the country is more what happened afterwards? and you know, it's again there's sort of this moment for a journalist, for a historian for anyone studying like just things were just crazy, crazy then. i'm sure some of you here in the city was just -- you had you know, people speaking openly about using the storm to make new orleans a less poor city. the famous jimmy lee quote uptown sky here, we're going to change the city demographically, 68% black citied at the time che it politically. black run city at the too many or we, up town royals are leaving. reagan put him in office and people helping to run new orleans had had a plan and it meant they were going to take advantage of this moment in new

orleans's history. there's also i called it the blue sky syndrome. you know, there was this sense that we lost everything, but man we could remake the city. you know a lot of it was positive. so people were imagining remaking everything from -- the schools. to the health care system, to public housing, to the entire city. you know, to shrink the footprint to shrink the footprint by 20, 40% the entire neighborhood like i don't know if we have the resources to rebuild. you have a mayor cracking up before everyone's eyes. you had the husband, communication director announcing that he's going to run against his wife's boss. you had a mayor and governor who weren't talking to each other in the middle of this crisis. the bush presidency for all purposes ended with katrina, i mean, his popularity numbers

plummeted in the fall of 2005, and he never ever recovered from that. you had a mayor's race who was really bad timing too. like roughly 6 months after katrina thrftion a scheduled mayor's race they delayed couple of months but in the middle of all of this chaos suddenly politics is playing a central role. you have this -- circus of election with 20 candidates. debate was on msnbc a city elect ation mayor, and they broadcasted the debate nationally. and then there was the every day heroic beyond imagine they're supposen positively here in new orleans. but they were amazing after katrina. fema comes in, u.s. army corps the engineers telling the city it is going to take at least 80 days to dewater the city to dry out o --

the city. sewage and water did it in eleven days. it was just extraordinary. then you have all of these everyday heros, so in this room connie she's from lake view. apolitical but hasn't been involved in politics her community is destroyed. what is she going to do in she steps up. i maintain that former katrina have -- prekatrina was not recognized who she is, and i joust love that people that were made. mack in the lower 9th war. i told mack that you're the black kind of -- and i told connie you're the white mack that's the same thing. apolitical guy who never really got involved. i don't think the to get involved. i don't to get involved kind of expression the mardi gras way of life. have a good time. leave everyone be. you know, don't take it too seriously you can't changes anyway. it is a corrupt city so it is

extraordinary time where, you know, people were step ised up and statement had people shrunk. ray is the obvious example i feel like ray nagin had one great moment. we have a tv camera here so i'll bleep it a little bit. but it's the thursday after the flood katrina hit early a monday morning almost immediately the city flooded. i think many people think it wasn't until tuesday that the city started flooding. but levee system within an hour or two fail water pouring into the city so monday, tuesday, wednesday finally thursday, there were no buses, there's no help. there's 25,000 people at the superdome. 25,000 people at the congress venges center. there's thousands more just on the hays any little patch of high ground. that's when he said to the president of the united states on the radio, get your bleepç and then that by the way, air force one showed up.

by the way buses started showing up at least at the end of the superdome. some of what i wanted to do in this book is -- a corrective of sorts. you know, things moving so fast that impressions last that often aren't accurate. i think maybe the best compliments i've gotten on the book so far, i thought i knew that katrina story. but from locals and people outside of new orleans, but i didn't. president bush. that first -- those first days, the failures of, you know, the president and his white house were near criminal. they just botched the recovery. they moved slowly. they, you know, you had the head of homeland security who is over fema. thursday, on npr saying like, i don't think there are people at convention center to average person at home watching cable knows more than the man in charge. you know, convention center people show up there tuesday. by the way, it was never meant

