constitution gave the government the power to do certain things. this had not commenced as the 1930's. >> again, the november 2012 elections. >> that no one to talk about 2012. and tired of 2012. less talk about the future. 2012 was a very difference. were going to have to figure out a way to appeal to a bitter electorate. >> a year running for president? >> that is classified. your parents is not high enough to your hat. i wouldn't -- want to be part of the national debate. >> government bullies, the second book by senator rand paul, however day americans are being harassed and abused by an imprisoned by the fed's. >> now on book tv a history of the american revolution with the focus on the middle colonies. new york, new jersey, and portions of pennsylvania. the author recalls the importance of the region during the war and visits several sites

to document their historical significance and it plans date today. from washington's crossing of the dollar to the battle of brooklyn, it is about an hour and 15. [applause] >> this subtitle of this book is old irishman. it is a great honor to introduce the author and my friend, robert sullivan. i have known to geniuses in my life. one is dead, and the other, robert sullivan, is alive. although that reversal in is not the robber solomon he was receiving. not exactly, but more but then the moment. first, brazil and is the author of seven extra hour bucks. meadowlands, will hunt, how not to get rich, rats, cross-country , the throw you don't know, and the one that brings us here, my american

revolution. in mine and humble opinion each of these books is its own line and masterpiece. wonderfully idiosyncratic, uniquely incisive. each is an investigation of the american my state and song skate into relative with the american landscape. fleet contends the obvious, whether a garbage dump comes or the species despise rodents or family richard or a transcendental and back and allows us to see what we didn't and will we couldn't will we didn't want to, the spiritual, historical, and is essential connections that exposed, so vert, demolish are comfortable presumptions and require us to perceive people and places and, yes, ra t s with fresh eyes. i have been amazed, enlightened,

educated, entertained. none more so than my american revolution. until i read his book, i thought i was reasonably conversant for college graduate of 40 years ago about the american revolution. the war we all know, but mostly in massachusetts, virginia, and the carolinas. war in which the high road, no army barely survived an epic the punishing winter in valley forge pennsylvania. one after the other pump demolishes these myths and gives us an award centered around morristown new jersey and the watch on mountain. yes, you heard me right. i wore a% of which was fought on a terrain visible from the top of the empire state building. truth be told, however, as well as admiration, i have a grievance upon with both -- we're both irish and writers so we have to have grievances.

i have been heard and deeply disappointed and a personal level by juan ponce books. five years ago in the fall of 2007i reviewed how not to get rich. i praised it as a profoundly funny book. a year later in the fall of 2008 in the midst of an act of collective 70 in which the wall street dragged america and the world's economy went to their fleming funeral pyre, i realized that sullivan had not been getting in all. instead he had been writing prophecy. he disguised wisdom as wednesday . pell to include among his sure-fire ways not to get rich such as a maturing in anything with the word medieval and it or becoming a professional mandolin player, two of the most obvious ways of not becoming rich. first, leaving anything to anybody at any time. second from my perspective

investing as i did your entire life savings in a retirement run by a yellow time warner. now, as well as contributing editor in the fallout of a sextet of books he is co-author along with his patient long-suffering wife suzanne f2 incredibly talented -- talented children. louise, sam as attending yale. a four year institution. let me begin our discussion by putting out, the american revolution here on dentistry. the bill and seas were a promising new gun family fled to england and ireland and 16th century. a branch of the family subsequently emigrated to new york where they became major landowners. their state included a place where you know said, and i now stand. during the revolution, there

were among new york's most steadfast loyalists. oliver delancey joined s.i. in 1776, the battle of new york and raised and equipped the delancey brigade of three battalions consisting of 1500 loyalists volunteers who served as commanding officer. they fled new york at the end of the revolution. they left behind a street with their name on it and in the 19th century fell into the political sway of one of new york's great work healers, big time sullivan, an ancestor of bombs, the so-called gang of the bowery. the western end of the lancet street was subsequently renamed in honor of his mother who fled her native village during the great potato famine. i might add in the 1932 film james cagney plays an irish cab driver who can speak yiddish prompting act, to ask what part of ireland to you come from.

cagney replies to lance st. every mention of the outset, could not be with us tonight. that pop's old and had a previous engagement playing the mandolin for society from medieval studies in elizabeth majors in. things over to a ground breaking effort on the part of dreamworks studios disney animation workshops, the pentagon's three the project and the museum we have this digital facsimile that is being managed by the real bob sullivan. the genius on the other side of the hudson. let's welcome bob sullivan. >> so, let's cut to the chase. everything san know everything there is to know. >> i am thinking of all the result is ino, and most of them

he knew first. there are a lot of our solvents. it might not be me here tonight. thank you so much. we should stop right there. i'm so happy. and also -- >> that's fine. i can read from your book. >> it would be a better night. i know that it would be a better night. when i write books it is how long can you put off not writing the book. i won't write down one. and then a couple of books or ideas keep coming back. there are a lot of them, but i couldn't beat it down.

the air about the war. it's foggy. the other project that turns out to be one of my big projects or something is just to look around at the city and look at the landscape. this is a boring work, but to look up where we are. and so to go back to the strategy of the land. >> and serious. the book is an absolute revelation. i thought i knew about the american revolution. to discover -- discover that the cockpit, it's the kind of -- i mean you don't mention it in the book. but now we know that? added that escaped us? did you start out knowing that new jersey to markets see the entire revolution. >> someone reminded me, we lived in oregon for a lot of the 90's to my family.

