the 60s here, but she was one of the advocates of the march in freedom from the 1963 martin luther king march on washington. she writes a very nice and the ladies home journal on this march, for which she demonstrates -- because she attacks the seven sheriffs that are brutalizing the young people who are involved in the civil rights movements. you know, in the 60s, she has a different politics. she is really a new left. that is really good for her politically. one of the reasons that makes it so surprising, but by the 70s, she can once again be accused of stalinism, which there was no evidence of any work, you know?

it was a long history of the kind of independent politics. no more questions? >> should we wrap it up? >> thank you. [applause] >> all this week, booktv is on c-span2 with your favorite book programs are out today. our in-depth program, originally airing live the first sunday of every month, features a three-hour look into an author's work. with questions from viewers by phone calls, e-mails and tweaks. this sunday, our guest is michael bedwell, co-author and editor of almost a dozen books, including the conquerors, presidential courage, and his latest, jacqueline kennedy. join us live at noon eastern for a three-hour conversation with michael on c-span2's booktv.

>> up next on booktv, kenneth broward talks about zero club his father, founder of the sierra club. [applause] >> the wonderful sculpture that is out there -- my son rubin made a sculpture that is hanging there. [applause] as they say in another area of life, was it is good for you as it was for me? [laughter] we've been talking about it for a long time.

you seem to have done it with such joy and humor and playfulness. usually when it comes to environmental literature and the problems of the world, there is a grimness. but yours is just -- it sounds like you really had fun doing this. not thank you, and i do. it is one of the things that i must have learned from my father. one of his complaints was -- they don't have a sense of humor. he thought it was just too dismal to have to keep beating people over the head with doom and gloom, because that is what determines a list so often do. he thought having a sense of humor was important. he worked from his speeches and his book. >> he seems to have a wonderful knack for altruism. wonderful memorable statements that he makes. you know, we are in berkeley. this is david brower.

eighty people that don't know who he is. maybe we ought to talk about why we are doing this book and what you did and what it means. >> david brower was my father. the first executive director of the sierra club. in 1952 he became the second full-time employee of the sierra club. i haven't quite thought about that, considering how big the sierra club is now. but he was -- the only full-time staffer before he came on. his joining up of the staff doubled the staff. they brought it to two. it shows how young this environmentalist movement is. it had not been around that long. and it has grown very fast. one of the things that this enforced in him was to do a lot

of things. nobody does any work for the sierra club accept volunteers and board members. and he had to be a pamphleteer and a grassroots organizer and he had to lobby in washington. he had published books and make movies and sell them. i'm doing a book right now, which my father filmed in one day. it was part of the andy warhol project. >> he filmed them in the win over their? >> the drawdown is really great. we got to go shoot it. they jump in the car, they ran up -- he shot 500 feet, which he used every inch of film.

and it made a pretty good film. because he had to make a good film. nobody else was making these films. and i played it and it's pretty good. it is the kind of thing that necessity forces on you. he did a lot of things very well, and that was one of the things that this book brought home. >> he was executive director of the sierra club and then he went on to the institute and people talk about him in terms of the institutes. but you talk about him in terms of the personal effects that he has had on people. within the institutional effects. it was the power of getting into this guy's personality -- when you were with him, you always felt you had to do something. there was a sense of urgency to it that you had the power to do it. >> this is something i thought about a lot, and it really crystallizes during this book.

trying to figure out where the influence was. at first glance, you think it was in the organization. you almost felt you needed one. but there wasn't really an organization there. he got in trouble and all those organizations. he didn't like his directors who told him what to do. >> no, no. i'm shocked. >> in our book i compare him to a cicada, which has a 60 year cycle. my father was the one who told me about this. the 16 year cycle. they are in the ground for 16 years, they are pubis a marvelous, and then they come out singing. this is what happened. every 16 years he got kicked out of an organization.

he finally got so fed up -- the poor got so fed up with him that they kicked them out. he split his skin and flew up and started another organization. after 16 years on the same thing happened there. and i realize in our book, i didn't quite finish the metaphor. the cicada only does this once. and i forgot to say that. my father did it lots of times. at least three times he did it. the other thing i forgot to say is how much noise he would make. >> he did leave the organizations, but he -- he always wanted to tell my dad to slow down. he really felt that he couldn't

slow down. if we do the work on the money will come in is what he said. boards don't like to hear that. this large format, it didn't exist before the illustrating of the series. no bookseller wanted to think about this. we don't have shelves for that. tens of thousands of members of the sierra club, introducing greater public to these ideas there were these institutions,

the more i think about it, the more i think the impact was one-on-one. a shy guy. he was okay with a big auditorium -- but he didn't like the middle range. he started this wonderful musical sermon and said that sign me up. he could drink everybody under the table. saying that i have a reputation to be able to drink but i cannot outrank them. you know, when i was in my 20s. i remember martini night in new york. six martinis was nothing to him, but it was obliterating to me. >> this was a man of heroic proportions. >> this is not your ordinary

