so i think this goes towards that. but this is a subject, the nature of the actual universe that i think that since i was a young person but i think about all the time. the within it gives me solace is the process of extrapolation, which is that i think of the smallest particles that are measurable and sometimes i think that maybe our universe might be commensurate to the smallest particle ever measured, meaning that it could be like you said before multi-verses, many, many universes. people always say infiniti, i could severely long time, eternity like us are long time, infinity like it's on dissent but they don't get the concept. i wonder if there's any scientific value to that sort of extrapolation? >> yes. that's been much speculation at the moment. i should really put out the morningside for anything i'm saying more on, but yes, you're right.

when the ideas of existence of dark energy actually brings about that our universe could become everything we can see all this can be just a tiny little part of a much grander reality what we call multi-verse. there is a picture of that perhaps. you can see the little yellow circle, that's pretty much what we can see around us. if measurement and theories are correct our own universe is infinite in time. this idea of the multi-verse is all of that is but a tiny piece of a much grander reality, a multi-verse which is made up of many marbles like in this case which are different kinds of universes, each one of them a different loss of physics and an even and that's a sophisticated idea that we brought in to

explain the mr. of the dark push. we don't know if if this makes sense but we don't know if we will ever be able to prove or disprove these ideas. this is very controversial and yet a very exciting but it goes at the heart of one of the biggest questions ever, why are we here and what doesn't reality looks like? it's exciting. we can start asking this question with this kind of idea. it's a great question. >> let's thank roberta first, today. would like to thank audience here as well as those pashtun now this meeting of the commonwealth club of california commemorate the 111th year of discussion is adjourned. [applause]

>> is there a nonfiction author book you would like to see featured on booktv? send us an e-mail to booktv at c-span.org. tweet us at the booktv or post on our wall facebook.com/booktv. >> this week booktv takes a look at national public radio's list of best selling nonfiction books.

>> that's this week's bestsellers according to npr. >> you were a whopping 27 years old. you would finish middle school but you're just getting started in your hd efforts in microbiology at the institute of tropical medicine in antwerp. a mysterious test tube sample show up in terrible condition, and you figure out that there's some new disease in africa, and you have the chutzpah to turn

and say i know i'm only 27, but i want to go there. i want to go to africa, let me go. i want to be in the middle of this adventure. how could you have such come where did all this call come from? >> eye gouge a timid and shy person. my mother always said speaking is the silver silence golden, but anyway i think i'm a bit different. i was for so i had an incredible urge for discovery from when i was a child and when i was a teenager i worked for a travel agency and what one month to morocco, one month to turkey at the time it was basically no terrific infrastructure. and when i was 10 i think it only one goal in life and that was get out of here, out of my village. which was a bit, kind of very conservative flemish village. but it was a combination of this

and for adventure but also incredible -- the despair of my mother and my whole family because when i was like this i always asked why? which drove everybody nuts. that was the kind of kid i was. not to annoy people by really wanted to know. i also have that much respect for hierarchy and authority. so yeah, that's what i said yes, let's go for it and let's do it and it's not because i'm 27. also later on most people who have more seniority and are more experienced, they actually were not so jumping up and down to fly to zaire. >> they knew what a hellhole it would be. you didn't. >> yes, i guess so. >> coming away from what you describe the episode, there's

four things i think are the key expenses or realizations, the aha moment for you out of the ebola in 1976 episode. because this strange test tube and the 27 year old flying to africa for the first time is as it turns out the ebola epidemic. the four things were first you experienced africa and you fall in love with africa. >> right. >> secondly you discover internationalism and all the difficulties of coordinating and working together with scientists and all sorts of other folks from around the world. you discover the relationship between global and equity and, if people are so poor they don't have sterile syringes they will be spread of disease but and then you discover do-gooders, can do so badly that it would be better if they were there in the first place.

let's take these apart. let's take these apart. by? what was it that this young flemish 27 year old fell in love with? >> well, i think it was the warmth of people, you know, the human side, their creativity, the music and the dancing. but the fact that i thought there was, on the one hand, so much to do, incredible needs which are still there, and the will to improve it. and so i saw opportunities in which i think are very underestimated today in africa. when you look at just growth of gdp today in the world, i mean the highest rates today are no longer in asia but they are in africa i'm not saying that africa has now made it.

we see natural resources that are out there. so i think, i did know all these things in these days but it was a combination of a gut feeling and the warmth of people, you know, the human side, but also a sense of touch but i got also upset and angry because of the inequalities and, yeah, zaire was then ruled by a group of pluto crowds who were stealing the country to death, literally. and on the other hand, young people, there's a great university, but nobody was staying, there was no electricity. people were denied some basic opportunities, but i can't explain why. i was bitten by the virus. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. >> here's a look at some books that are being published this

week. look for these titles and book stores in coming weeks, watch for the authors in the near future on booktv and on

booktv.org. >> and booktv is on location in the new york public library in midtown manhattan. and fortin has joined me from the library. what do you do? >> i am the director of the research library for the new york public library. >> what does that mean? >> well, there are four research libraries. there's this one in midtown manhattan, the schomburg center for research in black culture in hartman, the library for the performing arts at lincoln center, and the business library at 34th street and madison avenue. >> as a director what do you do? >> i am responsible for collections, exhibitions, fellowships, reference and research services for all of the facilities as well as preservation. >> we will have you show us some of those collections in some of the research library carbonetti. where are we right now? >> we are in the magnificent rose main reading room of the new york public library which is really a heart and soul of the library.

