from that is that just as what we were doing wasn't, eldn't bt thought thi .. so, what we hear from the information that we get coming out of the prison situation in guantanamo i don't think we're even hearing the of it. >> do you guys feel that, last question here and quick answers. a lot of the freedom riders i spoke with over the last three, four years felt i think disconnected the from politics in a way they were obviously much more connected in the 60s. do you sense that one of the things that obama has done is to sort of rekindle that sense of a positive,

possible progress or connection that people can make with politics and politicians? >> that's an easy one. >> okay. sorry. >> i think as a teacher at a university what i see is that the youngsters today are completely, they're of a completely different mind set than they were just a few years ago. just a decade ago. they're beginning i think we're beginning to see a page turn and i think the students are willing to ask me questions that i used to have to beg them to ask me. i used to have to push at them. i used to have to make them realize that this is their world and if they don't change it, if they don't stand up for it they're going to lose whatever this experiment was supposed to be about. the freedom riders believe more in this country than the people who were trying

to protect whatever they were trying to protect down south. because the american dream, if it is going to work, it's going to work for everybody or it's not going to work for anybody. and the students i think are beginning to get it again. when i first started teaching it seemed to me that they were more aware. then there was this lag period. i called it the reagan period where people just sort of bowed up -- bowed out and now they're coming back. they're actually coming up and saying things to me which gives me a lot of optimism. >> lou you said when we talked a long time ago our first conversation about taking some of the things you learned from the civil rights movement and using them in your work with kids here in new york. can you do that very quickly. >> that would be hard eric. >> okay. >> but let me just quickly a lot of my experiences were not just in jail, but i spent time in jackson, mississippi, nashville with

young african-american teenagers my age, a little younger and i guess what i remember most painfully there was a young man whose name was luis miller in nashville, tennessee. i was staying at his house. luis was 14, i was 19 i think. he was an editor of a newspaper in nashville. he was the youngest newspaper editor in america. he had been on tv on the dave, today show. i was so proud to be with him in his home. and he and i took a walk one day and he said to me, lou, do you think i could go to school with white folks. i said what are you talking about? you're editor of a newspaper. and that's something that was so profoundly upset me and understood what racism does to people and i found the movement too okay yot quick too crazy so when i came back to new york i decided i was going to work with the lewis millers of this world as i needed someone to work with me when i was his age and help them understand that they have value and help them reach

for the stars. so that's i guess what the movement, what i took from the movement back to my work. >> that's great. all right. well, thank you all three very much. >> every sunday at 5 p.m. eastern booktv airs a program from our archives that coincides with a significant occasion that happened that week in history. check out american history television on c-span3 or create c-span.org/history. ah tv features 48 hours of people and events that help document the american story. >> get the booktv schedule e-mailed to you. to sign up, use our web site, booktv.org, and press the alert button. or use your mobile phone. text the word book to 99702. standard message and data rates apply. >> next on booktv, a program from the tennessee williams new

orleans literary festival. a panel on real life drama, creating compelling nonfiction. this is about an hour and 15 minutes. >> well, we're here to discuss the genre of nonfiction writing, and we have three practitioners of that art form with us, so allow me to introduce them. immediately to my right is patricia brady. she is a social and cultural historian who has published extensively on first ladies, women, free people of color, cemeteries, literature and the arts of the south. a texan, she came to new orleans in 1961 and has live inside the city ever since. she received a ph.d. from tulane and taught history at dillard university. she founded and was director of the publications department at the historic new orleans collection for 20 years. just published this year, in 2011, are two books, "being so gentle: the frontier love story

of rachel and andrew jackson" by palgrave macmillan publishing, and another book, julia hudson, the wife of a creole artist. her biography of martha washington, "an american life," was published by viking penguin in 2005. and immediately to her right is ian mcalty, and i should say the program today had initially listed it would be discussing abraham lincoln and an author about lincoln's journey to new orleans when he was a 19-year-old. the writer, richard campanella, found another opportunity in paris -- [laughter] so he's not with us today. but we're very privileged to have another northerner who came down river to new orleans. but he decided to stay as opposed to abraham lincoln. so ian is a new orleans-based journalist and radio commentator.

his previous books is a narrative about the tenuous months of life in new orleans following hurricane katrina. he's a columnist for our news weekly gambit, and the monthly new orleans magazine. and he writes for many other pub hi cases and web sites. his most recent book is louisiana rambles, exploring the america's cajun and creole heartland. we also have freddi williams evans. she's an alumna of college in mississippi where as a music major she began studying traditional african music and travel today the university of ghana at acura. she continued her studies in if africa. she's the award-winning author of three children's books, "a bus of our own," and "hush harbor: praying in secret," published in 2008. her most recent publication which is just now debuting is

"congo scare." and evans has presented lectures at schools, museums and festivals. and finally we have rowan jacobsen, the james beard award-winning author of such books as the geography of oysters, the living shore and and he has written about food plays in the natural world. his commentaries on the gulf crisis have appeared in outside magazine and "the new york times." he was raised in florida and attended school on the gulf coast. his newest book focuses on the gulf of mexico, and it's "peril: following the deepwater horizon oil spill in 2010." so let's begin by talking about the larger nature of nonfiction writing. um, i've decided to start with a quote from national book award winner peter matheson. he's a novelist and a nonfiction writer, and he once said in

nonfiction you have a limitation that constraint of telling the truth. so i want to ask our writers, is there a constraint in writing nonfiction, and if there is, how do you overcome that and make your story that you want to tell compelling to readers? so, pat, i'll start with you. >> i think the first thing you have to do is to imagine that you're talking to a circle of really good friends, really smart friends who are interested in whatever you're talking about. and if you think of it as engaging your audience, people who truly care about rachel jackson and her love affair with andrew and whether she was married or not married when they ran off. if you realize they care, then it makes you care all the more. and, no, you can't, you can't make up things. you can't have dialogue in which she says, andy, i'm yorn. you know?

