[inaudible conversations] .. [inaudible conversations]

prose. [inaudible conversations] >> and that concludes our coverage of the 2011 annapolis book festival from the key school in maryland. for more information on the book festival, visit the key

>> she said put it in. so i moved aside to put him. she said no, here, right now. the gentleman behind the said honey, i'm not carrying anything, i will carry that for you so i gave it to him. we started chatting. it turns out he was going to crystal city to be a consultant to the pentagon and he was from colorado springs. so i said oh, colorado springs, are you people terrified because of all those murders? he said murders? why, what ever you mean? i said all those murders, those people coming home from iraq and shooting people out. and he said now, those which is those guys on the other side of town. he said however did you find out about that? and i said internet. >> they do live on the other side of town. >> we are going to have to call it a night. one more question.

>> all the movies are trash. if you want to see what combat is like in today's environment, it's young men in combat, this brigade took over from the brigade he wrote about. >> thank you very much. thank all of you for coming out. >> this is an appreciation of you for being here tonight, david. very informative, and thank you very much. >> thank you. [applause] >> you can do this and other booktv programs online at booktv.org. visit booktv.org to watch any of the programs you see here

online. type the author or book title in the search more on the upper left side of patient click search. you can also assure anything you see on booktv.org easily by clicking share on the upper left side of the page and selecting the format. booktv streams live online for 48 hours every weekend with the top nonfiction books and authors. booktv.org. >> in your book, "a nation of outsiders," you devoted whole chapter to j.d. salinger in the catcher the ride, why? >> i think he is interesting because his character coffee of israel of the first extremely possible -- popular rebel figure comes from an elite at least a poor middle-class background and the postwar period. he is not alienated because of his race or because of his class background or because he was able he me. he was a prep school dropout.

he's a resident of a fairly nice new york apartment, and this is really the dawning of a new kind of rebel. >> what was the effect of the book in 1951? >> it was really huge. the book style was very different from a lot of published fiction at the time. it was kind of sliney, almost bratty sort of dialogue style that really caught the eye of young people, people of all ages but especially younger people. the book really made quite an impression on readers at the time and really throughout the '50s and into the '60s toda today. >> the subtitle of your book, besides j.d. salinger "catcher in the rye," what other rebellious figures were out there? >> in the initial postwar period, white middle-class folks

were really attracted to a host of different figures that they experienced mostly through popular culture, through television, through magazine reading, "life" magazine especially. those sorts of venues. and also the movies. so particularly in the '50s, rock 'n roll, the birth of rock 'n roll, particularly folks like elvis presley a favorite of young people and older folks as well across the country who really made a name for himself acting. very deliberately putting on a performance of blackness, of black style, black dress styles, black musical styles though he was of course white. and other figures followed him. rock 'n roll would be one place people fell in love with rebels. also use movies, james dean of course, rebel without a cause became a kind of catchphrase for the rebels of the era. that phrase certainly apply to

caulfield as well. they don't have a political problem, it class problem but they're alienated all the same. all these movies, marlon brando, the wild ones where he makes that wonderful line, young waitress, ask them which are rebelling against and he says what if you got? so those are places you should rebels. and then also booking a becomes more popular at the time. "life" magazine does a great job of bringing people from the sort of fringes into middle-class homes across the country and the people are able to pick up their "life" magazine and look at pictures of beatniks and meet writers like ginsberg, and look at writers like jackson pollock and folks they probably wouldn't have done that much about unless they happen to be interested in the art world or poultry specifically, but most this is a class white americans would have known about that as well. >> william f. buckley was the ultimate outsider? [laughter]

>> buckley is an interesting figure because he goes to yale in the late '40s. he's at gale, and he would not have been an outsider most places in america. but he really feels very much that he is at gale because he believes that the liberal, liberalism of professors really dominate not just the campus but the academic offerings. that is constructed by these little professors, and you would don't have much room to stray outside the. and he comes to school from a very conservative family, a family that half of it has roots in the deep south, and the other half not by very conservative catholic light family with very conservative politics. and so he brings those politics with him to yale and feels very much that he is a rebel against that yale i is a cultural

