booktv continues with ann kirschner. ms. kershner recounts the life of josephine marcus earp the common law wife and partner for over 50 years to law men wyatt earp. this is about an hour. [applause] >> thank you. it's a pleasure to be here. this is a story that has deep

roots across the united states but has a special meaning for seattle so it's a lot of fun to be here d the fact that both of my books have seattle exhibits this week is particularly fun. what i would like to do is to introduce the book i reading the first couple of pages from the prologue in which i land on -- did you know that wyatt earp was buried in a jewish cemetery? just hearing his name brought me back to my childhood in jackson heights new york city as i rolled on the floor in front of black-and-white television to watch westerns with my big rather chilly dressed up in a special shirt with braided trim and snapped buttons and a black cowboy hat and shiny gun and the full leather holster slung around his hips. joey and i tuned it and pretended to walk the streets of

tombstone every week together with millions of americans young and old. joey was my hero and marshall earp was his. brave, courageous, bold and jewish. jewish? that's how it all started, a question from a friend who thought correctly that i would be intrigued by the in congregate between anything jewish and anything tombstone-ish. the first burst of curiosity about wyatt earp's restingplace i soon learned that wyatt the only man to emerge unscathed from the gunfight at the o.k. corral was not jewish but had lived with jewish women for 50 years and she buried him next to her parents and brother and family plot in the synagogue affiliated hills of maternity -- eternity cemetery outside of san francisco and that was my introduction. as children when wyatt earp

ruled the airwaves we did know that he had a wife and certainly not a jewish wife from new york. i was jewish from new york so it each revelation that a woman named josephine marcus earp a bet new images that made me smile especially the thought of wyatt earp going home for chicken soup after a tough day fighting for truth and justice in the dusty streets of tombstone arizona but it quickly became more interested in mrs. mrs. earp than her famous husband. contradictions piled up like a freeway collision. how had a beautiful girl from san francisco be in new york and prussia end up in tombstone while the rest of her immigrant family climbed out of poverty and into responsibility? y. had josephine runaway? what inspired five decades of adventure seeking that took her from the arizona territory to california, nevada, alaska and then finally to hollywood?

okay so that is how the book begins. and now you have the headline. the writer discovers that wyatt earp was buried in a jewish center which sounded like a parody of something you would read in the obits than something real. let's see if i have got my clicker here. and there is my brother joey. i was the little thing in the crib. aren't i cute? so that was a true story but when i came to this as an adult, what really fascinated me was that the early books about wyatt never mentioned there had any any mrs. earp and in fact if you read the early western books it says that there were no women at all. it was as if men had no mothers,

wives or daughters and we didn't hear anything about them. so imagine if you were to write a biography of ronald reagan without mentioning nancy or bill clinton without hillary which covers both sides of the aisle. it's what led me to and i will eventually figure this out, to the real josephine earp. no, no. i may need somebody to help me. clicker. i actually heard in the early days of television, bill paley had someone come and visit him and he said he change the channel and someone said don't

you have a remote-control? he said, sure i do. george. and george came and changed the channel so could you teach me, george? it's really eloquence. what am i doing wrong? oh good, it's not just me. i'm usually pretty good with technology. i will just keep going and i'm going to start by telling you a little bit about her family in the united states. josephine's parents immigrated from prussia around 1850 and this is a pretty familiar story of jewish immigration. for the rest of her life josephine would say that her family was german, not prussian. that's a very important distinction. prussia is now poland. and did it really matter? it didn't really matter except that the german jewish tended to be more affluent, better educated, less religious.

depression, the eastern european were much more religious and less affluent and spoke yiddish rather than polish, i'm sorry rather than german so it was actually an important distinction. there we go. so there is a circle around the place that her family was from and coincidently that is where my mother was from. even though i had strayed so far from the story of my mother when i dipped into the american frontier in fact there really wasn't that far away. so this is a picture of steamers arriving in san francisco. that is how the family arrived in san francisco around 1870. they spent 10 years, little bit more in a indie dork and have been in new york during the civil war that the family had

