one more question. >> all right. so, sorry. i've been up here once before, but this question revolves around education surrounding these issues. being born in 1996, i have no memory of the vietnam war, i didn't learn about it, didn't live through it in in any majory or any way, for that matter. and that's, to a degree, reflected in our schools. i spent, you know, maybe a day learning about the vietnam war in all of high school, and i think there was a sentence on the mele massacre despite the extreme, you know, the deplorable happenstance of it, i guess. and really just in american schools i feel like there's next to no education on the vietnam war and, you know, wars currently which we haven't necessarily so clearly succeeded in. so my question is, how do we better improve education of americans in that regard?

>> this is a little controversial now because there's been, and professor schwartz shared with me a new york times op sed which i didn't get to see because i was driving down from lexington this morning, about the commemoration of the 50th anniversarily and the one the government's putting forth, pentagon, so on and so forth, and the petition surrounding these education efforts because they're not completely telling the whole story of the vietnam war, and it's a glorified, heroic story that they're putting up on the web site. so this definitely is an issue that is still taking place and one that, you know, has current ramifications because, you know, although i'm now understanding a little bit more about proportionality and war, you know, in terms of me as a historian and how i would have

applied that to the vietnam war is that image -- you're going to tell me this is incorrect, but that image of the soldier, you know, torching, you know, a villager's home with a zippo heighter. or, you know, looking -- lighter. or looking at a vc battalion sort of being ripped to shreds with sort of american military machinery which the north vietnamese didn't have. so i don't quite understand. i see sort of remnants of what's taking place today with the, you know, the previous question, and i don't understand how that, how, you know, sort of tweaking proportionality, you know, how that still isn't taking place today and how, you know, why we should still understand that. so i think what you're getting at is extremely important. you know, maybe i'm drawing too many simple analogies from vietnam, but that is one thing. free fire zone, westmoreland

basically stipulated all of south south vietnam was a free fire zone. and in many ways you can't stipulate, okay, this part is okay to bomb, this part is isn't. that was the case. those were the issues, you know, at play in south vietnam during the war. so, you know, although as a historian context is important, i hate to draw simple analogies with the vietnam war, with wars today, but you can see sort of mistakes being repeated again and again. >> just on the broader historical point about education, i think this is hugely important, and it's hugely important for everyone here in part because we make choices about what gets taught and how things get taught in a democracy because we, the people, care or don't. and if we really want to be an informed citizenry and participate in the big choices that our country's going to face, our citizens also need to learn about history, about

government, civics and so on. and the way that happens is because, is when we get together and clamor and ask questions of our elected representatives and so on, and try to get involved in making that happen. i think you're right, we do need to learn more. i'm sorry you didn't learn enough about these things, and i'm glad you bush you wanted to learn -- you wish you wanted to learn more. we all need to push together to try to get that changed. >> and in the context of the book festival, i would with be remiss if i didn't point out that we can make choices about what we choose to read. [laughter] you know, we can sit over the thanksgiving table and talk about football, or we can sit over the thanksgiving table and talk about ideas and really where our society is going. you used the melei example. completely wrong on the law and on the morality, and there's dozens and dozens of examples in

the book about free-fire zones. the point is when politicians and when strategists and when pundits and when op-ed writers throw around these big, glossy, cotton candy kinds of concepts, an informed citizenry says, well, not so fast. and when congressmen and congresswomen are at home in town hall meetings, it's an informed citizenry that says, well, is this true? is this what you said on the floor really true? not biased on what i read -- not based on what i read. i think that's an absolutely laudable, notable thing. but do something about it. >> on that note, which i think is a very well-taken one, i want to thank the panel for a very stimulating discussion with range rover history and contemporary politics. i want to thank all you for your questions and your kind and rapt attention for this. thank you. [applause] the panelists will be signing

books upstairs. >> you're watching booktv, television for serious readers. you can watch any program you see here online at booktv.org. >> booktv covers hundreds of author programs all year long. look for these programs to air in the near future on booktv here on c-span2. on wednesday we're at the century association for william voegeli's look at government programs. at the same evening in boston,

thomas mayer examines the relationship between two political families, the kennedys and the churchills. on thursday at politics & prose bookstore here in washington, d.c., pulitzer prize-winning investigative journalist eric lichtblau. also thursday night, joel simon talks about the targeting of journalists by governments around the world. he's at the columbia journalism school in new york city. and that's a look at some of the author programs booktv will be covering this upcoming week. for more go to booktv.org and visit "upcoming programs." >> i have personal reasons for being interested in bill cosby, but as a journalist, i was also fascinated by him as sort of a figure in our cultural and social history. not only as a pioneer, somebody who opened doors again and again, really the first comedian to not be labeled just a negro

comedian, the first star, african-american of prime time television, pioneer of children's television with his early guest appearances on sesame street and the electric company and then fat albert. the most successful, if you'll all remember, advertising pitchman in the country in the '70s and '80s was the jell-o ad and coca-cola and ford and so forth. and that was all even before "the cosby show." but then, as you all know, in the last -- after a career where he did not bring race and politics into his comedy and often was criticized for that, in the last ten years he's become very outspoken, very controversial for some very strong stances he's taken about trends i