[laughter] you still have to make it as immediate and as real as you can. >> well, i come from a background in journalism, and i was lucky to start my writing career without a stack of journalism training or classes or even a student newspaper or anything. i started because of one editor in a small town newspaper who needed a warm body and was willing to train me. what she instilled in me always was consider the reader. it seems basic, but if you keep that in the front of your mind in whatever you're writing, it's always worked for me. it's about -- not about telling your source's story necessarily, but telling, telling the story to the reader, you know? why do they care about this, what are they trying to get out of this? they're giving you teem by reading you -- whether they write a book or see something online or read the newspaper. so what did they come here to get? and it's, you know, this is maybe more of a journalistic approach than a history approach, but that's the approach i've taken in my books

and i try to keep in the fore front of my mind, what is the reader going to get out of this? it's not necessarily about me or the source, what's the person who's given you their time if not their money to get? >> great. for me the key is to really know the subject well to begin with. that means to do extensive research, reading, sometimes i feel that, you know, i have to make myself start reading, stop researching. but once i know the subject and i proceed as if i'm telling the story. and that has helped me, especially with my children's books. you know, if i'm just sitting down talking to students which is what i do on a regular basis in schools, and just tell them the interesting parts, start out cooking them, of course, we know about hooking and bringing them into the story. so the information is informing, but also entertaining. and i think that is the key, knowing the research and then just telling the story. >> i'll second what all three of the other panelists have said.

but i like what ian said about consider the reader because i, every morning i wake up, take a big gulp and consider the reader and know that i need to create something that's compelling, especially in these days. i don't know if you guys have followed the whole electronic reading revolution, but e-readers -- whether you're talking about ipads or iphones or kindles -- are already making up 10% of book sales. and that came out of nowhere. that's mostly in the past year. and within a few years, they're going to make up 50% of book sales. and when you're reading a book on an ipad or an iphone, it's very easy to flip to a video game or to check your mail or anything else. so more than ever i think about creating compelling nonfiction. and for me i, like, when you can think about considering the reader, it's always a bit of a strip tease in a way. [laughter] you know, like the dance of the seven veils.

you need to catch the reader's attention, grab the reader's attention right off the bat, like freddi said. and then you really have to think about what you reveal and when to keep the reader hooked. and mysteries, mystery novels are actually, i think, a great model for all sorts of nonfiction writing. in terms of keeping the reader hooked. >> well, let me just respond to that for a second. >> certainly. >> as an historian, people will say to me have you read the latest book on the civil war? no. i read histories for work. what i read for fun is mysteries. we were brought up as little mystery readers with agatha christie and went on. it's perfect training for a historian. you want to dig out the story, you want to find the answers, follow the clues, and then once you do it, you want to dole it out to the readers in the same way. hook them and keep them hooked. don't let them get to their video games, you're so right.

[laughter] >> absolutely. and i can confirm that each of these writers is a master of doing that. each chapter does have a cliffhanger, so to speak, and you can't wait to get to the next portion. so, obviously, our writers here have cover add broad array of topics, and we're going to try to link all these together in some fashion. but i want to talk first of pat. i have to confess, i just finished her book about rachel jackson this morning, and she is a truly intriguing forget. of course, we all -- figure. we all know about her husband, he graces the central square of our city. can you just tell us, pat, who was rachel jackson in her early years before she met andrew jackson? >> rachel jackson was a member of one of the founding white families of tennessee. and they went on an epic journey in the midwinter of 1779, which they got on a flat boat, and they traveled a thousand miles to get to nashville all through this chain of rivers going

through areas called the suck, the boiling pot. everything was terrible. so many people died. and when they finally got there, they never went back. she was part of that new generation that cut off the eastern seaboard and lived as pioneers. so that's who she was. she was a pioneer who lived in a log cabin like everybody else, lived in the forts who learned to do for themselves and to be very independent. a woman who couldn't handle a gun was just as useless as a man who couldn't sew. everybody had -- [laughter] to do everything. and so that's who she was. >> and she married relatively young, perhaps only -- not by our standards today, but that was a very unhappy first marriage. could you tell us about that as well? >> that chapter's called "a marriage made in hell." [laughter] and i'm sure many of us have experienced such things. [laughter]

the very thing that attracted her husband at first, her beauty, her flirtatiousness, her friendliness, drove him mad after they married. so they were just miserable. and eventually they did split up. she went back home to mama, and there she met andrew jackson. and after that it was clear to both of them that there was no going back. >> and they eloped. but there was some controversy surrounding the legal separation from her first husband. >> well, there, basically, was no legal separation actually. they practiced what the frontiersmen called self-marriage and self-divorce. there weren't any preachers, legal figures. people on the frontier didn't see any reason if you made a mistake to live with that mistake for 50 years of misery. [laughter] so they, she and andrew, ran off to spanish territory back then,

presented themselves as mr. and mrs. jackson, went back home. her family hated her first husband, they loved andrew jackson. they all said this is our daughter's husband. and so they simply declared it and made it so. a few years later the husband did get a legal divorce through his connections in the legislature, and then they legally got married. but they were together for four years before that time. >> and, unfortunately, that period came back to haunt them as andrew jackson's profile increased following the battle of new orleans. he was inevitably drawn into national politic and, of course, ran for president. could you tell us the story of their marriage and her first marriage came back to scandalize them. >> well, of course, america had changed incredibly. that's part of -- that's why i call it a frontier love story. because by 1828 when he ran for

president, the world had changed completely. the evangelical movement had swept through the west, and people had become part of what is today's bible belt. and so the mores were quite a bit different. there was no more self-marriage and self-divorce. but still it was not really known how their early life had been until the political enemies got at it. rachel jackson was the first wife of an american politician to be attacked in print. newspapers were as ugly back then as they are today, but they stuck to the candidates. you know, they said terrible things, but they left their wives alone. she was the first one. she was called an adult rest, a bigamist and a whore. it was charged that she could not be in the white house, that it would disgrace the nation. they said the only thing that would make it all right would be for him to take her back home and keep her out of the public sight. so it was horrible for a woman by this time, an elderly woman,

who had lived a life of great devotion, great piety to suddenly be held up in this humiliating way in the newspapers and to know that all your friends, all your family, every stranger had read about you. and when they looked at you, they were thinking about it. >> and did she publicly defend herself in any capacity? >> oh, no. no. women didn't speak in public then hardly at all. and she was definitely not one to speak, nor was he allowed to. his political handlers said much as you'd like to, you cannot challenge these men to a duel. you can't shoot one of them. and is he wanted to -- [laughter] he really wanted to shoot them. but he wasn't allowed to do that. they made him stay home too. so they did put out pamphlets and newspaper articles claiming that, in fact, they thought they were married, that it was just all a big mistake. which really i can't believe in the least. but that's what they said at the time. one of the major reasons i don't

believe it is that they never said where or by whom they were married. you know, if they had said, okay, we were married at springfield plantation outside nashville by a friend who was a justice of the peace, then that's a checkable thing. but if, in fact, things aren't true, giving facts just leads you to be found out. if you keep it vague, it's much more easy to let it go that way. so jackson was wounded to the core by what had happened to his wife, but he was unable to deal with it in any way that made him happy. but the truth is the american voters just didn't give a flip. they didn't care if they had been married or not married or eloped or what. he won an overwhelming victory, a huge, huge majority in popular vote and in electoral vote. it was a big scandal, the political classes chomped on it a lot. the people said, oh, well, and they voted for andrew jackson.

