the author of its own story. it wasn't given very much to work with. as i said, i wasn't going to read, but i will read the first sentence of article three of the constitution. which says, the judicial power of the united states shall be vested in one supreme court and in such inferior courts as the congress may from time to time ordain and establish. that is kind of it. article three goes on and talks about the jurisdiction of the courts, and so on. many, many unanswered questions, including, for instance, there is no mention of the chief justice in article three. we only inferred that there is supposed to be chief justice, because he is given, in article two, the presidential article -- the right to preside -- not the right, but the duty to preside over the impeachment trial in the senate of the president of

the united states. and remember that roy lundquist did that in the clinton impeachment trial. later, when he was asked what it had amounted to, he says i did nothing in particular, and i did it very well. [laughter] the duties of the chief justice are undefined. much about the supreme court, initially, was undefined. they really had to create itself, and it is done so not in a straight line progression, but it has done so through cases. the cases, in the early years, it had to decide because it had very little discretion over what to hear. the cases these days, they get to choose to decide. even that was a choice by the supreme court. most appellate courts today in this country, they have to take what comes.

they act sorted as courts overview, courts of appeal, courts of error correction. that was the supreme court's initial fate, or so it seemed. but william howard taft, after his presidency, he was becoming chief justice of the united states. and he cites this up and thought the court would greatly benefit from the ability create its own docket, the supreme court would benefit. under his leadership and urging, congress passed in 1929 what is known as the judges bill because all of the judges of the country got behind this effort. they gave the court for the first time the special power over the dockets. that is in the place we are today. we have a supreme court that is capable of and does set us on an

agenda, and in doing that, it really sets the legal agenda for the country. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. on booktv, karl meyer and shareen blair brysac look at places around the world were people of diverse ethnicities, race, and religion, coexist in peace. to find out what can be learned and applied to troubled areas of the world. this is just over one hour. >> good evening and welcome to the new york society library. i am mark bartlett, the head librarian of the library, and it is wonderful to have you for an event during national library week, we are celebrating at the library this week. we are glad to have you with us. we are all also pleased to have book tv from c-span 2.

they are recording this for future broadcast. as we begin, let me ask you to please, if you have an electronic pager, cell phone, anything electronic, please silence your device. it viewers will appreciate it. tonight, i'm especially honored to have very loyal society members speak to us about their new book, "pax ethnica: where and how diversity succeeds", published by public affairs here in new york. karl meyer and shareen blair brysac have been members of this library since 1974. mr. karl meyer and ms. shareen blair brysac are at the authors of numerous books, which you will see in your program. many are in display at the front of the members room. i would like to mention that the last time they spoke for us in 2008, they talked about their book, kingmakers, the invention

of the modern east. recording for that event is available for you on our website. the new book, "pax ethnica", has received early praise. nonspecialists in the social sciences will find it accessible , and because of the breadth of the subject manner, containing much food for thought. another review calls it a good news but based on serious research about how traditionally hostile groups can overcome differences to live in harmony. the book is a skillful rendering of an inspiring message. our friends from the corner bookstore are with us tonight, and they will be happy to sell you a copy of the book and the authors will sign up for you after the event. we will have a question and answer period. we have a very informative and challenging presentation this evening, please join me in welcoming karl meyer and shareen

blair brysac. [applause] [applause] [applause] [applause] >> thank you, mark, for that kind introduction. it is very nice to be here on national library week, because it is her favorite library. i always used to say that karl's membership came as my gallery. [laughter] i'm going to give a short introduction, and karl will carl will give a brief summary of the book. then we will have time, i hope, for questions. now, we, as you see, have written a lot of books. three books together. as you can imagine, we have given a lot of book talks. one question we are always ask us asked is how you get the idea for your books. the other question is how do you keep your marriage together and a full set of dishes. [laughter]

the genesis of "pax ethnica" happened at over lunch in the summer. as historians and journalists, we have spent our entire careers, for ethnic cleansing in. as you can imagine, this becomes very depressing. why can't we ask ourselves about places where harmony prevails? people of different tapes get along together. surely, there must be such places. places that we never ever hear about in the news media. good news is usually no news. in pursuit of ethnic peace, we conducted nearly 100 interviews with mayors, indians, diplomats, schoolteachers, college professors and their students, journalists, publishers, musicians, priests, rabbis,

social workers, youth organizers and sports and cultural ministers, among others. how do we decide on our title? "pax ethnica." pax means peace in latin, and ethnos means people. it will be visited on "pax ethnica." how do we choose places to study? well, they had to have a mix of ethnicities. then in the cases reflecting ethical issues, these were cases with very different outcomes. there could be a comparison, and we could ask what went right? now, karl will speak.

