popular mechanics often consists anything i like to do. i found someone on the internet has done 80% of it. i'll find it for an affordable than for the guidelines for someone who wants to do what i just. and then the question about the war on drugs. it will be worse than the war on drugs in as much when you undermine the integrity of the internet and it doesn't just create the mass incarceration the super racialized and class-based discrimination that the war and the ability to control your state of mind. all of those are enormous problems. but what it does is it actually undermines our ability to organize at all in order to resist all of these things. when i was an activist in the 80s 90% of the time of

stuffing envelopes and right addresses and 2% was writing in the globes. now we get beyond the loaves for free. if we who are at this lose the internet the people who we are resisting still have access to the coordinated technology and this enormous multiplier for them through which they can extend their power by millionfold and we don't. so is pretty substantial. thank you all very much for coming. [applause] thank you again to read and not. [applause] anything you would like at the time. i will happily make your books nonreturnable. [laughter] clergy led me to sit? do you know? [inaudible conversations]

speed manicurists and programs to watch for in the three-day holiday weekend at the tv.

>> welcome to wheeling, west virginia on tv located in the northern panhandle of the state with the first capital west virginia known as the friendly city. due to its location along the ohio river in historic national road, wheeling bowed desmond estriol in the early 20th century. >> it is kind of here in search of jobs and opportunity.

>> it's billions of dollars. i was curious as to why that isn't how does the war on drugs fit into the larger picture of american foreign policy. the war on drugs is something the u.s. has used. effectively enable to use that as justification for intervention activities across the globe. we generally associate the declaration of the war on drugs with president nixon in 1971 1970, declaring the war and drugs. settled one way if you look at that time period, we can see that the war on drugs is connected to the nixon administration. but if you go a little further back in u.s. history you realize that nixon didn't start

the war on drugs. the war on drugs has been in effect in the u.s. has had strict drug policies domestically and abroad for most of the 20th century. but what nixon did as he expanded it. he lurched the scope and size of it both domestically and abroad which is kind of the area i was interested in. although the book i look at those areas what is happening in the united states and also around the world. nixon had a few things in mind. one there has been growing drug abuse inside the united states. part of his domestic campaign was running on the mantra of law in order that he was going to restore law and order to the united states after the quote, unquote disorder of the 1960s. so there is the law and order theme. also, just in looking at drugs sort of this man is in connecting it to sort of the

antiwar opponent and one way to kind of discredit them. there's various reasons why he declared the war on drugs. >> other than nixon the nation's governors met today to discuss what the president called indeed a national problem drugs. he proposed a campaign of education waste at the community level. david shoemaker reports. >> it was an unlikely setting for a psychedelic happening. president happening. president, vice president and nation governors meeting at the state department to work together with a drug problem with the drug scene depending on your rage. >> nixon is not the first president as presidents before him and after him. the drugs are pretty easy political issue. there's something most people can agree on regarding been tougher on drug users, criminals, traffickers things like that. it's a rather easy issue for politicians to gain political

capital. the countries i looked over thailand burma and mexico. the reason i looked at those countries was the drug u.s. policymakers officials were most concerned about and that they thought that the most damage or claim to cause the most crime was. looking out for the flow of heroin was becoming locally the u.s. focused on those three countries, thailand, burma and mexico. the goal with the policies of nixon the ford administration some of the carteret ministration was what we call source control and that is attempting to eliminate or limit the amount of illegal drugs being produced at the source. that it's a more efficient policy, use of resources versus interdiction trying to interdict drugs coming into the country that usually nets maybe 10% to 15% of the flow.

the thought was and still is if you can go to the source of drug reduction and in this case places where poppies are grown, opium poppies if you can delete those sources, you can reduce the amount of illegal drugs entering the country and subsequently claimed that you can limit the amount of addiction happening in the united states. one thing i ain't by both points out about the history of the war on drugs is in each one of these countries that i look at thailand, burma and mexico the strategies implemented the air became pretty much permanent features of the drug war. site mentioned alternative development in thailand. that is still going on today. what happened in thailand was the first large-scale attempt at that. mexico with herbicides and i continues to happen. and burma is a strategy that we will see today.

and burma, there was a lot of illicit opium production and there still is. at the time burma in the 70s became the largest illicit reducer of opium. and burma, you also had a civil war going on which meant the central government and a bunch of different rebel groups based on ethnicity or a burmese communist party fighting against the government. each of the rebel groups was one way or another involved in opium production and trafficking was one way they funded their cause. so the united state has subsequently done in many places across the globe as it provided military assistance to the burmese government to the form of helicopters surveillance airplanes, surveillance equipment night vision goggles come at things for the burmese government to build up their capacity to track down these rebels.

