i want to tell you about my book and then explain more about how i came to write it and why i think it's important. a tragedy of democracy is about executive order 9066 and the removal and confinement of 120,000 west coast japanese americans into government camps in world war ii. a sent of events imprecisely called the japanese american internment. it may be a surprise that there's anything new to say about this after all the legions of memoirs, plays, document riz, and so forth that have appeared on the subject. although i learned a great deal from all of those works, after studying the question for a long time, i have come to the conclusion there was something missing from what had already been written. i don't mean there was -- really that it wag wrong.

the conventional narrative is accurate best it was hopelessly inadequate in time and space, so i set out to extend it. what do i mean? in terms of time, books of japanese americans in world war ii ten to focus exclusively on the war years. i go beyond that to discuss the prewar and post war period and not just as a back story but as the main part of the narrative, "a tragedy of democracy" talks about the massive government spying on japanese americans that took place during the 1930s and the efforts of the federal government to build, in collaboration with the army, a set of camps, chit called concentration camps, before pearl harbor in order to hold enemy aliens. the constant spreading of scare stories and false rumors by west coast whites created a climate of fear where action against

japanese americans, after world war ii broke out, seemed not just plausible but necessary. and it created a climate of mass suspicion and arbitrary treatment on a racial basis even before the war started in the same way it's im'ocan to understand the war time treatment of japanese americans without looking at the post war years, the time in which japan americans left camps camps campd resettled and began organizing for protection of their civil rights. in many cases in coalition with black americans and other minorities to protest racial discrimination. i it was also a time when, right after the war, government officials started publicly expressing regret for their policies and treatment of japanese americans and started trying to make restitution, and that affect the evidence -- efforts towards all importantly.

"a tragedy of democracy" is the first north american confinement. the book breaks new ground by looking at the history of camps in the united states and other areas in north america. it looks at the canadian government's wartime removal of 22,000 citizens and residents of japanese ancestry in british columbia. i also compare official policy toward japanese americans with that in wartime hawaii, where army commanders used fears of local japanese to overthrow the civilian government after pearl harbor and to maintain military rule of the island for three years, during which time civilian courts were abolished and military tribunals judged cases. not just in guantanamo. i also shed new light on the histories of the 2200 japanese latin americans who were kidnapped from their home countries and brought to internment in the united states.

plus the 5,000 japanese mexicans who were expelled from their homes and forced to move from the west coast of mexico into the center of mexico. by studying japanese american confinement, thus, within a continental, indeed international pattern, we can learn more about the causes of such actions as well that's results for these victims. "a tragedy of democracy" is the final product of a long train of circumstances and development. it's a particular treat to be talking here at hyde park about my journey to this book because my journey started here 15 years ago. i was a graduate student living in new york city, and thanks to a grant from the franklin and eleanor roosevelt institution, i was up here to the roosevelt library to find material for my dissertation topic. as any researcher knows, what you do a lot of when you're at

an archive is sit around waiting for boxes to be brought to you. it's true that the folks at the roosevelt libraries quite speedy in this. still you spend a lot of time ordering boxes and waiting for them to be brought. i was waiting for my boxes to come, and i started puttering around the research room to distract myself, and i came across a set of finding aids for writing by franklin roosevelt. i never thought of fdr as much of writer, not compared to the doctor roosevelt or woodrow wilson or various world leaders, such as winston churchill or lenin. before i could think more about the question, there came my boxes, and so i put away the thought in the back of my health but fast forward several months. in the meantime, i dropped my dissertation, taken a leave of absence from school and started work at the legal assistance as a law firm.

