so, you never know who you might meet at one of these events. so make sure you all mix with people there on. she is married to a gentleman, louise, for those of you who are sympathy lovers, was the first violinist for the washington symphony, for a long, long time. he retired a year ago. they met because she gave the symphony and went to a donor meeting great and met and fell in love and other live very happily down in george. so you never know where these events will might lead to a happy ever after. so again, my first memory that d.c. was in the '70s. this was way before my dad one. i'm going to take you on a bit of a reminder of kind of my background and his career because i think it's important for us to understand where we came from and why it's important to learn lessons. so if you can imagine the 1970s, this might've been

around 74, we lived in carrollton george. we lived in carrollton, georgia, because my father went to him ey and into killing got his ph.d at part of the deal was he got some scholarship money if you promise to come back to george and teach. when he finished up his dissertation, he found a job offer at one place of carrollton, georgia. so that's where he went. he had two young girls. my mother and all went to carrollton. we packed up and went to washington on a train trip. it was a big trip for us. my mother's mother was going as well. we're getting ready and we're coming down the big hill on our little house. it's pretty steep, not very long and my grandmother tripped and broke her leg. she broke her leg. ackermann because my sister had to push her around washington the entire tactic likely she was

16. grandma got on the train, she rode the train the hallway here and we kept our family vacation in debt. the reason i'm telling the story is if you can imagine a little rural girl from carrollton, georgia, riding the train up, going into the dining car in the morning, sitting down at what appeared to be a very elegant table, and looking out of the window and seeing as you cross the bridge of natoma, washington monument. and feeling that i had known that i just entered our nations capital. later i learned as i'm sure many of you know, that on the top of the washington monument is the capstone. on the capstone it says praise be to god. as the sun rises over washington every day the first light of the sun strikes the words praise be to god. i try to remember that as they come into washington because it is a special city.

i think for those that live here you can occasionally forget that. but i think it's very important for us to remember that it is a very special city. so my first political memories are not of the trip in campaign. so again, little girl from georgia, 1974, and my father decides to run for congress. as a republican. back then there were no republicans from georgia. not really. there was rodney cook. it was not madly. are were both how we and my father. get them all in a room together, that was it. he decided to run. and because he was at west georgia, that meant that he would run against jack quinn who at the time was the dean of the georgia delegation. he was the most senior person. i'm sure many people told him it wasn't a good idea.

and we are talking earlier, and i know that we have great granddaughter of some who are members when we announce who's going to run. so did everyone long history in georgia. but he ran and ran really hard and for those remember 1974, even history books or from real life, 74 was the time of watergate. you can imagine what it must've been like to run as republican in georgia. really hard. but he ran, ran, ran. at the end of the term we went to the victory party you guys have a victory party that you don't want to have a defeat for it, really, really bad. and i can remember dad sitting there with his yellow legal pad. and back then we didn't have the great map you pull things out of, you had someone call for a precinct and they would say this is precinct whatever, whatever. here are the votes. so dad would write them down. and i can remember him adding them up.

he's a pretty good mathematician but my mom is a math teacher. he would add them up again as if it would change the answer. unfortunately it didn't. he lost with 48.58.5% of the vote. as we all know, it doesn't matter how much you lose by, you lose. but the next morning he didn't complain. he didn't cry. the next morning we got up really early. we went over to the ford factory and he shook hands. we shook hands with family. thank you for your help. we will be back again next time. the next thing, next year, same thing happen. he ran really hard. he wasn't sure he could beat jack flynn. he said he knew he really had a chance until the republican primaries and some guy named amy carter was really getting ahead. and he knew it was going to be a tough race. we were in georgia again. and jimmy carter ran a great race and worked really hard. and dad said he thought he had a chance until election day when

he stood in front of the library, and he saw the buses pull up. and he realized the buses were not there to vote for newt gingrich. they were there for somebody else. so again that night he added up and add it up again and again and again. and again he lost. with 48.3% of the votes. slight decline. so what do we do the next morning? we got up again, went to the ford factory, thank you very much for your help, we will be back again. mother tells a great story, we were talking about the history and the family and what we went through. and at this point they lost twice and they had to decide whether not to run again. they decide to run again. amongst the germans going into a friend and sang jackie, you are going to let him run again, are you? he just can't run again. if he loses is going to be embarrassing. like the first two work, right?