to be a refuge of last resort they department have the key. so nagin had to send the police to break in they have to break glass to break their way in no provision other than 25,000 people. but with that said i give the president pretty good marks. on the recovery -- you know, he's fighting his republican allies, he gave new orleans a lot more money than his republican allies wanted to do. now a cynic could say he had a big political problem on his hands and he had no choice and money at it. but let's give him credit that you cannot blame the -- sluggish -- not strong enough a word that -- the for months, years so little is happening i don't think you can put that at the president's doorstep actually i think a pretty good job on the recovery. kathleen blanco, kathleen blanco actually in days leading up to katrina in the first days, she was really the only one who took this seriously. she called -- declared emergency before haley

barbour governor of mississippi two day before ray nagin two days before the president of the united states and did a job. if you look at her poll numbers that week after katrina just creamed her she was seen at somebody who -- you know was not up to the task. so again, i actually think she became one of the goats to my line she acted as heroically if anybody could have been in terrible circumstances. with that said, i do put the -- failed recovery with the slow recovery at her feet. you know, road home she created road home. beautiful program on paper. largest house recovery program in u.s. history over ten billion dollars. but she -- it was created to make the middle-class working class whole after katrina. forget it took a year beyond what people thought it would take for checks to show up, she based it on the -- appraised value of someone with's home rather than cost of

rebuilding, so i think we all know that a home in -- a black community is valued. it sells for less than a home in a white community especially many this city where the high ground was pretty much taken by the time black home ownership was available to most african americans. who was in liest part in the city? whites in part but for the most part majorities were african-americans, yet just to do the numbers, a home in let's sate 7th ward, 60 a square foot. it cost 10 square foot but 180,000 to rebuild you're left short. go to a more white prosperous community lake vutha might be valued at 250, 200,000 square foot home they would have enough money simply because the formula is based on appraised value. so many left short.

african-americans left short. amazing statistic just shocked me two-thirds of the houses ruined by -- the flooding. so sold under $125,000. but it would cost a lot more than that 125,000 to rebuild. i also want to take -- scared to bring this one up. the whole shrink the footprint so-called readopt debate. that too, i was there. pretty much misunderstood. you know, it's for those who don't know, it's the death sentence essentially that neighborhoods thought they were getting from this city commission that ray nagin puts forward. but the urban land institute who came in in november, they, in fact, said there are neighborhoods in new orleans that are too low low-lying they should not be rebuilt they give a sentence and didn't name neighborhoods but got this map up. not just like that, of new

orleans and it was an elevation map. you know, you can figure that television sort of blood. it was the red like lake view, and chilly bright red. new orleans bright red an they don't tell you what neighborhoods but you have to look at the map and you know exactly what they were saying but truth is that joe, the man who presented the actual plan he never said that. so he understand he's a white man in a majority black city as he declares all of these black neighborhoods you're not coming, not coming back. if all of the neighborhoods that were all in red, didn't come, one study from a brown university sociologist says 80% would be in a community that had gotten a death sentence so a plan, forget practical in a place like new orleans where people aren't xeacts plans months, years ahead.

impractical for human it is that his idea was that he's going to arm every communities with the facts. they're going to see the same elevation maps they saw. and use government money to arm them with planners, geographers and other experts help them make up their mind like which part of my community would come back, which two low-lying -- the highest that did phenomenal work. two pulitzer prizes back then and they deserve it. this wasn't one of their finest moments, so they take a single map. a famous cover. of katrina they put it on them, put it on the cover. and it says four months to decide. and there's a map of the city of new orleans and it is this big green dot over many neighborhoods. not lakeview by the way i'll tell you in a minute but another four or five neighbors a big green dot so they took this one

map from the study, from the report, and they used that. what it was was -- the planners those who were helping joe were saying that hey, this two great parks here in new orleans. city park and park but there's other parks in the city so this is a real opportunity that could turn parts into the city into green states and be parkland they don't want to say where specifically so they put this dot dot dot, where they felt like they're low-lying and maybe they turn it had parts of it into green space that had more parkland where -- it takes those settle down at lines with a big green you know dot on top, you know, really, really scared people here. so i -- i can't really totally explain this. but you know, i work for "the new york times," from new york you can make assumptions about my politics and you're not wrong. [laughter]