mortal. >> and he listens to them and one of the themes that came out of this book that i had been ready for is how well it was written. one of the people that said, do you know how empowering that is? he said, sign me up. he said, you know how empowering that is to have someone listen to you? and want to hear your ideas? >> until two in the morning. in philip's case, my father said to him, would you do? and he said i decided i dissertation on the grounds

world. and i have done some work with wales and i have been to the caribbean from him. and i said, you need that, that's is what we have to have. they said, you have to work for a. >> i love when he tells a story in your book. he needs this young man says you have to come work for us. he came over to san francisco, when he came into the office, and david brower wasn't there. he found a desk, his recruiting strategies were really interesting. [laughter] [laughter] >> this was not a department of human resources. >> it's funny because the way he tells the story, he thinks he

has a job. he says you have to work with it. and there was a different understanding there. and he was going to put dave chatfield who runs [inaudible] and says who are you? and he said i am david brower. and he said oh. he'd heard that before. they figure a way -- my father kicked him speaking engagement money his way and soon he did that. it works for a certain kind of person that a lot of people got lost by the wayside. >> the roadkill must have been amazing. he looked and he says -- why don't you just sit down and say this over here. no instructions, just put people to work. it works out sometimes. >> it did.

one of the things i learned this book is i got signed up myself. he would draft anybody into this movement. it was handy since i lived in the same house. he dropped these and he also did mechanicals for apartments on turner. he drafted anybody who came down the street. and i used to worry about nepotism. i thought my father's publisher -- the first book i did come, i didn't want my name on it because i didn't like it. but having done the research on this book, he did this with everybody. he was nepotistic to everybody. so i don't feel so bad. amy levens gives this example. has 100 people working for him.

is mr. energy in the country. and he was a young gun. a genius. and taking pictures and pictures of the mountains of wales and the geographic -- he had bad knees and was hiking. we don't do this kind of thing, it's not quite like that -- so this is another typical thing. one day, i'm coming to london he said, let's get together. he spent a half hour looking and says, you're going to write a book for me. and i am on the mountains of wales. and i said that i've never written a book, and he said welcome you better write one now. it's about time he wrote one. and you're going to lay it out. i don't know how to lay out a

book. and he says learn. and i did. this was the way it worked with me. he drafted me out of my freshen your effort way. took me away from school. and took me out to do a book. it was great. i finished half of my sophomore year and he said would you want to go to bloggers and spent four months in office, that would finish her sophomore year. [laughter] it was not a hard decision. >> did his training -- you talk about in his book, there was a sense of that era, no institution of environmentalism and nobody knew what they were doing. no laws, environmental impact studies, no endangered species act, no process.

just people with spectacular sense of poetry. the use of language was not science and politics, it was art. and it was tremendously individually moving. the training that he had on this -- taking from some other place. he didn't study management. he didn't study how to do this. they were winging it. >> he was an interesting guy. on the one hand he was originally an original thinker that came up with a lot of new stuff. on the other hand when he was a great absorber. again, he was listed.

he said, it is a change from the thinking perspective and a wonderful description. because my father -- he recognized a good line in sakai. was very moved by being himself and that was part of his time in the mountains. you know, the beauty of it was a large part of why he did so much for the world. interesting with all the epa and stuff we have now. people of this generation were the ones who got that way. but it's true. i've thought a lot about that. the consequence of this book. i've changed movements. for someone like me, who is watching it, really from the

cradle, how we have seen a huge change in the environmental movement. the early 60s such a time. for the first time, it was a feeling that we could actually stop some of these big projects. the first one -- the big success, they stopped [inaudible] they stopped at a government project. it wasn't known that we could do that. it wasn't known that we -- we didn't think that we could do that. but we found out that we could. it was determined us -- we got almost -- it was a little too big for ourselves. and there were security in it. this happens to all the organizations that my father

started. they get big with success, to get a big budget. they need a manager. and pretty soon, the nba is coming and pretty soon because you need to raise funds, it begins to change. and the kinds of scandals that we have had lately and the sierra club and other places -- we never had like that back then. it's funny for me having remembered his old conversation to hear words like branding, which we hear now. you hear about how evil brand ourselves. it is the language of the opposition. all the talk, it is less now about issues -- any other issue

-- it's more about other things. and how a 13 year donor needs to be approached differently than another one. it's a little different than what used to be. >> in terms of reading environmental organizations coming after brief back in some of that -- what they are doing is necessary, and it is plugged into the powers of the world. but you have to -- you are done was among the people like john muir, ansell adams, the artist that created the environmental movement. it got taken over by scientists and policy people, but it has to be brought back into it all. >> you talk about your dad come he talk about the sermon. people talk about your dad is a

crusader. there is all this religious analogy in there. was this a metaphor? who is the devil? >> no, he didn't really have a double. but he definitely had a religion. he spoke in terms of religion. he would say of someone who had the fire -- come and in the family later that night. that person told us in a very deep way. of course, it is a very satisfactory part of religion when it's done my father's way. instead of god, you have -- you have -- [laughter] let that be logic. >> you have, you know, you have creations.

