>> when john f. kennedy goes to ireland in 1963, triumphant return of the irish, a few months before mr. kennedy is assassinated, he gives a speech to the irish parliament, and he talks about the boxwood sprigs that the irish brigade put under the caps. and he says by that blood sacrifice, that's what made them american. and then he gives to the people of ireland a flag from that battle which was a harp and a sunburrst. and it -- burrst. -- burst. now back to the draft riots. 160,000 irish served on the union cause, and only two of the brigades had higher casualty rates. because of this, there's a lot of resentment by the middle part of the.

it's not going well. the union is losing. they start a draft this 1863, but you want to talk about inequality? in that draft you could buy your way out for $200. so the rich never served the union cause unless they were noble, unless they had a higher calling. for $200 you could get out of the draft, or you could present a live person. so if i brought you in and said, bruce, you're going to take my place, i wouldn't have to serve. i would have paid you to be my body. this really ticked off the irish. they could not pay for this. and as they rolled the barrel in the first draft in american history, the names that came out were heir began, o'malley, you know, all these irish names. and so they rioted. i will not ever excuse the riot. it was the darkest point in irish-american history. they strung up african-americans, they burned down buildings, they nearly destroyed new york. they would have killed mara because he stuck to the union

til the very end had he not been in washington d.c. they went into a home where he was staying, took his portrait and burned it. it was -- there's no way you can excuse it. it was the darkest day, darkest week in irish-american history. but they felt they were unjustly taking the burden of what is to this day our worst war in terms of casualties. i want to talk, touch a little bit on -- i'm a military historian. it struck me that it's really interesting to see america arr as sort of -- marr as the epitome of a nonprofessional soldier, and his immediate commanding officer, william tecumseh sherman. >> sherman and marr did not get along at all. here's what happened. the irish could fight and did fight, and they quickly became known as one of the best units in the war. robert e. lee on the other side,

on is slave holders side said famously here comes those damn green flags again. [laughter] and every time they saw it, they knew they were in for a hell of a fight. they preferred to fight up close, just pure savagery. sometimes it was hand-to-hand combat as opposed to fighting long. but marr called sherman an envenomed martinet. [laughter] he had the gift of gab. sometimes it got ahead of him. [laughter] and sherman saw this quote in the newspapers and never forgot about it. sherman later wrote: i have the irish brigade, thank god they can fight. but he couldn't stand the irish at all. one of the things was culture. you have to understand that between battles the irish would stage these massive festivals. while they're at war, they would have steeplechase races, they would have theater, they would have -- they would play their pipes and their fiddles til three in the morning. and, of course, they had a

little liquor involved. [laughter] and a massive st. patrick's day events that were the toast of the union army. all the other union generals would come to. so marr tried to find some joy -- oh, and they would play hurling too. tried to find some joy in the margins of the slaughter, and all the cultural things which the irish are known for they all practiced in between these battles, and that rubbed the career officers the wrong way as well. some of them not. i mean, burnside praised them, and he loved going to these festivities. they would actually stage plays while waiting to charge richmond in the peninsula campaign. they were only a couple miles from the confederate capital. you just couldn't keep that spirit down, and that's how they kept their spirits up, was to do all these things. >> marr complained to lincoln about sherman threatening to shoot him.

do you remember? >> i don't remember the exact throat, but president lincoln said if general sherman is threatening to shoot you, mr. marr, i would take him at his word. [laugher] >> you kind of assess -- the war obviously took a tremendous emotional toll x he developed a relationship with a young private. >> right. let me talk about the relationship with his second wife. his first wife dies in child birth giving birth to their second sop. she dies at the age of 21, i think, meagher will never see his son, by the way, because he can't go to back to island. but he falls in love with a woman who is everything he is not. she's a protestant, he's a catholic. she's an anglo-saxon, he's a celt. she's this reserved fifth avenue beauty from old line, wasp

money, meagher is a fugitive. he writes this beautiful love letter to her where he asks her her hand -- for her hand in marriage, and he goes, i am here alone, i am a homeless exile, i have nobody, i have no family. i'm wanted by the british empire, you know? i'm nothing, but the greatest thing in my life was to find you. and if you will take me as your husband, i will share everything with you. take my past, take my heritage, let us join our lives together -- it's a beautiful letter. and so she gives up everything to marry this irish rebel. her father promptly disowns her. she ends up living the rest of her life on a $50-a-month civil war widow's pension, but they were like this. she nursed his wound. women, i didn't know this, but women could come down to the camps. he was knocked from his horse twice, he had this horrible abscess on his knee, and also his confidence was shattered. he had lost so many people who were so close to him, people he

had personally recruited whose mothers he knew from the old country, whose wives he knew, who he'd danced with two nights before he had to see their dead faces, and it just killed him. he wept after fredericksburg. he just was destroyed by how many men he personally knew who he had lost. so one of those who was close to him was a young private. you mentioned him from pennsylvania, private mccarter, and the lowest point when meagher's suffering all this loss and this sense of privationing, it's winter -- privation. it's winter. they're in this cold mud. the war is not going well, and it's just a lost cause almost. meagher is seen outside of the campfire, and he's drunk. and he starts to fall into this giant bonfire. and the private goes with his musket and holds it out and saves him, prevents him from going into this fire just at the last minute. drags him into his tent, puts him to sleep. the next day another officer says to meagher, you owe your life to this private.

