this is about 45 minutes. .. >> across america. in the kind of style of nonpartisanship which we like to see in american media. um, i don't know we always see it. i've just been excluded from, from cnn. i was supposed to -- [laughter] no, it's a great loss to me because i wanted to tell those

people a few things they hadn't heard before. but i've been excluded from it because i'm told i'm an extremist. um, i tend to refer to the president of the united states as a stealth socialist, and that's considered extremism. though actually, i think, i ought to appear hat in hand before cnn and ask them which words in the vocabulary i'm allowed to apply to the stealth socialist, if we're amongst friends. [laughter] but at any rate, i'd like to make a few observations about my new book, um, "the death of liberalism." historic eras have a habit of slipping away with few people

noticing their passing. the holy roman empire had lost its hold on the potentates of europe, yet it was years before anyone discerned that the empire was no longer holy or roman or even an empire. there were a lot of colorful uniforms around, and even helmets and ceremonial swords. but no one took any notice of them, not even the swords. the empire had regressed to a gaggle of municipalities and, later, nation-states. nowadays, catholic europe might still be mentioned in some remote geography classes as catholic europe, but europe has not had, has not been the political domain of powerful bishops and popes for over a

century. even the power of the british empire never really recovered from world war i. and when churchill said i have not become the king's first min minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the british empire, that liquidation was well underway. here in america there are institutions and beliefs, belief systems that long ago lost their clout. take the urban machine. doubtless, there are americans who still believe in the legendary power of the urban machine. yet with few exceptions, urban machines lost their grip on cities long ago. tamny hall, r.i.p.. so it is with the passing of liberalism. in my lifetime, i have seen

liberalism dissolve from an all-powerful key mora -- kimora with its hold unopposed on the goth, the bureaucracy, the educational establishment, even the corporate world. it became a feeble thing with alternative influences challenging it in practically every department. today's liberals are veritable zombies, holding out where they can with ever more fresh troops of conservatives, free marketeers and globalists, challenging them everywhere. always their solutions to problems at hand are a croak from the grave. spend more money, tax the upper class, retreat into the cocoon where no one ever disagrees with liberals.

and an alternative never exists to their arguments. recall the zombies' astonishment when obamacare was opposed by a majority of the american people and then is questioned by the supreme court. sure, the liberals' living dead are out there, the zombies, as i call them. but they have been diminished to the point of sin's si sense. true liberals like hubert humphrey, pat moynihan, ed koch, their universal components at the universities, are all dead or in retirement. their kind of liberal vigor has not been replenished. we have lived through the death of liberalism. and it is time that we acknowledge as much. liberalism is dead.

americans today who have missed the sad event can be forgiven. there was no national announcement at the end -- of the end of an era. say on npr or in "the new york times" or even if there were, few americans follow these organs of dead liberalism. there was no weeping, no weeping at the grave side. in fact, there was no graveside. for my part i did file an obituary in "the wall street journal" on december 4, 2010, and now i have elaborated on the book, "the death of liberalism." perhaps i should stop by the roosevelt memorial and leave flowers at the feet of fdr.

fdr at least saved the world, and he mixed a swell martini. but now it is time to solemnize the occasion; the death of liberalism. some years ago, in 2009 to be exact, shortly before conservativism enjoyed its mightiest victory in modern times, a book by sam tanenhaus set liberal hearts aflutter. it was titled, "the death of conservativism." you remember it. some of you read it. it was not unlike my book except for one thing, it was completely, totally, thunderously wrong. sam is the editor of "the new york times"' book review and be

also at the time was editor of the now-defunct "week in review," and defunct is something that we may apply to "the new york times" eventually. one would have thought that he would have hedged his bets, perhaps he might have ended his title in a question mark, "the death of liberalism -- the death of conservativism"? i mean, once a writer has put a judgment like that between hard covers it is, so to speak, written in stone. a writer stakes his reputation on a book. no one wants to be laughed at or dismissed as an idiot. yet sam wrote "the death of conservativism" emphatically and was roundly congratulated -- at least by liberals.