you see here lots of users who are taking advantage of the library's resources, not only our physical resources, our books and materials, but also access to technology which is incredibly important. >> even though this room is quiet and sedate, if you look at the window you can see the entire city of new york. >> absolutely, that's right there when the library was founded in 1911 of course there were these tall buildings outside the reading room. instead all you could see was sky. so it's really a place where the city has really grown around the library spent why is it called the rose reading of? >> the rose family named this reading room in honor of their children when it was renovated in 1998. and during that renovation, every square inch of the surfaces in this room were touched by a craftsperson. so it's really been restored to its original splendor. >> do you know about the pennies up on the top of? >> these are mere old we had to

re-create. they were in such a bad state of disrepair before the renovation, and these were created in a in e studio on campus and then installed here. they are not painted michelangelo style. >> how much of the library's collection of artifacts are available for people to see? >> all of them. our collections are more than 51 million items, and we have all kinds of things from books to manuscript and archival materials, photographs, prints, menus, maps out all kinds of materials. >> and one of those valuable items is this. what are we looking at? >> this is a gutenberg bible volume. we have a gutenberg bible in our collections. many great research libraries around the world to pick the significance of the gutenberg bible, which is a two volume set, you see one of the volumes here, is that this gutenberg bible was the first one to be

brought to the united states in the mid-19th century. so it's remarkable in that way. >> and it's on display for anyone who's walking by it to see? >> absolute. so the technology here of course is, what's remarkable about this, print is removable type in 1455. >> welcome to colorado springs on booktv. located 60 miles south of denver, the city got its start as a supply stop for minors traveling to cancer denver. and later due to its a dry climate of a censure for people suffering from tuberculosis. today, colorado springs has a population of about 440,000 people and is visited by nearly 5 million people every year. with help of our comcast cable partners, for the next one hour we learned about the regions history and literary culture from local authors. >> no matter what time pretty

your talk about them american west it was never empty. in a way it is a challenge to the traditional high in your story where white anglo pioneers thrived on empty landscape. i would want to fill up that landscape with people before those other people came. >> we will also visit the u.s. air force academy and learned about aerial combat and mental health during the second world war. >> it's fair to say in his army air force and so this result of our experience in the first world war that there was a recognition that all airmen were soldiers in this case, that everybody the subject to anxiety, that fear, in other words, was perfectly normal spent we begin our future on colorado springs with jason lewis, the first man to circumnavigate the globe using only human power. >> when i first said that is

going to go around the world by human power can it was actually mother who first heard this and choose us would be appalled by the whole idea. i didn't come from the kind of background necessary that would lend itself to be an adventure, to do expeditions, so my mom i think had different expectations for me. and also i think because what i was proposing to do was actually potentially quite dangerous, but i decided to do this when i was 26. it was not isolated but it wasa friend of mine. he and i had gone to college together, and one day he rang me up and he was working for the oecd in brussels, as an articles like this and he said, i'm tired of my job, i'm tired of sitting behind a desk. i put in science would be more interesting than this, saving the planet i'm just basically

crunching numbers on this computer. so he said, you know, i thought of this idea, it's a grand adventure. it will allow us to see the world and it hasn't been done before, you do, to go all the way around the planet using just human power. no fossil fuels, no sales, and at the time i had a little window cleaning business in west london, tanzania of us had any prior experience of doing expeditions to the planning and the research part of this trip was in a way the hardest part, to years of planning, preparation and we had to build a boat that would be strong enough to withstand the power of major storms when crossing the atlantic, pacific and indian oceans, for example, but also the boat had to be not so big, editor all of our provisions up to 150 days without resupply but you can have it so big that you couldn't actually paddle, in

this case, paddled the thing through the water. so that took a year to build, to find some friends who were boat builders and someone to design this particular craft. we also of course had to put a lot of effort into planning a route, finding, you know, visas for all the countries that we're going to be going through, and also money. i mean, we had nobody to do this thing. we wrote hundreds and hundreds of sponsorship letters and got zilch. i mean, we got some product, including 4000 mars bars to get across the atlantic, but we got no money. after two years of this plan in preparation we had to just say, okay, we're going to set off, we're going to borrow a little bit of money from friends and family. we'll just see how far we get and then we'll just have to find

race along the way, which is part of the reason why the expedition ended up taking so long, 13 years in the end. we started off at greenwich, east london, zero-degree line in space and it's a lovely ornate building their that sort of several hundred years, so we set off. and the first aid was a disaster because we had committed the cardinal sin of adventures. we had lots of charge for ocean crossings, the atlantic and pacific and we even had star charged for celestial navigation because this was pre-gps, pre-internet days like 1994. first day we got completely and utterly lost trying to get our way out of south london because we hadn't brought a road atlas, a street atlas of south london. so this post not a very auspicious way to start off the circumnavigation. the route was setting off from