mom had such a great answer. she goes, who am i to kill the dream? of course, he wants to run. and as we now know, he ran. he won. and in time, 1994 republican resurgence on the hill. the reason i tell the story is not to say that my dad lost a lot because i know it is the kind of endorsing and i don't like to highlight that. but my point is very good i want you to understand that persistence matters. that it's very important that we as a people are optimistic and persistent because in the end, that's what makes a difference. now, thomas jefferson said all that your needs to gain a foothold is for people to remain sidekick i think we need these to be very, very aware of the school because went to understand we can't be silent. the complicity is just as bad as

actually doing something. and we have to have the ability and speak about what we think is important as a nation. today, more than ever, conservatives, and i think in particular and i will talk about this, i think in particular no offense to them here, but my kids i said, no offense, i know you're going to say something bad. i think particularly women conservatives are incredibly important. i think women really, i think it's our time to step up and be proactive and i'm going to talk about that a little bit. so our nation is on a journey. we are on a journey. we have this incredible rich history, a lot of which is in the book "the essential american." and i think we have a really bright future. which and going to talk about as well. but if you think about it we are the link. we are it. that people it in this room come the people in our nation, we are the link between an incredibly wonderful history and an

incredibly bright future. it's our job, i think our future is based on our ability to speak up, to articulate it very clear vision of a great future, that everyone can be engaged in. i think we have to pay such a compelling picture that people want to join in and want to be helpful and want to be a part of it. we have to inspire and remind people of our rights. and with rights come responsibilities as americans. our future is predicated on -- americans understand and they believed that we all have an equal opportunity to share the american dream. we have to understand and we have to articulate and convey a vision that resonates, it has to resume. when i say resonate, a little girl played violin, it's not great but its okay. when she plays and she plays while you can feel it, right?

let me tell you, when luis laid the first chair it really does resonate because he does play with such passion. we have to be able to convey and articulate a vision that resonates with a majority of americans so they can understand and feel it in their bodies. i'm going to talk a little bit about the founding of our country that you are busy all know about what will talk about anyway. and also about what i think we need to go. when you think about the declaration of independence that clearly states, right, we have self-evident truth, that are created gay people writes, we been loaned and to the government. and i think when you think about this as we are and what we are not. self-evident means it's truthful. i think we need to understand we based on truths. when we see equal, we are created equal, not the in the end it's a equal. this is a real challenge for us as a society. this is going to hurt peoples feelings because people like for

people to be happy. but the reality is in the end you have to people that are better than others because they were targeted you can have is a site where everyone gets the same thing in the end. that's not a free society that creates independent entrepreneurial people. when we talk about our creator we're talking about god giving us power, that our powers come from god. not that the government decides what power we're going to have. a different paradigm. i think we need to get about life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, the freedom to act in what you want to do, but also we have to remember when this is pursuit of happiness, this is important, that means you can pursue it. that doesn't mean you have it. that's very, very different. i have a nine and an 11 year old and they are great age the they are really, really fun. 11 year old is a girl, the nine is a little boy. we get into these discussions sometimes and it really, really frustrated with me because they are not happy. and i have to remind them that's not my job.

it's not my job to make them happy. it's my job to discipline them and love them, and to encourage them. it is their job to figure out on the boundaries how they can be happy. i think that's hard for us to do as a country. i'm going to talk about what women do and what i think women are so important in the next phase of where we are politically. generalities again, so if you're not one of these normal women, don't take any offense. but in general i think women operate different. i see this and my sister. i have a sister who is three and a half years older. she's amazing. it's probably the best manager or leader you would say of people that i know. i say that because she really cares about everybody that works with a. genuinely cares for them, worries about how they feel and what you're doing and how they work. and what she's able to do is she pulls all their strengths and figures out how to use them

together. and incredible incredible manage. very talented woman. but women have us go figure out how do you mix together and create a team versus figure out how to treat a group that always competes against each other which is a very different dynamic. the other think women do is because they are by nature, a child that they give birth and they also are the mother, i think women are much more forward thinking because we're always thinking about, especially when your children, what's the next generation? we can't help ourselves. we worry about our children, worry about their future. we worry about how do we make sure things are ready. so i think by designing the way god created us is we do worry about what's coming up big we care for children, which makes us be the kind of crazy sometimes, which does happen. also develop patience. one of the biggest stories i have with having children is that i'm developing a little bit more patience.