he is probably still being congratulated for, i suppose, his heroism. what were the liberals thinking about in 2010? when conservatives filed in to take over the house of representatives and state legislative chambers all over the country? for sam's part, he came out with a paperback, the death of conservativism, on october 19th, 2010. not exactly a month before the deluge came. all the polls were predicting the deluge, yet he and his fans were of course, oblivious. this obliviousness was characteristic of liberalism in their last days. it was utterly, it was utterly oblivious to the world around it. it had self-segregated itself,

and be so at the threshold of its final internment it could ignore its decades of decline. the triumph of ronald reagan, bill clinton's declaration that the era of big government is over o and, of course, the bush years. in 2009 all of the liberals smugly assumed that they were going to govern, get this, america for the next 40 years. that came from james carville. conservativism -- oh, carville. conservative was dead, though as i write in my book there was no evidence to support this observation. still, in 2009 the hapless demise of conservativism was a major theme of liberal commentary, and it was, it was

written about all over the country. we couldn't avoid it. as the literary editor of "the new republic," leon, saying of sam tanenhaus' suicidal book: "the death of liberalism" is not another book by another liberal with a pornographic fascination with the american right; this is the work of a wise ander you diet reflection. political and social criticism of a classical kind. tanenhaus writes with the calm authority about the ideas and the power, about movements and parties. the momentous difference between them, about the glory and the decay of utter, of the other counterculture of our times. he's talking about us.

his book is a service to liberalism. and to conservativism, that's us. and to america. and that's how confident he was when he wrote that observation. as i say, the liberals have been oblivious. now, aside from the book's obvious hooey, if we really were dead, where was sam tanenhaus going to bury our corpses? i mean, we constituted fully 42% of the electorate as against the liberals' 18-20%. and where was he going to bury the think tanks, our magazines, the fox news, talk radio and the internet? how could he silence talk radio when the zombies of liberalism

recently tried to silence rush limbaugh, they utterly and completely failed. our journalists proved that bill maher and keith olberman and the other leftists rile anatomical references to sarah palin and to other female conservatives, made rush's lone joe cus reference to a slut sound positively victorian. in trying to banish him, liberal successors revealed themselves. they are not defenders of freedom, but thugs opposed to free expression. there's the whiff of the stormtrooper about them. in my book i trace the ancestry of conservativism back to edmund burke and the founding fathers. there is something hefty about burke and the founders,

something durable. i also trace liberalism's ancestries, but it does not go back to venn ferrell in thinkers. rather, it goes back to jean jacques rousseau, the first limousine liberal, and to karl marx, the world's chief theoretician of column tock rah si. more recently, there is our stealth socialist in the white house whose inspiration seems came from saul olin sky, the community activist, who in his youth i am told stole hub caps, and at times he stole whole automobiles. the intellectual history of the left is full of pose yours, him from program in artists and inwe tempts. you would not expect russo or marx to be capable of boiling an

egg, let alone throwing it. imagine either with a molotov cocktail. marx would probably drink it. he was always a quarrelsome drunk who drank cheap stuff. along the road to liberalism's demise, there were historic moments as i record in my book. there were two civil wars in 1948 and 1972. in 1948 the more sober and acceptable liberals won. in 1972 the zanies won. and the zanies put liberalism on the road to its demise and to the rise of the zombies and the stealth socialist. there was always an abundance of crazy enthusiasts around. liberalism, even in 1948, they gave it a kind of offbeat charm.

there was morris pardon mely, the high-ranking nudist in the roosevelt administration. roosevelt fired him without controversy. then there was alger hiss and harry dexter white. their communist connections were less amusing, and people like dean acheson covered for this to liberalism's shame. this was the first great lie of modern liberalism but more were to come. as for the 1970 -- as for 1972, the zanies gained the ascendancy with people like george mcgovern and young gary hart. hart was the first of a kind of liberal that fore doomed liberalism. he was the infantile leftist.

