people who'd been a principle combatant. and he got his word in first. of course, hitler was dead, fdr was dead, stalin thought he could get his version in through official history and how wrong he was. and most of the generals and admirals and air marshals and so forth had not yet got permission to use the documents.

so their versions came out later. so churchill got his word in first, and his account of the second world war which is based upon the documents to which he had unique access is magisterial in tone and very long and full, and he had a lot of people to help him do it. he got his version became to a very great extent the accepted version of the second world war. and so he not only made history, but he wrote it, h and he wrote his version of it. >> host: next call for paul johnson, michael in philadelphia. please go ahead with your question. >> caller: hi. thank you for taking my call, mr. johnson, it's an honor to speak with you. i read your wonderful book, "history of christianity," which even though i'm of jewish descent, i greatly, greatly

enjoyed and recommend to everyone who i end counter who's interest inside the subject. as a britton, and i watch the bbc news regularly, do you think that israel in the way it's portrayed in the british media gets singular focus on which order perceives as feelings because of domestic considerations such as the large muslim population of britain now, for consideration of having to do with oil, because of an historical legacy that britain was involved with the creation of israel in the first place, or a combination of these things? thank you very much. >> guest: well, i wonder, that's a very long question. could you make it a short one and then i'll try and answer it? >> host: mr. johnson, the caller is gone, but why don't you like to answer the portion you would like to.

>> guest: well, it was so long. i mean, you're talking about is britain a christian country? is that what it was? >> host: well, tell you what. what if we take it this way, and this might not be what michael was looking for, but in your most latest book, "churchill," you talk about the creation of the middle east, and you talk about winston churchill's role and the british empire's role. and it's a rather brief section where you talk about that, and there's a lot of, there's some criticism out there about how brief that section is. but on the whole, britain's role in creating the middle east. >> guest: well, churchill, as i point out in the book, was unique in that he played a decisive role in the creation of not one, but three countries. first of all, there was iraq and jordan which he created after

the, after the first world war when he was secretary of state for war and air in the british government. he was decisive in creating those two arab states. but secondly, in the 1920s he was, i think, decisive in making the zionist state of israel possible because it came under a great deal of pressure. a lot of pressure was placed on the -- placed on the british government to make it very difficult for the jews in israel to expand their settlements and accept a great many refugees from europe. and there was a possible, there was a real possibility that britain would withdraw theball fordeclaration of 1917 which

made the jewish state possible. there was a key debate in the british parliament which could have led to the withdrawal of that declaration. churchill, who was well briefed upon israel and the middle east generally, made a remarkable speech which absolutely silenced opposition and led to the debate being concluded in a definite determination to maintain the jewish settlement in israel. so i think without him, without that vital speech he made, probably israel would not exist at this time. so there you have churchill playing a decisive role in the creation of three countries and, of course, to some extent in the present problems of the middle east. >> host: in 1976 paul johnson wrote "a history of

christianity," and in 19 l 7 he wrote "a history of the jews." here's an e-mail we got for you, mr. johnson. the world is going to hell. the refrain of every generation about the world that succeeds them. is it true this time? >> guest: no, i don't think it is true. and, of course, in any stage in human history you can produce a lot of evidence to show that the world is going to pot and that it's not going to survive. but the world does survive. we're pretty well briefed on at least three or four thousand years of human history now. even before that we know quite a bit, but we know a great deal about the last three or four thousand years. and during all that period, and it's a long period after all, during all that period on the whole the world has become a

better place. now, i'm not saying that we haven't invented new horrors and new sins because we have, but if you look at it from the point of view of the average ordinary family whether in the united states or in britain or anywhere else in the world, on the whole their standard of living has increased general -- generation to generation, particularly during the last two thousand years. now, there have been some periods in the last thousand, for instance, or a bit more when there have been very serious setbacks. in the 14th century, for instance, there was the catastrophe of the black death. the worst pandemic ever to affect the world that we know of. which in england, for instance, killed about a third of the population and set things back. but with that real exception, standards of living have gone on

increasing every single generation since. and what we have witnessed during my lifetime, and it's been very agreeable to witness it too, is that in lance armstrong areas of -- large areas of the world despite a very rapid increase in population, everyone has been getting a square meal. they've had enough to eat, they've had enough -- they've got some kind of roof over their heads, they're getting some kind of health care, and they're getting a chance to travel around. now, that doesn't apply, alas, to everyone. but the number of people whom it doesn't apply to at all, who are still in great poverty, has been dwindling as a proportion of total population every year. and one of the things we have witnessed in the last 15 years or so is that the two most

populist countries on earth, china and india, for the first time in their long histories have been able to provide a decent living for the great majority of their populations. that is an amazing fact and a very welcome fact. and i think it's one of the most comforting facts today. i'd like to think, i would brought up as a child before the war to think we always had to think of the poor starving millions of asians. well, that's no longer true anymore. they aren't starving anymore. they are getting enough to eat, and they're getting a great deal more. and i thought it very interesting that quite recently more, the market for cars, automobiles in china is now bigger than the united states. that doesn't mean to say that china's richer than the united states, but it means that the average chinese person and

chinese family now has a chance of getting a car with all that that involves in movement, mobility and human contentment. so we are living in an age where are material advances are really very comforting and very considerable. and we must be grateful of that. now, of course, where your e-mail correspondent is nearer the truth is over the moral condition of the world. there hasn't been much improvement there. we've expanded enormously in a material sense, but our morality appears to be no better than ever in the past. and i'm afraid that is true. and if we go back through history and look at the time of george washington or go further back and look at the time of queen elizabeth and the armada or into the middle ages and the crusades or went back further

still to the age of julius caesar, we have to admit that public morals on the whole have not substantially improved. there are still a large number of dreadful things that occur. and anyone who has lived through the middle decades of the 20th century, as i did, must take a certain pessimistic view about the ability of the world to improve it moral standards. never the less, i am not without hope that this can be done. i still take the view that on the whole the world is a good place, and it's getting to be a better place. but we must all do our, work our hardest to improve the moral standards because that is what is required. >> host: janice from kirkland, washington, e-mails in: in your

history of the american people, i was struck by your thesis that establish colonialism actually was a financial drain on great britain rather than a source of wealth. that, in fact, the cost of maintaining the empire cost more than the gdp generated from it. how do you view britain's involvement in the current middle eastern wars in afghanistan and iraq? do they have any justifiable economic advantage? >> guest: well, there's two different questions there. the first is, did we make a profit on the empire? i think you can produce figures, and i have produced such figures, to show that on the whole we spent more than we gained by it. oirpd, we did gain -- on the other hand, we did gain, we did have a feeling that we were doing a good job in the world. we felt that we were bringing enlightenment and education and all kinds of things to hundreds of millions of end p yangs.

we felt later that we were improving conditions in africa. so the moral return, the return in self-respect which we got from the empire confiscated, compensated for anything we lost in a purely material sense. and that, i think, applies to the middle east today. now, there's all kinds of arguments about whether we should have gone into iraq and whether we should have gone into afghanistan, these two very important campaigns we've fought with the united states. and certainly, there is a great deal of rising tide of criticism about them in britain today. particularly since there's been a commission of inquiry looking into the iraq involvement which has produced some rather disquieting findings. however, we have to remember

that if you are a great power and britain together with the united states are two o of the great powers in the world today, if you are a power, you have responsibility. and if you think there is something wrong in a region where you have got interests and you can do something about it even if be that involves using military force, then it is a matter of fine judgment. as to whether you use that force or not. the united states constantly over the past 50 years or so has been faced with this dilemma, and american presidents time and time again from the time, for instance, of mr. truman who had to decide whether to intervene in korea on many, many occasions, perhaps 20 or 30 occasions, has had to decide whether to the use force or not in the interests of the area in

question and also in the interests of the whole world. and sometimes mistakes have been made, but generally speaking, the american president has been correct. and i think this is also applied to britain, and i still believe we were right to intervene in iraq and right to intervene in afghanistan. now, history may prove me wrong. and we can't say. but at the moment on the evidence available we had to do that. and even though it may cost lives and even though it may cost a great deal of money, our position as a great civilized power demands that we should act if in the judgment of our elected leaders we ought to act. >> host: john in cose that mesa, california, thanks for holding. your on with paul johnson. >> caller: yes, thank you. mr. johnson, are you concerned with the situation in the u.s. where fewer and fewer citizens

control more and more of the wealth of the u.s.? >> guest: well, this, of course, depends on what sort of statistics you take to examine, and i would have thought that in the united states as always in the past wealth is pretty widely distributed. i think one of the great things that happened in the united states was the policy applied almost from the beginning of the nation to make land available to people who wanted to farm it. and immigrants could come from europe to the united states. they could land in new york without much money at all, and they were enabled to buy land very cheaply and sometimes on credit and to farm it.