i'm not there yet. i have a lot more patience to get. one of the things and i had this experience this weekend, my husband and i laugh over this, one time when we watched our children, they're running around doing something and they were doing x, y and z and the kids marched off and did exactly what you're told to do, which was amazing, but they turn to us and said look, all you need to do is tell them and they do it. right, tom 4000 times and maybe they do it. one of the things about parenting is you begin to realize you do have to be, you have to repeat yourself very repetitious. very deliberate. you have to do it over and over again. and without screaming always helps. so that ability say the same thing over and over again in the hopes that eventually you will the nicest manners. i like that yes, ma'am. , no, ma'am. , thank you very much. thank you the and you think after that 4000 time, something

stinks in animation at the. the other think women do is they create mass. i know guys like to laugh at that. but part of the reason that we create places of safety or relaxation is that allows a place for people to be able to knit together as a community or a family. >> is a place that's safe and that children feel loved. again, i think that's what women

try to do, is try to build places and communities that are safe. and i think if we as a conservative society think about how do we build the next generation, i think we need to use those same skills. we need possible able to -- to be able to think about how do we knit communities together, how do we figure out how to over and over and over repeat the same things without getting frustrated because it may take a really long time. how can we make sure we build on strength, and we don't tear down people because of their weaknesses. because we all -- literally, i have a lot of weaknesses, we have a lot of weaknesses. but i think those core, fundamental values are very important. one of the reasons, um, that i wrote "the essential american," one of the reasons i think it's so important is because it reminds us that words matter. i know it sounds very shocking to hear that, but i think we forget a lot of times, text, but words have great

importance. thoughts and ideas create reality and, therefore, results. so we're going to be very careful not only what we read, but what we think in our ideas. these documents remind us of or exceptionalism -- of our exceptionalism. they all ask us to do more or be more, they also provide clarity. when reagan said, mr. gorbachev, tear down that wall, he didn't say, gosh, i hope someday it may fall down on its own. right? he said, tear down that wall. very, very clear in terms of what should happen. and i think when we think about our future, it's important to understand our past. and, again, that's the core belief behind "the essential american." they're our nation's stories. we have family stories, the one i told you about my dad losing twice is, obviously, a family story. i tell that to my children when they fail to remind them they

have to be nice and get up and work very hard again, and they can't give up. we also have stories, i'll tell you a few family stories. my grandmother, the same one who broke her leg, was raised on a farm. and in a rural area of georgia that makes carrollton look like a metropolis, so i think everyone around her was related to her. she was one of 11 or and, we're not sure, we don't have good records, and she was born in 1911 or 1913, we're not sure. they didn't open the land, they just worked it which means everybody had to really participate. everybody who was involved. and so when she told her dad she wanted to go to columbus, georgia, and get her rn degree, he wasn't happy. because that's -- he needed those hands. he needed her to help him out. so her mother gave her her egg money, literally, her egg money, her nest egg, and her father

disowned her, said don't want to hear from you again, and she went off to column wuss and -- columbus and got her rn degree. which for a woman from a family who had never had a high school diploma was a huge, huge event. i tell this story to my children because i want them to understand that we value education, education is important as is doing what you think is really right for you. now, you'll be glad to know that when her father became sick later in life and needed someone to help him, she, of course, was there and took care of him, for which he was grateful. but it's really important. education's important. my mother, who is the, um, old oest of four children, was told when she went to college, you have two choices. you may get out in three years and your sister will go after you, or your sister will wait another year. because there's not enough money to send two children the same year. she said, i'll give it a try. she went to auburn, graduated with a degree in math which was

unusual for a girl of her life, and got out in three years and became a high school math teacher. again, we value education. my sister kathy, who i mentioned story you told me earlier about raising money for cancer -- my sister has rheumatoid arthritis. if you've never seen anyone who has this disease, it's incredibly debilitating. she had days six, seven years ago when she literal hi could not -- literally could not get out of bed. i mean, literally had to be lifted out of bed. and she began taking a drug called embril, and it totally transformed her life. it didn't fix anything, but it stopped all the progress of the disease. so my sister having then, right, conquered that at least for right now, decided she wanted to raise money and awareness for arthritis and decided she wanted to walk a marathon, 26.2 miles.