before i went to oregon i used to go have lunch all the time. i remember this now. i was very happy after i wrote the book. a bunch of guys who work toward guides gave me free passes to the top of the empire. and that was great. we spent lunch attack. kind of obvious, but it's a great view. and so -- >> really? >> really. really great deal. i just remember, remember as a kid reading about lincoln and and saying, you know, this was where it all happened. i know, and he was trying to get votes in new jersey. but he kept saying, i know that reading all about the war, but what happened here. it happened in new jersey. and so there is always that idea.

and then if you hang out and start doing the math, while, most of the bells are here. but and then you get into why valley forge became the famous winter. then you look it anniversaries and the anniversary of the constitution happened. it did a big thing in philadelphia in the 1800's. the kind of pushed valley forge. even like it that crossing of the delaware, not a big deal for americans until the 1940's, 50's's, a local historian and it takes over, writes a book, sensitive general macarthur and japan. he commanded an inch to basically steals. she won't give a pack. people are getting married in front of it. she won't go back to an. >> to remember that painting is painted by a german. >> the rhine is used to pay debt. but that was then thinking about

other revolutions at the same time to be so love how do you think about revolution, but anyway, kind of climbing this landscape as that cockpit of revolution. some of two minds about that because first there is the idea that, while minority is looking at a year. i mean, there are plaques all-around. and you can find people who are thinking about it, short. the general understanding, massachusetts based were run by virginians. >> one of virginia and fun massachusetts. saratoga. of course battles and -- off the coast of georgia and panels in canada, and in the -- battle some western europe's, but the majority of battles are fought here. the interesting, the really interesting thing to me is that

most of the battles fought here, the big battles are lost, losses the really incredible achievements, logistical achievements are evacuation's. and those -- said that is proline number one reason that we don't celebrate this area in full force. >> the other x loughner side. about 8,000 americans were killed in action. >> but a 11,000 tiny and the prison ships. >> most of those are new york. 7,000 prisoners apparently perished. >> at think that to prison ships better off what is now the brooklyn navy yard, to prison ships have something like 11,000, it's an estimate. people bynum. and again, that points. they're not the people who you

would necessarily build a giant memorial for singularly. but, yes, those prison ships, washington protested the malta the war. people on the ships were not being fed, barely being fed to my dying and the ships. and if you got off, if you were an officer or if you had some money, but if you were neither of those things you died on them. and after the war even, you know, 47% unease. >> well, more people died in prison ships than all the battles. but after the work noted does anything about these prison ships. and people write in the ferry to manhattan. hey, i can see these folks out there, hoping runs. all of these bones are on a. and woodman is writing in the

1830's, 40's. we have to do something about this. we have made a memorial for general washington and all the business. by a beautiful statue down on wall street, but no one has done anything for the people who are not general washington's he don't have big business sponsors. of course on the ships there is not just americans, sailors from all over the world. significantly because of who has power into doesn't, a lot of african americans. and what is really interesting is, you know, in the modern time , to go to the fort greene park where those bonds are eventually moved, tammany hall takes up the cause of the bonds of one. >> and have them vote. so there put in a crypt. >> and the minute it is there now was built. for a crane, which used to be a

fork during the revolution. they are in there, and in that part decays. the 70's, the city was having a hard time. the people who took care of the park, and the guy and he was a member of black cowboys. you know, an african american guy, big social justice died. they call him the the mayor of fort greene in some quarters. he was extremely cool. he died right after i saw him give a kind of unplanned speech at the memorial given every year and so he had taking care of them for years when nobody cared about them. >> is the fiction verses the fact of american history, and mel gibson made a terrible movie, the patriot in which the colonialists offer african-american slaves their freedom if it will fight on their side. as you point out, it was the exact opposite. it was the britisher offered the

free. people forget the new york was a slave on a state until 1827. that's not a part of the popular consciousness. why did in every single african-american desert to the british? >> in know, i have read a couple of books on that. >> but you have african-americans fighting in the revolutionary. >> yes. in the first washington does not want them to fight mcconnell army. then he is one over. at the end of the war his -- washington's generals, many generals, lafayette especially says you have to freedom. he is reluctant to. you know. it is a long story, but they're is a kind of amazing moment of buy it nyack, wherever they were negotiating, when washington was negotiating the evacuation of new york which would later

become thanksgiving, for a writ will be celebrated, this giant parade, the evacuation day parade celebrated for years and years until it became the macy's the parade. >> my father went to st. bridget's. evacuation there was still celebrated. >> in that think boston celebrants -- well, the marathon. to but anyway, there is an amazing moment where washington is sitting there with the british. okay, yes, we are going to leave. we are initiating the end the war. you have to keep pier -- you have to allow the african americans who are fighting to be free. and if we release the slaves they're going to be free. the people have come to our side in washington says now. and so a lot of those people go to canada. so, young. it's a really ugly beginning.

the other thing is, i lived in brooklyn. it was the first time i ever became aware of the battle of brooklyn. my god, this is a gigantic event in american history. talk about logistics'. the british transported 25,000 troops and artillery to retake the port of new york. >> the best thing is that all of the diaries talk about the fleet coming in in the summer of 1776, beginning of the summer. >> two months after the declaration of independence. >> it was about two months of the declaration. the siege of boston to buy again, not trying to downplay it . "with the british were actually going to leave the money to buy there is this idea. some scholarship is said to me you know, the boston siege, the americans did and some much kick them out as the british were planning on leaving anyway. i'm not even going to go there. there is not a war on then.