at one point the editor0s a journal, invited know write an article about franklin roosevelt for the journal. i didn't want to use my abandoned disdissertation and had little time for research. so i thought i would take up franklin roosevelt's write to see what he had written before he was president. so i ordered copies of the article from the fining aids of fdr's writings, especially from the 1920s when he was in private life and trying to recover and had used writing as a kind of therapy for himself. when i read the airlines discovered to my great surprise that fdr hat written several pieces on diplomatic relations between the united states and japan which he wanted to improve. but he declared that the largest sticking point in relations between japan and the united

states was the question of japanese immigration, and fdr in the 1920s, added that the exclusion of japanese immigrants from the united states and the discriminatory laws that kept them from owning property and becoming citizens were justified because they kept racial impurity against enter marriage. i thought, if that's what the thought in the 1920s, what did he think in the 1940s? what was the relationship between fdr and the japanese internment. i thought it was a question i could easily answer by looking into the books but i discovered there was a hole in the research, that people who wrote about japanese americans hadn't written been franklin roosevelt, and people who wrote about franklin roosevelt hadn't written about japanese americans. so i started reading up more, and as i asked the questions, others came along, and to figure

out the answers i came more and more to hyde park in search of answers. i would get up early in the morning from brooklyn, take the subway to manhattan take a trap to -- take a cab to the museum, and then come back. an finishing work at the law firm, i went back to school, and in the process i was so fascinated by my little article turned into a dissertation, and which turned into a book, and which is not for sale at hyde park. the book came out a few weeks after september 11th. although i had written the book long before the attacks took place, my messan been the perils of overreacting gamed a special timeliness from them.

the book was reviewed and featured in places where normally such a work wouldn't be and it has remained ever since the work i'm best known for. still, i didn't want to stop there, and in the process of putting together, "by order of the president --" i found more information than could fit in a volume. but i realize how much the wartime removal of japanese americans has influenced american society and literature law, but most ordinary people did not know a great deal about what happened. once i finished the roosevelt book i decided to write a short study of the consensus in regard to confinement. the need seemed even more pressing after the patriot exact the u.s. invasion of iraq which re-opened the old debates about race and patriotism. i realized just how vital the issue of japanese confinement and its proper understanding was

when the conserve columnist published a popular work purporting to defend the government's wartime removal policy as a successful incident of racial profiling. but my new interest in writing and re-telling the japanese wartime experience was matched and overshadowed by the uneasy sense that the accepted version was inadequate and more needed to be flesh it out. my inspiration also came in part from my own experience of immigranting to montreal and teaching in canada, which led know study american history from a north american point of view, and as i learned canada's history and started teaching at the university of quebec, i saw parallels and differences in the development of united states. both of these were useful to stud about yaws they tested widespread assumption about paper exclusiveness, american

national identity. in the same way as i read up further on the wartime treatment ofment japanese canadians and discovered how deeply they had been victimized by canada's removal policy and i was surprised to fine that no book examined the similarity and differences across the border, and it dawned on me my book would have to look at eventson the mainland united states. i was further inspired by my first trip to hawaii in 2006 -- it was very embarrassing to be a specialist on japanese americans and then discover this entirely different community of japanese americans. about which i knew relatively little. i also heard that hawaii was a place of overracial harmony and good real estates and japanese americans had been spared mass removal during world world war i inly, something i has written about in my book on franklin roosevelt. but an pearl harbor, the u.s. army commander pushed through a

declaration of martial law, suspended the u.s. constitution, dismissed the elected government and declared himself military governor. during my trip i heard some of the stories of martial law and of the military tribunals that densed military just. they had thrown military military -- thrown judges out of the court. defendants had no due process or legal protection, virtually all those accused were found guilty and often given harsh or arbitrary sentences which they could then purge or reduce by giving blood or other legal actions. i soley -- slowly realized the difference between militarism and toll toll tall tearan

system, there was a connection between invasion of constitutional rights of japanese in american and on the mainland. the fact that they army proclaimed the presence of so many japanese americans, it felt a danger, and as the threat of invasion from tokyo had grown more distant, they had increasingly fixated on the presence of japanese meshes as an excuse to hold on to martial law by playing the race card. eventually i discovered that the military tribunals were challenged in court. the army and the justice department in 1944, knowing they had little chance of proving there was any real military emergency to make martial law necessary, were threat of an imminent invasion from tokyo, instead based their case on continuing martial law on the threat of japanese americans. the case went to the supreme court after the war as the case