he then does develop a relationship to this boy, and when the kid is wounded at fred ricks burke, he's sent off to washington d.c. they're going to cut off his arm. and this guy's got this giant open wound, he's in philadelphia. suddenly, a team of the best doctors appear at his hospital, and they -- they're taking special care of him. the boy says, am i going to lose the arm? no, you're not going to lose the arm. they move him up to a private room, they keep him for ten days. meagher had gone behind the scenes to make sure this boy had the best medical care. this kid wrote a memoir that was never published. i read it somewhere, i forget where it was, in one of the archives. he said i never saw general meagher drunk again, and he also said he was the finest, most educated man i ever saw put on a uniform. because meagher was going off on greek or latin, he would go off on these epic poems. the guy was -- he loved romance,

he loved language, he love ared history. probably didn't love war, i would say. >> we were talking a little bit on the way over here about what i knew about meagher before reading tim's book, and my vague recollection, i think i may have seen the statue, i think i vaguely knew he was governor of montana. but in light of that, it seems like a real leap to go from irish lev pollution their to civil war soldier to governor of montana territory. >> not to mention a banishment in tasmania. [laughter] this is why i love this story. i was going to write something about the famine, but there's been all this good scholarship. i'm always looking for a story, really strong story. i guess it's in the irish dna. i was looking for a story on which to hang irish history, i wanted to go deep into my own past. and then i found meagher. you see the whole arc of irish-american history through this one man, or most of it. all the things the irish have gone through, the immigration

thing, trying to take away their language, their pride, their dignity, their religion. you see them becoming americans. and what is said about mexicans right now in this current political campaign is the exact same language that they said about the irish. exact same. you can just substitute the word "mexican" for "irish," and it's the exact same. so i wanted to bring that history forth. but then you get the montana part. and i'm a third generation westerner. my family, it turns out, they're montana irish. they -- my great grandfather came from county waterford where meagher is was from and moved to butte, montana. at one point there was more gaelic spoken in butte than any place outside of dublin, they said. it's because of the mines. so there was a mine operator named daley who was a wealthiest irish industrialist of his day, and he sured at a time -- hired at a time that we were building telephone lines everybody, they needed copper. it was just clogged with irish miners. that's what became new ireland.

so suddenly i've got this great western story. and in meagher's image, remember, i talked about the tenements and how he was appalled. had a newspaper, one of the best circulations in new york. he always talked about any one of you in these tenements are better off if you could just get to the west. if you could just get under some open sky, just get out here. the problem is the irish are clannish. they're not lone ranchers doing what a man's got to do what a man's got to do. they like to be together. so is they came to butte finally because it was a community. they wanted a place where they could do their rituals, share their stories, dance and tell poems, a place where they could feast and tell stories. so meagher sees montana x this is the word they used, as new ireland. so there was a new england, there's a new jersey, there might as well be a new ireland. [laughter] and this was actually the idea of the american ambassador to great britain who had written to

the president saying could we possibly establish montana territory as something we might call new ireland and name general mere meagher as its governor? he is named the secretary, which is the number two person. he comes out, it takes him almost six months to get to virginia city, montana, which is this deadwood-level city sitting at 6,000 feet with a corpse hanging over by one side and, you know, manure all over the main street, drunks rolling around. i mean, just this god awful, your worst image of a broken, you know, hard western town. meagher arrives -- this is also the capital of the new territory. and there's this well-dressed gentleman waiting with his sheaf of papers, and he greets general meagher, and he says you are now governor, i'm out of here. [laughter] and this governor gets on the very stage that took meagher to montana territory, and i swear to god, and is never seen again. [laughter] so now meagher has gone from

secretary to governor of a place that's five times as big as ireland. so you've got this irish fugitive with a price on his head is now governor of our largest territory. >> you know, this -- with tim's permission, this bookends with a mystery, and i'd kind of like to leave it that way. meagher dies, but there's still a long controversy -- >> right. i'm just -- by way of context, there's -- meagher dies at age 43. he disappears. his body's never found. he supposedly fell from this steamer at anchor in fort benton, montana. and it is going to any place in montana and suggests that meagher's death was one thing or the other, and you'll start an argument. what he was up against was the vigilantes. it turned out what he had run up against, this is -- the constitution still applies in the territory of montana. but they had murdered these

vigilantes. forty people by the time meagher's governor without a trial. they'd picked them up and hanged them because they had decided in their vigilante secret committee that they were unworthy men, and they should die. these vigilantes were the right-thinking citizen of the territory. they were free masons, they were protestants, they did not like the irish, they hated this idea of new ireland, so most of the victims tended to be democrats or irish. and meagher had pardoned one of the people they were going to hang. a picture of him. they then strung him up that night with meagher's pardon in his back pocket. so he went up against the vigilantes, i'm just going to say -- and thank you for giving me the intro to do this -- they're the lead suspect. but also, one more thing, as one of meagher's patriots had said, the sun never sets on the british empires detectives. there were two men from scotland yard in fort benton, montana, on the night of his death where meagher spent his last day.

he was still a fugitive. remember, he still had a price on his head. they could grab the governor of montana, take him back to ireland, throw him in jail. so these two scotland yard detectives are floating around this very little town, meagher also is a fine january. the brotherhood was something that came about the civil wartime, they were irish-american, mostly soldiers, who took the vow that they would later go back to ireland after they were done with the slaveholders, they'd sail across the atlantic and liberate their country from the british. and that was the pledge. they actually did invade canada in 1867, but it was ill-fated. [laughter] and the idea was that these feenias led by meagher -- i was surprised to see this, i mean, he really was a neenian, but he wasn't organizing. so the brits thought here's this

guy we can't beat, now he's reorganizing in montana, and they thought they would cross the montana border into what is now alberta but the whole country then was called british north america. so the suspects -- and please read it for the ending, too -- are the vigilantes or scotland yard. or, as was reported by the vigilantes, he was drunk and fell off a boat. [laughter] you know. >> well, that should be enough of a temptation for you all to rush out after the session and get the week. [laughter] but right now i'd like to entertain some questions, so if you'd like to come down and speak to either one of the mics. >> so in the movie "gods and generals," the charge of mary's heights is depicted, and it's very good. but at the top of mary's heights behind the stone wall is a confederate flag with a harp on it. and they can't believe that

their cousins are wearing blue. and i was just wondering if that was of substance, or was that just hollywood? >> well, this is probably an inapt comparison, but i had an interview with bill o'reilly on fox the other night, and sometimes there's irish-on-irish fighting -- [laughter] thousands of people did join the confederates, thousands of irish did join the confederate cause. now, meagher's argument was the confederates were trying to get recognized by the brits. there's no bigger enemy than england. so one of his claims to get people to fight on the union side was the brits were cozying up with the confederacy. if they ever did that, they may have been able to last a little longer. he's the interesting thing -- here's the interesting thing. one of meagher's best friends in life was a man named john mitchell. first, he was sent to the caribbean, and then he was sent

