women in the civil rights movement. books on spirituality, african-american culture, history, legacy. books on women's issues. books on african culture, african history. so all of the books, all of the topics that you would say that relate to african-american culture, history, we have been here in the collection. .. also designed --

the vietnam veterans memorial in washington, dc. when you walk into the library, it's sort of like entering a magical place because it's so different from the exterior of the library which is like a rustic barn. it was taken apart plank by plank. the interior designed by maya lynn, constructed, created and then the planks of the barn, the barn put on the how does so we still have that rustic outer and then this beautiful, beautiful modern interior. part of our collection -- we like to call it our crown jewel is our children's collection. the many, many books that we

collect here in the library -- kwlovm them are chosen for our children's defense fund freedom schools movement. our freedom schools curriculum and i'll show you -- in fact, the ones that are displayed here on the table are part of the freedom school's curriculum. this is -- these are currently books that are on the freedom school's curriculum this year. the books are very, very carefully collected to reflect african-american characters, culture, history -- not only the african-american experience but we really want to offer a diverse collection of books for young people to read so that they're they not only get a sense of their culture but of all the cultures that makes up the american scene.

>> over the next several months booktv will travel to various universities; talk to professors who published recent nonfiction books. this month we speak from authors from george mason university in virginia. next month we head to the university of texas at austin. for more on our booktv college series visit booktv.org. >> professor tom hazlet, what's net neutrality. >> it's a series of regulations on broadband internet providers that limit what your service provider, who provides you access to the internet presumably with high-speed service can do in terms of business models and pricing. so the idea of the so-called net neutrality rules is to limit the reach or scope of your recent transport network that hooks you up and takes you to the internet

in terms of your data traffic and allow you, the customer, to access any kind of application or content without the discretion of the broadband provider involved. it's basically rules and limitations that limit the business models and packaging of your local broadband company. >> in december of 2010 fcc commissioner michael copps allowing giant corporations allowing unfettered control not only creates risk to technological innovation and economic growth. that it pose asreal threat to freedom of speech and the future of our democracy. do you agree with his statement? >> very little of it. in fact, the unfettered market that he references is the market what he created the fcc has created an open market. that is to say we haven't had

net neutrality rules until quite recently and these rules were applied by the federal communications commission in late december of 2010 and indeed they haven't even gone into effect yet. for the argument that we are saving the open internet by applying, in essence, a new regime -- it's really a nonsewe can ter that we have tremendous innovation in terms of content and applications by having a world in which all kinds of companies, whether they be transport or backbone or application providers can try out innovative business models and come up with all business deals to see what works and what's most efficient. that's really the regime we've had and if you want to protect it you ought to extend it in the future in my opinion rather than impose a different regime. >> but what about fcc commissioner copps' point that we're turning over a lot of the control of the internet to large

corporations such as comcast or et cetera? >> well, we're not turning over control, okay, to the extent that the gatekeepers as they're called -- somewhat per jor actively have the ability to quell consumer interests, that's the system we've got. it's not that we're turning over control. it's actually been quite progressive and innovative in terms of encouraging competition and investment in these very networks that now take 70% of u.s. holds to the internet at high speeds. indeed, there has been a complaint. the first complaint filed under the net neutrality rules was not against the giant telecommunications operator or a large scale u.s. capable operator. it was against a rather small u.s. mobile carrier called metro pcs and indeed they have a very -- one would think innovative low cost discounted program for people who want to

get unlimited data, email, voice, text on mobile networks nationwide. metro pcs offers you to do this but for -- and for $40 a month unlimited but does not allow on that net streaming because the network doesn't support it. however, they did work out a deal with google, the owner of youtube, to allow their customers $40 a month customer to get unlimited youtube videos. well, that is discrimination under the fcc net neutrality rules. perhaps, we don't know yet because the complaint has not been adjudicated although i will say in the fcc order they specifically single out this business model, metro pcs metro business model is discriminated so they virtually invited this campaign. it wasn't against one of the large operators that one would think -- you know, the big corporations doing this. this was a mobile operator that's trying to compete.

it had at that time 8 million customers. one-twelfth of the size of verizon and it's offering discounted services for customers who don't want to pay high prices. it was by any measure a very proconsumer but it's now run afoul of the net neutrality fuels but that's the problem, in fact, in regulating the internet. >> tom hazlett is a professor of law and economics here at george mason university. and he's director of the information economy project at the law school. what is the information economy project? >> well, we're an academic program to try to use the rules of laws and economics to analyze public policy issues in the information sector. and we have academic studies, conferences, and lectures by noted academics, business people and innovators in the media world. >> and you've written about cable tv and public policy. >> yes.