i'm going to turn it over to karl. >> well, thank you. shareen also has a chance to correct all the errors i may meet. and we will both be responding in the question period. but when we were discussing our whole project, the very subject we were writing about, multiculturalism, we literally went viral. it's failings were decried in 2011 by the leaders of france, germany, and britain, and here, for example as well. president sarkozy were marked in a television interview about diversity. he said if you come to france, it you are expected to meld with a single community, which is the national community.

if you don't want to accept that, you are not welcome. we have been too concerned with the identity of a person who is arriving and not enough about the identity of the country that was receiving him. chancellor angela merkel said that multiculturalism is an utter failure. this is during a nationwide debate stirred by a best-selling book written by a german banker. saying that muslim immigrants have made this country stupid. angela merkel's comments were echoed by prime minister cameron, who claimed that under the doctrine of state multiculturalism, we have encouraged different cultures to live separately, separate lives apart from each other in the mainstream. well, on the surface, this dissolution seemed to us paradoxical, since the european union is itself a vibrant example of multiculturalism. it blends 20 republics and six monarchies whose 500 million

citizens speak 23 official languages, three of which are english, german and french, are working languages. however, it is not the usual slots, it tilts or believes that promote these limitations. it is a specific minority. the predominantly muslim people will begin arriving in large numbers under the second world war. today there are about several figures that are put forward as of january 2011. all such figures are estimates definitions are plastic, is what genes identify a muslim incontestably as islamic

subcultures have multiplied, so has european concern about a possibly hostile minority. a quasi- populist backlash has spread from the baltic to the adriatic come along with a violent anti-immigrant party. more extreme leaders claim that these islamic people are responsible for crime, juvenile to doing, the abuse of women him and for honor killings. played down by the alarmists, is a soft, factual base for the worst-case scenarios. discounted or ignored, repeated surveys indicating that most muslim newcomers are either secularists or nominally observed, and that most aspire to a normal life within their host countries. minimize is a hard fact and islam, like christianity, rebels and diversity, and its adherents is in many minds. it is also worth recalling that

european countries were shaken with disputes by christian peoples before the arrival of muslims. thus, our first example. when we mention flensburg to our traveler friends, they say where is that? it is a picture bucktown on the baltic sea. the borderlands between denmark and germany. when you go there, this is at the center of one of the oldest established ethnic and civil conflicts in european history. it if you look back at that time, you will find that the question was because of the two wars between germany and denmark, that after world war i, it was a scene of hard we fought

rights, demonstrations, and, indeed, after world war ii, an interesting thing took place. what was interesting is this. but the allies came in 1946 to the danish government and said, would you like to get the city back? and they thought it over and came back to the allies. and they said no, we don't want it. thank you, but no thank you. what we want inside -- what we want instead is to protect the language, cultural, and political rights of its danish speaking community. they drafted an a mcchord, and we went there to see it. and they said it worked. indeed, it had.

when you go there, the people of that city, flensburg, they can choose if they want to be danish or german, and you cannot dispute were to test their choice. when we were there, we had a wonderful meeting with danish council. they have a palatial edifice above the harbor and flensburg. a pair of people were telling the history of the whole thing. he said that we got money from the danish government, in fact, there is a german minority in denmark, and when there were not enough germans there to elect a member of the danish parliament, they changed the rules so there would always be a representative of the danish minority. meanwhile, we talked to the two danish representatives in the state parliament in germany, who

lead a party that takes care of the danish interest. that is our first example. it was one that was quite interesting, because let me put it to you interestingly. they traded land for peace. the danish everman decided it was more important that piece, rather than have a hostile german minority indicted in their own territory. in doing so, they created a precedent for other situations. one was notably between italy and austria. the tyrolean era -- this was an area that was seeded to 80 elite after world war one. they, too, have granted autonomy

to the german, austrian ethnic group the tyrolean era, rather than split it up and go through endless arguments. so we wanted to find other examples. in all of the cases, we wanted to see if there was a wider point that could be made. if we went to the former soviet union, to the new republic, and that was interesting to us, because again, it was something that people are always confused about. it is not one of the five places in central asia. instead, it is one of the constituent republics within the russian federation. it was split between 43% russian orthodox and 51%, i am giving approximations, a muslim

population. yet, again, not only has peace presided in the city, but in his tucson, the capital, you have one of the largest mosques in europe, dedicated orthodox cathedral overlooking the river. this is interesting because in past times, there were 15 union republics, 18 autonomous republics within ethnic base. the joke was they were neither autonomous nor republics. when the soviet union collapsed, it was a question of what would happen to the other ethnicities. the case of chechnya, a civil war broke out. the flight of the russian minority. it is still a scene of violence

today. khazan had an interesting president. the president had been in orthodox communist and had been a regional boss of top cities. he decided to try something interesting. he wanted to make a deal with force yeltsin, the then president of russia, to give autonomy, particularly cultural autonomy to the city. what he did was stretch the word sovereignty. these people, the people of tatarstan, it was based on mutual respect.