not succeeded financially and if you were in new york during those years he would the reading in the newspapers constantly about the wonders of san francisco. come to san francisco. everything is terrific there. the family who was doing particularly well decided they would take a second immigration trip and went from new york and then travel down south to the isthmus of panama and took the steamer up to san francisco. and when they arrived in san francisco, the san francisco of that time was in fact a growing and thriving community that they thought it would need. but like new york, it was a highly stratified jewish society where the german jews for the upper-class than everyone else, especially the polish jews, were at the bottom. the fellow you see her on the right his name is isaac benjamin

and a lot of what i eventually came to understand as josephine's motivation for leaving san francisco was seeing the german jewish divide. he had lived in the united states for three years and had observed the remarkable intolerance from the german jewish community from some of the other jewish communities. in that divide, between the german jews and the nongerman jews, to me lies the secret of josephine's first running away. she was a teenager. she didn't want to be second class. she was a party girl. she was pretty, outgoing, vivacious and the thought that because of her family's origin and the way that they spoke that somehow she wouldn't go to the the right schools or the right parties seemed outrageous to her. like huckleberry finn josephine

lived out for the territory. when she ran away from home she was about 18 years old, and she ran away to join an acting troop her pinafore phrase was sweeping the united states. it's hard to explain how important it was at the time but when gilbert and sullivan first wrote benjamin's pinafore and it came to the united states there was pinafore performed in german and italian and every language you can think of. it was was so desperate for actors that they went right into the local amateur schools and took actors right out of them, including someone like josephine who was not enormously talented but she -- so josephine went off to join

the pinafore troop that was going to go to the arizona territory and she ran away from home. she did not tell her mother and father that she was going and when she got there things weren't quite what she thought they were going to be but she caught the eye of a dapper man, quite a bit older than she was, who was an up-and-coming politician and lyman and they had a romance. he didn't tell her that he was divorced. it had been at a nasty ugly public divorce. he didn't tell her any of that. he just said josephine, marry me and come to tombstone which was a bustling mining town, and be my wife. josephine you should have known better. you all know better, right? i wish i could --

i know i am going to cover it up very quickly. i can't tell you exactly what's josephine looked like a sick young woman because there are no authentic pictures. these two that i'm showing you here, i can't say for sure that they are josephine and there were many circulating on the web that i can tell you are definitely not josephine. the pictures along the bottom here, those are josephine in later life into those i am sure our her. with the help of a professor at john jay at the university of new york, we have done a regression using forensic art techniques to try and tease out what josephine might actually have looked like and all the pictures along the top have been put forward as possible pictures of josephine. if you are extremely interested in the art of forensic analysis, i have got a great public or

fast or kerry laying on my web site on the okay corral.com. i show you these only to say we don't know exactly what she looked like but we do know that she was beautiful and buxom. actually in later life someone said they entered the room before she did. so she went to tombstone to hook up with him and she arrives by stagecoach in 1880 and tombstone was a bustling mining town, bigger than tucson, bigger than phoenix. you could drink champagne and you could be oysters -- eat wasters. it was pretty an amazing place. wyatt earp and his brother and their common law wives were settled there. they had arrived a year before so the picture on the bottom right here is johnny and there is the amazing -- in the middle

and i will tell you about the woman on the left in a minute. so, johnny ian when josephine arrived had won a very important election. he was the first sheriff of cochise county and who was the person that he beat out for that job? well, that was wyatt earp so they were political rivals from the very beginning. when josephine arrived in town johnny liked her well enough but he already had one marriage and he was not eager to marry again. and so he let her think that she was going to be mrs. ian and she let her take care of his young son but he had no interest in marrying her not to mention the fact that his favorite prostitute was back in town. josephine did figure it out when she was in tombstone and she left him. that is her story that josephine

did not want you to know that she had been in tombstone living with him. the other thing she didn't want you to know has to do with the woman on the left-hand side here. that is maddy blalock earp who was known as the common law wife of earp and they have been there -- married for several years. now you have the cast of characters. tombstone was a town very much on edge in 1881 in a series of robberies. there was an indian uprising. it was a hot, hot, hot summer, temperature hot and hot also in the political sense of political rivalries. fox and "msnbc" have nothing on the two rival newspapers in tombstone which were maniacally against each other.

