participate in the equity of the stock we want to create liquidity for them and create returns for them and so we are going back to be a growth company but not hell bent growing the company's for growth's sake, it's discipline and well thought out. >> ray kroc and others are doing the same things, a town hall meetings, sitting down with the associates and the partners and the others who are the people you emulate? who are the people you look to as real innovative leaders over the years in retail? you've by the way in the book -- a number of times are the real source of pride and you do not sink at all. it's what your and it's what starbucks is and what you do. how -- when you look at the other successful merchants around the country, who do you emulate? who did you look to? >> you know, i view myself as a merchant and being a merchant is a lost art in america.

mickey drexel is the great american merchant today. he basically invented the gap, left the gap and just reinvented j crew. i mentioned less wexner who has done extraordinary things at the limited. i think jim senegal the founder of costco is an unbelievable merchant of what he's been able to do in the business he's created. i talk in the book about two situations that happened to me. one at the age of 10 when my aunt took me to new york city for the first time. we went to radio city music hall and after that she took me to a restaurant and the restaurant was a very strange restaurant. and for those of you who are probably 50 or older, you'll know what this is. it was an auto mat. and i walked into a horn and heart auto mat and you put 5 cents or 10 cents or a quarter in the window and food comes out and i said to my aunt, how did that happen? and she convinced me there was a magician -- [laughter] >> behind the wall. and, you know, i remember that day as if it was right now and that was the kind of catalyst

for me believing that the emotional connection of discovery and telling of story and demonstration is quite unique and i had this experience with a very unique merchant in italy that has one store for 85 years built this other store and he has this unbelievable story and he said how many stores do you have and i was embarrassed to say it and i whispered 16,000. and the translator gave him 16,000, he said what? 16,000 coffee stores? boy, america, what a place! [laughter]

>> if people are whining, i don't like that word, but if people are concerned about something, generally, there's a reason, and there's validity to it. we're not perfect. have made mistakes, we'll make more mistakes. fragile, and i think sometimes we don't get it right. i don't think there's a terrible, big difference between the people who are concerned about things and the people who are suggesting. it's real, and it's authentic, and we need to take it seriously. >> on a personal level, what keeps you grounded? >> my wife continues to tell me to take the garbage out. [laughter] >> there you go. how does starbucks continue going onward when howard schultz leaves for good?

>> you know, i got add that question in -- asked that question in new york yesterday. becausebecause of the turn aroum probably getting more credit than i deserve. there's an extraordinary level of talent in the company. i'm here for the long term. it's really not about me. i didn't get succession too right the last time, but i understand it better today. when it's not in the short term, the company will seamlessly carry on. it's never been about one person, it's not about me. >> starbucks is well hone the for its focus on social responsibility. as the company moves onward, how much more will the soul of starbucks continue to pioneer corporate/social responsibility initiatives like energy efficiency, water stewardship and the rest? >> you know, i've said some things in the last few weeks publicly about the responsibility of corporations in america. and let me say it this way, is we all have parity in the

marketplace in terms of products, organizations, things that we do, and i feel very strongly that the consumer today has begun to make buying decisions not only on features and benefits of product and what things sell for, they're making companies stand for and whether those values are consistent with their own. so first and foremost it's very good business to embrace the social conscious of what a company needs to stand for. but what i said publicly was if i look at wisconsin, and i look at ohio about what's going on there, i think one thing that's evident to me is that we're living in a time when these states are having significant challenges with their operating budget. i'm told that the state of california might be $50 billion in debt. i don't know if it's true or not, but if it is, just think about the challenge they have. and as a result of that, it's very possible that states aren't going to be able to do the things they've done in the past, especially as it relates to the

legacy costs of certain issues. >> right. >> and i think that certain corporations in america are going to be asked to and are going to be required to do more. and i think the responsibility that i feel to the, to our people, the communities we serve, to the areas in which we buy coffee is that we have to demonstrate that the balance of building a great, enduring company is not just making money. it's a pretty shall doe goal. making -- shallow goal. making money and giving back and as a result of that we will be a better company -- >> there's a very good chapter in the book and more than just one, but benevolence is the one that comes to mind. but also part of the proceeds of the book are going to two funds within starbucks, one internal and one external. can you tell us a little bit 20 years, that corporate foundation is focused on a number of things.

