certainly have it on my bedside table and will be reading it sometime this summer. >> for more information on this and other summer reading lists, visit booktv.org. >> from the 2012 roosevelt reading festival, mary stuckey on her book, "defining americans: the presidency and national identity," in which she discusses the impact of presidential speech and how it shaped the american public. >> is sad news is now have to try to engage them. i think the most important thing to understand about the presidency in this context is that we always have choices. when you pick a president you are absolutely picking a particular kind of policy but you're also taking a definition of our national identity. if you hear a president and you like what they are saying, if you feel yourself called to the

presidency, then they ar speaking to you about a sense of the national self that is deeply embedded in all of us, and every time there is a presidential election, what one of our previous presidents learned is sorrow to his vision thing is really an important part of what the presidency does because we see ourselves as a nation through the ways that presidents talk that nation into being. so what i'm going to do today is talk a little bit about franklin roosevelt's version of what it meant to be an american at this particular moment in our national history. i did this a little earlier but i want to go back today, or at this talk, and say that prior to roosevelt, presidents tended to be very hierarchical in the way they understood the nation. they were often very explicitly exclusionary. there would be people like immigrants or african-americans,

and sometimes women, who didn't get to be citizens and who are specifically located in presidential rhetoric at the bottom of the hierarchy of the nation. and the nation was understood as hierarchical, or as local. for many presidents, the south became sort of the demon region. and there are reasons for that because they are building coalitions that depend on including people but also always on excluding people. in one of roosevelt's great geniuses as president is that he almost never actively excluded people, but tended to base his notion of the nation on a very inclusive sense of what that meant. and so that's what i'm going to talk about right now. this book is actually goes back a little ways, and it's a book on the presidency in which franklin roosevelt is the pivot, the actual center of the book, and in the larger book i examine

the complex ways in which our national history can be understood as a struggle to live up to our highest principles while also maintaining allegiance, the hierarchies, of class and race that allow for stability. in the history, all of these things are sharply contested during the roosevelt administration. economy lay in ruins. african-americans were making increasing demands for civil rights, women were completely flexing their political muscles your immigrants were increasingly being incorporated. all of these groups of course were integral to the famous new deal coalition which continues to have an important influence on our politics. it was through roosevelt's rhetoric as much as through his actual policy that he crafted this coalition which has proved him to be one of the most enduring, one of the most complicated in our national history. roosevelt's vision of the nation was rooted in a pluralist political tradition which require flexible leadership such as the president could juggle the various claims made on

government. and he did the metaphor of the juggler, which i clearly am not, was one of roosevelt's favorite ways to describe his understanding of his job as president. the others being magician. he accomplished his demand using for primary tactics. the inclusion, denial, deflection integral. these were all enabled by its overarching understanding of america as a nation perpetually in progress. in 1936 the president said i do not look upon these united states as a finished product. we are still in the making. it is notable that prior to roosevelt it was always these united states. after roosevelt the nation understood itself as the united states. it had moved from a notion of collective states to one of an actual nation. for fdr the nation and hierarchy in its citizenship were premised on much on the future as much as the present it in his first inaugural he declared the basic thought underlying his policies quote is not narrowly nationalistic.

it is the insistence as a first consideration upon the inner independence of various elements. barroso, the entire nation was interconnected but was not therefore static and fixed. it was always in motion, always developing. it therefore required constant attention and constant adjustment. the kind of attention that only a strong president seated in a strong central government could give. importantly, he understood the nation asked already fundamentally united. the various interests that made at the nation were perpetually contesting against one another but they were not the revocable he opposed one another. he said, quote, some people who visit us from other lands across the cease-fire difficult to credit the fact that our nation sprung from many sources, a nation 130 million strong, a nation stretching 3000 miles from east to west. and all the greatest centers of its civilization is a homogenous whole. for not only do we speak one

