see what other books congressman kohl has recommended visit kohl.hoss.gov. >> george friedman talk about the future of europe and potential for conflict in coming years. it is next on booktv. no [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] >> good evening. on behalf of theaters and staff, politics and prose welcome. thanks for coming out on this wintery night. i would like to take a moment to remind everybody to turn off your cellphones. i would like to remind everybody we are recording the event. when it is time to ask questions please use the audience like which is right there so your question willmike which is right there so your question will be recorded as well. can you hear me? >> the mike isn't on. >> is this ok? okay. if you could fold up york shares at the end of the evening and put the match at nearby shelf

that would be helpful. is this better? on your way out try to grab a schedule that has the events politics and prose is hosting a lot of wonderful events in partnership with bus boys and poets so be sure to take it out. now introduce our guest author tonight, george friedman is a political scientist author and ceo of private intelligence communication which he founded in 1996. he has written many books and his most recent include two n.y. times bestsellers. the next one is called the next hundred years of forecasts for the 21st century and the other, the next decade:what the world will look like. george is in great demand as a public speaker and has been invited to speak at events for major financial institutions and many military and government

organizations. he regularly appears as an international affairs expert for such organizations as the wall street journal the new york times, fortune, newsweek, to name a few. george is here to talk about his new book "flashpoints: the emerging crisis in europe". if this title sounds dramatic is because its subject matter warrants it. in the preface we are pointed to the stunning fact that in the first half of the 20th century 100 million europeans died as a result of war, genocide, disease and the light. george sets about putting this into the larger context of history and present the real possibility that the conditions that led europe to self-destruct in the last century could persist in the next. george's analysis of the situation is made all the more relevant by the fact that his own family originally from budapest only narrowly survived world war ii and the beginning of the cold war. this is the work of a political

scientist but also as george makes clear custody motivated by a highly personal connection to these historical events. join me in welcoming "flashpoints" one . [applause] >> i reminded how many books i haven't read and it is a frightening thought. i wrote this book for two reasons. the first is when i published the next hundred years i forecast that the european union couldn't really survive. this was published in 2008, was written in 2006-2007, and it was preposterous. not only because i was right and

it is nice being right, but more because europe is so central to human history in the past hundred years. what happened in europe is not that it happens every web but is uniquely influential in the world. europe is not just another place. the second reason is i am hungarian. i was born in hungary and my wife and my family's life is bound up with the geopolitics of europe. my parents were born just before world war i. their fathers and brothers fought in that war ended reshaped the family for a long time. they made their lives, starting a business and the liberalism of hungry between the wars, they survived the holocaust and found themselves to be hunted by the

communists because they were social democrats. at the age of 6 months i was put on a rubber raft with my 11-year-old sister, my father and my mother and we paddled across the danube on an august night in 1949. i am told searchlights were playing the cross the water. guard towers and machine guns were a raid. our meeting was a matter of life and death. the cold war had begun in earnest. on both sides the sense of foreboding was deep. i was 6 months old and i was drug because had i cried out at night we would have died. so my life came from this case, the torture of what i call 30 one years.

the years in 1914, and 1945. in which europe went from an extraordinarily civil and decent place to in life of extraordinary barbarism. my family was shaped, my father's nightmares and my mother's nightmares every night went back to their past. the cold war was a deciding element of my life in many ways and that grew out of this period. the -- americans living in texas of all places, can't be more american than that, can you? so -- growing up in new york

moving around the country, i always had this tension between myself as an american which is where i went to school and grew up and everything else and as the hungarian which was my first language and so i wrote this book. there is that deep paradox in europe. on the one side it conquered it the world's. it transformed a man's relationship to each other. wind europehen europe started in the fifteenth century the mongolians had never heard of the aztecs, they thought of themselves as a loan. what the europeans did was create humanity. everyone became aware of everyone else to the point that for the first time in the