of duncan versus konomuku in a leanmark ruling the supreme court clearly said that military tribunals that judge civilians are unconstitutional, and the opinion of the court and the conquering opinion by frank murphy contained strang language denouncing the armies actions as attempts to justify is by references to japanese americans as racist in sum, the events in hawaii, i learned, not only presented an interesting counterpoint to what happened to japanese americans on the mainland, but the tell a kind of prehistory we should all be thinking about when we look today at guantanamo and the military tribunals there. yet the story of martial law and duncan verse konomuku, the supreme court decision and japanese americans has remained absent, not from popular discussion but from constitutional law classes, from government discourse. it deserves to be lookedded at

much more closely in connection with japanese americans. so i think that may be my book's contribution, it tells a story that many americans are not aware of, at least at the present. so, most probably "the tragedy of democracy" well be looked at in comparison so -- to "by order of the opresident." by order the the president was an executive history,, and had little to say about japanese americans themselves. while i did a good deal of research at hyde park and made good use of what i found, i also made heavy use of existing literature and available public documents, and in fact i was mortified when both praise and criticism of "by order of the president" focused on my discussion of the larger history

of the camps, which is something i hand -- hadn't done. "a tragedy of democracy" attempts to synthesize a great deal of new information on the experience on japanese americans and canadians and mexicans and latin americans, all filtered through different countries and in different languages. at the same time that it brings together history of the confine independent different countries, histories that have been studied only in isolation. there's more orange research in "tragedy of democracy" than there was in boy by order of the president." part of that is because i had the good fortunate to be around for the explosion of digital documents.

i found a great number of sources in the franklin library, whether newspaper walls, legal briefs, census records, finding aides and such. and it's also the result of devoting considerable time to pouring over sources from the period in different libraries and i archives. art of it also is that my book takes account of newly available sources. what i hope people take away from both books is a sense of how fragile our liberties are, not just those or americans and people in the united states, but people in democratic societies throughout the continent, and just how easy it is in a time of emergency to suspend judgment and give excess power to military authorities or government officials with a plausible claim of national security. studying the wartime treatment of japanese americans in a new

way may also help us to understand our current situation a little bit better. the case of the japanese americans in fact underlines most strongly those wise wards attributed to benjamin franklin who said those who give up sensual liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. thanks for listening. let's have a little discussion. [applause] >> yes. [inaudible question] >> the question is, was there any actual evidence that led to the confinement? this is a key question, very intelligent question and key question, because michelle milkan and those who falled her have claimed the u.s. intercepts of the japanese diplomatic code

displayed mass espionage by japanese americans. my contention is they don't show any such thing. they show pious hopes by japanese authorities who are recruiting spies, that they could get to recruit japanese americans, and even if there had been evidence of that, it was not shown to the people who made the actual decisions on the ground. the best answer i can come up with is, no. the best evidence is that there was no actual evidence of any sabotage by any japanese american on the west coast, and this is one area where the comparative history helps us. the fact is that in canada, the military authorities opposed mass confinement. the chief of staff of the canadian army said there was no threat from japanese-canadians, that a small number of unarmed people are not going to be able to bring about any great rising

against canadian troops and the greatest danger in fact was to them from rioting rather than from them. nevertheless, such was the influence of west-coast whites in canada, that the government yielded to the fears and the hysteria going on, and agreed to remove all people of japanese ancestry from the west coast of canada. yes. [inaudible question] >> the question is whether the japanese mexicans were deported to the united states -- whether they had their own camps. the answer in a sense is no to both. mexico, unlike the other latin american countries a that collaborated we the u.s. state department, refused to give the united states any of its nationals for confinement. for intern.

