talks about the decline, these dramatic absolutes. that is characterizing things that are not productive to the process of history which is low, deliberative, and, frankly, generous. history has been far more generous than make it out to be. >> the chinese are a bit apprehensive. but professor of history at cambridge was invited by the think tank of the chinese politburo, the people leave the country to talk and he said would like to talk about this, that command the other end is said to manila, were not interested in that. read just 20 to come and give a talk on how at the peak of its industrialization the british avoid revolution. so they know what they want. and they know what they're, you

know, fearful of. the pace of modernization and capitalization has been so huge that we still don't know what started to happen in that enormous country. either the building of medium-sized cities, some remain a populated. the next, the 21st century will be a century of america and china. these to see what happens. least amount. i think the time has come to end this, you know, a session which i have certainly found very interesting. good talking. our conversations continue in different parts of the world. thank you very much for coming here.

[applause] >> a very special thanks to our friends from the new republic's library who organizes events. and oliver and i were given the privilege which is in really a privilege. bring up the documents from were there are rare and all documents and we were shown quite interesting things. your shown the accounts of the money it was spent by his household in his own handwriting . and then to my astonishment this should me obviously an intelligence document from pakistan in 1963. which said the united states is a stand in concerned for pakistan, not a low enough ally, nothing changes.

>> you're watching 48 hours of nonfiction authors and books on c-span2 book tv. even in person. >> even in personnel, president of the estate's faces a predicament. we talk about race, face of such a predicament, there are some, an appreciable number who are racially prejudiced. they face the fact that a much larger portion of the american populace wants to deny the reality is even now. >> sunday, a harvard law professor or former law clerk to justice thurgood marshall randall kennedy. the rhodes scholar is the author of five bucks and will take your

calls coming best comment tweets for three hours live on in depth on book tv on c-span2. >> up next on a recent trip to durst university here in washington d.c. book tv talked to chandler many about her book with this cool war was over. part of books tv's college series. >> now on your screen, prof sean remaining who is the author of this book, what this cruel war was over, soldiers, slavery, and the civil war professor. was your approach to this? >> the first thing to say is that you give me way to much credit. the book that i thought of was a larger restaurant, i started with the civil war soldiers in

the desire for more help. absolutely no intention of all over the u.s. soldiers and slavery, none. i was enlisted in the regular farmers and the shopkeeper said and the non slaveholders, northern grain growers. so i really didn't think they're going to care about slavery rental. i was interested. somebody from boston different from somebody from ohio. somebody from the chesapeake different or similar to seven from appalachia. i was really interested in what people who live in the 19th century thought of how will they live connected to this thing called the nation. what does it mean to be in american. and some of plan was to do that, to look at how these guys talk about talk by the estate's, the

union, the comparison, the south hoping that they would do it substantially different from each other. i would have something to say. i had enough. i received cards for every state as far. thirty-five archives. the huge ones that immediately come to mind. pennsylvania has an enormous collection. the library's taken as oracle. jackson county historical society, and in his misery. again to the point was i didn't really want some more about u.s. grant, but that's what it was. but everyone knew would these

soldiers, i licked the flax and i figured my farm. and if there wouldn't cooperate, they would not do one of them to do, and i was really frustrated. >> for you finding a similar theme among both union and confederate soldiers? >> two things i was less interested in the words. east west and that sort of thing. i found very little of the east west difference that i was looking for. but listeners to talk people from the east will proceed. that was not surprising. it was one thing. there are talking about what i wanted them to, but there would not stop talking about there were not supposed to talk about. that is what they're not supposed to care about. at least it was supposed to enter the center of the world in the way that is seen to.