after him a whole generation of infantile leftists assumed the leadership of the democratic party. where they originated from, i relate in the book. but you know who they are. the clintons, al gore, jean jean francois kerry. [laughter] and now, perhaps, the last of the breed, senator john edwards, the breck boy, and anthony weiner who sent pictures of himself holding his best friend in his hand to women he barely knew. [laughter] the infantile leftists were famous for running around in public in jogging attire that looked very much like their underwear. for wind surfing and bungee jumping. hillary even downed shots of

whiskey in public after the indiana primaries, and now she's been seen swilling and guzzling beer from a bottle in cartagena. she is the first secretary of state ever filmed in cartagena drinking beer from a bottle. but anything, anything for the photo op. all would have been improbable stunts in public life at any other period were it not for another historic turning point in liberalism. the chappaquiddick dispensation, as i call it. it dates from the summer of 1969 when teddy kennedy took off on his famous swim leaving mary jo kopechne to drown in the backseat of his submerged oldsmobile. the tragedy would have led any other politician to retire from

public life, or he'd have been bounced from public life. yet teddy brazened it out, becoming eventually -- as the culture smog put it -- the lion of the senate. and the culture smog, let us remember, is our utterly polluted political culture. from that point on, a whole generation of democrats, of democratic politicians -- all members of the infantile left, all members of the 1960s generation, all members of my generation -- could ride out any scandal simply by steadily, steadfastly lying. now, it seems that chappaquiddick dispensation has played itself out. john edwards, the breck boy, is

through in public life. he will not even be given a gig on cnn, as elliot spitzer was given a gig on cnn; spitzer being another beneficiary of the chappaquiddick dispensation. today the liberals are the walking dead. their numbers dwindle. their ideology, the ideology that controlled the government and media at the end of world war ii is down to barely 20% of the population. as opposed to 42% coin themselves conservatives, and 35-40% saying that they are independents. the trend has been with the conservatives for years, as i chart in my book. i dare say that today there are more bird watchers in america than there are liberals. [laughter]

there are probably more members of the probe hix party -- prohibition party than there are liberals. the future under obama is unsustainable. this year the federal government will spend $3.8 trillion consuming an almost unparalleled 25% of the gross national product. as opposed to the usual peacetime consumptionover at least 20% -- of at least 20% of the gross national product. over the past five years, the gross federal debt has more than doubled to nearly $16 trillion, more than the annual output of the entire economy of the united states. conservatives and independents are going to ally as they did in 2010 and turn the democrats out. and obama is going to be routed in the fall.

what time -- what comes next if the lifeless liberals ever resurrect is the corporate state, or as with those of us with a sense of history like to say, friendly fascism. the real specter of friendly fascism was adumb baited in the crony capitalism that we saw in the first three years of the stealth socialist's reign. with ever larger sectors of the economy coming under government control, socialism and fascism are not that different. both disregard property rights, and both rule through lawless bureaucracy. in freedom-loving america, neither prospers. today liberalism is dead. socialism and fascism are dead. the constitution has prevailed,

and we should all -- we are all living a better life because of it. thank you very much. [applause] >> well, thank you so much, bob. i have a microphone not because you can't hear me without it, but because of our dear friends at c-span. so as we have time for questions, could i ask you, please, to wait for debbie to bring you a microphone and to stand up and identify yourself before asking a question with a question mark at the end of it. i don't have to suggest that it should be witty and intelligent because from this group, all are. [laughter] >> hi. my name is steve hockman, i'm a

recovering lawyer. obviously, i'm sure you -- i have a question. i know you believe in the free market system. and that goes without saying. here's my question. if you -- are you willing to is accept the fact that if everything was in the free market system, we didn't have any government intervention with the free market system except one, would you make, be willing to succeed to one exception? -- to accede to one exception? if in the free market system needy individuals fell below some minimal level of need -- poverty, whatever definition you put for need -- would you be willing to subsidize those individuals with taxpayers' money, only those individuals but not entities who, because

they're small business or because they meet some other criteria, that is not necessarily based on need? that's my question, thank you. >> well, actually, you know, it's funny, the liberals say we're not capable of any change, we conservatives, and the fact of the matter is speaking for myself, i have adjusted my point of view. as life has gone on, time and time again. and you look at paul ryan's health plan which extends vouchers for want of a better word to everyone in america, particularly to the poor. so we would and we do maintain a

kind of assistance for the poor. and paul johnson -- paul ryan's example is a perfectly good example. and i'm willing to go along with that. um, and can i'm also, of course, willing to help the less well off. but it's gotten, we've got to put limits on it, and we've got to acknowledge that it's extraordinary. another question? >> ken gilman. i heard all of your remarks. why do i look back at the first two years of the obama administration and think while it didn't quite run the table, it passed two massive pieces of legislation, obamacare and dodd-frank? that doesn't can sound like it's the death of liberalism.

