privileged, several of the us on this panel are historians and one of the things about historian studying the past is how a certain world operate so people living in that world see things as normal, things we don't see as normal we see as unjust, so how do people decide to take the history into their own hands and show that something doesn't have to be normal, it could be seen as not normal for whites to have more powers in blacks or men staff more powers and women so part of it is part of the mystery of the past, how do people think these things were ok? and how do people get the idea they could show men and women okay? >> that question was great. so glad -- totally doesn't

understand something that didn't make sense anyway. >> why do people think people speaking assure it was weird to be gay? i am hoping for more. >> that probably means it is time to wrap things up and thank our panel and to invite all of you to join us. [applause] >> booktv is on twitter and facebook and we want to hear from you. tweet us twitter.com/booktv or post a comment on our face book page, facebook.com/booktv. >> this was the night of september 9th, 2009, still highly popular president spoke to a joint session of congress and there was in the air with tennessee williams big daddy

pilot might have called the powerful and obnoxious odor of mendacity. among the mendacious lines cried out that night was this one. nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have. let me repeat this. nothing in our plan requires you to change what you have. at the time obama said this he may have thought it was true and yet i went back and checked the record on this and within two days of that announcement there were serious dissents in major publications. is impossible pecans do this and get away with it. the first time we give, as. the next 45 times, no past but that is not what got wilson rile the bands may have been one of the things that got him riled the been a number of things but

when obama denounced the claim that his proposed health care system would not in short, would ensure illegal immigrants, that is when wilson could hold his tongue along radial doubt you lie! that is how you pronounce the name of my book. is not you lie, is "you lie!". all hell broke loose. go back and watch the video. it is fun to see. for the first time in 20 is nancy pelosi raised her eyebrows. she was sitting behind her. i didn't think that was possible. joe biden literally -- you could hear him tsk tsk tsking. obama lost his place in the teleprompter which could be a disaster and there was a collective gasp out of democrats. is the kind that follows in the

school yard by i'm telling which is exactly what they did. immediately afterward the republicans rushed to the mic to apologize which they do too often in democrats rushed to the male vendors to raise money off of this which they do much too well. that is how it broke out. i like the response of democratic whip james cliburn who called the behavior totally disrespectful which it probably was in a sense and a new low for the state's congressional delegation. he has not studied south carolina history very closely. those of you who know your history know what i'm going to say. 1856 preston brooks, a congressman from south carolina, upset by the abolitionist talk from senator charles sumner in the republican from massachusetts went over to the senate with his buddy and clubbed senator some near near

the to death, disabled and for several years. his fellow congressman would be helpers' at pistol point. that was a low. you can't get much lower than that. but history has never been the strong suits of our progressive friends. missing the hubbub over joe wilson's remark was the nature of this. he did not say you are a liar or that is a lie, he said "you lie!". was like an existential declaration of the man. five years ahead of the time before anyone else,. sinatra sings, obama lies, that natural declaration. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. here is a look get the latest news about the publishing industry.

on monday amazon's crowds west publishing platform kindles count allowed the public to begin nominating manuscript they wish to see published. amazon will review the voting after 30 days and if the manuscript is selected the author will receive a five renewable contract of $1,500 advance and 50% of the e-book royalty rates. in 84 page and published book by richard simon of publisher simon and schuster is for sale. the publishing news website reports the book looks at the history and practice of the american public -- publishing industry the according to the association of american publishers adult book sales were down 2.2% for the first seven month of this year. e-book sales accounted for 30% of those sales. stay up-to-date on news about the publishing world by making us on facebook at facebook.com/booktv or follow us on twitter at booktv. you can visit our web site, booktv.org and click on news about books.

>> this is booktv on booktv. steven johnson looks at 6 innovations that made the modern world. at eight, public policy professor on america and security concern for the remainder of the 21st century. ..

a supply stopped for miners traveling to camps. and later due to its dry climate a sanctuary for people suffering from tuberculosis. today colorado springs has a population of about 40 month 40,000 his visit to -- visit by nearly 5 million every year for the next hour we will learn about their region's history and literate culture from local authors. >> no matter what time frame you were talking about in the american west, it was never empty. seven a way it was a challenge to the traditional pioneer story white anglo pioneers arrived on an empty landscape. >> we will also visit the u.s. air force academy and learn about combat during the second world war. >> some of this was the

result of our experience in the first world war, but there was a recognition that all air men or soldiers in this case, everybody was subject to anxiety and fear, in other words, it's perfectly normal. >> we began our feature on colorado springs with jason lewis, the first men to circumnavigate the globe using only human power. >> when i first said that i was going to go all around low world by human power, it was my mother who first heard this, and she was absolutely appalled by the whole idea. that did not compel the kind of back room necessarily that would lend itself to be an adventure. so my mom had different expectations for me. what are was proposing to do was potentially quite

dangerous and had decided to do this and i was 26 years old and it was my idea -- it was not actually my idea. it was a friend of mine. he and i have gone to college together. he said, and tired of my job, tired of sitting behind my desk and basically crunching numbers on the computer. he said, you know, i thought of this idea, this grand adventure. it allowed us to see the world that has not been done before, to go all the lead abroad the planet using just you and power, no fossil fuels, and no sales, and at that time i had a little window cleaning business in west london, and so neither of us had any prior experience of doing expeditions'.