mexico had the same fears of ethnic japanese, and so even before mexico declared war on japanese, they declared a ford -- forbidden zone, 200 miles away away from the american border and 100 miles inland so all result office japanese ancestry were forced to move themselves. mexico did not set up for camps, except for one type of internment camp that it arrested some people that it suspected of criminal activity. by and large, japanese mexicans were forced to move themselves. they went largely to guadalajara or to mexico city, where there was already a japanese community. in fact quite a notable one. and the -- so they escaped mass confinement. on the other hand, they were impoverished and their

belongings were taken from them exempt for those who has mexican wifes to take care of their property and were forced to rely on the good will of the japanese community in mexico city. >> i'd like folks to come to the microphone and ask the question. >> go ahead, sir. i'll answer your question to you. [inaudible question] >> can you summarize very quickly the karamotsu case. >> you're speaking of the japanese american who challenged executive order 9066. this is as opposed to the duncan case in hawaii. the case of fred koromotsu was one of a small number of cases of americans of japanese ancestry who challenged executive order 9066 and mass removal, in the courts. this case he refused to leave

the west coast, and he got caught. he had a nonjapanese girlfriend that he wanted to stay with. but once arrested, he decided that it was matter of principle and he was going to not give up otherwise citizenship rights. so with the help of one of the branch office the american civil liberties union, he brought suit, challenging on the basis of his constitutional rights, the government's policy of removing and confining him. in the lower courts, he was convicted of violating public law 502 and 503, congress' backing up of executive order 9066. the supreme court agreed to hear his appeal, and the federal government, which didn't want to lose the case because they were scared if any of the japanese americans succeeded in challenging thecourt -- challenging the army, the army

would look back, and japanese americans would then -- once the camps were open, all run back to the west coast and there would be rioting and all sorts of problems. so, both to buttress the army's case and prevent problems, the army's leaders, most notably assistant secretary of war john mccloy, engaged in trickery. they withheld evidence. they rewrote other evidence to make the government's case better. i don't have time to go into the details of this in the end, the supreme court decided 6-3, that the government's policy could be split up. that the actual removal of japanese americans from the coast could be split up from the confinement that followed, and so that the policy of removing people based on their japanese ethnicity was acceptable in the case of a wartime emergency. this was later challenged in the

1980s by researchers who found evidence that the government has engaged in trickery and manipulation and a federal court overturned the conviction of fred koromatsu who was later awarded the presidential medal of freedom. >> your fdr book from the' 20s is striking. i'm wondering, since the interment is one of the black clouds over fdr's president circumstance if you -- presidency, how that type of attitude influenced his wartime decision. >> that's a whole book in itself. you could write a book about it. i did. very briefly, what i discovered is fdr had a long history of racial feeling about asians and japan americans in particular, beginning in the teens when he

was assistant secretary of the navy and he feared an invasion from japan after california forbade japanese immigrants from buying land or owning property, and through the 1920s. and apparently through on into the '30s and '40s, he was making racial remarks about japanese. this doesn't mean that fdr hated japanese and and thus. in fact, he was rather a liberal. he had japanese friends. heed a hired japanese culture. if you go into the big house, you see all sorts of japanese knicknacks his family brought back from japan. and so fdr did genuinely appreciate japanese but in some undefinable or less important way, they really couldn't come to america and be americans. they couldn't undo in one generation or two generations or three or four generations, their

darwinian walsh -- racial programming. so, again, don't say this meant that fdr hated japanese americans. what it meant is that it informed his conduct that in an emergency situation was being called on to act against japanese americans. he really didn't consider very much the rights of 100,000 people he didn't think were really american anyhow, and it inspired an indifference. he didn't really care enough to look into the case for widespread removal and to discover how fictitious it was. >> shout. [inaudible] question. >> what are my findings on

mrs. roosevelt? excellent question. my next project is on eleanor roosevelt and world world war i. when i started writing on fdr i planned to have a chapter on eleanor to see how other people saw japanese americans. but she woulds so important and so interesting she was going to take over the entire book, and so i decided that i would -- had better let her go for the time being, and so in the meantime, i've been assembling stuff. the story of eleanor roosevelt and japanese americans, very briefly, is a story of dissidence. it's a story of eleanor roosevelt trying to find ways to push her husband against -- to dissuade him from removing japanese americans, then to help japanese americans, she approved emergency funds from her account with the american friend service committee nor emergency programs