to tasmania, and he had terrible asthma. meagher was the great orator during the rebel times, mitchell was the great writer. so it was a one-two punch. mitchell would write in the newspaper, meagher would give speeches in front of thousands of people. they were very close. mitchell finally comes to america as well, but he likes slavery. something happens in him that he sees slavery as not a bad thing. he writes in his own newspaper that if you irishmen are coming to america looking for a start, get yourself a couple of slaves and come south. and so meagher and he, his other people, break with mitchell. mitchell has three boys. two of them were on the other side of that wall when the irish stormed mary's heights. so there was not a technical irish brigade in the confederacy, but there certainly were irish who fought on the other side, including the very people who were the kids of his best friends. also i have a scene in the book

where they fight -- the irish couldn't get into new york, philadelphia, baltimore, would continue going, and they came in through new orleans. new orleans was one of the main ports, later for italian-americans as well, but one of the main ports for irish entry. they had a little unit called the fighting tigers which wasn't formally an irish brigade, but an irish confederate unit. it's just hand-on-hand combat of the irish brigade fighting the irish tigers and meagher wondering why the hell aren't we directing all this energy against england. >> anyone else? any questions -- >> i think we have a gentleman coming down the way here. >> there we go. >> timothy, i want to ask about you. how does a person make the transition from a very good local newspaper reporter into a pulitzer prize-winning author?

and what made you think you would make a living at it? [laughter] >> the last part is the best part of the question. [laughter] yeah. boy, you know, my mother loved literature. she had seven kids, and she loved storytelling. and when i was a little kid, my mom -- i think i was 7 years old, my mom gave me this book and said read this, and it'll change your life. it was huck finn. it was, like, he was the bart simpson of his day. he was smarter than all the adults. it was so magical to see kid power. and that brought me into literature. and so i've always loved writing and storytelling. and i got it from my family, i think. as to the, you know, how -- what made you think you could make a living from this, you know, people raise this question every time there's a new take call device. steve jobs said at one point that the iphone would be the

death of literature, because -- depth of reading because he said -- death of reading because he said people don't want to read anymore. certainly, it's changed our attention span. there was a story saying that the average attention span is now eight seconds, which is less than a goldfish. [laughter] according to the study. [laughter] but, i mean, i wrote this as i was reading the second volume of william churchill's biography which is nothing more enjoyable that going really deep into a fantastic book. so the making the living part, look, no matter what the technology is, we're a storytelling people. we're not going to lose our love of story, our love of knowledge, our love of literature, our love of new information. and i don't with care if it's on a screen or a pixel or appears, you know, on a thing in front of our eyes. i say this to all young writers, if you feel you have a story to tell, don't worry about where it appears, just work on the story itself. also i have one more thing in

that regard, and this is something that most of us -- we do have a disproportionate amount of irish writers. and i've always heard the saying that the best stories happen to those who can tell them. so -- [laughter] >> is there another question? >> yeah. >> i was curious, like, how long did it take you to compile all this his historical background, you know, for this story? and what kind of sources did you use? >> so i used mostly firsthand sources, and the information on meagher happens to be in some of the greatest places in the world. so you start in ireland, and you go spend time in the wonderful national library of ireland, dublin, where all the papers are from the young island rebels. they're notes they wrote when they were in captivity, poems, the newspaper that was the paper for the rebels and contemporaneous accounts of what it was like while they were giving their speeches and people were dying in the streets. i used some of the illustrations

from those papers in my book of the starving. they also had their houses torn down during the famine as well pause they couldn't pay the rent. -- because they couldn't pay the rent. then you go to waterford, which is a beautiful town on the river, i recommend it. you can go into meagher's house, climb the hills where he climbed. they just named the longest suspension bridge in ireland for thomas francis meagher. he wants to start the revolution, but his father's like, no, you'll hang. and he's sort of torn. and the masses of waterford say we won't let them cross the bridge, and you feel that power. then you go to tasmania which, by the way, is one of the prettiest places on earthment it really is beautiful. it's too bad the brits tried to make a penitentiary out of a continent. to this day, by the way, if you live in australia or tasmania, you can trace your ancestry

to -- the convict stain is a badge of honor. you know that? yes, i find that too. so then you come to new york, and there's this fabulous research at the american-irish historical society, at the new york city tenement museum which you can understand what it was like to be in one of those tenements. a lot of papers there. then you walk the civil war battlefields which, as an american, i think every person should do. i had never done it. it's so so profoundly moving. and the national park service, let's give them credit. they do a great job of keeping those american markers intact. so i walked the wall up to mary's heights. and you see, my god, these guys were totally exposed. there was no way for them to go. there's formations just getting mowed down by industrial strength or artillery and musketly. and then you go to antithem and this awful, awful place where 23,000 people died, and the library of congress has all the civil war correspondence. most of it's on line now so you can read meagher's battle reports in that.

finally, you end up in virginia city, montana, which isn't quite a ghost town yet. you can get a bison burger and a beer -- [laughter] and there's a great library, and they were very helpful, and there's a handful of folks that lead tours. in the summer it comes to life as a tourism place. and the montana historical society, thank god for them. because meagher was their governor. they have this wonderful research. so my research is -- i like to go to the places so i can understand the texture. >> [inaudible] >> i mean, that took a couple years. once i have the material, i'm a fairly quick writer. but i, i do all my own research because i think you find these great discoveries by going down these little warrens. >> i want to thank you all for coming. i'm going to within this up. i'll -- wrap this up. i'll start with a plug for one of my favorite fiction writers, richard flanagan. i want to thank you for

attending, thank tim for a terrific -- [applause] and i hope you all become friends of the festival and, please, i'll ask you to, please, vacate the room because there's another panel coming in the here. you can meet timothy out at the book-signing area. thank you. [inaudible conversations]

>> booktv's live coverage from the tucson festival of books continue. that was timothy egan, and in just a few minutes, another prettier prize winner -- in about a half hour -- t.j. stiles. and he'll be talking about george custer. this is live coverage from the tucson festival of books on the campus of the university of arizona. right now joining us on our set here in tucson is author and political correspondent for "the nation," ari berman. his book, "give us the ballot." mr. berman, what's going on in north carolina when it comes to voting rights? >> guest: sure. so in june of 2013 the supreme court overturned a key part of the voting rights act that said those states with the longest histories of voting discrimination had to approve their changes with the federal government.