>> before we move on to our next writer, i just want to add tragically, rachel jackson never was able to serve as our first lady. she was married to the president-elect, but obviously not the president following his inauguration. she died in that period between election today and inauguration -- election day and inauguration. >> well, she died of a heart attack and was buried two days before christmas of 1828 in the gown that she had bought to wear to the inaugural ball. so the only time she wore it was in her coffin, and she was bury inside the garden at the hermitage, and thousands of people came to the funeral. and we keep hearing about hearts here, her heart broke. and jackson believed, literally, that her heart was broken by these very awful enemies who had held her up to such scorn. and then when he left to be inaugurated president and his friends were congratulating him, he just took off his hat with

his mourning streamers, and he said, boys, my heart is nearly broke. and then for the rest of his life he wore a miniature of rachel on a string around his neck next to his heart. it was all the story of heart between rachel and andrew. >> so, again, proof that nonfiction can certainly be a very compelling genre. we'll move on to ian. ian, your latest book is a travel log about your experiences traveling through rural louisiana. and i wanted to ask you, as you set out, was it difficult to pierce through the chamber of commerce presentation or the local tourism bureau to find the real louisiana, so to speak? >> no, it wasn't. i had, of course, read all the stuff all the time. and so often what it seems like when you get ready to go on a trip and are reading up on it,

you're given sort of an itinerary of places to go and spend your money. new orleans the same thing. you have to go to this restaurant, you must shop here, you must pay admission on this museum, you should go on this ride. you know, if you add it all up, you've got a pretty expensive itinerary. that, you can certainly spend a go to chunk of money in cajun country anywhere around louisiana. but what i wanted to do with this book was get into more of the culture and the experience of the area. and, frankly, that's something that anyone from new orleans can understand because the really fun things in our city are often the things that just happen or the people make happen, and that's really the spirit of the city rather than the city being showcased or on display. so that's what i set out to do, i tried to find things that made up louisiana experience the way the people enjoyed themselves and freely wanted to go and spend their recreation time when they lived here. and often that is for as much as the modern world, you know, just

mainstream american sensibilities are real and manifest here, if you to what louisianans do to have fun, you are experiencing the unique louisiana. the festivals that go on, even just friday night at a music club, it's very traditional, and it's not because people are saluting their forebearers or preserving culture or, you know, making this conscious effort at preservation. it's because that's how they have a good time. you can still go to dance halls and festival where it has that boy meets girl tension of a friday night. same thing with just exploring the natural state of louisiana where the roads end in louisiana is usually where the fun begins because people hop onto boats and get out into the wetlands and the waters. and that's the party of louisiana that is very much my own discovery of these things, that's what i was trying to share with readers.

>> right. you said one -- in your book one thing in louisiana, quote, nothing is done to speck. did things go as planned when you set off to explore louisiana, or perhaps some detours around the way? >> [laughter] >> very many detours. that quote comes from a writer from baton rouge who's putting together a great book about dance halls around louisiana. and, in fact, he told me that while we were stand anything a place like teddy's juke joint which just to get to it you have to go down the highway, past the prison -- [laughter] you know, go on the old highway 61, not the new highway 61, look for the one light that's flashing with two other lights out, you know? [laughter] some of this stuff sounds like it comes out of central casting or somebody's writing a script around it. but it's all right there. i think you see why so many hollywood film scouts and how many hollywood producers like to make things here. tax incentives notwithstanding because there's so much here

that's just right there, right there waiting to be experienced and shot here. but, yeah, to put together the itinerary for the book, you know, i started out with some of the obvious things. all right, well, no trip to -- no book about south louisiana, you have to mention the tobasco plant, avery island. people are curious about these things. but as i got more into it, people would give me tips on what the see, or i would find whole other subcultures that i didn't really understand or knew existed and wanted to explore. for instance, the horse culture of south louisiana. you know, the reason why four out of the last five kentucky derbies have been won by men from small cajun towns, tiny cajun towns. the region is the cradle of the jocks, and that still plays out in these starters, start inside the plantations. they have their stables and horses and sunday races, and it still plays out today with a

very robust culture where mostly young men when they're boys learn how to ride horses and come up on these things. so i devoted a whole chapter to the horse culture of louisiana which i had no idea about until i set out to explore it. >> it's been said that new orleans people do not travel much because we have everything we could possibly want right here and there's no reason to venture to the other side of lake pontchartrain. so i wanted to ask you this, were there any preconceived notions that were reinforced or perhaps dispelled by your travels? [laughter] >> as you pointed out, much like abraham lincoln, i'm not from new orleans. but i, as i was becoming a new orr lin yang, one reason that i knew i was developing was because of how rarely i felt compelled to leave. so you're right, you know? live anything new orleans often means you're missing out on four

other things to check out one thing somewhere else. that's how it feels, of course. but when i got out into southwest louisiana in particular, i learned the feeling was mutual. [laughter] people are, where you fro? new orleans -- from? new orleans. i've been there once. a lot of it has to do with new orleans. and there is a sort of rivalry, maybe a little jealousy, maybe dismissiveness in communities outside of new orleans because of that, because they think, you know, everyone hears about mardi gras, and they immediately think of what goes on about eight yards that way instead of their version which is quite different. but, yeah, this book was very much about me getting out and exploring that world outside of new orleans and, hopefully, being a guide that other people who feel the same way about louisiana could follow. as far as the stereotypes go, yeah, it's, you know, especially

if you follow the typical script, it's easy to think it's just, you know, life on the bayou is like a hank williams song, you know? one of the first things i tried to get through was just the idea of cajun country. i call the book exploring america's cajun and creole heartland because quite a bit of the area i explore is heavily black, heavily creole. that's kind of a tormented term in south louisiana, but in southwest louisiana creole often means people from traditionally -- black people from traditionally french-speaking communities. and i talked to musicians and promoters and told them about the book i was writing, they said make sure you mention the creoles, because we're not cajun. as inclusive as the term cajun can becomest nickly, it's a lot

broader. >> it is a complex state, to say the least. freddi, your newest book -- which i believe you brought an advance galley of it -- it's due to be published by the university of louisiana at lafayette. [applause] >> thank you. >> and the subject is congo square. and for the benefit of our audience members who may not know where it's located or its significance in our city's history, could you just give us a brief background on congo square? >> surely. congo square is located within the louis armstrong park complex which is on -- [inaudible] street. during the 18th and 19th centuries, that means during french, spanish as well as american rule, enslaved africans as well as free people of color were able to gather there on sunday afternoons off and on for well over 100 years. and during those gatt cannerings they were -- gatherings they were able to engage in african-based dance, they played

instruments modeled after african prototypes, they practiced religious beliefs, and there was a thriving market that was patterned after marketing practices in if africa. in africa. so it's significant because the book that i share presents accounts. we have many, many accounts from travelers of what happened in congo square, firsthand accounts, primary sources. their ordinances that talk about congo square and the gatherings and letters from the mayor to the city council. so we have a lot of documentation on congo square and what happened there. but congo square was not only the gathering place. up until 1817 when an ordinance restricted all gatherings to that one location, enslaved africans and free people of color gathered throughout the city at different locations. what is significant is that these similar practices occurred in haiti, in cuba and other parts of the west indees. so the -- west indies.