there is a colonial, you know, a disturbance. but we declare war. i mean, we say we are independent of the summer. but the british sales back with what will be the largest invasion fleet until d-day, and all of the colonists notice in the diaries, the famous diaries that the fleet coming in. they concealed austenite. and that is -- sorry if that sounds strange, but the fun thing. i'm walking down the street and see the bridge for whatever brahman i think might wow. that's where i would have seen the entire british fleet right there. but the best thing that people notice, they talk about the forest of math. i love that. for two reasons. you can't just see a forest of mass. and because the british had run out of timber to make amassed, so there would either have to -- i read about them slicing trees together from north to germany

to meet some transactions, or there would have used trees from maine. from new england, new hampshire. massachusetts is pretty much not a tree place anymore. if cut down a lot of trees. so this forest is an american forest coming into the harbor. but the thing about saying that, some sort of having a hard time because i don't want to say -- i want to say, hey, look. all this happened here. and just as so many things happened in every place, but i don't want to champion pro way @booktv chair will be thrown. i don't want to say that the new york landscape is more important than any other landscape. i want to say that it was crucial and that the battle, and all happened here. i want to say that we ignore it because of the losses and

defeats. we should not ignore them. we should think about celebrating what we learn. >> i think? a great point in the book about weather in landscape and what other reasons washington is not conscious, river because men from marble had. >> the marble head sailors. the people from massachusetts to understand water. in the princetons when they crossed -- >> there are routed in brooklyn. >> routed in brooklyn. white plains battle happens this week. if you go up to the kids part to my guarantee somebody will be walking around. i ran into a guy. i said to him, white plains and he said to me yet. i have just read the nicole book. so they get routed of new york. there chased out of upper manhattan. for lee. forget it. raced across the meadowlands. this must be an amazing moment. there are leaving -- the cooking

stuff is left behind. they raced through all of the places that we can barely even talk about the much less celebrated. some of my favorite places in the world, castaic in newark and paterson, of work there. a lot of these places. we don't talk about these places we don't talk about these places. the race through the air. making notes on all the stuff is going to write. this is an incredible moment. there being chased, the continental army. everyone is ready to give it up. to your point about the marble header's because i am listening tour when they get down to the delaware which there will soon cross, they get down to the dollar. the marble had a say, i know of a crossing, but every boat within 20 miles, get all the boats on the other side just in case we need them. that happened also when there

were in new york city. we lose the time. we evacuate from manhattan to brooklyn. from brooklyn to manhattan witches' israel today. either way is illegal. you need permits. tried a couple times. when the evacuation, the same thing that happened. if he go back and look at the notes, if you look at stokes iconography, you see that the marble letters had said the beginning of the summer, can we have every single but the you have anywhere in the whole entire city of new york, can the get them on the brooklyn side just in case? and the providential fog that comes in, you know, so we can evacuate. the provincial fog. the revolution is one night away from ending. >> right. i mean, that is dramatic. you don't have to work at it. but the providential find that is invariably mention is the fog that comes up every end of

summer, you know, morning just about in the harbor in new york city which you can see if you go down next summer in the summer after the summer after. and that's the great thing. you are a lot tender than i am, but when you are just turning 50 delight, well, i've seen this before. and so it kind of gets into the details rather than being the big. so the other factor that i lived in park slope in. we used to lie christmas tree on third avenue and seventh street. i'm reading this book. the 400 marilyn strips. in a sense america is being brought in brooklyn. as the first time their is a real american fighting. and it was extraordinary. and 240 soldiers you have in the book dine.

they tell the story of a mass grave. i just found out. i almost wanted to cry. >> i didn't. >> it was a part of -- it was a footnote. one of the most dramatic moments i think of the war it's so -- it so -- what to me is really sad. a really dramatic moment. basically i'm not a military strategist among but the way you sign up, americans build a lot of embattlements waiting for the british to come up the east river. they come around from behind and that night and cut the month. the americans all run back down to the side of brooklyn second save face and evacuate. as they go this maryland

regiment, the guys from pennsylvania were great shots apparently. so this regimen says you guys go ahead. we will stay here in this what which is now the goddess canal famed for -- not famed for the great giant oysters that it was once famed for, but fanned for bodies and poaching bubbles of god. anyway, so in what must have been a pretty close want the say, you guys keep going to the rest of the continental army. we'll hold back the entire british army at this little stone house where there was no and the pond. and so they do. and you can kind of see. i go for run at lunchtime down the same help, and you can see the bottom ones, where people get hold back. and also there's a big swathe been silent. but anyway, in the neighborhood

where i live, cobble hill which is the help. it was more of a hello one point, where there is now a trader joe's t-r-a-d-e-r. the americans before the war, importing goods. anyway. at trader joe's they -- washington had a ford or there was a ford and washington look back at these guys. there is thankfully applied there today. >> on the bank. >> the programs and says maybe. and as was true or what's not true. and that's the whole thing. washington looks back and says, while. those are brave men. that is. but then they all died. they push the bridge back once and they come out again. that puts them out of this town house twice. the third run and finally pretty much all of them are dead. the most -- even more sad is the

story i wrote. i try to read these temporary stories about, how people think about the past or have thought about it. but this amazing guy who broke, who became famous because and was the subway, the four, five, six line. he was on the gang. they hit a dutch ship. the adrian. >> is this the recent one? >> back in 19. it seems like 19 -- building in the teens. >> believe that are not wasn't born in. >> well you know everything about new york city. so this guy, jimmy kelly, they hit a dutch ship and there did in the subway line kelly is an immigrant, and he