god may or may not exist, but creations is here. you are defending the beauty of creation. that is a religious calling. and he thought of it as religious, he referred to it -- he referred to him as the arch druid. its passage in the book, when i first read it, i was sort of surprised. because i thought oh, this is like a religion with this guy. and i said yes. of course it is like a religion for him. he had that kind of, you know, yeah, and have that kind of passion. >> in my old life i try to escape religion all my life. nevertheless, the environmental movement has whipped itself into education. as a failed institution. we don't educate anybody.

things that is profoundly new people and change them, as much as i am not personally religion, that is going to the soul and it causes a sweeping change. it would have sweeping changes, it's not going to come by putting things in third grade click on. when a conference on the some other place underdogs on something that. >> used a quote -- i forget now, but to quote a priest and poet. my father liked it a lot and used it. >> you know, your father was so monolithic. he was so powerful and

inspiring. in the book, you end up interviewing these 20 people. and you give these people their full character and you talk about them and you talk about their houses and you talk about the libraries and ones in there. they talk about the letters that they have written two other people. a portion of the environmental movement. and her father was almost like a candidate figure that was in there. it seems to be embedded in a larger movement. even though when he is there, he is running. it seems to be we are dealing with something else. >> this it's not exactly the way i intended it to go. i didn't realize the shape it would take. the moore interview these people come the more i realize that their stories were going to be as important as my fathers. because of what i said. were i thought this was. on the organization when the books, but the one-on-one rising

that he did in bringing people into the movement. i wanted to -- i wanted to talk about the ongoing mess. and it is incarnation of these people. all influenced and all carrying on. i thought that these stories were as important as his. and i was glad it worked out that way. in a way, he encapsulated the movement. they talk about how they recapitulate the history -- he reflected his history of the

movement. he did influence it. he directly originated a lot of the stuff that was done. you can actually follow the growth of this. the growth of this movement. >> yeah. you know, i've always wondered what it would be like to have a father like david brower. i would've assumed that it would take your least 10 years of therapy to get over it. [laughter] >> but you seem to be approaching this with such ease and joy and collegiality. that is a remarkable complement to you and your father in the relationship. >> the question i was asked going up for the full duration once -- did you feel shadowed? and it's peculiar that i never did. something about the way he did it did not make me feel that i

was in his shadow. in the 60s, when i was a teenager come at a time when you are supposed to rebel against her parents. because they are fuddy-duddies and another age. my father -- of course, he was right. he was right about where the plan was. he saw what was going on. he made things very eloquent. i wasn't interested. the guy who really wanted to change the way things are.

>> he seemed to have encouraged people to just lower on their own terms. >> he had a lot of detriments facing young people. one gets was to give young people the ball and get out of the way. not even with very much support when he would get them going. -- >> maybe tom turner wants to say something. tom was interviewed in the book and calm was -- he was -- he knew david from the time he was

born. born in berkeley and was editor of earth to justice. the environmental movement has these monumental stones. to find them and hold them together. would you like to talk a little bit about that? can stand up if you'd like. then up at the pulpit. do not say so. as some of you may know, i actually deal with the university of california press. the biography of david brower, it's going to take me a lot lower than i realize. but this book -- it has wonderful stuff in there. it will fit quite nicely. the amount of material that i have to go through scares me all the time.

.. and it's keeping me busy. i'll have something to work for a long time yet. what do you want me to say? >> tell us a funny story.

[laughter] >> funny stories is always are always great. >> i can tell a parallel story what jim said about dave phillips which was before that almost the same thing, david up in seattle talking and closed the bar and one of the people who was helping him close the barfs a young fellow named chris condone who worked on a newspaper called the "northwest passage" which was a weekly paper that was free. and chris -- we had produced three issues of a little news letter right at get beginning called friend there were two parallel organizations working together then at the john mayer substitute and friends of the earth. and so friend of the earth about

a year old at this time. and chris con lon got after dave and said you have to have a proper newspaper. there's plenty of news report, and there's a big hole csh there's -- there's a good place something like that in the movement. dave thought it was a terrific idea and encouraged him, and so about a week later maybe or two, david never said anything to us about it in the office. there were all of three people there, and i think and i'm setting sitting at the desk and a a kid walks in the front door and he says my name is chris and i rented space at rolling stone. can you give me a check for $5,000. [laughter] and i said, no. [laughter] i don't have any checks.