and that meant that a huge agricultural industry was created in the united states involving millions and millions of people and that wealth, agricultural wealth was very widely spread. and from the savings of that agricultural industry, ordinary farmers and their dependents and families were able to invest in industry so that, again, from a very early point in the nation's history the wealth, the actual ownership of american industry was very, very widely spread. so that is something which is a central fact in the american economy and in american history. and in the sense of and the feeling in the united states that the people and the country are one because the ownership of the country is very widely spread. now, if it is, indeed, true --

and i'm not cop vinceed of this -- convinced of this -- that there is a substantial tendency in the united states for wealth to concentrate in fewer and fewer hands, for there to be an overconcentration of wealth in a minority, then, of course, that is a very serious criticism of the way the country has been conducting itself. and any american government ought to take important and fundamental steps to put that right. it is part of america's uniqueness and part of america's quality as a successful society that wealth is very widely distributed. that must be continued. >> host: the next call for paul johnson is from brian in michigan. please go ahead, brian. >> caller: well, thank you. and thank you, mr. johnson. one thing i do always enjoy is

speaking with someone that's a little bit older than me and i can always learn something, and i've learned a lot this morning. but america's strength has been through, let's just look at world war ii to today, has been through manufacturing and like you correctly call it, our way of pushing forward and figuring things out. we ask our politicians today as we look to manufacture and you know we've lost a lot of our auto industry is how, how we can truly compete at $1.50-$3.50 an hour in mexico and china? we just don't see that, sir. we've lost 1 out of every 10 jobs associated with the auto industry. could you give us a little bit of guidance and look ahead to where we're going to fall? right now we just don't see that. our jobs have been lost through the new world order. we're glad that china's getting better, we're glad that india's

feeding itself, we're happy for all these things, we relish it. it's what we're fear for, but we don't see what we're going to stand in on this. even at minimum wage, sir, we cannot compete on these jobs that we've lost, and it doesn't look like we're going to get 'em back. >> host: mr. johnson. >> guest: well, i don't worry myself so much about the jobs that are lost to overseas competitors with lower living standards and lower wages. what i am concerned is by the jobs that are being created. that is what really matters. because it is inevitable ha some industries -- that some industries as they spread throughout the world, as the expertise spreads and the capital becomes available, that in the advanced countries like the united states that these industries domestically should decline as foreign competition increases. that doesn't matter so long as

the advance power like the united states is moving into new industries which require less labor, which require more capital and more expertise. and i think the united states will remain strong and remain economic leader of the world so long as those three conditions are in place. so long as it has enough capital which is freely available to go where it's needed to create new industries, where it has enough intellectual leadership to provide the expertise to shape and fashion and make expert these new industries, and thirdly, where it has the freedom to develop these new industries. there are industries starting up in the united states today that we don't know about but which in 20 or 30 years' time will be

world leaders which will be huge things like international business machines where it was once quite a small company and gradually developed and became very important with world leaders. again, the software revolution and things like google. america can lead the world so long as it has the available and flexibility of capital, so long as it has the intellectual leadership, and so long as it has the freedom to enable these things to operate. now, i think if you look at american universities, you will find all kinds of things going on there which are rich in promise for the future. so don't worry too much about the jobs that are being lost in old industries. worry about whether there are

sufficient jobs being created in new industries because that's what america is essentially about, and so long as those new industries come forward and are pressed forward with sufficient capital and sufficient intellectual energy, america will remain the top nation. .. and has been associated with the american enterprise institute here in the u.s.

what is your association, mr. johnson? >> guest: well, in ç'1979, '80 the american enterprise institute asked me to come across as a visiting professor for a year. and i was delighted to do that. and that is where i did the basic research or a lot of it from my book, "modern times." but more than that, the aei has close associations with government. and a lot of the fellows there have had important positions, have held important positions in government. both in the bureaucracy and in congress. and in ministerial positions, too. so when i was there, there were about 40 fellows. and if -- and it was based on a

sort of quadrangle like an oxford or cambridge college. and if i wanted to know something -- if i wanted to know something about how the american system worked, i could walk along the quadrangle and find the office of somebody who not only knew the answers but had actually helped to make them work. who held office or had an important position within the american government.ç so that was a hugely useful and absolutely fascinating experience to me.ñ and i've always been very grateful to thexd aei for makin it possible. it wasi] one of the most valuab years i've ever spent in my life. >> mr. johnson was a long time columnist for the spectator and received the medalç of freedom from president bush and writes a column for forbes.com.ç mr. johnson, in modern times,

you start with a psalm. thousand thousand salt be wise oey kings ye judges of the earth. >> guest: well, that was quite i thought a good quotation to use for the opening of the history of the world. because the history of the world is a history of great sharks and terrifying events. and the wise and fall of powers and empires and wars and catastrophes as well as long periods of peace. and i think it is very important that one should learn the lessons of this. and that's why one writes history. and that's why i like people to read history. in the middle ages, history was

defined myth preachers as the school of princes and that was right. princes were taught history so they'd learn how to rule wisely. now, in the 21st century, history ought to be the school of peoples. and peoples should read history so they learn how to vote wisely. and how to judge their rulers wisely. and how to choose them wisely.f so i'm all for people reading history. and that's one reason i write it. and also i like to read -- to write history which is readable so that people not only read history in theory but actually read it in practice. that, of course, is one reason i've written my little book on churchill. it's quite short. 170 pages and -- churchill had a

long life and the american people are very interested in churchill and not least young american people are fascinated and interested in churchill. and fortunately young people, we find, are reluctant to read long books.w3 do you think you could do us winston churchill in a short book. so i said i will certainly do my best. and try. so one of the things i do when i'm writing history is to think in terms of the reader. can i write a history --73(ri write a history book which a reader will find as entertaining and as interesting and as unput downable as a novel. that's what i tried to do. and i think i'm in a good tradition in that. because there have been a number

of historians who have done this. gibbon did it. and mccauley did it. and some of the great american historians have done it, too. so that's what i try and do is to write history, which people will read because they find it readable. >> host: well, there was a çmann in the "washington post" about your "churchill" book. winston churchill made many huge blunders during his long careerç in this slim but worshipful new biography paul johnson wants to explain them all way and he ends saying that johnson book give us a cartoon version of the man. >> guest: well, he could try and write that book himself. i point to churchill's mistakes which were many because he had

to take a lot of decisions in the heat of the moment and you do make mistakes and some of his mistakes were quite serious. some mistakes he made in the first world war -- he was probably unwise to get involved in the invasion because he didn't have sufficient power to be in charge and to run it properly.e1 and he was blamed for that for the rest of his life. he made mistakes in india. he was against giving rule and freedom to india which i thi' was a mistake. and, of course, he made mistakes in the second world war. a lot of people would say that the bombing campaign against germany was a mistake, particularly the bombing of dresden. i don't actually agree with that view but it's a tenable view. and there are many other criticisms which could be levied against churchill. i don't minimize his mistakes.

if you are running a world war and concentrating a great deal of power in yourself, which he had to do, and that's why the second world war was run much more successfully than the first one because churchill had sufficient power to run it properly -- if you are running a world war on 20 different fronts all over the place, all over the globe, you're bound to make mistakes. but you have to accept that fact and press on regardless. and i'm sorry if the reviewer thought i was writing a cartoon version.ç that's not the general review from the reaction i have got. but, of course, if you are writing the life of a very great man who lived to a great age and was more than 55 years in parliament and nearly 10 years as prime minister, 20, 30, 40 years in office, you have a long story to tell.

briefly, then you have to simplify. and people can easily say, oh, this is just a cartoon version. but i think it is bertha people should read a short book than not read anything at all. and i think there are more lessons to be learned from the life of winston churchill which apply today than there are from any other great man who lived in the 20th century. and, therefore, i think it's better to write a short version with all its faults and limitations and handicaps. which people will read. than to not to write at all. and so that people don't know about him. so i'm quite unrepentant on that point. >> host: vin in los gatos, california. thank you for holding.zv you're on with mr. paul johnsonr

>> caller: thank you for taking my call. i want to make a comment and just ask your opinion about it.d you know, i love my country as most americans do. and, you know, most americans would probably be willing to lay down their lives to protect this great land. and there have been some mistakes in the past. that america has made but americans have gotten around to correcting the wrong. well, getting on the issue of morality. before you talked about how, you know -- i think it was a polish president who said that america is still strong militarily and somewhat economically but they seem to be using -- losing their morality edge here. i'd like to point one thing out to put this in perspective. in this country, millions of people a year lose their health insurance. and millions more don't have health insurance. so in america, as far as i know the only major industrialized country that allows its citizens

to go bankrupt and lose almost all they have just because their child gets sick or they get sick. so could you understand why other countries may look at america as less than moral these days. >> guest: well, i don't think that's what most people would base their criticism of america on. because america spends a great deal on health. and it has on the whole a very healthy population. and it is leading in many fields of medical research. so i don't think that's how they will criticize america chiefly. so devise the purpose system of public health for a great nation of 300 million people or more is a very difficult thing. i'm very glad that president obama has tackled the problem. and i hope he succeeds in

solving it in a way in which most americans can accept and make workable. but it is a very difficult thing. and nobody really has solved itt the british have -- we have our own system. which goes back to 1948. of the national health service. it's very, very much criticized in britain. the french have a somewhat different system which i've zo heard very much criticized. the russians have one. the chinese have one. the indians -- it is one of the most difficult things facing the world today because everybody wants not just to be saved from disease and unfortunate things happen to them but to have good health. and good health is obtainable because of medical research and medical practice. excellent hospitals and other health centers but it's very, very very expensive. and it gets more expensive all the time.