justice thomas so forth, all of the residents, they went and struck a deal. in return for significant tax breaks, etc., that tatarstan would remain within the russian federation. the deal was for a tenure period. when the deal was for new, it was trimmed back to some extent. but it is still there. you can see that the word sovereignty has an interesting implication that could apply to other areas, based on the tatarstan model. we turn to marseille, about 240,000 out of 839,000 inhabitants. moreover, there are sizable

jewish and orthodox minorities, roughly 80,000 people each. they are, as well, every other nation and origin you can think of is represented in marseille. i should add that i have written an op-ed from the times which will run tomorrow which is drawn from the chapter on marseille, which is timely because this has become an issue in the current presidential election in france. now, what happened that was interesting is what did not happen in marseille. in the year 2005, when there were car burnings and teenage riot, spreading from the suburbs of paris to nearly every major city in france, marseille was at peace. it was one brief splurge of a few cars being burned in a great

area that it is in. but otherwise, it was calm. why? we went there to find out. we saw the mayor and different representatives of the different communities. there was an interesting combination of factors, which accounted for ethnic peace in marseille. some are obvious, some were less so. as everyone says, they have beaches and good weather. everyone also says that football -- the local soccer team -- they have a bombing that is a kind of great thing, in the colosseum where the people get together. it has the feeling of a quasi- religious finding society. society. there were other things that work as well. one thing that was at work that was interesting to us, was to have three mayors in a row, starting at the end of world war ii, who did not go along with

the standard french notion that citizenship is between total equals and it is wrong and dangerous to inquire too the ethnic backgrounds of the people. in france, and other times, no questions were asked about religious or ethnic data. in marseille, the mayors decided that they would try to give rewards to a flood of incoming migrants coming in 1980 and the 80s, after algerian independence. you had nearly 1 million refugees or the refugees that were indigenous and muslims, leading into france. they decided they would get some benefits to the people in the form of housing breaks, political office, and they set

up something called marseille hope. in which all of the different communities would have representatives meet regularly come and if something happened that required attention, they would then, as they did on 9/11, they had a big meeting to discuss that. there were two other things that were of interest. one was we did not realize until we were there, the universality of rap music and hip-hop. [laughter] starting in the 1980s, french visitors went to the bronx and they came back. they took the forms of rap music, adapted it locally, and in the marseille, you have all of these bands who provide, how can i put it?

they provide a diffusing mechanism for people who are frustrated, alienated, we talked to some of the hip hoppers and rap singers there. they all agreed that one thing that was very important in marseille is the people had intense local pride. they consider themselves, first of all, if you ask them what they are nationality was, they would never say parisian or french, they would say they are from marseille. there is something else that we saw. jean-claude van damme, a centrist mayor that has been there, he told us all the obvious things. he paused and said, well, there's something else, too. and he said he may have heard

that we have a narcotics problem in marseille, and we have some organized crime. and he said, the people who are involved in that, the commerce, they don't want people in the neighborhoods because it brings in the cops. there was also the role, backstage, but what the french call [inaudible] it has gone off the national. marseille was interesting in every way because if you go elsewhere, but the values are different and people are not aware of what a miracle they have in their own country. we were glad to write about that. as i said, we have an op ed on that. then we went to india. india was particularly interesting to us.

there is a state facing the arabian sea. it is not one of the richest, nor the most blessed with resources state in the great democracy of india. but it has the highest literacy, the best educational system, it has come in every respect, all of the things that you regard as measures of a successful community, despite that fact that city is made up of a majority of hindus, just a smaller group of muslims, a substantial christian population, in fact, the christian population goes back practically 2000 years. this state, where you have three major groups, then you have the least of one of the most unexpected things -- the role of the communist party. there is in indigenous communist

party. the leaders decided after indian independence to adopt the electoral tap. that meant that they bought regular elections. you have an interesting cycle. every five years from the voters their switch from a leftist led coalition to a congress party coalition. the congress party is now in charge. it is a balance of power thing. if the communist wanted to get anywhere, they had to build coalitions. they built coalitions across religious lines. that was one major element, but there was a catch. the cat is that the city is also highly dependent on migrant

