the bestselling everything bad is good for you came out in 2005. the ghost map in 2006, the invention of air in 2008. where good ideas come from came out in 2010, and his most recent just on the market is "future perfect." mr. johnson, thank you for being on "in depth." >> guest: thank you, peter. it was a lot of fun. ..

>> on the national mall in washington dc, a new book is presented by lien-hang nguyen. the book is called "hanoi's war." lik to >> well, have you been up to that introduction? ofs i would like to just thank the folks at the library of congress for letting me be a part of hete wonderful event. i am sure that everyone here ina the template agree with meme whn i said that the vietnam war t figures largely in the american

memory.nces with e the war seems very reason, kept alive by constant references. r in more frequently, my very own "new york times" op-ed about a vietnam, which was heard last vn month. the vietnam war still feels verb president. this is not surprising in theest the war, which is still america's longest war shook the foundations of u.s. society. he reached into nearly every american home your military thri service, participation and protest movement, and evenizens through television and everydayt citizens and their leaders

debated the merits this far-off place in southeast asia. over 56,000 american lives werey lost.istory she nation was torn asunder. a no wonder it doesn't seemthe ncient history. this feeling that the vietnam war had just transpired is even more culpable. although my parents, who are here today, rarely talked about vietnam, my father was, would admonish me, focus, focus pi on the present and future homework done.ece i was able to piece together what happened in 1975. i will make this sound like myrh parents are typical workingtesn immigrants, but they will only a share their story with how we

made it to the united states yea 1975 when i told them that ith, was for a class assignment. finl in one fell swoop, i got my le homework done and the history. e when i land, when i was five not months old, my family come andn you have to understand that family in thefa vietnamese contd doesn't mean that nuclearaal aud context. grandm my family including my mom and dad, my maternal aunt and grandmother and the elder brothers and sisters, just barely escaped saigon in 1975. it was full of twists and turnsk and happenstance. we easily could have been sucke back in vietnam rather than escape to america. so on that day, and it was april 29, 1975, as white chr tristmas layout played out again and again on the american radio station, this was thenel signal for u.s. personnel to s

move to our evacuation points and cities. my father who had served in the top vietnamese army understood that it was time that we, too, prepared to leave our home his country. for months, he and his kin had planned possible escape routes and finally decided on one.safe. his cousin had access to a helicopter that can carry everyone's safety. fly he and my dad decided on the day of the escape, we would fly the rlicopter above our house whico would indicate my dad to roundl. up the family members and get everyone to the nearby high school so on that chaotic morning when many saigon these were scrambling on the streets,e as the imminent collapse of their government drew near, my dad and his cousin told this helicopter, which had suffered

heavy shelling and bombing, thee were actually denied entry. my dad turned homed and my cousn attempted entry by himself and was eventually successful., he when my i got her the helicopter blades above his house, despite one the militia, he knew it was time native there was one snack. my mom did not want to leave her wa native land. you have to understand that bacs then, nothing was clear.here in her head, she got even if you could escape the city, where would we go my mom turned to my dad and said, take the somethinm go for immediate fear not that of a family that b could be le divided.ernal she had the ingenious plan to bring her maternal grandmother

into the equation. she was always the smartest one. states he eventually went on to get his phd in nuclear physics in the united states. was my grandmother, she was, she was cent an adventurous spirit. at she fled her home village in central vietnam when she was 19 yearsat old.wanto be in the late 1920s. she did this because she did not want to be married off to ane older gentleman.he set instead, what she did is set her sights on saigon, which back beautiful city, which the french colonialists had made their own. my c grandmother than raise her family in the city and watched as the orient transformed into the advent of u.s. troops. eager to explore new lands my grandmother did not need anyther convincing to leave in 1975. sir my mother and sister had no e whol choice but to follow their mother. once my parents decided that tho