a month later, north carolina passed a sweeping rewrite of its election system that not only requires strict id to cast an early ballot, eliminated same-day registration, eliminated public financing, eliminated free registration for 16 and 17-year-olds, this really sweeping rewrite to make it harder for a lot of people to vote. many of those restrictions are now in place, and the voter id provision is in place for the first time in the march 15th primary. so there's a lot going on in north carolina at the moment. >> host: what's the downside of voter id laws? >> guest: the downside is, number one, not everyone has them. according to the data in states like north carolina and texas, for example, about 5% of registered voters don't have strict forms of government-issued id. the second problem is that there's a big racial disparity, that blacks and hispanics in places like texas and north carolina are up to two to three times as likely to not have these ids as white voters. and then there's burdens in

terms of getting the id. birth certificates, for example, cost money. if you're born at home in the segregated south like a lot of people were in north carolina, you never got a birth certificate in the first place. so i've written about stories where someone in texas, for example, has had to retain a lawyer in louisiana just to be able to get her birth certificate. people in north carolina have paid hundreds of dollars to get these documents. there are real burdens to these laws that not everyone sees initially. >> host: are there any pending supreme court cases when it comes to voting? >> guest: well, as you know, the supreme court is in a bit of an unsettled state right now. they heard the a major challenge last year about the drawing of districts, should districts be drawn based on total population as they're currently drawn, or should they be based on eligible or registered voters which would narrow the people who are counted in terms of drawing up districts. again, it could have really big ramifications for representation if you're excluding noncitizens and children and prisons and

people who are currently counted in terms of representation. that case was heard in december. we don't know what's going to happen now. if the court deadlocks 4-4, the lower court or decision will stand. there's a bunch of cases in north carolina and texas that are working their way through the courts. we don't know if they'll reach the supreme court before the election. >> host: ari berman is our guest. we've got him for another 20 minutes or so, but we want to give you involved as well. "give us the ballot" is the name of the book. 202 is the area code, 748-8200 in the east and central time zones, 202-748-8201 for those of you in the mountain and pacific time zones. go ahead and dial in, we'll get to your calls as quickly as possible. besides north carolina and texas, are there other states that are facing controversy or having issues with regard to voting rights? >> absolutely. so it's important to recognize that the 2016 election is the first presidential election in 50 years without the full protections of the voting rights

act. what that means in practice is that 16 states have new voting restrictions since 2012. so important swing states like wisconsin, for example, have strict voter id laws. ohio eliminated same-day voter registration, the ability to show up and register at the same time. so there's a brunch of -- bunch of different places that have these restrictions in effect. not just in the south, although many southern states do have these, but also states in the north like ohio, like kansas, like even new hampshire, for example. >> host: what's going on in ohio? >> guest: well, ohio, as i mentioned earlier, they eliminated same-day voter registration. they also cut back on early voting, and just recently this was a controversy over whether 17-year-olds who turn 18 on election day will be able to vote in the primaries. the secretary of state said they couldn't, the vote toking commission said -- voting commission said they could. >> host: you've been on book

tour with this book for, what, a year -- >> guest: since august. >> host: since august, okay. what are some of the issues that you hear about from people? both on the left and on the right? >> guest: well, i hear from a lot of people. what's interesting about talking about this topic is people have a lot of stories. sometimes they have stories about what they grew up with, growing up in the segregated south. people have issues now. people who were turned away from the polls because they didn't have the right requirements or were purged from the voting rolls without knowing about it or concerned that relatives of theirs may not be able to cast a ballot. the reason why i wanted to write my book is it's not just dry textbook history. it's something that people are really feeling in their lives in the current moment. when i go to texas, when i go to north carolina, when i go to arizona, people have lots of discussions about what's happening in their states today. >> host: why was this act enacted in 1965? what was happening? >> guest: well, there was a lot -- there were a lot of problems with voting

discrimination before the voting rights act of 1965. only 2% of african-americans were registered to vote in selma, alabama. and so you had major, major protests over the disenfranchisement of african-american voters in the segregated south x. the pivotal of that, which we're celebrating the 51st anniversary of right now. was the march on bloody sunday in selma, alabama, where people like congressman john lewis were brutally beaten on the edmund pettis bridge and eight days after, lyndon johnson introduced the voting rights act before a joint session of congress, and it was passed on august 6, 1965 x. that's when my book came out, on the 50th anniversary. >> guest: 202-748-8200 in the east and central time zones, 748-8201 for those of you in the mountain and pacific time zones. in 2013 supreme court chief justice i don't john roberts sat

states under federal coverage, the voting rights act based on 40-year-old facts having no logical relationship to the present day. >> guest: so chief justice john roberts' argument was that the country had changed dramatically since 1965, but the voting rights act had not, that it continued to treat american history as if it was froes frozen in 1965. there's some validity to that argument, of course. the country has changed dramatically. however, the part of the voting rights act that he struck down or rendered inoperative had blocked 3,000 discriminatory voting changes from 1965-2013. so i think what the chief justice missed is that the voting rights act wasn't just relevant in the 1960s, it was relevant in the '70s, '80s, '90s and all the way up to the present day. i was covering issues in places like texas that showed the importance of the voting rights act. i think it's easy to talk about all the progress that has been

achieved since 1965 -- the election of president obama, the election of people like john lewis to the congress -- but i think there's another story in american history, more complicated story which is that barriers to the ballot box did not end with the passage of the voting rights act. in fact, there's a very titanic struggle to be able to enforce the voting rights act since 1965 which i talk about in my book. >> host: ari berman, is there cases of illegal immigrants voting? >> guest: no. it doesn't make sense. it doesn't make sense why they would. people who are undocumented immigrants are here to work, and they're here to send money back to their families and provide a better life. there's no reason why they would vote, face a felony and face deportation to try to swing an election. so there's no evidence of doing this. and i am very concerned about the rhetoric that we're hearing in places in arizona that a lot of the anti-immigrant rhetoric is now being transferred in terms of fears about voter fraud that i feel are quite unfounded