unlikely interesting concept of humanity and that was an extraordinary achievement. at that point in the world, we created this humanity. not common humanity but humanity that we knew. it also created london, paris on the eve of world war i. an extraordinary place of not just physical culture but the place where on a night like this mozart will be played and the winter would be kept outside, and lights are on. when you compare that to century before that was an extraordinary place. many tried, spanish, french, english to german, war after war

they could never come together permanently, they could never be subjugated. the geography of europe made it impossible. europe, the second smallest continent in the world. to a it had 52 sovereign nations. it is a place where you contrive for two hours and encounter four languages. all difficult to understand in any way. what is important about europe is it conquered the world and it conquered and promising dealer culture of science to the world. never stop being at war with itself, never stop this constant warfare. it seemed like it was ending and in 1910, an extremely bright man who won the nobel prize wrote a

book called the great illusion. we demonstrated there could be no serious wars in europe because the level of into dependence, the exposure in the financial markets if there was a work the consequences for trade made such a work impossible. we look back chuckling, throughout my riding at this book, the absolute and if you will smug certainty that europe had put its history behind it. its absolute smug conviction that it couldn't happen anymore and this was from a person of enormous sophistication and learning. he was not a frivolous man and yet he didn't see what was coming right in front of him. that is a story that has to be told in itself.

how europe convinced itself of its exceptionalism. i would argue again convinced itself of european exceptionalism that solved the problem of a war. solved the problem of being oppressive. unsolved the problem of poverty and yet we remember this repeats itself in european history, never more catastrophically than on a the eve of 1913 when so much was happening. in 31 years, europe went from being the center of gravity of an imperial system the likes of which the world had never seen to being occupied territory. one half occupied by the soviet union, one half occupied by the united states. each treated their territory differently but in this end

european sovereignty was lost. the decision of war and peace, fundamental definition of sovereignty was not made any longer in paris, berlin or london. it was made in washington and moscow. i might add really noticed given the nuclear-weapons that they had, americans and russians behave with enormous credence. i always wonder what would have happened if the states of europe in 1914 or 1939:nuclear-weapons. we were fortunate. from 1945 until the collapse of the soviet union in 1992 peace was not a give europeans gave themselves. it was given to them by the americans and russians. it was orlean 1992 when the soviet union collapsed and the americans lost interest that europe was truly sovereign and

it was in 1992 by coincidence that the maastricht treaty creating the modern european union, the euro zone and everything else went into existence and it did create a continent of enormous hope and promise and it spread to countries like greece, opening the door that greece would participate in the european experiment promised that germany and france would never again be enemies. it succeeded magnificently. the years of 1992 and after work the most prosperous years in the world. it was a pyrrhic of extraordinary prosperity and the european union knew how to handle prosperity. the founding principle in europe contained in its documents is peace and prosperity not like

life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, pursuit, but prosperity and peace. it left open the question what if there was no prosperity? what if there was no piece? what would happen then? that scene from 1992 onward in abstract the meaning of this question. when i speak of european exceptionalism it was the believe that they had reached a plateau where they had learned the lesson that war doesn't pay and understanding meant there would be no war but they had learned prosperity was better than poverty and therefore there would be prosperity. all of this change in seven weeks in 2008. on august 8, 2008, russian troops invaded georgia. this was not in itself an event

of transcendent importance, things that you thought were gone in europe, the ghosts that come back to life. russia declared presence with authority and that is saying itself in the ukraine and elsewhere. the idea of the russian question had been settled in august of 2008 demonstrated so many things in europe everything appears settled but nothing ever is. seven weeks later, lehman brothers collapsed. the collapse of lehman brothers was an event the europeans thought, there go the american cowboys again, irresponsible and foolish, but how badly do the europeans many european banks started with some prime mortgage crisis and irresponsibility of

banks and as irresponsible as anyone else. buying these bonds, the europeans always say you americans started this. you didn't have to buy it but they did. that is what bankers do. financial crisis in suit and americans know how to deal with financial crises. against all reasonable laws that we have, the head of the federal reserve bank and major bankers brought to the room on a sunday and secretary of treasury read them the riot act and this is what we do the next day. as badly as the united states was hit it didn't cascade and cascade and cascade until we grew last quarter at 5%. the europeans had never experienced this before. this is the fourth major crisis of this sort for the united states since world war ii.

