nepalese queen who yielded all sorts of power until her husband died she is forced into this ritual. there's another indian emperor who is old and fell in love. this is the same guy who built the tosha hall. hall. -- taj mahal. ..

. >> it was interesting. when you are were introducing jimmy carter coming next week, great guy, great human -- humanitarian. this is completely apolitical. one of the worst was when he was in poland and had a really bad translator. i'm glad to be here. way he said it to the people, i desire pols ca rna -- he did not deseerve it. [laughs] >> so recovered at one point or another, probably every u.s. president has story in here. a lot of british things and

queens, scientists, explorers, entertainers. every aspect of life. >> how did they select the lucky human to be involved in the environment? >> it started out -- they -- it was human -- it was the unlucky. they tried to inseminate. i would like to be the mother, it didn't take, so, yeah, it

didn't take either way. [laughs] >> yes, sir? >> you have the trojan horse in the front of the book. you talk about oprah. what's the ancient bad day in the book. >> a lot of the events don't have a specific day. fortunately because the román empire was well documented, there's a lot on the román emperor, everything is documented day by day. the trojan was a brilliant i lust -- illustrator. it doesn't apply. it's probably a myth, but there

there's not a day that said, come on in, to the horse. but román empire, it's about as early as we -- >> there's a few stories about the chinese emperors who are prehistory that we happened to have dates for. the one that was tried to live forever on mercury. he's buried near and no one would do digging because apparently there's a mercury river flowing through it. there was some kind of idea that mercury was the it salvation. so they can't -- without the severe danger of mercury

poisoning dig it up to find out what was in the tomb. many of the warriors were being uncovered. no mercury there. anyone else? the lady in black again. [laughs] >> when you're not researching bad days in history, do you have another day job that you enjoy? >> no. [laughs] >> i live in complete darkness in bed. no, i do -- i write books for a living. i used to work for the washington post. if something was happening in a current event, i gave a historical perspective on it. when clinton was being impeached i wrote about johnson, the first impeached president. i wrote for mother's day, i

guess i am kind of dark. [laughs] >> with a sequel for father's day on history's bad dad. and then i through that, you kind of develop a little bit of -- as i said off-beat, you never learned in history class, which is what i love to read about. the stories behind the stories, i think, if you think back to your own history classes, i would imagine a number of you were pretty turned off by the drive and emphasis on dates and not telling who these people were. we tend -- the founding fathers, for example. a bunch of guys who couldn't stand each other. yet, look what they accomplished. can you imagine that room with

the bad nerds, all of -- these things that we don't think about. you know, they're all maribelized in monuments. they are not people. the founding fathers, for example, have annoying spouses and how much did they hate each other. and they really hate each other, a lot of them. treasury of royal scandals. it was about the dark side, the crazy american scandal, treasury of perception, a secret lives of the zar's of russia. that's kind of my gig. i like to write about the history that we never learned in history class.

well, it's a -- i guess that -- that about wraps it up if there's no more questions. i do appreciate everybody coming out. i think if you have having a bad day ever, pick this book up, turn to the bad day you're trying to plow through, i can guaranty you are going to feel a little bit better. [laughs] >> thank you all very much. i appreciate. >> book tv is on twitter and facebook and we want to hear from you. tweet us, twitter.com/book tv or post a comment on our facebook face. facebook.com/booktv. welcome to grand junction, colorado. it's nestled in the grand valley, with the help of our chartered cable partners over the next hours we will speak

with local authors and learn about the history of the what aa and some of those important in the city development. >> represents, i think, at least three of the major that shape the 20th century west. above all, he was interested in water, maintaining an adequate supply for future generations. >> academy award winning who refused to comply with the america's committee in 1947 citing his first amendment rights. >> it was an amazingly interesting complex and courageous person. he is known for a couple of things. for one he was a hollywood screen writer. he won to academy awards for

screen writing. he also is known much more politics and character in standing up to the houston american activity's committee in 1947. >> i understand that the members of the press have been given card belonging to me, is that true? >> that's not true. >> you're not asking the questions. >> i was. >> the chief investigateor is asking the question. >> i believe i have evidence, i should like to see what you have. >> you would. >> yes. >> will, you will pretty soon. [laughs] >> we are now in downtown grand junction on main street and right in front of the theater there's a bronze statute.