whole family on tuesday, the next step was to gather all of t their children and their belongings. task, especially as you may recall, i had eight older brothers and sisters. af the first attempt failed.ag after waiting two hours at the agreed rendezvous site, the helicopter never showed.in my dad found out later when we were all facing the united the states, that his cousin had actually ran out of fuel and had to return to the air base.set ot at this point, my eternal uncle re set outtu to find another meansf escape while the rest of us returned home. we immediately prepared to leavt in theo car cargo though. old

just as we were about to set out from one of mtiy brothers went t to play with one of his cousinsi about telling his parents were he was going. fortunately, he did not allow his younger brother to tag along. what i can only gather was that the f proverbial last-minute become my brother in the nick or time and were able to proceed bt down to the saigon river.rhapsu by the time we made it down to the river front, the cargo vote that could perhaps carry about k dozen people on a good day was thepacked. fortunately, there was room enough for our large group reade the story does not end there. although we were safely on the t boat, albeit huddled together,e. this gave him enough time to locate relatives and help them flee. his first in what would be his only stop would be to his inc maternal aunt's home wouldson.

become another sister taking care of for poor children, including an infant son. hnd although she wanted to leave,myd she couldn't and her husband was not with them.ain in the my dad could not convince her to go and it would be 20 years and we saw them again in the unitede states. we found out through theiry w letters that her husband, who had served in the south army, was sent to war. reeducation camp after the war. upon leaving, my aunt's home, pt the sound of gunfire brought my th dad back to the moment.ome he realized at that point that he had to abandon his plans toir locate relatives. the saigon streets had become tooifr dangerous.t, which upon returning to thel th riverfront, however, he was aghast to find that the boatsedt which i carried all that he had loved had crossed to the othercn side of the river. his heart sank. it would take a half a days drive day's drive to reach the other side of the river, nevermind that he would have tot

dodge bullets on weight and the boat and set out at any time. ri at the last minute, heour boat, eventually managed to get across the river. 29t a boat let saigon at night on april 29, and by midmorning the next day, we made our way 80 several miles to a coastal city about 80 miles south of saigon.d there, the boats captain told ud that he would not go further and ordered all passengers disembark onto an abandon u.s. ammunition barge. can you imagine my parents seral dismay? that my family, this is how much we crammed onto that boat, we haded no idea what to do., bac meanwhile, the barge was floating dangerously closer anda closer back to the coast and tht short area and to a country that had just fallen that day.ed th once communist forceser discoved

there were actual people on the barge trying to flee, they began firing more rounds at us. what must've seemed like an u entire lifetime later to myss parents, we were finally rescued by the uss blue ridge, the-- flagship of u.s. fleet. finally, we arrived in india gap, pennsylvania.living when i asked my older sister, who had just entered her teenage years in 1975, what living in af refugee camp was like, she described it as fun.friend much like a long sleep over wits good friends. w of course, to the adults, it was anything but fun. the camps, however, were only temporary measures. with good fortune and re episcopalian congregation in reading, pennsylvania, sti eventually sponsored us and we settled in pennsylvania where my family still resides today. growing up in a working-class neighborhood in post- vietnam mc

war america, my family faced much determination.viet we are the only vietnamese in town and many of our neighbors have lost loved ones in that. war. the first few years were rough. eventually, the wounds of the were killed and we became goodpa friends. as for my parents, they had tong quickly get over the shock of losing their homeland and being separated fromes loved ones, si. many of their siblings failedree tuesday.ss of we are not alone here.ded as a when i returned to vietnam, ind heard heartbreaking stories of how families became divided as a result of split-second decisions made under duress.planes brothers walking off boats, thinking that there sisters havo been sucked back, only to find that their sisters did manage tt erief aside my mom and dad,g at theiron n nine children,ew must have setud their grief aside and focus ongl isfor new life in the united states. knowing onlyun rudimentary a