>> you think that's a sign of liberalism's e flores sense? >> no, but it doesn't sound like it's a death cough either. >> well, it is a death cough because it was a wake-up call to the american people that we've had enough, and we're finding out more and more about that health care, and we've rejected it. the american people have rejected it. people that were never interested in politics are rejecting it. this is a problem that i anticipated with a conservative audience, that you can't, you can't, you can't get over the fact that we're in the last years of the holy roman empire, but it's not holy, it's not roman, and it's not an empire. i tell you, obama is going to be badly beaten in the fall. if he's not badly beaten in the fall, he's going to be so hemmed

in that we're going to have a real fight on our hands. and by the way, we're going to have a real fight on our hands, by the way, if he is beaten. we're going to have to work like hell to come up with alternative programs which i think paul ryan, for one, has come up with. but to sit around and moan about obamacare, he had the senate, the house and the presidency behind him. he seems to think he had the supreme court in his back pocket. i don't think he did. obamacare is one of his examples of overreach. there were other overreach -- other examples of overreach, and those overreach, those attempts at overreach have, will eventually, well, have already secured his fate. >> could i ask a follow up on that? >> yeah. >> what happens if supreme court strikes down obamacare before

the election? already they seem to have rapped him over the knuckles with the arguments on those two amazing days that we all heard online. have we had an instructive lesson in your thesis? >> yeah, i think we have. i just -- my wife is a, as you might know, is a clerk for justice kennedy, and i'm in the enviable position of knowing five justices on a first-name basis. and jean and i talk a hot about what -- a lot about what this all means, and we think we know that parts of the case -- and ted olsen's a great friend of mine, as you probably know. we, we think that sufficient parts of that law are going to be thrown out so that it's going

to really rekind to obama's discredit. um, ted olsen is of the opinion that justice roberts, chief justice roberts, is going to try to find something to bring in one or two of the liberals, and that that might weaken the decision by the supreme court, but at any rate, i don't think -- i think that serious, a serious threat to obamacare is in the air in the supreme court, a really serious threat. ..

and according to the constitution in this country, when the socialists came in, in 2008, and brought all those progressives policies to washington, governors across america who conservatives could sigh, the hell with you, not in my state. you're not getting there, and they could object. so whereas all of france is about to go socialist, all of

america never went socialist in 2009, and it makes you want to move to montana? oh. no. no. but it makes you glad for the constitutional structure of our country. >> i wanted to just underline your aptness of the use of the term zombie. in artificial intelligence and consciousness studies, a zombie is a creature that, for all intents and purposes, appears to have consciousness but in fact does not. my question is, in those two great redoubts of liberalism and minstrel media, -- main stream media, can you talk about liberalism dying in thoseaire areas? >> it's a good question. they're not liberal anymore. no one stood up and protested in

the universities for running rush limbaugh out of office. maybe alan dershowitz did. every now and then there's an honorable liberal left in universities but most of -- they put on their brown shirts and they marched. we've created a real monster in this country, and i don't know what to do with it because i don't have any ill-liberal way to treat those people. they have an ill-liberal way to treat me, and they tried, and frankly here i am. having a pretty good time of it. but they have -- when they get together, they have no -- they're very proud of the fact that they'd crush us if they could. but they can't.

thank god for our constitution. >> i'm going to take the other side. i think, as mark twain said, the reports of my death are exaggerated. i think there's -- roosevelt won four times or three re-elections. i think we're approaching 50% of the work force that's directly or indirectly works for the federal government. liberals in the white house understand all this. >> i can't hear him. >> is that better? >> maybe so. >> start again. >> i think you reports of the demise of liberalism are

exaggerated. fdr won three re-elections because he had much of the country on his payroll. today we have 50% roughly, of the work force directly or indirectly on the payroll of the state, federal, or local government. >> is your point that 50 percent of the american people don't pay taxes? >> no, no. his point is that 50% of the people are actually getting paid by government at some level. >> well, you know, people vote for a lot of reasons, and actually who pays their check -- that doesn't answer all possibilities for all people. there's a lot of people out there that they might get a government check but they love to hunt and fish. they might gate government check but they love their church more than they love the government. and i don't think that this