the planning and research was in a way the hardest part. two years of planning, we had to build a boat that would be strong enough to withstand the power of major storms when crossing the atlantic and pacific and indian oceans, but also the boat had to be not so big, it had to carry a hundred and 50 deprivations, but you could not have it so big that you could not in this case peddle it through the water. so that took one year to build, to find some friends who were boatbuilders and someone to design this particular craft. we also, of course, had to put a lot of effort into planning iraq to, finding, you know, visas from countries that we were going to be going through and also money. i mean, we had no money to do this thing.

we wrote hundreds and hundreds of sponsorship letters and got -- i mean, we got some product including 4,000 mars bars to eat across the atlantic, but we got no money. so after two years of this planning and preparation and we had to just say, okay, we are going to set of, borrow a little bit of money per impressions and family and see how far we get. then we will just have to find ways along the way which is part of the reason why the exhibition ended up taking so long, 13 years, in the end. we started off on the greenwich, east london, and it is a lovely, ornate building. so we set of. the first day was a disaster because we had committed the cardinal sin of adventures, we have lots of charts of

crossings, the atlantic, the pacific, star charts for celestial navigation because this was pre internet and 90 -- internet and gps days. the first day we got completely lost trying to get out of south london because we had not brought a road atlas, a street atlas force of london, so this was not a very auspicious way to start the circumnavigation did. the route, full circle of the -- spool circumnavigation would mean no less than 20,000 miles to meet the guinness world record guidelines command needed to hit a point in australia opposite the one that we had crossed on the atlantic to complete a full circumnavigation. so it was portugal initially, europe, across the atlantic, across the u.s., across the pacific to australia up through indonesia, busting up through southeast asia,

china, tibet, over the himalayas, and india, pedaling across the caribbean sea which was interesting because the piracy at that time was really bad of somalia. the last leg was pedaling bikes from east africa up to the middle east and east-west europe and finally back to london again. logistically, it was quite hard because we did not have major funding. we had to, for example, get to the end of, the edge of a continent, let's say when we got to the u.s., and then once we got across the u.s. the bush state and miami. we crossed the u.s. on a bike and rollerblade and then we actually found just along the way someone who might be able to help deliver it, toilet, so the logistics' said to be sort of made up as we went along,

but that first few weeks when we were trying to a bicycle or way down from london to portugal, which is where we start off across the atlantic, we had some friends actually who took the boat on a trailer down to portugal where it was first needed, so it was, you know, some of it we had to do ourselves. sometimes who were lucky enough to have friends, long. and when we got to the u.s. here, we arrived with absolutely no money, and it was just the goodness of the people that we met in the local community starting off with miami and fort lauderdale barely allowed us to carry-on through each stage. so we were traveling blind. we really did not know very often how we were going to be able to get to the other side, the next goshen, or the boat shipped across the particular, and we were crossing. it was all pretty much made up as we went along. i ended up in colorado

because we're rollerblading across the u.s. the journey from miami to san francisco on roller blades. my partner, steve, actually more sensibly motorbike. i wanted to do something different. we had spent so long crossing the atlantic for 111 days that we needed a break from each other. and were at each other's throats. so i was on my rollerblades. i have never wrote a letter before, but by the time i got to colorado i was managing to stay upright for days at a time. and i was entering this town called pueblo, not far from here, did not know anything about pueblo. i was just going to spend one night in town and continue over the rockies. it was almost five in the afternoon, and i felt this incredible sense of force from behind on their running shoulder of this dual carriageway, 4-lane highway. and a split second later

that was on the side of the road looking up at the sky, did not know what happened. i try to stand up, and then i noticed i was standing on the stumps of my legs. i have been hit by an older gentleman who hit and ran, carried on driving and both my legs were shattered, and i ended up spending six weeks in hospital recuperating from these broken legs and an additional seven and a half months recuperating. at that point, especially when the surgeon told me that my left leg may have to be amputated below the knee because it was so badly shattered i thought, maybe this is the time to go home, and this is only a year and a half into the trip as well. so when i was lying there in the hospital bed i thought, you know, i started thinking, well, if are doomed it to to lose my left leg then maybe there is

where i can carry on that thought in a wheelchair something, pearl onions do it no problem. then i thought after nearly drowning of the atlantic and our nearly dying after being run over and colorado, maybe i am just putting too much to drew -- cutting my family through too much. maybe it should be time to go home. that is when my surgeon very kindly let me stay at his lavish get away to lead this lounge appear in the rocky mountains, and it was while i was recuperating for seven months i ended up working with local teachers developing curriculum, cultural exchange programs and environmental programs. it was in kind of this educational outreach element, component of the project that i found the reason, i think, to keep

going. the hardest part of the trip was actually in the middle of the pacific. and my partner, steve, by this point had left the expedition. we got to hawaii, and he then decided that this was -- enough was enough. this was already five years into the project that was only supposed to take three or four years. i was out there for one month and got into a countercurrent, the ecuadorian oil countercurrent where water actually flows back eastward toward central america, and i was effectively boxed in by this countercurrent and i could not go south and i could not go west. i was pedaling on the spot for two and a half weeks going nowhere, and every day i would battle for 18, 19 hours and go to sleep for a few hours and wake up back