english, my father found work as a track welder for the railroad and my mother foundked employmet as u.s. f postal clerk. it'll work the night shift for 25 years. somehow, they managed to always wake up before i did. i don't know quite how they did it. they worked so hard. thro my parents managed to put online is through university. we went on to become engineers,] scientists, lawyers, and even a college professor. thank you. [applause] it is the american dream story. it wouldn't be -- i wouldn't be

here if not for the vietnam wars i can't help but be gratefulunt. that this good fortune came at h certain time. it this ambivalent position droveyt me to find out more about this d sar, what caused it, why did itn end in the way that he did, and why did americans and overseasth vietnamese populations have such a tough time recognizing that their defeat. when i went off to college, iwhe saw answers to these questionsos in my history book. vietnam out of the united states become involved in vietnam during the cold war?ome what was the vietnam war likerno the vietnamese and why did it become international conflict?al my own journey into vietnam war, albeit an intellectual one, us begin a graduate in graduate school and more specifically an office of my dissertation was advisor who gave a stellar talk on stage earlier today.

john's work on the cold war, which included the u.s. archives to put forth the classic account of american foreign-policy and the postwar era, inspired me to. try to do the same with the vietnam war. this was going to be no easysh,d task. books on the warfield library shelf at the library shelf. so how can anyone say anythinget new about an event that has been studied so thoroughly. l what i discovered was that wein actually knew very little about what was happening in hanoi in the enemy's capital.parts, counterparts, especially those in the north, have received shockingly littleh attention. t how is it that wehe could know e much about the american side of the war and so little about the vietnamese side when a it just so happened that i entered graduate school at a time when archives from the former andent

present communist world had begun to open their doors.ttempd athn's arm and support, i can tell the story through hanoi's eyes. i wanted to find answers to an questions that had eluded manage people. he was in charge in north vietnam, why did her struggle become an international conflict, and how do they manage to defeat the strongest overpower the world had ever seen? about being in the right place at the rightcu time. although it had been difficult for overseas vietnamese to return to the country in the 1980s, by the time i began to carry out research in the late 1990s, things were different.hew nonetheless, i did face some discrimination. as is the case with most patriarchal societies around the world, it was difficult for me,a as a young vietnamese american woman, to be taken as a serious scholar of the war in vietnam.rn this is a weighty topic that only older men can tackle in the country. and many other ways, my gender

and my youth may have helped.ias as a woman, male officials consistently underestimated me. being five months old, i cannot make could not make the decision to stay or leave. so although the party, the military, and the foreign ministry archives are closed, precisely the archives that would shed the most light on hanoi's war, i did manage to get into the foreign ministry archives. i find this amazing because they don't even allow their own scholars into their archives. only officials from the foreign ministry could do research in there. but i did get to see theno what documents of the foreign ministry archives.e to what i have to admit is what ist saw was not oequivalent to what we are able to see, the same sort of documents that we would be able to see in our very own - national archives. i was, however, grateful for the opportunity, and i hope there lr will not be the only scholar to

be able to enjoy this privilege. in addition to the foreign ministry archives, i did gain entry into the vietnamese national archiver. share i have one story to share with c you, this is what i call mybasie closest indiana jones moment. after a few months of doing research in the archives, basically, the entire staff has become pretty used to me.my after a while, they started tote let me get my own documents ande my own folders that were behindt the archivist in the reading. room. i when i write in the morning, hah my own folders and was able to look through them. what i saw was about, it wasd about every day that theuch archivist would leave for a class that she had to w go 10.on so oftentimes, i was left alone in the reading room and thereg was no rarchivist and no other, archivist present. them, went t

justo like i did so many timesag before she was in the room, i wh was grabbed the folders on my desk.s there was one with the big w checks on the casover.ically and i thought, what is not? i openedhat it.ocuments what it revealed, i was gasping in shock, was basically a folder that included documents on thest negotiations with henry kissinger. this was the negotiation that took place in paris. and i thought, wow, how did i get to see this?contents o because before that i didn't get to see that. so i started copying by hand the context of this letter. the next day, when i went back, because i had returned the e next folder without copying down all go u the document, i went back thep r next day and the archivist, was sh back. m and i went upe to her, this time she handed me my folders. and i looked and i try to find one with the big checks. nod i said, i'm missing a