as research intensifies and the practice and the instrumentation becomes more complicated and expensive. so we are tackling something which is ultimately an insoluble problem because it's changing all the time. but i think that america is making efforts to get an equitable system. and i don't think that is one of the ways myself in which america is lacking in moral leadership. >> host:u! next call for paul johnson bernie in brooklyn. please go ahead. >> caller: thank you. mr. çjohnson, i'm glad you brought up the invasion in particular. i read churchill's experiences -- his version of world war i. incidentally i have two questions. the first one about the invasion and the second about writing history. so in the invasion, according to

hisç writings, his neighborç was to force the dardinels by naval assets and to bomb istanbul and force turkey out of the war. he has a point of view, a clear point of view of how he writes his history. and what i'm wondering is -- was with respect to historians.

should they and can they minimize this aspect in their writing? thank you. >> guest: well, the answer to those two questions are as follows: the first question -- i don't want to go into the details of galipi but there's a general principle here. churchill did not have overall control of the invasion. operation. if he had done it would have been better planned and more likely to have been successful. the government itself was weak because because the prime minister was a peacetime prime minister. he didn't really know how to run a wartime government. and he allowed the power over the invasion operation to be widely distributed between the generals, the admirals and the politicians. and was that the real reason for the failure. it wasn't churchill's fault. if lloyd george who came to

power shortly afterwards and was a true wartime leader, had been in charge then instead of after ward, he would have given churchill overall command of the operation and then, i think, it would have been better planned and pressed through to a successful conclusion. that's the answer to the first question. the second question concerns the opinions and views of historians. i am quite clear about this. i think historians inevitably should have views. and it's quite right that they should have views. you cannot but have views if you're writing history. you're bound to reach conclusions as to why things happened and whether what happened was excellent or bad or indifferent. you're bound to have views. and i don't think it matters if historians have views so long as they make it clear to the reader

that they have views and are expressing the views. and that is my method. i always make it clear to the reader as clear as i can that i have gotten certain views about the subject and i underline when i don't claim an objectivity. i try to be honest with the reader and say i have views and these are what my views are. i think so long as you are straight with the reader, it doesn't matter if you have views. you're bound to have views and you ought to express them. but you must make it clear to the reader that you are expressing them. >> host: mr. johnson, did you know the late howard zinn or -- and to further that question, who are some of your american historian friends? >> guest: well, i think mr. zinn

was a very biased historian. and i don't think he was a very good one. but, however, i think he made his opinions fairly clear. everyone knew that he was leaning heavily onto the left. so i think he was reasonably honest with his readers. but that isn't a sufficient reason to read him in my view. now, a good example of an american historian whom i respect was the late arthur schlesinger. arthur schlesinger began life with a wonderful book about the age of jackson. i still think it's his best book. and he then went on to write some very important books about modern history and the age of roosevelt and the kennedys and biographies and so forth.

and i very much admired arthur schlesinger because he was right in the thick of it. he wasn't afraid to take office. he helped jack kennedy with his administration very substantially. and he learned about how government works and how decisions are taken. and that improved the quality of his history. so i think there's a lot to be said for historians entering into the thick of things. i think mccauley was a better historian because he held office and had served in parliament. and i like historians to have a spell in congress or even a spell in government because they learn a lot about it. and to revert to the aei -- one of the reasons i found it so valuable is that some of the people there who were writing books and so on had actually served in the administrations.

and, therefore, knew how things were done. so i like of a historian to oscillate between government and the writing of ho er. i think that results in better government and better history. >> host: mary ann sends in an email, how did winston churchill's relationship or lack thereof have an influence with his ultimate connection with fdr and the usa? >> guest: well, you have to remember about churchill was that he was half american. indeed, in my view, and i say it in the book, the american half was more important than the english half. because i think his mother, an american lady, was the dominant figure in his genetic composition and in his life. because after her husband died, she entered her whole hopes in young winston and helped him

enormously in all kinds of ways to get launched in the world. so the american element in winston churchill was very, very important. that meant that he was favorably disposed towards what went on in america. he got on well with americans. i mean, he was a typical product you might say of the english system in that he went to harrow, a typical english upper class school. and he went into the army, into a cavalry regiment and all that. got involved socially and so forth. and he was the grandson of a duke you have to remember, too. but he also had a kind of openness and egalitarian, which he got from his new american genes. and this was very, very important. when he bowed to queen elizabeth ii as he did towards the end of

his life, his bow was worth watching. it was very slow. it was very stately. it was very humble. and it was very low. but churchill was not bowing to monarchy as such. he was bowing to the constitution. he was bowing to parliamentary history. he was bowing to english history as a whole. and in that bow, he expressed his belief in the system that he had inherited of the anglo-saxon side. and i think it was natural that he should get on well with fdr. he didn't get on as well as he'd have liked to. he often said that he devoted

more emotional energy to try to manage roosevelt and to get him to agree to what he wanted and so so forth. than he did to anything to the whole of his life. because fdr disagreed with him on a lot of things and he was much too optimistic about the good feelings of stalin, the soviet dictator and of the soviet union in general. much more favorably disposed of them than winston churchill wanted. and often winston churchill couldn't get his way with fdr, particularly, towards the end. particularly at the famous or notorious yalta conference. nevertheless, any other english leader would not have got on so well with roosevelt. as churchill did. their partnership was unique in modern history. and it was a very successful one. and often when i'm talking to

english leaders like tony blair or margaret thatcher, i'm often inclined to say to them. it's very important to study the relationship between fdr and churchill. and to read the letters they exchanged because that gives you a kind of guide as to what anglo american relationships should be. and how the special relationship should function. and the special relationship with all its faults and all its limitations is still the most important geopolitical fact in the entire world. and long may it flourish. that was laid down in its modern form by churchill and fdr together. and i always try and encourage british leaders to stick to that formula and to make it work. >> mr. johnson, how well do you know the queen? and what's the significance of her role in history?

>> guest: well, i don't claim knowledge of the queen. i met her only formally but her role is very important. every government needs a top tier above them. to complete the constitution. the united states government is unique in that it doesn't have this system. because the president elected by the entire nation, it is true, is head of state as well as head of government. on the other hand, to balance that, you have the division of powers with a very powerful congress and a very powerful judiciary in particular the supreme court. so that's how you solve that problem. but in mo countries, there is a head of state as well as a head of government. we have a monarchy. we're not the only one. there are half a dozen or so where the monarchy works well. and sometimes even in our times

it's been shown to be a very useful instrument. the notable case being modern spain where they restored the monarchy and it seems to have worked very well there. we find the british monarchy works well. it suits the british people. they like it because it's old but it's also refashioning itself all the time. and i think the queen, though, a remarkably modest and unpretentious person who never shows off and who never is trying to put her point of view all the time, the remarkably modest person has, in fact, ruled with a considerable degree of wisdom. and, of course, we have to remember now that she's a very experienced person. when a new prime minister takes office, he discovers that he has

to report every week sometimes oftener to a lady whose experience goes back to 19 -- the early 1950s. who has been on the throne for half a century. who has known all kinds of wars and rumors of wars and constitutional crises. and economic crises. and who has learned from them so she is a great fund of wisdom. and i remember telling tony blair just before he became prime minister, you make proper full use of her majesty the queen. consult her always. pay considerable attention to what she tells you because she is a great repository of experience and has a great fund of human wisdom. and so i think the queen unus

a osttentacious. >> host: richard from carmel, california. you're on with paul johnson. please go ahead. >> caller: mr. johnson i heard you once speak with robert conquest about intellectuals and what makes an intellectual. i was wondering if you could comment on whether barack obama is an intellectual. and if you believe in his experience in education he is intelligent. >> guest: well, i've written a whole book about intellectuals, which i commend to you. i hope that barack obama is not an intellectual. because i define intellectuals as follows: as intellectual is someone who believes that ideas matter more than people.

well, ideas matter a lot, but they don't matter more than people. and i think if you go on that assumption, if you're running a big nation, you'll come acroper. you'll make terrible mistakes and they could can very fatal mistakes. i hope he's not an intellectual certainly in that sense. i think he is someone who pace a lot of attention to intellectuals. and that is fine. i mean, so long -- it's like what churchill said of economists. he said economists should be on tap but not on top. and i think it's fine for a president to consult intellectuals. and indeed to listen to what they have to say. and if necessary, read their reports and read their books but they should be on tap and not on top. so i hope mr. obama is not an intellectual himself.

and i hope that he makes proper but n indiscrim -- use of the president. >> host: some of the people you profile include russo, henrik and tolstoy whom you describe as god's elder brother, ernest hemingway, jean-paul sartre. are you not a fan of intellectuals because in other books you've not been a great fan of some of these people. >> guest: well, as i say, they put ideas before people. a very good example was breck who always treated people badly 'cause he wasn't interested in people. he was only interested in ideas. and jean-paul satre whom i met

in paris he tended to be the same. he'd make use of people. and i expect lillian helmand was very much the same kind. i think occasionally you get intellectuals who realize sometimes late in life that ideas should not take precedence over people. and i cite an example as edmond whose belief in ideas and i call that chapter a brand snatched from the burning. so i think that was a case where a man was very interested in ideas but came to realize that people were more important. you can't beat people. they are what matter. and ideas should guide you, inspire, help you and give you something to live by and so on but it's people who matter in the end and i think it's

particularly important that the president of the united states should be very much of that mind. that people come before ideas. >> host: we're about halfway through our "in depth" program with paul johnson. we're going to take one more call. then we're going to take a little bit break, about 7 minutes. and then we'll be back live again until 3:00 pm eastern time. cherri in kansas city, missouri. please go ahead. >> caller: hi. what i'm curious about is that you hold george washington in such high esteem when we here in the united states are being taught that our founding fathers are hold and outdated. that their principles are irrelevant anymore. and i'm just wondering in the perspective of he who wins gets to write history. why the britains are more apprised of where our history came from than we are. and why would that be? why is it that americans can't hold up george washington and salute him but the britains are?

