and even southerners were in support of banning the slave trade. why were southerners in support of that. >> a lot of rather reasons. one, it was perceived as unjust or inhumane part of traffic. they had an economic self-interest. they already owned slaves and the environment in the u.s. was such that slave mortality was not as high in sash plantations as it was in place like cuba or brazil. where slaves didn't live for very long because the environment and disease. here in the u.s. if they were tbel treated as they could be, they would live for, you know, a decent lifespan. and so slave owners perceived that actually by banning the slave trade it would increase the value of the slaves they owned. it would limit the influx of slaves and the ability of their neighbors to buy new slaves. it was an odd colation. >> you have a chart in the book that showses the -- i want to use the word

importation of slaves; correct? what is it shows here. >> there's a strong slave right before we ban it. everyone knew that as soon as the clock turned that congress was going to bant slave trade. >> the other half of your book is about the international human rights law. when did human rights laws start part of the discussion on the slave trade? >> really around the turn of the 19th century. it's interesting. people think that international human right law is a product of the 120th century. many most of the conventional account people say it was after world war ii. the holocaust happened, news of that came out a bunch of things happened after world war ii. this was the trial of the nazi war krill. similar trial in the far east. the u.n. was founded, universal declaration of human rights.

everyone said it's when international law started to look at human rights issues. in my book, i say no it was earlier. it was in connection with with the slave trade. in the early 19th century starting in 18 -- britain was another -- and began to spread throughout the countries that had been engaged in the slave trade. this is no longer a practice they wanted to participate in. it was perceived as violating natural rights. same idea of rights that underpin the u.s. revolution and the revolution in france. the declaration of independence. we hold the truths to be self-evident. all main are created equally. obviously there was a tension between that and the existence of slavery. the ideas of natural rights were spreading throughout the atlantic world. and also there were religious

revival movements. the quakers among others were active politically and they perceived slavery in the slave trade to be morally wrong. as those group became more active in civil societies, they started to put pressure on the government to say we have to stop this slave trade. because it was an international problem, all the countries of europe that were engaged in travels on the ocean were participating in it. it wasn't something that just one country could stop. even if the u.s. same we're banning the slave trade or britain said we're banning the slave trade. that wasn't going to be enough. because spain, portugal, france, the netherlands, the other countries were going pick up the slack. they were going pick up the slaves from africa and transport them to the new world. it quickly became apparent in order to eradicate the practice there was going to have to be some international cooperation. and so abolitionists put pressure on the government. especially lited british

government was receptive to the it. at first the treaty like many modern international human rights treaty were what we might call an international relation cheap talk. they said slavery is wrong. we want to ban it. it included no enforcement mechanism. pretty quickly the tide turned and said it's not going enough. and so the british government began pushing for enforcement measures. they actually created a treaties starting in 1817 that not only ban the slave trade but created international court to enforce the ban. more than a century before the trials. and what they would do is if a ship were caught engaged in the illegal slave trade. it would be brought before one of the international courts, and

if they found out it was covered by the treaty. there was a spanish -- the slaves would be freed pane the slip would be auctioned off. and the money would be split between the sea captain who brought the ship in and the governments involved. these international courts, as i recount in the book, heard some 600 cases and freed 80,000 slaves off captured slave tradingship. which is a huge number. >> all post 1808. >> all post 1808. >> what was the name of the international court? >> they were the -- treaties gave them different names. they were called sometime the mixed commission or the mixed court. they involved judges from the

different countries. there would be a british judge and a brazilian judge, for example. if they couldn't agree, they would toss a coin and pick a third judge from one of those two countries to help decide the case. every weekend since 1998 booktv has shown over 40,000 hours of book programming. there were more women on power it could change. that's the real problem. we've the only national television networking devoted

exclusively to non-fiction books.his trilo the day of beamght and the guns at last light was the third in the trilogy.may, you can see the phone number on the screen. if years old like to talk with him about world war ii and his trilogy. he'll be joining us in about twa minutes.l

erg yoau have seen today it wilo reair this evening at 1:00 a.m.s eastern time in the overnight. you'll be able to see the whole thing. the but go ahead and dial in forg. rick atkinson. d he'll be over here in a minute. in the meantime, we're going jua take a call from fred ino pennsylvania. thank you for holding in plymouth, pennsylvania. what's your question for rick atkinson? >> caller: more of an assessment. my feeling is the great tragedy

of world war ii was the entire camp pain, huge loss of life. i was wondering and the way he conducted the campaign and that's basically it. i read the last book, the third book. >> he spends quite a bit of time at the italian campaign. once mr. atkinson gets over here, we'll ask him about that. next caller's gala in san antonio. heiko mckale. >> caller: the question is why didn't hitler crossed the channel into in good? if he had done so, with the english have used gas? >> host: okay, we'll ask him that question as well. (202)585-3890 in eastern central time zone.

585-3891 for those of you in the mountain pacific time zones. we are joined now by rick atkinson and the history and biography tent. thank you for being with us. fred and in pennsylvania called just a minute ago and he wondered about the italian campaign. he thought that was the biggest disaster of the war and specifically about mark clark, general clark and i told him in the day of battle he spent quite a bit of time on mark clark. so if you would cover recount the italians. >> guest: i think i'm probably more generous than both. a pretty capable battlefield. 23 amounts than -- killed in world war ii and not every commander is cut out to take out these casualties and be able to sustain the kind of emotional weight th