so it shows the relationship that new orleans had with caribbean countries. it also shows congo square's role in perpetuating african culture in north america, here in new orleans. and how congo square's activities influenced our local culture as well as our national churl. >> and what was it about new orleans that allowed this place to exist and so many other parts of the slave-owning south? slaves were never allowed to gather for fear of uprisings, you know, the european colonists, obviously, live inside a very tenuous relationship with africans here. >> passed in 1724, and among the different provisions there was one for religious purposes, what

the residents of of the colony were not allowed to work, so to speak. so that included the enslaved africans. that allowed them to have what is called by some as free day. of course, they were not free, but they were allowed to gather and worship. and they could work, earn money on that day. so, in essence, it was a day off, so to speak, in the afternoon. and saturday became a similar privilege day as well later on in the colony. so that rule continued under spanish rule as well as under american rule. >> and were there accounts of europeans who -- first of all, did the europeans ever visit congo square, or was that an area that was pretty much strictly relegate today the africans, and -- relegated to the africans, and what was the sense of europeans about this gathering space? >> congo square was probably one of the first tourist attractions, so europeans did gather in very large numbers. and that is why we have so many traveling accounts. one traveler, in fact, said that

every traveler, every tourist should see congo square at least once because he or she would never forget it nor regret it. so it was a very big traveling attraction. as well as for locals went there as well on sunday afternoons for entertainment. >> you've also written children's books, and these are primarily drawn from your family's own oral history. for instance, one called "a bus of our own." i was curious to know about the genesis of that book. >> well, that book grew out of my desire to tell undertold stories of african-american heritage. and although it was not the first book that i wrote, it was the first to get published, and i'm really glad because it tells of my family's efforts and the community that i grew up in madison, mississippi, to bring the first school bus to african-american children. and i heard this at a family gathering, which was a funeral unfortunately, but in rural

mississippi where i grew up. people in the congregation could just get up and make tribute toss the deceased even if their name was not on the program. so it occurred at my uncle's funeral because someone said i'd like to thank mr. cotton for bringing the first school bus to children. so i pursued this, and the book developed from that. >> and, um, writing on a children's level especially, was that a challenge for you to take this story and to write it on the level that school children could understand? >> it was in this a sense because i had to, of course, create the characters to be the hero. the child had to become the hero, so i had to find out who the main character was in real life. and so that has remained true in the story. it was mabel jean who was one of my cousins. the challenge, though, was to also write it clearly enough so that if i were not able to talk

to students or whoever read it, that they would not have questions. so it did assistant send from nonfiction to historical fiction so it could become clear and easy to understand and read and grasp for young readers. so that was a challenge. >> very good. we'll come back and discuss more of your children's books later. let me move on to rowan. rowan, i've just recently finished a few of your books, and i have to say they simultaneously whet my appetite for food, and they also give me insomnia because you write about such troubling aspects of the state of the environment on a global scale. the one thing that impressed me, you've written a book specifically, almost an encyclopedia of oysters. you have a very passionate feeling for oysters. [laughter] >> well, raise your hand if you have a passionate feeling for oysters. [laughter] >> how did this passion develop? >> um, well, i guess in florida

as a kid. my father was from baltimore, so he had a chesapeake bay passion for oysters. and then we moved to florida when i was 11, and then my dad discovered that out in the lagoons, there were lagoons on the east side of the state with oysters all over the place and that we could actually just go out and harvest them. now i realize they were probably various regulations we were breaking or at least probably a few people with shotguns who wouldn't have liked it. those oysters weren't just there for the taking, but we thought they were. to me, i think that was where it started because, you know, growing up as a kid in the suburbs getting food from the supermarkets suddenly pulling these living creatures out of the water and sometimes eating them right there on the spot was a completely different and extremely vital experience that kind of, you know, awoke in me an understanding, like, it

just -- i wouldn't have put it in the these terms at the time, but an understanding of what, like, what we love great food, what we're loving is that just intense connection to the environment that we're taking our sustenance straight out of it. and sort of taking this other life energy for our own that's very exciting. and i think when i was researching that book on oysters, i kept coming across accounts of people who had their sort of oyster conversion experience. [laughter] and so often, you know, between the ages of 12 and 15 or 16 it's when you're just starting to leave childhood behind and want to prove, you know, to make that leap into adulthood. and eating that first raw oyster is a great way to, you know, a great baby step in making that leap into adulthood. [laughter] anthony boar dane talks about it in one of his books, there's a great poem about it.

and, yeah. so for me that was the initial attraction with oysters, i think. and that kind of stayed with me. but at the time i just thought was an oyster was an oyster was an oyster. and then as an adult when i began tasting oysters from different spots and just noticed that they were always named for the place they came from, apalachicola or wellesley or blue point, and that was because people had recognized for centuries that the oysters from that area had a distinctive flavor that they wouldn't find in any other area. that somehow the oysters were kind of channeling their environment into their flavor in this a way that no other food -- not even wine -- does. wine, you know, the entire wine world has this taste of place, and it's true, but it's much more directly true for oysters. so i basically set up that oyster book just like a wine

guide going region to region around the country and describing oysters from each area. because i like the way, again, it reminds you that you need places and healthy places in order to create great food. >> right. and you've taken that love for the taste of oysters even further. you've studied oysters as, basically, a barometer of the health of our estuaries and our oceans. um, and most recently, of course, you've been exploring the gulf of mexico in the wake of our, the deepwater horizon oil spill. tell me a little bit about that book. were you planning to come to the gulf to do more exploration on your studies in food and ocean health, or was the bp oil spill the main draw in bringing you here? >> well, it kind of all started with that first oyster book. obviously, this is the oyster center of the universe. >> thank you. [laughter] [applause] and i wrote that first book, and a lot of people read it, it did

really well. i got a lot of attention for it, and i followed it up with a book about estuaries partly because i realized that estuaries and oysters role in the creating of estuaries is essential to the ecological health of the entire country. the most important factor for the coastline. so i had written the oyster book, a lot of people read it. wrote the estuaries book, nobody read it which was my first clue just because you were enthusiastic about a subject doesn't necessarily mean everybody else will be too. [laughter] and then -- but, so, anyway i was also aware of all the issues with coastal restoration going on in this area. and it was kind of in the back of my mind i was looking for a way to write about that that wouldn't be read by the other 12 environmentalists. and then the oil spill happened, and i thought, aha, actually going back to our first story