just -- joe conservative republican, a personal friend of george bush's had karl rose's cell phone number. jenner's contributor to republican party particularly conservative. very conservative. politically i first him first two weeks after katrina, and i got this guy is in the middle. so from "the new york times" mogul in the middle stories. it was a wealthy real estate developer lives in suburbs had a huge slaicial plot really. and my cell phone rings the morning the story appeared really early. when you were a journalist and worried about your cell phone rings it is usually not very good news. so i -- how are you doing, bracing for what -- why's he mad at me i got off the

phone with karl grove. imagine that. a guy from "the new york times" treating guy like me fair. anything you want, you got. and -- you know, you don't have to make the offer a twice put it that way. so he gave me -- all of this access as he's trying to make up his mind on it's early january. it is saturday. a group of people -- the committee of 20 people he created to try to help him come up with a plan. they're meeting in his office, gorgeous office, 16, 17th century, religious earns that you know you bump it over. like did that just cost me a million dollars kind of thing there? they're all meeting there. i'm sitting there you know they have their plan like somebody says at 5:00, well, we're not going to forbid people from rebuilding but are we going to give them a city permit an at that point everybody threw up their hands and joe said i have

dinner plans. i need to see my wife. i'm like wow, okay are you going to give a city permit or not. that was a very big issue and single most controversial thing they did because they decided to ban it the mayor -- mayor nagin didn't take that piece of the recommendation. next day sunday, he wants me to meet his wife. and it's me. joe, his wife, and his pastor in his car, and his left, driving to his favorite italian restaurant in the suburbs of new orleans, and he -- he says to me yeah, that was really interesting. like a three minute drive to the restaurant. that was interesting about the permits. what would you do? i'm thinking -- okay. i'm born in new york. i live in san francisco when i arrived here in new orleans, a week after the storm, i had a tourist knowledge of new orleans. i was someone who was like

impressed with himself because he no longer went to bourbon street and understand, so cool. but never heard of lakeview, never heard of ninthward or jim was like and a the next day that monday is when the plan was due. fight like wow. okay, this -- your city is in a little bit of trouble. not a very good plan here. okay, read a little bit about my interactions with with joe but i'm worried about time so i want to leave time for questions i'm going to look forward to questions from a new orleans -- audience. but i do want to read one last passage. but you know, just is to say about -- it's as complicated thing when, i mean, new orleans is a two-thirds black at the of katrina, you have old with joe lived, very wealthiest community his hole was flooded. you have lakeview old professional class, well off white community.

every home there was destroyed. but you know, it really wasn't an equal opportunity storm in a sense that if you were black homeowner you were more than three times more likely to lose your home. if you're a white homeowner i think that was an important fact that somehow in all of the craziness, it was lost, and it really hasn't been an equal opportunity to recover. i mentioned before there were forces, shadow of government is doing what they can to thwart low income people largely black, for coming back. public housing the big four big housing projects here, it was some water damage. but many of the buildings had no water damage. but they were surrounded by fencing, barb wire and never permitted to come back away of thwarting the low income workers, working poor, the kitchen workers at the hotel. house chamber maids at the hotel, and really just kind of

help thwart. really never really a plan for bringing people back. one thing about fema, once they did rescue people they send people around. they give you a one-way ticket put you in a hotel, fema camp but never this plan to bring people back. 54% of new orleans were renters at the time of katrina. all of the planning rode home, et cetera almost all of the money went to help homeowners. but there was never much of any help for renters i mentioned disty not just me talking. five years after katrina federal judge ruled that it was racially disscrim story but 10 billion left and few hundred extra million that were mary landrieu deserves credit for that but the dial was cast and there was this disparity in the recovery that you know the black community, african-american communities were really suffering.