vast -- it's also 49% or something like that don't pay taxes. but they respond to other motivations. dick morris and i were talking last night. and dick has been studying the swing states, and he announced to me what i already know, and you should watch for it. this election is going to be a blowout, and it's going to be a blowout for our side, not for obama's side. people vote for a lot of reasons. and i think one of the reasons that the people vote is they vote incompetence out of office, and this man has proven himself to be more incompetent than any president in american history. so i think that the american people are wise enough to know that. but i do take great confidence

in dick morris' recent statistics about the election. >> just going back to the point about not so much europe but america and its place in the rest of the world. to what extent, assuming a resurgence of conservativism, should be a bigger part of what is happening in contrast to the contradiction in terms of state capitalism in china and in russia and in other nations where we're fighting what is a free-market battle against a knopp free market system. >> is your question, we're not affecting the politics of china or russia very much? >> shouldn't we be more --

continue to be more of an example as opposed to receding. >> yeah, we should be more of an example, and i -- it's hard to tell -- for me -- i know more than you guys know -- but it seems to me that america should be a shining city on a hill, and we haven't been a shining city on a hill in this presidency. it's hard to say how -- i read the wall street journal every day. it's my bible, and we seem to have encouraged a great deal of libertarian or liberal behavior in the chinese, and it's hard to say what they're going to be faced with. history -- arthur schlessinger used to say, was immensely

interesting subject, and every now and then i sit back and i watch history take place in the world, and i'm informed by it, and what is going to happen to russia and what is going to happen to china, i can't say, but i can say, and we would all say, that america better remain strong in the years ahead. thank you very much. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> here's a look at some books being published this week. representative job lewis

explains how his experiences as a leader in the civil right movement can be used as inspiration in our society. in "the art of intelligence, lessons for life in the cia's clandestine service" a formercry cia agent talks about the importance of the war on terror. >> and ron paul's devote it following in ron paul's revolution, the man and the movement he inspired in his book "in the shadow of the sword" tom holland details the rise of islam and the arab empire that took place over a few decades. >> james fallow, examines the growing aero space industry in china.

>> and historian profiles the life of thomas jefferson's daughter, and offers new insights into the role of women during the time. look for these titles in book scores this coming week, and watch for the authors in the near future on book tv and at booktv.org. >> several years ago when the queen was at one of her yearly garden parties at buckingham palace, making her wail through a crowd of nearly 9,000 people, and greeting a selection of guests, she was asking such standard questions as, have you come far? when one woman looked at her, and said, what do you do? several days later, at a friend's birthday party, the queen described the exchange and confessed, i had no idea what to say. it was the first time in all the years of meeting people that anybody had ever asked her that question.

well, my job in writing "elizabeth, the queen" is not only to explain what she does but to tell what she is really like and take the reader as close as possible to elizabeth the human being, the wife, the mother, and the friend, as well as the highly respected leader. to them that talked first about what it was like to write about queen elizabeth and second i would like too share with you some of the many surprising discoveries i made about the queen, because she is the best known woman in the world. people feel as if they know her. but the real woman is very different from the woman in velvet ander ermine. this is my sixth biography. bus there's no one like the queen, and she lives in her very own remarkable world.

while other heads of state have come and gone, elizabeth is the longest serving leader in the world, spanning the 20th and 21st century, the 40th 40th monarch in the thousand year history of the british monarch okay, reign offering the united kingdoms of england, wales, scotland, and norway ireland, along with 15 realms and 14 overseas territories. she is the second monarch to celebrate a diamond jubilee, marking 60 years on the throne, which is a milestone she will reach on february 6th. the only other was her great-great grandmother, queen victoria, whose celebration was 115 years ago. in 1897, when she was 78 years old. if elizabeth, who will soon turn 86, is still on the throne in september 2015, she will surpass

victoria's reign of nearly 64 years. between the two of them, victoria and elizabeth, have been on the throne for 124 of the last 174 years. and have symbolized britain far longer than the four men who were kings between their reigns. elizabeth is always surrounded by people. but being queen makes her a solitary and singular figure. it is crucial for her to keep a delicate balance at all times. if she seems too mysterious and distant, she loses her bond with her subjects. but if she seems too much like everybody else, she loses her mystique. she doesn't carry a passport. she doesn't have a driver's license. all though one of her cousins told me she drives like a bat out of hell on the roads of her country estates. she can't vote.