the statute unusual as it is it is based by a real photograph taken by his daughter and it shows writing in a bath tube as he was proned to do with his coffee and pad. he grew up in this community and went onto cite grand junction as well as novels throughout the career. born in 1905 in colorado, western colorado, and at the age of three he and his mother and father moved to grand junction, which is 50 miles away and he had two sisters as well, and he grew up in grand junction. he was very much a westerner, and the western colorado

lifestyle formed him as a person, as an artist, he went to grand junction high school where he was successful in debate clubs as well as working in school newspapers. he worked as a reporter for the grand junction newspaper. he would cover service club and high school, he would cover church events. but he was always very ambitious , hard working and started delivering the news newspaper. it's a great year for a quote, which when you see his -- when you see his film and read his screen plays, you realize he has

that great ear for dialogue and i would like to think that that reporting background informed that part of him as an artist. >> i'll look. >> very unusual. i've never been a loan -- alone with a man before. with my dress off, it's more unusual. do you -- >> i think i'll go out for a cup of coffee. >> it started out as a journalist both in high school, one of the reporters at his local newspaper, he expanded upon that. he did journalism for the school newspaper and worked on the yearbook. he started doing magazine writing and started to spread his wings in fiction. unfortunately his college career

was cut short because of finances. his parents moved to los angeles to seek other opportunities and he joined them. at that point u his father soon after died and dalton ended up working at a bakery for what he thought would be a short-term, ended up working nine years. while he was there in the bakery supporting his family after his father passed away, he started taking classes and continued to work on his education. throughout this time, he wrote and wrote, and wrote. he wrote for magazines, he wrote novels, he wrote plays, eventually he was able to quit the bakery and go to work for a film magazine which lead to a job as a script reader, which lead to a job to script writer. he was no overnight success.

dalton was writing, and writing, and writing and hoping to work as a professional while working in a bakery during the depression, difficult times for everyone. he worked on what was his seventh novel and based it in grand junction and based it on many characters that readers would recognize as community members the significance of that other than the people who lift in colorado, it gave him financial

resources and confidence to continue writing novels. the next novel was his greatest. it was johnny got his gun. that novel went onto win the national book award. based on that success he was able to raise his profile in screen writing world because he was working at film studios at the time, kind of making rounds starting with b movies. he start today get some critical success. the hollywood ten was a group of screen writers, producer and a director who was subpoenaed to testify before congress in 1947 before the congressional committee, the house on american act activity community, people with

communist ties will use films as propaganda tools for the general audience in the united states, and this audience would be unaware that they were being persuaded to an economist viewpoint. this group of ten wisely secured lawyers, which was a success in and of itself, many in hollywood including actors were supportive of them in their efforts to go to congress and decline to testify on first amendment right. guaranteed in the constitution. what happened, though, is that sparred ca -- craij rossly >> they were found guilty of contempt of congress for

refusing to testify and sent to prison which was surprising and shocking to everyone involved and that if you don't testify, your career is over, you will also potentially be imprisoned. it set up the hearings that happened later in the senate, and definitely threatened a lot of people to complying with the congressional committee who otherwise thought they may not need to. he was imprisoned for 15 months. during that time he wrote, just gut wrenching letters to family members and friends, trying to figure out how he could rebuild the career once released, having lost so much money in legal