london a full circumnavigation would mean no less than 24,000 miles to meet the guinness world record guidelines. we need to hit a point in a straight opposite to one that we crossed on the atlantic to complete a full circumnavigation. so it was biking to portugal initially through europe, paddling across the atlantic, across the u.s., then across the pacific to a straight up through indonesia, kayaking, bicycling up through southeast asia, china into tibet over the himalayas and into india and paddling across the arabian sea in africa which is interesting because the piracy at the time was really bad off somalia. and then the last leg was peddling bikes from east africa up through the middle east, east, west europe and finally back to london again. logistically it was quite hard because we didn't have major funding. we had to rely, for example, it

to the end of the edge of the continent, let's say when we got across to the u.s., and then once we paddle across the u.s., the boat state in miami. and then across the u.s. on bikes and blades and then we actually found just along the way we found someone who might be able to help deliver it across and some who might know it across. so the logistics had to be submitted as went along, but the first few weeks when we're trying to bicycle our way down from london to portugal, which is where we set up across the atlantic, we had some friends actually who took the boat on a trip down to portugal where it was first needed. so it was, you know, some of it we have to do ourselves. others, sometimes we were lucky enough to have friends come along. 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 that really allowed us to carry on through each stage but and so it was really we were traveling blind to we really didn't know very often how we're going to be able to get our bikes shipped across to the other side of the next ocean or the boat shipped across the particular continent where crossing. it was all pretty much made up as went along. i ended up in colorado because i was rollerblading across the u.s. as part of this journey, from miami december system on rollerblades. my partner, steve, actually more sensibly road a bike. i wanted to do something a bit different to we also spent so long in a tiny little boat crossing the atlantic for 111 days that we needed a break from each other. we were at each other's throats by the time of the to miami. i was on my rollerblades and i never rollerbladed before. but by the time i got to

colorado i was managing to stay upright for days at a time, even. i was entering this town called pueblo not far from your. didn't know anything about pueblo and ashes going to spend one night in town and they continue over the rockies. it was about half past five in the afternoon i felt this incredible sense of force hit me from behind on the running shoulder of the dual carriage way, four lane highway. a split second later i was like on the side of the looking up at the sky, you know what had happened, trying to stand up and then i noticed that i was actually looking down at a nose i was standing on the stumps of my lower legs. i have been hit by an older gentleman who hate ayn rand, carried on driving, and both my legs were shattered. and i ended up spending six weeks in hospital recuperating from his broken legs and an additional seven and a half months recuperating.

at that point, especially when the surgeon told me that my left leg they 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 it was still early days. when i was laying in the hospital bed i thought, you know, i started thinking, okay, well, if i do get to lose my left leg, then maybe there's what i can carry on in a wheelchair or something, you know, paralympians do it no problem, right? identified maybe this is just ridiculous. after nearly drowning on the atlantic and now nearly died after being run over in color, maybe i'm just putting too much, putting my family through too much and maybe should be time to go home. that was when while my search actual very kindly let me stay at his family's getaway, this

branch of your in the rocky mountains, and it was while i was recuperating for seven months after would run to local schools in my wheelchair and pueblo and colorado springs and ended up working with local teachers on developing curriculum, cultural exchange programs and environmental awareness programs, it was in kind of this educational outreach element, component of the project that i found the reason i think to keep going. ..

otherwise known as the doldrums, where the water actually funnel back east words toward central america. and i was effectively boxed in and i couldn't go south then i couldn't go past and i was pedaling on the spot for two and a half weeks going nowhere and every day i paddled for 18, 19 hours analogously for a few hours and wake up and i was backward started the previous morning. posted moralizing. part of the whole trip indefinitely the point where i thought, i have no motivation. i cannot carry on. when you're like a hamster on a real going nowhere, it's hard to maintain your hoping your motivation. the bottom line was i have to keep pedaling. i have to keep getting up in pedaling on the spot every day because if i went backwards in the countercurrent, there is a

greater chance of me running out of food water and perishing. so as a survival situation and that is what i guess put me through. >> window away. >> you probably can't see it there in the camera, but just on the horizon there's a tiny ribbon of black and that is it. we made a. it's a hard question to answer. that was my favorite stop, what was my favorite part of the world. you know what though, i have to say, some parts of the world that i was expecting to be treated as badly for that i was expecting people because i was from a western country, i didn't expect to get a hard time, i

found completely the opposite to be the case. for example, writing north sudan, where of course it is predominately muslim. the government is sort of on the blacklist as far as the u.k. and america. i thought this could be one of the parts of the world i'm in the back of the van and end up on youtube service dating having my head cut off. and that is what people tell you. you don't want to go into indonesia or sudan. it's going to be fully, fairly bad. i remember to sudan, they were just the nicest, i think the nicest people that i've met. of all the countries that have went through the hospitality was incredible. i never have to worry about where it is going to sleep at night. i never had or if i going to get

food. people always followed me into their homes, feeding me with tea and cakes. the only thing is going to die of that day overeating. for that changed my perception of sudan and other countries have went through like that as well, like indonesia over the people delightful. and so indonesia was a great favorite of mine and i think north sudan. >> i don't even know where home is. this is home for now. >> artists out there. this is one of the things that makes this expedition different from others where they from others for takeoff and climb a mountain or across an ice cap and then they come back to home base, wherever that may be a neophyte of both can do a