>> this is your newest book just coming out "the fallacy of net neutrality." is this a republican-democrat issue supporting or opposing net neutrality? >> well, in some -- in some respects you could make an argument certainly -- i think network neutrality became part of the democratic party platform a few years ago but the democratic party is split on it. there's significant members of congress who are democrats who are generally very hostile to net neutrality. and, you know, the republicans are more unified on that but certainly some of the policies shah now result in net neutrality began in the bush administration, the last bush administration, with voluntary guidelines that are very similar to the net neutrality rules we have today. so there has been some republican support and some democratic opposition.

>> what's the economic harm that could come to a comcast -- >> or a metro pcs. all the firms competing in the marketplace. it's not just the isp's. the internet service providers. it's the firms providing applications because they depend on the infrastructure built by the isp's to have better, broader coverage and upgrade at higher speeds. so the direct threat is that, in fact, the regulatory overhang that is imposed by net neutrality will, in fact, discourage investment incentives. and so you'll get less dynamism. if you have less opportunity as a network to engage in innovation and different kinds of prying packages, you may, in fact, have diminished incentives to build out. and, in fact, there's very strong evidence that in the past when the federal communications commissioned what are called

open access regulations on telecommunication providers that provide dsl, digital subscribers and services in the residential market, that these dsl services that were regulated under open access actually did have stunted growth and then when the fcc lifted those rules in 2003, 2005 in a couple of very important deregulatory moves, the deployment in the united states significantly shut up relative to cable modem growth and adjusted for other factors so there really is strong evidence that these kinds of regulatory interventions can be very, very, very negative. i'll also point out fiber to the home which is the most advanced high speed service is now available in little more than 20 million u.s. households by the latest data. fiber in the home could not be built in the united states until there was a very explicit deregulation.

that is to say, there would be no sharing obligations, no access requirements, nothing like open access or network neutrality and then finally in late 2004, when that regulatory determination was made, you finally got buildout of significant parts of the u.s. with fiber to the home. that's a very high-speed service, it's very expensive to build and so the economics have not proven out very well but that was an investment that is in place and so a lot of people have access to ultra fast broadband as a result and that would not have taken place under a regulatory regime. >> professor hazlett, why does google see advantage in the net neutrality rules as put forth by the fcc? >> right. well, as a policy matter google does argue for network neutrality and they argued for it for some time. there's some question how

vigorously they pursued it and they made deals with other providers and offered a watered down net trumality but google's argument certainly is that they are an edge content provider and they're certainly a very successful one. they have products that, you know, people very popular very valuable to providers. and their fear if they are not allowed to get access to mobile broadband -- excuse me, to fixed or mobile broadband network customers -- without the screen of the broadband isp in place, they may be cutting deals with them or cutting deals with their competitors that they -- they might lessen their market perspective. the other side of this is that google is engaged in all kinds of nonneutral business models. so if you're looks at the clearwire market, clear wires,

wipers that uses 4g, fourth generation technology, that's partly owned by google. and google has anticipated in, for example, putting cooling search is the default search engine on handsets that are distributed to clearwire providers that is certainly a violation of the net neutrality. the most important business event in the entire history of google according to some of the good biographies of the company that are out was may 1st, 2002 when google search -- before it went public and before it had significant cash in the bank paid aol, american online the largest isp at that time, a company at that time according to the federal trade commission with market power, they paid to essentially displace the previous default search engine on the startup page for aol users and become the default search. and this was -- this was tremendously important to get access immediately another 30

million customers as the home page search engine. and they paid for that. there was a business deal. that's not neutral. and that's the sort of thing the net neutrality may affect other times. google was an entrant into the market in 2002. i don't know if google is an incumbent and they might use some of the tactics against it and it fears isp's for maybe combining or integrating into their, you know, direct competition with google search. but i actually disagree with google's fundamental argument on the nature of the internet and the public policy imperative that would impose laws to protect any given business model. >> as you mentioned earlier, professor, the issue of net neutrality is rather unsettled. it's not for sure whether or not these rules are going to go in effect, is that fair? or do you see them going into