so >> i'm going to read that and for mcdonald he is the ceo and president of liberty bank, at the time of katrina, sixth largest in the bank. they were devastated. you know, their customer base in the eastern half of the city to say that half of the city was totally covered other half of the city was communities that were flood but not the entire half of the city. so there's branches that were flooded and/or lewded. headquarters ftion ruined. his records, with his computer, 80% of his customer base, lost their home. the collateral. homes, that were used against the home loans he made. his home was destroyed. i meet him eleven days after katrina. i counted i got together with him 20 tiles over the last ten years. i don't know why he's not sick of me. but i would use him to both talk about a single business trying

to rebuild. he's on the back commissions significant. but he's a significant figure here in new orleans that gave me a parascope into the planning process and what was going on in the center of town and city hall. and also just kind of his personal story. i had this experience, it was really hard experience of being with several people as they saw their home for the first time after had flooded. and with all of the mcdonald's, i told the story of someone seeing their flooded home through him. so you know, if there was a protag protagonist one man character in the book it is mcdonald i'm going to read a message from 2010 so five years almost 5 years after katrina. all of the mcdonald's grim survey of new orleans east began in a large boardroom down the hall from his office. five years after katrina, on the 6th floor of his banks headquarters the flood seemed as ifed it happened 12 months earlier. the east facing windows looked

out on to a stretch emptiness that once had been a giant mall. for once stores now just asphalt and weeds. reid boulevard next exit up the highway loomed in the middle distance. mcdonald pointed out a tan building around same height as his. vai kangt method in his hospital except for two letters missing called the foto hospital. next boarded up as a hospital once filled with doctors and professionals. wintd on the north side more or less at the east epicenter offered an equally bleak picture. a pair of large empty pauses on the side of the i-10. wal-mart were just giant wounds not landscape. swift story office were shutter. mcdonald pointed out several office buildings, empty, empty. before katrina more than a dozen office buildings in that part of

the city. i'm still ohm in the east yet plenty of vacancies five years after a katrina his building sat half empty. he continued his tour to battered east behind the wheel of a black lexus sedan near his office where a trio of strip malls all of them 100% occupied prekatrina he said all three vacant. nearby a abandoned nursing home and brick rehab center covered in graffiti. next exit off the interstate and one after that offered more of the same. stretches boarded up strip mall and destroyed businesses a day's inn reopened along highway and comfort suites but they reopened flap houses for transgents. there were several car dealership and gas stations a few places to grab food, but not much else. we have no jobs out here mcdonald said. we have no commercial business to speak of. but mcdonald occasion to mean to dip into a subdivision. lake forest estates

mcdonald's's old neighborhood was fairing better than most to spring brook lake that benefited from a active neighborhood group both littered with ruined homes on either street. less fortunate communities like the expert had warned us jack-o-lantern effect mcdonald said. no one home to four catholic churches five years later only one had reopened. eating in new orleans east still meant fasted to or food truck or temporarily perch in one of the tackout places, for mcdonald's headed west to the center of town. as lunch approached he took a detour through the seventh ward where he had grown up, and lived where he was focus oing a lot of his post katrina efforts. if anything 7th ward was stocked to new orleans east with more shuttered business and more wrecked homes supporting major guard tattoo. the mcdonald's mood brightened. he showed off half wrecked

building he bought under a government program created to encourage neighborhoods and planned to turn into a professional building and bought the city program, at least there's some life back here. >> so i want to welcome you all to ask questions. if you have a question to walk up to the mic if you wouldn't mind. anyone so comprehensive -- there can't possibly be a question? [inaudible] >> sure. >> in the opening you mentioned the key players bush, blanco, nagin, i knew you mentioned bobby jindal congressional --

district number one -- >> right. he was a congressman, of course, with lake view and all aft lake front areas, with and being from lakeview, we all felt for a long time his conspicuous absence that the first congressional district hardest hit in the miles by. did you recall any interaction with the congress? thank you. >> asking me about bobby jindal who, of course, is running for president offense ichly lost to governor in 2003 and he would win in 2007 two years after katrina actually interesting to note kathleen blanco who beat him in 2003 she won by about 50,000 -- votes 60,000 blacks voted in