language, not only are the customs and habits over people essentially similar in every part of the country, but we had given repeated proof on many occasions and especially in recent years that we are willing to forgo exceptional advantage were such advantage can only be obtained by one part of the country at the expense of the country as a whole. because the nation shared common belief, common culture and common interests within, some groups would be granted by the president temporary political primacy. others would be legitimately denied their claims on government and other claims could be deferred, while others were deflected. most importantly the roosevelt administration was marked by its enormous efforts of political inclusion. these efforts were most clear in his willingness to offer assistance to the poor, differing sharply from previous practice. roosevelt treated all the poor as if they were deserving poor, prior to end it always been the distinction made between the deserving and undeserving poor. relief under fdr was a matter of

right. legitimating the needs of the poor also legitimated their demands on the political system, and he, therefore, earn their loyalty of the poor. in addition, he legitimated organized labor in ways that have not been previously seen. upon signing the national industrial recovery act, he said, it still is the assurance of a reasonable profit to industry and living wages for labor with the elimination of tyrannical methods and practices which have not only harassed on this business but have contributed to the ills of labor. note here that the imports of capital and labor is the subject of his discipline. he made a distinction between honest business and tyrannical business. we all know that roosevelt did not hesitate at all to criticize business and businessmen challenging him through analogy. the famous story of the men in a silk hat, and welcoming her hatred in the 1936 election. the flipside was that organized labor was able to see him as their champion, and did so even when his policies were substantially more pro-business

than was isn't rhetoric. this is important because roosevelt became an advocate for labor. he argued as an organized labor with the good and worthy and important for the life of the nation. he subjected business to differentiation, distinguishing between good business which the government would support, and tyrannical business which the government would not. through this kind of writer, fdr was able to include labor which coincidentally included many members of the immigrant groups, outs already fully integrated into the american system while also protecting business as a whole. only bad business practices would be subject to his discipline. capitalism remained for him the absolute foundation of the nation. as the new deal continued into the mid 1930s he became a little suspicious of labor. strikes unleashed by the passage of the wagner act were inconvenient to say the least, and his fractious relationship with labour leader john l. lewis was famous. increasingly began to differentiate between good and

bad labor, just as he did with business. he had helped labor become more politically visible and also more politically powerful, and he expected them to be decently grateful, which for him and unwavering political support for fdr. what are the important side effects of his inclusion withg labor, as i mentioned brieflyg earlier, was this inclusion of immigrants. americans in the 1930s remain somewhat suspicious of immigration. stop me if any of this is done it familiar. immigrants were often associated with equally doubtful groups such as catholics, went to notre dame, and jews. people sometimes refer to the jew deal. and throughout the decades there were various efforts to restrict immigration to americanize immigrants and to control the behavior of new rivals. roosevelt avoided all of these tendencies in favor of a narrative of inclusion. in one of my favorites of his speeches on this, he says

tonight is faulty and the spirit of other days brood over the scene. andrew jackson looks down at us from his prancing steed, and the four corners of the square in which we are gathered around the daily lit christmas trees are guarded by the figures of the intrepid leaders of the revolutionary war. the german, the poll, from the shores of france. this is in keeping with the universal spirit of the festival we are celebrating. and notice here can he date the inclusion of these immigrants back to the revolution. this is not new. he's arguing these people have always been with us. they have always been incorporated and it is time we recognize that. it is hard i think to imagine a more eloquent claim to national unity. at least for those of us who tracer ancestors to europe. it is clear this rhetoric was meant to be inclusive, although it also of course is exclusionary potential for all those, for instance, i don't see themselves reflected there. but it is well worth noting he

does in fact include many of those who were previously marginalized, and that this inclusion may have been one of the reasons these members chose to vote democratic with such consistency. all of them were subject to rhetoric. they all joined the new deal with what can only be called enthusiastic force. this rhetoric was based on the centrality of shared value. man, he said, everywhere throughout europe, your ancestors and mine suffered from an imperfect and often unjust government of their homeland. they were driven by deep desire to find not alone security, but also in large opportunity for themselves and their children. it is true that the new population flowing into our land was mixed population, differing often in language and external customs and in habits of thought. but in one thing we were all like. they shared a deep purpose to rid themselves for ever of the jealousies, the prejudices, the intrigues and the violence with internal or external that disturbs their lives on the