so she asked me if i'd go along and raise money for arthritis. i said, sure, of course. your sister, right? you'll do anything she wants. luckily, she's little, 5-5, and i probably could have carried her if hi had to, and i kept thinking that, surely, i'll be able to carry her. you know kathy. but kathy, of course, made it through fine, walked all 26.2 miles. took her seven hours and 47 minutes, we raised $40,000. we've done it two other times and over the years we have raised $146,000. so you really can do incredible things when you put your mind to it. but those are some of our family stories. in terms of our nation's stories, there are a couple i want to highlight today because i think they're so important. one is abigail adams, often overlooked. women weren't in front of the group, they were left behind with the children. but when you look at abigail

adams and her letters with john, you see a woman that, clearly, was very, very bright, highly educated and asked really great questions. and when you read her letters and be you see her questions, you think, she's kind of prodding him -- she's giving him the next thing to do, right? just to make sure. she reminds him that every member feels for us. kind of like we do right now when you get calls from constituents who say remember the people down in georgia? remember the people out in the texas? or remember those out in california? she reminded hip of the people -- him of the people at home. she also reminded him if a form of government is to be established, what one will be assumed? what's going to happen? how will you form this government? how will it be made up? clearly, their relationship not only provided him with stability as a family, but also intellectually challenged him to think about what's the right form of our government? the ore one is jean -- other one is jean kirkpatrick who i really

am very fond of. she's very interesting because very, very bright woman who was a democrat originally, part of the democratic party, part of that organization but was very concerned, um, in the '70s because of the way foreign policy was unfolding. and got very, very concerned, caught then-candidate ronald reagan's attention when he was running for office and became his national security adviser. and really her 1984 blame america first speech at the republican national convention, i think you could take that speech today, you could put in new places and new names, that speech is just as relevant today as it was then because it very clearly lays out that a country cannot blame itself and be a world leader at the same time. and i think, and i'm going to talk more about this, i think this whole idea of judgment we have to think about as a country because where we don't want to not have right or wrong, i think clearly in the forefront we must have truth. we must understand that when we say two plus two, as my dad

says, equals four. it really does equal four. there has to be a standard of truth. but we have to, i think, move towards having truth without judgment because if you look at our history, we have a cycle of victims and oppressors. and if next group cycles over and the victims become oppressors, you have the same cycle. and can then it reverses. so the way to fix that, the way to think about possibly fixing that is to have truth. not necessarily without judgment, but with an open mind that was going to lead you to a more interesting, more creative decision that would be inclusive and allow everyone to participate. now, that's a lot to think about, so i'm going to back up and give you a little bit of abraham lincoln to help with that. so my favorite selection out of "the essential american" is lincoln's second inaugust inaugural. and you can tell i'm overweighted on lincoln, and we had a bit of a discussion because i just couldn't figure

out what to cut. i have lincoln's first inaugural, the gettysburg address, the emancipation proclamation and the second inaugural. but i couldn't figure out if you're really trying to talk about american history, what do you cut out? i couldn't figure it out. when you look at the wording from how he changes as a person from his first inaugural which was clearly a case of why we shouldn't go to war but we'll probably have to, right? basically it says states have seceded, we know it's going to end up in the war, i don't want to go to war, i wish it wouldn't go to war, but here's kind of the legal outline of what's going to happen. if you look at that and then move to the gettysburg address where in 287 words never using the word i or me, never talks about himself, he moves from the founding of our nation to the future and wraps us all in this great promise for tomorrow.