says, some kind of ship. he stops it. he pulls it out. he saves it. he's in the papers for a couple of days. we put it in the aquarium, the fish tank. years later he has to walk by and see it again. he becomes famous for this, of what bill singer, travels around the world. he sang about finding that dutch ships. he will then be appointed brooklyn borough historian, the first one ever, by jimmy walker. he takes it under -- it becomes his cause to promote problem, the center of the world. definitely the battle of brooklyn, nobody gets this. he really goes nuts about trying to say that these guys were

buried. this marylands regiment was buried here in brooklyn. we have notes on where they are. his testimony of the riches of the graves still there. >> and they dug there. recently, when i was writing is clear were digging a couple of condo developments in that zone. i was calling every archaeologist. just look around. please. ..

>> it's no more important than anything anyone else did. something to that effect. which, and you can see, please, no. but also you can say wow, those actions are more important. who gets to judge? it gets even sadder for me. but somebody's recently talking about trying to find this again. i knew someone who's trying to get a sonar reading. >> is it, i mean, to me undeniably, new york city history is kind of hopeless. is it just the trump principle, everything else?

why has the memory of the american revolution -- what's the dynamic? >> when i started -- the dynamic in the city is, when i started doing this book i was just going to write about -- >> there was a battle. it somewhere else they would be monuments. >> there's a rock and a plaque. the rock may have been moved. the plaque may have been moved. when i started doing this book is going to write about trees, about liberty trees, and they're all over the coast, all over the middle colonies. there are trees out west that people attach a certain imports to. whether by tradition. george washington -- in cambridge there's a tree that finally fell and it said washington took command of the troops there. he was nowhere near that tree. you can prove that 1 million times over. but people believed it and loved it. love that tree.

the tree in the boston call men's. there's a -- why? because trees are a marker of time. just talk about new york specifically, yeah, i mean, obviously we develop, i mean, this is an old story. new york is always changing and that's good. but there is something happening, and i think in historic preservation, something i feel like if i want to be part of it or tried to be a part of it. this idea that when you preserve a place, that's one thing. you preserve the building, okay. but what's the use of the building or once the remembrances that live in the building still? suddenly i'm thinking that tree, they still have the stuff of it in the apollo theater. that's a tree reference. people don't forget that. but i'm back into places, and i

think the new, the latest moves, the new thinking in historic preservation is about preserving use. so for instance, i'm really fascinated by -- [inaudible] which fulton street i'm sure either they were british soldiers chasing americans on that day or of americans were running down the street, an amazing place. for decades been considered to be not worth the. in the same decades, hip-hop is invented pretty much. there are so many small businesses that start there. i know a woman who had a store, and she was, -- she was running the wig store, one son was in a school of economics, another son was at williams. she was doing fine. she had and the staff. there was a guy who started a

sushi restaurant, and now that whole block is gone because it was as not being of valley. so i think the big thing is that we don't, we don't know how to recognize what is valuable use that add big time value to the city we're in now, we are living in a. we don't recognize it, but there's all this talk to again come in the last 10 years or so, about public space, about taking space back from the car and maybe thinking that there's other values to the street, for instance. well, in that conversation, this conversation has, it's all in the same room. we're in the same room. we are saying there is value. people are industries. if you close the street, people don't walk on it. it doesn't work anymore. people, how they think and feel about a place, that is the valley of the place. so i think we're going to understand, i'm hoping in the

next, let's say, 20 years that there are uses we need to propagate, that we need to continue rather than create a new space. >> one of the things you point out in this book, and it's a true i think in history because it's the kind of thing that never gets covered but is has determine so much human history is the weather. you have a guy, a founding father of american weather history. i thought i knew the family -- the founding fathers of most branches of american history but that was a new one to me. >> he grew up in the mountains, the wash amounts are common to see a bigger revolution. if that's not a revolution to people i don't know what will come. and the other day, i was walking and i stood and looked across the hudson and i said oh, my god, i never knew what those were. i once lived in the town he lives in, most because i kind of stock of it.

he looks happy. a great writer. so i should let the. we lived there for a while, and part of this book comes out of doing these kind of dopey things, i.e., nothing which is dopey. >> i've done plenty of dopey things. >> i was on the hudson river, this down where the hudson is shouting at you. the hudson is a imax movie is playing concert in this town. incredible. you sit there and you go down to the water and you look at the hills and things come clear to you. to me anyway. so yeah, so david was really interesting. he chronicled the americas weather history. which is amazing unto itself. but what the parliament was he went back and looked at the people who kept notes on the weather.

people who kept notes on most mundane things. and then you call it -- [inaudible] >> i like to quote emerson. >> so thoreau kept whether blogs and kept these logs about when the flowers bloomed, and his great project near the end of his life was great a calendar, an almanac of april 1, this have happened in our town. the water is that this level. and that's an almanac. and thoreau was obsessed with -- [inaudible] when you read it, you are reading this beautiful, there's a version put out by yale, a four-year school --