i don't know you from adam. if i had $5,000. i wouldn't give it to you anyway. we were living hand to mouth. dave would give us $100 so we could buy station their and pens once in awhile. so in the end, though, this got -- under everybody something grew out of that. we started the paper within a couple of months, and we did it within the office. chris had to break the deal with rolling stone, whatever that might have been. we were in the fire house with jerry whom you'll hear from soon, i hope in a little bit. so chris was hired to be the first production manager and he was a catastrophe. [laughter] he lasted one issues, two issues, i guess. and he was let go and bob was hired to take his place and get

the layouts. there's dave acts on impulse once again, he did that -- for every -- there was a chris condone. >> yes. that's the human resources. [laughter] he could also bomb in the judgment. >> he did woman bomb a few times. he has home runs than any anybody had a right to expect or hope for, i think. so, i mean, i could keep you here for two weeks telling i'm learning a lot from all of this stuff. all this research, maybe i'll tell one -- try to be quick about one fairly famous story, you may all know it. some of you may not, but when -- one of my stories he gave before

the house committee on three or four the dinosaur matter that ken talk about the bhfer. before as ken said, it was a small group the environmental movement, the cons sense movement in those days, there was people from the wilderness society and howard's and national park association was influential and prominent and the isaac walt ton colleague which knob -- nobody knows about anymore. they were fighting about a do two dams that were proposed for construction inside dinosaur national monohuman. they are the same as parks except they're made by presidents rather than congress. and so the bureau of regular will make had the proposal to

build the dams in there and the syria club and others were fightly partly on the principle it's nothing that should happen inside a national park. but partly thinking about it how it, you know, were there justification they were giving the project legitimate and so dave dug in to all these studies and calculations and things that would be in computer projections now and stuff, but he started to find numbers that didn't add up right. and the main problem was calculating -- they called it baked storage hoping they could

get it back some day. it doesn't happen. besides constructing the two reservoirs and filgding with some of the other dams that were proposed and in fact raising the level of dam down stream at glen canyon which is another story. if you raise that a certain amount, you would increase water capacity enough so that the dinosaur dams wouldn't be necessary. and so brow ward wrote up the testimony and sat down before hostile exeer your committee and one of the congress leaned in to the microphone and said, mr. brow ward, are you an engineer? he said no, sir, i'm an editor. and that to me capsulate a lot about dave. he went on to explain as a editor at university of california press, just down the way, in fact very near to where

we are right now the original press in those days, anyway. he explained that you're trained to be skeptical and look for soft spots in a man script and try to find a weaknesses and ask the questions and point out the contradictions and so on, -- all trying to make it better. you're not trying to -- you're trying to help the authors and tighten up the story. and he did that about anything. and everything. he wouldn't take stuff at face value. he wanted to investigate and understand and analyze and see if what was being sold was the whole story. and this broaden started off adds, you know, sierra club antidams and stuff, and moved to the supersonic transport.

when we got kicked out of the sierra club and started friends of the earth, the activities broad broadened rapidly and pushed the horizon of the nuclear power came to be examined and found wanting and you can go on and on about all of these things. but it was dave's endless curiosity and interest and as ken candidate, he would absorb things. he was -- he thought a lot for hymn. he picked up many ideas from other people and repeated them and sold them and refined them. >> the family version that have story is the story -- my father comes to my mother and said i discovered some bad figures in the bureau of reclamation of app ration number and my mother says, david, he's going go back

to testify to this. don't make a fool of yourself. they have slide roofs. [laughter] so my father goes back anyway. he doesn't thereon his wife. and he -- and what -- lean in the microphone and said you are a layman and questioning the figures of the bureau of reck clay make. i finished nine grade and i know my matt. and he did. he beat them in every black board dual over several days at the bureau of reclamation and the paper awarded the bureau reclamation the suber collide -- slide rule. >> interesting. [laughter] in. >> okay. >> you know, -- [applause] [applause] >> as you're talking about the guy chris and all the mistakes

they made, it was such -- [inaudible] died recently once was talking about a study in which people looked at successful individuals and withstanderred what made them successful, and i don't believe much in the study. it's something interesting that he said was when people looked at what their lives were like whether they were the first born or second born, or whether they had a wealthy father or domineer ing mother or great first grade teacher. successful people made more mistakes. there's something about a fear of making a mistake. he didn't seem to be afraid of making a mistake. the more mistakes you make, the more you get done. i get a tremendous amount done. [laughter] jerry, do you want to say something? this is jerry. jeer is -- jerry is a -- [applause] i guess everybody knows him.

he wrote four arguments in the absence of the sacred. he has new book out. he's -- runs the international global forum for international global . >> international forum on globalization. say that again. >> international forum on globalization. >> i like my mistake. [laughter] and jerry has been an -- doing advertising and he worked with dave on the wonderful ads about the most famous being the sistine chapel one to get closer to the ceiling and capitalism has giving advertising a lousy name. what advertising is connecting what you have to say with people's interest with people's souls and jerry has used it so well for the good of us all. take it away, jerry. [laughter] >> thanks, i don't know you were going to try to save capitalism tonight.