and the deepest rivalry was between wyatt and johnny bien. johnny bien have a job that wyatt wanted. he was the sheriff of cochise county which is an extremely lucrative job and there was a tax collector that came with being sheriff. johnny at the woman that wyatt wanted. even the josephine had left him, that didn't mean you wanted wyatt to have her. when we think about the gunfight at the o.k. corral there are deep political economic and social reasons leading up to the gunfight, republicans and democrats, the law men in the mining interests against the cowboys and ranchers. that is all true but what is also true is that josephine marcus had a lover on both sides because wyatt was on one side and johnny bien was on the other so this is also a love triangle. i don't imagine any of you have

seen the movies. i guess you have probably seen one or two. you know on october 26 tombstone interrupted in a hail of all its in the middle of the day. the gunfight at the o.k. corral is the most famous gunfight in american history. i have a google alert on o.k. corral and there is not a single day that goes by that there is in some reference to the o.k. corral. sometimes it's as predictable as yesterday's vote on gun control. sometimes it's the o.k. corral is a metaphor for confrontation at an nba game, a teachers union fight, a wall street scandal. it's a metaphor that is deep in the american psyche. but you know if you go to tombstone today there is a

cheesy reenactment and you see how shocking it must have been for a gunfight happened in the middle of the day. so after the gunfight which resulted in three of the cowboys being killed, opinion was sharply divided as to whether wyatt and his brother doc holliday were innocent or guilty. there was a tremendous amount of legal maneuvering and wyatt was legally acquitted but the story didn't end there. the cowboy sought revenge and one of his brothers virgil was shot and maimed and another one of his brothers shot dead in front of wyatt's eyes. johnny bien was trying to arrest a wyatt but at that point wyatt earp declared he had the law and from the nonwyatt earp was about justice rather than love.

he embarked on what has been described as a homicidal rage also known as the vendetta ride in which he sought revenge against the people who had shot his brothers. what was he going to do about the women? matti earp had been living with him at this point for several years and before wyatt goes off on the right he sends maddy off to his parents. actually this is the most cowardly thing that wyatt earp did because he sent her off without a word of good by and he said he would be picking her up but he never saw her again. josephine went home to her parents and so you have these two women waiting for wyatt. he never saw maddy as i said but he did come in in 1882 after the vendetta ride to pick up josephine. i always think about that scene.

henry and sophia marcus, an immigrant family and wyatt earp trying to figure out what this girl josephine is thinking of. what wyatt did have going for him was, he was uncommonly handsome and charismatic. and what a remarkable couple they must have appeared to be so josephine's parents did not lock the door and not let her out, not that would have made any difference. the character was the spirited adventurer, the sense of romance and so before her parents know was happening she was out the door. so the gunfight was only a tiny piece of wyatt and josephine's life. they were together for almost the next 50 years. they never married as far as i can tell. patty blalock died in 1888 and

he had it tragic ending. she figured out finally that wyatt earp was not coming back for her. how uncomfortable it must have been living with her in-laws. she was not a woman who had education or training and so when she left his parents house she had no means of support. she became a prostitute and she was a drug addict. she ended up committing suicide and cursed wyatt earp on her final day. this was the second part of what josephine's most feared for the rest of her life. she didn't want anyone to know that wyatt had left maddie for josephine and that maddy had come to such a sad end. so they went on to this extraordinary lifetime adventure but josephine was always hearing

the footsteps of the tombstone behind her. always fearing exposure and i think -- i did visit many of the places they had been, san diego and cord to lean and goldfield and various other places. i confess that as i followed josephine around my favorite adventure was the three years that they spent between seattle and alaska and especially their dentures in nome alaska. has anybody ever been to gnome? one person, wonderful. gnome is as far north as seattle and seattle is west. it's really way up there. they played an extraordinarily interesting part in the story of the gold rush. seattle played as many of you

probably know an important role in the history of alaska. so there were a number of cities that were fighting to the gateway to alaska, portland, tacoma, san francisco which was in the lead but seattle had a secret weapon and the secret weapon was a man named arrest this brainerd. he was a marketing and public relations genius and he felt that this would be incredibly important turning point for seattle. he was doing everything he could to ensure that seattle appeared to be the gateway to alaska. one of the things he did was reach out to all the business people that he could and the employees to have them write to their hometown newspapers to say we have got everything going on here about alaska. and they did and this was all paid media. it was part of what provision to

alaska so very well but then by the time the klondike strike is really maturing, let's say 1897 or so, when the first big steamers come into seattle with tons of old, by then seattle had plowed a tremendous amount of money back into infrastructure to build railroads and offices that would truly make seattle a center for alaska. when you got off the boat, you saw the fruits. seattle was nome crazy so there was a nome information center. as soon as you got off the steamer there was nome tense, no medicine and my favorite was something called face protector which promised whether your nose is long or short wide or narrow