but nonetheless persisting. >> host: are electronic voting machines rigged? >> guest: i don't believe that they are rigged. this is an issue where i disagree with some of my friends on the left about -- i am concerned that a lot of the voting machines that were purchased after the 2000 election are quite old. they were only supposed to last ten years, and we've reached that ten-year point. many of them need to be replaced. the other thing that we see is there aren't enough voting machines. so in flint, michigan, for example, in the michigan primary they ran out of ballots. >> host: are we talking paper ballots? >> guest: paper ballots. these are the kinds of things that can lead to very, very long line, and whether they're done intentionally, this could lead to very big issues. we saw this in ohio 2004, for example, when there were many fewer voting machines at predominantly urban, predominantly democratic polling places, and african-americans in ohio in 2000 waited 52 minutes to vote compared to 18 minutes for whites, and a lot of people

of color left because there weren't enough machines. >> host: do you think that was purposeful? >> guest: i don't know that it was purposeful, but i think that some people running the elections, the ohio secretary of state, for example, was a major supporter of the bush/cheney campaign weren't necessarily going to be unhappy if this situation existed. >> host: do they base that on previous turnout? >> guest: yeah. they look at what the turnout's going to be, they look at a number of different factors. a lot of times precincts in urban areas don't have the resources in general because they're more in impoverished neighborhoods, they don't have the same number of workers, money, so the voting experience for people can be dramatically different from one precinct to another. each state has a different law in this country, but honestly it's not just the states. the experience of the voter can be very different depending on just what precinct you're voting in. >> host: "give us the ballot." and virginia is calling from tucson, right here in tucson.

hi, virginia. please go ahead with your question for ari perman. >> caller: ing yes, ari, i just wanted to congratulate you for your outstanding work. >> guest: thank you. >> caller: there's a lot of racism, and also give a big handshake to that c-span gentleman. i love him. i hope you're enjoying our good weather. thank you. [laughter] >> guest: well -- >> host: anything you want to say? >> guest: first, i thought the state was calling. i was a little -- [laughter] now i realize that -- this is my first time in tucson. i love tucson, this is a great book festival, and i'm really appreciative of the work of booktv spotlighting so many authors including my book at various festivals. it means a lot to those of us that spent a lot of time writing these books. >> host: and this is the eighth annual and, virginia, thank you so much for all the hospitality that everybody provides for us down here and for the weather. it's literally perfect out there today. it's perfect.

there's nothing i would change about the weather today, and everybody's very friendly at the book fair. right here on the campus of the university of arizona, it's a lovely setting, and they're very accommodating, so thank you for everything and thank the city of tucson for their hospitality. let's move on to michael in patterson, new jersey. michael, you're on with ari berman, "give us the ballot" is the name of the book. >> caller: i just would like to ask what you thought of the manipulation of the ballots in ohio suspected of being done by kasich to take trump's votes away. >> guest: i'm not familiar -- >> host: michael, can you explain what you're talking about? >> caller: well, there's two sections on the ballot, and if you don't put trump -- if you don't circle trump's name on both sections, kasich gets a vote. apparently it was on facebook,

and i know trump's campaign people know about it. i'm wondering if it was addressed or what your opinion is of it. >> host: so, michael, are you a donald trump supporter? >> caller: yes, i am. >> host: why? >> caller: well, because i think he seems honest, and he really doesn't need the money, and he really doesn't need the extra work, and he really doesn't need the power. so he seems sincere about helping our country get better. >> host: thank you, sir. two things. are you familiar with this ballot to issue that he's talking about where you have to circle donald trump's name twice or something like that? >> guest: i'm not familiar with it. i'll have to look into it. one of the things you see in a highly-contested primary is accusations fly on every side, and you have to look at what's

actually true. things are posted on facebook that are not exactly true, but i will look into this. this is the first i've heard about it. >> host: we're going to take advantage of the fact that you're the political correspondent for "the nation" magazine as well. give us your take on donald trump and, i don't know, the status of this election. >> guest: well, it's been an absolutely crazy election. i mean, trump's support is hard to categorize. on the one hand, he is getting support from people who are very, very angry who i'm afraid have anti-immigrant, anti-muslim views in many cases if you look at trump talking about deporting 11 million people and not allowing muslims from other cubs to enter the -- other countries to enter the u.s. on the other hand, trump has supporters who are self-described mod rates who are fed up with the political process and believe that the system is rigged and, to some extent, that is something that bernie sanders has said as well. i think on both sides of the aisle there are people who feel like the system is rigged against them.

and then the question is what do we do? do we blame muslims, do we blame immigrants, do we blame poor people or blame people that created the economic create crisis that have led to 50 years of inequality? so if you look at what trump is saying and bernie sanders is say, there's some overlap, but they're blaming very, very different people in terms of who they view is at fault for that rigged system. >> host: our next call comes from evelyn in nashville, tennessee. evelyn, go ahead with your question or comment for ari berman. >> caller: hi. hello? >> host: we're -- >> caller: hello. >> host: we're listening, ma'am, please go ahead. >> guest: yes, hello. >> caller: thank you. i may be a little bit naive because i find it relatively shocking that the allegation is that the effort to suppress the vote is republican self-interest. i find that shocking because historically both republicans

and democrats have supported a large voter turnout. and i find it just incredulous, i'm incredulous that it could be that republicans would, out of self-interest, try to suppress the vote. could you tell me your thoughts? thank you. >> host: evelyn, are you a republican? are you a republican? >> caller: no, i'm a democrat. but i've always been independent -- >> host: thank you, ma'am. >> caller: -- and i've -- thank you. >> guest: so evelyn makes a very good point. there has always been very strong bipartisan consensus for the voting rights act. it was passed by overwhelming support in 1965 and reauthorized by the congress four times with open bipartisan support most recently in 2006 by a vote of 390-33 and 98-0 in the senate, something you never see on anything in this day and anal. but i think if you -- in this day and age. i think if you looked at what occurred after 2010, many, many

states were under republican control, and i think voting restrictions were aimed at the core of president obama's coalition, younger voters, newly-registered voters and low income voters, and i think the idea was to make the electorate older, whiter and more conservative. because if you look at what's happened recently, when turnout has been higher and the electorate has been more diverse in 2008 and 2012, democrats have done very well. and when turnout has been lower and the electorate less diverse, in 2010 and 2014, republicans have done very well. so i think the parties have two very different electorates and two very different theories of the case. i think that democrats believe by and large, with some exceptions that when more people vote, they're better off. and some republicans are right now uncomfortable with that notion given how things went in 2008 and 2012. >> host: well, i don't know, ari berman, if you've looked at the demographics, but if there was 100% voter turnout in this country, who does that favor,