folder, there was one with that, letter asked and she was like, you are not allowed to see that, course, no, no, no. and i said, oh, okay. of course, i waited and i divided my time and she eventually had to go back to classes and i was able to cover the entire contents of that folder. have to sp i had visions of my family and your may go to jail i'll put dan quotes and politics of doing research on the war as a i had visions of my family having to rescue me from jail. one out-of-print book was oned l that i would not tradeea for anything. i neatly fell in love with a country that my parents were not

afraid to leave and countrymen that could've been my friends. what i found was well worth any difficulty that i encountered.cg in particular, michael tallento. is much of the received wisdomva concerning the vietnam war. i put forth manytt new argumentn that overturn what we thought we knew about that conflict. although nothing is definitive e wantl all of the collections in hanoi are made available. i would like to spend my remaining time discussing a few of these files with you. first, most vietnam war history books identify g-man and the famous general as the primary leaders during hanoi's war against the united states or in reality, the person that was the architect and main strategist and commander-in-chief of communist war effort is largely unknown. deh, although he ruled from 1959 chtil 1986, he had somehowmu

escaped the scrutiny of scholard working on out more. much of this was his own doing. thanks to an unrivaled know-how, the decision was dominated within the communist party. thus, i argue that in order to u understand hanoi's world, one k, must analyze the life and career of this man come and i do this in the book. i traced the rise of his rise to oper power from the time he is so operating in the mequon delta,wh in the 1940s and 50s, whenmes te he rises to power and assumes the general secretary positiongt in 1960. regard related to my argument regarding neutrality, i challenge the

conventional betrayal of thegh e communist leadership of the collective decision-making body. although it is true that theorth north vietnamese party was far e less bloody than its chinese and soviet counterparts, it was nothing like mao's china for the fallen soviet union, i argue that oftentimes power struggles resulted in bloodshed. in particular, i found that it had marginalized the very men that we associate with this ward ho chi minh in the general.s. he eventually set them off to hard labor camps. was

what was my most amazing mindsts was the connections between the arrest of the deputies in 1967ty and the hundreds of influentialb parties. eventually come the arrests were carried out to ensure what was to be the 1968 controversial offensive.ly impoant the military plans were debated heavily in hanoi. i argue that one has todomestic understand more generally the impact of vietnamese domesticr. politics on the making of "hanoi's war." most history warm -- during thi,

period, and south vietnamese forces were being eradicated byr side on troops.tion, according to the interpretation, hanoi's war was a protectiveviee measure. party although i agree that the cry for help was important, what i found was that party leaders might also had internal problems. their own internal problems on their minds when they made the decision to go to war. following an unpopular and c unsuccessful land reform campaign, facing increasing opposition and criticism among d the intelligentsia and the major cities in north vietnam, and finding the road to socialism all of extremely difficult with plans that were not coming toin fruition, party leaders in hanoi concluded that revolutionary war in the south had the power to deflect from the party's domestic problems in the north. oomb wag the dog, so to speak. in in addition to bringing lu han

to center stage in the story, i milita off also reveal how the military strategy prevented him from compromising at the negotiating table and how war weariness affected north vietnamese society.re and how many were disorganizedgo and they manage to obstruct ti withdrawal, which is something we most likely will see in afghanistan, and how hanoi'sve policy diplomacy events questnsa eventually seceded america'ssume politics. i now put forth answers questions have a long consumedpy journey. the my historian's brain has are to. come up with new questions that will shape my next foray into that war. with that, i will take any questions that you may have.