>> guest: well, i don't know about the answer to that. i think on the whole, the americans -- the american people have cause to be very grateful to the founding fathers. they were a very remarkable group. they combined knowledge of the world with knowledge of books. they combined all the best that had happened in france with the best that had happened in britain over the -- during the 18th century. they were men of action in many cases. and they were men of decency. you know, they were decent people. they had the right sort of notions about how to behave in the world and how to behave in government. they didn't agree with many things. certainly jefferson didn't agree with washington. or with adams for that matter. but taken collectively they had the right answers.

so i think america was very fortunate in her founding fathers. nowadays they may -- some people may say they are irrelevant. i don't agree with that at all. i think if you read the papers of those days and study the debates they held and what they said -- if you read washington's farewell address, for instance, it's very relevant today. it's got lots of good things in it. and an awful lot of what washington thought and felt and wrote. and he's very well documented is still relevant today. a lot of what jefferson wrote and what adams wrote. a lot of those people had things to say which still resonate in the early part of the 21st century. and that is why i think we ought to study them and revere them.

>> and do you think americans know enough about their history, mr. johnson? >> guest: no. nobody knows enough about their history. i think it's one of the weakness of our education system on both sides of the atlantic. and the french have the same complaints and even the germans that school children don't learn enough history. as i've said, history was the school of princes of the old days and it's the school of peoples today. and the more history they can learn at school -- and above all, learn the taste for history so they go on reading it as adults. i think it is very important to read books of history and read books of biography. and the more history we know, the more sensibly we will view our rulers and help to correct them or help to encourage them. >> host: and finally, this email before we go to break from attila in connecticut.

who are some of the leading intellectuals in america that you have known and we should know more about? >> guest: well, that is a very good question. and i'm not sure that -- i praised arthur schlesinger. i think he was a very great man. i like edmond wilson, myself. i often read his books. and i'm -- i find his book on the civil war particularly good. there's a lot of americans today who are writing in certain publications. for instance, the new criterion. i get that every month and i enjoy it very much. i enjoy national review. i think that's another very good paper that i read. i read "the new republic."

that's excellent intellectual paper. i think there are some very good writers writing in the "wall street journal" today. somebody mentioned rob conquest, strictly speaking he's an englishman and he has lived in america for several years and he has very good and sensible things to say. so he's another person that i would praise and distinguish. there's no shortage of good writers in america writing about important subjects. and a lot of my reading is spent reading american publications and books. >> host: we are live with paul johnson. and now we're going to take a little break. about 7 minutes and then we will be back live to take your calls, emails and tweets, which we've gotten several. and we will get to, i promise. but in 2006, paul johnson received the presidential medal of freedom from president bush. we're going to show you that ceremony.

we're also going to show some of mr. johnson's favorite authors and some of his -- what he's reading now. and finally mr. johnson appeared on "booknotes" on our old "booknotes" program in 1998. he's going to talk about his writing habits and then we will be back live. >> the struggle of freedom and tyranny has defined the past hundred years and few have written of their struggle with fewer skill is paul johnson. his book is a masterful account of the grievous harms by ideologies of power and coercion. in all his writings paul johnson shows great breadth of knowledge and moral clarity. and a deep understanding of the challenges of our time. he's written hundreds of articles and dozens of books. including the history of the jews, the history of christianity. the quest for god. and the birth of the modern.

obviously the man is not afraid to take on big subjects. [laughter] >> eight years ago he published "a history of the american people" which dr. henry kissinger said it was in scope as the country it celebrates. paul johnson calls americans the most remarkable people the world has ever seen. he said, i love them and i salute them. that's a high tribute from a man of such learning and wisdom. and america returns the feeling. our country honors paul johnson and proudly calls him a friend. [applause] >> paul johnson. a brilliant historian and author, his writings have captivated and educated people around the world. from histories judaism and christian u-christianity to the

defining of events, ideas and personalities of the 20th century to the story of the american people. he has eloquently chronicled the forces that have shaped our world. a citizen of the united kingdom, he holds america in special regard. calling the creation of our nation the greatest of all human adventures. the united states honors paul johnson for his landmark contributions to sharing the lessons of the past so that they may inform the present and shape the future. [applause]

>> where do you write? >> guest: i write mainly in my study in london which overlooks my garden. it's quite a small room. and i have a desk with two electronic typewriters at it. in an l shaped formation. and with a swing chair. now, on the first of those, on the left, i write the main text of the book.

on the second i write the source notes so that i can do them at the same time just by swinging the chair. now, that saves an enormous amount of time. if you write your text and you then come back to it and start doing the source notes, it's a nightmare and a lot of writers do that, i'm afraid. it's a very serious error. and that's what leads to a lot of mistakes. but if you do them my way, at the same time, and incidentally you can do this on a word processor, obviously, that is the way i do it. and i also -- my study is sufficiently small so that all my, say, 3 or 400 principle works of reference, dictionaries and so forth and dictionaries of dates, they are all within an arm's reach. that's the way i write books. >> host: and what time of day do you write? >> guest: i can start as early as 4:00 in the morning. in the summer when it's nice and light by then. and you can work undisturbed for hours. the telephone doesn't ring.

and people don't interrupt you. also, i'm a morning man. my brain seems to work better in the morning. it doesn't apply to all writers. some writers -- my friend tom, for instance, writes his plays often very often at night. i ring him at lunchtime in the morning he's not yet up because he's been working throughout the night 'cause his brain works best in the evening but mine works best in the morning. and that's when i get the bulk of my work done between -- anytime between 4:00 or 6:00 and at 2:00 i get my lunch. >> host: are you a fast writer? >> guest: yes. >> host: how many words a day? >> guest: well, as i say, all my notes are in order and the planning is working and so on, i can do 3,000 words a day, day after day. and sometimes on a really good day, i can notch it up to 4,000 or even 5,000. 2,000 is a bad day.

>> host: do you do it seven days a week? >> guest: sometimes. i don't absolutely put myself in a straight jacket. i do have targets and deadlines that i set for myself. but if i'm tired, i stop. and you can also tell that, at least i can, because i have to think for words more than usual. and if i'm tired, on any particular day, i stop. and if i wake up in the morning and something tells me not to write that day, but to take a day off, i do so. sn

>> host: and we are back live with paul johnson, historian, who is joining us from london. if you would like to call him, we've got about an hour and a half left to go in "in depth." 202 is our area. -- area code. you can also follow book tv updates throughout the week if you sign up there. mr. johnson, who is karl popper. >> guest: karl popper was an austrian who came to england -- who taught in new zealand philosophy. who then came to england and who died here not so long ago at a great age. he did two very important things in his life.