,-com,-com ma inclined to be roman or french the wearer can see here brief talk smoke chew or expectorate just as well. so for three years, can you just imagine? there is a picture of the original ad. for three years josephine spencer winters and seattle and her summers in nome and much of what she was doing was outfitting what would become wyatt's extremely successful saloon in alaska called the dexter. the summer of 1900, the summer of 1900 nome was the center of the world and the best way to get there was from seattle. this was a picture of the stampede along the seattle waterfront amassing to get to nome. it wasn't only people but the whole ship was filled with tons of merchandise, whole cities

that were collapsed and intended to reassemble once they got to nome so theaters that were struck down into little pieces and restaurants and hotels. a city in a box. there was no natural port in nome so once you got off the boat you have to get on these other little boats and big paul bunyan guys would come out and the women would climb on the backs of these men and be carried out to the shore. so, that is nome and what i'm trying to show you their is what was so unusual was the gold was not under the ground as it usually is and requires a great deal of capital investment. the gold in nome was right on

the service, right on the sand of the public beaches in nome so you could go out just with a little pin and go like this and gold nuggets would appear. it was like magic. in the summer of 1900 this was absolutely the place to be. josephine was there when her niece had just recently gotten this picture from josephine's great great great grand nephew and that is a picture of his grandmother, josephine who was there. josephine loved the excitement of nome. she loved everything except the fact that wyatt earp was running the dexter with rooms upstairs for prostitutes. she didn't love that part particularly, and we know that because those are the stories that the knees brought home but

regardless of whether she was furious with wyatt or not they went to nome together and they came back from nome together and when they came back they were actually quite rich. they had taken out the equivalent of a million dollars, mostly not from gold and in fact almost none of it was from gold. most of it was from what earp called mining the minors, prostitution. in the years that followed they probably could have lived on their money from alaska for the rest of their lives if they were careful, but careful was not a word that was in their vocabulary. so they invested in various things. they were not great investors. i don't think that josephine or wyatt really cared about money. they cared much more about it venture and following their own

inclinations. they spent most of their time in a camp near what is now the town of earp california. i was out there couple of months ago and i think it's quite unchanged from their time. very remote. was that funny? [laughter] and the smell of creosote in the air. i think it speaks to the contradictions in josephine's character. there was a part of her that loves nice hotels and clean sheets and nice clothing and jewelry but there was another part of her that loved living out in the desert and sleeping under the stars. she was not a particularly religious person. she had an indifferent attitude towards religion in general and judaism in particular. she could've been pantheist so in a chair would be most important thing to her. it was quite happy in those years in the desert at josephine

feared those footsteps of tombstone because they were were always writers who were interested in wyatt earp's story and what happened to them in the gunfight at okay the o.k. corral. america was changing dramatically. all the things that have been legal in the frontier, gambling, prostitution, common law marriage, all of these things that had once been quite acceptable for now downright illegal and prohibition was the law of the land, so things were changing and our heroin and hero were getting a lot older. ..

these were women established people. was the person who was most famous for motors. it sports promoters of the time and founded madison square garden. why didn't a change lot. while america changed tremendously around them. nay had a couple of frontiers left. and one of them was hollywood. and the original sign was not hollywood, but hollywood land. this was a real estate

development. when the picture was taken which was 1923. and she realized immediately that as the person who was most involved in skull. ed a vebt of movie was going to be important. many of the hollywood films were what they called horse opera. and the actors of the time were fascinated that many of the legends were still walking around. and so -- darn. and i like the next picture. okay. i'm going to ask for help from elliot. and george, as i told you before. so william s heart was a very close friend of theirs as was tom, who was known as the king

of the cowboys. but her problem was that the screen writers kept sniffing around if they would write something they didn't like. she would call the reporter and browbeat the reporter. if the reporter went ahead and printed what she didn't like. she would call the editor or william raldolf herself and say your infrastructure was a good -- father was a good friend. she would demand restrax. -- tractions she would get it sometimes. she had a modern sense of celebrity. she would storm a movie set and demand they stop production on a movie she didn't like. i think she had a well developed sense of how you tell a story.