there was the bomb crisis and the third world debt crisis and the savings-and-loan crisis. it was all seen the same way, the government intervened and saved the bankers and the bankers were responsible for his behavior. they had no room to go into. in that room, texas is going along with this. doesn't want to bail out. but europe, the question of germany versus wes moore, france versus germany, this was the question. nobody went into the room not because it was bankers that were out of order but in the end the european union was the treaty of sovereign nations that could go their own way. it was not the united states of europe and that came out more

and more and more. germany at its heart is the fourth largest economy in the world. it exports 50% of its gdp. one half of that going to the free-trade zone of europe. germany needs the free-trade zone desperately which is why we went for america as so belligerent, a bit of a bluff. if they lose the free-trade zone they are in huge trouble. imagine in the united states exported 15% of gdp, export 9% and half of that went to canada and mexico, what would be the condition of canada and mexico?

the chairman's use the euro because they had to to set prices in such a way that it facilitated both their exports and protected them from inflation. also created rules that made entrepreneur reelected impossible. the tax structure of europe and fact that going bankrupt doesn't mean the people are not your problem, activity impossible. so in poor countries you expect massive risktaking didn't occur because it couldn't happen and when it occurred it occurred on the black market because no one could afford the taxes. there was no google that was going to emerge in europe. there was no microsoft that was going to challenge ibm and destroy the mainframe business.

1950s, siemens is a corporation today. europe was constructed in such a way as to ensure that the existing institutional corporations the massive ones like siemens was preserved and that wave of constant innovation that destroyed and created new companies didn't take place in the same way. when the banking crisis hit europe and the europeans tried to solve a problem. not a mortgage crisis but a sovereign debt crisis and the sovereign debt crisis, all the countries in the periphery, could pay back their loans with their bonds. to me grease is the forerunner of everything that happens in

europe, not the out liar. everything that happens to greasy eventually happens to everyone else. the question was what is to be done and what was to be done once either forgive the debt or structured them in some way. or force the debtor nations to pay back what they owed. there was great debate between germany and the rest of europe and the germans voted for paying it back. the result was austerity and that austerity created a massive wave of unemployment. the unemployment rate today in spain is 23%. the unemployment rate increase is 26%. when you take all of mediterranean europe southern italy, france, the unemployment rate is and has been for years is 20% and more.

it was about the unemployment rate of the united states, the great depression. southern europe is in a massive depression. german unemployment is at 5%. i am not blaming the germans. the germans were trapped. the build an industrial plant far greater than their own economy, they had to export. they used all the tools they needed. the others consumed and didn't develop their industry. what it came down to there was no one european experience any more. the idea that we europeans i won was lost. germany was experiencing life in a different way than britain was. certainly in a different way that southern europe was. eastern europe facing the russians who were be emerging after 2008 was alone because the spay huge really didn't worry

much about the russians. the germans did worry much about the greeks. what happened here was a fragmentation of europe and it sold. the european experience, there was a greek experience, and italian experience and all the national distinctions re-emerged. the institutions remained in place but what it meant to be, the european -- government employees were affected and the united states, the department of motor vehicles. even here the government is far more that but in europe is even more than anywhere in the united states. factors are government employees. electrical engineers are government employees. the economy is much greater.