effect soon? >> yeah, i think they will go into effect formally and that will happen soon. probably in the next month. and then there will be challenges, court challenges -- in fact, there have been some files that have been set aside by the federal appeals courts because the rules haven't been published. there's been a long, long lag there. but there's a very high probability that these rules actually will be set aside by the federal courts because the previous set of rules that was -- that were crafted to sang comcast, the largest u.s. cable operator back in 2007, 2008, those rules were set aside really being beyond the authority of the federal communications commission well, the fcc sort of regrouped and came up with another rationale that they did have authority. and most actual -- i think most experts on this are actually quite skeptical of that. and there's a very high chance that these rules will be set aside as well. we'll see where they go. >> so that said, they might be set aside.

why did you write a book now "the fallacy of net neutrality? >> this is an issue that's been discussed in one form or another for over a decade. and so i have been writing about it. writing for the most part academic articles discussing some of the economics of it. people of good will on both sides of this have different views of the basic structure of the internet. and as an economist i certainly see -- i think the internet very clearly in a marketplace that's constantly evolving. constantly emergeing with new business models. and it's that opportunity, that freedom to experiment with different forms of competition that really has been a very important part of the dynamism that you've seen in the marketplace. that is essentially different than the view of the federal communications commission now. it's stated quite nicely in the net neutrality order that they

see the internet basically as an architectly system that has certain rules baked in from the very beginning of openness and neutrality and, in fact, i think that's wrong from an engineering perspective. i think the nulegality they see actually does not exist certainly in the form that they characterize and i think as an economic matter it's certainly false because in an economic matter there's all kinds of economic deals and pricing schemes and what the fcc would call discriminatory partnerships or discriminatory economic packaging that favor one firm over another. and this is just part of the competitive process. and it's worked very well. this is the incredible invention that now takes up so much of our productive lives by working, you know, online. and it's worked very well in this open and competitive marketplace. >> tom hazlett, his most recent book is "the fallacy of net

neutrality." he's a professor of law and economics at george mason university and director of the information economy project. thank you for joining us on the campus of the george mason university series. >> thank you very much for c-span. >> when i got into the public and started selling my books, every person i worked with i had an rejection from which is kind of cool and you would go to a meeting oh, we love your stuff, what about this? [laughter] >> in his nonfiction ben mezrich talks about the ethics, and morality of brilliant people. his account of mark zuckerberg and the creation of facebook was adapted for the screen as the social network, bringing down the house followed a group of mit students who won millions in and as a astronaut steals moon rocks. now it's your time to ask the

questions. ben mezrich sunday november 6th noon eastern on booktv on c-span2. >> and now an interview from george mason university. >> george mason professor rosemarie zagarri, in your book "politics of size," you begin the book by saying that the deepest and most antagonistic conflict at the federal constitutional convention was the controversy over representation in the national legislature. why is that? >> well, i think that a lot of people think about the constitutional convention and they think that slavery was the major issue that tore the delegates apart and, of course, slavery was a major issue and it was very contentious. but the fact was that it was only the debate over how people would be represented in the upper and lower house of this

new congress that was the major issue that nearly sent all the delegates home, that nearly resulted in the whole debate being ended. and i think it's a very little understood debate, but it's what got us the sort of odd system that we have today in congress where all the states have two representatives in the senate, in other words, an equal vote in the senate and then representation on the basis of population. in other words, more representatives for states with more people in the lower house, the house of representatives. and so i think that debate has faded in people's memories, if it ever was there. and i think it's not well understood and i wanted to highlight the fact that this debate was preceded and then succeeded by debates that also split states on the basis of their size.

