half-century, how the pride in work endured in the minds of those people who like me, survived to see the bridges celebrate its 50th anniversary anniversary. and those men may be frail and with age or showing some of the lacerations they received from steel hitting them here or there. they still had i remember when i first met them back in the early 1960s, they had this identity with what they had done, identity with their work. i loved that and i saw it. if joe's grandfather had survived, and eugene spread could be with us tonight, i think he would be a pretty good guest and he would testify to the fact that they are part of

the bridge and they share with the bridge endurance, and they love fact that the bridge was so beautiful and to work on something that's beautiful. i'm sure in the time of the renaissance, probably some of those anonymous cathedral builders, those laborers who put the stones to some church or the coliseum. i mean, we knew who were the people who built the coliseum but they did something and a heavenly sense of living in that hereafter. these people work on something it's finished and it goes on and on and they die or their have a lot of my age and they still look with wonderment at this bridge that gap no older. the bridge is as young as it was as and 64 and the rest of us age. what didn't age is the glory and the achievement.

>> thank you, joe spratt. a.q., gay talese. thank you all for coming. and gay will be happy to sign copies of "the bridge." [applause] >> would like to invite everybody to join us at the front of the museum where you can speak more with gay and joe and sam and will be signing copies of their books. thanks everybody. [inaudible conversations] >> interested in american history? watch american history television on c-span3 every weekend, 48 hours of people and

events that helped document the american story. visit c-span.org/history for more information. >> joining us now on booktv is former health and human services secretary louis sullivan dr. louis sullivan. dr. sullivan, when did you decide you're going to become a medical doctor? >> i was age five. my father was a futile director in a small town in southwest georgia and among other things he provided and build services are people who need to be transported to the doctor. my father would often ask me to go with him to help because at age five i was curious, and i had a role model. there was one black doctor in southwest georgia in bainbridge south of blakely where we lived. so from age five determined i want to be like dr. griffin african-american physician. he was very successful. highly respected in the

community, people really thought that he was a great citizen. but to me he was a magician. he could make people well. i decided that's what i wanted to do, so that's what i decided at age five. loved science, loved working with people. so being a doctor billy combined over those very well. >> in southwest georgia in the area you were growing up what were some of the race considerations that you had to face? >> they were very difficult. my father was an activist. he started a chapter for the naacp in blakely in 1937. my mother was a schoolteacher. as result of my father's activism, the 20 or so they lived there, my mother never got a job in blakely teaching school. she had to drive 20, 30 miles away to other towns where she worked as a teacher. but in addition to founding naacp chapter, he worked to work

against the white primary that excluded blacks from participating established an annual emancipation day celebration january 1 that every year. i was a trouble plagued and the band. my parents sent me and my brother back to latitude in schools because schools for blacks and sacred role georgia back in the '30s and '40s really were not very good. but all of that was a great imprint on me because my parents were committed to my brother and myself getting a good education. so i finished high school in atlanta, went on to morehouse college in atlanta, and boston university medical school. the year i graduated 1954 was the same year that brown v. board of education came out from the supreme court. because when i graduate from college i could not go to medical school in georgia. i went to boston university, did very well. that was my first experience in

1954 when i went to boston my first experience living in a non-segregated society. i wonder how my classmates would accept me as well as the faculty. the bottom line was i was accepted without any problems whatsoever. had a great experience. i became class president and finished third in my class and then went on to cornell and harvard for postgraduate training and ended up on the faculty at boston university. in 1975 morehouse college my college alma mater recruited me back to atlanta from boston to found the morehouse school of medicine. so that they then led to a meeting then vice president bush who spoke at the dedication of the first build it we constructed back in july of 82. county nine very well and i was lobbying him in 1988 for one of my trustees so i thought would be a great secretary. he reversed the tables on me and he asked me to serve as his secretary so that's how i became

secretary of health and human services. >> what do you consider your biggest accomplishment during your tenure at hhs? >> really waging the war against tobacco use. because tobacco use then and today still is the number one preventable cause of death. i never smoked and i have nothing against executives in the tobacco industry except their product kills people. and as a physician and as the nation's health secretary, my responsibility is to do everything i can to protect preserve and enhance the health of the american people. so we were very successful. we waged and effort against r.j. reynolds when they were going come in january of 1990 they're going to introduce a new cigarette in philadelphia called up down. it so happened at the time i was speaking at the university of pennsylvania so my speech really included an attack against r.j.

reynolds producing this unfiltered, mentholated sigrid. and i was in what i thought a fight for many months. they surprised me because two weeks later they announced they were not proceeding with this new cigarette that they're going to test market. other things i'm proud of is introduce a new -- a new food label to let people know about what are on the food they're eating, what are the impacts they have. and then thirdly, introducing more diversity into the department. the first woman to head the national institutes of health and still the only woman was doctor bernadine healy that i recommend for her appointment. the first black to have social security, gwendolyn king, was someone i helped. so i wanted to change the culture of the department and i think we succeeded with that. >> there's a quick few minutes with former hhs secretary dr. louis sullivan, "breaking ground: my life in medicine" is the name of his autobiography.