other side of the ocean. yes, they sought a life that was less fettered by exploitation for selfish men set up under government that were not free. they sought a wider opportunity for the average man. i read this and i heard ronald reagan's accent in the back of my head when you read this, and the reason for that is every president since fdr has used this implication of the american dream to one point or another, but it was defined for us by roosevelt. in such passages, roosevelt had a consistent story of america personified not by those who had founded the nation, but my more recent immigrants, those who despite their surface cultural differences were central to the american dream and full participants in its. americans were defined as people with a shared past, even though the path occurred in a variety of disparate and even incommensurate nation. americans were united by previous experience of oppression and, therefore, by both the desire to be free of it

and the will to act on that desire. that's what constituted the american citizen. that, of course, becomes extremely important as the lead up to world war ii. in that since then all americans, no matter how recently arrived, were understood as a legitimate sender, the sentence of the founders and decent citizens who -- wait, i'm sorry but at least all americans were willing to fight oppression as it was a variously defined over the course of this administration were descendents and heirs of the founders. goes out is unfortunately also had some children who grew up to be moneychangers, doubting thomas', economic royalists, appeasers, and in general pretty much anybody who oppose fdr. those people were excluded sometimes from the quality and sometimes simply from his rhetoric. he never spoke, for instance, to an asian-american groups. he never visited american indian reservations. he never spent time in hispanic or latino communities.

he never spent much of his effort on african-americans, although surely, eleanor's efforts mattered here. unlike some president he did not any rhetorical effort excluding these people but he simply ignored them. when he did attack groups and individuals, and he made more of his fair share of such attacks, it was an assault on behavior rather than demography. he never attacked people for the class or for the race but only for their behavior. he cheered at the ungrateful gentlemen in the socal. he used adjectives like selfish to describe the beauty undermined their status and question their motives and he caricatured them with a demonic glee. he made in the butt of many a famous jokes, and poor martin and fish were never quite the same. he wasn't capable of wielding anger and said things like continued growth is the only evidence we have of life, yet growth and progress are inevitably opposed to a post at every step. opposed bitterly and blindly.

would not be fun to be the target of such an attack. his enemies were not treated as people with legitimate concerns but a reasonable point of view but malevolent obstructionists bent on destroying his administration and the viability of democracy. it's important to know these people were not identified as minutes of any particular race, ethnicity or religion. to the extent they have a collective identity, it was sort of a vaguely defined class or set of economic interests and occasionally during election years, political affiliation. but he demonized most brutally those who are already well central in the american political regime, and never the people who are at the margins. he did, in fact, protect many of those old hierarchies -- i'm going to skip some of us. the tendency to balance interests against one another to produce the common good tended to ignore inequalities in and among and between groups but it was applied to nearly every group at one point or another. it was true for labor who found

itself the target of roosevelt's attention, and also of his criticism. it was true for african-americans, never saw a single piece of civil rights legislation passed during his administration. but he did understand african-american needs not as racial but as economic. many new deal programs were legally desegregated and while racial justice was of course important, especially if you happen to be one of the people who was lynched, starving was also important. and while fdr tended to translate every group enters into an economic interest and could do what he could economically for them, even if he held his hand socially. it is notable in neither spoke nor acted when he could have. he maintain the color line in the white house press covers until the very near end of his life, took no position on the scottsboro case, and it was his

wife or to a strong stand on racial issues resigning from the dar and famously moving a chair to sit in the middle aisle of a segregated event. roosevelt wanted african-american support but he offered only limited -- such rhetoric tended to naturalize the organization of african-americans in the national hierarchy and he did very little to address or alter the. to all of his rhetoric he did stress the issue of fairness, and for him fairness demanded the deferral of some demand on the system that he considered excessive or unworkable, or poorly timed it and he never consistently favored one group above others either politically or rhetorically. but instead relied on language like quote, we know the human factor which enters a largely into this picture. we are trying to apply to all groups needing aid and assistance, not merely to a few scattered or favored groups. them anymore than the president was likely to give you meant that you would castigate as selfish or am going to share or as unfair.