where i started the previous morning. that was the most demoralizing part of the whole trip and definitely the point where i thought, you know, i have no motivation. i cannot carry on. a hamster on a wheel going nowhere. it is hard to maintain your hope and your motivation. the bottom line is, i have to keep pedaling. i have to keep getting up and pedaling every day because if i go backwards in the countercurrent there is a greater chance of me running out of food, water, so it was a survival situation, and that is what, i guess, pulled me through. >> lend hope. [laughter] >> you probably cannot see it there in the camera, but just on the horizon they're is a tiny little ribbon a black. and that is it. we made.

♪ >> it is a hard question to answer, what was my favorite stop, my favorite part of the world. you know what, though, have to say, some parts of the world that i was expecting to be treated really badly or that i was expecting people, you know, because i was from a western country, i was expected to receive a hard time, i've found is completely the opposite case. for example, riding through north sudan where, of course, it is predominantly muslim, they have a fairly -- the government is on the blacklist as far as the u.k. and america. arafat, this could be one of those parts of the world where i am tour in the back of van and end up on youtube and the thing with my head cut off. that is what people tell

you. you don't want to go into indonesia or sudan. it will be really bad. and i remember, they were just the nicest, probably the nicest people that i've met of all the countries of went through. and their sense of hospitality was incredible. you never have to borrow about where to sleep at night, never have to worry about where i was going to get food pulling me into their homes, feeding needs tea and cakes. if anything, i was overheating. and so that really changed my perception of sudan. and there were other countries i went through like that as well. indonesia, the people were just delightful. indonesia was a great favorite of mine and, i think unless sudan. [inaudible conversations] >> ms. home?

>> don't really know where north this. -- home is. >> i was out there until i completed it. this is one of those things that makes exhibitions' different than a lot of the exhibition is that people go . they come back to home base, or wherever that might be and write a book and then they go out and do something else. this was 16 expeditions back-to-back without going home, and that actually was one of the most various -- weary some aspects of the journey i found. after several years, after five or six years of this, of being on the road all the time, you really get a perspective of what all ms. end what you -- what i left behind and all of those fundamental things that we, perhaps, take for granted

when you are part of a community, relationships that last more than just, you know, a few weeks. i got tired of pedaling into town and making friends and then after a few weeks or months or so having to move on and say goodbye. i got sick of saying goodbye and so it gave me a perspective on how -- on the value of community, the value friendships, the value of stability and all those good things that i now have having finished a trip, but i am glad that i did the journey because i am one of those people, i think, that in my earlier years to my 20's and 30's i need to get out, travel, i felt quite nomadic. the best of both worlds, and now i really appreciate not traveling. would i do this again? it is an impossible question to answer, of course. what i know now in terms of

having gone around the world and having been lucky enough to have done a trip like this -- it is not for everyone, of course, but i do feel quite privileged to have done a trip like this anti have seen the world from us lupes -- from a slow pace, not a motor vehicle or train where you don't see anything, a lovely, slow pace were you get to meet people, interact with people on a ground level. you to stay in their homes and really understand cultures. so i do feel like i have this bird's-eye view of the world, but i did not before, growing up in england when i was just dying to get out, feeling this terrible claustrophobia. i needed to get my head around what is this planet that we all live on? what is it that we need to do as people, as a species, to get along and to live

peacefully and overcome all of these problems environmentally that we have now. i feel like i have some answers now that i did not before. i feel like the world has been scaled down in many ways. when you are out on an ocean on a small boat, you have to adapt to the circumstances, live within the financial means, you know, you have to think about conservation of food and water and power and i think that is something which now when i go into schools and talk to young people, i'd like to share that message. the planet is like a little blood on the ocean, and you have to think about doing your bit. everyone has to do their little bit. and there is enough to go around. so that is one thing that i feel very lucky now to be able to share. and, of course, the book is very much part of that

vehicle, you know, to be able to get some of these -- it is not just an adventure story basically. i was out there trying to find some answers to questions that have always burned inside me since i was growing up. so the book allows that, allows me to get some of those learning, those lessons out there. >> during our recent visit to colorado springs, colorado, we visited the helen hunt jackson exhibit at the colorado springs pioneers museum with curator leah davis-witherow. >> helen hunt jackson was a notable 19th century author and one of the earliest residents of colorado springs she can to get close greece in 1873 as a prescription for ongoing health troubles that she was suffering, but by the time she arrived here she was already a famous author. she made quite a splash, as you can imagine. her first book of verse is

was published in 1870. she published in magazines like the century, atlantic monthly, scriveners. this is her writing room, restudy, the personal study of helen hunt jackson. we have some of her books throughout the three rooms of her home. what we love about having her house in the museum is that we can interpreter life based upon these objects. so you can see that helen loved beautiful things. she was a victorian woman of her era, and so she has these beautiful watercolor paintings done by ellis stuart hill, who was a friend of hers here in colorado springs, and she also has her own cabinet of curiosity, if you will. she has put together an eclectic set of artifacts based upon her travel, based upon her interest, but literary, scientific, and of

the natural world. we know that she loved nature. in fact, she found god and nature. she, instead of attending church on sunday, would hike up cheyenne mountain that. so she surrounds herself with beautiful things from nature, and this sum would have plants, ferns, flowers surrounding her. some we don't have those day. this shelf covered in pine cones and other stuff is actually a fondness that grows on the side of trees. she has had it mounted to a wooden plate so that she can displace some of her flora and fauna on there. this object is a wales in terrier, and it is made into a purse, a little bags that she could put things in.