they defeat the insurgents which they thought would then decrease the amount of drug trafficking or to destroy the insurgents opium supplies or refineries which would in turn weaken the insurgency and also limit the amount of drugs being produced. so when burma, even though it's not called this, the whole concept of the narco guerrilla which comes into being in colombia, stated other guerrillas in colombia in the 1980s. the term was not around in the 70s. the concept was there with the united states is doing in burma. for example, in thailand where there's a legal opium production happening the united states, thai government and united nations implemented development programs aimed at getting poppies farmers to grow other crops and i was called crop replacement and now it's referred to as alternative

development. but essentially it is just that. attempting to get poppies cultivators to grow other crops are export and in the case of thailand, it was a whole host of things. but the program in thailand, which took about 20 years to have an effect was seen as a model as a successful program and therefore if we could do it in thailand, it should be tried in other places. it has occurred in lots of other places around the globe particularly in some cocoa producing countries in south america. so even though in the nixon and ford administration since the carter administration, the u.s. is providing funds for crop replacement in thailand and it's seen as a successful model because illicit production and thailand does go down. in the long run two-day alternative development really has mixed success in producing

the overall amount of illegal drugs being produced. nonetheless it was seen as a successful policy and worthy of replication elsewhere. dea agents would look at the amount of purity of heroin in the united states to determine if there was an effect the eradication programs having an effect on the amount being produced. he going down in the united states, they know the supply has gone down. the amount being seized was another measure of success. so those are two of the metrics when it came to eradication policies, to see if they were having any type of positive effect. so when we look at the history of crop replacement or development, one of the problems is people who grow poppies finding a replacement crop that brings a steady price and a good price is hard to find it we see that even today an afghan is an

which is the world's largest producer of opium attempts to get afghan farmers to grow something novels really runs up against a problem that the price you can get for wheat, you know is a good 40 to 50 times less than what you get for the same amount of opium. so while they claim if we can get these people to grow something else better for them in many respects these farmers have made a really rational economic choice and poppies make sense. also, they are less intense and sometimes to cultivate afghanistan takes a lot less water to grow poppies than it does wheat. so while these programs can have small success is, overall i don't think that they have had a great deal of success in limiting the amount of drugs being produced.

traffickers adapt. and so if you break up one organization that fractures into smaller ones. demand is relatively stable in places like the united states or western europe or wherever there is high demand for narcotics such as heroin. another thing lots of people have talked about is the quote, unquote air of globalization where you had increased straight across the globe and not just traded goods, but also opening up the financial systems across the globe and it's harder to police when you have a real tension or contradiction between on the one on the one level saying he will the amount of free trade of illegal goods but at the same time, be able to police the trade in illegal goods. the war on drugs in terms of saying it is going to reduce the

amount of drugs globally being produced are the rates of addiction and the united states has not occurred. i think a lot of those criticisms that the war on drugs is not producing results is correct. one of the interesting things that i found when i was writing the book is that the time in the 70s officials when thinking about the different types of the ratification policies thought that while they couldn't totally eliminate illegal drug trafficking and addiction in the united states, that they could really put a serious dent in it, something that could be managed. subsequently what is you could put temporary dent in things. you could break up organizations, but that doesn't mean that the trafficking is going to go away. mainly because the demand doesn't go away.

so the thing i focus on in my book is source control policies abroad, the united states and other countries and that has been the main feature of the war on drugs. one reason the war on drugs is correct as the demand side of the united states has not been as addressed with equal amounts of effort, energy and resources. it has changed since the 1970s, a time. i put that has only grown in size and scope. the dea created in 1973 has continued to grow as an organization. i remember a report a number of years ago in "the new york times" that the dea now have an intelligence network that was only second to the cia that they have this vast intelligence network across the globe. so it's an example of how the drug war has grown. the militarization of the drug

war, the militarizing a drug enforcement, police forces special anti-narcotics units that started in the 70s and not has continued to grow other sins and is still a nice day today. >> this is the police action. put your weapons down. >> so the size of the drug war i think one thing that has changed is even though in the face of all this enlargement, the constant criticism only get more intense. we are seeing some questioning on a global level of leaders of latin american countries, european countries getting together and declaring publicly that we need to rethink the global war on drugs in his current focus on enforcement in source control and that hasn't

worked and we need to find other ways of addressing this issue. they don't come with so many harms and not so wasteful of dollars. >> wheeling was known as the gateway to the west. as i'm sure you have heard, the suspension bridge was really a way to get to the west over the river. before that it was very opposed to things like that you had to go around. so as a transportation of in a city full of streams and rivers,

bridges was one important way to make the commerce possible. a part of our collection of photographs really was the days the foundation of the archival collection donated to the library by photographer named abc brown in 1950. these photographs show various wheeling scenes from the late-night teens and early 20th centuries. i chose to focus on some of the historic bridges and wheeling and he still exists. this one was built and is under construction in 1891 is the main stone arch bridge, which is just a couple of blocks to hear. when it was built it was the longest single span stone arch in the united states in 1892 when it was dedicated. the stones were all locally quarried and one of them fell on a construction worker who was

killed, drowned and his ghost is said to haunt the bridge to this day. the bridge is still in use. the second bridge i would like to show you is another stone arch that was built in 1817. it is the home grows stone arch. some know it as the hub.ridge for the monument lays bridge because it is very near for the shepherds live. you probably heard of her and moses. allegedly using his influence with senator henry clay to have it though close to their home. it is still in how to use it is unfortunately covering concrete now so you can see the original stonework. it is still the oldest bridge in west virginia stone continuous use. the third and most famous bridge