[laughter] or advertising. i want to congratulate you, ken, on the bock. sister a marve use look book i read it already. i got a lot of out of it. it's interesting. and i'm looking forward to tom's book too. one of the thing as i was driving over here tonight, i was in a terrible traffic jam, by the way, which is whyives -- i was late. it's wonderful that now people are talking about dave brow ward. that you guys are opening up the subject again and this is new film "fierce green fire" a documentary which includes the early part of that movement, the 1950s and 1960s and develops the environmental movement in this area, and -- or in the country. and it's very good and they spent a lot of time on save, and it's very, very, wonderful when i think of dave, i think -- i

think, i think he is a hero of spectacular proportions. he's the martin luther king of the environmental movement, if you can make an analogy like that. he's the -- he -- he propelled -- he changed the environmental movement. it was a conservation movement before that, which is perfectly good term. but he propelled that to becoming a -- he changed it from -- he even talk abouted that from the change from companion on the trail to fighting act visions, you know, people who were lie down in front of things and do things and really, really -- um, seek to create a new consciousness in the country and a much tougher kind of way of battling on these issues. and he was -- he was inspirational in that way. and i was thinking, you know, that hef -- he -- he um --

you know, in those days we had rachael carson in the early '60s. we also had dave. ilt like dave could change the world in many ways. he also changed people including myself. that's one of the things i'm greatful about. i was in the advertising business when i met dave. i met him because he came to talk to us about doing advertising. i never met him before that. i had just joined with howard, the famous advertising guy in san francisco. he said there's a guy coming in here named dave he wanted to talk about saving the grand canyon. we met with dave and dave didn't pick us for ore talents, it turned out. hoe only picked us but a he liked the tape face he used in the ad. we had the old fashioned style of advertising and we believe

that -- we believe in people reading, and you could really change people more by bsh by getting them to think and logical about their approaches and he love -- he really loved that. because we had so much to stay, we so much to say and he had so much to say. we didn't have to bother to write the ads either. he would write the ads. [laughter] i said i don't know about that. we had the fights right away. one of the great things about dave is how much at the time you spent fighting with him. because i spent a lot of time fighting with him. [laughter] and but -- i think ken said this earlier he would at some point say, okay. let's do it that way. and he's always willing to try it out. if he can't win the argument, he'll try out the other thing and see if it works on the first ad he came with the text and said it center type and run it

new "new york times" and here's a check to pay for the ads and we said, we don't like your copy. it's not good. and he said, so then in those days, they had a thing where you can -- the new york times in those days would give you a deal where if you had -- if you had two competing versions an ad and you wanted to know which was better, you could run ad on one-half of the paper and the next of the other. each hit got the other ad. it was a complete equal display. we had the competition and we won by 2-1 in terms of our text versus his text. he was just joyful about that. it meant he could come over and talk about the radicals and we could translate and them from on we had a great time. we always fought. [laughter] but um, but um, he got me so in

to this subject. these -- working him on the grand canyon and then the redwood park and north cascades and later on the ss tea campaign and anti-war ads he wanted to and things like that which nobody else in the antienvironment movement was interesting in doing. i just -- i just learned so much and it changed me from an advertising guy, i mean, i have a master's degree in commercial advertising, and as well as economics, and he helped me understand what was happening in the world and just by hanging out with him. usually it was over -- it was a six marty anyones it was a minor -- [laughter] he would start drinking at 6:00 and go until midnight. it would only make him smarter and smarter and more awaking.

you try to stay with him all the way in order to get the benefit of that. one night at the hotel in new york, i remember particularly learning -- it was an e. i any for me. he started talking about -- it must have been after the seventh martini. i only had two. he started talking about the important -- the loss of a sense of wildness. the loss of a sense of our relationship to nature. the loss of a sense that that is really the root of the problem. that we need to somehow recover that again. we need to get people to be able to experience that. and then he started talking about the experience of -- he said -- there was a fire. in those days there was a fireplace in that room. and he said experience of sitting and looking at the fire, we have to realize that

experience is exactly the same experience as human human beings had 2,000 years ago or 5,000 years ago or i guess it was 10,000 years ago. he said we're experiencing exactly what they experienced. except there was was in another context and ours is out of context and it's harder for us to understand that. but, i mean, do me that was like a wakeup. it's like a way of looking at world that i -- a relationship to nature as a viz really visceral, you know, we're part of it the inte grated quality of our relationship to nature and, i think that changed my life. i think that evening that evening of drinking probably changed my life more than any single thing. he probably changed my life more than any single person or

certainly one of the top two or three in my life that made me change and walk through the rest of next 40 years/50 years, you know, with a different world view and i am internally grateful to him for that. and to know, he needs to really be so -- he f he changed me. he also changed the world. i was trying to make the point he changes individuals and then he also impacts the world in a very important way. and i -- i was sitting here listening to ken and malcom, i just -- i just thought to myself about what he brought that i could just jot down. what he brought to the movement in the time that i know him. back in those days, in the '60s he was talking about

growth and possibility of growth. this was -- we had come out of the second world war and everybody was excited because the gnp was increasing rapidly at this point. he said this is crazy. it's not going continue. this is a limited planet. this is 1960. 1962 is when i met him. and he said we're not -- we can't -- this is impossible. so e he was talking very loudly about growth in those days and nobody else was talking about that. it was like he was like rachael carson was warning of the problems of too much interference in nature, but dave is arguing we had to fight the battle against growth then. and i take he was doing that in the 50s too before i knew him. he was talking about that. the famous club of rome report about limits to growth didn't come out until ten years later. and i was accredited with being