the forward is by andrew young. you are watching booktv on c-span2. >> every week and booktv offers programs focus on nonfiction authors and books. keep watching for more here on c-span2 and watching of our past programs online at booktv.org. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> welcome to corpus christi on booktv. just powers from the mexican border this southern texas city sits on the gulf of mexico and was founded in 1839 as a small

trading post. today it is home to the fifth largest port in the united states in the corpus christi naval air station. with help of our time warner cable partners for the next hour we learn about the city's literary culture local office. we begin with david blanke on the early years of the automobile. >> in the 20th century, 3.2 million americans died as result of automobile accidents. most of my students and most people i know have direct experience with an automobile accident. that's not the same as military service, combat, infection disease, et cetera. it's ubiquitous, and some that question is really lies at the heart of the study. if americans do as i say embrace the automobile culturally, how do they respond when, by the 1920s, and really it was it was until the 19 toys where there was a national human cry

over unavoidable or automobile accidents that are killing individuals, and particularly pedestrians who have nothing to do with the freedoms of driving. others were paying liberties of these drivers. when the car was first introduced the rules were very different and the reaction to those rules were very different. and so the study looks at 1900-1940, when there weren't uniform rules for training and for driving and universal signs for speed limits and crossings and what have you. so that created in a sense a national dialogue over the difference between our love for automobiles and the social responsibility we have as drivers of automobiles. in the first internal combustion engine automobile, dates back to the 1870s in germany. and as a result most of the early imports of the into combustion automobile our luxury

automobiles available for only the richest of americans. what really defines american auto mobility is the arrival of the ford motor company. to be fair there were other cheaper automobiles available but henry ford's model t and the mass production through the ford motor company around 1908, 1909 mass-produced inexpensive automobiles available for everything. one of the aspects of the model t which is really telling for the issues of safety is about that vehicle was capable of driving on the worst roads and in the worst conditions. it could be modified by most anyone who have basic mechanical skills which in the 1910s was a lot of people come and could be modified as will do to a lot of different tasks not somebody driving but also as a threshing mission, as a source of power in

rural environments. so versatility was with the calling card of these mass-produced inexpensive automobiles. reforms often try to limit the very function of what an automobile does. what i mean by that is its ability to access all parts of one's life its ability to be driven in urban locations, and so did all kinds of restrictions in terms of driving within a city limit within a time limit. those efforts really weird ones geared at initially the way in which americans drove and who had the right to drive. but it wasn't an easy question. again one of the elements that i tried to pick up on in this study is there's an indeterminate. there's an unanswered question between freedom and safety that is exposed by mass auto mobility. i began the book with an epigraph from sinclair lewis who

was the first american to win a nobel prize for literature. he writes babbitt, and most americans if they know the one of him from babbitt. who is babbitt? he's this middle-class office individual who sees a car as a privilege, sees the car something that is due him and mechanics are greasy individuals who are serving him and pedestrians are in the way of this kind of champion driving throughout the city. ironically enough, three years before he writes babbitt, sinclair lewis goes on in automotive trip across the country. he writes for the saturday evening post, and in three long essays he endorsed the car. he adores the freedoms. he is ironically enough standing in for babbitt and yet making an argument that here is a device that is going to fulfill all of the modern expectations for personal freedom. his wife love it because she can drive, and women are quick adapters to these automobiles.

you can go out into the countryside and see a country that has yet to be developed for the first time. certainly the railroads would allow that freedom within the structure of a fixed rail system. what the automobile did was to allow people, like sinclair lewis and others to take that device, take that tool and to accentuate their own individual freedom. in the 1920s as the autumn we'll accident crisis appears, and again it's existed for some time it becomes a national issue. the states become very active. here in texas they are quite active in funny ways in which to respond to the motor menace. in the 1920s during the administration of president coolidge herbert hoover is passed as secretary of the interior of trying to pull together these state initiatives and mandates. in the mid 1920s, hoover commission does a remarkable job of standardizing and really

that's the key component with automobile safety, standardizing expectations for manufacturing standardizing expectations for road design standardizing expectations for grade crossings where railroads and roads intersected, how those transitions were going to be governed. and so the government plays an important role of the federal state and local level beginning in the 1920s. before that the federal government is going to be much more important for funding relative element and road improvement. and what you see is not really a growth in the mileage of roads but an improvement of the miles of that existed. what they do is quite honestly borrow from industry. and industry has been concerned with safety for 20 years by the 1920s, if not longer. these international safety experts are going to focus on the three d's of reform

education, engineering and enforcement. education is preparing drivers for the complexities of the roadway, not only weather conditions that also rules of the road. the ability to drive a much more complex piece of equipment that what we consider today in an automobile. and automobile today we turned the key and we try. at some gas in and try. it's a much more complex device, and so education was seen as a way in which you to limit particularly young people who have a desire to drive limit their access to the road and in essence to force those who are habitual violators or have repeat accidents or drunk driving and whatnot to be held accountable through state apparatus, through education programs, et cetera. engineering by contrast really focuses on protecting the device itself. safety components, it was an intense debate about seatbelts. it is a debate in terms of how fast these cars should be

allowed to go but even today you can into the passenger automobile and this but dumber often exceeds any posted speed limit, even in texas, and that focus is going to really standardizing the automobile and the roads in which they drove over. by all accounts in both instances, although one could quibble about education they are successful. the challenge became enforcement. i go back to that but dumber. why is it that a personal piece of property can be built to break the law? why is it possible to buy legally radar detectors? that when i started driving in the '70s it was possible to disengage the seatbelts monitors. and to take it even further why today do we have mandatory seatbelt laws? do we have zero tolerance for drunken uncle used? the answer to that is the enforcement question has not been effectively brought into american culture.