is our beloved wheeling suspension bridge, which is just as main street on 10th street. this particular type is one of the oldest is not the oldest photographs of wheeling taken from above the bridge near 10th street. you can see the bridge here. during the 1852 flood. the entire island was plagued by floods pretty much annually during this period. this is a very famous photograph. you can see it in numerous books and as i said possibly the oldest photograph of wheeling. there was a competition to design an featuring mr. roebling who eventually built the brooklyn bridge and charles elliott junior, a designer who actually prevailed

in the bridge was opened in 1849. now during its early history the city of pittsburgh did not like the bridge because they claimed it interfered with river traffic as it was too low. said they filed a suit and initially they prevailed here it meanwhile, the bridge was destroyed in a storm were badly damaged restored by mr. elliott. while it is damaged, the steamboats from pittsburgh would still load their saxon kind of blow their whistles derisively. it was very unpopular in pittsburgh. but we prevailed. it was restored and is a beautiful piece of work. it was really an engineering marvel. it was 1010 feet i believe they own. it was cutting-edge. for its time. it is still a remarkable structure. true transition to a rare books

collection, this particular book contains one of charles elliott's original design for the suspension bridge. it was more -- a lot more decorative than c&c when charles elliott initially conceived it back in the late 1840s. also from our rare books collection is the first city to wreck or he. the city directories are very important to researchers and historians to learn where businesses are located in also are some of the important families lived in with their occupations were. this one is from 1839. very few of these exist off of the nuclear ranged, families businesses they are engaged in a fitting names of streets and allies upon which they live. business plays in family

residence, to set her. we have a whole collection of city directories heavily used by research, that this is the very first one. the use of city direct to read to find where businesses located and how long the business existed by checking each year and also to learn where someone a person listed here, where their primary place of businesses, where they were, what their profession was. many of them also contain the structure of the town where this was located. you could determine you know, where the commercial section was then were the industrial section was, that sort of thing. this is just to show you how beautiful printing was. this was in 1876 and also the same collection of rare books came from a the wheeling intelligence -- the daily intelligence as it was called then. this is a particularly pristine

copy. you don't see them very often. we have them on microphone, but it's nice to see how they were laid out. because there was sort of a friend to your outpost in a rough and ready city, a lot of writers were drawn here. that is why a lot of printers also came here. i think that preserving our history in terms of historic ludington structures and infrastructure and books, literature, photograph i think it is essential. these are part -- this is our story. no secondhand accounts can tell you adequately how things work. you know, you can go into an historic structure and feel what it was like to be in the building 100, 200 years ago. pick up one of these books and feel the history coming out of

the pages. reading excerpts and descriptions of wheeling firsthand for the 19th century were the 18th century and look at these photographs, which capture a moment in time. photographs are my favorite dating. they don't lie. they to you exactly how it was. they are subject to interpretation but they are invaluable primary sources for historians and researchers. >> the title "the heroic age" was actually a schoolteacher from that era. the man was named william darby and when he was writing two.your draper whose manuscripts form a lot of the primary sources that we use further research. he referred to this as the heroic age.

he would've been very familiar with the folks at the area that he was a teacher and he actually taught the children of the first settlers here so it's quite familiar with the stories. gary was first open for settlement in 1768. with that the first families that came to the area were considered in his veins the founders. this was in effect the western theater of the american revolution. fort henry was built and named after the governor of virginia, one of his titles was of course a rather uninspiring name i might add. the royal governor was thrown out. patrick henry kamen is the revolutionary governor of virginia. tend to be located in places has some strategic reason. basically four wheeling, wheeling was considered the head of navigation on the ohio

animates and stability for kerry. beyond that, fort henry and wheeling would have a symbiotic relationship and that a lot of places were built where there was no population. they were simply abandoned because there is no garrison. because they had people around it, the people of garrison did not abandon. so fort henry protected wheeling and wheeling protected fort henry. the whole idea of the heroic age was based on two seizures and of course the trilogy of legends. the first occurred september 1st 1777. the frontiersmen have actually been expecting an attack. they got word to large-scale attack was coming and they called her their militia groups

together. all of their militia companies together. of course, the indians were nobody's fool when it came to warfare. they advise out and they definitely had to believe that time spent reconnaissance of the enemy is never wasted. they watch the ford and waited for the company's militia they are were dismissed in two were left and not for the indians decide to attack. that actually came to take place on september 1st 1777. in fact there was only one company left. the problem the indians had was their nature of fighting. siege craft was simply not what they did. there were outstanding hit and run readers and in the woods and open fighting, they were truly the masters of writing down. what people tend not to realize is that in the end for the finest white and tree of their

day. in their native force. by contrast the militia for part-time citizen soldiers and actually quite poor at it. generally what the indians had found out is most of the time the militia would never stand unless they were backed by threats of the regulators. the battle seesaws back and forth to the real emotional scene of the battle comes about i would say somewhere between noon and 2:00 that day. people have gotten to shoppers for it to let the people know that the folks at fort henry were in dire straits. they sent express riders out for help. one of the express raiders went to a small family for located about five miles from here called ford and reader in his commander was major sam macola. when sam gets the word here, there's not a whole lot he can do in terms of rounding up a lot

of people. again, the communication can travel faster than the man on horseback and it's just been dispersed and has a hard time wrapping them up. basically, the only thing he can do to bring movies to the four w-whiskey was he himself, his brother john and another man by the name of tanks. they had the idea of what they were willing to do is they're going to approach the fort and when they saw the indians they would put the spur of their horses and write down or shoot down anyone that got their way. of course plans like that ever worked out quite like you want them to. when they put the spurs of their horses, samba coelho was a lot better than the other two. his horse go way out in front. the indians as he comes towards the front of the four, they try to pull them out of the saddle. he wields his horse around and he takes off the national road with the indians in hot pursuit.