so i spent a good long time annoyed with them for not doing well wanted them to do. finally i woke up and realized, there's a story here. i didn't think these guys should be talking about slavery, and they are. so i need to understand why they cared, difference it made to sunday from arkansas or alabama never on the slave whether or not their words survive. what difference did make to somebody who grew weak in illinois or her macy's in massachusetts, lied to secure whether something called this a nice lead us survived. and once i figured out that was my question i took that approach, but it sounds like and what i was doing, and i really didn't. it took me about two years of archives, days in the archives to figure that out. so professor manning, as you went through these letters will were soldiers, let's start with the north, were you finding

northern soldiers sang about slavery? >> at the beginning i was struck by the wide range of opinions on slavery. at the beginning it really is about union for most common of all, but most, and what i mean by that is that most of them enter the war convinced that the united states has to survive. it has to survive to show the world that representative government to work. these guys were kids in 1848, a series of revolutions in 1848 as they see it failed. failed democratic revolutions and so they see the united states, this is a tone of this is the world's last shot. if the government works here it will never be tried again. said the state's think that they can destroy the government, which is how union soldiers see it, because they didn't like to get elected . government doesn't work. so we have to prove that this bank to survive. that is have a start.

but we don't have to be in this out very long before we begin to think, why did they get in this fix to begin with? botox to white southerners as slaves, and there really stark by how we got into this problem to begin with because of this institution of slavery. if you want to solve a problem the only way to do it is to root out the cause. so union soldiers made a shift much earlier than anticipated. begins in the summer rate to 61. beginning to read come to their families, but also to there elected officials to say that if we want to win this war and don't want to fight it again engineers we need to get rid of the problem. many to you the slavery, war is going to be back and we will be right back at square one. so a first they get really practical. is the way to solve a problem, get rid of the cause, the problem goes away. but this is their first reaction

to what they view as the cause of the war. then as they say in the south more and more they interact with real live slaves to a real live people who run to the union army by the thousands. suddenly it is harder to dismiss slaves as an abstraction, a black people as those undefined categories, something you've never heard of before, thinking that way when you have individuals with names and the stories and the families in your camp. and they also do things feel like a laundry. and so the initial feelings about slavery are quite instrumental. but extended experience in the south and i think my humanizes african american people for soldiers and then begin to take a more reflective look at something wrong with this, it is not just in a convenient, something wrong. and it is get to go because you

only when a war when god is on your side. no way get lets you win if you let something like slavery existed. so a sort of practical response in the early months is joined by a kind of moral and even religious reckoning as the war proceeds. >> they are finding that across the board. >> i really am. there are differences of opinion about everything. 2 million men in union blue, 2 million people, and they will disagree about things, but one exception, the food is baton they all agree about that. other than that to my differences of opinion about everything, what is striking is how waited the opinion is. but at the outset, a big range at the outset, but as the war proceeds, there are a lot of guys into the war, i want nothing to do with slavery. one in particular.

i think he's 8919, from ohio, and he enlists. he and his father are quite close. also very active or very enthusiastic in this sort of borrowing of the democratic party sometimes called the culprits. most opposed. that is heavy interest. midway through the war. 1863 with the emancipation proclamation to may still not sure that it's a good idea. is that what he signed up for, but pointedly, but he's not happy about it. again, he stays in the south tornadoes through experiences no one at home can even imagine. by the end of the months, by the end of the tories writing of his father and uncle to reeducate them. that will point he writes his father.

he said, you think that i have turned against my country. i think you have missed a considerable. when everyone has to take down slavery. and then the very end of the war, how he treats the ending, yes, we are free, free, free, free from the blight. we are free. that is 180-degree turn around. and so if you look at any moment in the union ranks of course you're going to find a range of opinions. the end of the war there range, the range considerably narrows. and the time and the war, there are a lot of people shifting. >> north soldiers' letters since the zero? >> it's a good question, and the answer is no. that is one of the charms. here are 3 million men who fought in the civil war, most of

whom would never have left us their personal thoughts or enough for the work. would you? the people you love to talk to. so there are ways from home and they have to use writing as a way to talk about with the care about. that is of german to the project in the first place. very hard. what to ordinary people care about. that was out was drawn to them to press place. completely uncensored, expected to leave of sensitive military information, but there will tell you, we don't know any. there is no office to know offices that don't look at the really interesting publication, to a publication newspapers. these are really interesting.