it really does kind of play against the idea of the automobile as a symbol of freedom. and so they struggled without. government reformers are trying to get people to recognize that speeding and drunk driving or not a right, a privilege, but an imminent menace. in the '20s and '30s you see an effort on the part of states to beef up their motorized traffic police but again, here in texas the department of public safety is founded. there's an interesting sort of dynamic in place because the state police to that point had generally been of the texas rangers. texas rangers to a very different thing other than traffic stops in speed violations. so there is an internal attention in terms of how to enforce. what you generally see in the cities is a police department that is tasked with a herculean job. because you have more and more drivers in a denser environment.

there are numerous campaigns, and you will see these images of police officers going car to car and literally inspecting the automobiles, talking to drivers, gathering information about what kind of menace they are dealing with. and so i think the original question was in regards to how do they respond to this. they saw the problem and reacted. the agony was the sticking point was enforcement the generally the automobile response was positive. they didn't want to kill the customers and they didn't want to see themselves as feeding and addiction to speed or your recklessness. having said that, what sold cars? what sold cars in their businesses their capitals, they're making money. what sold cars was a promise of freedom, a promise of speed, a notion of excitement. you still see it in the automobile advertisements today.

sitting there watching these commercials with my family i always have to point out, notice how all the streets are empty? when you see these cars driving they're driving and having a wonderful time was around today to get this much more complex is we don't usually have wide open road when we are driving in a commute time. but the automobile manufacturers, to their credit saw this as particularly in the 1920s and '30s, as a major impediment to expanding the marketplace. they were concerned about government regulation. it was possible for a state or municipality to demand speed governors. the technology was there to keep an internal combustion engine from creating enough speed for an automobile to keep it well below 40 miles an hour. there were devices, sort of these curious devices light bulbs went automobile surpassed 30 miles an hour you fast forward to today, the technology of our automobiles is smart

enough that it can measure like a black box on an aircraft how fast we're going when the driving and it opens up similar but different questions about our own willingness to give away personal freedom at the expense of social safety. and really that is at the heart of this book, is this question between independence and individualism versus the social responsibility that comes with that. once you are talking about commuting, once you are talking about just the density of automobiles on our roadways the idea of and the nature of the car itself all of the support structures for what i define as the love affair, this progressive pride, i have no pride in my ability to turn the start key of my automobile. it just gets me from point a to point b. at the 1950s if not sooner but certainly by the 1950s and

'60s that postmodern reality is starting to sink in. i'm a cultural historian. a lot of study and work has gone into what does that mean, culturally or instances of technology like the automobile which is so risk -- it carries with it such a risk for others who are rounded there. anthony gibbons and irmaa beck have written in the 1990s and the last decade on the risk society, and to boil it to net it out, throughout most of human history most human beings were concerned with food, clothing and shelter. very material needs. for the most part most in western societies don't have those needs anymore. we are not going to starve. we have an ability to take care of those material needs. as result more esoteric concerns start factoring in including passive secondhand cigarette smoke, including post-9/11

terrorist attacks, including automobiles and drunk drivers. so bring it back to automobiles it's no consequence. i should say it's no coincidence that began in the 1970s and 1980s you see americans starting to focus on not those material needs but rather saying we are going to zero tolerance for those who are drinking and driving. mothers against drunk driving, passive restraint. there is increasing a lot of technology being built into the automobile. it's not there by accident. it is there to provide some evidence and arguably the ability to predict and to prevent automobile accidents in the future. ..

the key relevant story but there are other things people don't really understand. michael once scolded the multi-purpose army and in the nineteenth century the federal government was very limited. they don't have many deployable resources so the army as a whole variety of fame's, they are discovers, they , they are discovers, theythings , they are discovers, they, they are discovers, they are explores. army contractors, the army is responsible for conservation. the parks were established in nineteenth century but there was

no one to protect or preserve them or keep trespassers away. so the army really because of the efforts of phil sheridan steps in and literally save the national parks until another organization man can be created. for better or worse the army in the west did much more than fight indians. the american people have historically had antipathy, fear of the regular army from our english traditions in regulation -- revolutionary war traditions we fear standing armies as antithetical to liberty. it is hard for modern observers to realize because now the military is one of the most trusted institutions in the united states. so the army really is about

25,000 men. and the army would argue, would have argued at the time, what they are supposed to do as effectively and efficiently as they could have. the american people again didn't see it that way although they certainly welcome the army's presence. the army is often pledged in the middle of two competing interests sees itself as being in the middle american indians, non indians want to take that, it goes beyond indian or non indian issue. in the 1880s in wyoming of all places there were some riots where local workers with the

introduction of chinese innocence and the army gets called in to restore order, there's a wonderful scene in the book in san francisco, the chinese consul from new york, a translator and two army officers in wyoming trying to protect the chinese immigrants trying to restore order, and so the army has pledged all sorts of difficult balancing acts and sometimes it does pretty well. sometimes did bungles the job, like wounded knee, over 200 indian men, women and children slaughtered, now there are 30 army soldiers killed as well but it is one of those tragedies that didn't need to happen, just a horrible example of things gone wrong and the needless slaughter. i would argue that although the

last major indian conflict ends in 1890's that the army continued to see the west as a fundamental importance to its mission until the spanish-american war that we know with the advantage of hindsight that there are no major conflict with indians after 1890 but army officers at the time talk about the possibility of those conflicts so the army remains heavily involved in the west until the spanish-american war when ironically it finds itself in an analogous position in the philippines. here again they are called upon to try to not only conquered the area but provide law and order some sort of border and stability so in many ways the experience and the philippines in the west.