unfortunately, seems fortunes go from week to black when he gets to the top of the hill where his monument is. there's another group of indians coming out the other side there's a basically he is caught between two fires and there is no real easy out. so referring a quick dad to a slow torture and capture he puts the spurs to his horse and both of them go down and lay 300 feet below it to create, wheeling creek when macola subsequently got away from the indians, he would be remembered oocytes for his rather dramatic escape of the first siege of fort henry. what it meant in a larger was he was actually a very serious tactical defeat. the indians had destroyed most of their livestock,

transportation. they put roughly a rate of five to one, but just the fact that fort henry and the higher were broken which was the artery for transportation in the western theater of the american revolution that connect it for pay but the kentucky settlements. the second question was of course by the same. the second siege took place on september 11th 1782 wheeling so 9/11. what is really significant about that is the fact this took place almost a year after wallace surrendered. what people don't realize, the war in had stopped. their peace negotiations were actively underway and at this point the british still occupied new york, charleston and i believe savanna. there were no act of campaigns on either side. they were negotiating peace terms. the war the west never stopped. by that point there's no real

government. these people were pretty much left on their own to defend themselves. but they know an attack is coming and they have scouts out. if 15 16-year-old boy is probably 20 deep into ohio. what he sees a large and varied greatly. there's a huge force of approximately 242 by 260 and ian said rangers that are approximately 50 heading east directly towards fort henry. again, he comes to the edge of the water, fires two rifles as a signal. when the signals give probably about three or clock when he gets back in the indians realize they've been made yet they make no attempt to conceal, like in the first siege to conceal their being there. a leisurely way across the river and before. at this point, these people are

ranked around by 300 of the finest special forces of their day. basically 100 women and children defending themselves against these folks. one of the things fighting on the western front, these were really when you think about this, this is not like gettysburg where they're shooting at each other. when you are there you are there with your wife, kids, family, mother-in-law, favorite neighbor whatever. these folks are bunched together and not to fight with. again, you don't know necessarily if you are taken. chances are completely dead. they find they are basically out of gunpowder. you wonder why something like this would happen. how come there is not much more powder kept in the four? the word was very simple. fast. just a couple months prior to

that ebenezer zane has sent to the commander for pay saying if you send me some powder or promise anything you give us will be burned at the enemy. nothing wasted nothing stolen. a small supply was kept in the fore with the idea of emergency should occur. there is enough for a day or so simply to keep the indians that day because typically indian raids only lasted a day or so. but what kind of puts that out the window is the fact these indians have british rangers and they will be a much more determined enemy. so now the siege has lasted about a day and a half in their out of the powder. but there's more in same spot house, approximately 60 yards away. a 16-year-old girl and betty's name steps up and says i'll do it. should i file all be less interested in a man.

she steps out, and when she takes off the indians see her in curiously they don't shoot her. they also walk on the squad. not a shot fired. she relates to her brother ebenezer, the fact there is a crisis at hand in these folks need gunpowder in the worst way so they take an apron, fill it with as much gunpowder she can carry quickly, tied around her waist and she runs back to fort henry. how the indians to find what was going on, no one knows that she was in -- everybody insisted by her own description they came so close they cut her clothing but miraculously made it back to the fore. it doesn't sound like much the

idea of a 60-yard dash with gunpowder but when you think about this this woman is carrying maybe 25 pounds of gunpowder, running uphill with a couple hundred rifles and muskets. these are the things legends are made of. herger not take act saved before. what i have written here is not history for historians. it is history for general folks. when i first got into it, i was familiar with the like that. when i got into the primary sources and read the stories of what actually happened, i found out it was every bit as exciting as the mythological things people have attached to it. again the truth is actually better than the fiction.

>> the industry in wheeling did result in massive population growth, economic success. it was a boomtown in the steel industry. of course it is not anymore because steel industry has gone away. so it is boom or bust. you wheeling's population was never higher than it was in the mid-20th centuries when steel was in full production. so yeah, the impact economically was huge. it turned wheeling into a major city for west virginia. because of its location on the ohio river and because the national road came through wheeling, as i mentioned before, it was a transportation hub. naturally there's a lot of resources around here, iron or an cool. it was easy to transport goods like steel to market from

wheeling. so industry was nationally untrue naturally drawn here in industry with choirs labor. and so, because it was an industrial town these people came from very poor regions of europe or the middle east and the needed work. so many times the pastry are commander of the family would come to the united states. many times the companies would actually go to new york or one of the other ports of injury and recruit for their business, say we have jobs in wheeling and that's how they ended up here. others came because family members were here. they would send back money for a time and eventually they sent for their whole family to come over. in terms of the italian community, there was a coal mine that was owned by a gentleman who had come from italy himself. his name is tristan so when he came from a town called korff