that election than had in 2003 just giving the feel to governor jindal. still, the only way i saw bobby jindal back and this was i'll give the louisiana congressional delegation credit. they spoke as one voice. you know, it didn't make a difference, it was bill jefferson. black democrat, you know, the end or bobby jindal very conservative. you know, they got behind any plan that would help bring more money to new orleans. i'll be honest with you, though, i don't know of his appearance or lack of appearance. i do know in lake view that they were very, very resentful on the saturday night before katrina hit. katrina hit on a monday morning on the saturday night before katrina hit, ray nagin was out to to leisurely dinner with a

steak joint something nice, steak knife. [laughter] and it's leak you've got kathleen blank essentially at that point living in emergency operation center in baton rouge, you know, what, ray nagin did on that saturday? he spent the afternoon five hours on a movie set because he had a big part as believe it or not a corrupt mayor. [laughter] for those of you who don't know -- he's now serving ten year sentence while misconduct in office. but he spent five hours on a movie studio again you have blanco and others knowing this horrific category four at that point about to be up to a category five, in lake view, his phone rings it's head of the national hurricane center dr. max mayfield head of the hurricane center doesn't call

politicians. but he wants to scare the mayor he's like you have to do something. so it is in lakeview, you know, he's up in the chop chopper a couple of days after katrina goes to the 7 et street canal which is couple of hundred feet on that, canal wall fell that flooded lake view and other parts of the city. so he understood lakeview he was talking about 17th street canal but he showed up there. i think if i'm remembering right he made one appearance that was conspicuous it was conspicuous that he wasn't there. extraordinary thing about new orleans after a katrina whether you're talking about lakeview. lower 9th qard. new orleans, it doesn't matter it is the same story. people didn't wait. you know, in lakeview they went to a church to a wreck room. they started meeting like -- i don't know where anyone is but what can we do to rebuild they

went to the sanchez community center it stunk in there. molded sitting on rusted chairs same thing they have a map of the lower 9th ward a post-it note if you're coming back so we have a sense that there's something, so that story is gong on what was extraordinary is people didn't wait. like you're waiting on fema mat yet almost a year for fema to come up with these maps so people decide like can i rebuild? do i have to -- lift my house three feet? or ten feet? this is you know a huge cost difference between that. he's waiting is there a school in my area is my neighborhood coming back everything depending on everything else an a lot of people couldn't deal but other peemg who got in there an they started doing that despite that all 37. >> connie.

connie i'm in the book. >> chapter 20. so they sent you the book did you read it -- and all of the parts i'm in -- so he goes you are the only one who admits that. factually so right on in good and so well-balanced. he does so they good, bad, and ugly, but it has an

incredible balance. to me, so troubled this week with so many reporters and interviews in the same questions keep coming up pointed at one neighborhood and one class of people. i'm so troubled. my question to gary, what is your take on this week? you have been around tons of media and parties and things like that. i felt i personally witnessed injustices. we ran recovery center, 50,000 residents come to my center. i have witnessed injustice across the board. where there was water there was injustice. every class of people. did not discriminate.

but i just keep hearing, you know, the same injustices. one targeted area market, and i think it is so wrong. i would like to hear your take. >> you know, the new orleans recovery story is a complicated one. i have an advantage. in all its complication in book form i can tell it. i spent ten years looking at this as opposed to reporters parachuting in, television. there are exceptions. looking for the simple narrative which is wealthy whites and poor blacks in the lower 9th ward will be the stand-in for the low income african-american community and represent 3 percent of the population. i talk about the lower 9th ward. very important, but there

was this fixation. i almost took it as a challenge. i talk a little bit about the lower 9th ward. what about the black middle class. you have 96,000 people, one 5th the population,, the pre- ticked -- pre- katrina population largely a black middle-class community which is the shame of it all. it was ten years ago cast as a simple story. the media is finishing the narrative they did at that point. i also think -- and again, this is a thing that requires nuance. radio is pretty good as a nuance. there are two stories. stories. it is extraordinary that the city is doing as well as it did. i will argue this with anyone he did not no if