[talking over each other] >> i'm not allowed on campus. there's a translation, university press and its in the georgia, the american farm vernacular, and it's beautiful. and it's just, you know, fire in the summer, woodburn's, and sparks fly into the night sky, and what more need we celebrate? that's what virgil says. and that's so mundane, and to love washington scholars fighting over he must mean more. he must mean more when he talks about the light of day on the spring morning, you know? as if you need more than that but after a while you don't need anything more. so i thought this is a. the almanac is something that every colonial citizen must have. they needed it. they lived in a time of title cycles and lunar cycles come and these were the things that used

to navigate your luck at one of the arguments is, that i try to make his we move from circles to lines. there's this story about circles to lines but after the enlightenment in new york, this idea vote by schedule. not at the high tide. so we make this move, and it seems to me, you know, you could try to look back, try to get back into the circle idea. get back into the almanac and really, you know, so this book, all right, it is, you know, is a big introduction, hopefully big. and then i crossed the river. i climbed through mounds and i breakthrough time. there's no more time. no more time. >> traveling the same road. you find will come you get rid of time. >> and then hopefully, and then, so all, i should do these in season. i just try to line up all history.

the crossing of the delaware, the 1951 reenactment. in 1960 protests, the reenactment. i want them all to start a. i want them to be like an almanac. one of the roots of the word almanac, where the word almanac comes from, i think chaucer did a great almanac. but one of the roots could have to do with time. it's an edited time understand -- it's an arabic word, time. so looking at the weather, and so not a reenactment what i'm trying to be but a replacement. go to the place, create easy, don't buy an outfit, although i would buy an outfit. they are pricey. if you don't have to buy an outfit, you just go to the place in that moment that happened, the title moment with a seasonal

moment. you look at it and you say, or you can even wake up in the morning in brooklyn in the kitchen, make coffee for your wife and look at and look out the window and say look at that store. the morningstar right next to the crescent moon. october, the regiment would have been in brooklyn. it again, don't be, when i do it, but suddenly you have that raw moment where, wow, we are all little tiny things at the same time. >> you talk about in your book and it comes through how different eras have different revolutions. they look at the same revolution, but they go at it in some different way. one of the constants of the american revolution seems to be, with the exception of washington, i'm just wondering, you stay away from the big figures. spotlight where it belongs on the landscape. but washington is a figure in your book. had become to any conclusions about him? do you come away lot understand

liking him or not liking them? >> i probably, you mean -- >> [inaudible] >> i just think it's a genius stroke. i was actually talking, i had a great conversation with an artist about the revolution. there is this idea that art ritual and [phone ringing] shall are the things we used to engage with our past so that we go forward, how do we negotiate, how do we use, these things. but anyway i was talking -- yeah, i was actually talking to an artist, 19, roughly around 2000. and he said, you know, a lot of artists have painted washington. it's obvious, but she said, you know, that washington didn't win the war. he just didn't lose it. and it sounds kind of silly accept, then you see the mountains and you say why you

say why did he go to new jersey and hang out in amounts? because if you hang out in amounts you don't have to win the war. you to spend i'm not losing it. but i did write about, i wrote about the major figures in my footnotes. and i thought top of the book is about the figures that are not considered major, weather and a lot of -- landscape. and then the bottom of the book is the quote unquote big stuff. there is an amazing book, a brilliant book called the invention of washington. and i've read a bunch of the biographies. the most recent sort of big biographies, you know, they make washington kind of an hbo cop you know, which you can't help. if you're going to make a biopic on your going to make him a big figure, but again, i see it as

the times, you know, making washington. and i see the crossing of the delaware and i see them up on this ridge right after they crossed the delaware, the next day battle of trenton, and they're outside of town hunting the army. things are going well at all since they're stuck up against the river on top of a hill. swath all around the. he is surrounded by farmers from pennsylvania and maryland and elsewhere, but he is from the chesapeake bay. and the weather is really not very different for his form from his plantation. he is a survey. there's that joke about mount rushmore, the three surveyors -- but anyway, so he is a surveyor. that's what he does. he is a surveyor. [inaudible] anyway, that night they are waiting.

they are thinking when we going to do? this is going to be over again, and the wind changes. this guy get clear. if you know, if you recognize the winter in this area, when the wind picks up immediately you know it will be cold that night. you just know it. you've seen it a million times by the time you're 50. so then, so then you can see washington, all the guys saying, tonight's going to freeze, and sure enough it does freeze. they're able to go back around the army and did all the way up to princeton that night on a frozen road that was mud and the british are saying we have enough, the roads or not. so i just feel as if that's kind of an example of the communal effort. but washington, in this book, washington is painted i think again brilliantly as a guy who is very much a man of his times,

who is trained to say i would not want to be president. this is the kind of thing he does. he does want to be president, and we see that in this book that he's got a lot of jealousy. we see that he is a close towards. that's okay because in the middle of the night, there's this soldier from connecticut who was dumbing down help across the delaware, and will reach up and see this guy with a right to stick his arm out and grab him from his white horse. he told all his buddies this guys with this. leadership at all these elements. but anyway, washington's weaknesses make him just so much more brilliant. longmore, it should be noted, was a big activist in the handicapped rights movement, and i realized after i read this bugaboo, the kind of book where you're calling a to come and sing listen to this, listen to

this. and i realized that he had typed the entire book -- [inaudible] and he had worked for disabled rights, and he, i him give a speech on video after i rea reae book but i realize hittite this, and he was giving a speech at another disabled rights, a memorial for another disabled rights person died and longmore said basically that this guy, you know, the movement made this great new. >> wanted to footnotes in the book made me read another book, which i hate reading books. but much more important we know about the tea party. this really amazing event is the whiskey rebellion. which in a way it's a -- con job in american history. the only present had an army while in office, essentially