speaking series and film, whatever and then they go do something else. this was 16 expeditions back to back up going home. i'm not actually was one of the most free some aspects of the journey i found this after several years, after five or six years of days, of being on the road over time, you get a perspective of what home as and when i left behind. those fundamental kind of things to take for granted when you are part of a community, relationships that last more than just a few weeks i got tired of pedaling into a town in making friends and after a few weeks or are so have to move on and then you have to say goodbye. i got sick of saying goodbye. so philly gave me a perspective on the value of community, on the value of friendships, on the value of stability and all those

things they now have. i'm glad i did the journey because i'm one of those people that i think in my earlier years, make me thin 30s, i needed to get out, i needed to travel. i was i thought quite nomadic. now i really appreciate not traveling. what i do this again? is an impossible question to answer of course because what i know now in terms of having gone around the world and having been lucky enough to down a trip, if not for everyone of course, but i do feel quite privileged to have seen the world from a slow pace that human power travel, rollerblading, kayaking, you're not in a motor vehicle or a train where you don't see anything. it's a lovely slow-paced were you really get to meet people. you really get to interact with people as sort of a ground-level

and understand culture from the inside out. i do feel like i have these birds eye view of the world, which i didn't before growing up in england when i was just dying to get out, just feeling this terrible claustrophobia. i needed to understand what is this planet we live on? what is it that we need to do to get along, to live peacefully and to overcome the environment. i hope we have some answers now that we didn't have before and the world is scaled down in many ways that i spent so many months of my lifetime. when you are on the ocean on a small bow, you have to adapt to the circumstances. you have to live within finite means. you have to think about conservation of food and water and power in you have to think

fast. that is something on which now when i go into schools i talk to young people appear to like to share the message that the planet is like a little boat on the ocean and you have to think about doing your bit. everyone has to do their little bit and she may be live more simply for thought for having us. and there is enough to go around. so that is one thing i feel very lucky now to share. and of course the book is very much a part of that vehicle, to be able to get not just an adventure story basically, i was out there trying to find answers to questions that have burned inside me since i was growing up. now the book allows me to get those lessons out there. >> during a recent visit to colorado springs, colorado, we visited the helen hunt jackson exhibit was curator leah

davis-witherow. >> hallinan jackson was a notable 19th century author and also one of the earliest residents of colorado springs. helen out of jackson came to colorado springs in 1893 is a prescription for ongoing fashion and by that time she was there she was already a famous author. her first book of poems published in 1870. she publish in addition to writing books she published in magazines like the century, "atlantic monthly," scribners. this is her writing room, her study. and we have some of her books throughout the three rooms of the home. what we love about having her house in the bcm is that we can interpret her life based on the side checks. so you can see that helen like

beautiful things. she's a victorian woman of her era and so she has these beautiful watercolor paintings done by alec stewart hill who was a friend of hers here in colorado springs. she also has her own cabinet of curiosities below. she has put together an eclectic set of artifacts based on her travel, based on their interests, both literary, scientific and of the natural world. we know she loved nature. in fact, she found god in nature. instead of attending church on sunday, she would hike up cheyenne mountain and love the fall as they are. so she surrounds herself with the full things from nature. if hellebore life, she would have lance, ferns, flowers surrounding her. but of course in the museum we

don't have those today. this shelf covered in pinecones and other specimens is actually a fungus that grows on the side of treason she's had it mounted to wooden plate so that she can display some of her specimen on the air. this object is a whale's inner ear and it's made into a purse or his little bag that she can put insane. and again, that is an extraordinary example of her love of the natural world. we know that she never stopped reading pictures always collect team in reading and new topics. they stairway is believed that this was carved who later became one of the first mining millinery is in the gold strikes, but she colored her starry, starry suitcase because of course all of these stars

were carved into the newell and the size of the one case staircase going up. in 1879, a shift came about, an interesting turning point in helen jackson's career took place. she was in boston. she didn't stop traveling when she moved to colorado springs. it was just her home base. she was in boston where she attended a program by a chief named standing baroness interpreter, a woman named sue that love/. and gave an emotional and impassioned speech about the mistreatment of apopka indians and how they have been removed from their homelands and the dakota territory and then force down to the indian territory come a long arduous journey which young people, people he got an old guy from the trip, been exposed to weather a non-attrition. and standing bear was on a

national tour, trying to bring attention to this treatment of the parka. helen jackson was president something about this case, about us is that love/in particular, who was an impassioned supporter and standing bear. she was also known as bright eyes swayed her and she began to become involved in this story and she began to research. she began to advocate. she joined an organization to try to shine the light, a few well, on the mistreatment of the indians. and for the first time in her life, she became a woman with a cause and she sat her sights on writing about that would change american's notion of 19th century government treatment of american indians. so she sat to work in a matter of months really, a remarkable

feat, she published her she wrote century of dishonor, which was published in 1881 and it's a record not of the entire history of american indians in the united states, but of seven tribes in particular, one of which was the parka. she meant to shed light on treaties that were broken. she meant to shed light on agreements that were forgotten and to bring attention, to wake americans up a few well, to what was going on that literally in their backyards. it is said that she delivered a copy of century of dishonor to every member of congress that her own expense, but she was incredibly disappointed with the book only sold about 2000 copies and she said the only people that read it didn't need to. they were all people interested in the cause and the movement. now go into the room called the parlor. this room to both reflects her

click textile, but also the period. she has a stellar ruby sculpture the mantel place and on the mantel is a beautiful portrait of her beloved son who passed away when he was nine years old. we know that he was her traveling companion and she took great convert and his companionship after her husband passed away and then she lost randy in 1865. this is one of my favorite parts of the home and it is a little library called kissing corner by the jackson children. the bookshelves are filled. we know that she had about 1000 books in this section alone. they are filled with group works of literature.

