radicalism meaning the desire to get to the root of something, and i think that that's actually what all of us as professors should be doing is teaching our students to get to the root of something, and i don't -- i don't want my students to think they should think like me. i just want them to think, so -- and that's -- yeah, i think to the extent that constantly questioning things is radical, i guess i would consider myself a radical. ..

>> it's the same moment imagine custard head when he got up on top of the region saw what looked like all these indians in the world down there, or travis had when he realized nobody was coming to save him at the alamo. what does that, virgil says i don't mean that. what does that tell us about how this event happened? >> repeat that i think something was bound to happen. whether it was going to involve the specific individuals or others, there was just too much attention and too much mistrust. james r. said later that he thought there's a certain amount of pressure put on virgil by some of the townspeople are that

hadn't happened. none of this would have occurred. i like virgil a lot, and ended up feeling sorry for him. i think he tried very hard to be a good lawman. and the eyes of average americans today, the gunfight at the okay corral involved wyatt earp, doc holliday and clampett. it seems to me that virgil and morgan earp have sort of been pumped into the background as have tom and frank mcquarrie. vergil wanted to be a good lawman. i think he was very pragmatic about the way he enforced the law. ep for giving people a chance to back away without embarrassing them or having their pride attack. he did his best that day to lead the cowboys settled down and ride on out of town, and finally felt forced to act. when he did, he called on the people he trusted most, his two brothers. and then, of course, there was

doc who was never going to miss an occasion like this. it was a terrible tragedy that this happened. and i think if things had happened differently in one or two instances, if a virgil hadn't been approached by a couple of town leaders offering vigilante, if white and tom mcquarrie hadn't had that, if the cowboys walking to the okay corral i think really meaning to leave town, not wanting to leave too fast because they didn't want all the onlookers you think the earp's head back and out and made him leave. any number of things might have prevented this. but even if it had been the case and something similar would've happened i think sometime soon. >> you can watch this and other programs on line at booktv.org. is there a nonfiction author of what you like to see featured on

booktv? send us an e-mail at booktv@c-span.org or tweet us at twitter.com/booktv. >> next, roya hakakian talks about the 1992 killing of four iranian-kurdish dissidents in germany and the trial that followed. this is about 45 minutes. >> good evening. what a lovely place. i think this was or could stein's concept that they brought to life here at this bookstore, books & books in miami. a café and restaurant and courtyard. magnificent. thank you so much for having me. this is an absolute pleasure to be here in this wonderful, beautiful place. so, this will not shock you because you don't know me, but i started out as a poet, and the idea of writing about a crime is

the farthest thing that has ever been from my mind. i have never pictured myself in any way, shape, or form interested in guns, dead bodies, and i tried to stay away from them for as long as i can and as far as i can. and usually even when we are watching tv at home and someone draws out the gun, i'm the first person to reach for the remote control and change the channel. so, this won't surprise you the fact that it ended up writing about an assassination was a complete shocker to me. and the way this fell into my lap, so to speak, was that as it was mentioned earlier in the introduction, this political assassination that i wrote about that took place in the timbre of 1982 in berlin, germany, at a

restaurant, and two gunmen, one with a shine down ashman machine gun, another with a handgun can walk into a restaurant and start shooting those who have gathered over again the party that night, and shot them all, for them died instantly and the other four survived. of the four survivors, one ended up being my houseguest for several weeks. and i knew very little about him. he was a friend of a friend who is coming to town in new haven, connecticut, where i live. and as i was trying to cook dinner and evening, keeping him company, you know, trying to be a good host i would be chopping onions and he would be sitting across from me trying to help and making conversation. and i made the mistake of once asking so, what happened to you

in september of 1992? and then the rest was history, just like -- he would tell me a new installment of what had happened, not simply the night of the murders, which, to many minds might seem as the most interesting are the most interesting part of the story, but actually what i found most fabulous and most engrossing was the way in which the investigation and everything else unraveled. so i would be making my dinner, you know, going about my own thing in the kitchen, and he would be giving me the next day within the investigation, the next day, the next day until he came up to draw. by the time he reached trial, which is about a year into his storytelling, i thought that i should take a trip to berlin,