the one she wanted to tell a nice clean story. she kept repeating that. app nice clean story. she wanted do you think about why on earth the guy with the white hat and forget all the other stories. the gun slinging, you know, put them away. when the bad news began piling up much faster than she could stop it. she met an enterprise press agent and writer named stewart lake. she had contacted them. he wanted to write about biography of her. and she agreed to do it. she had a lot of trouble with stewart, but in the end, he too agreed to play by her rules. there's only one mention of her in the famous 1929 biography of

"frontier marsall." it's a sappy mention at the end of the book. there's william s. hart. we'll go down one more? and tom. the king of my cowboys. it's living my life in slow motion. there's stewart lake. >> okay. she found her calling. the making of the legend of we yat. george has this famous saying for you can't get rid of the skelton in the closet, you better make them dance. it's what she did. so for awhile, those skeltons were dancing and alls well. wyatt died in 1929. he was 80 years old. he outlived pretty much all of

his peers and funeral was covered as a national news event. there's william s. hart and tom minks again together with william wilson and others. it was very much treated as passing of the old west. it was the dark days of the depression by now. she had a pretty good deal from. she had an oil well she and wyatt had signed over to her sister, her younger sister who was her best friend. then her sister died. why at the subsidize from the oil wells was taken away. by her niece and she was getting older, lonelier "barack obama: the stories" about the tome stone never ended. how was she is going to protect

the legend? a sudden new player picture. that's lincoln else worth who was the american explorer of antarctica. he approached her with the idea of naming his boat, which was going to go to antarctica after wyatt. and he created a little shrine on the ship with eye glasses she gave him and a rifle and all of these things. it was a great idea. it was hard to imagine. it was like naming the space shuttle after him. i tracked the story in the "new york times" there were hundreds of them. basically wyatt's name was in the newspaper at least once a month for six years. in the 19 30s. so take a look at the front page of the "new york times" january 22, 1936.

this is the same day that edward the eighth is proclaimed the king of england and there over on the left-hand side is a story about lincoln who had been lost at sea and oops. how am i going get back to that? there we go. he's reporting aboard the motorship wyatt earp. it polished his reputation suddenly known to the greatest story of adventure in the united states in the 19 30s. so i think she was heart end and em emboldened by the sensation. and thought maybe it was time to tell her story. she meant some distant relative. she's shown with the family. there's her on the left. i think she's lost a lot of weight here. she looks like an italian widow with the black and white here.

when she would go out she was ready to go out, she would say let me just polish up the old furniture and put on her powdered. she was sane but self-deep candidate -- she moved in and worked on the biography. they liked her a lot. and together they went back to tomb stone. it's first trip back since 1882. they stopped on the way in the town near where there camp had been. which was renamed in honor of wyatt. but the closer that family got to the real story, the more nervous she became. they wanted to tell the truth. they were doing a lot of research on her story. and the two skeltons in her closet, the fact she was --

death of maddie weighed on tremendously. she became more and more nerve nervous and eventually put a stop to the project completely. made them burn the man script, watch them burned it and uttered crurs over it over anyone that would tell the story. it's usually the part people begin moving away from me. there's a statute of limitations. i've decided this is statute of limitations. the memoir was not destroyed. i had the privilege of working with that. it's in the ford county historical society arkansas kief in dodge city, kansas. the project itself during her lifetime fell apart completely. and from there on in, it was pretty much downhill for her

life and her health and her mind. once that subsidize stopped, she was poorer and poorer any money there was from alaska long gone. she took to stalking friends including one of the men who had been closest to wyatt and her a fellow named john. he used the back of calendar to record her visits like this one on sunday april 18. she put the fist through the screen door and try to get in. i'll get back at you good and hard. he kept track of her movements. december 19, 1944, she dies, a tiny little article in the "los angeles times" that said widow of wyatt. she was penniless. she was in debt. they paid for the funeral which