they are filled with history books, as the graphic studies, scientific publications and also interestingly enough a couple of books on mysticism or spiritualism, which was quite popular in the late night tv century. one not there describes how helen back to contact randy in the afterlife. we don't know that actually happening. it wouldn't be altogether surprising because that was a very, very popular phenomenon among victorian women in the latter part of the 19th century. but her library is remarkable. there are books by her father. there are books by her literary mentor and there are books by some of her friends and fellow female authors as well. after centuries of honor and her special report to congress, she was going to write a popular novel, a popular novel that

would go to great links to accomplish the same thing. so she placed her novel in southern california and is called remote. it was wildly popular. it was a best-seller. it sold 20,000 copies after publication. but a lot of people missed the message. ironically, the taurine readers so accustomed to love story set in beautiful places, gobbled up the narrative and missed the message. literary scholars today think it is silly really useful work. it's a wonderful piece of regionalist fiction because it describes in such great detail southern california at this place at this particular time, but helen jackson would never live to see how famous her last work would become. after helen's death and on her

recommendation, her husband, we'll jackson, eventually remarried helens nies helland. helen thought this would be a good match for real. she wanted him to have children. she wanted him to a federal domestic life that she was never able to give him and so she actually encouraged her husband to court and to eventually marry her knees and the two did marry a few short years later they had seven children. as the family grew and expanded the house to accommodate all of the children, but these three rooms remained intact, almost as an ecma he will, with all of helen hunt jackson's original possessions in place. so it almost remained as a shrine. in the 1960s of the house is going to be razed to make way for the police station, the

family worked with the city of colorado springs to bring these three rooms into the colorado springs museum where they are today. today she is seen as a remarkable 19th century women who push the boundaries of what was acceptable. and what about my remains in print to this day. it's one of the most widely published books in the world. >> from the resent trip to colorado springs, colorado we explore the press at colorado college. the press was founded in 1878 and is dedicated to the limited edition books. >> welcome, everyone. glad to have you here. i run the press at colorado college. but we are doing today is talking about the size of what we do here. we talk about it in the context of your plan and we are going to look at books and do things that are a major process, all these different historical aspects and

then were actually going to do some printing. >> the press at colorado college was founded in 1978 by another professor here named jim trickle. and he was a painter and he actually sort of got into this accidentally, but then got completely fascinated and taken with a basically taught himself how to do it and then belted out into over the years sort of on his own talk to me at the college. but all of the type in all of the sorts of things. over about 20 years, builds it into a nationally recognized publisher of time price book. this particular group of students, this is their very first class at colorado college, very first college class. they have a history class and they are talking about sort of the development of printed books

and manuscripts from that kind of knowledge. so when they come in today, we are going to be talking about the different things, like the historical background of this technology, the context of the she was invented, how it changed europe after that and what it actually entails to prayer but this equipment. >> so as you see, we are surrounded and each one of these jurors -- cardio back. individual letters and pieces of the mail and they all have compartments in the chore. >> we are going to be working on these here today. but these are the same style, flatbed cylinder press for brochure printing from goes into the flatbed and a paper pattern on the cylinder that rolls over

top of what is over top of it. so that is their main style of press that we have here. >> generally, they are impressed. they see the machines and they are like wool. you can tell right away that they are old. i am always impressed by how many people know that they are printing presses immediate date because you don't see these things in normal life, but something about them, people are like these are printing presses. i'm still curious why they are so recognizable still. the usually people are like it's cool, things like that. but there's also this kind of hesitancy and fear from the machines, which i remember coming experiencing in my first time. and some people are totally flabbergasted and some people just aren't into machines. so it's always interesting to see the different reactions or maybe the person who doesn't

seem interested when we are just looking at books, once the machine comes on they are right there. so it's interesting. or the people want to look at books that don't care about the machine. one thing i like to stress about the press as it is very emphatically not a living history exhibit or it's not about the kind of nostalgia for the way we used to do things. it is, you know, it's not necessarily about preservation are anything like that. that is a part of it, sure. but for us what it's about is about how these processes, the sort of slow meditative physical processes can inform the way that we think about the printed word in media and big setback media and been set back today and when we see how things are made, how they will allow to reflect critically on them. and just like the idea of slowing down and paying careful

attention to the monospaced to perpetrate words to the amount of space to put between your lines, what type you're using, with sighs and assertive letter by letter moment. so a lot of it is about attention and time and kind of thoughtfulness that you don't often have. what i really want students in the class to take away is that they can make books, that they can engage the world in that way. they might not ever make one again your deadbeat not do it by hand, but just sort of knowing that is a possibility is the most important thing. letterpress printing might be the most awful thing they've ever done in their opinion and that is fine. the fact that they know that they can do it in the third maybe perhaps other ways for them to interact with the creation of knowledge in such a