fees, so many of those who were compelled to testify before congress lost their homes, lost their savings, had to sell everything they had to pay for attorney's fees, they were still blacklisted. the hollywood studio system in order to protect the business, agreed to congress that none of them would ploy writers that were blacklisted. he went from being the highest writer to working for pennies on the dollars, living with family and friends in méxico, thinking they could keep cost of living down, and ultimately realizing that that's a long ways away to try to collect on your debt. within that time frame of leading up to the cold war, communist scare colored the

politics, so what was now and legal scholars would reck -- recognized, it was more in line with public thought. the idea that congress colluded film executives to protect a private business interest seems bizarre by today's standards and yet it worked. he was on the blacklist for 13 years. while he was in méxico, he went to a bullfight which ended badly. the bull was not put down cleanly. as a result of the experience he wrote a film about friendship of a boy in méxico and a bull, call it had brave one. he put a name on it. robert rich as screen writer.

it was the academy award and when the name was called no one came to accept the award. >> the great robert rich. [applause] >> on behalf of robert rich and his beautiful story, thank you very much. >> we started an avalanche of people claiming to be robert rich and people trying to figure out who robert rich really was. it was an embarrassment for hollywood. it was clearly out in the video system for this week of employing the black-listed writers for pen nice on -- pen

anies on the dollars and continue today make success on their work and, yet, they were excised from hollywood. he had won academy award for screen writing for the brave one, and yet, was unable to go claim it himself. in subsequent interviews he said that i don't claim to be anyone particular -- i received great for all screening efforts out there and none of the blame for another. he received an academy award also for román holiday, a script in which it was one of the screen writers but not credited for years later and he used as a front one of his friend's name. at the academy award, his friend

received it. it wasn't until in his final year of life it was corrected that he should have been credded for that screen play. finally broke the blacklist, with the assistance of others in hollywood. who films wrote the blacklist for him. it was exodus and spartacus and in that way, the blacklist was over for him. toward the end of his life, you see him becoming more gracious to people who had been his enemies earlier, who had been in part responsible for

blacklisting. he seemed to have come to some peace later in his life. you see his son chris going into script writing and you see daughters and successful. he definitely extended more of an olive branch than people expected him to. >> you're watching book tv on c-span2. this weekend we are visits grand junction, colorado with local authors and toured the cities sites with the help of our local cable partner charter communication. next we hear from steven about the career of former congressmen

and environmental debates in congress. >> we are in downtown grand junction, actually, along the river side trail and there's the colorado river in our background. the colorado river has everything to do with my book and the shaping of the american west. wayne grew up from age 8 until the end of his life on the banks of this river. he was upset withholding enough water from this river to be able to grantty -- guaranty the future not only upper colorado and the western half of colorado, which approximated his

huge congressional district. wayne represents, i think u at - at least three of the major themes that shaped the century west. above all, he was interested in water, maintaining inadequate water supply for present and future generations. he also represented the industries, of course, mining, in colorado are sin -- synon synonnymos. during much of congressional he was supporter of uranium industry and it was huge in grand junction's history. the third issue that i think he represents is the vital shaping

role of the federal government. a lot of the things that we have been able to do here in western colorado is because we have been able to bring federal moneys and expertise to bare, to reshape the land and build an economy out of the desert dust, so to speak. he was on the front licenses -- lines of all of these things. wayne moved to colorado at age eight from ohio. like many people who moved here around that time, they were seeking land. it was really the last frontier in many ways, historians talk about the ranching frontier and the mining frontier, the cattle frontier, this was the irrigation frontier, and all of

the land that you see around here would be fairly worthless through anglo americans without the application of ample amounts of water to the land. the family moved here. within a year or two of the time that major irrigation projects were being completed, and all of a sudden that desert land became available and they produced peaches like many other people in this area. he grew up here. he got involved in local democratic politics and would be be elected to congress -- to the united states congress in 1948, first he served in the colorado state house for 18 years.

