>> now you've got me. i can't remember all the details. you just have to say that it was the 16th century. >> how many served? >> henry vii, viii. his son ruled for a very short time. there was queen mary and elizabeth who led and turned to an abrupt end. >> who took over that point? >> it went to james six of scotland. >> was he a when mr.? >> no, he was a steward and he was the first of england because

his mother was married but there were all sorts of affiliations and ties between the two in many cases. so he was the natural choice as the queens successor. >> how much power did the king or the queen have in this nation? >> the king and the queen had enormous power administered. they were the fountain of prestige. the house of commons and not period although not just talking were very much subsidiaries to the world. the mantel of the important decisions. the of rose, the influence was

always limited by the king. >> you're first volume, history of england cannot foundations you called that. what does that cover? >> it covers everything before they began which you might take and goes right on to the beginning to the and the overview if you like to put it that way of the medieval period and what is unfortunately and inaccurately known as the dark ages it is the beginning of england's rise to dominance in the world. >> are you couldn't leave writing volume three? >> i am currently revising volume three and writing volume for. it's concerned with the civil war and the monarchies.

so we have charles ii, cromwell and then the next volume is concerned with the hanovers, the industrial revolution, the scientific revolution and the commercial revolution which causes a change in the shape of the society. >> why are you writing the history of england now? >> why not. it seems a natural thing for me to do. i've written so much in the past about the specific period, specific people. i thought it was best and judicious to try to attempt the panorama of the history of arrangement in its entirety so that i could look back upon the six volumes and say this is a sort of testament. >> peter ackroyd, you also write about the history of london in fact we found a quote of you

saying that london is a living being within each of my looks. >> yes, it is an obsession of mine since i began to write in the first novel by competed what is the great fire of london some years ago and i think all of my novels are very, very few exceptions have this landscape of their imagination itself with her is a biography of william blake or thomas more who are from london by birth. whether it is a novel or a history like the history of all of my work seems to gravitate around the city and takes a slice of the city that may be because i am a london boy. i've lived in london all of my life and for me it is a sort of all of my inspiration. and certainly the source of all of my riding.

so, it's a powerful magnetic ora that surrounds me. >> one of your recent books is "london under." what can we learn about the underground of london? >> it comprises not just of the subway system. it comprises of all of the pipes and the labyrinths of the unknown waters, the unknown rivers and wells of london. the deep defense capabilities of london. the london before the surface is almost as large and complex as the london above the surface and it is the subject which is not often handled by historians are biographers. so i thought it was one in which i could easily descend and find my way around. >> how and when was the

underground developed? >> it began in the prehistoric period win caves had been discovered and it continued with the modern ministry defense building and it's often forgotten that it is i think finished in the 1850's and 1860's so we can easily imagine jack the ripper. much as people legend. >> 50 million people or so living in england now. how many of those people are in london, and is london influence outsized in this nation? >> he would have to ask about the precise number people in london. i think it is something in the order of 13 million but i may be a couple million now. but whatever the number, the important thing is that the influence of london, the ora of

london has for the last 2,000 years shaped the perception of england and is also shaped the nature from the climate that's always been in every sense of the nation and the centrality changing over the next few. >> as you write your history of england, how much of that history is legal history? >> i hope not much as it has been in the first couple of volumes where the monarchs play a much larger role in the history than they do in the later centuries. as we go forward into the 18th and 19th and 20th century the role of the monarchies lessons become almost invisible. >> so we talk about the victorian era. will be at some point talk about the qe2 era?

the queen elizabeth ii. sorry, i went american on you. islamic i suppose they will be talking about the second elizabethton era. i suppose we will begin to talk about the second elizabeth era because it is handy for the historians and biographers to name these periods. that is the only reason. >> peter ackroyd, how many books have you written? >> that is a good question to the i cannot remember off hand. about 40. i really don't know. i do not keep a count of them. but as it were set for box, for me every book is a chapter in the large book which will be finished.

there is one aspect of the larger. >> what do you mean by that? >> by then it will be to lead of course. >> you also have the prolific biographer. who is ezra pound? >> a great companion and friend left t.s. eliot. i became interested in them when i was at yale university many years ago and i can interested in the modern american poet. and it seemed natural to me to write about him, and then from him to go to tsl the it. there is often a progress and in the biography where one author leads to another so for example i've been interested in the last few years in what i call the vision which for the blonden

writers they see the city as a kind of symbolic entity and imaginative, so that's why for example i've written biographies of jeffrey and william blake and thomas more. they represent the aspect of the vision tradition which although it isn't taught in the universities in this country, it is a silly and presence in the history of the country. >> those people -- the term has been sufficiently widened for almost anyone born in london or even outside for that matter for the people that have adopted.