the republicans or the democrats? >> guest: it would favor the democrats, but i think more broadly progreggive policies in general. if you look at studies of people who don't vote, they are more likely to be younger, voters of color x they're more likely to be people who support more progressive policies whether it's widening income inequality or addressing climate change, things like that. the problem is they're not even rebellingsterred to vote. a quarter of americans, 50 million americans aren't even registered to vote. and i think that's a national tragedy that in this country we have so many people unregistered. i think it should disturb you whether you're a democrat, republican or independent, so many people aren't even going to get registered. >> host: nexting call comes from marie in tuskegee, alabama. hi, marie. >> caller: hello. how are you? ari -- >> host: how are you, ma'am? >> caller: are you going to continue writing a series of either articles or books on this situation? because i have two daughters who live in north carolina, and i

follow their problems as well as the ones we have in alabama. >> host: can you give an example, marie? >> caller: well, for instance, the governor of our state had certain courthouses closed down because of what they said economic kinds of things, and yet people couldn't get into the courthouse to get their drive's license or their -- driver's license or other identification. that has since been clarified and changed. but a lot of states have either administrative or legislative changes that really keep people who are not registered as yet or who have problems with registration from registering. >> host: thank you, ma'am. >> guest: well, marie is from a

place, tuskegee, with a lot of history when it comes to the voting rights movement. there have been many problems in alabama recently. the governor, for example, closed 31 dmvs not too long ago where people would get the id that was now required to vote. they since said those offices will be open one day a month which i think is totally insufficient to make sure everyone can comply with the law. in north carolina, as i mentioned, there's been a lot of confusion over not just the voter id law, but the fact that one court will rule and another court will rule so people don't know is same-day registration in effect? what is the law? not everyone's an election junkie like i am. [laughter] people don't follow this that closely, and the amount of confusion that voters are facing at the polls because of these new laws, i think, is very unfortunate. one of the, i think, intended by-products of all of these changes is to make it so difficult or confusing in some cases that people just decide they're not going to bother. so i would like to see us make an effort regardless of

political party to get more people involved in the political process instead of creating new requirements that aren't needed that create more barriers and confusion. >> host: well, to follow up on what marie asked, are you going to continue to write about this issue in "the nation"? >> guest: yes. i'm talking a lot about it in my book, so right before we kick into high gear for the presidential election. i have been disturbed that we have now had 20 presidential debates, and the issue of voting rights has not come up. i think this has been treated as a fringe issue as opposed to one of the most fundamental issues underlying the election which is will every eligible voter be able to cast a ballot? i would like to see lots of media -- not c-span, but other media, the nbcs, the abcs of the world pay more attention to this issue. >> host: juanita is in houston, texas. juanita, please go ahead with your question or comment for ari

berman. >> caller: yes, thank you. a question was asked earlier about whether he thought, mr. berman thought that illegal immigrants voted. and he didn't sound too sure or confident that the answer was no. he just said that he believed. so what makes him believe that illegal immigrants don't vote being that they are very astute about obtaining false social security cards, false passports, false green cards to buy homes? i mean, they will just, you know, get anything they need in order to be able to survive or function in this society. so what would make him believe that they they wouldn't get fale documentation to vote in an election -- >> host: juanita? >> caller: yes? >> host: do you believe that illegal immigrants vote? >> caller: i'm sure that they do fall through the cracks and they do vote.

not that i witness them myself, but i am pretty suring being tht i'm a hispanic myself and have lived in mexico for a long time, i do believe that they would be capable of organizing in a manner where they would influence the vote or manipulate the vote to their, to their best interests. >> host: thank you for calling. ari berman. >> guest: so i believe very definitively that undocumented immigrants are not voting in significant numbers, because i think they're obtaining social security cards and passports and what not to be able to work and create a better living for their families if they're here. i think the last thing they want is to vote illegally, get caught, face a felon and face -- felony and face deportation. sometimes we see instances of undocumented immigrants being registered without their knowledge, but i don't see any ed of them voting in large numbers when there have been allegations of many noncitizens voting, when there's then

further investigations, the actual numbers are never borne out that undocumented immigrants are voting. i think they have much more pressing problems that they're dealing with than whether or not to swing an election. >> host: ari berman, have you found any examples in your research of fraud swinging an election? >> guest: not in a very long time. i mean, you really have to go back to 1960s chicago with the infamous allegations of dead people voting for jfk to define instances of fraud. there are small amounts of fraud when it comes to absentee ballots. not a large amount, but small amounts. but voter id laws address in-person fraud, for example. so someone showing up and claiming to be ari berman and voting in my name or myself trying to vote multiple times in a given area. and that just doesn't happen. there have been since 2000, for example, a billion votes cast and only 31 cases of voter impersonation. that's because it's a stupid way

to try to steal an election. if you vote multiple times, you're going to get caught. so the small amounts that we see, the very rare cases, people get caught, and they don't do it. there's no incentive to try to do it that way. so i think a lot of this talk about voter fraud, i think, has been manufactured to try to support laws that are going to make it harder for certain people to cast a ballot. >> host: one billion votes, 31 cases. >> guest: yeah. it's not a problem. you hear the headlines about it that voter fraud is rampant, but when you take a closer look at the actual data, you see this is very, very rare. >> host: bob's in overland, kansas. hi, bob. >> caller: hi, peter. i think you're a national treasure. i -- [laughter] i am very displayed at watching the way that, you know, prior to the ballot our whole political debate is run through mainstream media that all have a conflict

of interest in terms of their receiving campaign funding through their channel. i would really like to see pbs being our channel for public debates when it comes to presidential elections. the question i have for ari is what do you think of electronic voting machines and their vulnerability to manipulation? >> guest: well, i mean, i think -- thank you, bob, for the question, and i wholeheartedly agree about public media and just independent alternative media, i think, places where i work like "the nation," i think they are an alternative to the public discourse in many cases. in terms of the electronic voting machines, i think they can be manipulated. i don't think we're seeing a whole lot of evidence that they are being manipulated. i would actually like to see more technology in american politics. so, peter, it's interesting. 30 states now have online voter registration, which i think is good. but that means that 20 states don't have online voter registration. in this day and age where you can do everything on your