you have a friend in wes moore -- you have a friend in greece who checks houses. he used to earn 3,000 euros, 800 euros. even those who are employed are on the edge well beyond it. when the poor get poorer it is not a radical event because the poor understand what it means to be poor. it is misery compounded by misery. when you are an architect, when you are a doctor, when you are a professional in the middle class there is an expectation of how you will live and suddenly the middle-classes of europe or southern europe were plunged into a life they never expected. for a great period of time there was expectation among the middle class that it was going to get

better. this wasn't the way it was going to be. it has been six years since 2008 and it has only gotten worse. what you see happening in europe is the rise of the kind of parties you saw in the 1920s and 30s the extreme right wing parties for the most part and left-wing parties. all united in the idea that europe was a very bad idea and we want out. the right wing parties say by the way send the muslims home. the greeks, the left-wing party not mentioning them. the mainstream parties of europe that created the european union are being challenged in britain by the united kingdom independence party. in spain, in france by the

national front. parties that were marginal nonexistent recently. in greece our forerunner of all things taking power. what they were saying is we cannot live in this europe. in the end problem of europe is simply this. it is a coalition of nations who are there for peace and prosperity. when they don't have prosperity what is the point of being a european? this is the same problem the united states had. when we were founded we were, quote, these united states, emphasizing it was the states not the nation. we had a problem of this sort, the economy of the south and the economy of the north divers, moral understanding of what the united states meant, divers and

we met at gettysburg for of great conference and we agreed at gettysburg with much blood and violence and wars that this was one nation under god, indivisible, with hopefully liberty and justice for all. who will die to preserve the european union? who will go to gettysburg? where will the grand army of the republic be raised from? there is no center of gravity in europe beyond the economic center. the basic reality of europe a continent of nation states. tiexiera note who share note fate,

remains the case. it is interesting how they have to do it. the european central bank will not distribute its money. each of the national banks will print the money and they are allowed to buy only their own debt because no nation wants to be liable for another nation's irresponsibility. each nation wants to control how it spents. they don't want the european central bank to decide what to buy or not to buy. that just happened last week. the re-emergence of the autonomous nation state reminds us not only that europe is divided but for millennia had been a place of conflict and

war. it may be coincidence that that work is already there, ukraine, whether russia re-emerged from its ashes is asserting its interests ainge to be faced by nations like poland and the mainland who look to nato to help them and nato isn't going to help them because that is a loss of sovereignty and commitment. the americans general hodges amended the forces in europe this weekend amounts the united states is pre positioning tanks in poland, hungary and the baltics, poland romania and the baltics. may not have been noticed by many people but that is quite a commitment. it is the united states that will take its role. it is important to understand

that europe was never at peace. 100,000 people died in yugoslavia but the europeans would say they were in to the european union so it doesn't count. i think they would say that. what is happening here is the country's that face russia, the baltics poland romania they face them alone. the other europeans aren't part of it. it is as if world war ii when the pacific seemed to be at risk. really wasn't involved. that is the reality of europe. the nation's state represents a shared fate, shared history, shared culture, love of one's coin. the thing the european tried to do was not abolish the law of

one's own but redefine its the you have two love, your country and europe. that is what they tried to do in virginia at the revolution. it is hard to have two loves. don't try it at home. this is the underlying crisis of europe today. which is increasingly the institutions that held europe together between 1992 and 2008 are collapsing, meetings are held, votes are taken but the fundamental innards of the system isn't working coin. before that period, before the american and russian occupation europe was a nightmare. my life wouldn't be what it is if it hadn't been 31 years of war. there is one fundamental

question. is it possible for europe to fragment into its nation states. and not what they resorted to before. war. war in europe is unthinkable yet it is being waged right now in the ukraine. the idea that you can have european nations states return to full sovereignty but not to live with the consequences is the great test and i think ultimately you cannot have 52 countries living in the second smallest continent in the world or smallest it you don't want to count australia. in a place where there are multiple histories, multiple languagess and multiple narrative of what happened 500 years ago or 100,000 years ago. if you wonder about that go to hungry and ask about the romanians. the romanians and hungarians, it is hard to see their talking

about the same history. they don't like each other. much of europe doesn't like each other. is interesting to go back and hear the germans speak of the absolute the dissolute greeks and the greeks speak of the vote return of german paratroopers. we think all of this is past. it clearly isn't. the question is where did it lead? i don't think in european history there is any basis. europe is not exceptional. in my view europe is returning after a very short direction to what it was. how bad it becomes becomes an interesting question but already the nations hate each other, resent each other and tell stories how the others betrayed them and that is not an easy thing at the center of the world.