unbelievable speech. he was not the keynote speaker that day. edward everett was who was a well-known orator. he spoke for two hours. don't worry, i'm not speaking for two hours today. but if you can imagine, lincoln getting up after a two-hour oratory saying 287 words in less than two minutes and so short the photographer couldn't take a picture. but today the gettysburg address is one of the ones that we remember. but the second inaugural, to me, is really heart wrenching, and i want to spend a moment talking about it. especially with us right here at the capitol. i think it's that way. the dome of the capitol was half finished, so the first inaugural there was a scaffolding up on the capitol, and at that time they decided to continue with the construction as a sign that the union would endure and we would not follow. we would be here. at the second inaugural it was

all but assured the north would win, and the dome was finished. so he comes out, it's a cloudy day like today, a little overcast. and the story goes he comes out and as lincoln approached the podium, the clouds actually broke, and the sunshined on hip. on him. which must have been incredibly moving if you were there. but he talks about a couple of things in the second inaugural address which i want us to think about, it's where we need to move for our next generation of conservativism. he talks about let us judge not that we be not judged. you can tell in this address that he had become a man who truly understands that he is an instrument in the hand of god. you could see it in if his speeches, you could see it in his writingings, you could see how faithful he's become as a leader and a president. but he talks about let us judge not that we not be judged. he then closes with that great line: with malice towards none, with charity for all, with

fairness in the right as god gives us to see the right, let us try to finish the work we are in. now, you may think what does this have to do with me? you're a college student, you're an intern, you're working in an office, you're in business here. what does that have to do with me? i often think the same things myself. i'm a writer, i'm a mother, i do a lot of laundry -- eight loads this weekend -- and you wonder what does that have to do with us? i think it has a lot to do with us. i think, first of all, we need to understand that we're a nation about moving forward and looking forward. that we're a nation that wants to reach out to others and include others, and we have to depend on truth, but we don't want to lean on judgment because we know in the end that doesn't get us to where we need to go. i think we also have to understand that if we really want to dream big and think about where we want our nation to be, at least when my children are older -- because i do have my two little ones -- is we have to think about a nation that can be focused on truth, come up

with creative solutions. because part of saying what's truthful without judgment is the truth is still the truth. it doesn't make the truth go away. it makes us focus on the truth and create a really creative solution versus looking at the past and figuring out how to fix the past. because let me tell you what, you can try all you want, you can't fix the past. it doesn't change. there's nothing there for us. it's gone. so just think about how can we be creative and solve problems for the future. that's what we're about. and then we have to figure out how can we make it so attractive that we absorb the majority of the country with us, that we're all working together? it's about absorption instead. so if we're going to do this thing, how do we do that? how do we work hard enough to make that happen? our nations stories help us. talk about abraham lincoln and his second inaugural address or

talk about ronald reagan when he gave the branden burg speech and why words are important, to talk about jfk and his statement of ask not what your country can do for you, right? what everyone can do for their country. and to ask if we're doing what we should. that's the hardest thing that i do every day, and i fail every day usually by lunch. [laughter] sometimes i get a little later. but with two children i think you really understand what that means because they see everything you do, and they see how you ask them to do things and how you react to people around you or to them. and i think we all need to understand that every one of us has an incredible network, and we can be a good example. how do we do this? it's to learn every day. i don't know if you learn every day. i try to learn most days. uricly i learn -- usually, i learn from failing. i'm pretty good at that.

getting better at learning from failing. but i think one of the things we have to learn as a conservative movement and as women is what resonates. we talk about we're going to build a movement big enough to resonate with the majority of america, what does resonate? just like a violinist can hear the notes they play resonate. so we were at lunch with luis haza last fall, the violinist i was talking about earlier, and he was telling a story about talking to the greatest violinist in the world. i don't even know his name, it's terrible. but the story was who's the greatest violinist in the world, and the response of the greatest violinist was the violinist who corrects the notes the fastest. and what they did was they looked back and listened to the tape of this maestro, and they realized if you slowed the tape down, you could hear his flaws. you could hear when the notes were off. but his hearing was so good that he could correct it before the human ear could hear it.

so he was literally correcting as he played. but we have to have that ability as a community and a movement to figure out if we're going the wrong way if it's not resonating, if we're not building popular energy and optimism, then we need to rethink what we're doing. because it's got to all, just like a violin, in the end it's got to be fabulous and fantastic and pleasing to the ear. so we have to really figure out how to do that. because this is going to be a very long process and i think in the end we're never really over, right? life takes a long time. that's what i tell my children, life takes a long time if you're lucky. we have to enjoy life. i'm the worst at this. i'm the girl that gets up on saturday with her to do list. i have mine and my husband's. he's not so happy about that. he's the guy that gets up and sits on the couch, right? he's got to rest fist. and i know that we're together for a reason, because god wants me to learn to be patient. i'm not there yet. and god wants him to actually do things on occasion.