iphone or on a galaxy? [laughter] yeah, we can't register to vote on them in 20 states. and that strikes a lot of young people in particular as very odd and strange when they're paying their bills and registering for college and all these things on their phones, and they can't even register, let alone vote on them. i think we can use technology to make elections both more secure, but also to get a lot more people involved. what oregon and california are doing is they are automatically registering u.s. citizens who request a driver's license or a state id from the dmv which i think is significant, because now the state is taking the responsibility to get people registered. and oregon, since this began on january 1st, 15,000 new people have registered already. >> host: so they're automatically registered or automatically sent a form to register? >> guest: yeah. basically, they're automatically registered, and you can opt out if you don't want to register. instead of having to affirmatively say i want to register, they're going to

assume that you to do want to be registered, and you have to opt out. most of them want to be registered to vote, some people have just for one reason or another don't go through the process. the caller's from kansas, and kansas has a law for paragraph of citizenship for -- proof of citizenship for voter registration. you have to have a birth certificate or a passport at the time. so even people who register at the dmv who are citizens have had their voter registration records suspended because they don't have a passport or a birth certificate with them. i think this is very problematic. you look at the tucson festival of books. how many people are going to bring their passport and birth certificate with them if they want to register to vote outside at the booth of the league of women voters? >> host: ari berman, are voter rolls public knowledge? can anyone use them? what are they used for? >> guest: well, it's a very good question. it's quite complicated, and again, it varies state by state. sometimes you can see the whole

database, sometimes you have to request this information. every state is different in this country in terms of how they run the elections and, honestly, every county can be different. sometimes every precinct can be different. it's not as easy as you'd like it to be. there's not as much transparency in american elections, and even some of us who are election geeks who cover this very closely, i often have to e-mail friends of mine who are election experts or professors to get this data because i can't figure out a lot of times where to get it from. >> host: next call is david in chicago. david, go ahead. >> caller: hi. good afternoon, gentlemen. the reason -- my question is some people think, i think, think that if illegal aliens can't vote, there is this whole skewed apportionment in terms of representation of non-u.s. citizens in the census leading to representation. for instance, california has five more electoral votes than it would have if only american citizens were counted.

i understand what the census is supposed to do, but i think that's a problem that a lot of people have even if illegal aliens aren't voting or non-u.s. citizens aren't voting. is so my question to you is do you, have you ever researched this, do you think it's a problem? and kind of a corollary to that, in districts where there are prisons, these prisoners can't vote, and yet they're counted as part of -- >> guest: counted, yeah. >> caller: it's kind of a dred scott thing emerging in terms of representation in electoral votes. >> host: now, david, you seem to have a pretty deep knowledge of this topic. is this something you study or you work in this field or -- >> caller: no. i'm an engaged citizen. i'm not a political hack or operative. but as an american tech worker, i'm really concerned about out-of-control immigration both legal and illegal. it's directly impacted my livelihood and, of course, the livelihoods of the disney tech workers and southern california

tech workers, and it's just out of control. we allow in 1.8 million illegal foreign workers different types of whack-a-mole, alphabet soup visas. in california, for instance, silicon valley, the highest group of illegal aliens are indians who have run out their visas. like i say, california probably has five more electoral votes and district seats than it should have because of this skewed, out-of-control population surge. and a lot of people think it's a problem. i, i think it's a problem because i don't think states should have such a high number of people that can't vote skewing to their, to that state's advantage of representation and, thus, electoral college votes. >> host: thank you, sir. >> caller: well, i think that -- >> guest: well, i think everyone should be counted because i think in some ways everyone's contributing something.

so even though you can't vote, you in many cases are still paying taxes, and you still receive services. so, for example, when there's a fire, the fire department comes to your house whether or not -- whatever your status is, whatever your legal status is. , if you go to the emergency room, they have to treat you. and i think if we begin to say that some people aren't counted, where do we draw the line? and does that mean that children aren't counted, for example, because they are not of voting age? so i understand the concern that the caller has, but i think it's a slippery slope in terms of deciding who does and opportunity get counted. and i think historically we've decided that people don't count, they have become more marginalized in american society. so i think there's real concern here. however, i think the system as it currently is, is working fine. >> host: ally berman -- ari berman has been our guest on this call-in. you'll see him a little bit later here on a panel in this room.

the book, "give us the ballot: the modern struggle for voting rights in america." thanks, as always, for taking calls from our viewers. >> guest: thank you very much, peter. good to see you. >> host: coming up next is t.j. stiles, and he's going to be talking about george custer. this is booktv's live coverage from the tucson festival of bookings. books. >> hello, everyone. my name is paul andrew hutton, i'm a professor over at the university of new mexico just to the east of us here in today. welcome to the eighth annual tucson festival of the books. we want to especially thank c-span, booktv, and cox communication for sponsoring this venue. this presentation will last an hour, but i'll -- we'll talk for about 40 minutes, and then we'll open it up for questions from the audience, and please go over to the microphone there to

our -- on either side to do your questions. .. stile. >> we hope you're a member of the friends to the festival practice your tax deductible donations ahowze to us provide programming free of charge could the -- become a friend in person today by visiting the student union south ballroom. your gift makes a difference and you know i don't need to tell you what a fabulous back festival you have here in tucson. it's absolutely a marvel. out of respect for the

authors and your fellow audience members, let me say to you what i say to my students when i begin my lectures. i don't know why you have your phones with you. try to lose communication with the outside world for a while ask lose yourself in the world of books so please put them on mute. we were here together on this stage, four years ago or so? five? probably more than that. the years go by so quickly. you had just won the pulitzer prize, and the national book award for your fabulous biography of vanderbilt. the first tycoon, and before that you had written jesse james, the last rebel, and in -- which was very well-received. and of course, your current book is "custer's trials: a live on the frontier of a new america

pie." tj lives in berkeley, california, with his family. and of course you are already picking up prizes again. i learned last night you won the western writers of america spur award for biography, and congratulations on that. >> thank you very much. [applause] >> to get the award anyway is wonderful, but from people who know a lot and a have written and read a lot about custer is very nice. >> well, 2012, michael o'keefe published a two-volume bibliography on george e george armstrong custer. there will 10,000 items, and he annotate them all. 3,000 of them were books. so i think the logical first question to begin with is, t.j., why custer? >> i hate myself. no.