the splashy big challenge that growth. just now in 2012, people are seriously trying to organize around the questions of growth. he was talking about it in the '60s. he got shut down though, even at the see year are a club. let's not talk about growth. let's talk about saving this place and this place. he was talking about wildnd. i gave you a personal story. wildness was something that wasn't being -- was being lost. i mean, people like john had been talking about it but it was being lost out of the mix of discussion. it was all about economics. he wanted to do an ad on earth national park, the idea of creating an -- that it was -- it was the era we started space travel and he said this is absurd. we have one home and this is our home. we have to relate to this home.

and so as soon as called earth national park the concept being this is the one place in the universe we are connected too and we are related to and we have to realize that. and we did that and of course, that's the thing that got him fired from the sierra club. he didn't have permission to do the ad. he got fired. but then we went on with friends of the earth. and he also had a concept was that nature comes first. nature's fallen so far back on the list of priorities for -- am i talking too long? no? from malcom? >> oh, god. no. >> nature comes first. nature is the primary value, and that -- you have to get that straight. you have to related clean to

nature and integrated way or the rest of the activity is unrooted andless likely to succeed. and as i think i mentioned earlier, he wanted to take on -- tom mentioned also he wanted to broaden the discussion. his idea of environmental movement included 0 podsing more, opposing more. we were on a marvelous ad together and he tried to run a campaign on whole idea of war and what a problem it was. and how obstructive and how it changes the character things in the world and how terrible it is and so on. he was the first major environmentalist saying that social justice can't be dropped out and you have to relate to issues like war even issues like

poverty and issues like social justice. that's got to be part of the discussion or -- you're battling for the environment is not going succeed because, you know, you need to relate to the realities of the full picture. there were many other -- there were many other -- as tom said he could go on all night. but the book has a million stories like that from various people that ken interviewed and -- i just think, um, my one real message is that we need celebrate -- we have a hero, and the environmental movement right now is lacking, i would say, certainly a -- plenty of fantastic people. there's lacking a charismatic. day sort of single handedly

carried the movement out of the i don't know what self-interest doldrums you might say for lack of a better term and exploded it on the scene. knead a powerful force. now is a good time for that to happen again. we're about to all die from our excesses on the planet. but we need dave back. i think it would be useful to celebrate his way as one way of maybe learning how to get back to that kind of aggressive campaigning. so congratulations. thank you. [applause] [applause] >> that was so moving. that was just so beautiful. that he met the -- [inaudible] you met the arch drew and you got converted. yeah.

yeah. it was a rebelling use experience. why don't we take a few questions or comments from people that knew dave and we can celebrate dave's second favorite interest with the wine in the other room. >> great. we are actually films tonight. please speak in to the microphone. >> it's being filmed by c-span. >> i'll be around to just raise your hands. thank you. >> great. well, we can celebrate by going to the berkeley city council on tuesday night and helping them decide to vote to close down the rot ten nuclear plants we have in california. they're going vote on that on tuesday night. there will be a rally at 6:00 and 7:00 is the meeting. it's 2134 martin luther king. i think it's in the interest of

dave's legacy. i feel like a continuation of day. i'm low wees. i didn't work for friends of the earth. but i was strongly influenced by dave when i was a teen in and in my 20s. you can see i'm carrying it forward. i have fliers about the meeting that i'll give to people. [applause] ..

>> i think that was how he started. and i think that that gave him his best to what he was working on. >> very quick on all of these other issues, pesticides, nuclear proliferation, he was very quick. he brought a lot of different themes into this movement. this was one of them.

>> people like michael a woman. to he mentored. he was interested. i think he was afraid he was interested in all of these attributes related to this thread. >> this is your exercise program, michael. >> young people, i would wonder if you have the new millennial stash the 20-year-old. are they embracing the same view of david or a different view? do you have of you on the real young people? there seems to be something new and exciting that they are going on. i was wondering if you have an insight as to how to tax your

viewing of the movement. how has it changed, if at all? >> there are a lot of young people doing great stuff. there is sort of the resurgence of technology. we are getting re-enamored with it all over again. we recognize how much harm things are causing the world -- everything is so spectacular now, a lot of it has been swept away. there has been a lot of talk about cell phones and how they're going to bring us all together and get us to solve environmental problems. there's a polesitter schools

focused on the technology that people buy. one school is focused on geo- engineering is a way of stopping global warming. ludicrous schemes that get treated seriously, dyson, for instance, believes that somehow technology, somehow we find her way out of this technology. this is always a problem common this idea. but now it seems like that apprehension is growing again. we are not going to solve it with technology. all technology ever does is give us in deeper. we will have to change what we are looking at and what success means. what the ornaments of success are. and how we consume. all technology is going to do is

put off moment that we have to face that would. >> let me get on this one. one of the forces behind this book is earth island institute. there is the brouwer awards. if you want to see young people and knock them for a loop, people who have doing some spectacular work that will break your heart and make you cry -- [inaudible] >> october 23 october 23? >> [inaudible question] >> we honor people in the tradition of david brower. >> can people here this? >> put a microphone in front of him. okay. >> thank you. it is one of the aspects of dave's influence and legacy. i was fortunate as a young man.