about how you create compelling nonfiction. here's a book about wetlands where you have a hero, and you have an obvious, big villain. so you had the kind of friction, um, that creates a really compelling narrative, and once you have that narrative going you can then work in a lot of more scientific information a way that doesn't freeze-dry science because it totally is what drives the importance. i sort of have this basic theory for a narrative. it doesn't matter what you're writing, whether it's a newspaper story, novel or anything. the reader has to be ingauged on the first -- engaged. on the first page something has to be at stake for the reader. either the reader has to be worried that something's going to happen or hoping that something's going to happen that

she wants to have happen but it might not. and this, it was all perfectly set up. the oil spill is hanging out there already creating a sense of urgency in the narrative which allows you to sort of step back. you don't have to focus on the oil spill from page 1. a lot of books came out that just focused on the oil spill, and i think that was a mistake because that story was told very well by the newspapers, and it's kind of one-dimensional. but if you can pull back and everyone knows the disaster's coming, it gives you a way to talk about the coast, and people know this bad thing's coming. and that allows them to really get invested in the coast. so -- >> when you talk about a reader hoping something good will happen, i can't say that i found that in reading about the gulf of mexico. but having talked to many researchers and seeing the effects of the oil spill

firsthand, what's your sense of the next few years ahead of us? are we going to see nature heal itself, or is this a much more dire situation? you know, i think a lot of the current thinking is we're not seeing the oil, so it's out of sight and out of mind. but what's your take on where we stand right now? >> yeah. i don't know if anyone -- there was an article in the new yorker that came out a couple weeks ago which was kind of their big take on the oil spill, and it was remarkably flat. they almost seemed they weren't that interested. oh, it's done. wasn't that big a deal. and it seems like that is, that's, you know, act ii in the three-act drama. you have the disaster, then you have the quiet phase when everyone starts to think everything's okay. and i think what you're going to see is a -- what you've got -- ecosystems are so complicated, and humans' relationship to the ecosystem is so complicated, the

ways we take value from them. it's not direct, and it doesn't happen right away. so in terms of, like, pure financial numbers which is pretty much the only tool we seem to have for measuring things, it's going to look not so bad for a while. and the bad stuff is going to slowly percolate for years, and it's going to be very difficult to draw any kind of direct connection. i've actually just been talking to people the past couple days where they're seeing a lot of oil right beneath the surface out there. i was out with some oystermen on friday who have friends who were crabbers pulling up oil in the crab traps. but even that is too obvious. i think it's going to be much more subtle. changes in the first level of the food system that play out in ways we can't even, you know, predict. >> um, ian, back to you. obviously, your travels have taken place in the last few years since we went through the

very deep trauma of hurricane katrina. and now, of course, we are dealing with the bp oil spill. and a lot of your travels were to our marsh lands. what signs of resilience did you see, and did you encounter people -- i'm sure you did -- people very concerned about the environment in louisiana? is. >> oh, yeah, absolutely. i think one of the, one of the best things louisiana has going for it right now is some very compelling spokespeople, people who are used to telling great stories and now telling some sad stories, and there's more interest in that. but they're telling them well. they're telling it through, you know, their own personal perspectives. i think in the way that in new orleans we were aroused to protect a lot of our cultural traditions and hallmarks here because they were for at least a brief period almost all of them were in a state of suspended animation, will they come back enough? will people care enough to resurrect every single little

tradition that happened in this city after this period of just blank, you know, being on hold for months at a time after katrina. that, the way that has energized the city of new orleans which we've seen in renaissance style in the last few years, that's starting to happen a little bit in south louisiana as well. at least the parts that i saw. now, i should say i had finished my manuscript right around this time last year, and then the oil spill happens. and, obviously, it was going to impact a huge area that i had just covered in this book. and i really had to wrap my brain around how to handle this. i talked to my publisher, and we thought, well, this is really going to come down to the wire. talking about places to go fishing and places to, you know, get out on the water along the coast and the seafood and, you know, this is for months after the storm it looked like all of that was just going to be obliterated, you know? there was no way to get all this oil out. they couldn't even stop it.

how do you come up with a book exploring and celebrating it when it could be vastly different by the time the book comes out? well, you know, so the way we did handle it was, you know, after some months we edited it again, and by that point, actually, some of the -- it was a little -- the outlook was a lot more positive. i agree with rowan, i don't think we've seen the end of this. i think act iii is yet to come, and we really can't predict the ways it's all going to play out. in the darkest hours, people thought the gulf was just going to be clogged with oil for years and years, there's going to be a hurricane that's going to wash this oil into louisiana. you know, it hasn't manifested like that yet, so the book as it stands right now, i was able to put in a lot of -- some context to the oil spill without, you know, but also reeling back from the edge of ultimate hysteria that i felt when i realized i had a moon you script --

manuscript for a book that was in the for a catastrophe. >> one thing that impressed me, we're walled off from our aquatic world around us. and a lot of ian's experiences deal directly with exploring our rivers, our marshes and our gulf, our gulf of mention eco. so it's a very compelling read and, hopefully, will encourage more people to get out and engage with our natural environment. pat, rachel jackson was also a tourist in our town to some degree. she visited twice in her lifetime. and i'm curious to know, what were her imfor examples of -- impressions of our city, and when was she here? >> well, i would start off by saying rachel was a reluctant tourist, that she felt that everything anybody needed existed right around nashville, tennessee, a town of a thousand people. and she thought that was way plenty people anyway. so when she was dragged away to different places, then she had a kind of a what does this place

have to offer? when after andrew jackson won the battle of new orleans and, arguably, then saved the american west and maintained the possibility of a coast-to-coast united states, he became the hero with a capital h in every newspaper. and so he wanted his honey to come down and visit the battlefield and see him be the hero of everything. so she came down with some nieces, she had thousands of nieces. she brought a few of them. and they came down and went around, and she was star struck in a way because new orleans had 10,000 people as opposed to one. it was huge. and she went -- they were feted at various balls, and she'd say i've just never seen anything like this. this place has everything. they have balls, they have dances, they have illuminations, they have fire crackers, they have everything. and it was all very much the

little country girl comes to town. she said, i just -- i don't know what to do. and fortunately, she -- one of her husband's assistants was married to a very beautiful creole woman who helped her buy clothes so she would have appropriate clothes. and the ladies took up money and gave her a topaz necklace that is still at the hermitage today. so she loved it. not that she didn't want to go right back home, but she still loved it. then in 1828 during the election time the, his supporters in new orleans gave a celebration -- or, actually, yeah, early 1828 -- they gave a celebration on january 8th which to many people was the second american independence day when we had won against the brits for the second time. so they came down for all this big hoopla and spent a lot of time. by this time she'd become much more religious, and so this time she wrote pack to her friends -- back to her friends in the

presbyterian church in nashville saying pray for me in this ungodly place. i've never seen a place with so much sin. [laughter] i've never seen a place with so many things that the godly don't want to set eyes on. [laughter] so shows the difference 14 years can make. [laughter] >> indeed. i have to say i think that reaction sometimes still strikes tourists. [laughter] >> actually, i think for most people that's it -- oh, this place is so ungodly. let's get there. [laughter] >> indeed. freddi, another one of your children's books actually deals with the battle of new orleans which, of course, andrew jackson was the leader of that. but you mention a more obscure person in that battle who went by the name of old jordan. could you tell us about him and how you incorporated him into your children's book. >> jordan noble was andrew jackson's drummer during the battle of new orleans. he was 14 years old, approximately 14 during that time, and he was still enslaved.