in many cases this love/hate relationship westerners have with the federal government is reflected in their dealings with the army. this is nothing new. we still have it today. i happened to be in washington d.c. at the beginning of a modern-day tea party movement and was fascinating to me, not trying -- not a policy issue, just fascinating as an observer to watch tea party ears to go on the metro system which was funded largely by federal dollars that i thought was ironic that food tea party years were going to their demonstrations opposing the federal government on this creation of the federal government and didn't see an irony in that. westerners have the same avenue as -- very much the same

attitude. on the one time in theory they dislike the government don't want the government but when they want the government itself there more than happy to accept it. typically westerners are more supportive of the army in congress than non westerners in the nineteenth century. you can see where western congressmen opposed to the federal government voted for bigger army appropriations in part because they want those soldiers there helping them conquer a continent. many of those connections to the stories of the nineteenth century we find interesting that the army has traditionally not tried to to incorporate attempted to focus

unconventional warfare 8 in many ways potentially a bigger danger to american security, in many ways easier in that there is an enemy and you know who the enemy is. there's not a lot of fooling around but it is interesting at least until the 2,000s until we got involved in iraq and afghanistan that the army's interest runs counter to the history of the american army which traditionally has handled all sorts of nonconventional operations. in the mid 2000s as we were getting involved in iraq the omega conducted a big study, brought historians together and we were supposed to give papers on the army's role in nonconventional affairs and the

interesting thing to us was this is the history of the army, under current doctrine that has changed the doctrine under massive changes and general david petraeus with much greater focus on asymmetrical warfare but i would argue this is -- the conditions they find, the individual issues are different the basic conditions are pretty similar, that you are trying to restore order in a complex world, often with very few resources. >> during the recent visit to corpus christi, texas we talk to the author of claiming citizenship. anthony quiroz talking about the fight fur civil rights in victoria. >> american history itself, who is a citizen and who is not and

who decides so for mexican-americans' the story of our history has been ongoing struggle for economy, for inclusion. my book looks at the period 1940 through the 1980s and i see different ways mexican americans and in victoria texas struggle to become equal citizens. i look at their behavior in churches, public schools, political action and private organizations, to find examples of ways in which these people try to claim citizenship. victoria, texas is a town of 60,000 people load located 90 miles north of here, half way to eastern texas. today the city is integrating but back then i give you some examples. there was an organization in the state that was supposed to investigate charges of discrimination. they have a thick file of

discriminatory charges and so you still have some discrimination but not to the same extent you did back then. the laws of change, civil rights act of 1964 made a big difference. so things have devolved. 1940, victoria, texas, was very different much more racially segregated. you could go places but you couldn't date interracial the. i had a crush on a girl in high school, won't give you her name but her father was a local policeman whose nickname was a night stick. i never asked her out but that is just the sense of what things were like. and example of institutional discrimination, when i went to public high school 1974-75-76 i

went to school with 2400 students and there were three mexican-american teachers. that is more than i had seen in my life. what i learned when i researched this book is they had been hired two years previously. there had been none. institutional racism. looking at school district records i found a note from one offical to the superintendent saying i interviewed this woman, she is hispanic speaks english clearly, may be all right to teach a glow children. where's the note that says she is a globe. she may be allocated to each mexican children. institutional racism. mexicans didn't get promoted. they got hired at alcoa as laborers never moved into management operator positions. now they do. that is the institutional racism and they face. a lot of literature focusing on

mexican american history focuses on demonstrations, the chicano movement, anti vietnam war demonstration. you didn't have much of that in victoria. people tried to bring change by voting, holding meetings with local business leaders, very much a consensual view of american citizenship. let me explain that. when i first started researching this as a dissertation, i was a grad student at the university of iowa. i had been through all these classes and now i know what to look for. they're must have been a story. nothing. i am looking and finding no evidence of avert resistance. what i found was subtle resistance so here is the point. these folks have very consensual. they are patriotic americans and they bought in to american

values, traders and beliefs. if we talk about citizenship, what country are you loyal to end things like that but whole list of unwritten rules that define citizenship, your race, gender, class, level of education, where you live, your religion. if you are an atheist you don't get elected to office. there is a whole spate of qualifications that are never written down and you are never taught this at school but it matters so what i found was these folks were trying to lay claim to those same things so they bought into values like patriotism, hard work catholicism, family values, those sorts of things i grew up learning was claimed as their own invention, that is not true at all. it cuts across all different groups and that was part of what angered me so much as i was writing that book even though they were not as radical as i imagine they might be but they

were very seriously struggling to change that status quo. there is a segment of historians who think about mexican american history generational the so we look at the 1800s as of concord generation. 1900 to 1930 is the immigrant generation, mexican revolution 1910-1920 through that time most people who lived here saw themselves as mexicans who happened to live in america. 1920 to 1960 we had the mexican american generation. now people see themselves as americans who happen to the mexican. those are the folks who created the ideology i described in this book. very american very patriotic, very much they buy into