again, that is an extraordinary example of her love of the natural world. we know that she never stopped reading. she was always collecting and reading and investigating new topics this stairway, it is believed that this was carved by one of colorado's first minute millionaires, but she called it her story staircase because, of course, all of these stars were carved into the sides of the wooden staircase going up. in 1879 a shift came about, and interesting, important turning point in alan jackson's career came about. she was in boston. she did not stop traveling. it was really just her home base. she was in boston where she attended a program. a chieftain standing there,

and his interpreter. and and emotional and impassioned speech about the mistreatment of the indians and how they had been removed from their homeland in the dakota territory and forced down to the indian territory, a long, arduous journey in which young people, people young and old died from the trip, being exposed to weather and malnutrition plenty was saying this on a national tour, trying to bring attention to this mistreatment. helen jackson was present, and something about this case, about the story and this man in particular who was at impassion supporter, also known as bright eyes suede her, and she began to become involved in the story, research, advocate,

she joined an organization to try to a shine a light, if you will come on the mistreatment of the indians. and so for the first time in her life she became a woman with a cause and set her sights on writing a book that would change americans notion of a 19th century government treatment of american indians. and so she set to work, and in a matter of months really, a remarkable feat, she published -- porsche zero essentially of dishonor, a record not of the entire history of american indians in the united states, but seven tribes in particular, one of which was the pop up. she meant to shed light on treaties that were broken. she meant said shed light on agreements that were forgotten and to bring attention, to wake americans up, if you will, to what was going on in their backyard.

it is said that she delivered a copy to every member of congress had her own expense. she was incredibly disappointed when the book only sold about 2,000 copies. she said, the only people that read it did not need to. there are people that were interested in the cause and the movement. we will now go into the room called the parlor. and this room, too, both reflect her eclectic style but also the time. she has distill arubia sculpture over the mets a place. on the mantel is a beautiful portrait of her son who passed away at nine years old of diphtheria. to me know that he was her companion, traveling companion. she took great comfort in his companionship after her

husband passed away. and she boston in 1865. this is one of my favorite parts of the home, and it is of little library called casting corner by the jackson children and the book shelves are filled. -- she had about 1,000 books in this section alone. they are filled with great works of literature. they are filled with history books, ethnographic studies, scientific publications and also, there are interesting enough, a couple of bucks said on mysticism were spiritualism, quite popular in the late 19th century to one author describes how helen sought to contact him in the afterlife. we do not know that that actually happened. would not be altogether surprising because that was

a very popular phenomenon among victorious arab women in the latter part of the 19th century, but her library is remarkable. there are books by her father, books by her literary and mentor, books by some of her friends and fellow female authors as well. after a century of this honor and your special report to congress she is starting to write a popular novel. a popular novel that would go to great lengths to accomplish. so she placed a novel in southern california and it was hardly popular. it was a bestseller, and 20,000 copies. of but unless the message love stories, beautiful places to our government the

narrative and missed the message. literary scholars think it is still very useful work, a wonderful piece of regionalist that shows, describes in such detail southern california at this place at this particular after her death and on her recommendation, her husband, will jackson, eventually remarry. should thought this would be a good match. wanted to have children, wanted him to have is a domestic life. so she encouraged her husband to court and to eventually marry her niece. the two did marry a few short years later and had

seven children. as the family grew and the house had to expand to accommodate all of the children, but these three rooms remain in tact almost as a museum, if you will, with all of the original positions of helen hunt jackson. so it almost remained as a shrine. and in the 1960's when the house was doing to be raised to make way for the police station, the family worked with the city of carbos brings to bring these three rooms in cd cordoza springs pioneers museum where they are today. today she is seen as a remarkable 19th century woman proposed boundaries of what was acceptably. but it's still remains one of the most widely published books in the world. >> from book tv recent trip to colorado springs, colorado we explored the press of colorado college. "the press" was founded and dedicated to the creation of

limited edition books. >> welcome, everyone. glad to have you here. we are in "the press" as a cut of college. we will talk about it in the context of their class. the context of different. >> "the press" at colorado college was founded in 1978 by an art professor named chairman trickle. he get into this accidentally printed dependent completely fascinated and taught himself and brought about. brought it up part his own.