this rhetoric had a powerful nationalizing function for citizens were encouraged to think of themselves as part of a greater national hole, rather than members of a small local or statewide community. he deeply believed in the importance and the reality of democracy to central fairness and argued consistently that his policies were designed to promote and maintain the fairness, which would always work itself out over time. for fdr, being a good citizen and being a good neighbor. able and willing to accept temporary sacrifice for his or her fellow citizen, on voluntary adherence to national ideals including a prescription that everyone should have equal access with the necessities of life. and above all, on an overriding commitment to the common good. these values are important. they do in fact undergird the national sense of ourselves. and let me be very clear. i'm not arguing against them, but i am noticing in making these kinds of arguments roosevelt was making the challenge of building a unified nation seemed a bit easier than it was.

he ignore the structural inequalities, and regional differences. he disregarded the very real and sometimes principled opposition of republicans, anti-interventionists and other opponents. is unifying rhetoric like that of all presidents had some exclusionary element. and he did all this within and in a greater presidency, nearly central to american politics and which was based on a strong sense, the kind of unity called for by both generals and greece. in famous first inaugural, for example, he said quote, if i read the temper of our people correctly, we now realize that we've never realized before our interdependence on each other. we cannot merely take, but must give as well. but if we are to go forward, we must move as a trained and loyal army willing to sacrifice for the good of a common discipline. because without such discipline, no progress is made. now leadership becomes effective.

we are, i know, ready and willing to submit our lives and property to such discipline because it makes possible a leadership which aims at a larger good. good citizens oh baby the president as good soldiers oh baby the commanding officer. it was also potentially dangerous. for while the military model is a useful one for certain kinds of endeavors, even here in hyde park, in the shadow of west point, no one is going to argue that the military is an ideal model for democratic government. as suzanne has noted, this is especially important because in fdr's public rhetoric that is an explicit combination of wartime unity with specifically religious view of the nation. there is no doubt that roosevelt had such a view. we cannot he said, through the history of arise and develop as a nation without reckoning with the place the bible has occupied in shaping the dance of the republic. it's teaching has been widely

suggested. it is plowed into the very heart of the race. for roosevelt, united states was dominantly a judeo-christian nation built on the foundation of the belief in the judeo-christian god. that religion underpin and authorize his leadership. criticizing the president became very nearly and unchristian act. combining two kinds of nondemocratic leadership, the generalship and the pastorate, combining wartime and religious claims to authority meant a challenging the president was a particularly difficult thing to do. however, while this may have served roosevelt's immediate political ends, invoking military and religious leadership as models for democratic leadership remain problematic. especially in the context of his claim to be a protector of democracy and given the rise of dictatorship in europe. these model set into the fear he was promoting dictatorship. whatever the problems, its success is unquestionable. roosevelt argued consistently

for unified nation under the guidance of a strong chief executive. that unity was premised on what he understood the fact of increasing national interdependence. he also understood american citizens -- and more as members of economically definedgroups. that is, he thought of citizenship and national trends and citizens as connected their economics interest. all these interests were roughly equal and it roughly equal plans on the national government. the president's main task was ensuring a balance among and between these groups so that the nation would be both stable and just. but when social justice is understood and largely economic terms, something important is being overlooked. for community life, which is explicitly defined in christian terms as something akin to social justice, is not reducible to economics. when the president puts himself in charge of deciding when social justice has been achieved, those were underprivileged lose the right to decide for themselves what such justice might look like and

when it might be appropriate for them to push their claim. make no mistake, the roosevelt administration is an important moment in a very real progress for the american disenfranchised. earlier presidents have been prone to argue that journalistically for the clarity demarcated national hierarchy. fdr assumed the position as spokesperson for those intended to be placed at the bottom of those hierarchies. in an ideological move, the common man, while still leaving the social, political and economic orders untouched. roosevelt relied on a form of civic nationalism am of inclusion on the base of commitment to common belief rather than on hierarchy. this meant that disenfranchised how powerful to support them in later argues for inclusion on an equal basis. this became incredibly important following the second world war, of course, with african-americans, women, american indians among others all began the arguments and debates that would explode throughout the 1960s, and