first of all, he wrote a book called "the open society and its enemies" in which he identified the nature of totalitarianism. and contrasted it with the nature of true democracy and republican government. that was one of the important thing he did. secondly, he wrote an excellent book on how science operates and what is good science and what is bad science. and i think he had more influence on my thinking and writing than almost anyone else. and one of my proudest possessions is a wonderful letter he wrote to me when my book "modern times" was published and he read it. and he strongly approved of the book. and of the opinions expressed in it. of course, he lived through all

those years. he wrote me this wonderful letter which i have frames. -- which i have it framed and hangs over my desk. he's my favorite philosopher. and i think he is particularly important today if his advice as to how science should be conducted, how hypotheses and theories should be framed and how they should be substantiated and justified and if not justified fortified, all that is highly relevant to the current debate on manmade climate change. and i think if karl popper's example and instructions and advice had been followed some of the mistakes which are not -- are now coming to light and are discrediting the whole

scientific establishment would not have been made. so he is an important philosopher of science as well as politics whose example and writings are highly relevant today. and his book on scientific method ought to be read by all scientists, whatsoever. >> host: paul johnson, we just showed our viewers your favorite historical figures. your favorite writers. and your favorite books. one of your favorite writers you told us was mark twain. and we got this twitter message. your favorite author mark twain considered your favorite politician teddy roosevelt a religionist war-monger? >> caller: well, opinions differ. and mark twain was a man of strong opinions. throughout his long life. and some of his opinions are not very sound in my opinion. but no doubt if he were alive

today, he would reject a lot of my opinions, too. he was a very great man. and like many great men, he had very sharp opinions about an enormous numbers of issues in life. and some of them were tremendously right and some of them were wrong and some were very arguable. that's the kind of man he was. he didn't like theodore roosevelt. well, i do like theodore roosevelt. so we differ there. but that doesn't stop me enjoying mark twain's books. a few years ago, the oxford university press published at a very modest price a complete reproduction of all mark twain's books and i have them in my library in london. i read them constantly. i get enormous enjoyment. of course, he's best known for huckleberry finn which is one of

the greatest books in the whole of american literature. and i suppose it is his best book. but he wrote many other good books, too. and lots of short essays and entertaining little jour de spirit. and so i salute mark twain but that doesn't mean to say i agree with all his opinions and his opinions about my favorite president theodore roosevelt. >> host: why was theodore roosevelt your favorite president? >> guest: for six good reasons. first of all, he was a very active man. he was always in the saddle or on the move and doing things. he was a hard -- a very hard-working man like winston churchill. secondly, he didn't take anything for granted. he didn't necessarily take the received wisdom. as a young man he wanted to see it for himself. he went to the far west and the badlands of dakota and all those

sort of places and saw for himself. and that was the second reason. the third reason was that he was -- he thought that war was a great evil but also sometimes necessary. and he was determined to see war at close quarters. so he took an important part in the cuban liberation movement and led his own little army of american adventurers during that campaign. and that was the third reason. the fourth reason was that he had a strong idea of american leadership in the world. his most famous saying was -- was speak softly but carry a big stick. that is always very good advice for an american president. that he should be modest in his use of adjectives and careful in

his choice of words. and never boast and never threaten without absolute compelling necessity. but at the same time that america should always have the physical means of fighting for what it believes to be right. and putting down what it believes to be wrong. so speak softly and carry a big stick. and finally, he believed in the open air. he always spent as much as time as he could in the open air. and he founded -- or expanded the american public park system on a very large scale. and i think it is due to a great extent to his leadership and example and what he did as a president that america has these magnificent public parks and so much of the american wilderness

in the public domain and, therefore, can be visited and enjoyed by all american citizens. and indeed by the countless foreigners who come to america, too. so those are the reasons why i like -- i like theodore roosevelt. but perhaps one also ought to add a final reason. the sixth reason which is that he got such joy and pleasure out of life. he was an example to us all. i may say that he didn't always approve of my other great favorite, winston churchill. he said -- they had a lot in common and you'd have thought that he might have approved. because he was somewhat senior to winston churchill. he met him when churchill came to america. and he said, that winston churchill has no manners. he does not stand up when a lady enters the room.

so he was a bit critical of churchill. i dare say critical -- that churchill was critical of him too. >> host: bob from collier, tennessee, you're on with historian paul johnson in london. >> caller: mr. johnson, i read history of the american people a few years ago and you were critical of fdr of the people of the depression and how do you think of the president of the current depression. >> guest: you have to remember that fdr was operating before keynesianism became the favorite sort of solution of middle range or left wing economies. he was pre-keynesian in that respect. keynes was active and had written a number of books already.

but his great treaties on employment interest and money which is the foundation of keynesian theory had not yet been -- was not published until 1936. so that when roosevelt began in '33, he didn't have keynes as a bible. but in some respects, he carried out keynesian policies. i am extremely critical of fdr. i think in a way he prolonged the depression. that is one of the themes that i illustrate in advance in my book. i think if the -- if he had been less of a proto-keynesian, and i say that because as i say keynes really came after, and more of a

conventional economist and had allowed the storm to blow itself out, probably the united states would have come out of recession in 1933 or '34 certainly by '35. as it was it really -- the american economy got back to prosperity only with the beginning of the second world war. that's when the dow jones reached its predepression levels again. with the rearmament that the second world war brought. so it was a very long depression. and i think that fdr was to some extent responsible for that. ...

>> host: you write quite a bit about john maynard kansas. >> guest: he is often misunderstood. he is presented as somebody who says you can spend your way out of a recession or depression. that is only a half truth. certainly canes believed it was

not wrong in times of depression to run a budget deficit. that did not mean he was a spend at all costs. he was much more of a sensible conventional economist than people realized, and i wish that those who quote him as an authority for almost limitless spending would actually read his works, because they will find that there is no justification for that. now, both in the united kingdom under gordon brown, and in the united states under barack obama, there has been an explosion of what i would call vulgar canessannism, that is to say, the misinterpretation of him in this spending.

i think in both cases it's gone too far, and i think this will delay the resumption of a fully-fledged economic expansion. so i think in that respect, canes' less john has been misinterpreted. and i think if he were alive we would take the lead criticizing the huge deficits which are going to be a burden to our children, grandchildren, and great-grandparent. think he would be extremely critical of the spending policies both of barack obama and gordon brown. >> host: brent in portland, oregon, your on will paul johnson. >> caller: thank you for your time. do you have any insight regarding our current economic crisis with which our leaders could draw upon for

inspirational guidance? >> guest: do i have any economic insights which would give me an idea as to what ought to be done? well, i take the view -- and in a way this is rather an old-fashioned view, i suppose -- that running an economy is not all that different to running a family's finances. people seem to think that because a government can print money, it can operate in quite a different world. but the same rules apply to a country as to a family. if you spend too much and you continue to spend too much, and considerably more than you are actually earning, sooner or later you will get into trouble. and the likelihood is, it will be sooner rather than later.

there isn't all that much difference. it is perfectly true that a government can print money and can get away with quite big deficits for some time. but it can't print money indefinitely. it can't get away with deficits indefinitely. seener or later there is a -- sooner or later there is a financial reckoning, and therefore i think it is very good for a president to say to himself, as he sits in the oval office, all right, i can do all these things for the economy, which don't apply to family life, but at the same time would i do this in my own family finances? and if the answer is an emphatic, no, then he should think again and take a bit more advice were authorizing enormous spending plans. that is my advice to mr. obama, and it's also the advice i give to gordon brown, but he is not

going to take it, of course, being a very dogmatic fellow. i hope that mr. obama is still open-minded enough to take the advice to be careful of the deficits and careful of the big spending. he doesn't want to good down in history as -- go down in history as the last of the big spender. >> host: greg in florida. go ahead. >> caller: yes, sir. thank you very much for taking my call. i would just like to hear your view on how winston churchill would have reacted immediately after 9/11. >> guest: i think he would have taken roughly the same view that mr. bush did, that this was a challenge to american sovereignty, a challenge to american way of life, a deadly challenge to the american people, and that the very

gravest view should be taken and fundamental serious efforts made to counteract it. i think he would have declared a state of emergency and taken appropriate measures. what i think if he had been in power for some time, he would have already taken many of those measures that have since been taken. but certainly he would have regarded islamic fundamentalism as a threat to the american people and american state and taken whatever measures in his power. >> host: we have two e-mails that came in, mr. johnson. i will read them both quickly and let you respond. is islamic ascene den si a threat and how do you view them in england and in europe.

>> those for very closely related points. i think the islamic threat is serious. from a demographic point of view. the islamists, particularly those settled in western europe, where they have the advantage of public health services and hospitals and so forth, have a very high birth rate, and several islamists have told me, we intend -- weak the military is in the west, but we intend to conquer you dem graphically, and i think they have a definite policy of having as many children as they possibly can. as for the assertiveness, there's no doubt about that, and it is very deeply rooted. american values and british

values are threatened by it, and european values, and in some european countries, they already exercise a good deal of power. however, this has to be borne in mind with the long history of islam. islam has had periods of effervescence and fundamental desire to conquer and rule before. these have gone through the same phases of beginning, middle and when they finally come to a stop. so, i'm not at all sure that the present spasm may also prove temporary and come to an end, because i think a lot of islamists are beginning to realize that militancy doesn't

pay; that in order to prosper in the world in the long term, you have to be peaceable, you have to be moderate, you have to be willing to live with other people. you have to trade with them. you have to share things with them. you have to listen to them. and they will, in turn, listen to you. i think the lesson of history is that hard work and honesty and moderation and common sense and decency prevail in the end over militancy, and i think that lesson will be learned, so that possibly within the next ten to 15 years, islam may begin to present a quite different face. in that case, the period of crisis and danger will be over. of course, if the fundamentalism continues, sooner or later there are going to be very drastic

events, but i believe that the west, having freedom on its side, will emerge from those testing times with its essential culture and freedom intact. so i'm not too gloomy about it. >> host: william, you're on with mr. johnson. >> mr. johnson, i have been listening to your program for the last hour or so and one thing you said was -- [inaudible] two short questions, the fun was in reference to i'm a veteran and i was drafted. what's your opinion on the draft? second question is -- this is black history month. what's your opinion of witson,

an african-american historian. >> guest: i wouldn't like to express an opinion on that. on the question of long and short books, i think there's room for both. i have written some very long books in my life, and i now write short books. i'm getting quite old. i'm 81. i will be 82 next year. and i now only write short books. in the past i have written books on big subjects. the history of the jews, for instance. it's impossible to write a good history of the jews which isn't a long book. again, my history of the modern world is a long book because there's a great deal to describe and a great many events to cover, so it had to be long. and equally, "a history of the american people. " if it's going to be a true history and a useful history, it

has to be long, and mine is well over a thousand pages, because a lot of the most interesting things about the history of the american people lies in the detail, and that detail has to be described. so there is a strong case for long books on important, big subjects. but equally, because of the patience of human beings, not least the impatience of young people, there's a case for short books. i have written a number of short books in recent years. one on george washington. one on the renaissance, and here is a short life of winston churchill, because i want to bring in to the churchill story, young people who are impatient with long books, but who will read a short, readable book, and i want to make them churchill fans, as i am, and to learn the important lessons from churchill's life, which will be of use to them in their life.