a master of this equipment and all of the type. about 20 years he bolted up into a nationally recognized studio 5-priced books. this is the very first class at colorado college. and so barry is a history class. and there are talking about sort of the development of printed books and manuscripts and books and that type of knowledge. so when they come in today we will be talking about different things, the historical background of the technology, the context which it was invented, after that. what it entailed with the equipment. >> as you see, we are surrounded by all these jurors, and each one of these jurors, the old metal

type. individual pieces of metal. we will be working on these here. what your printing from goes into the bed. the paper wraps around a cylinder. than the ink goes on top of it. generally they are impressed. machines and are like a mall while. you can tell right away that there are old. they're always impressed by how many people know that they're printing presses immediately. you do not see these things. something about them, people are like, oh, these are printing presses. arabs are curious as to why

there are so recognizable still. usually people are like, while, it is cool, things like that. there is also this kind of has a chance and fear are run the machine, which i remember. and then i'd fix some people are just totally flabbergasted some people, very interesting to see the different reactions. maybe the person who does not take interest, just looking at books, the machines right there. it is interesting. other people want to look at the books and do not care about the machine. one thing i like to stress about the press is that it is not to my very emphatically not a living history exhibit or the kind of nostalgia for the weather we used to do things. it is not necessarily about preservation or anything like that. that is a part of it, sure, but what it is and for us

what it is about is how these processes, these slow, meditated, physical processes can inform the way that we think about the printed word and media and things like that today and how when we see how things are made, how they will allow less to reflect critically and just like the idea of a slowing down and paying very careful attention to the amount of space your print between words cover the amount of space your putting between airlines, dwelling in that letter by letter moment, seven the type. a lot of it is about attention and time and thoughtfulness. you do not often get that. so what are really want the students in the class to take away is that they can make books, but they can

engage the world in that way. they might not ever to it by hand, but just sort of knowing that that is a possibility, i think, is the most important thing. letterpress printing might be the most awful thing. the fact that they know that they can do would and that there are, perhaps, other words for them to interact with the knowledge in such a way it is the important thing. >> book tv is in colorado springs, colorado with the help of our local cable partner, comcast. next, we talk with anne hyde, author of "empires, nations, and families, which takes a look at the multi-ethnic inhabitants of the louisiana purchase. >> the premise of the book is pretty simple, that no matter what time frame you are talking about in the american west, it was never

anti. in a way it is a challenge to the traditional pioneer story where white anglo pioneers arrived on an empty landscape. i wanted to fill up that landscape with people before those other people came. the families that i looked at had a lot to do with why there were so many people there before 1850 and the white pioneers arrived and all of that colonial conquest created mixed blood families. so families of mixed hispanic and anglo, native american and anglo, native american and black, native american and hispanic, you name it. and i was just amazed to find all of these people. i decided one way to fill of that empty landscape was really to use those families. and the question about racial attitudes in the west is a great one because it does change. in the first half of the 19th century everything is not just hunky dory and easy

pc about race, but there is much more racial mixing going on, and it is normal. the only way you can get business done if you are in the fur trade or military is to have connections with native people, so you needed them. racial mixing was pretty much the norm. after the civil war the changes a lot, and racial attitudes change a lot, racial lines began to harden, and that is a very interesting story, trying to figure out what happens to all these mixed-race people. well, if you look in particular at the way people actually do business, there are fabulous records with for companies about who does what and who gets paid to do what, and the notion that you needed to know the landscape like the back of your hand to figure out where the beavers were in the buffalo and all that kind of thing, it makes

sense. you need the labor of native women to process all of those furs, and then you need dated may nasdaq's to figure out to get them back to civilization, but there is a whole world of mixed-race people who have, you know, education in the white world and cultural values and experience in the indian world, and they are really negotiators between of this. there are great business people. sea captains, running riverboats, teamsters, you know, any part of the book that you can imagine. and then suddenly that is not possible anymore. really ownership of property and citizenship are the shoes. and one agriculture begins with things like the fair trade -- fur trade as the main business. and there is the issue of who is allowed access to this american landscape

which becomes a big deal. native people began to get shut out in this question about, are these mixed-race people, white, native, what are they? one of the things on working on, the whole branch of these things called half. reserves and have read drops that were set up as part of indian treaties, and there are 50 of them in the united states permit completely amazed in discover this, a place where mixed-race people are given special access to land. and that disappears. what that means, what kind of actions people have. it is not that they have to

pick one of the other it is just that the action of being of mixed race person does not exist anymore. this was true until the year 2000. there never was a barge you could check for being a mixed-race persons. so depending on what you look like, your educational level, who is family support system. there was well-educated mixed-race people moving back into the reservation. they had a very dignified lives, leaders, and translations, and they're doing that because of access to land. so how race works in the u.s., so i think this might shift the story in two ways. one story we like to tell

about ourself in the present -- and i have to say very recent events like ferguson and michele and alexander work makes me doubt this, we tell a progressive story about race, we move from the battle days of slavery and possession of indian land and are slowly getting better and better and better. that is one story we tell. a story i am adding in the 19th century, this sort of up down kind of story where we figured out new ways to protect certain races and advantage some people at the expense of other people. various ways. call more positive thing would be at thinking about there is this moment in the early 19th century, pre long moment, 50 years, 75

years, 100 years or mixed-race people were completely on remarkable, no big deal, not from around racial mixing, interracial marriage to all those things that became a mass around the late 19th and early 20th century were possible . this hopeful moment, violence, bad things happened, but the racial politics were different then we expect, certainly in that landscaped, appreciating what complicated lives these people have, the fact that they were everywhere, whenever we moved into landscapes, be interested in who was there before, the deep history, what can you find out about that? it is always cheaper than you might think. >> up next we sit down with a story with david heidler

and jeanne heidler, who discussed the difficulties of writing about history and the importance of teaching it. book tv visited the historians with the help of our cable partner comcast. ♪ >> met in graduate school, so we have been writing history since 1978 when we met as graduate school. so we have been writing history since then for publication really nonsense graduate school. started collaborating in the 1990's. had written separately before then. the same area, same field, sir collaborating together.

