constitution is necessary to solve america's most pressing issues in his latest book, "a more perfect union." former secretary of state hillary clinton looks back on her time serving in the obama administration in "hard choices." and in "a time for truth," texas senator ted cruz recounts his journey from a cuban immigrant son to the u.s. senate. and john kasich calls for a return to what he sees as traditional american values in "stand for something." more presidential hopefuls include florida senator marco rubio. in "american dreams" he outlines his plans to advance economic opportunity. the winner of the new hampshire democratic primary, independent senator be bernie sanders, recently updated his 1997 autobiography, now titled "outsider in the white house," to include his time in the senate and the launch of his presidential campaign. and businessman donald trump outlines his political platform in "crippled america."

gary johnson is a presidential candidate for the libertarian party. in "seven principles of good government," he discusses his political philosophy and time as governor of new mexico. booktv has covered many of these candidates, and you can watch them on our web site, booktv.org. >> booktv continues now with barry latzer on "after words." the criminologist tracked violet crime in the united states -- violent crime in the united states from the 1960s to today. he's interviewed by samuel buyler of the urban institute. >> host: with high profile spikes in violation in milwaukee, chicago, washington, d.c., the question and the issue of violent crime has acquired a national salience that it hasn't had since the 990 -- 190s. barry latzer has written a new book. barry, what inspired you to

reinvestigate the issue of violent crime? >> guest: no one had really studied in a comprehensive way the history of violent crime, and i felt that that needed to be done especially because, as we both know, the violent crime rates had skyrocketed in the late '60s and really became a major concern for the entire nation for the next several decades, two and a half decades really. so i felt, given the significance of violent crime in the postwar period, a major work on that needed to be done. >> host: now, you do something really unique in this book. most people when they talk about violent crime, they really start in the '60s and '70s with the first spike. you start your story in the 1940s. what made you decide that you

wanted to take a longer perspective on violent crime? >> guest: well, actually, when i wrote the manuscript, i actually went back even further than that, but they only decided to publish the period from the 1940s on, the period within the memory of people who are still alive. but i feel that to really understand violent crime and most major phenomenon, one has to go back in time and see how things developed, and that's true with crime as well because i've learned that crime has its ups and downs, and there are good reasons for it. and without a historical perspective, one just can't really fully grasp that. so as you well know, sam, many criminalogical studies, they'll

study maybe a year's worth of crime, and these have great value. i'm not knocking them. they're very significant. but they don't give you a broader perspective, and that's why i wrote this book. >> host: so before we get into the story of crime in america, let's set the stage for our viewers. what is violent crime? what kind of crimes are we talking about here? >> guest: well, the criminologists define it, essentially, as four different crimes. murder, but, of course, that could be treated as a manslaughter if there are certain what we call elements of the crime present or not present. so together we might refer to those as criminal homicides, so so that's one crime. and then rape, of course, is considered a v