tomorrow, welfare, and recreation. so they amuse themselves. one of the ways that they do it in many residents is and this to get to strut his papers. and sometimes they do it with a piece of paper and pen. sometimes a duet by occupying the printing press of the locals of the newspapers with the very will conservative. the bears fell conservator editor was carefully studying the type to his is a paper one day. early 80's to. much is the first minnesota and it is said not to undo all his work. there was plenty of the three. this is paper exists with one page of local news and three pages of minnesota news. these newspapers are is still severely armistices of the enlisted men and a white and for themselves, circulate the ahmanson sells, and there not

censored officially end and the sense that if you're writing a letter to your mom you go a little bit on some things. i would want to know that my son had not had a decent meal in two weeks and is socked settles and the thing. or, when you're writing to other soldiers, they know all the stuff, and so there is no need to soften the edges. so especially uncensored because of the intended audience, and so they really are the almost raw voice of enlisting soldiers commanded hard to imagine anything like that. it goes through the formal process. nothing like that. >> when did you get interested in the civil war and what you teach a georgetown? >> question. i can't remember not being interested in a tin century u.s. history in particular. little house on the prairie believe there not when i was a kid, and that really drew me to the 19th century.

very close to my grandmother. she taught me. she was fascinated by the civil war. i can explain why i family was not in the united states. the main thing, was going to be disliked her. became very interested in the civil war pretty young. probably 89. written in 1943 in the other in 1952. and they are very descriptive above civil war soldiers. if you want to know what a soldier or or what the buttons on the uniform look like or what kind of practical jokes to play of his friends, if you want to know anything but his daily life, it will never be surpassed.

been interested for very long time. i teach an 18th-century u.s. history, but a duty to class and civil war and destruction. i told my total immersion experience class because replaceable or. a great class. i have them eat hardtack. by supply when out of business, so i don't know what i'll do now. i also teach classes on the history of baseball an 18th-century topics. >> what did you find in the southern soldiers' letters? >> they surprised me even more. i walked into this project convinced that there were not calling to talk about slavery. why would they? could not see how to run three families in the confederacy did not own slaves. the majority were not slaveholders. i really thought there would be, what is it for me to abetted to the comments of the war for them would have been fought for

different reasons, and i went into the project in red the ordinance, the question and those kinds of things. predicted that happens to safeguard the institution or slavery. i knew that, but i did not think that the regular guy release of the war in those terms, expected the work to be for him a sort of preface of disillusionment almost that i entered for one reason and i find it is about something else. this is a my war after all. what i found or menu did care, first and foremost about their loved ones, their families, their homes. what i was unprepared for is exactly how closely they link those things to the institution of slavery. so you live in north carolina or arkansas or virginia command you done on any slaves, but you're connected to the institution, and you know it. in a number of ways. well, structural ways to my

kinship to my great uncle howl. the widespread process of slave hiring or slave printing, you can't own a slave. you can read one from your slave holding neighbor for far less than you can hire in the other kind of labor. that will help you in those cars -- crunch times. you also know that the wealth of your region is highly dependent on this enormously valuable source of property. so there are real structural ways in which regular white southerners are connected, and there not dumb. they noted, but the real connections, almost down to the gut level. if you are of white southern man and you don't own slaves the still enjoy a certain position in society, and you live in a society that values the quality, really values the idea that uni are just as good as another.

he also grew up in an age of growing inequality. an age a very high mobility. people are on the move, all the time. a very insecure world. so if i live in a shack in you live up plantation what makes this equal? welcome another list can be slaves, and that is important. not the whole story, but that is important to who these men think they are. they also think of themselves as husbands and fathers, brothers, protectors. they see that as the greatest danger, the greatest threat to the people love. the emancipation, a terrible threat. a society that is 40 percent black. what happened 40 percent of the population know of a pretty good reason to be a little upset with the other 60%. they really believe that the loved ones are in danger if slavery goes away. there is a safety, genuine, that level safety issue.