[applause] arch >> and your experiences in the archives in hanoi, in vietnam, s lot of times, governments make decisions based on intelligence that goes on. a lot of americans were against the war. how do we determine the excelleo strategies and to do research on the back?zing >> what i saw in the archives is that the north vietnamese were much better at analyzingour domestic u.s. politics than oury american leaders were. they did spend a lot of time you looking at what was going on in mee united states. you can even see this and henry kissinger's memoirs and on his record and in the archives and

the american archives over heres kissinger had brought up what was going on in congress and in the street. to try to battle kissinger and d who would always answer this is, beneath me, i'm not going to i talk about what's going on in the united states. vietse in but in the end, i believe that the north vietnamese leaders never really rely upond negotiations to win the war. t they knew that they haveo to wii on their own, and it had to be militarily on the ground. thank you.x >> several years ago i had the opportunity to travel around vietnam for six weeks. about half the time in theed to north, about half the time in the south. in talking with people, myle ine impression was that people in the north, very proud of having defeated the united states, great power, people and this

out, very sad that the united states had not in someway awa managedy to stay with communist. is that consistent with your p understanding of the point of view of people in the northern truesouthern parts of vietnam today? >> i would generally say that id true, mainly because of where you were pre-1975 when the country was divided, the north being the democratic and the public and without beingmuch america's ally during the war, there was not much movement ta after 1975. there was an influx of party officials in hanoi moves southyu to take over key positions. but on the whole, i don'set thiu many south vietnamese moved hav, north. know, so you still have, you know, those allegiances for some.tical and for the vast majority whoegc didn't have any politicales, i allegiances, were basically in the countryside, i would say

that generally i also think that would be true for those in the lsve a south might have also possibly been sad about those defeats ing the north being proud. that has more to do with the populations in 1975 really leave. ag so you have this political allegiances thatthe did exist h the north fighting against the united states and the south wou fighting on the same side as the united states. so that is how i would answer that question.fuge >> thank you for your work.he e i am a fellow refugee who came over around the same time. lot we have been well about thehat class warfare between south vietnam during the war and how devastated the war effort, i guess the mythology about the north is that the war that was

coalesced and unified the natiof and i was wondering if you founn any evidence of similar classme? strikes in the north.s he in thell south, my parents alwas said that life in the north was hell, they didn't even have electricity or refrigerators there. of course, that's not the party's mantra. i would like to find out if you found there were similar struggles between the well-to-do in oslo to do and what. >> i alluded a little bit of that in my talk that this campaign. that was before the war began. as from 1953 to 1956, the party carried out what was land reform and party organizational committees, which was to redistribute wealth to those in positions of power.iously what and so that would obviously, it was class warfare.

the policies were deeplynd unpopular. there was bloodshed, there were courts that were built t throughout the country. by the time the war began, initially there was a became unpopular that there was more weariness. although't i cannot, you know, e evidence is quite hidden, you s can't easily find it in theteris archives, what i did see was thf material from the ministry of public security. and the ministry of public security is in charge ofand maintaining security. fou in t what lu han been without its grip on any dissent. only through the speeches and i the erials that i found was able to know that this existed.

they said themselves that therep are so many people opposing the war, they don't know what'she going on.tori o we need to nip this in the bud.e i found stories about yellows and the music. you weren't allowed to play it. since and i found the musicians, and they had been interviewed something in hanoi.they w they were arrested for playing wmantic songs, pre-1975 songs,i songs from other countries because it wasre considered do h unpatriotic and not something you do when people are dying. it is very difficult to find out about that in north vietnam. the in the country at the time. tha

thank you. >> we had read a lot about there history in chicago, the poor frc treatment of the french towardsw the enemy is. we were funding that war. we in the 1950s, france was broke. do you have any comments on ourf use of agent orange against the country that as far as we could find had not done anything to anybody? and were there any observations that you came across on the 1960 democratic convention?earn >> do you see any hope for this country learning something rather than perpetuating? oil i did meet some people who saide that they softshell oil trucks crossing the front lines in vietnam. i don't know if you can shed any kind of life or ties todu the ol