working as a spouse team is not easy, a lot of friends had said to us i could never do that. a lot of our friends are both academic and not necessarily in the same field. we find it fairly easy, i think probably because we started out in the same field. not that we don't disagree because there are times we do disagree on interpretation and that is where their collaboration becomes importance. >> we had an idea of when you know you're out of the part where you can actually start writing, it is when you can hear the people talk and that does happen. if you read widely enough and get into the archival

material was due diligence creek and an eye toward what you're doing, at some point things began to make sense, and the people become real, they ceased to become a nearly figures from the distant past but become real to you. once you have done that, books us send our kind of logic. when they don't you are doing something wrong. the hardest book we ever written is a social history of the early republic which we thought would be something of a departure, fun to do, and it was not. i have mentioned other people, it is like there was -- the thing was so broadly conceived to that it was difficult to do. when we finished it we thought we would never do something like that again. it is a pretty good book, as it goes, but the fact that

it is there, a lot of blood, sweat, and tears on the pages. the frame is given to you. it is just the way they treat the subject to interpretation. the other issue is what you leave out. that is key because you cannot have everything or it just becomes, as many students regard history, just one damn thing after another. so there has to be something of a dramatic thread that ties together and tells a story in a way that is entering, -- interesting, accessible, and true, accurate. the accuracy is the basis of the foundation from which everything else proceeds. >> we have these bookshelves installed when we first moved into the house. we put some of our favorite books in this room, which is really sort of the family reading room.

all of these books over here are a large part of our civil war collection because both of us more less started in the civil war era. there are really old books in this section, but also some we have recouped -- some we have acquired more recently, biographies of civil war figures as well as artifacts that we have collected since been moved out west. we started collecting primarily american indian pottery, a lot of this is ag , pottery, which is found in mexico that we have interspersed also with some of the bucks. this section of books, primarily early republic books, revolution through probably about 1850. most of these books cover that era which is one that we cover more with our riding today. so a lot of these books we used frequently as well as some of the boats down in the library.

we look for in accuracy is also the representative. sensation of the authors. we buy books by news dollars because there are a lot of new things coming out of the time, different interpretations of people. most of the books on the shelves are not that reasons, although there are a few here by more recent scholars. plus, we collect published papers a lot of the people we work on, andrew jackson, henry clay. a lot of those papers are published, so we buy a lot of their works as well. his biography of tecumseh off by a british scholar, i found to be fascinating because it really looks at tecumseh, and i am interested in american indian and it -- american indian history. it is one of my favorite books. and then this one, yes, this

one right here comes this book right here is one of my favorites because it was one of the ground breaking pieces of scholarship done on the creek indians, deerskins and duffel's by catherine lebron is an incredible book. i would recommend that to just about anybody. it is accessible, although very scholarly book. a lot of historians write for other historians, and we want historians to read our books, but i think that it is more important that you make the books or articles, whatever your writings accessible to let the general public so that there will be interested. how many people do we ever run into to say history is just not my thing. part of it is they have never read the interesting history, had good history teachers or professors that make it accessible, make them understand how important it is. this is certainly true that

it is declining. i think history is being emphasized last in secondary schools, and we have seen that at the academy. we have actually done some testing of incoming freshmen and discovered that over time that their knowledge, not just of history in general, but american history, has declined dramatically over time and that part of that is that it is not a subject that is emphasized. and that is somewhat understandable because there's so much to do in high-school, and knowledge is expanding, but to sacrifice not just heritage but knowledge of the past and the mistakes that people made in the past, because you learn more from mistakes than you do from successes, and the youngsters coming into college now really do not know much about the

successes or the mistakes, and at the academy, i mean, we have some of the highest s.a.t. scores in the nation. all of our students graduate at the top of their class. it makes you wonder what the situation is with regular college students and other colleges and universities. it is a disturbing trend. >> surveys are very disturbing where people cannot place lincoln in the proper century let alone have been central to the biggest event in american history. the founders' greatest fear was that we would forget. it is the reality that the republic cannot survive. lincoln essentially said this. in illinois in the late 1830's when he made the remark that all of the armies of the world with all

the treasury's at their disposal could not put a track on the blue ridge or take a drink from the ohio river. if we were going to fall, the republic as a country, that it would be us and we would do it to ourselves. and not knowing what has happened here in the united states of america from its founding through its travails and victories, not knowing that is a recipe for disaster, recipe for ending it, not for continuing it and giving new generations the hope that was inspired in the past ones. >> we aren't visiting colorado springs, colorado with the help of our local cable partner, comcast. we spoke with professor mark wells about the experiences of world war ii aerial combat pilots. >> when many people think about air combat, there are