after the battle of new orleans, he went on to serve in three additional wars making him a veteran of four american wars. now, as patricia said the january 8th parades were really big. they were very big celebrations throughout the south, but particularly here in new orleans. but jordan was not able to participate in those parades until 1851, approximately 36 years later. he received an invitation to parade along with the other men of color, and, of course, they became a big hit. and after that, yeah, he was a fixture in the january 8th parades. so the book that i wrote is set at one of those parades. and jordan noble marchs down the street with the other men of color, and there's a little boy with a fictitious character who wants to play his drum. and i first came to become -- i first became interested, i should say, in jordan noble when i saw one of his drums at the battle of new orleans exhibit

and started reading and, you know, trying to find out information and felt this was something that children really needed to know. so i created this story with this fictitious boy who wants to play his drum. but in the meantime, jordan tells him, this is a special drum, and i play it a special way, play it the same way i played it on the battlefield that day. and he goes on to tell him about the war -- the battle of new orleans. and in the end he does allow the little boy to play his drum, and they march on down the street. >> and going back to congo square, do you feel that the congo square is adequately promoted or preserved within our city? could more be done to interpret this site and to allow tourists to engage and locals more with that? >> i'm glad you asked that question -- [laughter] because one of the results of my research shows that congo square is not the official name for the park. >> it was a confederate general,

by the way. >> yes. [laughter] the name was changed by ordinance in 1893. so you can imagine how long that's been. but i did petition the city council, and there is going to be an ordinance very soon to rename it. but it has not come out yet because we're trying to wait to see when this park is going to be restored, refurbished and visitor allowed again to come into the park. so, hopefully, when it is back open to the public, the sculpture garden that is there now will attract more visitor and will get some recognition that it needs. >> in your research were you able to uncoffer any -- uncover any elements of congo square that perhaps any researchers prior to you had not noticed or discovered? >> i think that i have more visitor' notes, more tourist accounts than any other, um, publication on congo square. so that would be a great

contribution as well as some of the songs and dances that i have described and the links that they have to national culture like the minstrels who came and saw congo square and took the cultural practices that existed there to national stages, you know, like broadway. so those are contributions that i think will help bring attention to congo square too. >> and rowan, back to you. i wanted to follow up on the oyster element. there's always that inevitable question: are they an aphrodisiac? [laughter] >> can i tell a slightly risque joke? um, i had an old-timer come up to me -- this part's true. um, i forget where i was, somewhere in florida. but, you know, a bunch of oyster guys talking, and the guy came up and said, man, that

aphrodisiac stuff is a load of crap. i had a dozen oysters last night, and i only got laid eight times. [laughter] all right, so there's -- >> and he had to be from louisiana. [laughter] >> but my, my scientific assessment would be that there's something going on there. [laughter] it's not, i mean, it's not necessarily an aphrodisiac thing, but i think because eating oysters kind of elevates the whole situation, it raises the energy level -- [laughter] and so everybody's just like, you know -- also because sometimes eating raw oysters is considered a slightly risky behavior, so if you're, if you're at, you know, in a group of oyster eaters, you're immediately, you know, you're in a group of risk takers, right? [laughter] the wallflowers have already been left behind. and everyone knows that. [laughter] that can lead in all sorts of directions. so that's what i think is going

on. >> you do discuss just the nature of seafood in general and going way back, that the consumption of seafood may have been a building block in the very evolutionover mankind leading to man being an advanced species. >> yeah. this is what i wrote about in the estuary book that nobody read, except you. [laughter] but that was another way to -- i create a compelling narrative out of, you know, a scientific subject. but that's a long story. but the very short version is that it looks like the very first homo sapiens involved in southern africa, and the oldest evidence we have for -- the oldest site where we have evidence of modern humans is at a cave in south africa right on the coast. it dates back 164,000 years ago. and what do they find in that cave? they found a big pile of shells, some knives and red ochre which

is used for either making marks on the wall or body adornment. and, well, i know an oyster bar when i see one, right? you know? [laughter] [applause] there's a whole scientific community now who believes -- omega threes are a fat that's found mostly in seafood that are essential to the human brain. the human -- our brain needs more omega threes than any other species on the planet. but you can't really get 'em from a land-based diet very well. seafood is the only excellent source of them. so there's always been this question, well, in order for the human brain to fully develop, it needs this constant supply of mega threes. so the question is, well, if we were living on the serengeti and just eating land creatures, how did we get the big brain that enabled us to hunt? right? to create all the tools that we need to hunt. it was like the chicken and the

egg thing. didn't make sense. so now the thought is that we hit the coast and hit supplies of shellfish that are really easy the catch, right? so even before we had tools for hunting, we could catch shellfish, and then suddenly we're getting this incredible supply of omega three that allowed us to develop a bigger brain and do the rest of our hunting. >> which is proof that, of course, louisianans are a very advanced species. [laughter] to say the least. wanted to ask each of you, have any of you considered delving into fiction since you have primarily been nonfiction writers? >> i first tried to write fiction. who, i mean, who wouldn't? fiction's so great. you make it up, and you're god. it's so exciting. but, unfortunately, i can't write dialogue. you know, my dialogue clumps along on concrete feet, so i had to go to nonfiction where i

wouldn't be held back by that. .. >> your list for the children's books has a balance in many ways. >> but the stories that i write

are serious. they are always rooted in history. so i've always wanted to write something silly and fun but i've never been able to because there are so many stories i want to tell. >> i know another one unwanted to touch on the don't have the title in front of me was about sleeves' gathering in secret locations and where did those come from, you can tell us the title as well. >> it is preaching in secret and it's based on the narrative said throughout the south, mississippi, louisiana, georgia did a lot of research on those and learned a lot about the praying ground, the spillway at night mom. some may know the song spillway to jesus it is a song of a double message but one of the messages to still weighed the knights pray and see in the circles and dance and response very much like our church services are now because those traditions were kept alive in

secret so when they were allowed at the freedom when they were allowed to have their own churches those traditions were transferred, cut to live so we have the spiritual services, the singer and the dance response, the clapping, still alive in our church services because of those secret gatherings. >> any aspirations for you? >> that's what i was going to do but i found it much more in beijing. robert frost famously said that the freestyle poetry is like playing tennis without a net and it's like playing tennis without a net there's too much freedom once started doing nonfiction i really liked the dynamic. it's kind of like cooking, that's what i like about

nonfiction. here are your ingredients you have to do something with these ingredients. what's around? what can i do with it? and that's the fun part for me is creating something really tasty out of a bunch of ingredients that you might not think would go together. >> you've written about many environmental issues for instance the fall of the health of bees on a global scale the estuaries and of course the waste your beds and of course the oil spill. are you more an optimist or a pessimist about where we are heading globally on the environmental scale of? >> i think it's going to be bad for the next 50 million. [laughter] i'm an optimist long-term.