industry as part of this. thank you. actll >> in terms of agent orange, i h didn't actually run across much of that. in terms of what i saw for documents and other states. wou if i were alive in vietnam, ierc would i have opposed americanat, intervention. i think the situation over there was already complicated, andar h what u.s. intervention did was make the war much bloodier than it hadta to be. at the same time, like i said, e feel extremely fortunate, and ie a lot to the men who served boti in the united states and the republic of vietnam, i find it a very difficult position. in terms of your question about what was going on, in terms of

north vietnam and did they sort of analyze what was going on in 1968, i did come acrossders documents that the north vietnamese leaders were saying that we really hope humphrey wins and we should try to help them win. we would get terrible terms under nixon. but they that kind of realized that too little too late, they weren't able to sort of, you know, try a propaganda campaign, a marketing campaign, so to speak, in order to help humphrey.humpey instead, what i found was the u.s. allies in saigon, they were much more calculating and in the end, put more resources into helping nixon win.o i have read in many places that they actually -- that it mattered because nixon did win. >> thank you very much.ecause i have a question about

intelligence. before the united states within a war with any country, they nould have to go [inaudible] o my question is, is that politics like intelligence -- from- intelligence -- or do they get it right? >> which is somewhat recently ii y archives,l securit if you look at the documents, the second attack never happened. this is what gave lbj, he knew then that the north vietnamese torpedo votes did not carry outh the secondap attack. kne tha therefore, you know, you couldan see so many similarities, especiallyh we would have intoht the war in ira iq and everywher. in short to say that yes,

documents were doctored.ve >> with the benefit of hindsight, and archival any ldsearch, were there any cou policies were strategies thatim the united states could have adopted at the time to achieves. objectives?ians >> there are two types of historians. h historians love to do theat,hat counter actuals, and those who's on the other side, it was a goou question. i would say no. even thoughy i say that in certain ways, the unsung heroes of my book are basically ho chi minh and general lu han, they were the moderates of the war. t it would be incredible to thinkb about how how different the world and how they have been b involved. it would've been far less bloody for the vietnamese communists. but there was no way that wee could have defeated him. so even one of the things thatcb

his damage that american bombings was doing in north s vietnam, had we been more supportive of the moderates in north vietnam, one could never know, that's the only thing that i could say that maybe hasn'tttn been paid a little bit more attention to in the internal politics and the politics going on. >> i can take one more questionm >> you may have partially address this question. and you may not want to answer from your previous response. i see a lot of parallels between vietnam and afghanistan.ing and supporting and installing a corrupt government.

the war of insurgency one minute they are plowing fields and the next minute they are shooting at you. you know, misguided policy, would you care to draw any othe, observations? >> you know, if i can get your e-mail address, i will send you my "new york times" op-ed, whici does more comparisons and that imll answer a few of them for tt you. can i'm sorry, i think the time has run out. but for you that have questions, can be over here and take them. >> this event was part of the 2012 national book festival in washington dc. for more information, visit loc.gov lash up fast.

here is a look at more booksellers in turn book fair is coming up seattle antiquarian book fair and west viginia book festival. the three-day southern festival of books in nashville, tennessee, it features well-known authors and almost every genre of writing. on october 27 and 28, we attended the texas book festival in austin, texas. it was started in 1995 by laura bush and is held at the state capitol building. please let us know about book fairs in your area and we will be happy to add them to our list or e-mail us at at

booktv@c-span.org. on our recent visit to avesta, maine, booktv spoke with pulitzer prize-winning journalist barbara walsh. she talks about her book "august gale." >> "august gale" is a story of two storms. once one is about a hurricane that word up the coast in 1935. and headed straight for newfoundland. where were my ancestors lived in the fishing village. during that time, these men sailed in 15-foot stories and scooters that were 40 or 60 feet. they had no warning of this devil, as they called it. as it went up the coast. where my grandfather was born, 300 people lost little 42 children -- 42 children lost their fathers so it was devastating for them. yet the other part of the storm