and, of course, the question of size is an interesting one because is it size in terms of territory? or is it size in terms of population? and that's really what was being debated and discussed and figured out at the constitutional convention and in the decades afterwards. >> in the first constitutional convention? >> yes. actually, our only federal constitutional convention in 1787 in philadelphia. yes. >> okay. so as that was being debated, what were the issues involved? who was on which side? >> okay. well, it's important to understand that before the american revolution in the colonial legislatures, each of the 13 colonies had a colonial legislature that was a little parliament. it was modeled on parliament and so each had an upper and a lower house. and in those legislatures, people in the colonies, by that we mean property-owning white men would elect representatives

to their lower houses and those lower houses were the bastians in the colonial period and it's from those lower houses of the legislature that you get people like patrick henry and james otis and john adams and samuel adams who came out and attacked what they thought were innovations in british policy that were oppressing the colonists. and if you recall, i mean, the major slogan was no taxation without representation but it's really those delegates that were on the forefront of observing that. and they were elected within each colony. so virginia had a legislature. massachusetts had a legislature. virginia had a legislature. they were elected from towns and counties but there was no sense that more people should have more representatives.

it was all done on the basis of the gee graphic units, territorial units. and so one county in virginia would send two representatives, whether it had 30,000 people or 1,000 people. and what happened -- their first state constitutions and they did that during the american revolution from 1776 to 1780. some of the states began to experiment with a new form of representation in which representation was proportionate to population. so more people in a certain area would get more representatives. and that's the innovative area that james madison incorporated in the virginia plan that was submitted to the philadelphia convention in 1787 for debate. but, obviously, there's some winners and losers when you have that kind of system of representation. in the previous congress, the congress under the articles of

confederation, each state received one vote regardless of population. and that kind of equal representation honored the fact that states had been existence for over a century and a half. had a corporate identity and were well defined geographic units. but madison and others coming from states that had experiment with this new kind of representation believes that it was only just and fair that more people in an area should have more representatives. and so the conflict at philadelphia, in the philadelphia convention was, how would representation be apportioned in the upper house and in the lower house? and so that was the huge conflict. and in july of that year, the whole debate came to a standstill because the convention was deadlocked and couldn't decide how to move on. the small states who would lose under the new system because

they liked having an equal vote, 'cause they were fewer people were the ones objecting and they were threatening to leave the convention unless some concessions were made to him. what happened was the compromise, the great compromise, sometimes called the connecticut compromise that produced what we have today which is the senate with two representatives from each state and then the house of representatives. >> rosemarie zagarri, where did that idea come from? was it based in history, in european history? or was it just out of whole cloth? >> no it was a melding of the traditional british system of representation based on geographic units representing land, representing a certain territory in the legislature along with the new american idea of proportionate representation, a representation commensurate with population. and that's incidentally why we

have a census. pennsylvania in its constitution initiated that idea of a census, a census every 10 years. and today we do all sorts of things, you know. we look at, you know, education, race ethnicity, et cetera. in the census. but it's initially in pennsylvania and then at the philadelphia convention the main idea of the census was to count people in regions and that would be the basis for determining how many representatives a region would send. and so how many representatives delaware would send as opposed to massachusetts as opposed to virginia. but this, as i say, pioneered in the states. in their first state constitution which is they experiment with representation proportionate to population. sort of it was a melding of the old and the new this great compromise. >> what was the largest colony back then and what was the smallest?

>> well, the largest colony in terms of area was virginia. virginia extended -- well, they claimed all land that is part of ohio and illinois and indiana. and it had a very large population as well. and then rhode island would have been the smallest both in terms of territory and people. >> so when you look at the reapportionment that goes on every 10 years in congress now, how does this come back from our history? i mean, we're talking about geographical zones but now we're also talking about how we redistrict congressmen and it gets a little fuzzy? >> right, and that's what i talk about in the book. that's one of the consequences of this great compromise because the states then that were electing representatives to the house of representatives to this new national legislature would have to decide how their

representatives would be elected. and some of the states initially had what were called general ticket elections. so every voter in the state voted for, say -- if the state got 7 representatives -- for seven representatives and the top seven vote-getters would be sent to congress. a few other states, though, the larger states, actually, started immediately experimenting with what we use today, the single district method where a state is carved up into districts and these are geographic districts and people in those states elect to one representative to go to congress and there was some controversy in using that method because some people argued that these kinds of representatives would be more loyal to the constituents that elected them rather than to the entire state but this whole issue was debated almost every 10 years until 1850