would eventually lead to unsettling the national order in ways roosevelt could not have foreseen, and that he would probably not have. a national narrative centered on the immigrant expand in ways that sharpen and defined the national identity as the one in which certain positions were presumed to be shared, and in ensuring constituted an american public among the people who came to the u.s. with specific sets of goals and expectations in my. one arthur ashe and one author has argued the world we live in a still franklin roosevelt's world. and in many ways for better or for worse our national identity is still very much the one he bequeathed. thank you. [applause] [inaudible] >> shifted to the new deal and

world war ii. >> you know, i don't think, i don't think it shifted all that much because what he, i mean, there's very clear evidence on the archives that roosevelt was sort of on to hitler from a very early moment. and when he started arguing in the mid 1930s, so even before even country in his 1936 election, he starts arguing against dictatorship and for democracy, and he does it in explicitly christian terms. he uses light and dark, up and down, all those kinds of metaphors. and because that language was so consistent over time with this slight hiccup for russia, because first off russia is like on the side of the dictator and our bad and unlikely for him,

likely for him thursday seizure of stalingrad which allows him to then talk about the russians in exactly the same way you can talk about the british, right. but he keeps that same light and dark christian kind of movement throughout, and that language authorizes domestic policies and also makes very clear the argument he's making for war. and it causes the anti-integrationists all kinds of problems. because the anti-interventionists end up having to argue that there is no moral principle at stake in world war ii. and hitler makes that argument increasingly tricky, right, and the more people know about this the more people have to say there's nothing of value. there's no american value at stake in this war. and that argument just becomes absurd after a while because you have to end up saying that there are no moral values that matter, which is essential what happened. and then roosevelt does the nasty things.

>> following up on your theme of exclusion and inclusion and disenfranchisement. my understanding is that the right to vote had been confined not just to white males, but to white male property owners, real property owners. >> that's sorely from the constitution. >> did roosevelt take any active role in expanding the right to vote? >> now. because by the time, roosevelt's administration, the last group to get the legal right to vote is of course african-americans who get no policies under him. american indians get the right to vote following world war i, and the argument is very similar for american indians as it becomes for african-americans later. they shed blood in the war for the nation. they have a right to citizenship

and that becomes a very important parallel and the civil rights movement, and the right to vote. that fdr didn't ever come as far as i know, she says looking at an archivist, there's no evidence that he was at all interested in extending the suffrage. >> i'm just curious, because fdr -- [inaudible] spent i don't think it was relatively wealthy. spent the guy is rich. i've always actually kind of, what really triggered, a lot of people of his class actually started hating him for the fact he did kind of passionate towards the downtrodden, the poor. and what exactly triggered the idea? because you know, he simply could have not cared, in a sense. >> sure >> a lot of other rich america >> dynasties at the time, didn't

have this humanitarian entity that he did. so i was just always kind of curious what really brought him to be the man he essentially, before he became the greatest world leader of all time really, how did he become like this man who's looking for, i guess it before. >> there's two answers to the. i'm not a psychologist. i'm a political scientist. the one answer that a lot of biographers go, is that there was a combination of a certain noblesse oblige, combined with his experience of polio and his experience that allowed him to both understand suffering from the inside out, and to really experience poverty among people who welcomed him. at a time when polio was such a tricky disease that they were, polio victims were often ostracized, and yet it was the poor people of warm springs who

really welcomed him in ways that, so that's one answer. the political science answer is probably a little more cynical. barry goldwater was once giving advice to richard nixon. how's that for a horrific combination? and when asked like how would you build a coalition, goldwater said go hunting where the ducks are. if you want to get elected, find the votes. abraham lincoln is the guy who said god must love the poor people, he made so many of them. if you want to get elected, the democratic party has always had, to the extent of the democrats have what they embody. they've got no money, they've got no resources. god knows, as what roger said, they are not organized. but if you want to build a political coalition, you are going to take chances if you can bring in a new immigrant groups, african-americans who at that time were voting only in the urban north, and always for