workers. as the locals tell us, all of our experts have to be of high quality, including our people. and they have a million plus migrant workers in the persian gulf. mostly in the arab states. most of the muslims that send their remittances back to the city. it is an element in there that is very important. the carolyn's have enabled to produce this democracy for tremendous things, women's rights and literacy. okay. so then we came to her fifth

example. perfect example is close to home. it is right across the east river. it is queens, new york. queens, new york, is really one of the most un- recognized national treasures. it is 2.3 million people in population. if it was a separate city, it would've ranked fourth or fifth. after brooklyn, it would be the fourth largest entity. people speak 138 languages, 15 of those language -- languages are spoken widely. there were some problems with tension and other things. in 1965, the immigration law was changed. it was a test for how many people you could send in. the gates were opened to

substantial newcomers from latin america, africa, the middle east, asia, and jfk became the modern equivalent of [inaudible name]. millions came through queens. of those millions, lots day because it was handy, it was right around the airport. you will again have institutions that facilitate a peaceful relations. community boards. queens is a patchwork, our friend told us that queens doesn't exist. the post office said, if you address a letter to queens new york, it will get returned to you. you have to put the community -- the story it, jackson heights, etc. there is an intense pride in the enclaves that have all sprung up that could not be more diverse. there, i have to say, we had a

wonderful meeting with the current borough president, helen marshall. again, you exceeded human limitations. until 10 years ago, claire shulman was a long serving borough president there. she was the one who facilitated deception of the queens science museum and various arts museums, and set the general assembly. that is where you have a meeting of all the different ethnic communities. helen marshall came in, and she adopted -- her roots are from guyana, and she grew up as a library librarian and schoolteacher, active in the

pta. she ran into politics. she was involved is a peacemaker and black-white issues. there were some serious ones in the 1980s. she became the borough president and said she had a marshall plan. the marshall plan -- part of it was the queens assembly. she reminds he went to see her, united nations, when it was founded in 1945, the first offices were in queens. the leftover pavilions from the world's fair of 1939 and 1940, that is where the universal declaration of human rights was drafted, and they still have some markers in museums on it. she had her marshall plan. part of the plan, i think this is very interesting, is that she has a calendar every year of all the major religious and national holidays of the various communities in queens.

we asked her if she ever gets surprises? she said yes, i did not realize that we had a polish community right near brooklyn. i went there for a national day, and i used to like to dance, and pretty soon i was doing the polka. you get an idea of feistiness, which is her middle name, and when you see her, this is what i thought was really interesting. she gives you a button, and the button says, visit queens and see the world. you visit queens and you do see the world. we can talk about this in the question and answer. my. you have a culinary paradise. you can go from one cuisine to another and restaurants from greek restaurants in astoria, to

be indian restaurants in jackson heights, queens is also a success story. what strikes me is that when you talk to people in new york and manhattan, they all say oh, yes, but it is not -- nothing is made of it. there is no celebration. so we have come through after hearing all of these studies with a plan. a guideline. a series of guidelines grew out of various visits to each of these places. i will just give you the short version of each of our guidelines, and then we can expand on it in the question period. choose peace rather than land. number two, take time to make the case, economic cultural, political, diversity. and do not leave unanswered, stereotyped characters of currently unpopular minorities. number three, do not demonize

hyphenated citizenship. grieve greek-american, italian-american, they are always in which people connect with each other, as well as to the living. number four, see the persistence of minority tongues. five, and providing homes for immigrants, horizontal appears more successful than vertical. otherwise most of the housing in queens is either a single family housing or four or five story apartment houses. just one minute.

oh, shareen, i knew i would screw up this one. [laughter] i'm looking for number six. well, give me the book and i will find it here. it is in the back of the book. i should add a footnote about the back of the book. this is the chapter that we call the future of us all, based on a book about means by the sociologist roger sobczak. do not underestimate the power of professional, parental and civic associations. number seven, use public libraries to give immigrant newcomers a welcoming space. with not only books, dvds and other information is available in their mother tongue.