talking quite a bit and now tom was effective all this this white rebellion? >> i think it begins to grow in the '60s and to put it begin to make the leap from being interest in people they see as different our rebels in to imagine themselves as rebels are outsiders also. you see folks making that leap, particularly young white college students through the folk movement and revival. it's an important venue for that kind of thinking. people start out may be listening to the kingston trio or even harry belafonte, and before you know they've graduate to to elaborate of congress, scratchy library of congress recordings. and before you know they have bought a guitar into picking out songs in their bedrooms and thinking about how they can cast themselves as a folk music duo. the ultimate example of that would be bob dylan, but there

are many, many other folks who don't become famous but who take their guitars to washington square park and sort of put on the folk and enjoy the music, try to find a way to play it and what they think is an authentic manner. this leaves a lot of kids into the new left politics. >> who are the new white? >> i use that term because of the time in the '50s and '60s it's really is pejoratively by southern traditionalists and segregationist. they call anybody who's interested, who is white who is interested in or supporting the civil rights struggles of southern black, they're often called white negroes. southern sheriffs yelled at and white activists, those kind of epithets are used, writings to the student nonviolent courtney committee folks, folk singers like pete seeger get hate mail

calling him a white negro, white bigger. so i use that phrase to describe those white mostly middle-class folks who take up an interest in black culture and black politics really again starting with rock 'n roll and then moving through the folk music revival and and support for some of them in support for civil rights organizing. >> professor hill, who are the insiders because i think those would be the ultimate outsiders today, with a? the people who claim the center would perhaps are not a very large crowd, but perhaps would be the ultimate outsiders if you think about it. since outsider is so popular. i think we are really a nation that thinks about difference these days. i think that's one of the things that romanticized help change that in mid-20 century there was a very powerful sense of white middle-class culture, white middle-class way of life as a way that almost all americans

live or the norm, the way we should live the. this love of outsiders really has a positive effect in helping people to see different recognize difference. it maybe goes overboard. by the time to george w. bush running as an outsider for president, here's a man who went to an elite prep school in new england, harvard and yell, graduate of both of those institutions. side of the present and yet he runs very effectively as an outsider. one of things i one of things i one of things i want to highlight was how much that means are setting up outside and inside is changed with a summit like george to be pushed as an outsider. >> who would you consider the outsiders today? >> i don't have to try to think about it in terms of who i think of the outside. i'm interested why people see themselves as outsiders. and why they position themselves that way in public. so i think it's interesting that obama is one of the recent

presidential candidate who really hasn't pushed himself or run or constructed a narrative of himself as that much of an outsider, especially in his more recent writings and in his performance during the campaign. i think race has a lot to do with that. think of bill clinton, absolutely ran as an outsider here we've are imagine george bush. i think that's interesting. certainly a group that is very much working the outsider shtick today would be the tea party. very, very energized by that sense of opposition the kind of corrupt mainstream america that has gone astray. >> how did you grow up, white middle-class? >> i did, i did. >> were you attracted to outside causes or events? >> i think it's really hard to

be a young person in america since the '50s, especially since the era of caufield and not see herself as an outsider. and certainly i was attracted to that. i would alta college, atlanta, suburban atlanta where i grew up to the university of georgia. but venues around town and as people thought it was a music capital of the nation. so yes, i certainly enjoy that. >> what do you teach your at the university of virginia? >> i teach the history of the u.s. south. and do work for the history department as was the american studies program.

in all seriousness it really is a wonderful joy to be able to spend your time reading 20 century literature, poetry and watching films and listening to music. i've been profoundly interested in the period. it started out more interesting in the early part of the. no, the 1920s and in the '30s and kind of leapfrog into an interest in the '60s and '70s. hasn't one of the decade, the center yet. >> professor hale, what at the end of the semester you want your students to take away from one of your classes? what do you want people to take away? >> i want my students to take away the ability to think historically and critically about the categories they use to make meaning in their everyday lives, to think about ideas and

concepts as having a history and not just people or nations. so for example, if are going to talk about racism, i want them to be able to understand that doesn't mean the same thing in 1860 as it does in 1890, as it does in 1960. that is a concept that changes over time, and the concept of racial identity as well changing over time. that would be one example. i want them to be able to think about ideas and concepts and categories as having a history also. so the folk for example. that doesn't mean the same thing across time and space and i think it's really interesting to think about those kind of things. >> this is the book, is published by oxford, "a nation of outsiders." it grace elizabeth hale's second book. >> republican senators