>> you said people born in london. would you? >> i would, not by the literal meaning that from where i may in fact not have been able to hear the bells of the church. >> you mentioned william blake twice. islamic they are misunderstood in his lifetime, but after his death in the last 100 years he has come to be held as one of the greatest of all english writers and artists. >> u.s said he was a visionary. how so? >> he saw the vision and a better way of putting it which you then drew but he had a visionary imagination. he saw beyond the secular world and he saw the invisible forces.

>> peter ackroyd, how do you read tell the canterburry tales? >> by ian imagination. you have to be able to understand the kind of interior logic the meaning of the tails. and then what you have to do is bring it back to life to give it a response if you like in the modern world, the modern language. almost every text needs to be revived in that sense because all too many of them simply fade into obscurity or significance. but with canterburry it is always fresh and new. it maintains the cover and the magnificence of the original. schenectady you write every day?

>> i do. >> what do you write? >> i write in an office located in bloomsbury, and i live in -- i commute each morning. all of the writing is done in bloomsburg. >> what is blum's very? >> it is an area of london. so forth it is an area in the middle of london close to the museum. and it has 100 years or more of the literary atmosphere to make. i wouldn't say that it has much anymore, but nevertheless, just down the street from me as charles dickens saw' house so the london spirit. >> several of the authors that we have spoken with in london have mentioned charles dickens or have written the biographies of charles dickens.

>> this was 20 years ago there hadn't been a good run for ages. >> was a good subject for me in particular because of my interest in the visionary side they are my previous interest. because of my life as a novelist all of the forces came together. they introduced the tone for the echo of the voice into the narrative. when they begin to the biography they might feel by sympathetic magic parts of the period i was describing. there's always been the game in many of the biographers in the

section to introduce the passed to the present and past and present embrace. >> has the 20th century interested you. >> it is a part of the historical sequence. the novel comes out later this year and is set in the 21st century. so, in a 20th century the modernity's and an unknown quantity. >> the most recent book is a history of england. volume number two, the tudors and volume number one aquino in 2011. there was a book also that cannot this last year called

wilkie collins. >> he was a 19th century companion of dickens who was almost as famous but was best known for his detective fiction is. his most famous ones being the moonstone and the woman in white, which that tennis sensation novel. and it was suggested to me i might like to write about him because it was an association and also because of the prominent place in the history of the cessation and also to me because he was a visionary. he was a part of that tradition he never went beyond the bounds of a square mile of london. so i like him for that reason alone. >> how often do you leave london? >> i believe it very rarely. very rarely indeed. >> why? >> i feel at home. i don't feel the need to go

anywhere. i do not know enough about them to understand them properly like i know london. and so i just look at them with a blank look or understanding the history. that is a very unsatisfactory way of seeing the country. >> behind you here in the studio in london is st. paul's cathedral. what can you tell me about st. paul's cathedral? >> it remained intact.

somehow by some miracle that managed to survive even the german bombing said it is a miracle of preservation. but also of london's >> schiraldi if you like. again it forms the magnetic spiritual senses of the city. >> is the spirituality of london important, and what about the anglican catholic issue? >> it is mostly important because it is based upon the good symbology. i doubt that very much. there was the colony on the side of london before the romans ever

came to beat said the spiritual life of london has a long path and long may it continue. >> what about the anglican catholic issue? >> i don't think that is such a big deal actually. i don't see a sign of splits or divisions or competition between the two. they seem to be perfectly at the ease of each other. >> how big of a deal was in the henry the eighth rank? >> that was a matter of beheading if you happened to be the wrong religious flavor of the month. it was part and parcel of the social and economic and political world. so, it was a vast importance of the way that you place your allegiance in the wrong place and it might lead you to the

rest. >> peter speed, you've written ancient rome, ancient greece, egypt. how does that fit in? >> well it doesn't. it was suggested to me that i might which i'd ever done before but was a perfectly good opportunity to see if i could do it. and so i chose what i thought for children would be an interesting subject to deal with blood and gore and ritual sacrifices i thought they might enjoy but it came to an end. it's not really part of what i was really interested in doing. >> but the egypt part -- what has been england's involvement, and when did that begin? >> that is an interesting question which i don't think i can answer. it began blood and with an expl.