queens is not only an excellent example, but it has a foreign policy and partnership with other diverse communities around the world, including china. number eight, make empowerment of women a priority to better barriers. promote economic growth and smaller families, combat spousal abuse, and provide romanos for students. number nine, celebrate differences of crete and culture with a calendar that records the major religious festivals and national holidays. number 10, recognize, celebrate, and elect political leaders who actively promote diversity. be they presidents, mayors, borough presidents were governors. number number 11, do i not underestimate the allure of popular culture, latin music, or sports to diminish class and

ethnic differences and foster society in which someone named barack hussein obama can rise to the political summit. the discovery that i made, washington irving. he is one of those people whose name resonates, but you never read. three ways that washington irving was important to her thesis. first, serious interest in islam. he wrote a two volume biography of mohammed. he helped restore interests in granada and moorish. he loved public libraries. he was a member and trustee of the slider could he became the president of what was the genesis of the new york public library. in a building where the public

theater is an active place. he was the president who helped start the whole movement going forward. third, and this is a footnote that i thought was most fascinating -- brandy. he saw the one with an interesting identity. the work often was something he came up with. also, knickerbocker. there are 100 knickerbocker associations. based on a fictitious biography of history of dutch new york. it became the prototype. it was something very important for the city in the 1970s, when there were all kinds of crises here. fiscal, rachel, etc. when lindsey was the mayor, one of the things they came up with was they thought they could find

something to bring people together. some people thought of the big apple, it was, by a sportswriter. now they have all these things based on the precedent of the big apple. so anyway, those were some of the things that we came up with. and i would be delighted if shareen will come up and join me. should we sit down? okay. [applause] [applause] [applause] [applause] okay, we will be happy to take questions. there is a microphone that sarah will bring around.

>> to some people, it seems that the notion of barrier or problem to be solved. my first grade teacher, what is this? you are curious, you have differences, and invited explorer. to explore and understand. and i have lived on three continents. i noticed in the comments that reviewers made, it said that they were taking the notion of difference as something that was, if not hostile, at least to be wary about. many of what you -- anyway, go ahead. >> i think the debate now -- here is where canada -- the former white minority countries,

australia, canada, and the united states. we emphasize diversity because we are nations of immigrants. everybody, except in the case of canada, maybe of canadians, australia and are native americans. they came from somewhere else. we have this melting pot idea, or we can access and celebrate diversity. the european model is assimilation. you should be french. there is no such thing as french algerian. there is no -- in france as there is american. as there is in german-american, italian-american etc.

that is what they are struggling with now that they have led to many outsiders inside, that they would like to have guestworkers, but they would like the turks to go home after they serve their 15 years or so. it is a very different model. i think for americans, it is not a big deal -- diversity. we like it, we like all be at the next boot. that is what is wonderful about it. i grew up in colorado, and that is what i came to. i came to new york for the diversity. >> i would like to add something, though. that is the good side. there is also the dark side. in our chapter on diversity discontents, we recall in the united states the marginalization, the attacks on various minority religions, minority groups, starting with the revolution with the french and the passage of the alien and

sedition act. we recall it until 1960, that roman catholics were considered impossible candidates of presidents. if you look back on all the different groups in the united states, all of them have gone through some hard times, whether they are german-americans during the war, or the japanese that were interred after pearl harbor. there is that aspect, too. ..

during world war ii. and that's happen, where as the french to this day find it very difficult to come to grips with their own record in algeria. it's a special case. algeria was not an overseas -- it was legally a department of france. algeria was like britain or normandy. but the big difference was that you had 1 million europeans who could vote, and 3 million berbers and algerian arabs, unless they disavowed their culture and data, and even that was a difficult, provided over 130 years french ruled. the vast majority of the people in the country to talk about liberty, were noncitizens. that led to an eight year very bloody civil war, and sarkozy, when he made his trip, quoted in

the book, to algiers, his one and only trip to out years said let's not talk about repentance and apologies. he said that doesn't go for relations between states. let's look ahead. the algerians feel, and i think there's justice, that they are owed some kind of statement of repentance for what happened. and that's the general problem among nations. not just the french, that the turks have the same problem, the armenians, the japanese have the same problem with war record in china and korea. but that's the dark side and that's part of what we're trying to address. [inaudible] >> this is a wonderful book. congratulations. delicious writing, the beautiful

portraits, the amazing research. sucks us into a subject matter which is extremely complex which is duped us into believing we can understand these amazing issues. would you consider adding a 12th? there's another one, which is try and find for yourself and external framework which provides some sort of stability for the resolution of your differences. think about, and just some of your examples, -- [inaudible] within the indian state. the germans and the danes, reconciliation. even in northern ireland the british and irish government are promoting coming together. so it's just like you to think about, comment on that, please.

>> well, two things. first, i think that a lot of the problems within countries are caused by external forces, of neighbors or others who have proxies within the country, the difference between switzerland where you have three languages and people get along, is the in the 19th century switzerland's neighbors decided it was in their mutual interest of a peaceable switzerland with its banks and other benefits. as to other external things, i think this is the problem with the united nations that we're seeing right now in syria. the limitations and the difficulties of external pacemakers going, we're still at the lower bar as far as the moral progress in that directi direction.