and, therefore, i think there's a case for long books and a case for short books. i used to write the first, and now i write the second. >> host: and in fact, here's "modern times," "a history of the jews." colin sends us a team. mr. johnson, why is the dictionary listed as one of your favorite books? >> guest: it's an essential book. i don't know if you're familiar with the oxford english dictionary. it's based upon historical principles. so if you look up a word, you not only gate definition of the word -- get a definition of the word, or a number of definitions if it's used in other senses, then you get a history of the word, and when it was first

used, and that history includes a lot of quotations from famous authors, from jeffrey chaucer, and shakespeare and modern times through dickens and zachary, mark twain, and its uses in the 20th century. for instance, it's interesting that -- and i learned this from the oxford dictionary. the first use of the word crunch was the work of winston churchill. he used it in about 1930 in this new sense. he talked of the crunch coming in foreign affairs. well, that was a sense in which we now use it today, as in credit crunch and so on. so, one learned from that that

they of the word goes back to 1930, and the originate for of the use was winston churchill. i find that kind of information fascinating, and that's the kind of information of which the oxford english dictionary, in its full 20 volume set, a surprise on every page. so it's very close to my desk. i can reach out and pull out a volume and consult it when i'm writing an article or a book, and i always learn something from it. it's a huge mine of information, and that's one of the reasons it's one of my favorite books. >> host: steve in kansas city. >> caller: let me first compliment mr. johnson on his incredible accomplishment in "history of the american people" i fine it to be written by an englishman, but it reads like a

motivational novel. i have one question, and i'm glad to be able to ask the question. i fine that mr. johnson treated president harding a lot more favorably than most people have written about him. i think of him as one of the founders of the capitalism that we're seeing so much today. his favorite friends got special deals through relationships with the government. and so i would just like to ask mr. johnson if he still has what seemed to be at least in reading the book, more sympathetic view toward harding than we normally would here in the united states. >> guest: yes, die. i think quite a lot of the americans who go into harding's record actually take the same view as i do. the trouble with harding was he was a soft-hearted man, and he wasn't tough enough with his friends. it wasn't him.

so he didn't himself do anything wicked. it was his friends, and he wasn't discriminating enough with his friend. in some way he was a very old-fashioned month, and -- man, and he ran an old-fashioned campaign. people came to him, they queued up and asked him questions. he was accessible and available. he campaigned in roughly the same way that someone like general jackson did in the first part of the 19 under -- 19th 19th century. he was a man who was there for the public to come and question, and on sunday he would take a ride through washington on his horse, and he would ride through washington, and people would

salute him, and he would stop, and they would ask him questions, and why answer them. again, he was the last president, i think, who answered the front door himself. the bell rang, and out he -- the door of the white house would open, and there would be the president, welcoming you into the threshold, and he would ask you in, and you could ask him questions. when i think of the trouble and business it is getting into the white house today, i think, my, those were the days. so, there's all those kind of nice homely old, fashioned reasons for liking mr. harding, who has had a rough treatment from history, and there are good reasons for respecting him. >> host: arvid e-mails in, do you feel people's influence of events are the cause of the influence or simply riding waves? hitler would be a prime example

of this. >> guest: well, i think that's true. i think it was victor hugo who said, nothing is so powerful as an idea whose time has come, and if somebody can personify the idea, then, of course, he becomes automatically very powerful himself, and i think there are occasions when people do personify the idea. i have seen it happen in my own observation. for instance in england, during the 1970s, the trades unions were becoming all-powerful, and they were destroying governments and destroying entire british industries. our ship-building industry, the automobile industry were virtually destroyed by trades

unions having too much power and exercising it irresponsibly. now, a president whose idea -- the idea that the unions had to be resisted and overcome was margaret thatcher. that was an idea whose time had come. the public were ready for it. they wanted to see union power reduced. margaret thatcher embodied that idea, and one of the reasons why she won so many elections so handsomely and ruled us for 12 years, the longest of any british prime minister in the 20th century, was because she embodied that idea, and she fought through tremendous battles, one against the coalminers union and one against the print workers union, and won them both, and she tamed the unions. so she was an example of a

person who radiated power because she embodied an idea whose time has koch. >> host: mitch e-mails, why haven't you written a book on abraham lincoln? do you think his is overrated as a president? >> guest: no. i think he is your greatest president. as for writing a life about him, that is precisely what i'm thinking about at the moment. i was asked to write a short life of winston churchill. i did that. that's already published. then the person said to me is there another very important person you could write a life about, short life about? and i said, yes, jesus christ. i have written that life, too, and that is going be to published this year. so now i'm looking for another subject, and one of the subjects i'm thinking about very seriously is writing a short life of abraham lincoln, because i believe he was your greatest

president. i believe he was an absolutely fascinating man, and a very good and decent man, and a very funny man, like churchill. he had a very good sense of humor, and he made a lot of jokes. and so he is the ideal man to write a book about. now, whether one can write a successful short book about him, which puts in everything you need to know about him, i'm not sure. and that's what i'm thinking about at the moment. because i'm seriously thinking that he is going to be my next subject. >> host: what was it like growing up catholic in england? >> guest: well, i remember once having an argument with your writer, james baldwin, who was grumbling to me about how difficult it was to be a black

in america and all the prejudice and so on. and i said to him, well, i no doubt what you say is true, but let me tell you there's nothing you can tell me about pledge disk because i was born in england, i was born red are haired,lined, and a roman catholic so there's nothing i don't know about prejudice. if you're red-haired and you do you to school and you're a boy, people expect you to be quarrelsome, difficult, bad-tempered and ferocious, and it doesn't matter how you behave. if you're left-handed, going into the army, they can't bear you because the weaponry -- i don't know if it's still true. all the weaponry is made for right-handed people, and the sergeant majors don't live you if your left-handed.

and in england, if you are a roman catholic, you are suspect. so i was brought up a roman catholic. my parents and family had always been roman catholic. i went to a roman catholic school, educated by the jesuits, so i know all about the prejudice against roman catholics in england, which goes back to the 16th century, and particularly to the gun powder plot of 1605 when guy folk and his companions were planning to blow up parliament, and they were discovered and executed. and ever since then, on november 5th, the british celebrate with fireworks, and bum fires, they're called to celebrate the fining of the gun powder plotters, and that has

kept antia catholicism alive, and it's a handicap in britain. and one think that has reduced the handicap has been an important hallmark came when president kennedy, romeian catholic, was elected president of the united states in 1960 and became president of the united states. that was very helpful to british catholics, too. so, i know what it's like to be prejudiced against, and i know what it's like to be discriminated against. but thank god things are much better than they used to be. >> host: why does religion permeate so many of your books? you have even written a book called "the quest for god." >> guest: well,'ing is a a -- well, religion is a very important thing in life. my catholicism is very important

and always has been important. i studied it. i studied two of the greatest religions in the world, christianity and judaism, so i know a certain amount about it, and ill know how it's shaped -- i know how it's shaped, western civilization and our culture. so i'm very interested in and it constantly reading about it. when you get to be middle-aged. you need to sort out your ideas. when i got to that stage i wrote a book, "quest for god" about what i believed and why i believed and it how i came to believe and it its importance to me. and as i say, i just recently written a life of jesus, which is short and very much on the four gospels and shows what jesus taught, and the theme of

the book is that although jesus lived 2,000 years ago, what he taught had a huge and lasting impact on the whole world, but particularly on western civilization. and the moral of the book is that there are all kinds of things in the modern world, ideas and beliefs beliefs and as and so forth, some of which are good, some of which are bad. but virtually all the ideas and civilized points of view which we have in the modern world, which are good, ultimately have their basis in the teachings of jesus christ. that is why he is a relevant figure today, just as relevant as he was 2,000 years ago, and that is the theme of my little book. >> host: when will that be published? >> guest: that will be published