traditional values. chicanos wanted to reject that because mexicans were workers, at brown, not white, we want to reject americanism, mexican-american, spanish-american, chicano, and looked at people from this generation or people with these ideas as traders. one of the arguments was how can you support the american military in vietnam killing people like you. whereas people in some military saying we are defending freedom and the american way. two different people looking at the world differently. over time the chicano movement left a legacy. we have some organizations and some of that ideology, i would make the case as you look around the country, there is some blends mexican-american generation and chicano ideology,

but what they developed into is a rather consentual kind of world view. things of changed. you see more interracial couples, you have somewhat more integrated schools, more elected officials that are mexican-american, but still a long way to go. i don't think our story has been told at all, not very much. we have had some very acrimonious hearings at the state level in texas. and ahmad of folks at the state level don't want the curriculum watered-down as they might say. so they might be ok with the margin or something but that story needs to be woven into the entire retail. so they come to this campus not knowing who dr. garcia was who

in my estimation it seems to me what we do is take one or two steps for more take a step back as a society. in order to continue to make progress we need to struggle and eventually things will change. one thing that happened is we passed, got rid of anti miscegenation laws, it used to be illegal for blacks to marry whites. now they can do that. you don't see that everywhere but i see more interracial couples that i used to when i was in high school. i see more mexican and a blow relationships than when i was in high school. gay marriage about to become legal marijuana is changing. it is evolutionary. the city has to organically, even subconsciously decide it is

time for a change in time to move in a new direction. you can't legislate that. people will say you can't legislate morality. you kind of can. if you couldn't you wouldn't make certain things illegal like murder and rape. you can legislate morality but you can't legislate people's inside values. everyone agrees you can't rape and murder. can you discriminate? some people are pushing for that religiously. i want the right to discriminate against homosexuals because that is my religion. what we have to do is wait and i would like to think that over time, subsequent generations my children are far more tolerant of their peers and other things that go on around world than my generation, certainly far more tolerant than my parents's generation. >> host: we spoke with norman delaney his book the multi brothers civil war told the

story of two brothers to ended up on opposite sides of the civil war. >> regards to the civil war, it was the brothers war, such a great tragedy too that divided so many families but as far as personal relationships there remain very close as it had been before the war and would remain afterwards. the cliche blood is thicker than water, it really holds in the case of the maltby brothers. mind book "the maltby brothers' civil war" concerns several of these brothers. henry maltby was the second son of david david blanke -- david maltby he originally came to texas and wanted to establish a newspaper, that was when the younger brother, william, came

down here. referring to the older brother jesper maltby he has no links what to lead their with texas. just maltby also from there wound up in all places illinois and he had served in the mexican war and became a gunsmith and later one of the nine generals who served the union during the civil war. it is a remarkable family. their relationship was very very close even with the war in the division's. one brother, and jasper, faithfully serving as a colonel in the 45th regiment and having two brothers in texas firmly

committed to another secession in the civil war, jasper maltby was a true hero. we have letters from general grant logan and other union generals expressing the great esteem and respect who during the battle of fort donaldson in 1863 suffered a tremendous injury, and he eventually account for this and was able to serve during the siege of vicksburg. during that siege before the city was eventually taken there was an attempt to build a tunnel

if you will underneath confederate fortifications fort hill and when the explosion occurred in illinois led by colonel jesper maltby so there was a terrible incident where he was struck by at timber and suffered such internal injuries that eventually that would lead to his death. william maltby became the captain of artillery batteries that want up concerned with local defense of the coastline in color chris christie 7 november of 1863 there was the large union army that had taken over brownsville and units from

that army moved up in november of 1863 to capture key points along the coast and even intended to get to galveston. at fort simms, now on the tip of the island so this large army than, of union soldiers, want up capturing, taking for its sins and capturing the entire garrison including captain william maltby. what happens to william and the other prisoners were taken and was sent to new orleans. by this time jasper because of the seriousness of his wounds and all, had been appointed commandant of the vicksburg garrison and we found out his brother william was in new

orleans, immediately arranged william be brought up to vicksburg i can only imagine, imagine the emotion involved in two brothers, one in a blue uniform of brigadier-general in the other in the gray uniform of confederate captain and that is where my book begins. this is a stirring emotional incident i wanted to bring to the attention of the readers write from the start and that meant for the next several months before he was finally exchange, william, captain william maltby, a confederate states army spending time in vicksburg must have been very interesting, the conversation and i am sure the older brother tried to get his younger brother to take the oath of allegiance

to the united states and then of course he would be released but refused to do so along with other prisoners who were eventual be exchanged and only if and where they allowed to return to texas and a reunion of william maltby with his wife and by this time infant child as well. i think it is a very important story, that people would holding great interest because it is a personal story about these brothers. the civil war was so much more than the blood and gore and battles and campaigns, so much interest, they have two years but let's get to the personal side of the war. the maltby brothers are a good example of another side of the civil war to look at.