a number of images and potential mythologies that come to mind. the first instance of aerial combat was in the first world war markedly. and i think for the public in general and perhaps even for historians they're is a sense of grammar, knights of the sky, wind in the wire kind of things, the image of nights in the air fighting chivalrous combat we know now was not quite reality. life spans were short. airplanes broke down, and people were killed on a pretty regular basis. i decided to do the comparison between two air forces based on the fact that for faculty development here at the air force academy i was afforded the opportunity to study in britain starting in 1888 to pursue a doctorate in the university of london king's college. and being an air men interested and air power history, i had a case study

that was quite natural. the air force and bark command component and the u.s. army air force where both conducting a sustained air campaign against nazi germany, so i have this test case, and i was curious in particular about the human dimension. the british casualty rate, 39-45 is frequently cited at about 56,000. and of that 56,000, almost 47,000 were killed, and about 9-10000 ended up in the british -- excuse me, german prisoner of war camps. so you have a casualty rate that is almost 50% in bomber command. and in the u.s. army eighth air force which was the principal air force, the strategic bombing campaign in europe, there were about

26,000 killed or wounded and another 20,000 or so in pow camps, so you had a casualty rate depending upon how you measure between 40 and 50%. and that is substantial given the number. it is fair to say for all sorts of reasons that air combat during the second world war was very stressful. and for these air crewmen in particular, the air crew reacted to stress much in the same wine. one of the things that is worth mentioning is the on-again off-again nature, and a whole new and different kind of strategy, potentially different than the kind of stress and infantry soldier might

experience in the european theater and world war ii. remember, these crews for the most part are based on britain. so depending upon the weather, the target for the day, the mission, they might spend several harrowing hours out over germany where they watched airplanes to burst into flames, a crash, but they watched flak exploding around them and carry out these missions. and they would come back at the end and try to decompress. very often what was, you know, going on depending upon the weather in britain, they might have several days off. so on-again off-again for americans certainly, and that brought a bit of reality to the nature of the war for them. in london monday and then

being faced with almost certain death the next. in the case of british air crews, the difference for them was they were basically in their home country, and some of them actually had a family and friends with unmeasurable distance of the airfield. now you have air crews that had to carry out military missions in their dealing with the uncertainties of family life. and it was that unusual quality the lead to stress and anxiety. with regard to how the air force is recognized and dealt with this, there were some differences. once again based upon organizational and and cultural factors, it is fair to say, the u.s. army, its air force, and some of its experience, there was a recognition that all air men or soldiers in this case --

as you can imagine for the most part, these were men combatants, everybody was subject to anxiety, fear, and other words, was perfectly normal. somebody should not feel like a coward if they felt fear. the message was quite clear, expected and to deal with it , and that there was going to be a support system to help american airmen do that . there was less of a recognition in britain that that would be the case, particularly early on. later they began to adapt. early on because in britain there was a sense that man of character would be people of courage, and it is fair to say the tolerance, they

have to examine the evidence and need to be careful about making sweeping assertions, but there is some evidence that in britain at the time there was less willingness to admit that all men would be subject to stress and anxiety. there were fears in the royal air force, and some of this was made explicit by commanders, that if they allowed any weakness with regard to the air crew force that this could spread, that somehow this would be like, for lack of a better term, a disease that might in fact the whole unit. fair enough to say there was a different attitude in the eighth air force. ..

it connotes that you are tired. people who are tired can recover. combat fatigue is recoverable. combat stress, that sort of thing. and that was the result of what we learn from the first world war. on both sides, the british and american used the term shellshocked and there was a sense that some of these dresses 4 physiological, concussion of a nearby artillery shells exploding might have had an

impact on a soldier's brain and led to these disorders but the second world war it was clear these when neurological. this was anxiety and fear. united states forces in particular it goes back to this general sense that if all people held in combat long enough are subject to results of anxiety they might shows symptoms like i said of not being able to sleep, alcoholism or hypersexual of money or whatever it was they were not functioning as well. that was more combat fatigues and could be identified so we developed a system which relates to our modern system today and those days as a result these people were to be treated as close as they could to the unit that they were located. we use the term proximity and there was a general sense the

quicker they were treated with immediacy that their chances of recovering were better and finally they made it very clear is that there was expectation that they would recover and rejoin their units so in those days, it was called proximity, in mediacy, and as a result of that the american forces set up what we would legitimately call rest homes and as you can imagine with the reference at the time, stock farms and at the end of a certain period of time, maybe two or three months in combat depending on a number of missions, 10 to 15 missions, the pull data from lines service and send to these rest homes in the case of britain and the war, these were matters, large homes

in britain very often on a beautiful lake or a nice -- these and and were fed very well. they had sports activities and could listen to music and quite quaintly as you might imagine they could meet young ladies generally from the red cross, of high reputation and these activities structured in a sense but designed to make the air crew relax and forget about what he had seen in recent memory. the air force today has spent some time on the hole he issue of combat stress and air crews stress. the accident rate in our air force is absolutely infinitesimally and tiny compared to what it was during the second world war. we spent millions of dollars and