because every 10 years after congress got the results of the census, congress would have to reapportion and the size of congress was growing. now the size of congress is fixed in the early 20th century. it was decided that congress would -- the size of the congress would be fixed at 475 representatives but at that time the number of representatives was increasing. and after each census, congress would have to decide how to apportion the representatives and how to figure out the ratio of representatives. after the first -- in the first congressional election, the ratio to people representatives with you 1 to 40,000. and now it's 1 to 670,000. so obviously things have changed a lot so the basis of this representative -- number of

representatives being proportion portionat to people was to the constitution. >> the subtitle of your book is "representation of the u.s.: 1776 to 1850." you just researched 1850. what happened in 1850? >> well, in 1850, it was decided -- congress was sick of fighting every 10 years. and so they passed a law that required -- that the ratio to the people representatives be fixed and the remainder actually divided the population by the number of representatives would simply be assigned to the states on the basis of that population. and so that resolved at least for about another half century some of these issues that were plaguing congress. but within the states the issue of apportionment continued to be a problem. and, you know, there have been recently a number of

apportionment cases that have come before the supreme court arguing that these districts these state legislatures have created are unconstitutional or oddly shaped or inappropriate on one basis or the other and there's a lot of argument that state legislatures play politics in apportionment and in creating these districts but the truth is that from the very first congress, it was understood that the creation of these districts was a political matter. and, in fact, even though the word didn't exist in 1788 and '89 when james madison was running for a seat in the house of representatives, the virginia legislature was hostile to him and tried to gerrymander him out of a seat. they created a district that was very oddly shaped that was full of people that they suspected were hostile to him and he almost didn't get elected but the truth was he was a very persuasive fellow and so he actually prevailed by about 300

votes. >> what's the importance -- and you write about this in your book, of the placement of states capitals? >> that's the largest shift that's going from this period from 1776 to 1850 franchise understanding that representation should be based on gee graphic units, on land, on territory, a shift from geographer to demography from land to people. there was a lot of controversy during and after the revolution about where state capitals should be located. and most states actually moved their capitals to new locations during this period. and what i found interestingly enough is that smaller states put their capitals near the gee graphic center of the state. and the idea was, well, it's a small state so people would have equal ability to travel to the

center of the to the state for the legislature. the largest states, though, tried to demography the center of population and place where they thought was near the among so pennsylvania, for example, moved first to lancaster and then to harrisburg because the population was shifting westward and they thought that the capital should be at the center of where the majority of people were living in the state at that time. >> this is the book that we're talking about. we're talking about the politics of size representation in the u.s. 1776-1850. rosemarie zagarri is a professor at george mason university in fairfax, virginia, on the outskirts of washington, dc, which is where we are now on booktv doing our university series. this book has been reissued just recently in paper book. >> yes >> why? >> well, i think apportionment has plagued the states and come

before the supreme court and i think people always want to know what did the founders think? how did the -- how did people at the time of the framing of the constitution think about these issues? and i actually think they don't provide definitive answers. i think what you see it's a political issue then and it's a political issue now. what i would say is that they did strive for justice. they did strive to make sure that equal numbers of people received equal numbers of representative so that the districts would have about the same numbers of people. and they would strive to have districts that made some sort of geographic sense barring these few oddities that i mentioned such as james madison's district. and so i think those principles provide a guide for people, state legislatures, lower court justices trying to decide the issue today. >> professor zagarri, what do

you teach in george mason? >> i teach courses in the revolution, historical methods, founding mothers and fathers, women's history. >> you went to yale university and grew up in st. louis. when did you get interested in the revolutionary period? >> oh, wow! i think i was always attracted by the founding era, by the idea that americans made themselves into a nation, made themselves into a new people that they started from scratch. that it was a country that created its own institutions drawing on historical lessons and their own experience but creating something really new and different. and so i think it was really -- it was really in graduate school although earlier i would say i would love to read biographies of the founding fathers and of famous americans. so historicalcally, i guess, you could say i've always been interested in the revolution.