about people that are being left behind domestically and internationally and things that we want to do that we feel deep ri about. the other thing is we've had an emergency fund in our company for over a decade which we call the cup fund. it's managed by a group of starbucks people, not by senior leaders, and that cup fund is designed to help those people in need both in terms of their personal crisis or things that happen as a result of things that are out of their control. a good example of that is the cup fund's contribution that we just made to the people of japan, especially those people when are affected who are wearing the green apron. the situation in japan is dire, and it's going to be a long time before the people of japan can respond to that catastrophe. >> so the cup fund provides some assistance. >> exactly. >> as well as the other bigger foundation and other efforts. >> and both have made significant contributions back

to japan. >> thank you very much for that. >> you're welcome. >> you, bill gates, steve jobs, other leaders can solidify yourselves as ceo and make sweeping changes quickly partly due to your connection within the company. what advice would you give to a less tenured leader attempting such large, strategic shifts? >> that's a big question. >> yep. [laughter] >> i think at the height of the crisis, and i mention in the book i wasn't sleeping and i was quite concerned. there were points where i was, actually, quite depressed. and it's hard to insulate yourself from the outside world that is constantly beating the drum whether it was wall street, the media or competitors saying starbucks is done, you know? the bloom is off the rose, the best days are over. i think the leader today must provide vision and hope and aspiration for the organization. and people need to understand

what their role and responsibility is. and then, i think, you have to answer a rhetorical question in the affirmative, and that is what is in it for you? people need to understand that this is -- you're not doing this for the corporation. you're doing this for one another. and i think you've got to reduce it down to the lowest common denominator and insure the fact that people understand that when you do this action, when you make this change that we collectively are going to participate in the success of the company and that the finish line of success is not going to occur for a select few, and i think when i think about the company and i think about the discipline within starbucks of marketing, manufacturing, real estate, design, the most important discipline in the entire company and a person who must have a seat at the table with all of the strategic issues is human resources. >> well, so yesterday i'm with a corporate exec here and going through some difficult times.

and his question was or maybe his observation, i'm not sure if i'm making the changes fast enough or too fast. when you look back using that 20/20 hindsight, did you move too fast, or did you not move fast enough, or were you right where you needed to be? >> i don't think all the decisions are equal. i think people within the company during a crisis need a decisive leader. but not everything can be made in a decisive fashion. but if you're not making, if you're not making a decision quickly, i think you have to explain to the organization why it's taking long and what the issues are. i think one of the things that i did do in the first year is i heavily communicated to the organization both in as much physical meetings like this one as well as in small groups, and i was writing a weekly e-mail to the entire company in terms of the progress reports and the

issues at hand. and i entitled that transformation number one, two, three, and it went all the way up. and people started looking for that memo as kind of a litmus test about how we're doing. and also i was pouring my heart out to explain exactly what i was feeling and what the issues were. now, the people on the outside read some of these things, and i think they were skeptical that it was too touchy-feely and why is he doing that, but i wasn't writing it for the outside world. i was writing it for the person in the company who perhaps is working 30 hours a week in the store and needs to understand what it is we're trying to do and why and be able to explain it when asked to the customer. >> when you look for talent within the company, upper levels, partners, right on through all of the stores, how is, how is who you're finding changing over the years? are you getting more qualified people, or are you having to do more intensive training of the people? where, where do you see the work force in america going?

>> the senior team that was developed in the last year and a half, the majority of the nine people who replaced the nine that left came from the outside. but i, but i needed a skill base and an experience well beyond the size of the company, and i also needed people with like-minded values. but we can't preserve and enhance the culture of the company by keep taking outside talent. and so there has been and continues to be a high level of understanding, of identifying young, emerging talent in the company and then creating career development for them. and i think we've become very, very good at that over the past year. in addition to that, we send a fair number of people overseas to insure the fact that the culture and values of the company are being imprinted in geographies and areas of the world that are very different than america. >> when -- it's unreasonable to expect that the local starbucks could be involved in chambers of