germany, and visit other people. so, of course i said all this to say that when you have a right of the started out as a poet and is generally very squeamish around anything having to do with blood, then you get a story, you get a crime story told in a way that few crime stories are told, which is that against everybody's advice, rather than talking about laying the crying so readers would be interested in reading the stories they get to the gruesome crime halfway through the book or two-thirds down in the book, iconic being as squeamish as im, i get rid of it in the first five minutes of the book and say, you know, let's move on now. and i hope if and when you do decide to read the book you

agree that in a way this was not only a poet's look into a crime, but also a woman's look at a very, very male-dominated, macho story. the reason i call it a male-dominated, much of story is because the killers were men. the people who died were men. all the people of subsequent to get involved where men. and so i guess it was for me to try to look at this very, very intriguing story and say, how would i look at this, what would i find interesting in this, and what is it that would make such a gruesome story really intriguing for all readers, from the perfectly new perspective, or completely, let's say, revolutionary perspective. and you'll tell me if i have achieved creating that sort of perspective. so, so that's how it goes.

i mean, i get rid of the crime, and what i follow through with pretty diligently because after i took my trip to berlin, the subsequent characters that i met, one seemed to be more intriguing than the other, and that wasn't because any one of these heroes, any one of the survivors, investigators were in any shape or form public people. but rather that in their imperfection, they all together contributed to bringing about a very, very historic trial and verdict, which by the accounts i have received from several legal historians happens to be one of

the most important trials in the history of europe in the 20th century. and you're probably just as surprised as i am why none of us heard about it. well, that's precisely why i decide to write about it because it seemed like a very, very important story that had gone untold. so, you know, there are eight people sitting, two people walk in, one person stands guard, for people get shot and die immediately, and for other survive. now, the first person who is in my kitchen talking to me was one of these four survivors. his name was parvic. of the first questions i asked him was this, so what did you do when you first got home?

it may not seem a very smart question to many of you, but it was really curious to me. what if one of us in this room survived such an atrocious time and the police come, go to the headquarters of the police, get interrogated, what ever it is they do, fingerprint, i don't know. then it's all over and several hours later, in his case, four or 5 a.m., and now you're all alone and you have to go back to your life as usual. you have to go back to your own space, your own apartment. what is that like? so that was one of the very first questions i asked when i said, so what happened to you in the morning? what happened to you when you were done? and they said you can now go

home. and so i will read a very short passage from the moment he arrives home and what are his thoughts, and then follow through with some of the other characters. these microphones are wilting. sorry about that. i broke the microphone. thank you. all he wanted to do was to make calls. he pays the printer of the apartment from his living room couch across the television set where the news was onto the balcony for air, to the telephone on his bedroom desk to the stuff in the kitchen where he was boiling water, over and over again.

his morning routine had vanished. the thought of eating or going to bed did not enter his mind. he dialed his secretary. i won't be in today, he told her, and when asked why, he broke into an endless sob your where you rob? is your mother dead? is your daughter missing? a mr. secretary santa questions questions. all the passion all he would say to her is turn on the news. he took a shower under the rushing water he stood with his eyes wide open. if you close them, the image of an arm and a black leather sleeve would break is my pick it was not until the water struck his body that he felt that ain't keen in his right cheek and table and remembered the blow to his right side when he fell off his chair at the restaurant. the age of real-time news had not dawned and reporters were

not yet looking for him. on an ordinary morning he would have reveled in the piece, but against the uproar against him, this quiet was the antithesis to peace. he returned to his desk and made another call. it was to a friend on the editorial board of a meeting daily. hello there, this is parvic. hey, parvic, the voice replied. softly modifying the last syllable of the name as parvic had told him to. think of paris, he told germans who had trouble remembering his name. a slight mispronunciation needed was a small sacrifice for the sake of good pneumonic. he crafted a single sense to just build the ordeals for the busy journalist. i was there at the restaurant

where the four men died last night. i heard. let's have coffee one of the state to talk it over. today is insane. parvic taken aback by the lukewarm reply was forming his next sentence when the reporter excused himself and rushed off. the reporters quick dismissal caused a wave of panic in him. for years hid carefully collected journalists away others collect stamps. intercompany they found a captive audience, spinning tail with the skill he had been perfecting since childhood when he and his friend who could not afford to go to a movie pooled at the alliances together to buy a single ticket for an emissary to see and to recount a 90 minute film over a span of hours. so elaborately that the real film is the others ever did get to see it, invariably fell short

