there's nothing in the intelligence record at the end of the war that suggests the american intelligence committee and even a whisper -- >> eighty-nine? >> eighty-nine, the commander-in-chief right, ronald reagan had a very different view than his professional analysts. putin, kgb officer, stationed in east germany during the war must have followed the war very, very closely. i don't think he is learned any of the lessons of the war. i think that he looks at it from a technician's standpoint, that is only we were smarter spies we could have won certainly from his handling of chechnya. i don't see someone who is trying to defuse islamists sentiments. he's trying to do to the islamists in chechnya with the sodium tried to do to the afghan people in afghanistan. drive them out of the country or kill them, or so intimidate them

that they will accept russian authority. and i think in the long run that's not going to work. it's a very interesting, we now have -- in his first statement he identified two enemies of the caliphate, russia and america. >> there's already an indication that the crimean tartare's art particularly and the younger cohort, are radicalizing. this has been a terrific conversation. i want to make three points. one is the sky has written a book. please get it, buy it. he will sign it and that will be available by outside. second, we have a lot of good conversations in the auditorium. this one was distinctively a conversation because of the degree of knowledge and

expertise and experience that was evident from those of you who are good enough to ask questions and it sure that a lot of you, are allowed in the room who could have pushed bruce in a very constructive way for those of you who did speak to him. and, finally, you can imagine those of you who haven't met bruce before, what a pleasure it was and what an education it was for an amateur like myself to spend time with the real specials like this in workin won the part of the world. so please join in thanking bruce and congratulate him on his book applause but under in -- [applause] [inaudible conversations]

>> booktv covers hundreds of author programs throughout the country all year long. is look at some of the events we will be attending this week. look for these programs in the near future on booktv on c-span2.

>> for more go to our website booktv.org and visit upcoming programs. >> wwe're please be joined now y david treuer. here is his only nonfiction book, "rez life." what does it mean to be from the rez? >> great question. and it was a question even though i'm from the reservation, i grew up on a reservation, and i didn't have an answer for that. reservations are so varied, so complex. i think so crucial both to the indians from them and to the rest of the country i didn't have a good answer. in the sense that's wrote the book. >> you use the word indian, not native american. >> this is only me and i'm only talking to myself but to me,

indian, native american indian, i is author interchangeably just to keep things spicy. other people care a great deal but i don't. >> does it make you more authentic? >> than what? >> being from the reservation. >> that's what i ask for in the book. and leisure a native but you're not from a reservation, didn't grow really, really hard. in poverty and with trauma and drug abuse, then you're not somehow authentically native. that's one of things i argued against in the book i tried to show that the american indian life come reservation life is many things. it might be hard. but it's not just about. that reservation lives are not simply lives of the trauma, reservations simply basis of something. there's all sorts of amazing things at work and at play, politics and language and culture and history. and those things need to be noted and remembered. most folks, most books and

conversations on rez live talk about the tragedy of her existence. we don't live on a reservation because they suck. we live on the because we love them. we care about them. they are vibrant, interesting places in ways that even other native people don't really understand. and so this book is really meant to export what reservations mean for native people and what they mean for the country of america. >> from your book "rez life," indian lands make up two points or% of the land in the u.s. we number slightly over 2 million, up significantly from not quite 240,000 in 1900. first of all, why 240,000 only? >> the turn-of-the-century, you know, basically after the massacre at wounded knee in 1890-91, that period which happened on the planes, it

happened to the lakota, but writ large the turn-of-the-century was the low point for tribes across the country. our numbers were down. our traditional forms of leadership had in many ways been compromise or completely destroyed. culture was under assault through boarding schools and forced assimilation. we had no economic systems in place to replace our tribal way of living. it was the low point, like the worst part of our history i think. since 1900, or 1890, 1900, we have been climbing out of the whole of history. our numbers have been increasing. we've been consolidating our powers. we have been making our own government. we've been revitalizing our culture and languages and we are on the rise i have to say. this is nowhere more keenly felt than an issue of mascots in washington redskins. you know, the team has enjoyed that racial slur in peace for a

long time, but now we are powerful enough. our voices are loud enough to we are smart enough and that, the days are numbered for the washington redskins. and that's because we continue to exist and we are growing and where getting stronger. which runs counter to the narrative of us as disappeared and gone and all that, which is also what "rez life" was written again. >> you wrote quite a novel. what major by this? >> i had no ambition to write nonfiction. but after the school shooting on red lake reservation in 2005, i was sickened by the news coverage of that shooting, which persisted in torturing indian lives as tragic, as necessarily tragic, as sort of inherently tragic. the school shooting really brought that home and abroad

sort of the story of the tragic indian. it made it broadly national and very timely. and i went to morgan press and i said, i'm sick of that story. i'm sick of that way of telling the story of indian lives. he said so am i. okay, let's do a book. i am really, really grateful to them and his vision. and i tried to write something that's gone beyond tragedy. so i had to do that in nonfiction. it was sort of comedy was really, they shooting at red lake was very personally felt by me. i used to work in that high school and i've got family and friends from the reservation. it's just up the road from mine, and i wanted our lives to matter more than simply examples of life gone wrong. >> david treuer, what is your heritage? >> i grew up at east lake

reservation but my father is jewish and his of austria and he's a holocaust survivor. he fled austria at age 12, largely on his own and made it to the states where he was reunited with his parents, but the rest of us, except for a few cousins and aunt and uncle were murdered in austria by the regime. so i suppose there's a lot of blood on both sides of my family spent how did your parents meet? >> my father is a man of many lives, he did many things in many places before he finally moved, just off the reservation, and taught high school on the reservation in minnesota. he told me just recently, he had been around for maybe 45, 50 years. it was only when he moved to leech lake that if i felt he had a home. he was rejected in austria, rejected in american society, rejected ever he went to the

reservation, he said he finally felt accepted by the people understood him as a refugee, as a holocaust survivor. so he set up shop, raised his first three children. he and his wife separated, kids grew up. he met my mother. she was working on the same health care on the reservation but there were coworkers and fell in love and had a troublesome children they have now, my older brother faisal, my younger brother and sister. >> here is the cover of the book. you talk about that life is not all bad on a reservation for an american indian. but then you include this picture. who is this? >> this is my cousin, jesse, my first cousin. he is my uncle's son. he's been in prison for a while for a number of charges. he will be getting out very soon.

our lives may not be -- i may argue our lives are not tragic but they are hard for some of us. my cousin, jesse, we might be first cousins. we grew up very close to one another, but he's had a much harder than i've had it. and so even in one family you have a range of experiences, but jesse i think would be the first person to say that his life isn't a tragedy that is getting out of prison soon and he plans to make a fresh start. i'm really hopeful and i'm really proud of him. >> have indian casinos been good for reservations because ella, have corporations been good for america? yes, i know, right? casinos are good and bad. of course, multinational corporations are good and bad. they provide tax revenue and jobs and income and they help, right? if he knows provide revenue and income and jobs and

infrastructure. the reservations don't collect taxes from their citizens. so we need to build roads and hospitals and housing for the elderly and schools, et cetera, et cetera. we need to casinos to do that. do they lead to unhealthy lifestyles? absolutely. to encourage a gambling and smoking? evidently. so like any big business, they are very complicated. not all good, not all bad, and they certainly changed the face of reservation life on many but not all reservations without a doubt. ..