>> you're teaching on the george mason university. give us is thumbnail sketch of who george mason was. >> the forgotten author. he was the founder of the virginia declaration of rights. it was a statement of basic rights and liberties some of which were traditional rights and liberties from traditional people and some were the rights and liberties that americans felt that britain had infringed upon and should be protected in writing. britain didn't have one single document that protected all their rights and liberties. and so george mason in 1776 when virginia was writing its first state constitution wrote a statement of rights that was appended to the virginia constitution and this declaration of rights became the basis then for many of the other states that also attached bills of rights.

and then in turn were in the united states wrote a new constitution in 1787, many of those same rights were incorporated into the u.s. constitution in the first ten amendments. >> large landowner here in virginia? >> oh, yeah, slave owner. over 200 slaves. yes. a very interesting. kind of grumpy. had a lot of kids, well over 14. >> did not sign the declaration of independence? >> he was not at independence hall. he did not sign the constitutional convention document, the proposed u.s. constitution because he was upset 'cause it did not contain a bill of rights in september of 1787. the bill of rights was added later and passed by the states and only completely attached in 1791. >> does he get enough credit for his role in the founding? >> i think for a long time he

hasn't but recently there's been an effort to revive them. there's a statue of george mason on the mall and, of course, george mason university tries to make itself known in basketball and research and teaching. so we try to get his name out there. >> we are talking with rosemarie zagarri. she's a history professor here at george mason university. she's the author of this book "the politics of size: representation in the u.s. 1776-1850." recently reintroduced in paper book, reissued in paperback but she's also the author of this book "revolutionary backlash: women and politics in the early american republic" published by the university of pennsylvania press. what's the word "backlash" mean in your title? >> well, as i studied this period, what i found was that even though women couldn't vote for the most part or hold public office, that the revolutionary

era debate over equality and natural rights generated a more large and widespread discussion about whether women had rights and what rights women should have. and women had actually been important participants in the prerevolutionary era, in the boycotts against great britain in making homespun. and attending protests, invoi invoiciinvoice in voicing their opposition to political rule they become political figures and political beings and with its emphasis of equality and natural rights, some women and some men started talking about whether women should be allowed to vote and hold public office as well. what kind of rights women should have. and, in fact, one state in new jersey, war on terrorism actually did have the right to vote for the 1776-1807. yes, a little known fact.

we have to understand that at this time, in most states, voting was a privilege of property. so only women who owned sufficient property could vote. and women were not allowed to own property so it was singled women. unmarried women and widows. >> how many were there, four or five? >> probably thousands. one estimate is at 10,000. it was kind of pulled out of the air number but we know that in many elections in the 1790s, hundreds of women voted in any given election. and in some elections they voted not only for local leaders but in members of congress. they played the determinative role in electing one candidate over another. so there was a time then of during the revolution period and in the decades immediately following where there was an opening i would argue for women in politics where people were

welcomed into informal discussion business politics where women were acknowledged to have a kind of informal political role in new jersey they had a formal political role. but then around 1820, this -- what i called backlash set in and at that time, what happened -- and this was a long time coming, but i think that both men and women began to feel that social change was outpacing their ability to absorb these radical transformations. and many people felt that the idea of women voting, of women being -- what they called politicians violated women's proper sphere. that women should not tran agreed their role. that they need to be taking care of their children and their families. that they were not appropriate actors in the political realm. and so after that time, you get

a hardening of boundaries between men and women's roles. and you get a moving away from this idea of welcoming women into male politics. and you get -- as i mentioned in new jersey, a rejection of women's formal political role in that place. so i think you see -- and this is -- this often happens after revolutions. we know what the french revolution there's a period of experimentation and innovation. and then society sort of says, whoa, this is going too fast and they pull back. and i think that's exactly what happened in the united states with regard to women and politics. it took -- it took, you know, a century before -- more than a century before women were given the vote throughout the united states. now, the memory of women voting in new jersey did persist. and in the western states. in the 1870s and '80s, feminists would invoke that precedence.

women did vote before. they're capable of doing it. they're smart enough and politically informed enough and so that precedent was very powerful. what's interesting since women got the right to vote in the 20th century i think previous experience in new jersey has been largely forgotten. >> dr. zagarri, who is one woman from the revolutionary period we should all know about but don't? >> mercy otis warren. mercy otis warren was the wife of a patriot, james warren, the sister of another patriot, james otis, from a very well connected family in massachusetts. but her brother, james owtis, hd been very active in the resistance cause and then he went insane. unlike most women, mercy otis warren had been highly educated. she was educated by a private

tutor along we are brother. and she kind of stepped in his place and she began writing plays and poems and political tracks that attacked british tyranny. and they were actually published in newspapers in massachusetts and they were circulated throughout the colonies. and so she was a really important, i guess, you should say, instigator in the coming of the revolution. interestingly enough, too, she then wrote one of the first histories of the american revolution, a three-volume history of the american revolution that was published in 1805. she was a friend of abigail adams. and of john adams and john adams actually encouraged her authorship, encouraged her venture into history. and so she is someone that, i think, has been forgotten but at the time was well-known to americans because she was so instrumental in promoting the revolutionary cause. >> and on the front of your book is this painting, drawing?