of its description. journalists had always been parvic's most formidable allies. years ago after his visa had expired, the same editorial writers had saved him from deportation i writing a skating dash of scathing piece on germany's immigration policy. but now, to whom could he turn now? as he brooded, the telephone rang. the same voice still in the receiver wants more. i'm sorry, parvic, it took me a bit to register what you said. did you say you yourself were at the restaurant last night? that's what i said. then we must talk instantly. they get together and he interviews parvic and writes up an editorial that runs the very same day in the paper. and what becomes really the thrust of this murder in the

beginning, say, in september, october, november of 1992 when it had happened was who done it. they were on one hand the exile, the ones who have their own opinion. there were politicians and journalists who were circulating other possibilities, and so there was a slew of ideas that were kind of search relating around, and that was sort of the dominant theme of the first three months. however, very quickly there after a very wonderful and one of the most important, most intriguing characters in this book got assigned to the case of prosecutor, discovers that the truth is actually, well, i don't

want to kill the plot line for you, but he sides with one possibility within the slew of theories that are swirling around, that this is a governmental sponsored series of terrorist attacks and assassinations. and so after his assignment to the case, the story shifts from being kind of a who done it to will they do the right thing? well the people who have power, will the people who can't and have the ability to bring justice to these victims do what is expected of them, and act nobly. and do you really the law, only mandated them to do. and so that leads to a trial which opens within a year after

the assassinations. and nearly four-year proceeding, very dramatic for your courtroom that finally leads to historic verdict in april of 1997. now, it was mentioned during the introduction that the our characters in this book. and that was part of the challenges of putting this book together. if i'd fictionalized it i would have easily eliminate at least 20 of them, and easily stuck to my leading man who would have been the prosecutor and the investigator, and then done away with everyone else and endowed him with all the great qualities and abilities to save the day in

which eventually he does, but not by himself. however, it was a piece of nonfiction, and i think, and i believe again, despite all the guys i was receiving, that rather than simplifying the store or fictionalizing the story, readers are very sophisticated nowadays. they have read so much that they can actually managed the multicharacter story and they can keep track of numerous characters going in and out, and they don't need a singular hero, certainly not in the 21st century. we have given up a lot of her old myths and whatever dream we once had about singular heroes saving today. and we understand that a confluence of characters, personalities, events need to come together in order for a great, great triumph to take place.

so the great i suppose character of this book in a way becomes its own plot line. and the narrative itself. and what i hope you will find is that the unraveling of events take a life of their own, and that becomes the true line which we follow. when i took my first trip to berlin to assess and see whether the other angles of this were as appealing as the one i had discovered in my own kitchen, i ran into the widow of one of the four men who have died in the restaurant that night. and immediately after she opened her door to me and i entered the

apartment, she asked think where indian states i lived. and i said, at the time i lived in new york and i said that i was coming from new york, and she said that this was practically the third sentence out of her mouth, that she wished she had been here on 9/11. and i said why. and she said because she too had lost a loved one, her husband in september, on september 17, about 10 years earlier. and she knew exactly what the widows who have lost their husbands, and she also had a daughter, and the children had lost their fathers were going through. and she wished she had been here after 9/11. she had been in new york after 9/11 because she thought all the widows like her, women, should

come together and create a network, widows who had suffered through an act of terrorism. because it knew no national boundaries, that this was sort of a global problem, that had afflicted her as much as any american woman here in the states. and it was, in listening to her, that i really decided that the value of the story was beyond the perimeters in which i was thinking about it initially. that there was something to which she was saying, that something about these acts of crime, these particular acts of crime which had been sponsored by radicals -- radical ideologies come in this case the government of iran, bonded all

of the victims regardless of where they came from. and i found that extremely moving, and it was at the moment that gave me the incentive, made me resolute about wanting to write this book. so last but not least i want to introduce her to you and have you listened to her frustrations and experience, because we are just coming out of the 10th anniversary of 9/11, and i think much of what she told me in her grieving process and talk reminded me of the stuff i was hearing being played on radio and television in the past few weeks. so, her name is shohreh.