commerce and business organizations and the rest, but talk to us a little bit about the role and importance that you place and the company places on being involved in business organizations. >> i think that if starbucks is not locally relevant in every community that we serve, then we will become a faceless corporation of a chain of stores. where the you ubiquity will be e brand. we don't want that. so we have tried in every community where the manager and the district manager has the authority and the responsibility to engage locally, fill an dropically and organizationally. and i think we've dope a very good job of -- done a very good job of that over the years. >> howard, your in day two of the book tour that's going to take you around the world. you really shared candidly quite a bit of what was going on during some very difficult times in the company, a company that everyone in this room and millions of people around the country and around the world have a connection to, an

emotional attachment to, they care about your company. it must be very rewarding for you. strikes me as i was going through this that whoever it was that leaked the memo probably did it to try and stick it to you. but in some bizarre twist it may have been the greatest thing that ever happened to starbucks by giving you that push to say, well, now the word's out. maybe i have to personally back it up by getting revolved. and i will tell you, personally, we're thrilled to have had you here, and i'm very glad you stepped back into starbucks to take the reins and take the company back and give it back it soul. thank you very much. >> thank you. [applause] thank you very much. >> visit booktv.org to watch any of the programs you see here online. type the author or book title in the search bar on the upper left side of the page and click search. you can also share 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 top nonfiction books and authors. booktv.org. >> up next on booktv, bradford martin presents a history of political activism during the 1980s. he explores many of the decade's political movements from aids activism and the nuclear freeze campaign to the denouncement of american corporate recommendations with south africa's apartheid government. this is about 45 minutes. [applause] >> thank you. so i want to thank books on the square for having me here and my publisher, hill and wang, for helping put the event together. and i was encouraged to do some readings from, from the book. and what i'd like to do is a

couple, couple readings from the introduction and then a couple from inside the book. and i think a good thing to start off with would be sort of the story of the book's origins, and happily enough, the very first paragraph tells that story, so i'm just going to start with that. this book started with a challenge: discussing the modest output of historical literature on the 1980s. an editor friend of mine announced any book on the '80s inevitably turns into a reagan book. a substantial portion of his assertion rang true. in many ways the singular figure of ronald wilson reagan, the most popular president in a generation, dominated national life during the decade. the president's advocates credited him with monumental accomplishments, no less than restoring prosperity, regaining national pride and spearheading cold war victory.

the beaming accounts of his presidency and achievements only intensified after his death in 2004 generating a wave of affection, tributes in the popular media. still, a look at the vicissitudes of presidential popularity during reagan's two terms reveals that a sizable swath of the american public disapproved of the way he handled his job, even at moments of his greatest triumph. this suggests that there was more to the story, that there was another 1980s, its history buried under the narrative of ascendancy. the gauntlet thrown down at my feet, i picked it up, determined to tell the untold account of the decade's opposition. the very next sentence is, the task is more daunting than i'd imagined, and i go on to sort of review all of the literature that's been published so far, scholarly literature so far on

reagan and conservativism in the '80s, much of which is, you know, very good and insightful. and i say that, you know, of course, rather than, you know, rejecting this literature, i want to build on it and further it. but what i say at the end of that is that one thing all those books had in common that was sort of unsatisfactory for my purposes was that, was a profound reagano centrism is what i came up with. and i go on to say that this book examines the less-told story of americans who opposed the decade's prevailing political ties so that -- and then i frame a series of questions designed to be the sort of questions that lead the inquiry in this book. what was the nature of opposition to reagan conservativism in the '80s? what recurring themes, idea and

sensibilities infused it? what were its accomplishments? limitations and downright failures? and why has this opposition been so overshadowed in the decade's dominant their tiff? -- narrative? is and then i go on to say that trying to answer these questions necessarily involves stepping out of the realm of orthodox politics because, and then there's a whole long paragraph about sort of the impotence of the mainstream democratic party in the 1980s, and that's sort of epitomized by the name, i decided to call them the dunderring democrats in the text. okay. so this is the other little section i'd like to just read out right where i get to the my central argument is statement. so for this reason the other '80s focuses on the opposition

to reagan conservativism broadly construed. this encompasses a range of voices and expressions, those who pursued claims in traditional politics lobbying congress and celebrating geraldine ferraro as the fist woman on a major party political ticket and those who fought their battles in the humanizing realm. from bruce springsteen to the angry artists of grand fury and their expressions of rage at inadequate government response to the aids epidemic. my central argument is despite the decade's reputation for conservative ascendancy and reagan's personal popularity, there was another '80s, one in which the opposition played a key role. often this involved playing defense. often this role involved playing defense, engage anything a tactical struggle to preserve the liberal and progressive gains of the '60s and '70s.