what had happened was the ious from the war were brought up by alexander hamilton and they were worth about 10 cents, but most by ex-army officers and their paid on the dollar. so to raise money, and it was hamilton who came up with this great thing calling it the whiskey rebellion. they call it poor people's revolt. it was like these idiots just want to get drunk. so he leads an army against the men who fought with them, and that was much of washington think i don't know where these men scourge came from, how they stood office. i guess we're all like that. >> washington is communal, i think that, so he's a great guy to have in charge. he's a guy who will actually learn when he loses in a big battle. he will learn that well, i can't face these guys. i've got to completely change my strategy. so he is now, strategically

number at the beginning of the war. but after, as president he's a different guy. he doesn't like anybody -- he doesn't like this since. and as a result you could argue the election of 1800, more scandal, more scandals in any we will see tonight or even the next seven days, whatever. the two warring parties that he is held out for so long finally go after each other. but washington is a different guy end of his presidency. and, he changes, as we all do. he leads the army out to pennsylvania to get these guys who are rebellious. they don't want to pay the whiskey tax. hamilton has figured out -- >> [inaudible] spent on the grain the farmers raise, after that barely paid the rent, there in the far, there in pittsburgh,

out in western pennsylvania. out past carlyle. again what, they're paying rent back on their land. they are barely making any money. then all of a sudden they've got this opportunity to make some money with your excess grain and so whiskey, then you'll be taxed on. and basically there's a really good argument made, they're drinking whiskey at the reading, he writes about this, and i used him. and basically the idea is that hamilton and washington, and it but it was saying during the war, these british, they're making us pay, they create this idea of public debt. and it funds the army and its horrible, just horrible. they're making us pay as colonists, we have to pay a higher price and stuff to fund the debt. it's horrible, horrible. so they go to war. then they start the work and they say why don't we start

public debt. we will start the whole sinking fund, and to do that after the war hambleton tries to create the modern economy that people us told him for now. but to pay, the bond, the proper, the money, basically using these farmers to boil it all down. >> sounds to me like trouble. >> and to washington, exactly, the washington gets off his horse and turned around. he turns back to washington after the army and says army and since a half later, he turned around and hamilton -- [inaudible] hamilton, the great rival with jefferson, you know, hamilton, you could argue he played washington or he didn't, i don't know. but hamilton takes the army on

and basically locks up all these guys. they will be released later, for nothing. all these farmers, they are enemies -- its horrible. >> do you think there was a stolen revolution? there was this second revolution that didn't happen? >> that's what's often said it's shaped. spend i'm just wondering what is your take? >> my 22nd interpretation is this. -- my two-second interpretation is this. this radical document, the kind of unionization of the sense of malicious, in some ways, and then constitution. basically they say do you know how we were talking about the radical place, well, let's just cut that down a bit. the constitution is a different

revolution. then things go back and forth from there. >> i think we should open the floor to questions, but they're still nearly 27 books. >> twenty-five. >> i've always found when the most disappointing moment in my life is when i finished writing a book and then i have to start all over again. let's all fix are counted so we will be here for the next the book reading. and i mean that. i have a tremendous admirer. i think everyone of your book -- books is -- you are learning at the same time. yourself extraordinary. >> so, i have tried to write a book. [inaudible] i'm trying to write a book about a guy i tried not -- for about

23 years tried not to write about them. seems kind of silly, but he is a photographer. [inaudible] >> i just realized, born in the fanny switches to see all that death. then he comes and he goes to the civil war and he takes the most beatable pictures. stanky works are matthew brady? >> he works for matthew brady. he takes a picture average but he knows one day, then the next day he will take a photo of them all dead on the battlefield. then they will go west and take photos of the west. so this idea that there's a lot -- how difficult and horrible it is, think about this and you think about the photos he took in the west that are tremendous photos.

my wife has a degree in photography. i used to hang out with a lot of photographers, and her when we first met. i would bring to this guy and they would just, they would you say wow, his photos are the most incredible spent is he one of the first photographers to put a camera on -- [inaudible] >> that's a good question. >> photography always had a face in its neck. [inaudible] a lot of what's going on with photography at that time has to do with claiming the land. so a lot of the photography that the french are doing in egypt are about kind of visual colonization, about claiming this place, and, for this nation are placed. and so when he goes out, went also then goes out on surveys for the u.s. government, he's

part of that, but there's things he is saying in the photos that make you wonder, when he, for instance, put the rover, ruler underneath a rock that talks about, but has an inscription in spanish that says when the spanish ruled, and then you are thinking come he's kind of making fun of this survey. but the great thing is, we do really now what he thought. >> so, we open the floor to questions. jack, what's your question? >> hi. interesting talk, enjoyed it. is the atrium block still around?

>> well, the atrium block is still around. where is it? there was a conference about it recently. maybe a few years ago. but there are pieces of it still around. after the second time kelly founded at the aquarium that robert louis was knocking down, he got it somewhere. a historical site. i don't know now where it is. i know i should have talked to them. i called the baroque historian -- borough historian. >> i want to ask a question. does every borough had a historic? >> i think so. i think there's a queens historian who died two or three years ago. oh, my gosh, maybe during the next question i would look for the amazing inscription had to put on those gravestones.