she can't appear as a witness in court. and she can't change her faith from anglican to roman catholic, and because of her hereditary position, everyone around her, including her closest friends and her family, bows and curtsies when they greet her and when they say goodbye to. he although she was trained by strict nannies who prevented her from being spoiled, she was also trained from childhood to expect this deference. a friend of mine told me about the time when, then-princess elizabeth came to visit his family castle in scotland, and he play fly threw her on to a sofa. his father, the an earl, took by the arch punched him in the stomach and said, don't you ever do that to royalty. the princess didn't mind, my friend told me, but that was the structure in which she was brought up.

so how is the buying -- buying agrapher, particularly an american, penetrate the royal bubble, especially when the queen has had a policy for the last 60 years not granting interviews. it wasn't too different from the way i wrote other books, which is to turn to those who knew her best for insights and information. i am a long-time ang anglo file and have visited britain frequently over the past decades and made a lot of friends. some of whom helped me when i was reporting my book on princess dine in -- princess dine in when i started researching the queen's life, i went back to those sources, who agreed work with me and introduce node other member office the royal family. and they helped me get cooperation from buckingham

palace. my book on diana had been fair to the royal family and particularly to charles so the senior staff at the palace briefed the queen, and they gave me the green light. as a result, i had access to her inner circle of close friendses and advisers. while the queen has disciplined herself to keep her views and emotions under wraps in public. those close to her shared with me some of her fascinating opinions and feelings, what worried her most about prince charles win his marriage to diana was falling apart, for example. what would happen if she became physically or mentally incapacitated. and even some politically sensitive opinions, including one hot button issue she discussed with an american ambassador. her friends explained the secrets of her sir reinty and her courage, and they sized her up sometimes in unusually perceptive ways.

monte roberts, the california horse whisperer, who is one of her most unlikely friends, told me that when the queen gave him good advice, she showed an incredible ability to read intention just like a horse does. with the assistance of the palace, i was also able to watch the queen and prince phillip in many different settings, at the garter parade at winsor castle; representing honors as buckingham palace, inverse vees city tours and at one of her annual garden parties at the palace. for that i received a personalized invitation on white paste board, embossed with gold -- in gold with the queen's crown and cipher, and announcing that the lord chamberlain had been commanded by her majesty to invite me. everybody got that. watching the queen as that

guarding party make her way along a line of people, i was struck by he measured pace. her lord chamberlain, her certainly official at buckingham palace, told mel she moves slowly to absorb everything going on and take in as much as she can. i also marveled at her mastery of brief but focused conversations and her sturdy stance. a technique she once explained to the wife of one of her foreign secretaries by lifting her evening gown above her ankle, and saying, one plants one's feet apart like this, always keep them parallel. make sure you're weight is evenly distributed. and that's all there is to it. is a observed the queen over the course of a year accumulated impressions that helped me understand how she carries out her role. and how earnestly she does her

job. with great discipline and concentration in every situation. she is not just a figurehead. and she has an impressive range of duties. every day, except christmas and easter, she spends several hours reading those government boxes that barbara just described. they're delivered -- they are red-letter boxes that can only be opened by four keys. she reads them in the morning and at night and even on weekends. one of her close friends told me about the time during one of the queen's visits when she was desk-bound all morning. must you, ma'am? her friend asked in he queen replied, if i miss once i might never catch up again. mary soms, the youngest daughter of the queen's first prime ministers winston churchill, told men we elizabeth was a young 25-year-old queen, he