black mayors' initiatives to make municipal government more responsive to their constituencies and pro-choice women's efforts to protect abortion rights against an ever more conservative federal judiciary and a virulent pro-life countermovement exemplify the struggle for field position. above and beyond responding to reagan's foreign policy, '80s activists tempered and constrained the most bellicose and ambitious aspects of the administration's designs. it's a notable outcome of this era, for instance, that americans do not speak of a nicaragua war. and then one thing that they were saying before i get to the inside of the book is that from there, from the sort of idea about playing defense and being progressive/liberal movements being defensive in the '80s, i go on to actual gains and

victories in the realm from popular culture, higher education, etc. so what i want to do just to give a sampling of the inside of the book is read a couple quick selections from sort of recognizable figures and actors and characters in the '90s -- '80s and then towards the end, you know, talk about the last chapter is about act up and the last selections from act up, and in some ways that's even more representative of the spirit of the other '80s. the first of these passages is from what more or less amounts to the chapter on popular culture in the '80s, and

liveaid is featured and has a pretty large section. and then there's a section called the gipper and the boss, and that's what i'm reading from. that sort of tells the story of, well, i'll just read this little passage. so at a 1984 new jersey rally looking to cement his lead over the democratic presidential candidate, walter mondale, and enhance his legitimacy in a traditionally democratic, industrial state, ronald reagan grasped at the star power of a favorite son. america's future rests in a thousand dreams inside your heart, the president exhorsed. it rests in the message of hope and songs of a man so many young americans admire, new jersey's own bruce springsteen. in a warm gesture of ingray shake, reagan summarized, in and helping you make those dreams come true is what this job of mine is all about. then segwayed into a love fest

with the audience as reagan ticked off the list of his administration's achievements, supporters were prompt today reply, "usa." to untrained eyes and ears, this spect call resembled spring steven's own ledge jind dare -- general -- more savvy onlookers recognized the irony in the president's attempt to cloak himself in the popular rocker's reputation. why should a republican cold war era and conservative family values advocate try to ride the coat tails of a working class hero rock star, a sympathetic chronicler of serial murders, laid-off autoworkers turned criminals and nostalgic losers? and so i go on to, you know, talk about the 1984 was the year bruce springsteen's "born in the

usa" album was released with the best-selling single from that album, "born in the usa." and there's a big juncture between, of course, the chorus and the verses of that song where the chorus can be taken and was taken and appropriated as the patriotic affirmation the verses told the story of a downtrodden vietnam vet. and so there's a lot of, a lot of commentary on that, and the conservative column george will tries to sort of claim, claim springsteen for reaganism and the right, and that part of the story's pretty well known of gipper and the boss. what's less well known is the way in which that incident or that episode really transformed bruce springsteen's career which

is that on that tour it really led to his, his politicization and sort of being public about it. and he ends up not only speaking politically to live audiences more and more about both domestic matters and foreign policy, but he ends up sort of acting it out through really with, of course, the help of his staff researching local groups that help the unemployed, labor unions, homeless, down the line. and using his concert as a platform to talk about the work of local organizations and, by the way, raising 10-$25,000 a night for those organizations. so it was a transitional moment for him as well, and it's sort

of indicative of some of this, some of this complexity about the '80s where you have this, you know, even these expressions of sort of angst about the direction of the country as in some of springsteen's songs can be appropriated for conservative causes, and yet at the same time there's an undercurrent of criticism that speaks back to that. okay. another, another figure that is recognizable that a big section of one chapter revolves around is jesse jackson. and when i just said that, you know, jesse jackson i'm sure provoked in different people different reactions, and there's

actually a comment in the here from a former jackson aide that speaks to that and it says, he repels and attracts in equal measure. if you feel like you want an argument, go to any tafn and say the same, jesse jackson. so with that as a starter and an opening, i go on to talk about his two campaigns for the democratic presidential nomination, the somewhat largely symbolic one in 1984 even though he denied that it was symbolic, and the much more legitimate one in 1988. and i just want to read you the sort of clinching paragraph of that section. the summary paragraph. jackson was far from the perfect candidate. still, even in the his ultimate defeat and mobilization behind dukakis -- remember dukakis? [laughter] behind dukakis' candidacy as in