>> i want to ask about the book on these in particular. what did you discover, why are we seeing such a decline in the health of the colonies on a global scale and blood does that lead to an hour agriculture? >> they are responsible for about a third of everything if they pollinate crops they would not happen and there was a lot of information in the news about this two years ago but then the media did their stories and then they moved on and the problem has actually gotten worse and they are right on the edge of going under and it's not just the united states it is world wide. there's been a lot of research and they haven't been able to nail any one thing. it seems to be multi factorial the word the scientists use.

we don't know but there are new viruses discovers discovered and the scary thing is an incredible number of pesticides that have been discovered in hives and honey and there are not just pesticides but fungicide's like 250 different chemicals and the other and no one has ever studied the way that those chemicals might interact with each other much less the way three of them are more but they know as soon as any time they look at the start to see big interactions between the chemicals and the viruses the classic big skill environmental impact. if each of our panelists could be worthy of many hours of conversations in our own right alone but we are going to open to the audience not for questions so please raise your hand and we will engage you as

well. i have a project based on historical research what i have before me is a major plus of material. way too much for one book. do have a strategy for the material figuring out what to include and what not to include when we start out. >> i think you just write more books. that's what i've noticed some of the panelists. >> i really write short and and one of the things i do by the time i get to the fourth draft of time doing is going through and looking to see what i can take out. i take out words, phrases and

sentences, paragraphs, just to make it down to a simple tale just because you have a lot of things there doesn't mean -- it's good for you to know them but it doesn't mean they have to go in there. i wanted to go on and on about salt i don't want to see on the page and then leader she went through about housekeeping which i like to do, and not practice, i mean write about. [laughter] i feel the tedium of too much research. know a lot of stuff but don't put it in. >> i would offer an old editorial trick which is when you get stuck at the store there is a magazine story or a chapter for a book i always

remember going to my editors and saying i'm having trouble with this and what is it about? tell me what it's about right now it is almost like a pitch again and then with that it helps refocus you can put that in mind and determine what parts of the vast majority you have are going to fit with that . if you can constantly restate your mission goal and write it on the top of the fire line working on. i can always have to many interviews, too many quotes, and you take the -- riding the best ones out see how they relate to each other and often those building blocks even if you're talking about a tractor for a whole book. >> this question is for rowen

and i invite the others to answer, the best oyster dish you have ever had other than a fresh oyster prepared dish. >> i generally just eat them raw. they almost never, they are almost always over fried. islamic ehud say that the gulf oysters are your favorite? >> they are some of the only ones that are substantial enough to hold up to cooking so definitely. actually i have a bunch of recipes in my book but am oyster stew, a really good oyster stew, symbol, so you've just got like, you know, the oysters and cream and a little bit of charlottes and paprika, a little bit of spice, not much

, and you can use salles settlement if you want but if the we stores are good, don't mess with them is my general rule. >> on the other end of the spectrum, i love wasters poached, you know, they are incredible. they do everything possible to make them more fattening and rich. >> one of the things i learned in my book is if you want to get the best cajun cooking in louisiana, go to a festival that involves a cookoff because everyone brings out the big guns. this isn't like restaurant cooking a whole or home cooking it is competitive cooking that combines a lot of heritage and family access to a lot of good stuff. what i'm thinking of particular is smoked oysters wrapped up with a smoked jalapeno. [laughter] this was at the smoked meat festival in the middle of breathtakingly hot summer in

the plaza. it is in a ditch dish that comes with a sales pitch. this came from a take on my farm and a brother of mine has an oyster or in the gulf and, you know, so i thought it was fantastic but it was a lesson that if you really want to go extreme for cajun food, with these people really want to impress somebody with in the contests. >> following on that, you said that if the congress were to have a market place or fruits sold? >> would you like for me to read about the food? so i will just start here. the rate the tables with pecan pies, cakes and molasses, coconut and coconut candy and peanuts, popcorn and croquettes . there was gingerbread from the deli or stage planks in american window.

jessica had the in liberia when it sold by the vendors it is rice in the language of the liberian native neighbors sere leon. the women also eliminate louisiana taffy. the fragrance went through the air. the beverage of choice was ginger beer. to make it the women used fermented apples, ginger root and they pledged bottles of it into the cold water. new orleans article presented yet another name for this beverage which was creeley, the article stated that they make this exclusively and held the recipe in secret. they sold it extensively at that time for 5 cents or 10 cents the bottle. the bier was in such a demeanor that it usually sold out before

sunset. >> we've always been a very epicurean city to say the least . other questions? >> perhaps you would like to follow over there. i had at the far end for huge oysters for $5. >> very encouraging to hear. >> i have a question when you're writing about history and talking about in gauging the reader right off the bat to the very first page and when there is always a back story if you're talking about a historical event there's always a back story and i guess my question is how to decide where exactly to begin the story so

that you do engage the reader but how do you decide, do you not read chronology? do you believe that is important to never break chronology or i don't know if you can give example from when you have written. >> - what modern history has meant for the trade audience, for the general audience has learned to take the tricks that you must break the chronology. if you start at birth or before conception you will never get them to stay with you to hear the story that you're going to tell. so, as you are doing your research, you look for the exciting event or the journey that makes a difference. something to hook the man with martha washington i started with the journey to the inauguration, the journey that was going to make her the first

lady because we what and have written about her if she hadn't been first lady so you do the journey and then step back to talk about the forebears and with rachel and andrew jackson was that wildly exuberant destructive inauguration and this is what they were building towards but of course what was missing, it was rachel and then jumped back to say who they were. so yes, keep looking for something that is either in beijing or thematic or dramatic and see how it would fit as a prologue to get people into it. >> i would add too often when we are writing about history and people have an idea already a great deal just as background and still happens and when i found things that were an element of a well-known story or people think they know the story that surprised me or

seemed to unlock what the rest of it was about the was definitely a starting point. >> i do encourage everyone to read it but we have to have a vision of martha washington as a matronly type but if you get the cover we see a very different view of martha washington and i went to briefly ask you how did this portrait of martha washington - zooming in her 20s came to be. >> i went and had a scientific study done because the portrait everybody has is gilbert stuart where she is an old heavyset leedy and so i said okay what did she look like and i went to the faces lab to the mary at