she and her husband had a daughter together, and her name is sarah. and i refer to sarah and the daughter of parviz who, you know, who appeared in the previous section, and her name is salomeh. so you hear about to turn, two girls were almost the same age, a mom, and parviz whom you have already met. now, something very interesting that happens is that while parviz survivor is trying to gather documents, try to get the court to see the truth about the case, try to see the -- be the proper information to all the drills here and there, in the

midst of all this, and god knows recovering from the trauma he had experienced, his 10 year old daughter is having fainting spells. and teachers, nobody seems to, at least for the first few weeks, be able to diagnose why she's having these. so, so, he takes her to the doctor, and we open up in a doctor's waiting room. under the glare of the fluorescent lights in the exam room, parviz waited, sometimes kissing, sometimes stroking, the hand of his daughter, transfixed. she looked even more frail in the hospital down. he felt restless, on behalf of his inspiring 12 year old pitcher who had been told to remain still until the doctor returned. to fainting spells confounding

several pediatricians have force a daughter, father and utter to see a cardiologist. to fainting spells on her part, and he felt guilt on the father's part. ever since the morning after of the murders, parviz had tried to keep her away from the fallout. his first phone call had been to his ex-wife to try to shield transfixed from the news. before picking her up from her on tuesdays, there we case together, he called to the apartment to hide all sides of the case from view, photos, letters, phone messages, newspaper clippings. but the more he hit, the more she wanted to know. how did it happen, dad? how many were there? did anyone heatshield? they came, they shot, they left, nothing happened to me, nothing

at all he would say. wishing to move on. but her questions continued. did you have blood on you? did you scream? did you cry? did you cry after? were you scared? are you scared? the depth of her curiosity astounded him. once he yelled, enough, and she stopped asking, but he knew she had not stopped thinking. the dreams of becoming a dancer had turned her into -- and so he designed intricate plans are meals. instead of an elaborate dinner, he lined up an array of tiny appetizers which he paraded before his ballerina at intervals. in the small tidy apartment brand with music, the father 72 the daughters wins, had agreed to be a dance student in the tutelage of his commutative coach, though tone deaf and hopelessly uncork naked.

his performances were memorable. what he lacked in talent he compensated for in which. when he felt remember his step, he limped cross eyed across the floor. as he dragged a foot, he created an imaginary audience not with gooden talk, german for good day, but with his own persian german concoction. nothing like a bit of vulgarity to bond a part-time father with his preadolescent child. what he could not fathom was that joy, however abundant was no substitute for safety, which she no longer felt in his presence. nor could he imagine her days in school him on classmates who treated her like a sensation. only some of the questions she asked where her own. the rest were ones that children, mocking her father as

the superhero on the nightly news, incessantly badgered her with while she stared into their faces and fought back tears. when the first fainting spell came over transfixed, she thought she had starved herself your that when she dated on a full stomach, he blamed himself and his complicated life for his daughters malady. the cardiologist return to the exam room without a definitive diagnosis and advised that he observed her closely for a few days. he had tried hard to keep her out of his own gloomy world last the killers or the mere idea of them rob her of happy childhood. but now it seemed that vacuum yet surrounded her with was robbing her of breath. unlike salome, center, wanted to know nothing. the divot is salomeh father had survived and sarah's father had

died in november she had asked shohreh where her father was exactly now and if he was in pain. in december she asked if she could i have christmas gifts and leave them under the tree into he returned. in february she asked if her mother intended to marry another man, and if so, if he is going to move in with them. by march, she no longer asked. if she heard the name of the restaurant on the radio, she rushed to turn it off if she recognized the faces of family or friends on television, she walked out of the living room. to help sarah and her mother cope with the husband's loss, shohreh spirited moved in with the two of them for a few weeks. their presence strengthened two of them, though shohreh could not tell them that it. sentences failed or. what she had in abundance was

tears. her parents stared at her over breakfast and waited in vain for her to form a sentence as simple as, how did you sleep. her sentence failed or. she rarely felt hungry. she barely tasted the perfunctory bites she took in front of them to assure them of her appetite, to reassure them of her appetite. her parents, a government clerk and housewife, had led predictable lives. it was the security of their life that had given shohreh the courage to rebel against them, go off to europe. and mary a rebellious man just like herself. but she wondered, would sarah not have been better off with a pair of ordinary parents for life than eight. of extraordinary ones for only a time? all day she turned, she turned these thoughts over in her mind's kill, blazing with anger.