a rabbi presided over. then she was cremated as wyatt had been. she was buried by her nieces in the same cemetery outside of san francisco. and she was buried next to her mother, her brother, her father, and of course, next to wyatt. so that's our story of the woman of the west. i had a tremendous amount of fun researching it, and writing it. i hope you enjoy it too. to my mind, there's no more american story than the story of the frontier, the gunfight, and wyatt, which spunk such deep roots to our american psyche. you can't understand any of that without putting the women back in the picture. and to my mind there's no more

interesting woman to put back in the picture than this. thank you very much for listening to her story, and thank you, seattle. [applause] >> i want to remind everyone if you have any questions, come down to this mic so we get a recording. we have about roughly twenty minutes for questions. thank you. >> thank i think he wants do you come to the mic. >> if you have a question, you can come to the mic. thank you. >> you said that the manuscript had been burned. she burned it and, you know, said it was terrible. then you went on to say there was a copy of it in dodge city. >> yes. >> archives.

and i wondered how that book . >> how could that be? >> yeah. >> yeah. >> the sisters who were working on it had their own copies. so they burned one copy of it. but they had devoted years to this project. so they weren't going to give up on it quite so easily. and so they kept it other copy. and that's the one that is in dodge city. and there was several other attempts to publish that because in 1955, when the television show came out how many of you could sing the theme song. you know it. right. so when the publicity came out about the television show, it eventually lead to the nephew of maddie, remembering something about a relationship between his

aunt and wyatt, and that's when the story of maddie came out. it didn't come out until eleven years after she died. and the sisters who had written her memoir who work order the memoir with her were not surprised. they had always suspected there was a story like that. that's why she had been so nervous. if it were want for the two sister, we wouldn't know half of what we did. because we need her memoir and their research to put it together. [inaudible] >> you know anybody?

[laughter] there have been so many books about so many movies about tome stone. none of the films really do justice to her at all. there's data key lay knee character in one of the films and none of them bear any resemblance to the truth. there's a terrible embarrassing tv movie with marie os monday. i swear. i wish it never happened. so the book is out six weeks. who know what the future will hold. i would like to see the full story told. in particular, i'm deeply interested in that alaska part their life. which i think is so unusual. no 1900 was such an important place in the world it's hard to imagine. it really was.

>> do you think she has been part of the reason for the o. k. corral. >> absolutely. >> there was a rivalry between the two men. there was a tremendous rivalry between the two men. i wouldn't say it's the only reason. i think it's part of the picture. i don't see how you can talk about the relationship between them without mentioning that they were both romanically involved with the same woman. no one really knew about it. it wasn't an era in which that sort of gossip it would make it to the newspaper. they were more interested in political things. unless you were a famous person. they didn't write about

affairs. it shouldn't surprise it didn't come out of the inquest or any of the news reports. it's indice piewtble she was living in tome stone. and it's undisputable she spent the rest of her life with the man who become the most well known man in american history. i think you got put it together and say, you know, something happened in tome stone. i actually, you know, a lot of people who work on the history are male. which probably wouldn't surprise any of you. sometimes it's lead to funny discussions. one fellow was helpful to me that assured me that he knew what he was doing every single day in the fall of 1881 around the time the gunfight.

-- in order to have an affair. i think that two enterprising lusty young people could manage to find a place in this city to to scare have a romantic interlude and the time. one more. >> you mentioned nothing about children. there was anything in the memoir about choices or. >> yes. she had at least one froabl two miscarriages. they loved children. they were very close to wyatt's family and some of the young children there.

and she was close to her nieces. even though she had run away from home. she remained close to her family for the rest of her life. nay loved little kids. so i think they would have had children had they been able to. but for whatever reason they were not able to. it's interesting, all of wyatt's brothers, i think only his half brother, newton, had children. the rest of the brothers did not vying l actually had a child. he didn't know he had a child. it was before he went off to the civil war. he later was put in contact with her. that's the only exception. the rest didn't have children. it was at one time a large family. the that one part of it from wyatt's parents died out almost

completely. >> thank you very much. [applause] >> we would like to hear from you. tweet us your feedback. twitter. com/booktv. am dison.com released the rankings of the most well read city in the. for the second year in a row. they compiled the list by adding up the total sale of books, magazine, and digital sales. it was followed by knoxville, tennessee and miami. world book night. it started in the united nations. last year was first year the