[inaudible] where there was conflict, and today, we look at the supreme court, which has i believe only one, maybe no protestant members, there may be one. but it is basically made up of catholics and jews. are you surprised by that development? in a country that is largely still very protestant. >> that's from the nomination process and the way the appointments go. by don't think that is making serious a difference in the arbitration of church state issues, if that's what you're suggesting. >> no. i'm just saying, has a seven

impact on the population as a whole, that we become less interested in the religious background of candidates for public -- we are about to test this with a mormon, going to be nominated for a major public, major political party. and religion is coming to a national election here. and i wonder, is it less than meets the eye, or more than than meets the eye? >> i -- so much to me, of emphasis on religion is a regional thing. and colorado, for instance, there was a lot of activity towards mormons because it was the next state over. in new york i don't think we experienced that same thing. we don't know that many mormons. they are not our next-door neighbors so we cannot have an opinion about mormons. and in the past history of the

united states we had enormous amount of presbyterians sectors -- president, secretaries of state. it didn't seem to make a difference. and i don't know, but my perception is that we have in a way gotten more obviously religious. when i was going up it didn't seem to me that the president had to go to church, that this is a new phenomenon where you invoke god, you invoke god at football games can you invoke god at hockey games. so it's a new phenomenon. >> i would add one other thought. the american expense bears out the pressings of james madison in federalist 10 in which he said one of the benefits of the larger republic is that you would have local factions, but the factions tend to neutralize each other in a large canvas. and we were safer that way and i think our national expense just that madison was right.

>> absolutely. can't i just switched to another question, if i'm allowed another question? to another part of the world, you referred, and refresh my memory for my recent preparation examination in high school, and i think you for doing so. in the land for peace concept and also between the italians and the austrians, have you given any thought to applying that principle to a very dangerous part of the world, on the west bank to the jordan river? and d.c. unique light their? >> will, in 1967 at the end of the war the idea was that they would trade land for peace. that was the whole point, but this of course has never really happened, and, in fact, i'd like to go back to an earlier lesson in that area, which was after

1948. abdullah, then the king of jordan, absorbed the west bank, which was full of palestinians. and they were different from the jordanians which were just tribesmen. and it turned out to be a very bad for the jordanians and that he was assassinated because he had this disgruntled majority population in the west bank. so it's always been, you know, a very tenuous thing there, and they would be better off. you don't have -- a friend of ours once said, you know, you don't have -- can you quote him exactly about, you don't come in until you have the borders, guarantee the next work? >> he said that the old notion about frontiers was that no border was considered entirely right unless it made the next border inevitable. and that was true in european

history. and i think there's a problem here. in the middle east generally, that the borders were imposed arbitrarily after world war i at the paris peace conference, and they don't match -- there's an overlap, a difficulty. but i think in the long run, that there will be a settlement based on mutually agreed borders between the palestinians and the israelis, and the guarantees on the minority rights on both sides. >> thank you very much we talk. i'm wondering if there are any examples that give very close that you feel comfortable writing about as a going example, but reached a breakpoint in the the story where it goes him seeming on the

right track to going off the track because any examples you find very interesting and yet somehow very troubling? >> and obvious one is very -- is former yugoslavian we had a high degree of intermarriage between various peoples, and bosnia and elsewhere. and then it fell apart. one reason it fell apart is, saying about foreign intervention, that in 1990 germany recognize croatia is an independent country. and when it did i think it was one of the most disastrous decisions at that time. it lets the breakup of all of them, and each of the once had a different, the russians with the serbs, and et cetera, et cetera. it's as if italy said that they would recognize italian speakers as a separate canton. so yes, there is a case where things look good and he turned badly. >> welcome in our book is

imperative political science because we do compare carol which, as close as you become to ethnic peace in india between muslims and hindus, as opposed to -- synonymous with community riots, ethnic cleansing, the killings that went on in the 1990s, and the stronghold of the into nationalist party steering up divisions all the time as opposed to kerala has the richest muslim population in india. that is a good thing because they don't feel disenfranchised. they do swing the vote between the communists and congress. so they are 25% ofcome on sarcoma of kerala, their 25% is very important that they throw towards congress, congress wins, and if they throw it toward the communists, the communists win. any other example is chechnya and parsec stand, where chechnya and kurdistan had equal

populations of russian orthodox russians, and muslims. and yet in 1990s chechnya really went up in flames, partly because of, you know, one of these leaders who stood up ethnic tension, where as others made the point of dampening down ethnic tensions, although he he is not above busting people and to sort of, who were very strong national speculative a spin in to the capital. and as they would sort of demonstrate that they wanted to have separation. and sort of it would illustrate to the russians that look, support me because otherwise you will get these guys. these are our nuts.