to hell with his extraordinary miss and every bit of his brilliance, she would mumble to yourself. her husband enraged her now. stick with me and you'll be famous like you deserve to be, he had promised her when, on the first night they had met, had death in his path to fame, she shouted in her head? once again he had at the end of the. all through pregnancy and delivery she had been alone, remembering his absence, she would grow more and more furious each day. she wondered if it had been a warning to prepare her to raise their child alone. reason had abandoned her. she no longer thought of him or his absence as involuntary. he had left them yet again. the thought came to her when she played their old family movies. she spent one night watching reels of film to find him only once and only for a few seconds

walking with her along the racetrack where sarah ran her first competition. the footage resembled their lives now as it through them her husband had sketched their future. everyone moved, pose, smiled, following his instructions but he, their director, his vision filled the screen yet he would not be seen. just like now. thank you for listening. [applause] >> i have been told by the wonderful people who are running this establishment and cameras that you ought to wait for the mic it comes to reach you before you ask your question. >> what is the significance of the turquoise palace? i haven't read the book yet so i'm not familiar with it.

>> what is the significance of turquoise palace. there is a moment, i'd like to think it's an exciting moment within the trial, where a key witness, somebody know when you even existed shows up. and he becomes sort of a smoking gun for the attorneys in the trial. and it is during a dialogue, during the q&a that's being conducted on the stand that you will know the answer to your question. [laughter] >> given your background as a poet, i wonder if you had ever written nonfiction prior to this? and if not, did you have any

thought about fictionalizing it, and telling a slightly different story in that manner? >> well, this is a work of nonfiction as it stands. my previous work in english was a memoir. and actually after i piece this together i decided that this is really what i want to do. at least for the foreseeable future. that's what i love doing is going out and finding these stories that are an immensely significant, but have either fallen by the wayside, never made it to the headlines, or were dismissed or shoved under the rug. perhaps, i mean, i might sound paranoid here, but perhaps --

who knows? but i found that i love the notion of finding these stories, and some of them, at least in this case, are so fabulous that you could hardly come up with fiction that can outdo this. i mean, we will find out if i did it justice, but if i had done it justice, then you will agree with me it's so beautiful, it's so astounding. just in a way that it is unfolded, that's a fictionalized it would have been diminutive. i also found that in some great ways, you know, and there were several dozen of these political assassinations that have taken place. and i only write about one. that's because this one happened quite in a magical way, at the end of the five years.

>> did you receive significant cooperation from the survivors families and from the families of those who did not survive? >> right. a friend of mine who is also a writer and a journalist herself read the earlier version of the manuscript and said that she was really touched and deeply moved by the quality of the interviews and information i gathered. and, of course, i could have fooled her and said yes, such a fantastic interviewer, if they would only open up to me. but in truth, precisely because the story has not been covered, or i should not say not been covered, the story had been covered. but from certain angles, from a deeply political and -- and in pieces because it was a five year span, so, you know, one day

there's a very exciting day at the trial and it would be a big article in newspaper, and a few weeks later later to be something else. but never in one big kind of tapestry of the full story in all of its glory, and because that had not happened i think all these people, the survivors, the widows, people who have lost loved ones were waiting for someone to show up. so i don't think that i exercise any fantastic skill to get him to talk. i think they were waiting for years for someone to show up and talk. and the rest of it was just on record because the trial had already concluded and all the material was there and there was an archive that i simply went to and they were all fortunately

catalogued on shelves. otherwise it would've been impossible to put together. >> i'm a little bit unsure of one thing. the part of the german cooperation from the authorities, am i to understand that there was a hesitancy or a lack of cooperation from the authorities for a crime like is committed in their own country? i mean, i find that to be unusual, considering, to western european country, the general attitude of this type of thing taking place on their own soil. so i mean, i can imagine there are german business interests involved with iran that a very strong interest, but for something like this that it's that dramatic, that sounds to me to be something unexpected. i'm not an expert on it, but just from common knowledge. >> you are right.