in the colorado state house was a little bit unusual. he comes from this area of the state, the western half of the state but really did not have many people relative to the denver area, what we call a front range of colorado. but he was able to be recognized as a leader within the state house and within the state senate and he will be the house majority leader and minority leader, senate minority leader during that time. he got involved in the water issue very early on, and i think that helped make his ultimate career. he was involved in the creation, in the late 1930's of the colorado water conservation board. he was one of the original members of the board, and what

they were doing is starting to recognize that this water issue was going to define the state and continue to divide the state unless there was some cooperation. so it was an attempted building cooperation between the various regions of the state that were already fighting over who is going to get the water, and, of course, who was going to get it without a board, part of the state with most people thus the most political power, and that was not western colorado. if you're going to be a successful politician in colorado, specially from western colorado, aspinall learned that you are going to have to deal with the water issue particularly to reserve enough

water for present and future uses for local -- for constituents. he was elected to congress because he made a better case that he understood the water issue better than robert rock well. how did he do that? well, beginning in his state career and then going onto his federal career, he climbed up the ladder of seniority and was able to exercise, i think, more power than you might normally have. certainly in the united states congress, he rises up very

quickly and rather surprisingly and becomes committee chairman. by the mid-50's where he was able to make sure that colorado and western colorado would be treated fairly in any divisions of water. the first major success was the passage of colorado river storage in 1956. locally known as the crisp colorado project. he's taking care of his constituents on the water question. that was in 1956, and many of those projects would be constructed oifer -- over the next 10-15 years. he was called the environmental

movement most durable foe and other things we can't mention. was he a foe, yes, and no. i think he understood the conservation as he liked to call it, not environmentalism what he saw as the domain of zealous, he believed that they were going too far. aspinall made a decision on environmentalism on the one hand and conservation on the one hand. and he really did not like the direction that environmentalism was going. things like endangered species protection, he liked clean air and clean water as much as the next person, but his problem was with what he saw -- and i don't think he understood this ultimately, was the small

minority of environmental zealous. he believed most people like himself were for the stewardship of our water resources, for example, and -- but he believed it needed to be preserved for future generations as well as the current generation. we can't ignore it and write it off, you can't say you can only come take photos of it, for example, and walk around trails. head, essentially, this is here to be used. that's why he favored the cattle men and minors and encouraged them, because they are the ones who built this region and pulled out of the sage brush that it was in. almost every significant reservoir in western colorado,

there's been little activity done since he congress. down in southern colorado, originally authorized and reauthorized by aspinall and it took that long to be built, it took a long time because we had good congressmen but they have not been as high up in the congressional system and congress has not been in the mood to appropriate since that time. i can approach perspective. above all, he is someone who

represents an earlier time in western colorado, but he's also someone who had a difficult time coming to terms with the development and rise, really, of new western, naggal values -- national values related to the pr -- protection of the environments. eventually that's what is going to defeat to colorado democratic primary. >> during book tv's recent visit to grand junction, colorado, we spoke with sally chrome, author of people of the red earth about the history of native cultures in the region. >> american indians of colorado. i wrote it because i wanted to

go back into this prehistory of the area, so many people don't know about it, and people still don't know much about it, but there are more and more steadies excavations that are revealing the area which goes backs 3,000 years now in this specific area. the people who were here for are indians, and evidence of their existence here is becoming more and more numerous. they have found close by here and along the colorado river here that there were people living actually in pit houses that are semisub terranean.

it's fascinating when you think of people living in structures themselves. i think the early time period is really interesting. the vegetation was totally different then. about 2,000 feet higher in terms of the ecosystem would be here, like this is here, it might have been aspen, and so down by the river instead of salt bush and such. it was pretty scare. they had what we call saber

tooth and they were competing, warm sheltered and bears, so there was competition there. but every time a hunter would go out, he would have to be prepared to fight with giant sloths and the saber-tooth cats. it took a community to hunt mamouth. getting away from the heard would be quite a feat and

traveling for days trying to make it tire and then coming in for the kill and hauling all the meet back to camp. they called them the mamouth hunter. they would kill four or five a year. and they probably lived a lot, you know, deer, elks, mountain sheeps and rabbits. then the culture that comes after that. that was a culture that survived for like 8,000 years. around here you find a lot by the sites to see. there were bisons around here, we found some bison skulls nearby. not a lot.