but he was very clever, cleverly manipulated all that. and never ever talked about complete sovereignty, complete autonomy. he talked about sovereignty but never mentioned the word out honor. is never going to be a separate independent you it was never going to be -- west chechnya and were always talking about it. you can't really have an independent chechnya. it doesn't have, it has a lot of oil refineries. there's lots of reasons, but chechnya doesn't work as an independent state. they are totally held up by the russians that. the russians point massive amounts of money into chechnya to keep the tension down. >> may be one more question. >> i was interested in your comment about the horizontal housing. does this reminded me a bit about the situation at bell labs

that's been written about that officers were right next to each other so people could intermingle and exchange ideas. and i'm wondering if you could comment further on that horizontal housing that you mention? >> well, we really comment on a mostly in the chapter on marseille, because marseille was the lab and the university is there. while that is an interesting build, architecture interesting, it was the template, the model for a lot of these massive housing developments that rain the 93rd district of region suburbs. and those buildings are just really housing for -- they are not squalid. they really are fairly decent housing, but they are warehouses for the immigrants.

and they are very, very unpopular with the people living in the. and mainly because they're confined to these, they are real ghettos of one building after another building after another building. >> i'll just add a footnote to that. in queens, we have a whole section on left rock city which is an attempt also to have a big massive 20 stories high towers built around shopping centers and everything like that. they went through some bad times in 1970s and '80s, when the developer was sued on the grounds that he was not an equal opportunity renter. you had an out flux of middle-class bring him a jewish tennis. and influx of african-americans, many of them on the lower income

scale. so there were real kind of problems there. but an interesting thing happened. in the 1990s, two new groups came in to lefrak city. one would be jews from central asia, and the other were muslims from north africa. and here you had two peoples that have conservative social values that are used to living in both cases with other -- they live with muslim for a long time, and all of a sudden, not all the sudden. i shouldn't put it that way, but when you go to the public library in lefrak city, you see a very interesting laboratory of diversity between two nominally very different groups that i

found a rope to peace within this huge development. >> well, i want to add one comment about the park because there was, reiko park, when you think of break apart or you go there, which is he is a lot of single families, small houses with setbacks from the street with used to be gardens in front. that was when it was an italian neighborhood. there were gardens. the ones from central asians, which is desert, they don't do gardens. they to cement and they want parking places for their cars and they want barbecues. this caused an enormous amount of tension, community board meetings and all because the italians liked the gardens. they didn't like seeing cement in the furniture. it was a real sort of cultural divide. well, i guess they worked it out.

they have kind of one over this, but there are these sort of cultural tensions because people just are not, you know, they're not used to growing vegetables in the front garden, or having cherry trees. >> can i add another footnote on that? you cannot understand, you won't understand queens without understanding real estate development. and in the case of rego park, in the 1920s there was a real estate company called real good real estate. that's where you get rego park from. and the real good real estate develop a whole network of single family houses, et cetera, which became rego park. but it was a real estate development and you also have in queens fascinatingly these garden cities which stem from a british inspired idea of ideal communities in sunnyside gardens, or jackson heights, et cetera. so you have all of these wonderful laboratory examples in

queens of urban experiments. and i must say that our weekly expirations always gave us the thrill of the unexpected when we went out to queens. >> something called utopia parkway, and utopia was supposed to be utopia and it was a bunch of jews got together and decided to form a community but it never took off, but we still have the name utopia parkway, but there is no utopia. >> the artist joseph cornell that is magical box, yet his house on utopia parkway. >> i'd like to thank our speakers for this wonderful talk this evening, engaging conversation. on behalf of the library, we want you back when you have your next book ready. so when that happens, let us know. thank you everyone for coming. >> thank you. [applause]