1984, jackson injected the moribund democratic discussion with progressive, moral convictions about economic justice and stopping militaristic interventionist foreign policy. in doing so, he kept the fire alive for what howard dean a generation later called the democratic wig of the democratic -- wing of the democratic party. additionally, as several observers apprehended at the time, jackson played an important trailblazing role for future minority candidates. one columnist el eyesed, no one who has seen the white hands of farmers and the elderly straining to see jackson could doubt that his campaign would leave the country less racist that at founding adding, though, that jackson may have to settle for being the one on whose shoulders others stand to climb through. so there's much in the sort of mainstream politics of the

'80s or much mainstream democratic politics that's actually pretty resonant with the last presidential election and go around. and the next little section that i wanted to read from is another one of those, those resonant episodes. and this is about as mainstream as the book gets. in terms of describing the '80s opposition. and that's the historic vice presidential nomination of geraldine ferraro in 1984. and one of my favorite sort of groups of sources in the book that i used, i made a trip to the manhattan college with are the geraldine ferraro archive

was, and ferraro was an alum of mary mount manhattan. ask there are all kinds of let -- and there are all kinds of letters from women in all 50 states and dozens of foreign countries about the importance of that campaign to them and the women. and before i just read a sampling from a couple of those letters, just a little, i guess, back to the past just to reset, reset your mindset in 1984 for a second. so when i'm setting the scene, i said that "newsweek" ran a 25-page special -- this is when in the 1984 as soon as mondale announced that geraldine ferraro would be sharing the ticket with him. and i say "newsweek" ran a 25-page special report documenting all aspects of how mondale popped the question to the frosted blond. [laughter]

to be fair, the hokey references to the candidate's sex and the gender apg anxietity didn't begin and end with the press but were shared by politicians and the american people. on the campaign trail digging for southern votes, ferraro suffered a query that her blueberry muffin-baking capabilities. ferraro remarked, you probably never met a female vice presidential candidate before. so i go on to talk about the '84 campaign and ferraro's role in it. and as i'm sort of summing up the aftermath of the drubbing that that ticket took, i salvaged some of the, some of

the meaning it had really for the women that had been her supporters as well as a couple of republican women as well testify to the meaning she held for them. and that was one of my techniques, actually, in that chapter is that i tried to find letters from, i guess what most of us would consider, you know, in contemporary speak sort of red state women, more conservative parts of the country to sort of make the case that, you know, this was not as i try to do throughout the book really the other ooh -- '80s wasn't just a story of both coasts, you know, but that there was considerable support in the heartland as well and other parts of the country. so just a sampling. a republican woman from alabama not only declared that she could not have been any prouder had

ferraro been the gop candidate, she compared the vice presidential run to a first step on the moon for american women. and then a kansas woman expressed gratitude for, to ferraro for inspiring her to transcend what she had assumed to be the professional limits of her career. my female colleagues and i never cease to be amazed at how you have altered our perceptions of ourselves, she wrote. it has never happened in our adult lifetime that we derived such pride from a public figure. okay. and then really the final selection that i wanted to read from is from the last chapter of the book, and that's the chapter about act up, and it's worth just saying the title of that chapter.

shock troops of direct action, act up confronts the aids crisis. one of the sort of subthemes through the book, one of the, one of the patterns of opposition that the '80s opposition takes is this sort of strange sort of dance with '60s activism. and sort of ambivalence to it. or at least public ambivalence to it. and sort of uncannily i found in a lot of cases publicly a lot of '80s activists that i profile in the book on the face of it to kind of disavow the '60s in a lot of ways or at least say, you know, we weren't really focusing on it, we weren't really drawing on the 'of -- '60s, you know, for our tactics, culture and things like that. but at the same time a lot of

the way that the tactics and the strategies actually happened in some of these '80s movements uncannily parallel their '60s forbearers. so whether it was conscious or not -- and sometimes it was and sometimes it wasn't -- those, a lot of those tactics and strategies sort of ingrained themselves in the culture to the extent that '80s activists were available to sort of draw on them and sort of knew them via, almost via os osmosis. so more specifically, one of the things i talk about in that first book is sort of gorilla theater in the '60s and symbolic protests, theatrical politics, and there's some act up episodes where they take a page from the playbook of the hippies and the diggers and groups like that.