one would think based on what one knows about germany, about europe, about just the standard, the practice that they should have been unusual, this should have been treated as completely unacceptable, and crimes like this which has happened in austria, france, sweden, switzerland, italy, greece, united states -- [inaudible] >> i'm sorry? [inaudible] >> right, argentina later on. they were happening, and oftentimes what would happen was that either, if the perpetrators were arrested, in some cases they would not be arrested. either they were really good and got away, or sometimes because

of precisely business interests that you refer to, the authorities would be a little slower than usual in apprehending them. and they would slip away. door a couple of cases where they slipped away. and in the case of another assassination in 1989, in vienna, austria, one of the perpetrators was apprehended, and two weeks later was put back on a plane and deported to tehran. and the authorities cited national interest and said because of our national interest, we will not prosecute. and it is because of that, the more crimes were happening at and in my view, eventually, even though from 1980 in the first case occurred until 1997 when

the verdict from this case was issued, there is a 17 year lapse. there is a burgeoning are a gathering of momentum of these assassinations, precisely because they seemed to be able to get away with it. because of trade interest, because of business interest. and also because given that the united states no longer had an embassy in tehran, because of the hostage crisis of 1979, and because the united states was no longer present had a political or any other interest in iran, it has become sort of a beacon of hope, tehran, or as i run in general as a place for europe to slip into and for this balance of power, finally between europe and the united states to happen within the middle east via this foothold in iran.

so there were diplomatic interests as well as trade and business interests. by 1992 when this happened, trade relations between iran and germany are at a peak. and the germans -- the iranians are absolutely certain that there is no way the germans would jeopardize those trade relations over the celtic trial. and so what makes the story really fabulous is that determine precisely what iran had hoped german, the german administration politicians involved did want to make the trial go away, did want to make the case go away, but it just wouldn't. and so it's the process of how it wouldn't go away, how it is that two powers come together to cover this up, and yet it seems

to go on and take on a life of its own. that makes it really wonderful. >> how has it changed you to write? you said it is kind of change the course of your career that you were a poet and then he wrote a memoir, and now you would like to do more books of this genre. so must have an impact on you to write this. >> it hasn't, i was think about what i want to write next, and i have a couple of ideas. in fact, i have planned one that is very exciting to me. the only thing it has changed within me is that i once thought i would like to try my hand at fiction, but after this i think there are so many great stories that have gone unfilled that if

they are discovered and improperly told by people who can have proper access, proper knowledge, because i was in a privileged position with this story. i mean, i -- being iranians are having been born and raised in iran, i clearly had access to a whole slew of things that, you know, a non-a rating would have a harder time getting at. so i think there are individuals, there are individual writers who aren't particularly positioned to do certain stories. i think we owe it, not just to the public but to history, to literature, to rediscover these stories and show what it is about them that they a

revisiting. i think, i mean, aside from the fact, i keep talking about this as a great story and a great story, but in addition to the fact that it is a great story, it's also a very, very essential story for all of us today who want to understand what in the world is going on with iran. it seems like the more we spend time, and i say we, the we i am using here includes the white house to ordinary americans who are just well-informed. the more we spend time learning about it, reading about it, the less we understand about it. it seems like a terribly enigmatic place. and i think part of the reason, i don't find enigmatic, i find in part tragic, but not, you know, not so in the magic. part of it is because the are

fundamental narratives that we don't know about each other. are certain fundamental stories that we need to know about each other. and i believe that this is one of them. now, you know, during each presidency in the united states, we hear iran is cost -- cast in a new light somehow. a dark light, but whether there is, the angles kind of change in the lab. and we hear sort of one take on the country. and yet it doesn't lead to a greater comprehension, to a greater understanding or anything. and i think perhaps part of it has to do with the fact that there are really, really important narratives that we are not telling, the outsiders, you know, that our insider stories

that we pass on to each other. with any ag subcommittee, within the community of iranians, and we don't manage to pass it on. and then there are stories that somehow in addition to being translated, they also need to be interpreted and passed on. i think those are the kindest was that we, even as human beings, when we start to fall in love or become friends, they are among the first things we exchange with each other. where'd you grow up? what school did you go to? basic information. that simply about the facts or the data of the location and the population of the country, but also the fundamental emotions, or fundamental events that really change the nation are shaped the nation. and i think it's providers like me who probably lived in that

overlapping space between the two cultures and countries, to figure them out and tell them. [inaudible] >> a book of poetry about murder? [laughter] there's an idea. but i hope when you read it you find that some passages are pretty poetic. thank you. >> thank you so much for coming. [applause] >> you're watching 48 hours of nonfiction authors and books on c-span2's booktv. >> here's a short author india from c-span's campaign 2012 bus as it travels the country.