for the japanese american evacuees. she asked to visit a camp, and in 1942 this was forbidden, but in 1943 she actually visited the gila river camp. i wrote to a number of japanese americans who had been to gila river to ask for their stories of mrs. roosevelt's visit. the first thing they all answered was, she was very tall. you figure the japanese americans who were not very tall. one told me a store of her entering the mess hall where no whites were supposed to be and asking for a blast of butter milk, and all the japanese americans were staring out her, and she drinks the milk and says, this milk is sour, and they all looked at her and said, who is going to tell her it's always sour as soon as she got back from the camp, she went to los angeles, the pele -- belly

of the beast as it were, and if we didn't get the japanese our -- out of the camps we will have another india on our hand, and she wrote a column on the japanese americans and on their contributions. so, her story is largely a positive one, although there was a limit to what she was able to achieve with president roosevelt. yes, sir? [inaudible question] >> the question is whether in hawaii other cultural groups, such as the chinese and koreans and filipinos -- did they speak out on behalf of the japan americans in hawaii. the answer is yes. part of my research on eleanor roosevelt is her exchanges at a

chinese american ymca director by the name of ching. when mrs. root went to hawaii in 1943, she met with ching and was so impressed by him and how he helped the japanese americans to enlist in the army in the 442nd, she invited him to come to the white house to brief fdr on the problems of the japanese american soldiers. and there were also korean americans from hawaii who served in the 442nd. a council -- colonel young kim. doesn't mean it was paradise of racial harmony, but certainly groups of people that worked together in civic unity groups. japanese americans were about 40% of the population. so, it was possible for all the other people on the islands to really know them to have experience with them to have lived with them, really.

whereas the japanese americans on the west coast had the misfortune of not being widespread enough to make their internment impossible and to excite public opinion in their favor, but be enough people, unlike on the east coast, to inspire hostility, economic competition, and racism. >> have any of the japanese in the post world war written articles of books talking about their confinement? >> yes. there's a whole literature of japanese americans in the postwar years. the book i edited, follow are her own road, deals in large measure with the first book written about the japanese american wartime experience, a memoir, an extraordinary work called "citizen 13660. " which was published number

1946 and which literally graphically details the stories of the camps, and there war few others in the first years after the war, after which a period of silencing and silence obtained. but in the late 1960s and into the 1970s, japanese americans started organizing a movement for repairations, what we call redress, for apologies and repayment for what they suffered, and part of that experience was exactly precisely breaking the silence. people testifying about their experience. and eventually, with the help of japanese americans in congress, the united states created a wartime commission. a commission on wartime relocation and internment of civilians to investigate the wartime confinement of japanese americans, and again, there were many people who testified. many speaking for the first time about their experience publicly before the commission and this led eventually to the united

states voting a redress act, the civil rights restoration act, by which congress voted an official apology and a $20,000 redress payment to each person who had been removed under executive order 9066. i should add that canada was also inspired by this same redress struggle, and there was a redress movement among japan canadaans, six weeks after the united states voted a redress act, canada voted an official apology and $21,000 to each japanese canadian, a bit of canadian one-upsmanship. none of the latin american governments has yesterday offered repairations, although a few weeks ago outgoing president of peru formally apologizees to the per ruthans about the rights

and wartime confinement. >> any comments about the american pressing their period? >> the question is about the american press. well, on the west coast, in the first weeks after pearl harbor, the press turned rather negative, and there were wild stories, particularly in the hearst press, wild stories about japanese planting vegetables in the shape of arrows to indicate the way for bombers to bases or poisoning vegetables and all sorts of wild stories. it wasn't restricted to the united states. the same thing happened in british columbia, and the same thing happened in the west coast of mexico and elsewhere. there war very few newspapers that opposed mass confinement of japanese americans. among which were disproportionately black

american newspapers, such as the los angeles tribune and the chicago defender. the san francisco chronicle also resisted executive order 9066. by and large the american press did not report a great deal about the japanese americans. people outside the west coast didn't know or care much about the japanese americans, until the government moved them, and then people figured, where there's smoke there must be fire. the government must know what at it doing. and so for the balance of the war years, the press was fairly negative, until the exploits of the japanese american soldiers of the 442nd, in combination with the government efforts to present a positive public image to japanese americans to aid in resettlement of people getting out of camps, began to change the minds of newspapers. but there lots of important newspapers, like the denver