u.s. took part. they choose one book from a book of 32 tiles. and given twenty copies to distribute free to the public. if you are interested in being a volunteer next year or more information. you can visit visit the finalist in the non-fiction category include the mansion of happiness, history of life and death by jill. and "spill over. stay up to date by liking us on

facebook.com/booktv. or follow us on twitter@booktv. you can visit our website booktv.org. and click on news about books. there are two prisons in the western u.s. one is the human territorial prison. and the other one is alcatraz. there is something in our culture in the consciousness what it would have been like to be in a prison like this? the human territorial prison was considered to be a model and humane institution in the day. my major infraction. talking back to a guard. not giving your respect to it was really. if they couldn't deal with you.

the dark cells could deal with you. of all the treatment, this was the place you didn't want to come. because you didn't have a will treen. you have bread and water once a day. occasionally there would be more than one person in here. one great big prison breakout. there were twelve people in here. the fork lore, we have no proof of this that said a mean guard in the pitch black you feel something coming down the air shift and it could have been a scorpion or a snake. now that is just something that is not documented. from 1876 to 1909, the human prison home to more than 3,000 prisoners including 29 women. next weekend follow booktv and american history tv for a look at the history and literary life of yuma, arizona. here's a look at the books

being published this week. activist discussing her experience with women rights violation in congo and the battle with yiewt ran cancer. e mst pivotal year of the 20th century and shape the world we live in today. professor of criminology, scrilings, and psychology at the university of pennsylvania prevents new research on the correlation between brain function and violent crime in the agnat me of violence. the biological root of crime. president of the counsel and foreign relations argues that

the u.s. needs to focus on restoring the economic infrastructure in "foreign policy begins at home." look for the titles and bookstores this coming week. and watch for the authors in the near too -- future on booktv and booktv.org. the intelligence here is driven by this certainty that religion and reason are in different boxes. the silence and religion in difference boxes and the two actually are at war with each other. they are -- someone who is rational and religious, someone religious is not. er rationality. it's the ultimater rational idea. because the belief that religion is -- and reason in the west is completely untrue.

religion. expwhrncht nxt -- next week melanie philips will take your call, e-mail, facebook comments, and tweet. in-depth tree hours live next sunday at noon eastern. here on booktv. at the annual conservative political action conference in washington, d.c. we are with david. hi. >> how are you? >> he's the editor for human events for the denver post. the poor horse you talk about four issues going to the second term. can you describe it for us? >> there's dependency not just about welfare and food stamps and things like that. but a general fundamental change in the way that people react to each other in government. we have debt which is self-explanatory. i think the problem is worse than people imagine. there is surrender which is porn

follows chapter. it's more of reflection how people view our place in the world. and about abortion. it's being published in march. how long did you have to put the book together. are you thinking of the second term or what was the time line for the tight? >> well, i didn't think mitt romney would win. i wrote that. and but i hold it together rather quickly. i was thinking about it. the book is it's not a huge book. because how much can you read about the four horse men? it's a slim book. it took around a month to write. >> currently the budget situation what are your thoughts on that? >> well, i think there's an id logical divide in washington that will be hard to come to a consensus or agreement on what to go. and, you know, we are in bad shape in that sense. i like the paul ryan budget came

out recently. i'm a fan of the lot of idea in the budget. i think republicans need more idea and less platitude. i'm happy, sort of, in the direction the party is going. >> what do you want people to take away from the book in regard to the second term. it's not just about popularity. it's about policy and politics can be destructive. i'm a libertarian about the world and that's my viewpoint. i think that the book warns people that the problems are worse than that think. they don't go away. we have to do something about it. i'm a new editor there. we put out what i like to think is assessable but smart content about politics and culture and books and all sorts of things. we'll have great writers and will bring new soon.

now we are just online. author of obama's four hours -- horses. thank you. >> david grapier is next on booktv. he argues that america's political system only responsive to the wealthy and disfranchised the remain of the population. it's a little over an hour. how are you doing tonight? i'm thomas frank, and i'm the author of a lot of stuff. it doesn't really matter. they have my book here tonight. what do you know? i'll mention it. pity the billionaire. a book about the financial crisis and the sort of bizarre political response to it. that took place in this country. and i'm here with david great britainer, who is also an author, and wha w