republicans. so he went hunting where the ducks were. >> thank you. >> sure. i don't know if that actually helps, but. other questions? [inaudible] >> all those ducks. [inaudible] >> okay, i did not know that. [inaudible] yes. i'm going to get this wrong so this is completely unfair. you said that there were concerted efforts made by the roosevelt administration to allow veterans, our soldiers

overseas to vote, which would of course have included african-americans, although not specifically targete >> at african-americans. and you pointed out that the democratic national committee -- [inaudible] >> the justice department's helping to overcome the white primaries in the south with what has to be seen as a spectacular lack of success. [inaudible] >> come up here. or go to a microphone. so people can hear you. >> the justice department in the roosevelt administration offered limited help to the naacp when they were fighting the white primary in what became th >> smith versus albright decision of the supreme court of >> thank you. i could never have done that. yes, sir. >> maybe this follows up a bit on the gentleman's question. it seems that a very prominent middle-class spring forward 1944 after roosevelt administration, that a lot of

people could argue that his policies and attitudes contributed to that. i'm -- and it has become just as part of our national entity since then. and i'm wondering if that was intentional on his part? was his vision to create the great middle-class, and ended up coming forward? >> you know, i don't know that he would have understood it in those terms. because the middle-class is afraid that so much more current and our time that i never, i never saw a phrase like that in the documents of the time. but i do think that he felt very strongly that every person in this country had a right to a living wage and the right to have a certain kind of security. a small home, you know, the ability to feed your family. those things seemed to him to be a fundamental -- and he would have called it a fundamental human right.

it's interesting because he understood so me thinks in economic terms, and the u.n. itself has so much difficult over the question of economic rights. so there's a lot of interesting speculation as to what the u.n. would've looked like had roosevelt lived. >> thank you. >> well, thank you all so very much. [applause] >> all this week on c-span has brought you live gavel to gavel coverage of this year's republican national convention and have a florida. this is the final session. among the speakers former florida governor jeb bush, marco rubio and presidential nominee mitt romney. watch every minute, every speech on c-span. enemy time here on c-span2 its booktv all day everyday throughout the conventions with highlights of nonfiction authors and books from this past year.

and on c-span3 also throughout the conventions 24 hours of american history tv with lectures, oral histories and a look at historical american sites and artifacts. >> tonight in primetime on booktv, journalist lindsey hill some talks about her coverage of the february 2011 uprising in libya and the eventual overthrow of libyan soader moammar gadhafi. >> one of the peoples who story i tell embodies what i think a lot of libyans do. po i met him in tripoli. he's the guy who makes the half moons, copper half moons. he bangs them out. he told me how in 1969 he lovedn moammar gadhafi. he came to power and he thought yes, we have arrived as a country. we're going to be like egypt because the pan-arab leader who gaddafi. was in egypt at that time, and

he went running out, hed nstrating his support. and felt that this was libya's chance to enter the modern world. and that is exactly what happened. su i said what made you change your mind?this wa he said well, in the '70s ithatl would go home from work. people would say don't go down the street because they haved in erected gallows and someone isp hanging.say so he said then i saw how we just picked up his enemies. and then one day, men in plainclothes surrounded the seek and they grabbed mohammed and he spent the next 11 years in the army. he ended up fighting the war in chad. the war in chavez got to be one of the most futile wars of the n world has ever known but it wasu over a strip of desert about 60 kilometers wide. and i have to county, this is w something that libby doesn't need is a bit more desert. there is plenty, believe me. and so this money which was originally spent on health caree

and education was now being spent on war and on terrorism. >> you can see the entire interview on the that the uprising tonight at 8 p.m. eastern here on c-span2. >> one of the imprints of anguish -- penguin publishing for disliking. joining us is the director of publicity, carolyn coleburn. ever wanted to ask you about some of the books that are coming out the fall of 2012 from viking. let's start with our friend kevin. >> kevin phillips coming in on as a great historian and analyst kevin phillips coming out with 1775 this december. and what kevin does is, he debunks the myth that 70 to 76 the watershed year, the american revolution. instead looks at 1775 pounds the pivotal year. when all the events and