post, which remained solidly antijapanese during the entire war period. >> so we had no courageous commentators who were standing up for them. >> not at the outset. the only national figures who really spoke out against executive order 9066 were the writer, pearl s. buck, and the socialist party leader, norman thomas. >> did earl warren, who was instrumental on the supreme court and giving so many rights, ever comment upon his action during this period of time or people apologize for what he had done or was instrumental in doing? >> an excellent question. well, they're all excellent question. that's a particularly excellent question because it brings flow work i'm doing right now. earl warren not only was a major instigator of the mast removal of japanese americans, but he was somebody who also called for

martial law in california and spoke in favor of a court suit to strip japanese americans of voting rights and citizenship rights during his gubernatorial campaign in 1942. that said, earl warren was also a gov, who when the army lifted restricts on japanese americans to return to the west coast, said their civil rights will be enforced, and so he made it possible for japanese americans to come back to the coast before the end of the war without major bloodshed. he did not apologize during his lifetime. he made a private apology to japanese american activists named edison uno who pursued him for an apology and dogged his steps, and he finally made a private comment to edison uno, but only in his memoirs that he actually apologized.

on the other hand -- again trying to give both sides -- earl warren was an important contributor to the an abolition of the act which japanese americans moved to have overturned and title 2, which aloud the government to intern anybody they fought what dangerous without a trial. which is something the japan americans, based on their own experience, began to oppose and was eventually overturned in 1971, thanks in large part to the endorsement of the repeally earl warren. thank you very much, mr. robinson. [applause]

>> i'm happy to continue the conversation as well as sign books out near the book store. thanks so much for coming. [inaudible] [inaudible conversations] >> our final event of the day. james mcgregor burns, sits down to talk with presidential historians michael beschloss and susan dunn. it's booktv live from the roosevelt reading festival. we'll be back in just a few minutes. [inaudible conversations] >> what are you reading this summer?

book become wants to know. >> who books, the storms of war, by andrew roberts, and a book called "1861." i think by jeffrey goldberg. anyway, it's about the beginning of the civil war. those are the two books i have been reading mostly. >> tell us what you're reading this summer. send us a tweet at book tv. >> booktv is in new york city at the annual publishers convention held every year here in new york city. we're reviewing some of the fall 2011 books and we're at the chicago review press stand with the publisher of the chicago review press. tell us what your organization is. >> we're a publisher, mostly nonfiction books. we have been in binssons 1973

and publish on a variety of topics, african-american interests, we have several different interests, and one of them does african-american interests, middle east politics, feminism. and chicago review press does an eclectic mix of nonfiction, popular science, travel, history. >> are you private of associated with a university? no we're independently owned, independently minded. >> let's look at some of these coming up books. let's start here. >> andrew tadler is one of the only western journalists in syria and worked with the syrian government, and also was a western journalist, and he started an english language magazine there called "syria

today" and is an enter the on syria has been interviewed on television shows here in the u.s. >> given that events are happening in sirarch -- syria, is this book being updated? >> it's current topic right now. it's not being updated as it's really about what led up to what is happening there today. >> right next to it you have an author -- >> jamana is a poet, journalist, she is an editor. she lives in beirut, and she founded the first erotic magazine in the middle east, me and is a fem is in, -- feminist and this is her memoir. she is coming to the united states in september and is touring here. and andrew lives in washington, dc so he is here in the united states. >> women heroes of world war ii. >> women heroes of world war ii is a look at all the women from

all over europe who fought the nazis, basically. so it's this notion that they were in dangerous situations. they did more than just house jews. they actually were spies, and really were active participants in the resistant to hitler. and it's for young adults. >> right next to that, divine rebel. >> this is looking at american christian activists for social justice, and a lot of people think that they right wing has happen on christianity but this is looking at the great liberals. >> now, cynthia sherry, you have a whole series of books for the civil war. >> this is a book that we published a number of years ago called "civil war for candidates" and -- for kids" and it's part of our series for kids