entire neighborhoods were going to come back. it was possible that this would turn into a disneyland version of itself. obviously the tourism industry, big hotel, the up down royals, the garden district, but it was not clear about the black middle-class, the white middle-class. the fact that you were here in the city is doing well, the center of town is thriving to my love this term, the young urban recovery professionals. they came in those 1st months in volunteered themselves.themselves. behind them came people. this is a pretty cool place to live at least relative to a birkeland or san francisco, cheaper to live. the food, the music, the culture, history and you

could buy a house for a hundred hundred $50,000. you have all this energy. the beginning start is to. communities being remade. at the same time gentrification is a complicated thing. ground zero for gentrification. it used to be a home would be 8,200,000. now 250,000, restaurants and culture and art. it's a wonderful place to be there is this tension and also ii think what the media is seeing, i'm talking a lot about this myself. if you look in the eastern half of the city, it's a long way away from recovery. i was talking about the

five-year mark. doing a lot better than it was back then that that mr. falls. on par with the lakeview. 80 percent back. lakeview is maybe better than it was. new stuff and houses. that's the thing about a flood. thatthat old dilapidated theater on the edge of downtown suddenly had a fema check. now it's beautiful and amazing. there is an advantage to having them money washing through. you go. seven ford, black working-class community, 60 percent. the road home.

he got a positive part. homeownership. for those who don't no, a mixed-race committee, three quarters african-american. a mix of races. punch a train park, beautiful resident there called the black mayberry, black mayberry, this beautiful place. you go they're now and is to 3rd back, three quarters back. you are working there. a lot of it is shock. you go to the lower 9th ward and it is shocking. you can driving go blocks westinghouse. there are just empty lots, overgrown weeds. probably a bastion house that should be torn down.

but you don't have to just go into this one small piece. the black middle class, the black working-class, black professional class communities, east over, one of the wealthiest. three quarters occupied. i have not checked in the last year. the race element is because they're really is a lot of plain -- pain in the eastern half of the city. >> i totally agree and thank you. >> 70 percent minority. i feel the resentment that they feel toward the 9th ward. what about us? we found a way to combat. very little housing. injustices and all that.

>> okay. >> i am a teacher. >> viewership, education changes. >> it's funny. i was just telling him, asking about school reform. before katrina new orleans had legendary problems. crime, corruption. i don't know if you would call it the worst school system in the country, country, but i really really bad school system. that blue sky syndrome, the idea that we can now we make it. i we willi will confess, there is one issue in the book that i feel like i kind of just want to go straight down the middle on, school reform. so complicated.

it's terrific, but it costs so much confusion. the katrina kit closer eight, ten, 12, 14 at the time. largely african-american group and what impact it had on them they all talk about the schools. cliché. break some eggs to make the omelette. the 1st years were so traumatic. everything was changing. the parish district fired in mass every teacher. so many inexperienced teachers coming who were not prepared to deal with the traumatized kids. i feel sympathy for the kids. they were traumatized at the age of eight or ten or 12

going through an experience that causes adults to continuously break down. i feel on this 1st 46 or eight years of people needed with stability. a neighborhood school. my kids were going up before we are nowwe are now back to my three years later, but that wasn't the reality. pretty much all charter school and kids go to school across the city and in other places. the scores are finally going in the right direction. you know, at 1st until recently, the last two or three years the criticism of the charter schools were that they were cherry picking. anyone who was a problem, anyone who seemedseems like they're would be a real challenge was not accepted. the greatest number of kids expelled in the country were in orleans parish and i got the sense that because the charter schools want to make sure their numbers are good,