way is the important thing. >> this weekend, book cd is in colorado springs, colorado but the hope of our local cable partner, comcast. next we talk with anne hyde, author of "empires, nations, and families," which looks at the inhabitants of the louisiana purchase. >> premise of the book is pretty simple, but a matter what time period you're talking about in the american west, it was never empty. so when a way, it is a challenge to the traditional pioneer story where white anglo pioneers are an empty landscape. so i really wanted to philip landscape with people before those other people came. the family of tablet that had a lot to do with why there were so many people dare before the 1850s and the white plains arrived in all of the colonial

conquest created mixed blood families, so they avoid admixed hispanic and anglo, native american and a glow from a native american of black, native american and hispanic. you name it. i was amazed to find these people so i found a way to fill up the empty landscape was used as families. the assertive racial attitudes in the west is a good one because it does change. the first half of the 19th century, everything is it just hunky-dory and easy pc about race. but there's much more racial mixing going on and it's normal. the way you can get is this done if you are the first-rate, military is to have connections with native people. the racial mixing was pretty much the norm. after the civil war, retain abdullah and racial lines begin to harden. that's a very interesting story,

trying to figure out what happened to these mixed-race people and the options they have once those racial lines harden after the civil war. if you look in particular at the way people actually do business, their fabulous records and companies about who's doing 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 the buffalo at and all that kind of thing would make sense. date, to process all of those furs and then you need to figure out how to get them back to civilization. there's this whole world make straight people who have the educations of the white world and cultural values than experiencing in the world. and they are fairly negotiators between all of this. they are great businesspeople. they are sea captains.

they're running the verbose. they are teamsters. you know, any part of the business you can imagine. and suddenly that's not possible anymore. really the issue is the defendant property. once agriculture begins to place the site of her trade, then this issue of who allowed access to this american landscape really becomes a big deal. native people begin to get shut out and the question about are these mixed-race people, are they white, are they native? what are they? one of the things i'm working on now, which really surprised me, there's a whole bunch of these things called halfbreed reserves and has three tracks that are set up as part of indian treaties and there are 50 of them in the united states and

i'm completely amazed to have discovered this, a place where mixed blood people are given special access to land an imac disappears. this is one of the issues we are still arguing about about why waste means, what the racial mixture means in the united states, what kind of options people have. so the group that i am looking at which is native people mixed with a range of other people, it is not that they have to pick one or the other. it is just set the option of being a mixed-race person doesn't exist anymore. so you can look at the senses, for example, which was true until the year 2000. there is never a proxy can check for being a mixed-race person. so depending on what you look like, which are educational local allies, with her family support system was, people make

choices. so there's a big wave of these well-educated, sophisticated mixed-race people moving back to the reservations in the deep canadians. they have very dignified lives. they often not translations. but they are doing that because they lose access to land. so the question of how race works in the u.s. this may shape the story in two ways. one story that we like to tell about ourselves, very recent events like ferguson and michelle alexander's work makes me doubt this, but we tell the progressive story about race that we race that we move from the battle days when there was slavery and disposition in the implant would then slowly getting better and better. that's one story we tell about it. the story i had in the 19th century adds to the sword as

copied down the kind of story, where we figure out new ways to protect certain races and advantage some people at the expense of other people. through the various ways race has been used. a more positive spin would be thinking about there is this moment in the early 19th 19 century, a pretty long while that i'm a 50/50 years, 75 years, 100 years for a mixed-race people work clearly unremarkable. no big deal, lots of them around, racial mixing, interracial marriage, all of those things that became enough of us in the late 19th and early 20th century were possible. so you can hold that out as kind of a hopeful moment. there was violence, bad is happening. but the racial politics are different than we expect.

filling that landscape from appreciating what complicated lives these people hide, the fact that they were everywhere. whenever we move into a landscape, been interested in who was there before, what can you find out about that? because it's always deeper than you might think. >> up next, we sit down with historian david and jeanne heidler, who write about history and the importance of teaching it. we visited with the help of our cable partner, comcast. this not be a ♪

>> prismatic graduate school, so we've been writing history since 1978 is when we met in graduate school. so we've been writing history since then for publication not really since graduate school. we started collaborating in the 1990s. we had written separately before then, but since we're the same area, same field, we started collaborating together. working as a spouse team is not easy. we've had a lot of friends who is fed to us, i could never do that because a lot of our friends are both academics, not necessarily in the same field. we find it fairly easy. i think probably because we started out in the same field. we took graduate courses together that probably helped. not that we don't disagree because there are times when we

do disagree on interpretation and that's where the collaboration really becomes because we have to work out our differences. >> douglas three men had an idea of when you know what you wear at the part where you can actually start rating he said is when you can hear people talk. and that does happen. if you read widely enough in getting to the archival materials, with due diligence and if eyes to what you are doing, at some point things begin to make sense and the people become real. they cease to become merely figures of the distant past, but become real to you. what you have done that, books assume their own kind of logic. but when they don't, you know you are doing something wrong. the hardest book with other

written was a social history of the early republic, which we thought would be something kind of fun to do and it was then. i mentioned two other people, but he was so broadly conceived that it was very difficult to do and when we finished it, we more or less found that never do something like that again. it's actually a pretty good book as it goes, but the fact of it is there's a lot of work, sweat and tears on the pages. it just wasn't very much fun. so the biography, the frame is given to you by the span of life. it's the way you treat the subject in the interpretation. the other issue is will we leave out. that is key because you can't have everything or it just becomes as many students regard history, just one thing after

another. so there has to be something of a true monica story make it a thread that ties it together and tells the story in a way that's interesting, accessible and true. the accuracy of the basic foundation from which everything else proceeds. >> we have these bookshelves installed when we first moved into the house. so 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 or less started in the civil war era, so there's some really old books in this section, but also some we've acquired more recently about some biographies of civil war figures as well as some of the artifacts that we have collect it since we moved out west. we started collecting primarily american indian pottery.