the place that created the world. it set the stage for science and philosophy and mozart. was a gift in itself and to realize it is returning to its past. thank you very much. [applause] >> questions, please? >> if i may, i am not from europe. i am from the caribbean. in the netherlands, in the netherlands. having said that i must say that i am a little less pessimistic

than you about europe, icy potentially a fracturing of europe at the periphery of europe. i could see a factory depending on what happens in greece you can have a problem with grease having full of salt but even if that were to happen the core of europe, the economic community in the netherlands, belgium, france, germany, even spain, england is a problem. england has always been a problem. >> not to the english. >> not to the english but the french. that could be a problem. much less of a problem. if you have a fracturing of europe the fracturing is not going in my opinion to lead to a fracturing. i do not see that at all and i know both countries very well between france and germany. i do not buy that.

>> that may be true. >> if that is the fracture that is a major potential stabilizing aspect for europe as such. a few problems on the periphery. >> most europeans don't live in france and germany. >> a dominant country. >> they are and that becomes the issue. the fundamental fault line of europe is between the european peninsula and the mainland. it is a line that runs from the baltics through belarus ukraine, sometimes east. this fall line was one of the foundations of world war i. that is where my family fought and it is not a french trenches but the germans, hungarians

turks. when we speak of the fragmentation of europe it is altogether possible it will have different fragments but we see this borderland coming to life. we already see the tension developing in ukraine. we see the confrontation in eastern europe and the tension in eastern europe and one of the fragments is this huge center of gravity of europe which is certainly in terms of size significance as the rhineland, this has become a live. one of the most important questions in europe is will the germans join us? one of the most important discussions going on between the germans and russians who are flirting with each other, therefore it is not that germany and france will go into war but

this entire periphery shatters and wind it shatters, we just saw an election in which 45% of the scots voted to leave a 300 year union. we see in barcelona and catalonia and independence movement. we see the northern league and italy speaking about dividing it. it is not simply that history will repeat itself but it is that even within countries the assumptions that northern italy and southern italy are one country are being challenged by someone. i don't know what the fragmentation will look like but i know this much. if you goes to romania or poland they fear war and what is going on in the ukraine is significant. their question is where does germany stand? that isn't easy to answer. where i will agree with you is extremely difficult to imagine

the netherlands, i will also argue the assumption that this is the heart of europe is true in one sense but it is hard to say britain is not part of the heart of europe or spain, where is the hard list? and what draws the center apart historically has not only been animosity between the french and germans but fear of the turks and that fear is very real. thank you. >> it is a wonderful thing to reach peace. >> i always do. >> much better than to meddle in other kinds promote places and mess up the world. i submit to you the problems of

europe were not just -- also the united states doing. after soviet russia, instead of helping russia there was hope. we won the poll war. great. we won. trying to help them prevent russia from falling into economic collapse that caused tremendous change in their society. the mortality rate increase life expectancy of a man in the low 60s, and there was starvation, misery suffering and now we have the backlash. we have vladimir putin and picking up the pieces, pay attention to europe and the united states.