>> you're watching booktv on c-span2. 48 hours of nonfiction authors and books every weekend. >> let me just say i think you could some of because of its very timely book, i hope you enjoy. i think it can be summed up in really one sentence, that seldom if ever in our history have we seen such a concerted, series of vicious personal attacks directed against any president of the united states. completely funded in this case by a pair of brothers, big oil barons, named the koch brothers, with the assistance of an all too compliance -- compliant american me. you at this together and you get "the obama hate machine" pics are just like to say a little bit about each of those and then open it up for questions until

c-span tells us the cameras are turned off. start with a hatred directed against obama. first of all i've got to say i think criticism as any american president is fair game. i'm part of the white house press corps. i go to the white house every day. would've been there today if i were coming down here. every day in front of the white house, pennsylvania avenue, there's a crowd of people protesting something. and i love the. i always make a point of checking them out. very healthy part of our democracy. and criticism of presidents of course there are for along time but if you want to go back to the ugliest presidential campaign issue, talking about the 1800s. don adams and thomas jefferson, the things that were said from their followers, not so much of the two of them against each other but the followers against each other. but with president obama, the

attacks not on his policy so much as on him as a person. we haven't seen that, i don't believe, and i went back and did a lot of research into presidential campaigns in presidential history, we haven't seen that directed, that severe and that ugly threat against the president, pardon me, since abraham lincoln. we think of lincoln of course as saint abraham. he wasn't thought of that way during his lifetime. goes on after he was assassinated. when he came to washington, he was introduced to the nation by the kentucky statesman as follows, abraham lincoln is a man of love the meeting tight. he passes the six-foot marked by an inch or two. he is rawboned, shall get a, bowlegged, not me, paging code, is lopsided, a shapeless skeleton in a very tough, very dirty, unwholesome skin.

his lips were true beyond and level of the face, but are pale and smeared with tobacco juice. his teeth are filthy. [laughter] meet your president, your new president of the united states. [laughter] at the same time, another paper published this profile of mr. lincoln. mr. lincoln stands six feet tall in his socks, which he changes once every 10 days. [laughter] his anatomy is composed mostly of bones, and when walking your beat symbols the offspring of a happy marriage between a derrick and a windmill. his head is shaped something like a rutabaga. he can hardly be called handsome, though he is certainly much better looking since he had the smallpox. [laughter] yeah, all right.

well, flash forward, right? president obama called a racist, marxist, a fascist, a dictator, a muslim. that's not meant as a positive term by the way, benefit, muslim, meaning terrorist. a nazi, a former, jackass, rush limbaugh called in the. a liar. of course, on the floor of the house. and a socialist. this is a obsession with obama a person, of what others have called. they have to kind of prove he is not like us. and some of it, not all that but some of it of course is the color of his skin. he is black and we are right. is the first african-american president, but also he's not a true american. he was, this whole birth certificate nonsense but all the shows he is something different, something else, something

foreign. it's really this obsession, save to try to destroy president barack obama personal. david horwitz, one of the most conservative commentators out there, actually calls and he himself calls it the obama derangement syndrome. they just can't help themselves. i don't know how many of you have heard about this, last week the leading federal judge in montana sends out an e-mail on his official judicial e-mail account to his friends, this joke about little barack obama asking his mommy, what am i black and you are white. and she says well, ma for although i know about your father, i'm surprised he didn't bark when we had sex. like she had sex with the dog. he did this on his official in the. he said he is you don't send jokes a difference like this but

i just thought this one was particularly funny. that's how sick these people are, and that's what we have seen over and over again. again directed not so much against her he doesn't disagree with president obama's health plan. that it wasn't strong enough for government takeover of health care. you can disagree with him on taxes or whatever. this is against him personally and try to destroy him, discredit him personal. "the obama hate machine." it's not just a fox news. it's out there because of a couple of people most records have never heard of, the famous coke brothers, now famous charles and david coke your and again, we've seen corporate sponsored tax attacks before. franklyn deller boso. by the way, it was the dupont brothers, three at the time. advantage get a, but their money

together, formed a thing called the liberty league to deny fdr a second term. then with bill clinton of course it was richard mellon funded all the investigations that led to paul jones and on and on, and articles in "the american spectator." but nothing compared to the money and the organization that we see with the koch brothers, who are the heads of koch industries. they are the third and fourth richest man in america. we know about bill gates and warren buffett. these are number three and number four, combined wealth of $50 billion. they have put more money in -- by the way, i have to say this. they do some good things, particularly david koch was the wealthiest man in new york city. you thought michael bloomberg was. know, david koch.

but he is a big support of the metropolitan opera. metropolitan museum of art, cancer research centers around the country. but most of their money goes into political activities. and they are everywhere. the heritage foundation in washington, d.c., koch brothers. the cato institute, when it started, koch brothers. some of you may know now that koch brothers, data went its own independently and the koch brothers are now suing the cato institute to get it back to be a total control koch brothers operation. people, americans for prosperity, an active political organization, all funded by the koch brothers. freedom works, dick armey's organization, koch brothers. john kasich in ohio, koch brothers candidate, bob lock, stock and barrel by the koch brothers. wie same with scott walker in