>> you are watching booktv on c-span2. we of visiting corpus christi, texas to talk to local lawyers and for the literary sites with the help of local cable partner time warner. up next david blanke talked about his book "a destiny of choice?" which says there has been a reduction of consumer choice in america. >> it is based on this question of consumer choice. what role, what influence of power do consumers have in a consumer society? what choice do they have? how is that choice manifest in american society and culture? we began on two polar opposites in terms of answering that. as a cultural historian there are ways in which consumers influence the market, influence products change the way in which products are interpreted

and the meaning ascribed to them in american society dave by contrast is more of a materialist and the argument being capitalism and consumerism is driven by what sells. that paradigm, that distinction between agency on the one hand, a consumer agency on the one hand and control on the other is as old as the study of american consumer history. i always think john wanamaker was the philadelphia retailer in the nineteenth century and he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on advertising and famously said i waste half of my advertising dollars. the problem is i don't know which half. it comes to the heart of this relationship of power and where consumer agencies expressed. advertising in the year the 20th century was traditionally the primary source that scholars

would look at, and before i answer the question i would like to point out there in lies part of the problem. who is creating the ads? as historians we have access to records. most of the records we have our capitalists trying to sell something, trying to guess at the desires of the consuming populations. they are not the consuming populations so what we get from advertisers is a very rich source of primary source material but it is only one perspective and the goes back to the quote i mentioned earlier, they are guessing at what works. early in the 20th centuries see the formation of advertising and previous to this, most advertising was broadcasting, here's my product, here's the price, here is the availability. beginning in the 1920s most famously with blistering, which

was an antiseptic that got turned into a mouse watch and the advertising campaign could the user in the context of a social setting and said what is going to happen to you if you haven't taken care of that. ..

who is calling the shots. and we play without a title of the anthology, "a destiny of choice?." destiny essay. spurrier drained. choices not. choices of variable. when we get to summon one of the areas i study his film. a term used most often is perversity and it's a term that has morphed into a very different meaning but it is the unexpected, the unforeseen. when you talk about this questions there is an above examples. most famously in 1985 coca-cola co. summarily announced it in taste tests and their ending production of classic coke and rereleasing is a knockoff on pepsi. the response was overwhelming.

this is that the dog at cnn and the mass runtime department tours to get the old classic coke. within three months, coca-cola had said we've made a mistake. we are going to go back to the original formula. evaluate that. is that an example of real consumer auric agency or april could be a marketing campaign on the part of coca-cola to sort of choose their consumers to say we really want to. to this day coco cola officials maintain that the mistake. contemporary society. the sony hacking in the interview. most people kind of intuitively knew the minute that took place and withdrew that what was going to happen. my kids both watched it the night was available on the internet. we are left with this paradox

between who is calling the shots. it's the real hearts of cultural historians because we are comfortable with the indeterminate answer, but it's the genesis of the book and it drives through the contributions that we kind of included there throughout the text. >> i'd like to think most americans, most people -- there's a reason that the mindset and not in a modern language. the most famous, implements of the early 19th century was pt barnum. so the president demand lots of someone like oregon was widely understood that the consuming public. the first book was on burrell farmers and cooperative purchasing, effectively creating wal-marts to get access to urban supplies in using mail-order catalogs and whatnot.

they were clearly a liar and no man, the term that was most pervasive were taking a chunk. they were taken apart of their consumer dollar with the profits from a manufacturer. that was the cost savings available. theo maltin is accredited with wal-mart. that sensibility goes back to the dark of modern mass consumerism. it ebbs and flows in america's relationship with that and reaches a peak following the spec of world war for a lot of very complex reasons. the united states was the tories in that war. they were proud of the culture, the american lifecycle did not necessarily the american dream which is a work chain, but the american lifestyle, nixon famously houses kitchen debates

in moscow and almost at the same time of the counterculture, you begin to see a lot of depth. what are we actually buying here? the literature on the spirit of time is diverse, but also very clearly focused on those types of questions. when you look at the kind of questions that are posed, it is how much and how often you can demers realized this? some advertisers are all over it. the volkswagen corporation were releasing vehicles that have different sheet metal on the exterior. the current al qaeda changed that much. the advertising campaign shows sequentially the released models of volkswagen 1955, 56 are all identical. come s-sierra model, which looks exactly like the old model. you know as the consumer you are being sold goods by just having

them sheet-metal or more for automobile. certainly by the counterculture and when we ditched the 1970s and challenge to the american my style, the challenge of middle-class lifestyle, new car suburban homes come out at are that puts a lot of questioning on consumer culture in general as to what we are getting in the spirit are we happier? the remark and 10? duke ellington famously said it don't mean to say if it ain't got that spring. it is my argument i want to make sure you gave dave this as well. my argument is it's a powerful perversity. the terminology that it's the none, i'm planned for response that who knew people would be so interested in a twinkie that they would demand its production. given its relatively easy

manufacture and distribution, it is an easy product to reproduce from another manufacturing base. the contrary question though and the notion that there's more going on here or less going on here in terms of can or agency and more in terms of being manipulated by puppet masters, you do you see this notion of an ability by manufacturers and producers to target their products in a particular way. there are multiple perspectives upon which to view consumer society and consumer culture and this is change given who you are looking now. if you look at it from the perspective of the producer, if you look at what advertisers think are going to motivate us, you could certainly serve. if you look at what consumers

are expect dean of the things they consume, you'll get different answers. what you see in the last 15 to 20 years with electronic media is that it's much easier for consumers. these terms are sort of ubiquitous and mean different things for different clients. the culture is becoming stronger and stronger because it much easier to slice the demographic sound so you are just looking on "american idol" 18 to 24-year-olds as opposed to downtown at the pbs subscribers. so that specificity is a historical process. ec historically the ambiguity in the marketplace become much more pronounced closer and closer we get to the modern era.