a lot of pottery from new mexico that we have interspersed also some of the books. this section of books is primarily early republic books, revolution forward through probably about 1850. most of these books cover the area, which is the air we cover more with our writing today. so a lot of these folks are used frequently as well as the books in the library. we look for accuracy and access both the reputation of the author's comments a week to buy a lot of books by new scholars because there's a lot of new things coming out of the time, different interpretations of people. most of these books on the shelves are not that recent although there are a few here by more recent scholars. plus we collect published papers of a lot of the people we work

on. heather jackson, henry clay, so we buy a lot of their works as well. this biography of tecumseh, a british scholar i found to be fascinating because it really looks that comes than i'm very interested in american indian history is actually started doing a lot of work with that is one of my favorite books. and see if this one is actually here. yes, this one right here. this book right here is one of my favorites because it was one of the groundbreaking pieces of scholarship done on the creek indians. deerskin and duffels by kathryn ron is an incredible book. i would recommend not to just about anybody. there was a very scholarly book. a lot of historians write for other historians. we want historians to read our

book, but i think it is more important that you make the books or articles or whatever you are guiding accessible to the general public still be interested. how many people do we people do have a run in to history is just not my thing. part of it is that they've never read interesting history. they've never had good history teachers and professors did make it accessible, make them understand how important it is. it is the way true that it's declining. history is emphasized last in secondary schools that we have seen that at the academy. we've actually done some testing of incoming freshmen and discovered over time that their knowledge, not just of history in general, but american history has declined dramatically over time and part of that it is and is not a subject of this size.

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 the knowledge of the past and the mistakes people make in the past. because you learn more from mistakes than you do from successes. the youngsters coming into college now really don't know much about the successes or the mistakes. at the academy we have some of the highest s.a.t. scores in the nation. all of our students graduate in the top of their class. so it makes you wonder what the situation is with regular college students and other colleges and universities. so it is a disturbing trend. >> it's very disturbing where people can not place one again

in the proper century, let alone have been central to the biggest event in american history. the founders greatest fear was this, that we would forget. it is -- it is the reality that a republican survived them again essentially said this in the speech in illinois and the late 1830s when he made the remark that all the armies of the world with all the treasuries at their disposal and the bonaparte at their head could not put a track on a blue rich or take a drink from the ohio river. but if we were going to fall us to the public, as a country that it would be asked if we would do it to ourselves. and not knowing what is happening here in the united states of america from its founding tourists purvey out victories, not knowing that is a

recipe for disaster. it's a recipe for ending it, not for continuing it and giving new generations the hope that it's inspired in the past. >> while visiting colorado springs, colorado the top of our local cable partner, comcast, we spoke with mark wells about the experiences of the world war ii combat pilot. >> when many people think about our combat, there are potential mythologies that come to mind. the first instance within the first world war arguably and perhaps even for historians for glamour and nights at the sky, when did the wire kind of thing. the image of nights fighting to shove on this combat wasn't

quite the reality. life spans for. airplanes broke down and people were killed in a pretty regular basis. i decided to do the comparison between two air force is looking up for faculty development here at the air force academy has afforded the opportunity to study in britain started in 1988, pursuant doctorate at london's king's college. be an air vent and interested air power history, i had a case study that seemed quite natural. the royal air force in bomber command component and the u.s. army air force with the eighth air force for both conduct deemed a sustained air campaign against not see germany. so i have this test case and i was curious in particular about this dimension. the casualty rate and i'm not talking from 39 to 45 bomber

command is now briefly sighted at 56,000. about 56,000, almost 47,000 were killed and about as entertaining as it ended up in a british -- excuse me, german were. the u.s. armyeighth air force, which was in europe, there were about 26,000 they were killed or when dad and another 20,000 or so and peter w. kansas show you how to casualty rate on how you measure between 40% and 50% is substantial given the number of men involved. well, it is fair to say for all sorts of reasons at air combat

during the soccer world war was very stressful and produce air crew members in particular, the air crew reacted to stress much the same way. one of the things that is worth mentioning is the on again off again made sure pulled new and different kind of stress, potentially different in the kind of stress and adventure you soldier might experience of the european world war. remember these crews were the most part were based in britain. and so, depending on the weather and a target for the day are commissioned, they might span several harrowing hours over germany where they watched airplanes burst into flames, crasher they watched like exploding around them and carried out these missions. and then they would come back at the end of the mission in the

compress them very often depending on what was going on for the following day so depending on the weather in britain, which very often is rainy, they might have several days off. or is this on-again, off-again quality for americans start late. that broad a bit of unreality to the nature of the war for them, insuring themselves a blended one day other words had been faced above a certain acid asked. in the case of british air crews, the same sorts of things, the difference for them as they were the thing basically in their home country and they had families and friends with immeasurable distance from the airfield. now you have aircrew who has to carry out military missions, but have to go home are dealing with the uncertainties of family life. it's not unusual quality that led to stress and anxiety.