i worked at the sierra club in my young 20s. and he always had, as ken said, he drew young people towards him and he spent time and she listened to young people. i feel really touched by that legacy. and i am honored to carry that on here in my work. our new leaders initiative is a core program of our work carrying on the tradition of listening to young people and he said one of his great things --, you know, their accomplishments. let them do their work. through the leaders initiatives, the brower youth awards, we honor young people who carry on that range of great things. the date himself brought to the movement. there is a real diverse approach and thinking there is a technology enameling aspect of

it. that type of optimism that we have honored young people who have been out there in the trenches and wilderness and a whole range of topics. i would like you all to join us on october 23 in san francisco for the brower youth awards that were started. they were started the year of dave's passing in the year 2000. we have over 70 winters that are 31 years of age or younger, making change happen out there, leaders of their own organizations, affiliated projects. or affiliated projects with other organizations. it definitely young people in the legacy that they have inspired. we continue in that regards. >> check it out. >> if we don't support these young people we are ruined. make sure that you go there. >> how about one more question. >> the ones? [laughter] >> maybe i am slandering worms.

>> i am someone who knew david brower very well. as a young child, my family went on sierra club trips in the mountains for years. i enjoyed them tremendously. i think that the book that has been written about him is wonderful. i have learned a lot about him, a great deal about him that i did not know. my focus started in high school when i heard talks against the dangers of nuclear weapons and power. that was my focus.

i did not really understand the need to support nature. as much as i did the others. david brower -- we have a vigil that has been going for years. we are trying to get university to put a top-notch debate of nuclear weapons and get different points of view well represented as possibly as they can be, and have it televised so that people will think and decide what they think should be done.

the circle of concern is what it's called. he came twice. and we didn't pay him anything. he was the speaker for two different years. we have been going for about 60 years. we are hoping to have this debate on account of -- by september 21. whether we succeed or not, i don't know. i will tell you one thing that is interesting. i had a great-grandfather who believed in us. and he was instrumental in

having that happen. this is something that nobody thinks is a good idea, including my grandfather didn't think so either. my great-grandfather did because he felt that if there was not this family, people could not live in this area because he was not a very conservative person. in the civil war, they blocked a battalion to try to and -- to try to -- to try to win now. to try to win that debate. so what i have come to realize is how complex these issues are.

i appreciate it now more than i did. the world federalist. i still believe that we should go for that and not wait around. we should really go one work that out. >> okay, listen. there are time constraints. it has been a long evening. longer than i thought. he told me a story one time about glen canyon? would you mind telling a story?

>> my son david and i, several of us, we had a reunion at glen canyon was my father's greatest loss of his life. we never wanted to go back. we've never wanted to go back to reservoir pal. we wouldn't even call it a late. and we wouldn't go back. in 2004, 2005, you could go back down into the canyon. we finally had a little reunion. it had been 40 years since the little group had left.

we have this wonderful chamber in stan's own, which is the size of the cathedral. a beautiful sculpture -- the beautiful ray of light. we got to this canon was everything that had been beautiful. but much of it was gone. there was salt on the walls. this beautiful sculpture was no money -- my sister cry. dick norgaard cried. when he sighed. someday in the back room, his cousins were wandering around and he came up to me and said, dad, it's beautiful. [laughter] it was stunning. and i had to think, -- yes, it

is still beautiful. but it is so diminished from what it was. almost like a metaphor for how we lose things a little bit at a time. how it is like a frog in boiling water. it is a beautiful canyon, david, but boy, you should have seen it when we were there. >> [inaudible qu> [inaudible qu] >> no, no. that is one of the things my father discovered late in his life. it will recover. but not for a while. how the world gets taken from us in little pieces. >> how every generation finds beauty. [applause] >> all this week, watch c-span

for this year's republican national convention. watch every minute of every speech. here on c-span2, it is booktv. all day every day, throughout the convention. with highlights from this pastor of nonfiction authors and books. on c-span3, also throughout the convention, 24 hours of american history tv with lectures, oral history and a look at historical american sites and artifacts. >> one of the things we like to do that booktv is preview some upcoming books. joining us now at the book publishing industry's annual convention in new york city is author robert sullivan whose new book, coming out in september of 2012 is "my american revolution: crossing the delaware and i-78". mr. silva, what was your thought and reading this book? >> i don't have many thoughts.