>> here is a look at some upcoming book fairs and festivals happening around the country. >> joining us now on otb is allan karl who has written it

look coltranea. first of all, what's on the front of your book? >> is actually a motorcycle in a middle of nowhere place in southern south america and patagonia. the bmw at 650. i took the motorcycle for three years alone and wrote it all over the world. >> erupted around the world? like? >> a lot of passions and dreams. i always wanted to travel around the world. my passions have been the writing and motorcycle riding. i found myself unemployed and recently divorced. so i decided instead of scrambling to try to find the next job, i sold everything i had and hopped on the motorcycle to visit and experience different cultures different people all over the world. >> so why the name "forks"?

>> become the forks in our life and forks are the things on the motorcycle 50 arrests and keep us going in the right direction and what we share and eat food with. finally, if you are a musician, it brings harmony and resonance to that. there's a lot of meaning here. for me certainly is all about. the night before against the things i want to talk about this book does have recipes. >> the book does have recipes. this is more about my experience of connecting with people and culture. i went on this trip alone but i can tell you that it didn't take long for me to realize i was never alone. i was lonely and hungry. i would just turn around and someone was there. it is amazing how easy it is to connect with people. a lot of times we do that over food or drink. rather than just either travel narrative, that i would ring another element to that.

a full sensory experience. the photography in the food here but is better than tasting the flavors of different cultures? we always talk about food. it seems when you cook at home than in the kitchen and that is where we connect with each other and with culture. >> did you run into any article situations? >> there's a few places they really didn't want me to come in for their country. one of them being sedan. we definitely the united states haven't had or a good diplomatic relations with sudan. and i got to the border between ethiopia and sudan as all of my own practice in diplomacy and negotiation to convince them to let me into the country. here's where it gets funny. i have been on the internet with different forms and people in cairo, americans getting a visa and there were some in southern europe as well and all of them

had been turned down by the sudanese embassy. here i am in ethiopia. do i turn around and go back to kenya? i can't going to chad. where my going to go next? somehow after three different visits to sudanese embassy they decided to grant a visa. but there was a catch. sudan from a geography point of view is the largest country in africa. they give me seven days to get through it. transit visa essentially. same thing in syria. as an american you are supposed to have an opportunity -- are supposed to acquire your visa in washington d.c. at the syrian embassy or consulate before you go there because they don't grant these says to anybody who lives in a country that has diplomatic relations. so they said go to washington to get it.

i could've got this been said before it headed into syria, but i've been on this road for two years plus in visas expire in six months and only good for 90 days. once again here i am stuck at a border. we talked politics diplomacy. how do you get into syria? i can turn around, go back through jordan which is where he was tried to go through israel and into lebanon, but i really wanted to see syria. i took out my tent and i camped out and waited until i finally convinced him that he too called damascus and give me the okay to go into syria. i am telling you it was probably one of the most -- expert dishes are low, but one of the best countries i've visited. i never once had to pay for a tank of gas it in a gas station i went to the increase means that now, you are our american friend. even at the border even with all the stamps and circumstance

to get this visa into the country one for my motorcycle, steve. here's what they said. wait, mr. allan could achieve inspector was defeated. they're not going to let me through. there starts with owens. he shows up at the border were in waiting in my motorcycles gear. i'm ready to go. before you go we must have shy. in the middle east it's all about having tea. we get together and have a or whatever here it is let's have shy. we sat on the side of the dusty border stop in on the dirt road ground into an outline of the map of syria. on that he pointed out here is for you need to go. the people they are warm. it is that the government you know, it actually brings tears to my eyes to think about what's going on there now appears that

such a positive experience and syria. that is very connected people on i.t., over the culture. i predict aaron says too. i embrace south africa and its diversity. all over south america fantastic people over the world. fantastic food. beyond border hassles or challenges, which i call opportunities, we can get through those things. great stuff all over the world. >> allan karl did you get treated poorly because you're an american? >> never once was i treated poorly. in fact, i was in brazil at a café, kind of a restaurant chatting and practicing my portuguese at this point. i actually -- there was another american there who brought up the fact that i can't believe we

are always getting tossed under the bus so to speak, and mistreated or maybe misunderstood. what this brazilian said companies like i'm actually getting tired of hearing americans think that people are mistreating them or look at them differently. he said i think that is all in your minds you americans. that's what he said to me. i found not very similar with other travelers that i met from all over the world is now people were interested in learning about us. and also it's no amazing facts, but i would meet people and all the different countries to a tried many times to go through the lottery of getting a visa to come into our country. people want to come here. they don't want to push us away. that is for sure. >> host: in your travels did you ever call upon the good graces or potential influence of your brother, the white house correspondent for abc news? >> or was one case.

i shared the story of sudan. this is amazing. the atm card and internet access are pretty much everywhere. but sudan is pretty tough to convert american money weren't atm card issued from an american bank or even an international bank that has relations. so i was challenged with how am i going to get currency? how i get money to make my way through the 70s going through their? i call jonathan and that is very thoughts -- anyways -- he had been through sudan on a view different editions. he had left in a safe hotel in khartoum the money he had forgotten when he checked out of the hotel. believe it or not this is what is so amazing. the sudanese still had his money. it had been two years.

they said all this guy because after he left the hotel he was like when is john back in sudan? i went to the hotel and picked up the sudanese money he had locked interface. >> a little bit from allan karl. "forks: a quest for culture cuisine, and connection. three years. five continents. one motorcycle." is the book. this is booktv on c-span2.