>> and what does the inscription say? >> headstone, yeah. [inaudible] >> yes. and it says, his grades have something like, headstone acting. i will find it. ..

you don't understand so much liquid you go to for washington now, the work that to realize the thing to change the landscape of manhattan would've taken nine centuries. when i was researching the first book i wrote, i was reading a description of women from the lower east side, at that point they were colonial women, middle-class housewives going to the top of mount paid to watch the battle of brooklyn. if you got on grant street and come to the corner hate, you could down and realize you're on rise. at one point was a 90-foot level. there's a number of streets. you want to add nassau street and come down towards mainland, you can actually feed mainly was where the maids went to wash the streams that ran down there and as legend has it, you can see

the curve of the earth that goes right down there. i think the oldest building in manhattan is the old jewish center across from park road and is on a price and there was a battle they are during the battle of the revolution. but there's a new book coming out about rambo, john rambo, the guy who surveyed the grid, the maker of the grid. and i read it and i confirmed this ideal. there's this idea out they are that what we're learning is -- i mean, the book i believe we discussed here, that look at the beautiful book and has this idea of what the city was. this beautiful place of mountains and hills.

it says we should understand is that we should know that because that can help us as we go forward. but i don't like to think that that's gone. this new book about randall todd to a lot of people about who surveyed the land in the city and are looking at randall's old survey and passionate canals are very. the really amazing thing they are finding more and more is how much of the landscape still is the landscape. so yeah, absolutely. though that was behind the pond, chopped down. there is a cobble hill and brooklyn, chopped down. the percentage is going out there not been up as to how much remains. that is a big, big. >> i remember reading that one point in the civil war they said

we went uphill, not uptown, but uphill to st. patrick's theater. i said it's not a pill that i really see us come you're coming up the hill. >> i was training for the marathon when i wrote this book in the upper east side, upper west side, carnegie hill is still a hill on the up reason i. i mean, so the big news is there really is a lot there. i recently did a project with an artist near the new teaching museum and she told me how this creek was still there. increasing signage and beautiful art, nearing mass. but i wrote about how the creek had been filled in, the history of the creek, but the landscape is there now tells you that

there was a creek they are. in other words, wherever there is a large sheet of land formerly in the city you'll find public or utilities, things considered at some point of lesser value. likewise since the creek on his story over at once was public housing, industrial warehouses, places where there's a ton of repair shops for taxicabs. the signs are written in numerous languages and also where people -- immigrants are storing their food carts. so it's a place -- that in itself, whereas the creek this practice wars come where things are constantly changing. new plants coming in constantly to nourish that saltmarsh gives us in the estuary. that is mimicked by the human settlement. so it still is a creek. i want to collect estuary i.t.

of human development. there's this idea -- of course the city looks at these areas typically, especially in the last 10 years or so that this is an area that is not being used to its full potential. actually this is as if they were -- we were talking about college, but are trained creek is driving in the recently settled here. >> one of the greatest examples of that is how you mentioned hastings before a living are, one of the most amazing things that hastings is the back of the town faces the river. you're the hudson river school of painting and then it became -- the equivalent became the bronx expressway. it was noisy. nobody wanted to be -- were first millionaires built on the river. everybody wanted to go up the hill. it was supported by the river instead of the rich.

somnolence landscape and weather that dominates. it's economics. in changes to fit the economic, sometimes to the gesture meant in the majority job is trained to repair the factory in the northeast or the telephone wire with neighbors and hastings. so now it's like $2 billion. they have every chemical known. the tallest one of the palisades is right across. but what were they thinking? they were thinking how to make a living? which is the first thing anyone thinks. so you say something -- we use the rivers in which you just say that they're for recreational money. the rivers are to use than wait for use them at the longer-term in mind, that's the big thing. the problem is that sometimes they say it's just recreation. >> can we wrap it up at the book's theme song? is that okay with?

-- talented musician. [inaudible] , [inaudible conversations] i feel like most writers had the means take, but this is the theme music for this book --

[inaudible] [inaudible conversations] >> it's called him knows where the time goes. i think sandy denny wrote it. ♪ ♪ ♪

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♪ [applause] >> my name is strand life or i'm the owner at the palace -- book

has streets of a deposit. we've been here since 1975 and we sell books, real books. books that you can hold in your hand, crack open, cuddle up in a chair with, those kind of books. i started out in the publishing industry. i was a sales rep for simon & schuster and for penguin now. that was back in the 70s and 80s. i sold books all over upstate new york and throughout new england. after 10 years of that lifestyle i decided i wanted to go to the other side of the counter and sell books. so i went to work for the bookstore here in this plaza and i eventually bought into the business and then bought the business out. so i have been here as sole owner since 1991. it's been an up-and-down history

since then. shortly after he purchased the store with a small business administration loan, it was barnes & noble and borders moved to. lederle the literary landscape changed overnight visitors across the country because that expansion into the area took about 11 other independent bookstores out of business. but the boathouse was left standing. through the 90s it was really a competitive battle for our market share in this town. but we survived. part of the reason we survived is that the community came to our rescue. they said we don't want you to go away. we want you to survive and we want to spend our money here at this store.

that's why we're here because the humanity of albany has said they want us here and they're willing to come in and pay a little bit more than they might pay somewhere else in order to keep us afloat. really, the first and thing that keeps this place special as my staff people. a 22 booksellers and of those 22, some of them have been with me for anywhere from 10 to back 20 years. we operate like a family, occasionally dysfunctional family. but we have a really good relationship with each other and we don't do understand our mission here is to keep the store of ben. the fact that we sell books is

asked out in the community. each one of us just time to the community on a personal basis. many of our people are volunteers with various reading readiness volunteers, aids council, various, you know, like the women's club, which traced to contact with the literary community as well. i could go on and on. our list is very, very long of good works that we do outside the store. we had formed real solid connections with the literary community, with not only the writing community, but the reading community we became very involved with bill kennedy's new york state writers institute.