my knowledge of the anglo egyptian relationship is very, very glam to the estimate will volume free of your history come out? >> volume three of the history is devoted the civil war and it will appear next year. >> peter ackroyd, biographer, novelist and historian joining us now on book tv in london. thank you for your time. >> thank you. >> for more information on these and other interviews from london, visit booktv.org and watch every sunday at 6 p.m. the next several weeks for more. author and vietnam war veteran tim o'brien has been awarded

the intense discussions, argument that the "national review" that i have alluded to were primarily come not totally but primarily in the 60's as they were still feeling their way, as the conservative movement was still gelling to the 1970's, russia's focus is on -- is initially on the possibility of actually

replacing the republican party with a new conservative party. i found a letter in which he said to a friend the problem is by 1975, the problem of the republican party. it's not conservative enough. it's that it isn't big enough. again, he wanted to win and the republicans after watergate in the mid-70s or just in terrible shape. i want recite the details but a lot of them probably felt they were back where they were in the 1930's not only a minority party but a small minority pre-to the cup. russia wants to take this opportunity for starting a new conservative party. not rigidly conservative but consciously conservative. one and which the liberal wing of the republican party would

not be present and therefore wouldn't have the kind of veto power that they thought they had he believed the key to this was one, not necessarily the most important thing that an important thing was to moderate economic conservatism a little bit and be a little bit more populist. recognize the needs, the positions of the little guy. he always had some of that in him, but also to welcome the social conservatism, the populist issues. and not only southerners, but were then known as conservative democrats. people who later became ronald reagan democrats. russia was one of the first to note the size and importance of that voting bloc. he was one of the first and i'm sure one of the most effective advocates of bringing it into the republican party. and he advised ronald reagan to

do this. he knew both reagan and the first president bush pretty well. had known reagan since the mid 60's. he advised reagan and then vice president bush years later to do this. he was successful in that, although i don't think that we can really needed to be -- i'm not sure that reagan needed to be told that that heat respected him. rusher also wanted reagan to be the head of the new conservative party. well, to make a long story short, reagan refuses, probably prudently, most liberal scientists -- and i have had training of scientists have told you it will be big on a national level that cannot start small. it's got to start big. probably with a superstar like reagan. so, once reagan refused and made

75, early in 75 to join this third party project rusher not going and wrote a book about, it was probably curtains for that particular idea. but, rusher had succeeded in getting the conservatives to think more about the need to expand the republican party. and for the republican party to be more coherent. not so if you look typical year and that it was willing to forfeit elections. i think they were passed that phase of his political development or perspective by then. so, he recognized that if reagan wasn't going to head its debate code, it wasn't going to get far but he stuck with it. the full details are in the book, chapter 13. but he came to see in the late

70's that it really was possible for a guy like ronald reagan to win the republican nomination. and once he did come ever since he won the republican nomination 19 etds and had a totally successful presidency, rusher remained at the end of his days an absolute republican loyalist, right or wrong that is another interesting lesson. a man who at one time had been a third party advocate comes back to a more conventional political view although he was also a strong conservative. in closing, i want to say two words about rusher's significance as a symbol among the conservatives. he was a very elegant man. he wasn't particularly tall, he was an athletic. but he was wonderfully articulate. he always spoke in perfectly

formed sentences, both in public and private conversations to get he was always very well dressed. he looked fine wine and opera and he traveled all over the world coming to the great hotels of the world. so this was a little unusual for a semi populist conservative and for a guy as a theological as he was. perhaps leading conservatives today could use a few more people like that and in other words it was hard for a manhattan liberal. he knew some come to say rusher, conservatives are hicks and this and that. you couldn't say that about buckley and you couldn't say that rusher. he reinforces that sense that they are pretty smart and sophisticated people. they want to have a round if you can stand that viewpoint here and there. he was another kind of conservative. the younger conservatives tended to admire that and he tried to bring them along in a kind of style.

also, as dr. edwards referred to, rusher for quite a while. most prominently on the show called the advocate's. he was the conservative advocate, he was on the debate show and he did extremely well. a lot of people would watch that and say well, we can do that, too. we can be as good as he is. ..