is my grandfather. growing up, i never knew anything about him. as my father would refuse to talk about him. the book alternates between the real storm in 1935 and my grandfather, who created his own storms. i wrote this book because after i saw the movie, the perfect storm, i sat in the theater, and that movie resonated with me. i am irish and i am connected to the water, and i sat there. and i said, i can do that. two years later, when i talked to my father, and i said dad, i want to write books come and he said, what kind? and i said sort of like perfect storm. he said you have a story like that in your family. and he talks about the august scale that killed several of our ancestors in this tiny village.

many of them died and i was just like oh, it's a great story. then he tells me another piece about my grandfather. the man i never knew who, at the time, newspapers were swirling around his feet after the gale. he reads that there were only fishermen killed in the august gale. he knows all about that storm and he just loses it. he knows all the men in the storm. my father tells me these two pieces of information. and then he says maybe we can get in touch with family. and i'm thinking, family? i never knew anything about ambrose because he abandon my dad and my dad refused to talk about him. so on this night in my home in maine, i dream of giant waves in the grandfather that i had never met. i began our research into the august gale. i spent nine years researching.

my dad and i and my sister interviewed the survivors, people who lost their fathers in the storm, we interviewed people who remember the gale and what it had done to them. what the priests remember, going door-to-door to tell all these families who have lost a son or a husband or three sons and one husband, so was just, it was an event in their lives, sort of like their 9/11. it was a natural disaster that took all of their fathers away. the other piece during that trip is learning about my grandfather. i have never even seen a picture of him. my father was very ambivalent about going to newfoundland. but i was like, dad, we have to research this one. as we approached the rocks,

glaciers great island, i was overwhelmed at the motion of this island where my grandfather had lived and my dad was born. and i said, did you ever think this would have been? and he said not in a million years. i was terrified because i cobbled this trippy like for him? will be very emotional? it was, in part. we were meeting people that said yes, your father was a great man. and my dad would say, well, he deserted us. it was kind of a mixture of emotion. but we interviewed so many of these men and women, these maritime men and women who remember the storm and the night it came. many of them saw spirits. they are all very irish. the night of the gale, many of them saw their fathers, who returned to their homes, it was

a very interesting story to interview them and then interview some of the fishermen that are out in the gale. as these waves rose from 40 up to 60 and 80 feed, they were just praying, let us get home. a few of them dead. many of them did not. it was just a story that resonated because of my irish background. but the families were so grateful. because no one had told the story for them. this book has brought me together with my newfoundland family that i never even knew existed. oftentimes, many of these people -- they are all cousins who are related. it was also fascinating to learn about captain patti who is my was my great uncle. he was a legendary fishermen and he had never lost a man in 25 years. he was fearless.

many of the irish catholic fishermen would go to see what the crosses, their holy water, and captain patti would go up to the top and shout i am not afraid of you. he was known for bringing home the most caught. so in the storm, people could not believe that captain patti did not make it home. during the storm, they all feared the august hurricanes because it was the start of the august hurricane season. the night before he set sail, his wife said, please, don't go very because not only was he going to see, he was taking his 12-year-old son and his 12-year-old son and his eldest son, james, was on another

schooner. so during this storm, he was out new sea or if this was all research. he was last seen in adoring >> he was last seen in a schooner with his eldest son, james for the last time. incredible scenes and the research. many people have memories and have witnessed certain types of the storm and could help me re-create, you know, having seen paddy and having seen the priests and let the family know, that your father is not coming home. it is incredible piece of

history for me. as a journalist that interviewed many different people, this was my family. it was hard because i was related to everyone. my grandfather and one of the toughest people pieces -- i did not want to tell the story about my grandfather, i wanted to tell the story part about my storm. but the family car was digging up too much pain in my father's childhood. i originally was not going to tell that part of the story but my grandfather seemed to be pushing his way in. so i finally said, i have to tell his story, too. it is it's funny because a lot of people that read it say ambrose was a, and i would say, no, he made some bad choices. he wasn't a bad man.