>> yeah, it's a painting from the early 19th century. it's a folk painting. and it's really an idealized vision of a woman. and she's holding -- this is from the war of 1812 era. and she's holding an american flag. and on top of that is what is called a liberty cap, which is a very famous symbol of liberty and in her hand is an olive branch. and she's dressed not in classical garb which was actually typical when women were used in my conography and she's a symbol of peace, a symbol of liberty and women were very often used that way. columbia, the image that's on the capitol is an image of a woman. and so women were very often invoked as the most visible symbols of the early american

persian gu republic. >> we've been talking to professor rosemarie zagarri of george mason university. this is her newest book "revolutionary backlash: women and politics in the early american republic" and just recently reissued is her book "the politics of size: representation in the u.s. 1776-1850." >> booktv has over 100,000 twitter followers. be a part of the excitement. follow booktv on twitter to get publishing news, scheduling updates, author information and talk directly with authors during our live programming. twitter.com/booktv. >> and now an interview from george mason university. >> this is booktv on c-span2. and we're on the campus of george mason university in fairfax, virginia, doing our university professor series where we have the chance to talk with professors from different

universities about the books they published. maybe you haven't heard of, maybe they're not going on tour. we get a chance to talk with them. now joining us is professor christopher hamner, a history professor here at george mason and his newest book is called "enduring battle american soldiers in three wars 1776-1945" professor hamner, what three wars did you choose and why? >> the book looks at the experience of american infantry war and i picked those three because i wanted to survey broadly the experience of soldiers fighting in three different soldiers. what were similar about their experiences of being on the ground and fighting and what the differences in that experience were. and how -- how and why they evolve over time. >> what consistencies did you find from the revolutionary war to world war ii? >> well, for soldiers in battle

there are some very profound commonalities, obviously. the presence of danger, the smothering of the appearance of death, the threat of injury, the chaos, the noise, those things changed very little. i think we can go back thousands of years ago from ancient times and find those exact qualities just as you would find them in a 21st century combat zone. >> so there's a constant. what about dissimilarity? >> the dissimilarities are often overlooked. sometimes by the veterans themselves. a number of the soldiers that i performed research on 20th century often remarked that they imagined their experience had been very much like their predecessors. you'll have a world war ii soldier comparing his training to the experiences of the predecessor of the stonewall brigade, for example. i found a soldier in the second world war who's standing in the mix of a wrecked town, looked

around and was reminded of nothing so much as matthews brady famous photograph the civil war battlefields and he remarked he imagined war was a universal experience and the only that changed were the uniforms. much more than the uniforms, the experience of a continental experience had some really significant differences than, say, a world war ii g.i. fighting in northwest europe in 1944. >> such as? >> well, continental soldiers, like their successors, in civil war armies, into battle in linear formation. they were packed shoulder to shoulder, elbow to elbow. a soldier might be in the midst of a formation and find a row of comrades in front of him and a row behind him. a fellow at each shoulder or

each elbow. they went into battle in a conspicuous fashion waving banners and flags often accompanied by the drums and the shouting of officers. and in that linear system of tactics, combat for the ground soldier resembled two armed mobs crashing into each other. noisy, chaotic. it happened in the midst of a crowd. in 20th century, advances in weapons technology a made those linear formations all but suicidal. it was impossible to march hundreds of soldiers elbow to elbow and shoulder to shoulder into battle because one enemy machine position or one high explosive artillery shell could liquidate an entire formation. the solution to the tactical problem that these technologies were to disperse the soldiers to cam knowledge them and make use

of cover and concealment that they were hidden from enemies and not clumped together where single machine position or a single shell could destroy an entire company. but that simple suggestion of com -- camouflage on the ground. >> what's the differences in training technique. >> the differences of training are very vivid. in the 18th and 19th centuries, soldiers spent most of their time in training engaged in drill. it's vitally important for an infantry formation to keep its integrity, physically the soldiers had to stay together. they had to march in lockstep. they had to load and discharge and reload their weapons in perfect synchrony. as you can imagine, amidst the