lsu forensic anthropologists and said could we take a picture that is said by her family to really look like her and then go back to age 25, piece of cake. and here's a nice picture and i showed it to my editor and she said let's have somebody painted portrait and the person really good at doing historical portraits, alternative is michael d. is from new orleans who is a friend of a friend. and so she did the portrait and just the month before katrina hit, the head of mount vernon came to town to give a talk, took some people to look a portrait, and today it lives safely at the museum at mount vernon along with her wedding gown which was gold and wedding slippers which were purple so it's not just purple and gold because we are from new orleans , it's because she liked those colors so i saved her

from old ladydom. [applause] >> i just wanted to know how you all handled when you come up with a subject matter of interest to you how do you know that there will have a more global residents? helm do you know that is the subject you need to write about because will be of interest to others? how do you know that even the with interests you how do you know other people will be interested in it? >> if somebody buys it. [laughter] >> i'm still working on that one. >> for my book the louisiana ramble it's my story about discovering and exploring, but as i told people that i was considering this a book they were excited to hear about it because it is a common taylor and new orleans i always wanted to get out and see what louisiana is beyond the walls and i hear that from a lot of people even if they don't live in new orleans or louisiana in

this case here is the subject, louisiana, that has a famous place, there's a cultural thing but how do you bite on to that, what's it all without? that is not quite clear. a friend of ours just yesterday was visiting from out of town and said why is there so much stuff that happens here is basically what she said. [laughter] actively the book is a way to discover that so if it is an area people are interested but don't know how to access it if it's an area they know about but aren't quite sure what it's all about and if you think that you're up to the task of tying it together putting your own perspective on it to explain what you discovered about it that is a pretty clear path. >> we are going to have to wrap it up with that and all of the authors have books for sale and perhaps you can catch them quickly before they go to get oysters. [laughter]

if somebody had told me a number of years ago that i would have written a book about andrew johnson i would have told them they were crazy. it's not that i don't think that he's an interesting person . he is an interesting person and not that i didn't know anything about him but for most of my career as a historian i've tried to avoid the pergola for construction and some strange for someone who writes about slavery which is a difficult topic to write about by find it hard to deal with the 17th century and 18th-century about attitudes of race and slavery than i do dealing with reconstruction. there's something about it that is just maddening to me, and i think what it is is that it was a moment of opportunity.

when i think of the people on the 17th and 18th century who have very primitive ideas about many things in the world and you know that there are lots of things they don't know i cannot totally forgive them, but it's not as irritating to me, exacerbating the as a period of time when you have photographs, trains, things that are part of the modern era and you feel closer to those people in that time period they seem more like us and monticello when i read what reconstruction in this moment of hope it makes me angry i'm able to detach the further back you go but that moment it makes me angry when i think about what could have happened and what did not happen and how close we were, how close the country was to the period of time you could have done something to begin

the process of racial healing, the process of making america really one for every one so johnson wouldn't have been my topic of choice i read about that iraq but it wouldn't be something i would never have thought i would actually study and write very much about it. but i got a phone call one morning from arthur schlesinger jr. told me i was going to be getting a letter and talking in general and i did get this letter from him in which he asked me to write for the american president series which is a nice series, very short concise books about american presidents come and they get people sort of well, sometimes people who actually fit, someone like joyce apple become a thomas jefferson, of course she is a great jefferson scholar and george mcgovern who did lincoln i think, and so

there is a sort of mix of historians and non-historians looking at the presidency is telling the basic story, but also giving your own sort of individual spin on it. and he asked me to do this, to the johnson book and i guess he figured i would put my individual spin on that. arthur asked me to do it and i had great respect for him. i knew him from the papers of thomas jefferson put some the size recommitting for that. because paul baala was the editor was also the general series editor for the series for the book i did on vernon can read cities are to friends when the friends ask you to do things to ask me to do this and i said sure, i put aside my misgivings. i know it's a fascinating topic . there's so much material, but i wondered if i would be able to sort of kerf my natural feelings of antipathy about looking at this particular

period of american history and i agreed to do it. that was many years ago i have to confess this is all over to in-between saying i would do that i wrote the hemingses monticello which took a lot of time and energy and then i came back to this seriously and finished it and i am very, very glad that i did. yes, i've had an interesting and fun life and i don't owe any of it. [laughter] i will tell you that. feminism has become a free hot topic. i suppose the reason for this sarah palin. a feminist cannot resist attacking sarah palin it's not just because she is a republican and conservative it's because she is a successful woman she has a

cruel husband, kids, great career, making lots of money, she is by any standard success. and acid in their wounds is that she's pretty, too. they don't believe women can be successful in the united states . they think the women are oppressed by the patriarchy. they are held down by mean men and is a need the government to rescue them and give them more advantages and that is very unfortunate. but you never hear them talk about really successful women. margaret thatcher, condoleezza rice, what about all of the wonderful women who were elected last november 2nd, 2010 ? well, it turned out they were all republicans. in fact they were all pro-life, and that wasn't what the feminists planned at all. they simply do not recognize success.

i think one of the reasons i was able to beat the equal rights amendment is because they did not believe i was doing what i did. they conjured up conspiracies like the insurance companies were financing me or some other nonsense like that. now, this ideology of telling young women that you are victims of an oppressive society is so unfortunate. if you wake up in the morning and believe that, you're probably not going to accomplish anything whether you are a man or a woman, and many of the feminists in fact most of them think that abortion is a litmus test for being a feminist. one of the new feminists, jessica valenti wrote in "the washington post" just a few weeks ago that the definition of feminism that we are under an oppressive patriarchy and we have to work to overturn it and stop at.

it's not true they are working for a quality. the feminists are for empowerment by the female left. they want to make an alliance with the left wing and so it is a female who left that has become so powerful when it aligned itself with the obama administration. now when the feminist movement got under way really in the late 60's, early 70's, they called themselves not feminism, they called themselves the women's liberation movement, and you have to ask what did they want to be liberated from? they wanted to be liberated from homes, husband, family and children, and so you find that they are encouraging women to be independent of men. that's why they were big supporters of divorce and they

look upon marriage as a very confining role in life. gloria steinem said that when a woman gets married she becomes a semi non-person. betty friedan said the life of a wife and a mother was living in a comfortable concentration camp. that was their attitude. the social degradation of women was a major goal of the feminist movement, and it wasn't -- they were not using the argument that it takes two incomes to support the family. that really wasn't why they wanted to get her out. they wanted to get her out not for economic reasons but for social and cultural reasons because they try to tell women that you're just a parasite, your life is not accomplished, fulfillment is to