teaching i might hypothetically. she kept reagan and writing to the to -- writing what people are involved in that time and thinking and why they were doing what they were doing so i'm not interested in teaching. but think it's straight-backed to teach history. it's my place. it's already happened, as we have to understand it and their relationship with the students over the years because even though they know i don't agree with the politics today i'm trying to understand when i teach conservatism why it went from not existent in the 1930's and 40's basically to become now

one of the largest social movements in america and a very powerful one. how does that happen? it is a historical phenomenon. wetherille like it or not, it happened and it doesn't makes sense to say that was terrible what they were saying. you teach what happens and different points of view about it. >> we've been talking with georgetown university professor and author michael kazin. here is his most recent book, "american dreamers: how the left changed a nation." >> coming up next book tv talks with thomas about his book will

cease and freedom we international religious liberty is vital to american national security. this conduct to the georgetown university is part of book tv college series. it's about a half-hour. >> professor thomas, his book is world coffee and freedom by international religious liberty is vital to american national security. professor, why is it vital? >> for two reasons. one is that religious freedom is a fundamental human right. most people would accept that and it's under siege around the world. the pure form recently published a comprehensive study in which they said 70% of the world's population lives in countries in which religious freedom is certainly restricted that's almost three out of for people

in the planet and what is necessary to is on unjust execution so it is a humanitarian crisis, and the united states has traditionally stood with the persecuted but it's also a crisis because the data show and i would argue with history and common sense confirm that that without religious freedom you cannot have a stable democracy, so you think of all these countries in the air of a spring all of them high year religious societies. countries we have invested enormous amounts of blood and treasure, afghanistan, iraq, or take pakistan or other countries with the struggling to have a stable democracy mosul interest to succeed but they can't succeed if they don't get this religion state issue right. if they don't get religious

freedom right. in addition i would say that the data shows that one of religious freedom is absent you have the violence, extremism, terrorism and that is a major issue for the united states because it's reached our shores and affect us and our military deployment and it affects what we do all over the world so this is on the one hand a humanitarian issue and on the a very vital national interest. >> what has been the traditional or the historic role of religious freedom and u.s. foreign policy. >> hysterically it is played. that's part of our human rights policy we've always did for human rights, sometimes more than in terms of our actual foreign policy. but that's okay we have interest as a country and problems can't

always be at the top during the soviet period. we were very concerned about human rights but also about the missiles. lamb are doing is this remains true but it's taken on a sharpened as aliens because the world is very religious whether you and i like it or not is irrelevant whether the diplomats like it or not is irrelevant. it is religious and our job is to -- our job as american diplomats is to engage the world in the american interest so to answer your question of historical es played a rhetorical role in the foreign policy and the rhetoric there is nothing but along with in fact there is good but it's had a presidential speeches and speeches by secretaries of state or important. so in my team look to be we are not doing enough in terms of

concrete planning policy actually to get fans religious freedom on the ground. we got a lot of words, some of them are fine. we don't have enough action. >> why did you refer to the american diplomatic corps? >> i spent 21 years as a diplomat and got into this when congress passed the law called the international religious freedom act and i was an american diplomat doing the things american diplomats do. my specialty was the cold war and i served in geneva, cyprus issues and then the law was passed the requires pop they will advance religious freedom around the world so i was privileged to be asked by the first head of that all office to

be very directors of the chief of staff and this is how i got involved, i did it for four years. i served under two ambassadors in march. i concluded it was important for our country, and we were not. the diplomatic corps is quite good, but it has been trained i would argue in most elite universities but also in the service training traditionally religion isn't something to get involved and it's almost like your mother told you. a good example of this is henry kissinger that is the quintessential american foreign service officer and diplomat. he's a remarkable man still rising but in 94 he for his zero

best diplomacy would was modestly called, and it was a tour of the entire history of diplomacy and the west. an index of 135 or 40 pages, the word religion does not appear in the index. is simply disappeared as a relevant matter. even during the period that henry kissinger himself was secretary of state, he was. along with margaret thatcher what was going on in the soviet union when ayatollah khomeini was on the rise in iran. that's not a criticism of kissinger per say, and it isn't animus' as far as i know on his part towards religion.