aims 12 and up, ask we have an abraham lincoln for kids and the underground railroad. >> what's your web site? >> we web site i www.chicago revue press.com. >> cynthia sherry, the publisher of chicago review press. >> in your book you talk about one of the life changing moments. you're watching the justice thomas, anita hill hearings. what happened to andrew? >> i just graduated from college. it was like my bar mitzvah. i thought i would learn an education about judaism, but i left feeling very empty because i just learned how to chant. i was open for a spiritual experience. i didn't get it. i flint the exact same way -- felt the exact same way in where where i was an american history major, and the stuff i was

reading was infrom presentsive and was -- it was demoralizing, and i graduated less skilled, less motivated, and i was a waiter. >> you. >> my education was a lack of an education, and so i was waiting tables right after graduating college, and i finished by lunch shift and good home, and your friends would say, why are you doing this it? was embarrassing and humiliate humiliating and the besting there that happened in any life, having to work and grind it and people i look up to were looking down on me, and i started to pay for my own shoes dish. >> but your points caught you off. >> they cut me off. it was brutal. so that's why i dedicated me book to my father, who cut me off, and clarence thomas at the

same time. both of their guidance in any life cope sided. >> -- in my life coincided. >> i wanted to root for the takedown or clarence thomas. i remember patricia schroeder walking up the steps with these ladies and saying, we're going to take a stand against the guy for sexual harassment, serial sexual harassingment, so i watched the hearings like a spectator who wanted to see somebody mauled, likelyons mauling romans, and i watched the entire thing. i went from wanting him to be taken down to wondering, where is the beef? what's going here? i don't understand the color commentary on the screen, where

they're saying this is outrageous. i didn't understand the bumper stickers going by me on the street saying, i believe aneat attempt i said, i believe anita what? what's going on here? i don't understand what going on here? everything that i knew, everything i picked up at college in my american studies, cultural marxist, opresser, black people are always right, white people are always wrong. i didn't understand how ted kennedy, the ted kennedy of, and how joe biden and white men could sit in judgment of this man who was the son of grandparents who were sharecroppers, who raised him and he went to yale law school. he did everything right, including allowing for anita hill to rise through the rank0s of the legal profession through jobs with him, where she never had a sexual relationship with him at all. he did nothing untoward, and she

was party to this takedown, and i did not understand how it could be that these white people of privilege were attacking this black man who was in this historic position while the main stream media sat -- took him down while the knapp and -- the naacp and the urban league and other black leaders seemed to relish this takedown. >> who was your mentor -- we're going to get to this later -- who was murdered and you didn't know whether to cry or not. it was along that time you started questioning indoctrination. >> the smartest person i ever met was guy named mike. i was delivering pizza in high school. and he was different. he was alternative and was the smartest guy i ever knew. he wasn't the most ethical guy. he took the sats for a bunch of my friends and got them 1600s.

he drop out of uc santa barbara, and while i was going to college, he was floundering and doing drugs. during the period of time he was my mentor, he was taking me to alternative book stores, to read about left wing ideas. he very much was interest the -- was into the class struggle, and when i started to get my job, as i was trying to fund his world view, trying to embrace the struggle, at a certain point my dad said something that nobody told him you need to get a job. you need to clean up. you need to get your act together. you need to stop doing drugs. and so there was a certain point where i started to challenge my mentor. it wasn't that i felt that i was an intellect and was able to beat him at the game of s.a.t. scores. i still was 400 points below him on that level. i started to gain the self-confidence and the

self-respect i could call him out on his misbehavior, and i started to move away from this guy. and i got a phone call once as i was starting to move towards independence and away from this victimology that absolutely dominated this guy's consciousness, i got a phone call that he was murdered at a hotel room in los angeles, and i imagined that it was during a drug deal that went bad. and to this day i think about how i never cried about that. >> but i was thinking about your parents, your story, and how you had to negotiate with a professor to give you a higher grade so you could graduate bought you realize if you did not graduate it would be humiliation. then a friend of yours at yale said andrew breitbart, i have