conflicts were happening. and so analyze 1775. and usually kevin fashion, is very nuanced, teaches research. it will be controversial as many of kevin's books are. >> if viewers are fans of kevin phillips, he did our in depth broke ran. you can go to booktv.org and you can watch three hours of kevin phillips. just go to the search function in the upper left hand corner. carolyn coleburn, i wanted to ask you also about another book that is coming out. this is the party is over. >> i think the subtitle says it all. this is how the republicans went crazy. the democrats became useless, and the middle class got shafted. so the subtitle says it all. mike lofgren is a 20 year veteran of capitol hill, and he really lays it all out on what

is wrong with our government. >> is that coming out before the election? >> it is coming out in early august just in time for all the conventions and election, just. >> caroline to marjorie. >> yes. american ladies. it is a biography on susan mary olcott, a true american aristocats. she was married to joe also and she was a georgetown, washington, d.c. socialite. kissinger once said of her that more decisions and things were made in her living room and in the white house. she really brought so many movers and shakers in the u.s., and to the world together. so it's a real delight. >> did in a new biography of joe just cannot? >> i believe so. i think there's a play on broadway, two. >> with john lythgoe.

which we know about viking? how old is viking? >> oh, i think it's something like 79 years. i should know the exact. you know the birthdate of viking and i don't and i'm sorry. i know the logo, the beautiful viking ship. so yes. >> what kind of titles do you look for? >> award-winning serious non-fictions, literary fiction, but we also enjoy the commercial fiction as well. a wide breath of newsmakers, and we really focus on books and authors that tell, the dialogue and learn more and start getting people curious. >> we are here at book expo america, the book publishing industry annual convention in new york city. how important is a convention

like this to your business? >> i think it's incredibly important, especially now when everybody is just talking about the physical book versus the e-book. it's all about reading. that's all that getting excited about the books. look at all these great covers, and then walking over to the others and just doing what people are excited about. is really important to get the dialogue going. >> as director of publicity, how has your job changed in the last couple of years with the advent of e-books, et cetera? >> its change in terms of our focus on social media. our mainstream media, npr and the review coverage really important and crucial as ever. but also our social media campaigns have just grown exponentially. and i just know that we been really focusing on the social media and the blogs as a really important part of our campaign in launching a book.

and the office presence online as well is really important. >> i want to ask you about one more well-known author, viking father, ray. >> how the mind works, we are coming out with his book in early october. and he is such a full futurist. and in his upcoming book he talks about the reverse engineering of the brain. completely understand the brain and how that will then help us create new technology and future machines. fascinating. >> we been talking with carolyn coleburn, director of publicity at viking press. >> coming up today on booktv >> former "new york times" supreme court reporter linda greenhouse provides a look into the workings of the high court. then it is in depth with author and screenwriter on some of his works including ringing down the

house, the accidental builders and his newest release, sex on the moon. later lindsay hilton talks about her coverage of 2011 libyan revolution. >> spend the weekend in ohio's state capital, columbus, as booktv, american history and c-span's local content vehicles look behind the scenes at the history and literary life of ohio's largest city. on booktv on c-span2, browse the rare books collection at ohio state university. ulysses was originally published between 1918 and a similar 1920, in an american periodical called the little review. and we have copies of all of those as well. the reason i brought this out today is not so much to show you this first edition, ulysses, but to show you a later addition of ulysses that is extremely rare. 1921 the american government declared it obscene and pornographic. and the book was banned. people still wanted to read it, however, and we actually have a copy of one of the pirated

editions. if you notice the spine, alice in wonderland, and the little minister. >> throughout the weekend and saturday at noon eastern, literary life in columbus, ohio, with booktv and c-span's local content vehicles on c-span2. every weekend on c-span2's booktv, our afterwards programs feature authors of the latest nonfiction books interviewed by their peers of journalism, public policy, legislative and other fields. this weekend, juan williams on how the foundation of america's middle class had been dismantled by washington and wall street. >> now on booktv linda greenhouse, former supreme court reporter for "the new york times," examines the inner workings of the high court. she explores the day-to-day operations of the court from out