including this one. in one episode act up infiltrated the republican national convention using fake badges secured by ingratiating themselves with the kinko's staff. in another episode, in another more elaborate guerrilla theater ruse, act up members invented fake names and posed as republican women to gain admit tense to a club where new york senator alfonse demat toe was speaking. an act up member wore later red shift and these really cute papa gallo shoes. inventing a cover story to explain her nose ring, she told the guests that her father had served in india during the nixon administration. [laughter] when d' amato began, they stripped away the costumes to

reveal giant buttons proclaiming lesbians for bush. [laughter] and stood up an assortment of posters and fliers. so theatrical protests was part of the package with act up. in terms of really act up's big accomplishments, though, really sort of the light they shed on expedient, you know, testing and approval, approval process for, you know, promising aids drugs was one of the biggest accomplishments. and the very last paragraph of the body of the book, there's a brief sort of conclusion, epilogue after, but the very last sort of paragraph of the body of the book really gets at some of that. plus some of the value of '80s activism, and i'll take q&a after this one. so this is really encompassing a lot of the spirit of the book.

many act up activists locate the group's most important achievement in its drugs into bodies initiative. the successful pressure to reform the fda's practices for the testing, approval and availability of new medications. the impact on the health care bureaucracy and changing the course of public debate surrounding aids. yet these considerable accomplishments represent only part of the group's legacy. act up also raised the public visibility of the aids epidemic and improved the image of gay men and lesbians at a time when more hostile responses roiled just beneath and sometimes above the surface. jean -- all the people mentioned are people that were active in the act up -- jean observes, it did an enormous amount to shake up people about their homophobia. are you so homophobic that you're really glad these folks are dying, she said, moreover

act up reenchanted activism itself. pioneering innovations in political art, video documentation of activism, organizational strategy, sexual politics and approaches to the media, this provided a powerful object lesson in the value of activism, educating a whole generation of people with the sense that activism works as one of them said. michael observes that act up became a vehicle for younger people to get a sense of what it means to be politically active and to presume some power that they can impact the political life of our culture. mark harrington concurred, citing his own experience. before act up i didn't have any faith in mass political action, in the any political action. i thought that politics was the realm of hypocrisy and shallow platitudes. by contrast, harrington remarked

on, what impressed him about act up: i was in a roomful of young people who didn't subscribe to the media's view that our generation was apolitical, careerist and materialistic. and anybody could speak. anybody could run for office. it was like ancient athens. the act up -- that act up managed such an achievement at a time when the mainstream political culture was a raid against them testifies to the group's remarkable efficacy. [applause] thanks. >> thank you, professor martin. if you have any questions, please, stand up so you can be heard. yes? >> thanks for sharing that, first of all, and i look forward to reading this book. it sounds like it's going to be really interesting. i'm wondering, though, if you could talk a little bit about if you think the '80s are unique in this way.

are the other '80s more important than the other' 50s? is there something different from the 20th century in this sense? >> well, yes, because i think, you know, all the acclaim certainly post-2004 and the acclaim of ray began and you're going to -- reagan and you're going to hear it next week on the 30th anniversary of the assassination attempt, you know, really positions him as the most important and influential, you know, president since fdr and, therefore, the '80s becomes the most important transitional, transformative period in american politics since the '30s in a lot of ways. so i think it is, i think it does have, you know, it stands out among decades with the '30s in a way, and for that reason the story of the other

'80s, you know, deserves to be told to get the full picture. all the more. yes, jeff. >> the other '80s people you talk about it, you make a good case for the aids activists and homosexual rights, but i don't think they won. reagan is followed by bush who's a little more moderate, followed by clinton who is middle of the road democrat who's followed by a very conservative cheney and bush who are followed by i don't know what he is, obama. who is the democrats' democrat? i mean, have the democrats, in fact, ever revived, recovered

from the carter years? >> well, i think part of what i'm trying to get at sort of is, you know, i'm telling the story of, you know, what happens to the left, what happens to liberalism and what's generally acknowledged as a conservative epic. and i think the value of doing that has to do with sort of illustrating the push and pull and the, as i was saying, as i was talking about in the introduction, this idea of playing defense. and i think it amounts to, i think it amounts to sort of a statement on behalf of, you know, the value of being engaged. in a lot of ways. and certainly in the epilogue i go sort of chapter by chapter and say whatever sort of