but that has changed a lot. therethere was a lawsuit. the system is stabilized. and the scores have really started to change dramatically. i know we pay too much attention to scores. as an outsider i don't know how else to compare. as of a few years ago most are still failing but no longer. the thing that i wonder about and i know there is deep, deep resentment on the african-american community. it hasit has been ten years. the state took over most of the city's public schools. we are now august of 2015. no schools have been returned to local control. there is an elected school board in charge of ten schools give or take. that is my question. the system has been righted. whywhy are you giving back local control? there is a real resentment out they're and the feeling

like you're not trying enough with our schools. that is the place where he went. largely this is been for the better, but what about local control? for better or worse this is the system we have. you want to take one more question, any questions? okay. well, thank you very much. appreciate it. i am happy to sign any books set me up back here. >> great. okay. >> book tv is on twitter and facebook,twitter and facebook, and we want to hear from you. tweet us.

for postpost a comment on our facebook page. facebook .com/book tv. >> here is a look ata look at some of the current best-selling nonfiction books according to the "denver post". topping the list national correspondent for the atlantic magazine looking at the history and current state of black america in between the world and me. former president jimmy carter reflects on his life and political career in the full life. also on the "denver post" list of nonfiction bestsellers is h is for hawk by helen mcdonald followed up with a tool go on his examination of end-of-life care and being mortal. and in what if randall munroe explores possible scientific answers to unusual hypothetical scenarios. that is a look at some of the current nonfiction bestsellers according to the "denver post". many of these have or will be appearing on book tv. you can watch them on our website.

>> host: and you are watching book tv on c-span2 here in las vegas attending the freedom fest interviewing authors out here. joining us now, someone who has been on book tv before. michael shermer is his name. the book is called the moral arc. in this book you write that during the years i spent researching and writing this book when i told people that the subject was moral progress to describe the responses i received as incredulous would be an understatement. most people thought i was a hallucinatory. >> the problem is i do watch the news. if you only watch the news it seems like things are bad and getting worse. what i am trying to do is track the long-term historical progress over centuries and millennia and not days and

hours and weeks. follow the trend line, not the headline. ifif you think about it for a 2nd, take the bigger picture commit slavery illegal in every country in the world, it is practiced nowhere in the western world a more. the abolition of torture, now illegal. the right to vote, the threat of democracy itself. there are now 118 democracies in the world. there were only a couple. that is the kind of they progress steps am talking about. civil rights movement, same-sex marriage is now legal. >> that you include? >> absolutely. >> there are traditionalists who want to conserve the old

hierarchical sort of fast-paced society where the long-term trend is to grant more individuals more autonomy and freedom and liberty over there own bodies, their mind's. here we are. this is what it is all about i can do whatever i want and you can tell me what to do. the two people are in love and want to get married, who cares. it's none of my business. that is the kind of step. and having that is a standard, the rights of an individual to have a power and autonomy and choice, that is what has been happening. including more people.

>> is the moral arc the same as morality? >> am doing two things. tracking the fact that things are getting better and that changes have happened and i'm grounding it based on criteria. making sure they don't suffer. one of the great utilitarian philosophers started off by saying it's not can they think or talk but can ithey suffer. we begin with the suffering of other people. you not causing somebody else to suffer is a moral decision. i also make the argument for free will even though most scientists, most of my scientists friends believe it determine is a. morality requires moral choice.

you could have done otherwise, harm somebody and chose not to. that choice is where the moral decision comes from. what we have been doing a society for 200 years or since the enlightenment and the founding of the united states and the idea of the constitution with the bill of rights is that we are saying everybody should be treated equally under the law. that is a new idea only a couple centuries old. inventing in the late 18th century and are taken off ever since. >> out of the enlightenment began? >> guest: with the idea that we could use reason and logic and empiricism and science to answer questions about the world. it began with galileo and newton and the scientific revolution. these all started up wanted

to emulate newton, the newton of economics, that in society. canadian economy. before the enlightenment there was no economics. there was no science of economics. famous book called the wealth of nations. that is not the title of his book. an inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations. a book of science. increased prosperity everyone.