a desalt position that isn't. i think we can no longer conclude that religion is something we shouldn't be engaging on in the diplomatic policy. is it christian centric? >> that's a good question. the perception is the answer is yes. out there in the muslim world, the perception among some here in the united states, it's not true enough. that is a blueprint for this. it doesn't mention any religion, yet they do for all people, and of course. everybody has strong feelings about it, and christianity is proselyting michigan. it does nothing to grapple with. you have to take industry but

the idea is not to make the world safe for the christian missionaries, it is to focus on the religious liberty as a constituent a limit of human dignity can societies in the politics. it is something that can be talked about and implemented your respective of the demography is to be the the reality is christians around the world as minorities are in big trouble, they are fleeing iraq and other countries in the middle east. what happens to the cop that caught the christian minority in egypt has nothing to do with -- has a great deal to. the notion of religious freedom is about christians. historical if we want to talk about where did the notion come from, christianity and other jewish understanding of god and man and so forth plays a role

the there's a number of scholars to be the target of religious freedom not only consistent but required by and unfortunately in my view and if they were you would have far fewer problems so no it's not just about christians or human beings. >> what are some of the problems, national security problems, that we may face in looking at the two largest countries in the world, china and india. islamic that's an excellent question. both of these countries have tremendous problems which religious liberty -- let me begin first with india which as most people know is a hindu majority nation. but also has a huge muslim minority. so what happens.

is it of great importance for not only india which is huge and growing and of enormous economic importance to the united states and its neighbors. it's also a nuclear weapons country next to a muslim majority country, pakistan, which has also moved its weapons. if that happens in india a importance to the united states on an economic basis, an internal basis and a national security basis how. that is by and large the indians have been successful at this with exceptions. if you look at the growth in '88 and '89 the confessional. here we are over a half century later a fairly stable democracy, it's got huge problems of poverty, but it's got enormous economic growth and some of this

i think is glued to the fact the indians influenced primarily by hindu by the notions of religion that were there with donaghey and others that developed a secular understanding of the wave of democracy ought to work and it hasn't solved all the problems. they still of prescriptions of christians and india, they still of persecution of muslims and some radical hindu, said they have big problems, but by and large india is a success story when you look at these other countries and it's important because of the muslim minority. china, very different problem to be officially in the fiesta, no religion to flourish in china accept it as part of the sort of bureaucratic understanding of the state. it's a top-down understanding socialist per the communist whether it be an official communist party.

the most important thing i think one can understand about china is that the communist party was capitalists to be part of it but not religious believers. what does that tell you? first of all it's a very practical strain. communism by definition is anticapitalistic. but in the 1980's, the chinese decided they wanted to see economic enterprise in the country, they said to get rich is glorious. this tells you if they were to make this kind of decision about religion, they could make enormous changes, but the problem is they don't see at as part of the chinese understanding of reality. they save religion as a threat. religious people whether they are christians are tibetan buddhists are muslims out in the western provinces of china have

a higher authority than the state, so in that sense of it's just a threat to in a communist state. but what we should be singing to the chinese and we don't do this very well is back off on these people. estimate we have to adopt the american understanding. but if you -- what are your interests, what you want for yourself? you don't have to do this because we are letting our finger at you and the united nations says you have to. with the the chinese want, still the economic growth, future economic growth but they are worried. they want social harmony and political stability. religious freedom can help you with this because religious individuals are not rebels unless you suppress them and crack down on them. if you allow them a little bit of freedom, which means backing

off the state it ministration fer shares allow them to develop their own doesn't mean you have to change about violence for half a billion it does mean you have to give slack if that will happen. they become far more economically productive. they will contribute to the social causes within china, look at the problems they've had with aids, leprosy, remember the earthquake in the session on a couple of years ago? the chinese noticed, others as well that came into the province and they were struck by that. we need to pick up on this notion. it's not about christians or any particular religious group, it's about letting people believe religious as they see it themselves. if you do that, it will be good for them but more important to would be good for your society

on your own terms. we don't do that very well. we gist don't communicate that to do well. support is the deficiency in the training remember the henry kissinger rick symbol, the part of that is we don't leadership from the secretary of state and president of the united states to say we need to to make this a serious effort of the policy to reduce to make any lessons learned from the fall of the soviet union? and the opening up of religious freedom? >> yes. some tough lessons poignant large. when the soviet union was overthrown we were successful in getting them to pass the law, and my friend and colleague who was the first ambassador for religious freedom as soon as

opening this opened russia. all the christians in the world through their bibles into their wagons and one of flecha was the gold rush in the 1900's in the united states, the 1800's in the united states. without regard in other words to the cultural, particularly which views itself as part of mother russia and they've been suppressed during the period of the soviet union and the communist. hear all these other christians of nominations came in. none were really talking to the russian orthodox church and kind of trying to be sensitive about this, and a campus of the competition in the form a scrum. this has led to other things. the orthodox church to say we

don't like this religious freedom stuff. let's go back to a little bit of the authoritarian goal. author terry and by russia so that we will be the stakeholders and the religious representatives of russia, and then if there was and will hear it. the supporters of anti-democratic difference in russia. so, it's a good question because if they tell you, as religious freedom requires sensitivity? >> you have to be sensitive to the culture there its china commercial or pakistan. people feel very strongly about their religious beliefs and if you don't take into account profit, you're not going to be successful. this is part of american diplomats need to be trained about. if you're going not to russia as a diplomat, what you ought to get in your area of studies training where are you going to learn the russian language and history and the the government, the economy and so forth. learn about all this history and