movement or episode i discuss in that chapter, you know, what the lasting accomplishments were. and i do do some, you know, speculation about obama. the last time i got to revise the epilogue before it went to print was roughly a year ago now. and so health care had just gone through. i didn't really have the, you know, i didn't really have the -- this is the pitfalls of doing recent history, right? is that, you know, i certainly could have anticipated, but i didn't really have the opportunity to, you know, really delve into things like the rise of the tea party or the tremendous backlash that the health care occasioned. so, but, you know, one thing i

do say is the kind of sort of rescue and the kind of government involvement to the financial crisis of 2008 i say this epilogue that obama pursued, the fact that it was, you know, able to at least go through before the backlash that we now know its has engendered was a testimony to the, you know, the incomplete reagan revolution. so that's my best answer to that question. so i just think it's always a push and pull, nothing ever happens very fast. the victories are never, never complete. and even on the other side, though, you know, certainly say the clinton administration is a more, ends up being a more centrist, you know, democratic administration. you know, even as the republicans manage to shift the

center to the right, and that would be an example, you know, those victories are not -- are incomplete, and that's the, that's really the evidence for the value of remaining engaged on this side. yes. >> i'm curious to hear your thoughts, and i guess i should preface my start of the question with my, my understanding and the way that i've come to think about politics in the late 20th century politics and opposition and so on and earlier parts is if you look -- you mentioned the 1930s, and you look at what's animate ago lot of the protest movement, it's really tied into economics, right? it's the great depression, obviously, but a lot of that comes out of the populist movement or a lot of it comes out of even some of the

progressive movement and so on. economics is really animating, you know, the heydey of the communist party and so on in the united states and the right. and when i look at the conservative era from, you know, the 1970s on up until, you know, until the present day really, one of the things that it seems to me about that era is that economics gets sort of removed from stuff, you know? and that everybody sort of has this baseline assumption that, you know, the free market reigns supreme, and, you know, and this is -- and they sort of, these formerly conservative ideas about opposition to government regulation, opposition to, you know, all those things leading to government intervention in the market and that come about with the new deal, that's sort of what, you know, reagan and the conservatives really wanted to achieve, and they didn't care as much about, you know, despite lip service to cultural issues whether it was abortion or gay

rights. so, you know, i'm wondering if you would agree with the idea that, you know, part of the focus and what you're describing in here what they do is they operate in this realm outside of economics sort of that allows for some of those generational shifts that we see now in terms of acceptance of things like gay marriage, in terms of, you know, acceptance of different roles for women, you know and so on here. but i wonder, you know, if consequence of that is losing sight of some of that economic side of progressivism and so on. i don't know if that makes sense as a question or not. >> no, no, that's a great question, and actually, there was a lot of the answer contained in the question. you could definitely come up here and answer it. [laughter] i do, you know, point out that, i sort of distinguish between --

and maybe this sheds some light on the previous question as well -- between politics and political economy where, you know, especially national politics where the triumph of conservativism was more clear cut, and this sort of more subtle realm of culture and social change were, again, you know, many of the social and cultural changes and transformations of the '60s and '70s were deepened and really ratified in the '80s and beyond, you know, with gar liberation, you know, it being the status of gay americans, you knowing being a great example. it's interesting how you framed that at the end of the question about, you know, is the consequence of these issues more sort of economic justice. and, you know, maybe that's true. especially if you, you know,

take it forward into the next -- the book sort of in terms of periodization, my '80s cuts off at 1992, and the clinton administration. it seems like there are some things, you know, that george h.w. bush administration i want to talk about. i talk about the gulf war a little bit. in the book. some of act up's activities are in the later '80s and car carry on into the '90s. but things seem to change with the clinton administration. there you really do have, you know, a democratic president and administration that's sort of committed to the, you know, liberalism, the free market principles and, you know, welfare reform and things of this nature. so the, i think that's a good way of framing it, that