[laughter] no, but it's good for me because i do, i'm very, very focused, and i get too involved in activity, and i try to do too much, and jimmy's there to rein me in and say, you know, honey, that's not what life's all about. it's also about being with your family and having fun. one of my favorite stories about my family is my children. we cook grits, eggs every morning. i cooked this morning, but on many occasions jimmy does. so for a while we had this raging battle about who had the best eggs. if you can imagine, the pressure on those children to declare mommy or daddy the best egg maker. it was awful. i have to say, he won for quite a while. it was kind of embarrassing, and i finally asked him, jimmy, what is with the eggs? he's like, honey, you've got to love those eggs. you've got to love those eggs. which means he had to pay attention and know what you're doing.

but that's become our kind of code for no matter what it is, you've got to love the eggs. you've got to love the committee meetings you're in, you've got to love the press release you're getting out, you've got to love the calls you're dealing with. it doesn't matter what it is, you've got to love your eggs. and is jimmy does love his eggs. of course, not anymore he's gotten a doctor's report. he and i are off the eggs for a while. [laughter] and the last thing we need to remind ourselves of is we have to be true to who we are, the conservative movement. and also to women. i think for women, you know, i listen to my mother talk about how she was the first math major, and it's a world that i don't understand was i grew -- because i grew up in an age where i have an undergraduate in finance and an mba in finance and a cfa. i could do whatever i wanted. but as women we now have choices. we can do that or this or we can do -- and every woman is different. and every woman's going the change a couple times during her

life. i've been a, i worked in corporate finance for 15 years, i ran a big corporate group with $4 billion under me, and then i had two children, and now i'm a writer. so the good news is nowadayses you can reinvent yourself as you change and grow and decide that you have a different priority. but i think in the end you have to really be authentic which means i'm the same standing today in front of you as i am this morning cooking eggs for my children. you have to be very clear about who you are and what you will and won't do, and i think you have to understand that it's important that no matter what you do, you do have to, in the end, love all the eggs that you're involved with. but, ladies, you know, we have an mn. i think we have a really big job in the front of us. and i mean that collectively. but i think that together i know that we're up for the task. our task is to be truthful without judgment, to be creative in solutions, to allow all americans to come in and join

the movement, and to understand that everyone can pursue the american dream. i'd like to thank all of y'all for your time, your commitment, your passion and for serving what i think is an integral part between our incredible bright history and our incredible future because we are the link of our great american story. thank you so much, praise be to god as it says on the east side of the washington monument. may god bless you and god bless america. [applause] yeah. and i think alyssa said that we'd take any questions. >> [inaudible] >> yeah, glad to. and, yes, you may exactly how the eggs are cooked. that's allowed. [laughter] >> [inaudible] >> what is your favorite speech that's in the book? is. >> my favorite speech is lincoln's inaugural address.

because it really, it is so, i mean, it moves me to tears when i read it because you can tell how hard the war was for him, you can tell how much he felt it. he talks about, you know, we believe in the same god, you know, we read the same bible, pray to the same god. this is where we are as a nation, hopefully, it'll be over soon. and you can almost feel his heartbreaking in two. but in the end he, again, is very merciful, without judgment and wants us to all work together and reach into a bright future. >> hi. thank you so much. in your interactions with the liberal people of a liberal persuasion, what's some common ground that you're able to connect on, especially with the material in this book? is. >> that's a great question. the question is what is common ground in talking to liberals, especially in terms of this book. it is an americans' book, it's not a conservative book even though they happen to be more conservative.