this year, probably in the summer. >> host: chris in fair banks, alaska, thank you for holding. paul johnson is on the line with you. go ahead. >> caller: ey, mr. johnson, really enjoyed this conversation you have had, and i-some of your heroes are money heroes, too, with george washington, abraham lincoln. but one of my other heroes is electric. >> host: the former president of poland, labor union leader ins the 80s. >> caller: he is one of our great -- he was a great man, and what he did with the union, that i think really was a big thing as far as bringing down the

communistblock. mymy -- communist bloc. have you ever compared the labor movements in england to that in the united states? and are the unions in england -- these people volunteered or are they forced into it sometimes? and -- >> host: tell you what chris, that could lead to a big answer. let's see what mr. johnson has in store. >> guest: well, you raised a very important question, which i have spent a lot of my life trying to consider what i think about it. the unions were very important to britain in then 1970s, and a great evil because they had

too much power in my view, and that was the reason i left the labor party and became a supporter of margaret thatcher because she promised the country she would reform the unions, and by jove she did. working men need to be allowed to protect themselves. employers can be unscrupulous and at times brutal, and the union order employees need to be able to protect themselves. but we must be very, very careful the amount of legal power which we give them. in england, they had far too much legal power, and they abused it. and they have now lost a lot of it. though they still have quite a lot, and they need to be watched very carefully. i think we must always -- this applies as much to the united states or britain -- we must

always be careful to give any institution power which we will not -- legal pour -- legal power which wisconsin we -- which we will not trust to an individual. we must be very careful about giving it to a group of individuals oren institution. that's what what we did in the case of the unions, and it was a terrible error, and we have paid for it. we must continue to correct the error, and it has a broad front to it. if an individual should not be given a certain legal power, then we should not give it to anyone else. institution or a group of individuals, without very careful thought. that is the lesson. >> host: brian, baltimore. good afternoon. >> caller: good afternoon. and mr. johnson, i'm certainly enjoying this conversation.

i would love to hear your opinion about the political correctness as we see more and more of it today, in england and in this country, and also the relationship that the legal profession, which helps to perpetuate this -- might make an interesting book, but i would love to hear your opinion. thank you. >> guest: yes. i'm very glad you asked that question. when communism was in power, and then when in the late 1980s it was destroyed in eastern europe, i thought to myself, this has been a horrible thing, our experience with communism and it shows how foolish human beings are, to think of a system which can do so much damage and cause so much unhappiness. thank god we're getting rid of

it. but i wonder what's going to follow. well, it was already happening even then. the new system of political correctness was even more pervasive than communism, more difficult to combat, and it wasn't the property of any particular state so it wasn't visible. didn't stick up over the horizon. didn't have leaders so you didn't have anybody you could organize against. it was just there i compared it recently to settling on society like a great big cloud of gas and getting into ever crevice of our lives. political correctness is a system whereby you mustn't be nasty to anybody. well, of course, that has its

origins in perfectly decent feelings. but there's already plenty of provisions for that. it has a name, and it's known as good manners. if you have good manners, you don't need to be politically correct because you are already doing everything that anyone can expect. good manners teaches you to be polite to people irrespective of their image or sex or color or creed or religion or beliefs. it teaches you to be decent to treat people with reasonable, civilized equality. good manners is something which can be taught and ought to be taught from the earliest age. if you have a society which is based upon good manners, then you don't need political correctness. let alone do you need political correction not enshrined in laws and so on, which certainly in

britain we have a great and growing number. one thing, we have had 12 years of rule by the labor party in britain. the result of it, the country is absolutely-miles-an-hour -- absolutely miserable, and we have been burdened with a whole set of laws based upon political correctness. so, i regard political correctness as a threat to our happiness and state of mind and decent, contentedness, just as soarous as anything like communism or, for that matter, islam, and i think we have to watch political correctness and pounce upon its excesses whenever they lift their heads above the horizon. that's my answer. >> host: if people want to read your articles or short stories, where is a good place for them to go?

>> guest: well, they can buy my books in book shops. i write quite often to the spectator. i don't do it every week because i'm getting a bit old for that. but i write quite often there. i do almost every month i a piece in forbes magazine, an opinion piece there that is more about business and economics, and i bring in all my idiosyncratic views from time to time. but chiefly i try to commune with readers through little books, like this book of churchill i have just written, and this book on jesus, which is coming out this year. but, of course, i have written, i think, 50 books, or there thereabouts, i don't know exactly. and you can get the big ones in libraries and so forth. so, like most writers, i live by and through my books, and that's

where to find out what i think and believe. and know. >> host: how has the internet changed your life? >> guest: well, it hasn't really. i mean, the truth of the matter is, i have come too late for all these things, and i ought to have been on top of it. i'm not very mechanically minded. i often describe myself as a cottage industry. i have a very good secretary, fortunately, who understands all these machines and does all that's necessary, putting my work in the right way communicate with the whole world. but i can't do it myself, and rye great that, but there it is. there are disadvantages toking about your 80s. you're not always on top of all the latest technology by a long way, and that's my predicament. on the other hand, when you're

in your 80s, you have been through a lot, you have learned a lot, and you have, to some extent, learned to exercise your judgment. so, there are compensations, too. >> host: who is marigold? >> guest: marigold is my wife. and we have been now married almost 53 years, which is a good long time. and i was very lucky to secure her back in 1957, when we got married on march 3, 1957, and i'm lucky still that we are still together. we have got four children, grown up now, and we have just had our tenth grandchild so we have ten grandchildren, and i regard the happiness of family life as the most important thing in a person's life. it's certainly the most importanting in my life, and i have been singularly fortunate in it.

so, i'm sorry marigold won't be watching this program. it's showing in america. but i will tell her all about it when i go home. >> host: she could watch it only if you're connected to the internet on book tv.org. it will be repeated at midnight here in the states and then again next week. will in massachusetts, please go ahead with your question for paul johnson. >> caller: hell hoe. thank you for taking my call. i wonder if you could speak on this. i'm curious about -- i have been reading a lot of this concerning the times before the battle at marathon, there's a very strict military code, and then it appears in the timeline that greece and -- athens and sparta united against persia of

marathon, and then there was the war. and i'm curious what influence there might have been of portion to the persian forces that might have resulted in these military conventions previous to marathon being eliminated. thank you. >> guest: well, i don't think that was the really vital thing there. you see, it was very difficult to get the greeks to unite. they were a series of city states. they believed in the civilization of the city, and that necessarily rather limited them to quite small areas. some of these states, notably athens, became imperialistic, and began to expand, and they would found little colonies

which became imitation athens all over the aegean and later in sicily, in north africa, africa, and the western coast of what is now turkey. and that meant that athens became a very powerful country, and, therefore, aroused the jealousies and hostilities of other greek cities, notably sparta. and that's what led to the war, and the war unfortunately has been described as the time at which ancient greece committed suicide. you could say that because after the war, greece was never -- or classical greece was never the same again, and first of all it was conquered by alexander, who was really a barbarian, outside the proper greek civilization, and then later by rome, and the

war was this act of suicide. you might say by analogy, that the same thing happened to europe in the 20th century, because it fought two wars, 1914 to 1918, and then 1939 to 1945. which were essentially continental civil wars. and that those taken together was an act of suicide on the part of europe, and europe since has lost its empires and has become marginalized. so that is one lesson we can learn from ancient greece. it's still worth studying, he history of greece, knowing uniting against persia and in fighting the war and committing

suicide. >> host: a little more than 15 minutes left with paul johnson. another e-mail from robby. on meet the press this morning, one of our sunday morning political talk shows, alan greenspan and henry paulsen said that a generational crisis facing the u.s. today is the deficit. china sits atop an astonishing level of foreign reserves greater than $2 trillion. british journalist says that not only will china be the next economic superpower but the world order it will construct will look very different from what we have had under american leadership. >> guest: and you want me to comment on this? >> host: yes, sir. >> guest: i don't believe it. it is perfectly true that the deficits are very large, but they can be eliminated or substantially reduced. that is what we have to set our

minds firmly in favor of in the next few years, and a lot of our future will depend upon how we do that. and i think the younger people must insist that the older people take a lead in this and we have created the crisis, we must solve it by cutting down and eliminating or very much reducing the deficit. as for china, the chinese have always made the mistake of thinking that they can sell goods to the world without buying in return. they did this in the 19th century. it was very, very hard to export anything to china, although we were only to glad to boo their silks and tees, and they didn't want anything that the west produced except opium, which led to the wars because we wanted them to buy more and more opium.