>> fred and his partner were desperate for business at that time can make out over whatever misgivings they might have had about doing business with the soviet and entered into a $5 million deal to modernize the soviet oil industry by upgrading 15 refineries and training dozens of russian oil engineers. in doing so they would really put the soviet union on the path to become the superpower it would eventually become.

fred coke spent three months in the soviet union in 1930 overseen construction of refineries and is horrified by what he sees. he later writes that russia is a land of hunger, misery and terror. he returns home to do everything he can to stop the spread of communism. in the ensuing years he becomes a very outspoken anti-communist and in 1958, he's among a select group of american businessmen who are summoned to indianapolis by a former executive by the name of proper whelchel also was known for the anti-communist views at that point. they were brought there in the district secrecy. they were told not to even day at the same hotel, lest they attract suspicion about why all these prominent businessmen are

in place. this and that being the founding meeting of the john birch society and fred coke is literally in the room at the birth of this organization and goes on to play a very prominent role within it. he becomes the national council member in wichita, kansas, that becomes a real hotbed, where the coke family lives becomes a hotbed of society organizing. i was speaking with eugene earlier mentioned as a schoolteacher in texas, the birch society really targeted her for some things that are said at that time. that brought memories about researching a book in taking place in wichita at this time. there were many stories about students being told to allegedly being told to spy on their teachers for any hint of subversion. i remember as i was doing the book i talk to one former

wichita schoolteacher who recall she'd handed up as unicef collection boxes to the students for hollowing in this became a huge source of controversy because of course the society was completely against the united nations and their motto at that time was u.s. out now in reference to the united nations. so charles koch who is the second of the four koch brothers returns home -- she attends m.i.t. as well. he returns home enjoys the birch society of russia because his dad is an influential member. really seems to take to it. he found the bookstore down the street from the koch family home where he carries a section on austrian, free-market economics. to review an idea of how diehard the koch and were about

communist map at one point, i heard one story from a family friend who recall strolling up to the koch family home in the mid-1960s. he's carrying a copy of is hemingway's the sun also rises. he knocks on the door in his eyes flicker over the cover of this book and the visitor can tell there is something wrong. finally he asks okay what is the quick response to lately well, hemingway was a communist in his literature is not allowed inside her home. so this visitor actually have to leave his copy of hemingway on the stoop in order to enter. that is how serious they were about communism at that point. >> here's a look at some books being published this week.

>> chuck mccutcheon inside seven are co-authors of "dog whistles walk-backs, and washington handshakes: decoding the jargon, slang, and bluster of american political speech." first of all, tell us about your day job. >> i was senior editor of political for many years. my freelance writer among other projects. i'm also applicable journalists of the american politics. >> with michael barone of course. you've now written a book, "dog whistles, walk-back, and washington handshakes." where are we going with this? >> well, this is their attempt to decode and explain how politicians can the people in washington, the politicians at all levels and city councils to state house's top tiered we

thought it was interesting to try to capture some unique phrases and expressions that people in politics, lobbyists staffers among them a try to make it funny. we tried to make it understandable to the average person who might be interested in politics but it may be confused by it. >> what is one of your favorite phrases? >> in doing research for this book, i notice the expression we need to have a conversation about how often president obama says that. he basically said whenever he is confronted with a crisis or situation that he doesn't want to have to deal with, decided after the edwards noted nsa revelation in the colorado national state legalize marijuana and after the school shooting in connecticut. it's basically his way up the wrong stop talking, shut up and listen to what i have to say about it. >> david mark what is your favorite quite

>> the one we heard the most was the phrase my good friend. one member is talking about someone as the opposition. they say my good friend makes a good point but here is why he's wrong. the truth is that not good friends. they probably don't even know each other's names because they are so many members serving in the body. it's a polite tenacity. a derivation of the british parliament to the right honorable gentleman. >> does this decode washington for people quite >> we really tried to say what politicians really mean. for instance, one may say in all candor or altered data makes you wonder what they say the rest of the time if they're not being candid and truthful. >> if you like to see david mark talk about "dog whistles, walk-back, and washington handshakes," go to c-span.org, typing his name in the search function and you'll see an hour

of him on q&a. gentleman, thank you very much. >> thank you. we would like to invite viewers to submit their own entries. go to our website dog whistle book all one word.com and suggest any phrases that like to see. >> would've viewers suggested already? >> i'm trying to remember. >> we've gotten reader entries. we've also tried to keep up with the times for the latest political headlines like to take one constituency for granted is to get cancer name after former house majority leader eric cantor back in june 2014. several others in the relay to the 2014 election cycle and going into the 2016 presidential race. >> gentlemen, thank you.

>> host: april ryan i don't think anyone on any american reporter has covered the white house as long as you have niu have taken clinton and bush 43 and obama years been written about them through the prism of something that is important to your listeners on american urban radio networks a nice issue of race relations in the united states. i have to ask you when you first arrived to the white house in 1997 committees you imagine you would ever be there to cover the first african-american president? >> guest: never. never. just say that i'm getting