with regard to how both air force is recognized and dealt with this, there were some differences and once again based on leadership and cultural factors, it is fair to say the u.s. army air force and the result of our experience of the first world war that there was a recognition that all arab men are soldiers in most cases you can imagine for the most part, these were men combatants, that everybody was subject to anxiety, their fear was perfectly normal, as somebody shouldn't feel like a coward if they felt fear. the message was quite clear to expect it 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 but that would be the case, particularly on. later they began to adapt. and britain there was this sense that men character would be people of courage. it's fair to say there is less tolerance and the effects of anxiety in britain. historians have to kind examine the evidence for me to be careful about making sleepy assertions. but there is some evidence that at the time there was less willingness to admit that all men would be subject to stress and anxiety. there were tears in the royal air force and some of this is made explicit back meanders that if they allowed any weakness with regard to the aircrew force

that this could spread, that somehow this would be like, for lack of a better term, a disease that might infect the whole unit it's fair enough to say that was a different attitude. ptsd is a more modern term. there is more recognition as i indicated in both the british bomber command will air force of the u.s. army air force and anxiety would be the result of stress and had to be dealt with. in the case of the united states and its interesting even to note the language that we were careful to use the word combats a t. in those days. the word fatigue is in the same selection of work keswick knows who you are tired. the people who are retired can

recover. combat stress, that sort of thing. and now is a result of what we learned from the first world war than on both sides use the term shellshocked. there is a sense that some of these stressors were physiological in origin. in other words a concussion of the nearby artillery shell exploded on impact on a soldier sprayed and led lead to these disorders. in the psycho world war, this was fear and anxiety. so in the united states forces in particular, it goes back to the general sense that if all people held in combat long enough are subject to the results of anxiety, they may show symptoms like i said have not been able to sleep or

alcoholism or hypersexuality or whatever it was, they were functioning as well. that was smart combat fatigue and could be identified it as we developed a system which relates to even 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 relocated. we used the term proximity. there is a general sense that the quicker they were treated, in other words, with the immediacy that their chances of recovery were better. finally, they made it very, very clear that there was an expectation that they would cover and we joined the unit. so with that states can retrieve that philosophy was proximity, immediacy and expectancy. as a result of that, the american forces hide what i guess we would legitimately call

a rest homes. as you can imagine what the reference of aircrew at the time they called them slack farms. at the end of a certain period of time from a pre-from a predesignated, maybe two or three months in combat, aircrew were pulled out of the front line service and food to these restrooms. these were men there is, in large homes there in britain, very often on a beautiful lake or a nice kind of retreat where these arab men were fed very, very well. they had sports activities. they could listen to music in quite as late as you might imagine, they would meet young ladies generally from the red cross of high reputation. designed to make the aircrew relax and forget about what he

had seen in recent memory. as you imagine, the air force today has spent some time on the whole issue of combat stress and aircrew stress. the accident rate center air force is absolutely a small tiny compared to what it was during the second world war. we have spent millions of dollars and much training time to make aviation, even combat aviation much safer and more effective. but modern era were, no matter how was marked by high speed aircraft were fully piloted vehicles like technology computer and precision guided weapon, as long as it has a human dimension, a human element, it is going to be subject to the same kind of insurgency and physical

exertion, chance, and atmosphere were in danger. what is the human element in that atmosphere, you are going to have that reaction, stress and anxiety and send him that commanders and physicians will have to deal with.

>> after reagan was diagnosed with alzheimer's committee said there must be some positive sides to this. do the alameda new friend every day. that is the great optimism of president reagan.

the book reveals that the reason john hinckley was able to shu president reagan is that the reagan white house staff overruled the secret service to let spectators within 15 feet of break 15 feet of reagan as he came out totally unscreened and the secret service did not want that, but they caved to let the reagan white house wanted. so ironically, it was reagan's own staff to play caused the assassination attempt. this had never come out before is confirmed on the record by the agent who was assigned to teach what they call the break-in attempt at the training facility and also by peter wallace said he did a report from the treasury department when he was general counsel, the

secret service was then within treasury. this has never said it was reagan's white house staffer was responsible for this. while slater became white house counsel under fake it and he confirmed on the record as well that is exactly would have been. going back, lyndon johnson was totally out of control. of course back then the press never reported any of it. he would sit on the toilet and as he was being briefed. he would hold a press conference at his ranch in texas and in front of reporters, including female reporters. when he went to air force one, he had this routine of literally stripped the even with his own daughters and wife in the airplane. one day he was vice president, johnson was way for the pueblo

at jfk had been driven by the secret service from the capitol to the white house at about 5:00 p.m. it was rush hour and he was fully. they get there faster. johnson took a newspaper hit the agent on the head and said you were fired. this is the kind of thing that went on every day. one agent said if this guy was not president, he would be in a mental hospital. and yet we entrusted our country and the lives of our military family who went to vietnam under his direction to this guy who is really a maniac. so if you really peel back the onion here, you find that we have made a lot of poor judgments when it comes to electing our president and vice president.

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this program is about one hour. >> host: i'm tracey ross, senior policy analyst at the center for american progress and i'm joined by linda tirado whose recent book, "hand to mouth: living in bootstrap america" just was released last week, right? >> guest: yes. >> host: congratulations.