not like out in the great plains, and then the deer and the elk and lots and lots of big horn sheep. you see hundreds big-horn sheep being depicted. that's formed a major part of their diet. they could use horns to hold things and sometimes they would put holes in them and use them as wrenches to straighten shots, spear shots and use all parts of all the animals, as i'm sure everyone has heard. anyway, it's a lifestyle that really worked, otherwise it wouldn't have lasted 8,000 years. in the book i try to cover the

succeeding culture which was the premont around here. the culture was culture in four corners area. up here the season wasn't as long. they had pit houses, but never developed the big top community, mostly farming, a little bit of farming. they are well known for their incredible rock art, huge tri -- triangular figures, almost as high as you. sometimes it looks like carrying human heads.

they were very either defensive people, i don't know against whom. their culture is evident in this area from like 500a.d. to 1100a.d. evidence of it isn't around, but that doesn't mean they disappeared. it might have affected them, certainly did the four corners people and was part of the reason, they moved out of colorado. it might have been the same way. they used people who came out after them in terms of a culture that's identifiable, it might have been the fremont.

a lot of the youth elders believe that. people think that -- it's spoken a lot in the tribes in california and the aztecs in méxico, and so they were everywhere and they could have been everywhere for a long, long time. evidence of the use begins about the time the ancestor left and the premont people disappeared, although that's really not the right word. it would have been descended, these people initially were hunters and gathers. they didn't really farm much. they had small family groups of

people, they had to keep small in order to use the resources around them well. but around 1680 they acquired spanish horses, actually a little before that and one they became a horse culture they bandit together, they wrote over the rocky mountains to the east side where they were -- there were more bisons. they acquired a lot of trades from the arapaho, apache, the comanche. they now were able to have

teepees and other supplies. with a horse they traveled, structure, you can put on the horse and put a big heavy tepee, it could have up to 12-20 highson heights. they weighed a lot of with the horse you could have more people together and they became a horse culture. the tribe essentially out of western colorado, some of them to mountain living. the ponies were small and adapted to the trails of the rocky mountains and they knew their mountains and the other people in the plains would come in and try to hunt and the youth

would kick most of the time. and then in colorado the 1850's, '60's gold was discovered and the face of all the colorado tribes was not good. >> you're watching book tv on c-span2. this weekend we are in grand junction, colorado, with the help of our local cable partner charter communications. next troubled trails author bob, discusses the 1879 conflict between the u.s. army and the white river indian agency. >> the 1870's had been perhaps the most violent decade in the nation's history regarding native americans and european

settlers, european decent. you know, you had the comanche in early '70's, apache in arizona and new mexico. you had idaho in washington. of course, you had battle with custard and everything. i think americans in a lot of respect were fed up with indians, were fed with the union policy and a lot of americans saw as cuddling the indians and a lot of the people in colorado and other settlers wanted the youth land. lets get this done as quickly as possible and get them out. a treaty that was 11 year's old was ripped apart because of that. >> it was known as a grand

river, and this was just upstream from here in this direction, august and september of '81 came this way as they were being pushed out of colorado by the military and forced to reservation in utah. and they were moved from colorado to utah because of events that happened in the river and 100 miles northeast of here in september 1789. they had been for hundreds if not thousands of years. and there's debate over that, but for most of the 1700's and early 1800's they controlled part of western colorado, all the way to the great salt lake, they were generally friendly to the europeans that arrived. there was some conflicts with