now they're tending to do the same thing together. they're saving a lot. putting a lot into gold, they have huge reserves, and they're not buying enough goods from the people to whom they sell goods. that is a mistake which they will have to pay for in the long run. i don't think the chinese are going to take over the world economically leadership. i think i have already said, what matters here is freedom. if you don't have enough freedom, then you won't remain on the top of the economic tree, because freedom is necessary to produce new ideas, new products, new processes, new ways of doing things. that's what made britain the leader in the industrial revolution and what made america the first great economic superpower and what will keep her there. and i repeat what i said before, that india is taking the proper

road to world economic leadership as opposed to china, because india has got economic freedom, it's got political freedom, it's got freedom of speech, et cetera and it's going in for high-tech industries. so i think india is more likely to make a successful challenge to the united states than china. but i would still back the united states, because the way in which america produces freedom, with its political system, its university system, its free expression media and so forth and its love of controversy and exchange of ideas and atmosphere of freedom, will keep it ahead of the rest of the world for the foreseeable future in my opinion. so i would still put my money on america. >> host: newbery, massachusetts, you're on with paul johnson. >> caller: it's mill berry,

massachusetts. critical of churchill, upon his defeat, he said he didn't reside over great britain in its finest our only to see the demise of the empire. when he was a soldier, you're brave. when you're fighting leaders who are spewing air rows or a journalist, or the scorched earth policy that devastated the women and children, killing up to 50,000. so i don't like churchill at all. in world war ii with the bombing. the first time i heard the word holocaust was the bombing of germany. >> host: mr. johnson. >> guest: well, a number of points there. first of all, churchill was extremely critical of kitchener

and his brutality. and in his book, the river war, he is very, very critical of kitchener at a time when i required considerable courage to do. so it is true churchill was old-fashioned about india. he hand been back to india since 1899 and didn't realize the extent to which yeah has changed, and he opposed the grant offering freedom to india, both before and after the second world war. however, once the labor government had given india its freedom, and pakistan its freedom, churchill acquiesced because he regarded parliamental sovereign and once parliament had spoken, that was the law and

re obeyed the law. so he reconciled misdemeanor though freedom given to india. that's the lesson on churchill. he was wrong on many things, but he always bowed to the course of history, and he was prepared to reconcile himself to things which initially he found hostile or undesirable. he learned as he lived, and the longer he lived, the more he learned and that's a lesson to us all. >> host: just to follow that up, phillip sends in an e-mail: can you comment on what might have been in india and palestine had churchill, rather than atway, been prime minister in '7and -- 47 and 48? >> guest: that's one reason i'm glad that churchill lost the 45 election. very few people expected that. i was 16 at the time, i think.

and i remember it. and everyone was deeply shocked or most people were. but it was a good thing. as his wife said, a blessing in disguise. and if churchill had tried to continue british rule in india, there would have been a mess. it would have been a horrible mess. it could have ended in the same kind of mess which the french contrived in vietnam. where they tried hang on there and then dragged the united states into it, too. fortunately, the british people spoke in 45, they kick out the conservatives, they put in labor, and labor gave india its freedom. so, it all ended happily. but churchill would have rejoiced at indias position today because india is rapidly becoming a great economic power. he always thought it could.

and like gandhi, who wanted yeah to remain just with a domesticated economy, hand weaving and so on, churchill always believed india had tremendous economic potential, and he thought are in british guidance they could realize that potential. well, it has begun to realize its under its own guidance, and the first person to rejoice in that would have been winston churchill. it would have been a constant delight to him to see more and more indians were being brought out of the subsistence economic into western-type living standards. he would have loved that, would have loved to have seen indians creating high-tech industries, wonderful universities and leading the world in many products. with all his prejudice and so on, he loved the indians and thought they were capable of great things. and now that they're achieving

great things he would have been delighted. >> melissa, kansas city, kansas. >> caller: mr. johnson, a comment and a question. earlier you mentioned the inquiry taking place in britain regarding the legality of the iraq war. there's reliable documentation which detail conversations between prime minister blair and president bush where they both acknowledged there were no wind chills mass destruction iraq, and bush went so far as suggest painting a united states spy plane with the u.n. colors and flying it over iraq in order to provoke the iraqi into firing on it to give the united states justification for the war. i clearly remember that the majority of the british people were against the invasion of iraq. my question is, earlier you said that great powers like the united states have responsibilities. do you believe those

responsibilities also include telling the american people the truth about the lies that took both of our countries to war and punished the leaders who perpetrated those lies? >> guest: well, somebody once remarked in war that first casualty is the truth. i am afraid that states, whether they're democratic states or dictatorships, hardly ever give the full truth as to why they're going to war. we blundered into the first world war, the greatest catastrophe of modern times from which most of the things that are wrong with the world ultimately spring. and the people in britain, for instance, were never told the truth about why we were going war or why we prepared to go to war or they weren't told the truth about our alliance with france and so on. i'm afraid there is a long

history of even civilized and law abiding nations not telling the truth either about the war when it's being fought or the reasons why it's taking place in the first case. and there's nothing unusual about the iraqi business in that respect. on the whole, i think mr. bush and mr. blair were right to do what they did. where they went wrong was in underestimating the difficulties which would follow in administering iraq after we had won a military victory. winning the military victory was the easy thing. handing it over afterwards was the difficult thing. they did that, i think, because neither of them had read enough history. if they would have read the history of iraq, how it was created, what it was created

from, why it was create and so forth. they would have been much more apprehensive about it and taken more care to take proper advice and make proper planning for postwar period. iraq is a very difficult country. struckly speaking it shouldn't exist. it is an artificial creation. it was created as a result of the first world war, chiefly by winston churchill, and he knew it was going to be a very difficult countried a and are run. i remember when i first went to iraq, back in the early 1950s, more than 50 years ago, and saw the prime minister, who was the last really good ruler the iraqis have had, he said, this is one of the most difficult countries in the world to run because it shouldn't really exist. it's an artificial creation. and it poses extraordinary

problems and it's very difficult to run in a democratic manner or law-abiding manner because you have to be very tough, and he explained all the difficulties. and that is all still true more than 50 years later. so, i wouldn't blame bush and blair too much for this. what i think they should have taken more care of was their immediate post war plans. i think a lot of mistakes were then made and a lot of lives lost in consequence. as for the legitimacy and the rightness of the war in the first place, i'm still left-hand side -- inclined to believe they were right. >> host: chris e-mails, you earlier said i the united states to form and expand. can you geoff your definition of luck. >> guest: that's a very difficult question and i wish you hadn't asked me because i'm not sure what the answer a is.

i should have said, good fortune. i think good fortune attended america from its birth, because if you look at america, it's a wonderful country physically. it's got great big wheat fields, it's got wonderful minerals, it's got on the whole a very good climate. it's got plenty of space. it's got tremendous rivers which can be harnesses and used. it's got health. it's got everything. and i often, when i'm in the united states, i like to listen to the nationwide weather but continue, and i fine it snowing here, it's raining there, drought there, beautiful sunshine there, and i think america is a world in itself, and it's a very rich and handsome and wonderful world. so, that was good fortune.

but i think there was a further good fortune that in the men who created america, who won the war of independence, and then wrote the constitution, and then put it into operation. america was fortunate in that it had a group of, on the whole, very able, sensible and wise men to do it, and i think some of them were outstanding. benjamin franklin, for instance, what a great man. george washington. what a wise man he was. and then coming up behind them, john adams and madison and so forth. they were a very remarkable group of men, and they created a country and gave it a constitution, worked that constitution, and it's lasted 250 years, a quarter of a millennium, without any fundamental changes and it's still the top nation in the world and, in my opinion, likely

to remain so. >> final call for paul johnson, barny in riverside, california. >> caller: good day. sir, i am impressed by your book on jesus. how do you think you could reconcile your reverence for him and o'the politics of the democratic leaders, and i think one who would have brought out the underdog's plight in this situation. how do we overcome this. >> guest: i'm sorry. what is your precise question? can you put it to my briefly? >> host: the call are is gone, mr. johnson. i think she was talking about whether or not -- i hate to rephrase this because i will get criticized -- america's

christianity and how do we reconcile that with our political acts? >> guest: it was once said, christianity has not been tried and found to be wanting. it has been found to be difficult and so not tried at all. and there's some truth in that. america is a christian country, according to overwhelming practice of its inhabitants, but christians often profess beliefs and then don't put them in practice. a lot of americans do, and i think america has come as close as any other nation to trying to create a christian way of life. but it's -- there's a lot wanting there. but this is something that ordinary people can do something about.

often events areon their control -- are beyond their control and there's nothing they can do. this terrible earthquake in haiti, nothing much they can do about that. but whether a country is a christian country or not, and whether it expresses christian practices and shows a christian way of life is something that all the people can do something about. it's something that every individual american citizen can do something about. we can all all lead christian l, set a christian example, we can all talk and behave insofar as ross our private lives and public lives are concerned in a christian way. so, here is something where christianity is not incompatable with good behavior by a great make. >> host: and finally, mr. johnson, mark in harrisburg, pennsylvania, wants to know, off

such an illus treous career, do you have plan on writing an always to biography? >> guest: yet, i'm bringing out a book about all the famous people i have known in the last 6 -- 60 years. i have about 250 names in there. i'm also going write a little book about my experience as a young man, at school, boarding school, at oxford university in the army, and then in my first job, which was in paris. i thought about writing a book about my youth, describing the four great experiences. so if i live, that's what i will do and it will be published in a year or two. >> host: mr. johnson has written over 50 books. one of his first was in 1957, the suez war. his most recent, 2009, "churchill. " he has been our