and the final matter said these guys is religious, and that sounds funny, but slavery is in the bible. the new testament christ comes up directly against the institution of slavery. who are these pioneers who think they know better than god how to order society? that is dangerous. everything you know and love and the world seems to rest on his own business slavery, you just felt like your whole world got rattled. and so in that sense i found right from the outset white southerners who really don't see themselves having a direct economic interest, but keeping

the things they love the most is in the pen. >> how easy was it to find a trove of these archives? >> easy then i thought it would be. because i tended to go for the smaller ones. the writer intended to be the permanence, somebody's attic at cleanup. it went to the state in the county, the hundreds of thousands, uncountable amount of letters up there. that actually turned out to mike didn't have the problem i could not find enough sources. that did have a strategy. and so the way i did it was a step with unlisted. occasionally some would be promoted. it would become junior officers. a look at men who enlisted as enlisted men, and i wanted just ordinary people, the year never

before, and i wanted my armies to look close to have a real army had looked, so i tried to keep the ratio of how many easterners and westerners, how many well to many farmers, and i tried to keep those ratios as close as possible. so demographic data as much as anything. and i try really hard not to up over represent any particular group. there is one. not quite representations'. one is obviously a political soldiers. 80 percent of the confederate army to read and write, so literacy is not such a small thing. but there are a letter of soldiers and above, so they're harder to get at. now, there are people and

regiments to write four letters to soldiers, and i read those kinds of letters. with slightly. those of the hardest to do that. those of the once and needed the most digging, and there are a couple of ways to 210. one is the same way. somebody in their regiment to vote for others. the other is that black soldiers often rode into another black newspapers. so there are columns and columns of letters in northern free black is papers. sometimes that will hold public meetings and together they will come up. all soldiers to this, come up with a series of resolutions, visibly together and agree on. symbol right those down and it will record about, our reaction. so is that the same as ready as your sister, but those of the soldiers that are there

purposefully because they're part of the army, but after it met, the sort of escape slaves who had never learned to read or write, his voice is the least likely to recapture. the other misrepresentation is probably not that meaningful. all the soldiers. like everyone the one-two, start with a and go through. right around thursday's of was there for weekend would realize some of them. so the beginning of the alphabet , the early off the names of represented as opposed city s&p's. try pretty hard to not overly way anybody. >> what about women's voices, return letters. >> i did someone i want. the early. they did with far fewer of them than the soldiers.

some of that has to do with practicality. if you're a soldier and write-downs your family they can put it in the letter. they are afraid something will happen to you, so they have a real incentive to put in a torrent keep it, so the soldiers' letters or more likely to survive the reluctance letters to the french, you've got to miss you know, this soldier, knapsack. and you have the georgia put things in. it gets monday. letters to soldiers from women harder to get, but they do survive. sometimes soldiers send back letters specifically saying they get saved. i did not make a systematic inquiry into those at this particular project, but there is one that he had to mufti people who are beginning to do the work and we will be interesting. >> we have been talking with sandra manning, a professor here at georgetown university and also co-director of the tourist town workshop in 19th century u.s. history. this is her book, what this

cruel war was over, soldiers, slavery, and the civil war. professor, thank you for your time. >> my pleasure. thank you very much. it was nice touch you. >> who would like to hear from some dystrophy back. here is a look at some of palin book fares and festivals. march 10th and 11th, book tv will be live from the to summer festival books on the campus of the university of arizona. a festival coverage will include members of the talks ranging from the great depression to forensic science. then in late march book tv will visit charlottesville, virginia, for the viejo festival of the book. in april the university of california irvine will host the sixth a new literary orange. the festival featured keynote speakers paul mclane and leases the. the sixth annual philadelphia of book festival will be held april 16th to the 21st command on the