>> well, i spent my whole life growing up in this vicinity. i spent some time living in oregon. i went to school and other towns. pretty much growing up in this landscape and hearing vague notions about this here and not there. and i remember running a marathon at one point and say, wow, i did where the hills and valleys are. the lost history of new york. >> du. >> new york and new jersey. other areas like that of the new

york area. >> growing up you will hear about boston. you hear a lot about virginia and virginians. and you tend to think that we don't have much to do with anything. but i sort of discovered that it all happened here. it all happened here. i kind of want to start a battle. >> they said why did they can't here and not there, and what details matter.

>> went to the hills have to say, why do they matter -- looking at the history. >> one of the things that you did, the cover of you in a rowboat, you escaped from manhattan. what is that about. >> i escape from brooklyn. i tried to escape from brooklyn. everything with me is a long story. i talked about the weather, but then i went back and looked at the evacuation of the troops from brooklyn to manhattan. after the very first battle of the revolution. which was in brooklyn, new york, washington and it was in brooklyn at the very first battle, it's bad.

washington and the guys, they say get out here, they run from the middle of brooklyn down to the water and they are sitting there waiting. overnight, under the cover of fog and other things, they grab their focus and they evacuate. they evacuate across the east river. they evacuate with every book they vote they can find and they get over there. so in its report. ultimately when i go back to this place, it is like the greek philosopher because it's always changing. it is an example of how weaver circle things today. at any rate. i went down to go view it and found out that it is allowed --

you have several states -- [talking over each other] >> it would be illegal for me to evacuate my army to brooklyn. that would not be allowed. it is problematic. but i figured out a way to do it. actually found some community voters. the court has said, oh, the guy who helped found the honorable house, used to reenact brooklyn every year. we ran out and reenacted back i and his reenacted. >> robert sullivan, what did you learn in your evacuation?

from brooklyn to manhattan? >> you could tie it into the revolution and george washington? >> well, i guess i say the idea of revolutions, at the time of the american revolution, there was a thought that we revert back to our british citizenship. we have the right that we once had as citizens. there is that kind of old idea of that as well. for me, there is the additional idea of the calendar and the almanac. revolutionary almanacs. colonial almanacs. kept the tides and you know, the lunar cycles and all that. people keep them and read them. and actually, right after the war, the first mention of george

washington as the father of our country. and almanac in pennsylvania. washington has made the father on this very landscape. the first place made for washington is in manhattan. anyway, the thing that i really discovered was that i went through concentration. you can look into this season and i know it sounds crazy, and start seeing the path you can look at these things and compare how well then relates to now. so that when we go out and look at george washington's lookout

point. when you look at those signal points, the process is there. you will be able to find them in the history books. remnants of things that were sustained points during the cold war. >> at the very same site, if i go there today, to a lot of those points around the city, i will find memorials to 9/11. people around the city went to the same sites to see manhattan. see what the british were doing. it's a natural viewpoint and we are naturally inclined to think

about our place in the world. >> where is one place that you would recommend viewers be interested? >> the typical thing to do is take the ferry to the statue of liberty. and to look for the spot in the landscape over staten island, the high point on the scene. you look at total, and you have a wipeout of all modern conveniences. you see pretty much what general mcdaniel greene saw when he saw the british fleet landing. a bunch of cut down trees. we see the same exact view. the macro final question i wanted to ask you, what is the opinion shift?

>> more people died on the prison ship then died in the war in battles in the war. so after the battle of brooklyn, the british picked up -- everybody got captured, they put them on several old ships that were in between the brooklyn bridge and the manhattan bridge and the williamsburg bridge. around the east river. and they kept him there and kept putting more people on, and they were not just continental soldiers, but there were slaves and in turn to the british, there were spanish sailors. dutch sailors, all kinds on the ship. people in poor communities came to see them from the shore. they would get food to the vote somehow. they would also collect the bones as the passengers were

thrown over. he was insistent that we treat all of them fairly. anyway, these bones sat there all through the war and for a long time after. walt whitman worked very hard to set up a memorial which today is in fort greene. they have to work for years and years to collect the bones to make what they call a proper memorial. it becomes a point. oh, you build a statue to george washington, the one that is on wall street. when you don't rescue the bones of a soldier. it becomes a flashpoint. >> robert sullivan at book expo america. the book publishing annual industry convention.

>> were you reading this summer? booktv wants to know. we met i am wrapping up citizens of london which came out a couple of years ago in august. history during the war, three very prominent people. edward armour all, he was reporting back to the united states with rather strongly held views that we should get into the war. and an individual that was sent by president roosevelt who is dealing with the land lease program, coordinating the program for england. and the ambassador. a fellow named winer, who had replaced joseph kennedy, president kennedy's father, joseph kennedy was partial to the germans, of course. and i suspect that is the reason that roosevelt brought him home. it is a marvelous book about the

three of them and their interaction with churchill. and their advocacy their aggressive advocacy of the united states breaking out of this isolationist mode and getting into the war the author had previously written a wonderful book, which i highly recommend called troublesome young men. it is about the members of parliament to rally behind winston churchill throughout the '30s. an orchestrated his rise to the prime minister's job. >> these two books, if you are interested interested in reading them back to back, our great look at the early stages of world war ii and i heartily recommend them because. ..