ennio in italy. he eventually did well and he thought the coal mine. he essentially brought a large percentage of his neighbors to work in the mine. he provided their jobs. so essentially all of these wars with italians are from the same town. i just thought that was fascinating because he essentially trained a little italian town which is a small town north of willie and i was eventually incorporated into the city. you know, they were grateful to him for providing work and opportunity and they came here and i spoke to each of allman whose father worked in the coal mine and he had the opportunity

in his 80s to go back to italy and actually visit and we have a photograph of his father leaving it only at the train station to take into the shipyard and he was able to visit that very same spot where his father had ordered the train to take a photograph himself. the immigrants changed the city and i prior to their arrival wheeling was atypical american town. when they came they gathered with their countrymen and neighborhoods. you might could east wheeling which is known as little italy. a lot of greek immigrants of lebanese immigrants in south wheeling was primarily polish. so these neighborhoods became distinctive and they brought a lot of culture and traditions with them and it influenced everything about coulter all

life in wheeling from religion and the church is to education and language and art music. so wheeling prior to what i'm talking about was a german settlement. after that who is quite diverse in each neighborhood had its own distinct flavor. like a lot of roosevelt towns wheeling suffered from the collapse of those industries mainly from foreign competition. they could make steel more chiefly. so wheeling steel in pittsburgh steel just couldn't compete and eventually, more and more plants shut down and jobs just one away. if you are from democrats sought and you haven't learned any

other skills this is low skilled labor. you're kind of stuck. fortunately for them many of the children of these immigrants of course got their college education and moved on. so wheeling's population had diminished significantly since the start. we are trying to reinvent ourselves now. that is the effort under way. at the same time preserving our past. i think that immigrant history is overlooked because it? the sort of glamour of the revolutionary. or the civil war. you know, it's industrial history. it's gritty. a lot of people live dead. so they don't necessarily celebrate. but when you talk about the neighborhoods that formed as a result, they are much more interested in talking about

that. it was both a sad. and a vital. people had opportunity, but he's jobs were crying. it was hard work, backbreaking work. but these people essentially built the town. they were the ones who laid the bricks. they are the ones who made the steel bought the, but the cigars fueled the economy, provided labor for all of these factories. so their stories are important and why they came here. it is all part of american history.

>> we are what jeff rutherford, author of "combat and genocide on the eastern front." why did you decide to write this book quite >> well, i've always been interested in the second world war into mind the conflict they decided the war was between not feature many in the soviet union, so i went to look for my dissertation topic and i knew i wanted to do something on the conflict. i was also interested not just in the military confrontation, but the ideological struggle against the soviet union to create the racial empire in the middle east and the german army was its primary means of creating this empire. so i wanted to look at how the german army fought the war not just a military struggle, but also the ideological struggle. there's been a lot written in english about the military struggle, a lot written in german about the ideological struggle but i wanted to kind of combine the two narratives in

come up with one overarching view of the work. so i focused on the divisions that i believed i'd been kind of understudy. there's been a lot of work on a lead german divisions. what i wanted to look at were three divisions made up of quote unquote ordinary men. regular, german men who've been drafted who went to serve on the eastern front. i wanted to look at an area relatively understudied. there's been a fair amount about the seizure of leningrad itself, but not about the german operations in that area so i kind of wanted to add a bit to the literature developed about the war most of which focuses on the center of the front of moscow or the southern section of the front ground. >> host: what was the ideological struggle? >> guest: hitler's goal in attacking the soviet union was to create the social empire an

empire which the germans could economically exploit so they could continue the war successfully against the anglo-saxon powers. the idea was that the main goal of the germans wanted to get out of here was food. they were interested in feeding their homefront. this goes back to the first world war were germany's blockaded in 1918 b.c. the german home front rates primarily due to the german state being unable to see its population. so they are convinced if they can grasp food from the soviet union, particularly ukraine, see the german home front, feed the german army invading the soviet union, there'll always be enough food at home in the german people will stay united behind the war and the german right will continue to expand. so the majority of this is to grab as much food as possible. there's also natural resources such as oil and other resources for arming the production.

so the ideas the soviet union is to be in india. as india is to great britain come ukraine was to be a germany. when the germans think about this food that they are going to have to get this means there's people the soviet union who are going to be able to eat and this is fine with the germans because based on the racial hierarchy hitler is construct in the area and ranks at the top groups such as the swabs are much lower from the perspective they don't deserve the food. they are to die. the other aspect of this ideological war is for the not the party, porsche visit is the mortal enemy to western europe western civilization. hitler and many others conflate bolsheviks with jews to destroy the west. for hitler if we can destroy bolshevik and the soviet union,