plus there was this talk about another defense and moving into nato and so forth and was seen by many russians as a hostile policy. >> what is your question? >> my question is i wanted to comment on that. >> the united states is 25% of the world's economy. it bears responsibility even by default. in some way for everything that went well. the question of europe is the european question. the attempt to shift the burden to the united states is the same as shifting the burden of civil war to the british because they brought american cotton. one of the things that happens when the crisis happened what happened in russia ultimately was russians doing. what happened in the united

states is american. as to the europeans the gdp of europe is greater than the united states if they wish to stabilize the situation in russia nobody would stop from. the germans didn't want to stabilize the situation in greece or spain, so leave unless. the idea that had the united states engaged in trying to rebuild russia and the united states would not be resented deeply for rebuilding russia the united states can be shown to intersect with everything that happens. it cannot be held morally responsible for other nations behavior. if you want to talk about the fact the united states did things that may have moved nations differently i fully agree. if you want to say that absent the united states this wouldn't have happened i don't think that is true. what i am arguing is what

happened in russia had more to do with germany and the great deal more to do with the european union and european union's policies toward russia than it had to do with the united states. we had little frayed with russia, the european union has athe european union has a great deal of trade. the underlying geopolitical structure determines what comes out of it and it is a characteristic of human beings that somebody must be held responsible and it must not be me, therefore it must be you. the fact of the matter is there are many forces beyond anyone's control. >> i have been researching for some time, i thank you for a pretty good service, however i

want to thank you for what is a pretty good service. however one of the points of contention between the u.s. and europe is the question of genetic modification of agriculture. strafford used to cover this topic extensively but hasn't done a single article on this since 2006. wiki leaks says this is because of the financial relationship between stratford and influential companies. would you care to comment on that? >> we have that relationship with wiki leaks and many things. >> the big point -- >> we don't know enough about it. it is a high technical subject in which science is divided. there is nothing we can add to it. there are many issues we don't discuss. we can find the issues in which we have something significant to say which is distinct.

when the issue first broke out we may have looked at it but we don't discuss questions of ebola very much except to mention. >> ebola doesn't have the geopolitical importance. >> i'm not sure it has geopolitical importance. you make up your mind that this subject and i am contending i am ignorant. we don't cover it because we don't cover issues that are technical. as for wiki leaks, i really hope you go to their web site and read our e-mails because the distance between what is claimed to be in those e-mails and what is in the e-mails are breathtaking the relationship. nor any other country we claimed we worked for. why we don't cover it? there are plenty of people who are experts. we are not. >> shouldn't you be hiring some

of those people? >> thank you very much. >> i am wondering a lot about nato. is nato a substantial force? is it reliable? is it useful? is it capable? is the united states and down through nato trees to defend countries that are nato members and russia may have invaded? >> we mustn't overstate russian strength. they are not about to invade nato. >> not strength but nerve. >> nerve doesn't get you enough fuel to get there. what i am saying is first of all nato is the military alliance and therefore doesn't exist. you can have a military alliance without military's and most of

the countries of europe, germany particularly doesn't have a military. praiseworthy or not that is a reality. a mutual defense treaty in which only one nation has sufficient military force under any circumstances to have a real significant effect and not a symbolic contribution is in my opinion nato doesn't exist. it has wonderful parties, cocktail parties are outstanding but it doesn't have the court ability of organized command structure that can ordered troops into combat but nato is built so that any action must be approved by everyone unanimously. anyone nation can veto it. during the cold war when there was general consensus and warplanes were voted beforehand it didn't matter but right now if the united states were to

want to support poland or ukraine or something like that that would be very hard to do. the united states would have to do it pretty much by itself. the british make come along with their sick of following, the french may or may not have the ability to deploy. we are now in a situation where nato is an institution that is more a hindrance to the united states because it obligates us to do things in concert with other allies. our obligation is still there even if our allies can't help but we don't know what the mission is and any one nation can vote against anything so the united states is clearly not moving toward bilateral relations outside the context of nato with various countries.