father had been impressed by her attentiveness that she always paid attention to whatever she was doing. it's hard to imagine the amount of information that the queen has accumulated over sick decades and has used it in exercising her right to be consulted,, encourage and to wam when she meets with government officials, military officers, clergy men, diplomats and judges, who come to her for confidential private audiences. as she once said, the fact that there's nobody else there gives them a feeling that they can say what they're like. the most important encounter of these encounters have been the weekly audiences with her 12 prime ministers. consider the trajectory. from churchill, who was born in the 19th century and served in the army of her great-great-grandmother, queen victoria, to david cameron, her

current prime minister, who was born three years after her youngest child, prince edward. she actually glimpsed the first of her -- for the first time her future 12th prime minister when he appeared at age eight in a school production of toad of toad hall with edward. probably her most fascinating relationship was with margaret thatcher and i gained some great insights how that relationship worked and some of which contradicted the common view. the queen does not have executive power. but she does have unique influence. in her role as head of state, she represents the government officially, at home and abroad, but also serves as head of nations, which means she connects with people to reward their achievements and remain in touch with their concerns.

two decades passed the normal retirement age, she still does something like 400 engagements a year. traveling around the united kingdom to cities as well as tiny hamlets. charles poll, who served as private secretary to both john major and margaret thatcher, told me that the queen knows every inch of this country in a way no one else does. she spends so much time meeting people that she has an understanding of what other people's lives are like. she understands what the normal human condition is. she is also spend an extraordinary amount of time honoring citizens and members of the military for exemplary service. in 60 years she has conferred more than 400,000 honors and awards, and given them in person over 600 times. people need pats on the back sometimes, she has said.

it's a very dingy world otherwise. traveling with the queen was particularly valuable, especially the overseas royal tour i took to bermuda and trinidad. she was 83 years old at the time, and her program called for long days of meeting and greeting. her stamina was impressive. matched only by 88-year-old prince phillip. whenever they go off on a trip together like that, the lord chamberlain always accompanies them to the airport, and phillip turns around and waves at him and says, mind the shop. i got a real sense of how much in synch phillip and elizabeth are. with an expert choreography, like fred astaire and ginger rogers, i also saw aspects of him that contradict his caricature of brashness and insensitivity. he always watches the queen intently to see whether she needs any assistance.

i once saw him bring a little child over to greet her. he often spots people in the crowd who can't see very well and he'll walk them out to give them a better vantage point. when the queen needs a boost, he is also there with a humorous aside, such as, don't be so sad, sausage. on the last night in trinidad, also witnessed a close range what i had heard about from several people, that the queen doesn't perspire, even in the hottest temperatures. the british high commissioner was hosting a garden party in his hilltop home on such a steaming evening that everyone, including me, was dripping from the heat. but after an hour of live live conversations with some 65 guests the queen walked past me very close by, and there was absolutely no moisture on her face. one of her cousins, who traveled in the tropics with her,

explained to me in her own way that the queen's skin does not run water. and that while it may look good, it does make her uncomfortable. i saw further evidence of this a year later on a july day at ground zero in manhattan when the temperature hit 103 degrees. and one of the women the queen spoke to, said to me afterwards we were all powering sweat but she didn't have a bead on her. that must be what it's like too be a royal. during these trips i was able to see the buckingham palace machinery on the road. to get to know the senior officials and to get a feel for the atmosphere around the queen and the way her household has changed, from the early days when it was run entirely by aristocratic men. is a stood in the lobby of her hotel in trinidad, he master of the household pointed toward a

half dozen footmen, one of whom was a woman, all dressed in navy blue suitsful see sam over there he said in he has a masters degree in paleontology. it was a far cry from the stereo type of doubt and abbie. >> you can watch this and other programs online out booktv.org. >> here some of the top selling nonfiction titles as independent book stores around the country... this list reflects sales as of may 9th: mad do you argues the executive branch of government is too powerful. second is pilots of candle, plenty of cake" the recounting of a hike along the pacific crest trail.

fourth is imagine how creativity works. mr. laird has discussed this theories on creativity and you can watch that program online at booktv.org. former u.s. secretary of state madeline albright is fifth with her memoir, plague winter, portland by unbroken, the story of an olympic runner's survival in world war ii. seventh is the power of habit by charles doug. mr. doug cites scientific stores that lend explanations to forming and break going and bad habits. let's pretend this never happened is eighth. in her memoir, miss lawson recounts her upbringing in rural texas, her high school years and her marriage. ...