would not only get rid of bolshevism the world jewry as well. so all these things come together in this quest for food this desire to eradicate jewelry and the ideological war that is perhaps the most savage in european history. >> host: what were the germans approach to how they wage war? >> guest: well so here we have the dichotomy. on the one hand we have the military struggle. for the germans have to do is conquer the soviet union three quick was campaign. this was the first campaign they planned. we've heard the term before. elements in poland, elements and france increased in yugoslavia. what i mean by that is quick moving cancer units tampa groups in this case deep in the soviet union and soviet troops but the adventure yarn is

closed. the group that i looked at army group north we don't see the same kind of campaign. this is primarily due to the fact that army group north has one group. so it doesn't have as many tanks as other army groups. it also has to do with the terrain of the area kind of swampy area not really conducive to the armor. so the army group north advances and becomes one of infantry ahead against the soviet forces. we also see the flip side of the ideological war. we have one of the orders to the german economy and the sword are basically states all political officers attached to red army units are to be immediately separated from other red army prisoners that neither delivered to assess units to be shot or to be shot on the authority of the officer at the front. here we see the ideological war. really nothing similar to the

americans. we also see this ideological war emerge when we look at food policy and what the germans do in this attempt to ensure that their troops are and that the homefront sends a lot of rations to the front air told to live off the land basically find the food where it is. about two to three weeks into the advance, one of the divisions i look at the 123rd infantry division is ordered by a superior court command to find sustenance wherever you can. it's heard a few weeks and they are told wherever you can find it, go find it and in the soviet union during the 1940s, food is a zero-sum game. they are all going to get it from the peasantry. the peasantry loses their last cow or last goat with her seat to plan for the next year they

are going to starve. already in the summer of 1941 conditions for the starvation will set in in the winter of 41 42 has rd been made. >> why did they take a different approach to the soviets than other nations? >> this is where the whole racial hierarchy comes into play. for the germans at least with the nazi leadership, there is a approach based on war. they see that denmark -- they view them as racially similar to the germans. they deserve better treatment. for the french, they don't see them quite as high as the germans, but nonetheless there's a civilization there as they turn the stomach of islamic groups that simply do not compare. they do not hold up on the racial hierarchy. so this gives the war a

brutality that we don't see in the east and the fact that it's ruled by communist site inc. has a huge role in it. many within the german army itself while perhaps not the full-fledged communists excuse me, full-fledged transfer with the communism as a threat that had to be ratted hate it and all this comes together to make it a particularly savage affair. >> how did they protect soviet union in the general population and how did it affect the soviets how the soviets looked at germany? >> well, it is interesting at least they go through the baltic states. lithuania, latvia and estonia. these people have been forcibly incorporated into the soviet union in 1939 1940 as a result

of the molotov treaty packed. so they agreed to germans as liberators. they are excited that they are going to get rid of the communists. as the germans pushed deeper into out of the baltic states and into russia proper on their way, there are some rations to create them in a welcoming manner are the germans are opening up -- the soviets see them as allowing to this their religion again. there's many people the soviet union were certainly not thrilled with stalin's policies during the 19 dirtiest, but as the europeans is we see that this initial support of the germans dissipates and this is most noteworthy in the town of path loss, which is one of the smaller -- a small city large town that sits outside of leningrad. this town was occupied by one of the divisions i look back the 121st infantry division.

they settle a deceased line for some 900 days, the kids in september 1941 and continues towards the beginning of 1,844,121st i.d. moves then we see all these policies come together. one of the first thing that happens is the town's jewish population is murdered. but the documents i look at it is not clear who did the murdering but it is clear that ss units attached to army group north for the town so it's fair to say they are the ones that carried it out. of course the german army is theoretically in control of the towns. this happens on the army's watch. it is clear that the ss unit there in the army had a close relationship that they work together to secure the town against any resistance. we see this later on in the year for 10 people are executed for cutting communication cables.

once this execution is carried out by the ss and again the same pattern, same execution carried out for the same reasons, so it's clear they work together. the biggest issue however is food. what happens is as the germans moved in the immediately confiscate offices and warehouses, speak of the germans going house to house only gathered food as well. so what we see is this incredible starvation. this i think is people who write about leningrad during the siege suffers somewhere in the neighborhood of 800,000 to 1 million people who die, primarily from starvation. all of these cities and towns we see the same thing. soap outlaws, which is was home to 15,000 people the germans got in there in late september. by the end of the war, it was down to 6000 with the majority

of these people dying during the first winter just incredible scenes of desperation and misery come through. what is interesting is the highest levels of the german army, they see this as a necessity and the skits that one of the main teams in my book as military necessity. a german army was willing to do whatever it needed to do to win the war. majority of civilians are treated in kind of a callous manner, not targeted, but certainly not assisting. i think we see this as the starvation just rips through the town, starvation and disease. we see that german field commands at the division core level are radioing up to the hierarchy, to the army level and army group north and back to berlin asking what are we supposed to do? we have about 50,000 people who are going to starve.