he said i wonder if my journal's granddaughter will come find me, and i did. only many years later after he had died. so i had felt like i had gotten to know my grandfather. he never deserted his second family. he was a hard worker during the war. he was a hard worker many times. he loved his children and he kept the picture of my father and my uncle when they were young in brooklyn, he packed up

his baby, he snuck out of the house, he left my father my uncle was about a year and my nana closed the door, stole my aunts car and drove away with his mistress and his baby that was just born. and then made his way to san francisco. and he decided, oh, i miss my family come and call them out again, only to leave them again, get the mistress pregnant again and my nana had a nervous breakdown. so that was the part that my father could not forgive. you abandon us once, but why did you call us out to san francisco? my father, i think the book, too, it has been healing for my father. he would never, if someone said ambrose's name, he left the room

and would not talk about him. so this book, suddenly, my father's word is out there. i think it has been good for him. >> i think the story of forgiveness, the story of the sea end of realizing that they were fighting a storm at sea. the courage and the time gone by, there are still fishermen to go out. i think these people, the historical piece is a very difficult time. we barely survived when they came home and they were so hard-working. they just never gave up. the women would raise their children in a much simpler way. they have gardens and for me, it was something that i learn learned from. they worked very hard to survive.

the government was in there to help them. today, a lot of people says that the government helps too much. i mean, these people -- they survived on their own. they were very hard-working. and i think the family -- the connection to family -- newfoundlanders -- family means more than anything to them. that is such a great value. my father always said there is nothing more important than family. and i think that that is because he knew his father abandoned him. if you or their cousins, they can't do enough for you. for me, the peace is as well. there is nothing more important family. i learned that from the book in many ways. >> augusta, maine, was first established by english others in 1629. they were settled as a town in 1754. the city is now the capital of

maine. booktv visited the city with the help of our partner, time warner, to explore the historical and literary atmosphere. >> i think people like to read a variety. beaucoup enjoyed reading stephen king's books. and you have people that like reading about small-town maine. readers also like nonfiction stories about people similar to them. you know, they want to read stories about states that are landlocked. so i'm not sure they are typical readers, but i think my same thing, there are people who want a good story. you know? and not a pretentious story. i think you often see people who may be wealthy, but they all wear flannel shirts and they don't show off their wealth. they want people who are true

people want stories about simple people who go about their lives. they take from what they know. writers in maine take from what they know. they write about what mars and families and historical things that have happened. they love their sea stories. they're real stories about the past. joshua chamberlain, you know, he was courageous during the civil war. i think that mainers, most of them are very proud of their history, and they want to learn about leaders who have inspired, you know, the people of maine, senator susan collins, elizabeth snow, people enjoy knowing more about their history and their past. >> watch the tv all weekend to

see more of our recent visit to augusta, maine. for more information on this and other cities, visit our local content vehicles, go to c-span.org/local content. here is look at a look at some books that are being published this week. in the book "there was a country", chinua achebe, author of numerous books, including things fall apart, writes an account of the civil war in nigeria from 1967 to 1970. larry berman, author of several books on vietnam profile the commander navy forces in vietnam and the chief of naval operations from 1970 until 1974 in the life of admiral zumwalt. the book "zumwalt." and then political commentators argue that american sovereignty is in jeopardy. a global editor at large argues

that with the emergence of new technology markets, a select few have been able to separate themselves into an extremely wealthy group of individuals with unprecedented political and social influence in the book "plutocrats." and david coleman, director of the university of virginia's miller center presidential recordings program, utilizes his eagerly recorded tapes from the kennedy administration to examine the end of the cuban missile crisis. and a book on the life of charles darwin. in darwin, portrait of a genius. look for these titles and book stores this coming week. and watch for the authors on booktv and booktv.org.