jefferson's idea of structuring a government in a certain way to increase the prosperity, happiness, pursuit of property and so on, that's the idea. a scientific pursuit. >> host: from your book the bible is one of the most immoral works in all literature. >> guest: that is a pretty strong statement. the.of the statement is if you turn to the bible strictly speaking as a literal reading but a standard any of the laws in leviticus and deuteronomy the death penalty for disobedient children, nonvirtual lives, mixing cotton and linen. these were written for another time for another people hope that the abomination of same-sex

relationships they've already done better. not religious. d is the best. doesn't matter what your religion is. if you're not religious at all, these are still the laws of the land. these are the rights that everybody gets the dominant religion. we don't care about that. we abolish slavery. tickle or and 660,000 dead, but the mistreatment of native americans we get

they're along with other democracies. the two best combinations. their accuracy, hierarchical. the united states is one of the champions. free-market capitalism leads to a moral society. >> if you want to generate more prosperity for more people that does make life better for everybody command capitalism, every economist knows more importantly

psychologically you treated me properly. by contract i have treated you properly. by exchange and so on and that is one of the big benefits to trade. it's a little bit like travel, having open borders and i tend to be more liberal in terms of freedom and tolerance in difference. to something that benefits them that also benefits you. most academics are liberals. >> you say you worked on this book for several years.

feeling the topics i did not know that much about, the history of war, what caused the decline of war. all you here about is people fighting. what is the last time any of the great powers went to work? 1945 was the last time. the proxy wars or decreasing wall though it is true there are still a few genocides, nothing like the holocaust with the tragedies of mao and stalin, pol pot and so on. those are anomalies even though they are still bad things. isys is bad, but tiny compared to what someone a century ago would've done. getting a handle on the bad guys. all progress is two steps forward and one step back. if you are pessimistic have

no trouble finding evidence for pessimism. take the things really are getting better. >> obtaining your lapel was a skeptic. >> skeptic is the name of my magazine. on the publisher. there are a lot of meds. skepticism 101.

the look for evidence. the great enlightenment adam smith, david hume started the movement. >> a lot of people. >> yes. i would throw them in there absolutely. absolutely. >> the moral arc is the name of the book. justice and freedom. here is the cover. >> on saturday september 5 life from our nation's

capitol for the 15th annual national book festival followed on sunday with life-and-death program former 2nd lady and senior fellow at the american enterprise institute when cheney. book tv on c-span2. >> here is a looka look at some authors recently featured on book tv, weekly interview program. american enterprise president arthur brooks argued for a knew kind of conservatism. claire mccaskill sure stories part-time in politics. charles murray discussed discuss the ways technology can be used to limit federal power. in the coming weeks catherine eden will discuss poverty in america. her life and political career. msnbc national correspondent will explore the ways racial issues have

attacked presidential campaigns. this weekend's journey from an undocumented immigrant to princeton university. >> ii am thinking of the conversation that revolves around a documented immigrant has being illegal, people beyond the pale of the law. at the core show that the undocumented are contributing to many different communities across the united states and all walks of life and are really poised to make a significant and far-reaching longer-term contribution to us society. the key is if we allow them to obtain legal status that will prevent them from living precarious and marginalized. >> airing on book tv every saturday at 10:00 p.m. and sunday at 9:00 p.m. eastern. you can watch all previous programs on our website. >> glenn back in your most recent book, it is about islam.

why you open with thomas jefferson on library of congress. >> because jefferson changed my life. he wrote a letter to his nephew. peter was 13, 15, somewhere in that area. he was -- his mother had died, father was about to die. father went and said thomas, we will you oversee the education of my sons when i pass on? so when he comes of age he writes this beautiful letter and says in mathematics you have to learn these things. never read a book out of its native tongue because you lose too much. and then he gets to the last one for religion. and he said, when it comes to religion above all things , fix reason firmly in her seat