what are we going to do? and they are instructed by portland to let them starve. basically it is better freshened starve is supposed to germans. so there is this idea within the german high command that it's okay and it becomes a bigger problem with the troops on the ground. they complain about this is intolerable to see women and children starving. many men in the letters and diaries i read would write about their efforts to give a little bit to russians, especially children and women. one soviet report said that german troops are especially kindhearted or soft towards women and children because they have wives and kids at home. so one of the high command is okay with this mass starvation because the food acid or the germans to keep the army ready

to fight this war. there was try to help out here whether they connect the fact that their occupation policies as a whole were causing this. >> you mention -- [inaudible] they southlake as the starvation started to set income of the animosity started to grow. >> yeah, yes. what we see is this growth of resistance to german wool. this resistance had started immediately after the german invasion. the germans talk about their documents i look at notes. it's actually hard to find in concrete cases of this. they are expecting full-fledged resistance, so they talk about it even when they don't get it. resistance does certainly pick up as we get through 1941 and it

becomes a bigger problem as they go along in the war because of their policies. so i think perhaps one way of looking at it this first period of war is the germans thought they were going to win this idea of military necessity. they are going to win the war quickly and it's going to be over. ..

all going to just be crushed here. so, starts to wage a very different war than what we saw in the period of the advance. now the war becomes one in which everyone is a legitimate target. so civilians now are seen as being especially problematic, because maybe they're working with the soviet army, which puts pressure on the exhausted weakened german force, or germans realize, we have to use the soviets to work for us so soviet civilians back targeted by the germans. obviously this is going to lead to an uptick in resistance and policies become more violent and savage towards the soviet people. my interpretation is that this change in behavior was based on

how the germans appreciated the war. now they had to fear civilians because of this red army counter-ooffensive. the germ want army was going to disintegrate and everything becomes a battle. the whole area is a combat area and everyone is treated as such. the germans master this crisis. they survive this winter crisis, partly because the soviets aren't well enough equipped, organized, trained, or lead to completely destroyer the germans. so the soviet union is in the mud period as the winter snow melts and everything stops. during this period, the german high command realize that what has happened is that the german army is -- can defeat the soviet union in a massive campaign. so the shift their offensive forces to the south. what we see in the north where

i'm looking, they're told to go over to the defensive, and we see they battlefield in the not becomes similar to the first world war on the western front, trenches, position warfare, attrition warfare no great tank battles up here like we see in the south. so the german army has to dig in and defend the position it's one. this leads to yet, i think the third period of war. we have gone from kind of ignoring the civilians in '41 and the mayorans thick they're going to win to this crisis period where civilians are targeted. then mid-'42 to mid-'43, the germans start to feel the only way to win this war against a larger country, more resources and more people to draw upon is itself starts to mobilize the population hundred the german lines. we have to turn the soviet population to work for us.

so all three divisions become much more conciliatoriy in their actions towards soviet civilians. a concerted to draw them into the war effort, and the describing example is the experience of the 123rd 123rd infantry division. here in the pocket itself germans are surrounded. the only way to get supplies is from air drops, which isn't the most -- they're not getting nearly enough what they need. they're surrounded by superior red army forces. these divisions that are stuck in here were all greatly weak 'ed during the advance of '41 and then smacked around during the soviet counteroffensive. so they're not strong combat-ready divisions. what i found and what i found surprising, was that instead of becoming more aggressive more ideologically motivated and more likely to lash out another civilians, these divisions became much more conciliatory,

enacting programs to help civilians. for example, the 123rd ordered that the medics and doctors within the division were to help soviet civilians with illnesses. most northworthy they started supplying food to people in the pocket. this goes directly against what they did in '41. russians are supposed to starve so germans can live. now this division has taken it upon itself to feed people in the pocket. now, clearly, it does not do this for humanitarian reasons. it does it because it understands that people who are fed aren't going to be as rebellious and they won't have disease, which can then spread to german forces. so it's this idea of military necessity. the only way to win the war is if we have a pacified population behind the lines who is not trying to link up with the red army and partisan units to cut

their throats during the night. so during this period from '42 to '43 i think we see this concerted attempt by at least elements of the german army in the east to work with soviet population. so this, i think, breaks somewhat from this ideological conception of the war. i think if we look at this from that perspective, the idea would be as things get tougher the germans become more prone to wage the war that hitler wanted, and instead, what we see is that they break away from that. they see the best way to win the war is if they are able to mobilize the soviet civilian population. so this is one of the very interesting things i came up with during my -- the course of my research and writing the book. >> for morings in on our visit to wheeling, west virginia, and

the other cities visit by the content vehicles go to c-span.org/local content. >> well, saturday january 24th is being called national read-a-thon day by a group, jynne martin is with riverhead books. what is national read-a-thon day? >> so, national read-a-thon day is a day in january, january 24th where all across america we're inviting readers to submit to spend the afternoon reading any book they like and you can do it at home or in any of the many venues participating across the country, which includes libraries and book stores and schools. >> host: why are you promoting this? >> guest: well, that's a wonderful, large and complicated question. essentially our hope is to find different ways in the coming years to foster a culture of reading in america and remind

people of what the experience is like to sit and really dedicate a nice long swath of time to reading. i think we hear feedback all the time that people read books less now because they feel they don't have time or do it in little snippets here and there. but there's a pleasure from getting lost in the world of a book that's different than checking your phone every few minutes and being on the go. we want people to remember what that experience is like and get lost in the world of books. >> host: you're setting a time frame for this, four hours, 12 noon to 4:00 p.m. on saturday afternoon. >> guest: that's exactly right. we agreed four hours was longer than any of us normally spend reading a book but no so onerus it would be impossible for people with kids or jobs that they couldn't sit and do it. so four was the agreed-upon time that seemed a reasonable amount to ask everyone to try to