the perfect job for you. >> he was from harvard, an astro physics major, who calls cared for me. he always knew that in prep school i was not going to be the a student but i was the class clown and i meant well. that is how skirted around my add and was able to maintain my place in an elite private academy where everybody was harvard, stanford, princeton bound. i didn't want to leave my friends. seth knew my burden. seth knew -- >> you visited him. >> he visited me and said, i need to talk you on a walk. i said, just sitdown. he said, need to talk you on a wake. he walked me around the street in santa monica, and she said, i have seen your future. it's this thing called the internet. it works the way your brain works. and at that point i had been

diagnosed with adult add, and i had tried ritalin for about a month and i hated it. i felt hideous about it. i was trying to figure out how i could conform the workplace, where people have to work in can cubicles, and i knew i couldn't do that. i'd rather drive around l.a. listening to talk radio or music -- >> oh, but you left that and started this -- >> he toll me, i've seen the internet, i've seep -- seen the future, and i think there's something almost to eerie about that. he's right. the internet does work the way me brain works. >> you can watch this and other programs online at book tv.org. >> what are you reading this summer? >> a book called "the good society." a small book, tremendous wisdom for today. i'm reading an encyclopedia of

conservism. reading a book called viral spiral, and a recent best seller, which i haven't gotten around to fully reading, "the black swan." >> visit booktv.org to see this and other summer reading lists. >> book tv is at the annual publishers convention in new york city. it's called book expo america. and we are previewing some of the fall 2011 books that are coming out. strauss is an impresent of the mcmillan company, and we're joined by their publicity director to talk about their upcoming titles. i want to start with that used to be us, book you have coming out. what is it? >> well, peter, it's a continuation of tom freedman's

amazingly influential and best-selling book, "the world is flat" and "hot, flat and crowded" and is collaborating with a foreign policy adviser who is also a close friend and longtime associate of his, and the book is really outlines four ways in which america has gone off the rails and four ways we can get back on. >> when is this coming out? >> it's coming out the day after labor day. highly programattic and it's a road map for the u.s. which is going to be a great event. >> who is andrew feinstein? >> andrew feinstein is most likely the world's leading expert on the global arms race, a kind of black market in armed around the world. he was a south african by birth, politician who lives in compile in -- exile in london and is the

go-to person on the global arms race. >> why in exile? >> well, it's a long story but it has to do with the corruption of the government and his attempts to stand up against it a few years ago. >> in south africa? >> in south africa. >> i wanted to you about a nobel economics prize winner, eye pi -- "thinking fast and slow." >> the most influential author you never heard of. ...

[inaudible conversations] >> good afternoon everyone. welcome to this keynote session of the eighth annual roosevelt reading festival held at the franklin d. roosevelt presidential library, henry a. wallace visitor and education center. i'm bob clarke the center organizer at the library and it is my great push an honor to

introduce our concluding session today, and james macgregor burns, conversations and ratings with james macgregor burns, michael beschloss and susan dunn. because of the special format of the keynote session there will not be a question and answer period. mega-band. i'm certain a wide-ranging discussion between these eminent historians will provide more than enough food for thought today. i would also like to balance the presence of our friends from c-span who are here today. we appreciated as always their support and participation in the roosevelt reading festival and the good work they do in bringing the festival and into the homes that are not able to come to hyde park in person. franklin roosevelt a great collector books and an amateur historian in his own right once wrote that books are always faithful friends and ever cheerful companions. the thing -- same could be said of our three guests on stage today. james macgregor burns can rightly be called the dean of roosevelt biographers. he of the pulitzer prize-winning political scientist and historian and a pioneer in leadership studies. indeed he is the devoted his

entire professional life to the study of leadership in all its forms. small wonder then that he turned to franklin roosevelt as a focus of examination. in 1971 professor burns won the pulitzer prize and the national book award for his landmark study of fdr, roosevelt soldier of freedom. he is also the author of the acclaimed companion book, roosevelt the lion and the fox. together with another of our guests, susan dunn professor burns also co-authored the three roosevelts, leaders who transformed america and the 2004 biography of george george washington. professor burns' 1978 book "leadership" is still considered the seminal work in the field of leadership studies and the theory of transformational leadership has been the basis for more than 400 doctorow dissertations. what he has written about he is also lived. professor burns served as a combat historian in the pacific theater from 1943 to 1946 and he