its scheme to be very important role of education, but it isn't -- as a consequence when we get out there, you just don't do this for a well and i think that needs to change. >> i've always been in a religious person but i knew it's just something you didn't talk about. it didn't play a role and when i did was an office we have yet, and i could tell that people were not taking it well. people in the building and c street which is the usual, they were looking at us has kind of we are intrigued by that. no, due to the tentacles down and convince people that this isn't something -- a lot of people felt this was just an outpost of the christian right the had been imposed by congress and those were two very bad things for the state department. congress is telling us what to do and the christian right is telling us what to do.

neither one of them were good of interpretations in my view. i was delighted to be there. and frankly was 1999. he was gone in 2000 and in came present bush. it took a couple of years to get bush's and ambassador here. during the period there was no the acting, i describe myself in the book as the admiral of the leaky rowboat that had a crew of parties souls furiously peddling to keep from sinking beneath the waves. it was a lot of fun. but -- and john hanford because that's not really his deputy putative he did some -- he had eight years to do his job, so, you know, we are still not doing this well and i think the

doggett sauce is not just a plea to look at the parts of this book to look at it from our in main interests, the united states does, and i know around the room building. if we can promote religious freedom than we just want to go into their safety and see what they have. >> as far as you work in this area changed your face at all? >> it's deep in debt. i happen to be a roman catholic. i'm a convert of catholicism in conversion and prosperous asian and conversion, but my own blueprint is what i considered a which cannot of the second council and the catholic church was in the catholic that time,

but as a comment a vision of our and devoted to the lightning freeze for the title was different which means the dignity of the human person, that is a lot if not what needs to be said about religious freedom, human beings by the nature want to know the answer to the questions, so it is a religious thing for me but it isn't -- of course as a catholic she invited me to get all. but it's about human beings. it's not about the catholic church or any other church. it removes the understanding of what human beings actually are, and if they don't have religious freedom, they delivered human rights and that's why society still don't get détente to be free of the unstable. >> hours developing our recent years. a long way from that terrific problems which you see in killed

are literally, but the root of the problem may be the same and that is to credit your nature of people come and i don't mean to say that, you know, people of religious religious. christopher hitchens was itself professed atheist but a person religious and my definition of the term and that is you want history no answers and he spent his life looking for those answers and there is no doubt. that should be a preposterous answer. if i didn't have my it's about human dignity, not proposition or, you know, in posing my beliefs on you, but to answer the question, i believe is entirely catholic with their faith, so it hasn't deepened.

as a catholic i am making sure. a world fifa and freedom, will international of r. dee is vital to the american national security. what is the weather's been institute? >> the witherspoon institute is a privately funded think tank in new jersey. if you are going to want one, it has a whole host of programs that intersect between religious and public life. i'm fortunate enough to be the director of their cash course on international and religious freedom and have been now for about three years. people were interested can find it on the web site. likelier coming out with a volume it turns on march 1st of this year. we will have at georgetown university on the campus while a

conference to bring out the book entitled religious freedom, why now, defending an end of all human rights. it's a productive to my task force but it's written by my colleague at georgetown, timothy samuel shaw and he's done a terrific job for which gives the case for religious freedom across all religions, and strategic regions which we've been talking about, but any country which is interested in stability and harmony for peace, so i think it is a blockbuster of a book. it's a small book. it's not one of these henry kissinger 1,000 pages or 180 pages. so it's for anybody interest in the subject and i invite anybody that is interested in coming to the conference. the institute web site or to the website of laughter huff which is the book.

you can find it possessed by googling and here is the first of georgetown university. we invite all of them to come in and have fun. but join us and there's no keynote address by robert george who is a professor of political science in theory at princeton university, one of the preeminent public intellectuals in the united states and is subject but especially on the subject of the religious celebrity you will have a number of panels including one of american muslims who are going to talk about this as if it impacts american islam and they are around the world. again, this isn't just an operation that some human beings. so we will have a panel but talks about the title but okay, once we just published of that,

what is the relevance to that out there. >> especially the muslim majority world which the kinkos ann part subject to the country and obviously for muslims around the world. >> you are watching book tv on c-span2 and we've been talking with professor thomas about his book, have coming book by the institute. professor grumet think you for joining us here at georgetown university. >> thanks. it's been a pleasure. you are watching book tv on c-span2. 48 hours of nonfiction authors and books every weekend to read as a look at upcoming book fairs and festivals