much training time to make aviation, even combat aviation safer and more effective. the modern air war, no matter how it is marked by high-speed aircraft or remotely piloted vehicles or technology, computers and precision guided weapons as long as it has a human dimension, human element, it is subject to the same kind of uncertainty, physical exertion, atmosphere, and danger. when there's a human element in that atmosphere you have a reaction, stress and anxiety, and physicians who had to deal with it. >> for more information on booktv's visit to colorado springs, colorado, and many inner-city visited by content vehicles go to

c-span.org/localcontent. >> here's a look at some books being published this week. look for these titles in

bookstores this coming week. and on booktv.org. >> throughout the book it sounds like there's a level of anxiety you have poverty, fatigue and a constant fear that you will get below of what came through. hearing your own words back to you, what were you thinking when you wrote that? >> i was thinking about the flood when i wrote that. when i was pregnant with my first child and discovered we were pregnant and my husband decided to go back to school, so we applied, got into school, and we were going to be living on his side and because with the gi bill you get your books paid and do a living stipends dependent on these it code of the school you are in.

and getting somewhere between $1,200 or $1,400 a month, enough to live hard and we could make it through this semester. my daughter was due three weeks after the first semester and then the money never came. there was paperwork from somewhere, some paperwork somewhere and every week we would go and say did the statement come? no not this week, maybe next weekend eventually we both got jobs at a burger king locally and got the creepiest apartment we could find because we thought would just be temporary because we were going to get a huge check for back pay in an apartment where we could live with our kid and they could not showing up. the money kept not showing up and we were living in this of lee maintained apartment, it was a summer storm in ohio. the drains were not properly

maintained, we looked in the lowest apartment in the basement and to everything we had was destroyed, and we had no money and place to go. so we went to this weekly motel next to our work and we stayed there but we didn't get enough money to pay for the run on the apartment so after the eviction on this apartment that was molded in, taking care of the flag with maintenance guys, if you have never been to ohio in the late summer it is not an effective management company six feet on the wall. it was crazy. what i was talking about was in my head, knowing the baby was on the way and we had done everything right. we had done everything right. there was nothing we didn't do right. we went to school, had funding in place, got jobs and had an

apartment and we were going to be moving forward and there was a spring storm and all of it was gone. all of it was gone. when we left, the baby's stuff, that was what we had. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. >> here's a look at upcoming book fairs and festivals happening around nation. this weekend the louisiana book festival will be held in baton rouge. look for our coverage coming weeks. november 18th financial press club is holding its 37th annual book fair, which booktv will also be attending. the nick knight booktv on c-span2 is live from the national book awards in new york city. november twenty-second 3 twenty-third booktv will be live from miami book fair international. and we add them to our list,

e-mail us at booktv@c-span.org. as barbara explained this is a book about scary new emerging diseases and where they emerge from. and where they emerge from generally is wildlife, other species, and at the than domesticated animals. if you have certain stories in the news in the last few months, the daily newspaper itself, you have probably heard about the hunt of virus killing three people who visited yosemite in the summer. people have been dying in north texas of west nile fever. in the dallas area alone 15 people died of west nile fever

since july. there has been an ebola outbreak again in central africa, the democratic republic of the condo as an ebola outbreak that has killed 3 dozen people by now and still going on. there was another ebola outbreak across the border in uganda and related to the spillover that had caused the outbreak in the democratic republic of the condo. that one was ended so these things are happening. it is like a drumbeat of disease outbreaks and small crises. another on the arabian peninsula, there is a virus that closely resembles the size virus, belongs to the same family. the virus that carried the this scared the disease experts in

2003. this new virus in the arabian peninsula has only killed one person, put another man in the hospital in britain but scientists all over the world are watching it carefully. wyatt watching it carefully? they know the next big one could look something like that. so there is a drumbeat of these things. they all emerged from nonhuman animals and among those that i mentioned they are all caused by a viruses and that is the party to the profile of the scariest of the exemplars of this phenomenon. these scientists have a fancy name for it. as barbara mentioned, they called these animal infections that pass into cumins a virus that could be other forms of

infectious blood. it could be a bacterium, could be a protozoan, like creatures that cause malaria. it could be a fun this. it could be a worm, it could be a free on which causes mad cow disease and usually it is a virus. they pass from animals into humans. they don't always cause disease. sometimes they become harmless passengers in humans. there is a virus i talk about in the book and couldn't resist it because it has such a wonderfully gruesome name. you have to find a light side of this subject, where you can find it. with all due respect to the people who suffer, the people who die, there are a lot of deaths in this book.

strictly nonfiction. a lot of debts and i respect that. but still, still, i didn't want this book to be just a painful gruesome duty, just an important scary book. i wanted it to be a pleasurable reading experience, a page turner. i wanted to have moments of suspense, have mystery and discovery, moments of heroism by some of the scientists out studying this sort of thing and even some moments of humor. it is not a very funny book but i hope it might be the funniest book about the bowl you ever read. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. next, karima bennoune, professor of international law at the university of california davis school of law spoke about her book "your fatwa does not