set aside and do. >> host: there are groups participating in this? >> guest: yeah. we have a lot of different groups. everything from black clubs to local libraries and schools, and on the read-a-thon web site there's actually a list state-by-state of defendant ven venues participating. so you can go there to see if a place near you is participating. >> host: if somebody wants to do this at home how can they stay in contact with the larger group? is there -- besides the web site, is there a hash tag? >> guest: yes, absolutely. we're using the hash tag, time to read. reminding people about why we make time to read the importance of making time to read. so you can search time to read on any of your user platforms already see a bunch of different people participating talking about what they plan to read that saturday, and you can share yourself using that what you'll be read why you're excited about it.

photos with you reading with your cat maybe on your lap and participate in the larger virtual community that way. >> host: now there is a money aspect to this as well. what is that? >> guest: there is. sort of similar to how people do walk-a-thons or run a marathon for charity, we're inviting people -- it's optional but if you want to consider raising money for the national book foundation. the national book foundation is most famous for the national book awards they give out every fall in fiction and nonfiction and poetry, but they also do incredible work around the country, bringing everything from literacy training tutoring, home libraries authors to speak to kids in needy communities around america, communities that aren't necessarily getting diverse rich programming in books and the national book foundation is filling that gap. the money raised will go to help support their ongoing effort.

>> host: how does one contribute? >> guest: great question. you can find on the read-a-thon web site the link to first giving. fir giving is a platform for donations, it's similar to what is used for marathons and walk-a-thons and you can donate any amount or set up your own fundraising page and raise funds that way and it's under the event called national read-a-thon day. so it's easy to find. >> host: is there a target for how much money you want to raise? >> guest: is this our first year trying to do this so we're just leaving it completely open. i'm thrilled there's almost $15,000 raided already just in these early days of it. so i'm really pleased to see the diversity of people donating and it's the kind of thing where even smaller amendments, five ten, $20 are going to make a big difference in overall getting to us a really nice number to give to the national book foundation. >> host: the benefits the national book foundation. who are some of the corporate

sponsors behind national read-a-thon day. >> guest: good reads is on board and talking about the raid-a-thon in the newsletter and wednesdays wednesdays and they're having a reading party in san francisco, and then mashable one of the leading tech web sites and has this incredible month book club, mash reads club, and they're participating and have been talking about it on their social media, they're having a book party in their headquarters from here in new york. so coast to coast nice sponsors. >> host: and your open boss, penguin random house. >> guest: thank you, peter. i would be in trouble for that one. and, yes penguin random house, the publishing company, we have been supporting the effort as well. we have a number of our authors onboard to be reading. thes who are making these lovely videos which just started releasing yesterday actually and it's writers like ken follett

talking about why books are important. and they're fun, and can be found on the social media channels, searching for the timetoread hash tag. >> making time to read is important because -- >> if you don't make time to read your brain will rot. >> book can educate entertain it can enlighten. >> nothing like a book to make you see the world in a new way. >> if i could sum up the impact books have had on my life i would say, they saved my life. >> i have never been without a book. >> a book unlike almost everything necessary our lives today, don't require a password. >> i read when i should be looking at television. >> it's really hard to find time to read, but when you do. >> always find it takes you down the rabbit hole. >> i developed my love for reading as a boy. >> by the age of ten i was

regarding crazy stuff. >> don quixote ivanhoe. >> and trash, too, james bond. >> alice in wonderland, treasure island. >> harriet the spy. >> a faraway look comes into a child's eye and you know they're lost in the story. >> that the ideal childhood. >> i like to pick up a book at my local neighborhood book store because i like a random encounter. >> as for a little while, while you are reading this book you kind of leave your own world, leave your own space, and inhabit somebody else's soul. >> everything we hold dear as in -- is in books and all you have to do is pick them up. it's all there. >> and go out get a book and read. >> keep reading.

>> host: national read-a-thon day, saturday, january 24th noon to 4:00 p.m. in your time zone. the web site once again jynne martin? >> guest: penguin random house.com/read-a-thon, or just search national read-a-thon day. >> host: thank you very much. >> guest: thank you. >> here's a look at upcoming book fairs and festivals happening around the country. the satisfy van that book philosophy from the 12th to 15th of anybody savannah georgia. march 14th and 15th booktv will be at the university of arizona with live coverage of the seventh annual tucson festival of books. the following week virginia festival of the book in virginia, then march 25th 25th through the 29th the city of new orleans will host the tennessee williams literary

festival. let us know about book fairs and festivals in your area. e-mail us at booktv@chance c-span.org. >> up next marin katusa argues that putin's dream is to dominate the world's energy supply. mr. cattouse a says if putin achieves the goal the u.s. and other countries will find them playing second fiddle to countries like russia, brazil india, and chynna. this is an hour and ten minutes. >> very pleased to introduce our speaker, mar marin katusa. his book is apparently breaking records and cracking all kinds of bestseller lists in numerous categories, international