danger and chaos and confusion of combat that became a very difficult task. and the training regiment of the 18th and 19th emphasized road memorization and also a small number of physical manipulations that would enable the soldiers to perform together effectively in combat. in the 20th century psychologists refer to those terms -- those kinds of manipulations as overlearned tasks. anyone who's played a sport or musical instrument, who's familiar with the phenomenon, things that you have ingrained in your body through physical reputation became easier to perform in stressful situations. and so in the 18th and 19th centuries most of the training regiments was focused on getting soldiers to perform this set of manipulations almost robotically. a number of military theorists of the 18th and 19th centuries suggest that in order for a

human being to become an effective infantry soldier he had to be transformed as someone who behaved almost mechanically. by the 20th century behaving that way in combat was no longer helpful or even very useful because soldiers could not move and fire lockstep as they were dispersed. they were often out of the sight of their comrades and their leaders. they had to act with a great degree of autonomy. they had to make a number of very critical snap decisions where they would do and where they would go. they had to be able to do that amidst the stress and confusion of combat. and they had to be able to do it very quickly. and so while there was still a great deal of drill, even in 20th century combat training, regiments, there was also a new emphasis on realistic training.

the dawn of battle inoculation that put soldiers in firing exercises that mimics as closely as possible the actual danger and noise and confusion of battle so that they can become accustomed to the flood of adrenaline and the temporary deafness. put them in live fire drills, in realistic exercises, many stateside training facilities featured a mock village that soldiers could go through that had pickup targets in the windows so that they could practice as nearly as possible some of the conditions that they would encounter when they deployed in battle. none was present in the 18th or 19th centuries. there was very little in target practice. they focused almost exclusively on learning to maneuver with a unit and to do so, so consistently that even amidst the chaos of battle, soldiers would be able to respond to commands. >> enduring battle is

christopher hamner's first book. he's an associate professor of history george mason university, the university press of kansas published this book. what about when it comes to so-called just cause? what about the glory of the cause that they're fighting for? >> that's a really fascinating question and i think one that intrudes on the thoughts of soldiers from each century. often before they go into battle, and even more often after they leave battle, interestingly, the soldiers that i studied in my research, they were in combat when the bullets are flying and the adrenaline is flowing through one's veins, many of them remarked the notion of cause, ideology, patriotism -- those all receded fairly dramatically to the background. you can find colorful remarks from soldiers of each era

commenting on that. one civil war soldier said when the in the heat of combat your interest extends no further than what you can see past your gun sights. a soldier from the mid-20th century who said patriotism is well and good before we go into combat but when the bullets are flying you're thinking about saving your own skin. and so ideology and cause undoubtedly, you know, incredibly important in motivating soldiers to enlist with the army between battles. but seem to play a less significant role when combat has actually been engaged simply because the circumstances are so urgent that they crowd out more abstract concept. >> where did you come up with the idea of carrying these three wars? >> i've had an abiding interest in human behavior particularly in life threatening or traumatic circumstances. my initial expectation was the orthodox explanation of soldier

motivation, that is that they fight out of the bonds of cohesion and affection that form between soldiers would, in fact, be the case and i wanted to select three conflicts that said in very different technological circumstances. in effect to test that theory. the continental soldiers of war of independence were using relatively inaccurate, slow eroding, smooth bore single shot muskets by the mid-20th century, american g.i.'s had an incredibly impressive array of weaponry. the battlefield had changed very dramatically and i wanted to put these experiences side-by-side and what differences eerj immediaty. >> i want you to go back with life-threatening situations. where did that develop?

>> i don't have -- i could only guess. maybe it was watching a lot of war movies as a kid and wondering what are earth would make someone, you know, russia machine gun in placement or in a civil war formation would walk out of a measured pace in dangerous. an army war psychologists in the second war said it boiled down to the second question, what makes a rational person act irrationally. >> what's the photo on the front of your book? >> the photo is an american g.i. from the last year of the second world war, somewhere in the european theater. and we felt that it captured the profound isolation that many soldiers said they experienced amidst the dispersion of battle when they were separates from their comrades. >> were you a