so bringing famous authors and not so famous authors into town on a regular basis sets the store apart and sets all been a part as kind of a mecca for great writers. albany is local authors for sure. they like to william kennedy's and richard russo's and russell bay in their peter goldenson judy barnes. they do love their local authors than they do support local authors. but they are very purchased grouper readers. one of the real calling cards here is our staff section. we are all voracious readers. people come in and have a certain amount of money to spend, a certain amount of time to devote to reading and they don't really want to spend a lot

of time taking a gamble on a book that they might not like. so at the section they go to immediately to find books that day like that marquee read or julia brad or susan taylor met. then they come back and say i like her selection but i want to read another book like the one i just read. susan taylor is the one to guide me. so it's our communication with the readers that come in here is very intimate. we know what they like and they know what we like. they used to be that you could run an independent bookstore just on life. but you can't anymore. you have to be business minded first and foremost because you're not going to get any of the rest of it unless you have a good mind for business. it is after all business.

there are a lot of people out there that are toast because of the digital transition we've been going through, because it e-books, because of the disintegration and reorganization of our industry. a lot of people do worry about whether or not we do have a future. that is a legitimate question now because with the merger of random house and penguin, that is a concern to many of us, first booksellers that is like a marriage between snow white and. penguins publicly stated philosophy is if these people fail, we will fail because real books are here to stay.

random house is a lot larger conan in their credit policies. penguin is very liberal. random house will be the majority shareholder in this merger, has not been so kind to us. so we worry that snow white and might not be such a good marriage for us. we don't know which one is going to win out. do they want to just take her business away from us? and abandon us? or did they realize that they will fail if we fail? souvenir publishing industry does have a good question to answer as they go through this merger process is do you want your independent booksellers,

your brick-and-mortar booksellers because i wouldn't even include urns and nobles in there, do you want them to survive? or do you just want to get weaker? we've always been at the forefront of anything that could help us in the technology world. we got the database together back in the early 80s and were one of the first to go onto a computer system. so we wrapped her mind around that project, they were able to make the story more profitable. but over the years, most recently is in order to diversify we started our own digital book on demand called the trade bookmakers, where we make books. we've literally, physically make books. we take the manuscript, format

it into a book, print the pages commented domingo, minette, sloppy cover on it and we made beautiful books for our local authors that want to self publish and also for some of the professors that want textbooks, for people that want to do a family coat look, you name it. we stay right cutting edge of digital printing technology. and the other avenue we've gone down to the stay on top of things is arab publishing company called staff picks prius and the inspiration for it was of course fast fix. we knew if we found a manuscript that we loved, we knew we could sell it. so we just had to find the right author, the rate a new script. so we are onto her fourth book

now we don't have -- we don't do 20 books a year because i would have been nervous break down if we did, but we are making great progress. unfortunately because of the fact we've lost so many independent bookstores in the past two decades that originally there were about 5000 of us back in the 90s and now we're back to a couple thousand of us. so there's plenty of communities that don't have an independent bookstore and i think people do know it's a real loss to the community that they don't. if they do have one, they need to treasure it and take care of it and patronize it. and if they don't have one, we all have website.

>> coverage continues of sally friedman. her book "dilemmas of representation" expense of local politics are affected by natural factors. >> so the title of my vote is "dilemmas of representation" and it's about a couple of things. the first thing is that it's about dilemmas of representation. i was really interested in representation and i wanted to show that when members of congress represent their districts that representation can really mean a lot different things to different congresspeople. it's not one-size-fits-all and i really wanted to show the choices members of congress are making and i really wanted the reader to think about a lot those choices, but style of representation gives the reader think is best?

that's one of the advantages of profiling 10 members of congress. they were only 10 members of congress, but she could get an in-depth picture in terms of the local, national distinction, which broke down and a lot of different ways. it's not as simple as that, but we found a come about local politics still matter to an enormous extent. there's any number of stories in the book highlighting local politics, constituency surveys, members of congress helping individuals. for me, local was the staff were used to seeing, bringing projects to the district, doing constituency surveys, just interpersonally hanging out with constituents. being from the district generally highlighting your roots to your constituents. that's the kind of stuff that

either congress or literature has really talked about. for me, national was about bringing discussions of national issues.com to the district was pretty mad national party help or national figures was coming from outside of the district. so it was anything outside the district going on nationally. so i think in some ways politics hasn't changed. they think that national is better, too. lots of congresspeople talking about local issues. as we know today, lots of congresspeople being partisan, taking the stance of their parties, but just being involved in whatever is going on at the

time. you know, be it the contract with america, when it issues -- women's issues, issues of minorities for immigration, just last of national examples in a lot of ways local and national were connected. obviously the national politics is interesting to me as it played out of local districts. i was also given -- i was surprised by how local thinks delaware. i know it's about is supposed to highlight national politics. i was surprised that within that local politics still was in the other thing that impressed me, we talk a lot but members of congress are supposed to represent their constituency and try to show what does representation mean? it means a lot of different things. but within that, i guess i was

impressed that members of congress really were able to put their own stamp on what they were doing. it mattered to a particular representative was. the representatives differed from their predecessors to some extent which issues they focused on or how they dealt with their constituency. a lot of that came from some version of just who they were or what they'd done before they got to congress and that impressed me. i think our dilemmas facing choices faced by members of congress to different degrees in different specifics. all across the country i think a bunch of the findings that constituencies are so different and that influences the members choices and members of congress, th