you know, it's my professional judgment that as an economist, as a professor, that you truly are a certifiable genius. but, you know, so my colleagues at the university don't sort of concur in my assessments of your intellectual acumen. in fact some my colleagues at university don't think you are very bright at all. but the one thing my colleagues and i do agree upon is the one unique characteristic is your uncanny ability to select your for predecessors. anyone following this because with johnson, nixon, ford and carter just can't look back. and in the same sense is really true that if reagan had been elected in 1976, i'm going to tell you he would've been a very different president than the one

you know and love. in all honesty it took jimmy carter to create ronald reagan, and that is the truth. and in the same breath that it took jimmy carter to great ronald reagan, you can't imagine the great president is going to follow barack obama. [applause] >> booktv is on facebook. like a stick of publishing news, schedulscheduled updates, behine scenes pictures and videos. author information and to talk directly with authors during our live programs. facebook.com/booktv. >> with this you're coming to a close, many publications have put together a list of books they believe to be the best of 2014. here's a look at some of the books that the economist has on their list.

>> especially helpful to me. the one thing i learned camp david was her idea. carter have put a lot of energy into trying to create an international summit in geneva, but the truth is that was doomed from the beginning. the geopolitical forces that were at work were never going to make that a success? he and roseland were at camp david and she said can why didn't you just bring them here?

in many respects i think she's the unacknowledged author of this peace treaty. >> that's a look at some of the economist top books for 2014. a link of the full list and is the other selections, visit booktv's website, booktv.org. >> iran-contra, what brought you to this project is the? this is a project in long-standing or i work at a north session that looks at history of u.s. foreign policy and we came into being just before iran-contra burst into the headlines in the mid 1980s because one of the first projects that we worked on. i worked on it couple of years and then put it aside and realize after a time that nobody else was writing about it. there was a sort of sport the books that came out right afterwards, after about 1994 nobody wrote about it. so it was 20 years since jesus

book came out about it. it just seemed like a good time to do it. >> did you base it on a lot of news accounts at the time, or was there additional research? >> there was unbelievable news coverage at the time, but also a lot of documents came out, a lot of formerly secret documents, cia cables, white house memos, transcripts with secret meetings between iranians and americans, unbelievable stuff that you and i would never get access to. wanted becomes a huge political scandal, i based it on those doctors added a bunch of interviews with people who were involved. i went to israel, iran, all over the place to talk to different people at different levels and all kinds of respect. respect. >> who were some of your key sources of? >> a number of people who were involved on sort of the day-to-day level like cia operatives and a couple state department people. probably one of my favorite interviews was john poindexter was the national security

advisor who was allowed to resign afterwards, and went away claiming that he never told ronald reagan about the key point which was the famous diversion of funds to the rebels in nicaragua. and so i tried not to make that my first question for him in the interview. i found him pretty compelling. i thought he was quite candid in really interesting. >> any big surprises of? >> well, it's a story that unfolded over so many years so there are have been a surprise over the years. the most rewarding part probably is just fine information was getting access to a lot of people's personal diaries, like the defense secretary caspar weinberger, george schultz, the second state. his key adviser kept tremendous notes. these all came out at least some degree during the investigations. to that extent they are available and they are such the

window in of the government operates but it's not just about the scandal and about this particular bizarre episode. it's really an insight into how our government works at all kinds of levels. >> did you learn anything in this project that either relates to or affects how the government handles hostages today's picks that's a very good question and a tough question. you can love reagan or you can really blame him for this. because a lot of his motivation was purely to managing. he was a guy who had his goal firmly in mind and he knew what he wanted to do. this was a case where he just put al all the site and decidedi had to get these guys out. again, you can blame him but he was willing to go so far as to break the law. that is in the notes of caspar weinberger and his defense secretary was at a meeting with him at the white house. he said his aides told him, this goes against the law and it's not a good idea.

i can't worry about that. i can handle breaking the law but i can't handle the american public thinking that i did knew what i could've done and been rescued of these guys. so it's a tough question because every president since then has had to do with it. what if obama or his successor doing have this threat of these guys being beheaded before the world? how do you resist that? what are the pros and cons? it's a tough question. ..