potentially, you know, the economic outlook is maybe a casualty of that social and cultural transformation. which is not to minimize the social and cultural transformation. >> absolutely not. >> >> you know? >> yeah. so from what i've heard what do you think are the primary accomplishments of the groups that you chronicle, i mean long-term accomplishments of the group that is you chronicle, you know, in the book? >> yeah. boy, so, you know, i could go through group by group. maybe i should talk about some of the -- >> the one you mentioned. >> maybe i should talk about some of the ones that i haven't mentioned. like, for instance, the nuclear freeze which is the first chapter, the nuclear freeze movement that has this big sort of explosion as this grassroots social movement in the early '80s only to be sort of

co-opted by its democratic so-called allies in congress and, you know, passed in a very watered-down version. but it does get issues of arms control onto the map and into the public debate. and, you know, even though reagan shrewdly manages to seize the upper hand with his, you know, star wars strategic defense initiative after that despite the fact that it didn't seem to have much, you know, connection to the landscape of what was really possible, but it allowed him to claim that he was, you know, for arms control too. but it's very different than how reagan came into office where he was bossing that he -- boasting that he had opposed every, you know, arms control measure, you know, to that point. so that, that's okay. so getting arms control onto,

into the public discussion, that's one kind of achievement. if you go to the last chapter that group that i did talk about, the act up, i mean, i think there are some clear-cut things there. there's some reform and, you know, testing and approval process for aids drugs. there's also, which i didn't mention, some of the act up people that get involved in researching the issues of these aids drugs get so sort of in the do-it-yourself way get so technically proficient at these issues that they manage to, you know, become part of the, they manage to professionalize their interest in this it and get jobs in health care that effect, you know, policy that effects the issues that they're, that they care about. so, and that's, you know, the

chapter that ferraro's this that really -- ferraro's in that really deals with, basically, what happens to feminism in the '80s. that's part of the story as well, sort of the professionalization and institutionalization of a lot of things that were really radical in the '60s and '70s and done in a very grassroots and ad hoc way. sexual harassment, you know, with -- there was, the term didn't even exist until 1975, right? when these feminist focus groups, you know, came up with it. by the end of the '80s, you know, the majority of fortune 500 companies had, you know, training and programs in sexual harassment awareness. and the law of the land, important supreme court decisions had come down not only on the side of unwelcome advances, but also hostile work environment. things of that, so the law was more spelled out.

so that's a sampling, i think. yes. >> your book mentioned there was a -- i mean, it may be big now, but then it was a smaller, parallel movement on the right. oddly enough, not everyone on the right was happy with ronald reagan. i mean, they hated the panama canal treaty, some of them didn't like the concern. concern -- [inaudible] they were upset about sandra day o'connor's appointment to the supreme court. but i guess partly because of roe v. wade really got organized so that there was more of a, you know, mobilization on to the right of the reagan administration. >> um, that's one of those things that, as they say, is outside the scope of the book.

but will say that in one review that's out already that the reviewer says that's the story that really needs to be told is the, you know, the organization on the right during that era as well. >> [inaudible] >> yeah. could be, could be. okay. thanks. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> this event was hosted by books on the square in providence, rhode island. find out more at booksq.com. >> we're here talking with lindsay boyd of the independent institute about the upcoming books they have coming out. >> yes. we've got a number of exciting new books coming out. we've got two new, two new books

that are being rereleased. we've got "beyond politics," and we're going to be releasing it coming early april. we'll be doing some heavy promotion for that. it's a classic book. it's something that all students should read, students who are interested in learning a little bit more about free market principles and the foundations of our democracy and how those principles apply to the current political atmosphere. "beyond politics" is absolutely essential. we just released "the new holy wars" with bob nelson, and he did an event featuring the dichotomy between economic religion and environmental religion. so we've got, also, "habeas corpus" coming out with anthony gregory who's a new author, so we're very excited about that. and we'll be, we'll be kind of -- we'll be investigating some new works early in the fall, but we've got some

exciting, exciting projects on the horizon. one to look out for next year would be a book that's, that we're terming the dirty dozen for now, but it's going to take a look at the dirtiest dozen government failures over the past 100 years. so that should be, that should be very interesting, something definitely to keep, to keep in mind. >> now, tell me, does the institute have its own press, or do they publish through someone elsesome explain how this works. >> the institute does publish our own books. we also work with outside publishers, so as you see here some of our books are self-published. the institute's published against leviathan, "lessons from the poor." but we have also worked with over -- with other publishers including housing america and liberty nor safety are both with outside publishers. but we do both. >> thank you very