>> dr. starr but, you have written a few books on archaeology. why is it important for people to learn history through the archaeology? >> it's often said that history is written by the victors, and we read about such things as major battles, generals, military campaigns. history talks about those who won. it talks about the famous. it talks about the great events. archaeology on the other hand talks about ordinary people. we dig up the remains of soldiers on average days after fourth, after military encampments. it's the real lives of real people that archaeology gets out. for as history has traditionally been biased towards the famous people, the important people. well, to an archaeologist everyone is important. when i dig at military camps,

i'm digging up the activities, things that people were doing 360 days out of the year, not what they did on the one or two days they were fighting during the year. so archaeologists love to say it is everybody's story that we tried to kill. >> you spoke about how you done multiple kind of archaeology. how did you decide to transition to the military archaeology at forts and battlefield? >> i was originally trained in central mexico. it was fun, exciting, but gradually i started to dig at a struggle site in america. things like bertie factories. gun factory. i dug class factories. i diagnosed. but somewhere along the way the national parks service asked if i start working at the saratoga battlefield. i never worked on military sites before. i did know though that when you

dig up early america, people in general are drawn to certain types of things. and other things maybe they don't find quite as exciting. it was 1985 that i first started digging a battlefield, and i was amazed to find that everybody is fascinated by early military history. and it's not just writing faqs and memorizing bells strategy. people want to actually go where the action was. they want to stand for the soldiers stood. they want to stand where the battle was going on. they want to see and touch the things of the past. a musket ball, a gunfight, a bayonet, part of a musket. people want to physically connect with evidence, with traces from past wars, from past battles. the moment i started digging forts and battlefields, many more people started signing up to date with me.

magazine started requesting articles. television started new programs on military digs. books, everybody want books on digging up a force. i never realized that level of interest exists here in america for all the old military campaigns, all the old forts. and i suddenly realized i never planned to dig afford in my life, but all of the sudden people cared. people want to visit. people wanted to connect with past soldiers. and for 25 years now, i have dug up the remains of america's forts, battlefields, and encampments trying to find out what soldiers lives really like. >> there's a lot of interest. you mention in america with people, for some battlefield. the forward to your book, sometimes a compromise material record. what does that mean? >> i'm afraid battlefield are such famous popular sites that

the moment a battle was over, anytime in our past, local people what to say to pick up souvenirs. and in no time at all, those musket balls, those paying debts would be picked up and carried off. also, if people lived in nearby, and if the remains of a fort were starting to crumble or starting to rot, a garrison at left, local citizens, local townspeople would always go there, grab anything they could walk off with, whether it is bricks, older fireplaces, timbers, and take them off and use them for their own houses. so military sites are compromise all the time by people wanting souvenirs and wanting things to recycle for their own use. so by the time they archaeologist arise, there's only a fragment of what was once their at a military site. >> what are some of the things

you found that people wouldn't expect that you would find at a fort or a battlefield? what type of things can tell the most storied? >> i think what people expect us to find would be things like the musket balls and gunsmiths, gun parts. that's always interesting. i've seen lots of students get very excited find a musket ball. but i think more unexpected things are usually the personal items, things that a soldier actually had on their body. buttons, buckles, cufflinks, anything of a personal nature. you suddenly see that button and realize a real person was wearing that, and you're connecting with a soldier from the past. i think among the unexpected things we find, it's the fancy things. i think we assume everything is sort of standard military issue.

iphone is wearing the same thing, fighting with the same weapons. all of a sudden you find something nice, and one for that comes to mind is fort in albany, new york. fort orange wasn't early dutch fort. you would expect on the frontier in 1600 everything would be simple and crude. well, they found the fanciest glass vessels, glass bottles, glass bowls from holland, the nicest things way up there in the frontier. soldiers, people living in force did not just have crude, simple out of date garbage, if you will. they had nice things. they wanted to bring the best things from home from the mother country, from europe with them to the frontier of america. went archaeologist find really nice things, you sort of smile to ourselves and say, those officers, those soldiers, they did okay for themselves.

>> what are you digging now? is there in our garage go figure working on right now or you will work on this all? >> well, i am doing things right now. in the summertime i can digging fort william henry in lake george in new york. fort william henry is the site of the last of the mohicans. so for anyone who has read james fenimore cowper's famous novel or seen the most recent movie with daniel day-lewis, that's the fort we are currently digging in the summer. through adirondack committee college and through plymouth state university. however, this fall here on campus, here at penn state university, we are digging on campus communities all across america are doing campus digs these days. it's hard for students to take the whole summer off to go far away to dig something. but during the school year, campus digs look