the early spanish down by santa fe, but mostly they were friendly, they traded with them. traders came in here in the early part of the 19th century. by the middle part of the 19th century there was -- gold had been discovered and there was more pressure to look for gold in different parts of the state, a part reservation was carved out for processing, gold and silver. by the time-dye the mid-1870's there was more and more prosecution, there were a lot of people that wanted to come over here, all of western colorado, not just this area, sought as good agricultural prospect and also more areas that might be mined for precious metals and

stuff. but in the 1878, nathan who is kind of this guy that could change the indians' way of life persuaded several colorado politicians to get himself appointed as a white river indian agent. he moved to the white river what's now the present town of minker100 miles north north easf here. he was a little bit high-handed with them and told him they had to get rid of the horses except the few they could keep for farming. one of the big deal because they loved to ride and use their horses for hunting, they raised -- raced horses. they gambled on the races and stuff. over the next year his relationship was supposed to

work with gradually deteriorate ed. he got into a confrontation with one of the leaders in which he was pushed. he said he did nothing more than push his hand on the shoulder and feared for his life and sent out telegraph to both state officials and national officials asking for the army to come in and take care of this guy, and the army agreed and sent the troops in and they arrived on september 29th, 1879. so the battle when the army crossed about got into the fight occurred in the morning of september 29th, 1879. the white river indian agency was about 20 miles south from

that. told them what was happening and the battle started between the, not a large number but enough. we're not sure exactly xa -- what had happened, whether they started firing, they just started firing and surprised everybody. certainly do -- they were unalert. there was tension. they had their own weapons with them and the same day a number of youths killed miker and employees at the white river agency which became the miker

mikermassace. they brought them to the northeast down to just outside of what's grand junction, where they were finally a man names carlos adams negotiated their release. they would release them unharmed and return charles adams agreed to head north to where the battle had taken place and talk with the army officers up there and persuade them not to come chasing. he effectively did that and, in fact, the armwrite had -- army offered had received a telegraph. he was not happy to be stopped because he wanted to chase and punish them basically. several things in the events of september 29th, fighting the army, killing miker and male employees and then when the women later changed their story

and one of them went public to a newspaper, that was get them out of here. there was already this even before the events of september 29th, a standard, a moto in parts of colorado. when all of that came out that it was probably 90%, 990% must go, there were dependers in colorado, a few in denver that said, no, we should still work with them, they've been generally peaceful people. either move them out of colorado or be exterminated. it was a large part of it. i think there's a good deal of greed of wanting this land here too. the army kind of and malacia built up around the territory. according to to one historian,

it was the largest concentration of the army in the west for a couple of years, and they sort of then had pan in and were ready to attack if there was anymore violences either way. stuff is happening in congress that forced them out. that was passed in 1880, after a year after, nine months after, and it took another year to get everything figured out and all this time the military is kind of watching them around the area, and then up in white river area. august or september of 1881, had

orders and said you will move now and interestingly the settlers, the indians are here, the military line is here, there's white settlers behind them and as they push them out there's white settlers taking claim on the land. there was a couple on the days just before they finally agreed to do it and there was a general mckenzie who basically said, you will go or i'll have my troops start shooting at you and force you to go. the history from some that say people died along the way, many have even been shot, it was not an easy -- it wasn't trail of

tears for the youth it was a trail of tears. the other thing to get a sense -- i don't want this top all, you know, black and white, good and bad, but they are people with -- and people on both sides clearly made some mistakes and the indians made some mistakes that helped create the problems but i want to see a few people get a human picture of those people. in the ladder part of the 19 century. so many of of the white that tht the youth must go, but that it was all going to disappear, and part of what's amazing to me is how they have maintained their culture through tough economic times. now, tribes have some money from

gas and mineral development, it has help today get -- help today get better. they -- they just -- the whole cultural thing where the government tried to weave them off of their tradition and language. the fact that they survived and still going strong it's an important point to make and people should be made aware of. >> for more information on book tv to grand junction, go to c-span.org/localcontent. ..