but we have mlk in the book, his incredible speeches, and, again, i think we need to look at people that reach out to others and include them in the movement as role models. jfk's in there, fdr as well. but, again, the idea was and is to have american stories. all of those that i mentioned, all of those authors ask us to be more, to do more, right? none of them say stay where you are and don't do anything or let government solve your problems. i mean, that wasn't their idea. but to, really, how do we figure out together how to move forward. and i'll give you an example. this is an area that i think we have a lot of opportunity in. two fronts. one is in conservation. i've been involved for over a decade, and my father was involved before me in the trust for public land. it's an organization that saves lands for people. and i think organizations such as that, that are, um, conservation-minded and do a lot of work on saving lands publicly for people to use, i think the conservatives have gotten really a bad rap in terms of being

environmentally aware. i mean, i love the environment, and god created the environment. i think we should be stewards of the earth and should take care of it from a stewardship standpoint, but we have to figure out how to do it in the such a way that it makes sense. because if we just have rules and regulations, we can't control what the rest of the world does. we have to build in solutions that actually work not just for us, but make sense fiscally and others will adopt it as well. so i think we have to be very proactive in terms of the argument. >> hi. i'm wondering, what's the best way to take in some of these speeches? i know that when i'm reading a book and my eyes glaze over the words, i don't really absorb it completely. so did you listen to a lot of these speeches on tape? did you read them aloud to yourself? what process did you have to really absorb them? >> that's a great question. um, a couple of things. in "the essential american" i do have an introduction for each one, who's involved, when did it

happen, why is it important, what was the outcome and why it resonates today. and that helps. the other thing is for those that are -- my husband and i did spend a friday night listening to ronald reagan's, you know, the goldwater speech. you can tell how exciting a life we have. and i also watched the brandenburg gate speech, the ones on radio, that's the best way to see it. clearly, not all of them are. even when we looked at the book itself, to look at patrick henry who's the first entry, i think it's interesting that not only is there no written transcript of that speech, but literally what there is is someone else with a recollection of being at the speech. and that's all the record there is. and that's where we get the phrase, give me liberty or give me death. but i think a variety of ways. i think it's fun. also i know that i, and a couple of them -- especially the documents, the northwest ordinance which is pretty long and not very exciting -- is to skim it and look for the parts that are interesting to you at that particular time. introductions are always about

700,000 words, so they're pretty easy to get to -- 700-1,000 words. this book really is, you can pick it up, you can read one, you can read two, you can read the rest later, so it's really easy to use. >> i have a question. how did you go about picking the 25 documents and speeches that you did? is. >> that's a great question because we do have 25. the original goal was 21. i failed, right? [laughter] we have 25. and it was really hard. i mean, clearly, you have to have the declaration of independence, you have to have the constitution. there's some that you know you have to have. and that was the first 15, and you've got to figure out based on that what worked. a couple things we tried to do, one was make sure we covered our history, so we start with patrick henry and go to george w. bush. and the other thing is we did want to have things that not

only very clearly that should be in there, but things that are a little less well known. one of the alamo speeches is in there which is not as well known, so we tried to do a little bit of everything to make it interesting. >> thank you. [applause] >> for more information visit the author's web site, jackie cushman.com. >> we asked, what are you reading this summer? here's what you had to say.

>> send us a tweet at booktv using hash tag summer reading to let us know what you plan on reading this summer. you can also e-mail us, booktv at c-span.org. >> and now adam hockshell talks about world war i as it was experienced by the british. this is about an hour, 15 minutes. >> so it's a pleasure to be here back at the break forum and also to be talking to an audience on c-span through these cameras here. i'm going to tell you a little bit about this new book of mine and do so by showing you some pictures. um, this is not music on this music stand, but just some notes for me. i think that writing a book is very often a matter of following an obsession and figuring out just why you are obsessed by

something. and for me i have, all my life, had an obsession with the period of the first world war. as long as i can remember, it's something that has fascinated me. um, as i grew older and started to read history, i realized that there are good reasons for being fascinated with the first world war. it left some 20 million people dead, military and civilian, six times -- more than six times the casualty total of any previous war that europe had ever known. the no poll yangic wars 100 years earlier were the next largest. it left an even larger number of wounded soldiers behind, and it left large parts of europe in smoldering ruins in if a way that that continent had not known before where as armies