>> our last question. >> two questions. if you are still following hungry or interested in it i would like you to comment on the term to the right of hungarian politics and the meaning of that and secondly, just a couple weeks ago on the -- leaders of europe were standing together in paris and it is an anomaly that -- board that did represent some kind of attempt to recapture some european spirit you mentioned. >> the meetings take place. after is that the bailout plan they use the national banks, not european institutions. you stand together to take pictures. hungary is an interesting case because you have prime minister who has said basically lower, the european union is a threat

to us. what happened in hungary was mortgages were let out by a german, austrian banks and they were denominated in euros, they were denominated in swiss francs. hungry retains its -- it collapsed and the ability of hungarians to repay these mortgages have evolved and you have to restructure the europeans refused. he turned around and said okay. i understand you are refusing. here is the deal. we are repaint and repaving 60% on the dollar and 3, we don't repay any thing, we default. give us a call when you make a decision. two things happened. first the europeans the

bureaucrats decided he was a monster in didn't object to the bailout. they were happy to get $0.50 on the dollar. a model of how many countries what they face. when this happened the polls looked carefully at hungarians. the romanians who don't like the hungarians, in the greek election the hungarian model was held out as a solution. print the drachma announce you're paying back in drama or nothing. payback a certain percentage. populist leader who wanted to cracked down and hold on to hungry. he has been popular recently and instituted a bunch of impressive

laws. taxing me and someone but this to me, less about hungry than all models that might emerge in europe of the populist right wing leader very popular for defending hungry against the italian and austrian banks. the hungarians and their banking system, we don't have a banking system see battalions have a banking system, the austrians have a banking system, germany has a banking system, we don't have one. and that is the kind of view we are taking advantage of. so it is important what is happening in hungry. part of it is an indifference to cumin rights civil rights and part of it is tapping into hostility of hungarians to the

european banking system that caused the crisis. >> going back to 1992 and the formation of the e.u. is their concept other than peace and prosperity they could have built the european union on that could have survived? is their concept that for common european identity that could survive the recession? >> they wanted one but there is no european identity. the problem is france and germany for example had their histories. in their histories they are each other's enemies. when you take a look at france and britain they have histories but they are against each other. histories of the european nations don't draw on a commonality. they drive on tension. europeans want to forget that

history, people who work together, it was really let's not dwell on the past or our future. that is a good thing to do it your future is rosy and doesn't face crises. they only well on block promise that meant something, peace, prosperity, a kind of european civility, a decent society. the problem with that is it can handle everything but crisis and the europeans facing their first crisis found themselves unable to handle it together. there was no history to blind them. their history divided them. it is hard to think what they would have done otherwise. they used to have something called christianity. they don't really have that now. even christianity was divided between catholics and protestants and so on but these things that would have united

europe were replaced by secularism. that secularism really was a thin rules to hold together. especially one where you had to have blood, sweat and tears. thank you very much. contract and applause] [inaudible conversations] >> can i please -- >> thank you. >> in your shares.

>> you are watching booktv on c-span2 with top nonfiction books and authors every weekend. booktv television for serious readers. >> i have come to really believe if you look at people who were really great at what they do or really great at their job. there's one thing all of the have in common. not what part of the country. and the category of what they do they are incredibly passionate about it. i have never met anyone who is great at what they do and ask if you enjoy it they say it is okay. i have never heard that. only people who wake up in the morning thinking about it, they go to bed at night thinking about what they do. it is their life blood. i remember when i was leaving to head back into the world of

finance, tremendous experience and i went to seattle mentor of mine, bill brody, a former president of the jobhop university and said what you doing next? i told him i am going back to the world of finance and he said really? that is not the answer but just tell me why. is an important skill set, and protecting and supporting in ways that i had never been able to support them before. i am never going to judge you on decisions you make professionally. i just asked this. the moment you feel like you can leave, leave. every day you do something you are not passionate about you

become extraordinarily ordinary. that hit me like a ton of bricks. we are striving to do something special. we strive to make of mark on the world's along after we're gone our impact is still around and is impossible to do that if you find yourself becoming extraordinarily ordinary because you don't care about what it is you are doing. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. up next senior fellows at the brookings institution examine vladimir putin's foreign and domestic motives in the historical concept of russian leadership. the authors spokane kramer books and afterwards cafe in washington d.c.. [inaudible conversations]

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