i have to say thank you very much for coming. i love to have a constance to talk to rathers and potential readers and to have a conversation with paul andrew hutton, you is not just a great hoyton a and a great writer and has a become coming out this spring called "the apache wars" it's phenomenal. so watch for that. so to have this conversation with a good historian and a good writer is terrific. there is -- i could easily go on and on and give a hoe spiel about custer and why by book is justified, but the subtitle complain mitt approach. sometimes you go into a subject because it hasn't been written about enough before, or you really feel like people have gotten it wrong, and is a say there's a lot of great writing as well as a lot roof writing about custer. my approach was to change the

camera angle, and i'm very interested in how the modern united states came into being, and people have focused on these very high profile aspect-of-s of custers life, first, little big horn, which is not the focus of my book. focus on his western career, but also what i try to do is contextualize the well-known parts with the -- the civil war is a huge part of my book -- with the lesser known parts of his life and to show how he was engaged in all kinds of ways with the making of modern america, and how his notoriety and his fame was very much base on things we don't associate with custer. things like race and federal power and the new literary culture, and the rise of the corporation and finance and wall street and the western story and the civil war story, and the place of women and to bring

forward and emphasize the female characters in his life were so fascinating and their relationships with each other. i saw such a rich life and complicated and volatile. a new way of looking at hem that doesn't devalue the iconic parts but integrates it with things people have known about but not focused on. >> you accomplished that task. when last we were here talking about vanderbilt, i was really just stunned by how beautifully written and what a magnificent work of research the vanderbilt book was. i guess it had to be to win both the pulitzer prize and the national book award. and i didn't know anything about vanderbilt, about custer is a character in all modesty, i know a lot about. and so what was -- what is even more astonishing to me, i learned so much from the

vanderbilt book, but i learned from this custer book as well. i learned a new way to look at custer, and like the vanderbilt book, what you're really doing is expanding the whole boundary of biography. just want -- won the biography spur, and it is a book about american history and the most tumultuous period, the civil war, reconstruction, the gilded age, and the closing of the american frontier, which custer's last stand is a climatic moment of. and so you treat, in fact, the most spectacular moment of custer's life, his death, which every other book seems to just focus on and head toward, in your epilogue, and i just thought that was an credibly bold decision but fits in nicely with the tone and structure of your book. >> that was a decision i came to

very early on, is to not have a final chapter or final part of the book devoted to little big horn, but to try to treat it in a way that kind of reflects the experience that americans had, that it was something that took place offstage, that they're trying to figure it out after the battle was over, and during the book, one reason why people like too write about cust iris because the letters and the personal information really allows a writer to get into his life and into -- even inside his head to a certain extent, because he wrote about what he thought and felt so much. a friend of his said there was just no doubt about what custer was thinking. what you saw is what you got. he was emotive and expressive and wrote so much and i couldn't

write about jesse james or vanderbilt about, and his personal relationships, emotions, daily struggles, faults. but then after following such an interior biography and get to little big horn, ended the chapter with hill literally ridings over the horizon and libby with a waving goodbye, and then the reno courted of inquiry a couple years later, now you suddenly are jared out of that very interior experience of his life and now you're in the position of americans as they try to figure out what went on. i i was inspired in the idea by not only my desire to say, this is not a book about the little big horn, but also to say -- to think about the effect that i had when i read the great book, "battle cry freedom" and this is something i read a review which made me think bit it, and made

me think, yes, it's an experience i had. when you got to lincoln's assassination he doesn't describe it. he has -- ended one chapter in this marvelous hoyt of the civil war era, we john wilkes booth saying he is going to kill lincoln after he makes a speech saying maybe we should allow african-americans to vote, and starts the next chapter with the aftermath of the assassination, so one of the great dramatic moments over the civil war era is off stage, and makes it more powerful, and i thought i want to have the impact of the little big horn there but i don't want to focus on it. i don't want to get swallowed up by huge and important event and make my book about that. how die do senate? so having it take place offstage was back way of both say, yes, it's important, but also you can -- i can never take you not only is this book not about that but it's such a complex event so

let's not try. let's show how americans struggled with and it then leave people with an incomplete understanding because that's all we'll ever have. >> i can almost see a movie producer, why other do we want to do cust center everybody knows how its end and

we have had amazing achievements that's country. tend to come out we're just this great enlighted people and america is wonderful, the end. it's that when we have had great struggles over the worst aspects of american history, america was the largest slave-owning nation on earth, and what happened is we had this huge war, which revolved around the issue of slavery, that led to the abolitionist slavery and within a few years, a nonracial

definition of citizenship, in which african-americans were voting, holding public office, sitting in congress, within a few years after chief justice ruled in dred scott that they are not fully human, basically. they have no rights. the white man is retired to respect. and a few years later you have black senators and congressmen. it's amazing. yet it's not just a straightforward line of progress. so, these issues -- this comfort -- discomfort about the way things change, the definition of whoa is an american, the role of the federal government, and the federal government plays a larger role ever after in american history, which is the center of how we're arguing about it. and so we argue about immigration, when people are very upset about muslims in the united states. these are -- they're not exactly the same thing. you can't say that people who

enslave people and join the klu klux klan and murdered women and children in their homes because of race, that -- well, anybody that goes to donald trump universal humanity, these are issues that in jesse james' life and custer's life are the center of their lives. i'm not going to sit here -- i have my own political views but not here as a political pundit, and -- i do think these issues, though they're not exactly the same, i'm not going to sit here and condemn one group of americans and praise another for their political views-but certainly those tensions, i think, are still playing out in -- analysis a different way,

but those tensions and the struggles go right book to the civil war era. >> yes, sir. >> i imagine as a biographer, 3,000 references might be a little intimidating in doing your research, but i was wondering if you are a modern historical biographer looking forward, whether you would envy or be relieved at the plethora of information out there that you would have to try and assimilate with all the videos and facebook postings and articles out there. i'm just trying to imagine how you could imagine kind of getting your hands wrapped around modern history with all that information available, just -- i mean, tons and tons and tons of it, and how you might sift through that to get some essence and get some perspective and be able to offer

something unique that analyzes that type of a situation. >> with custer, i had much more of the traditional experience of a biographer. historians are like the drunk -- the story of the drunk who comes home, drives home, and puts husband carne driveway and making a lot of noise outside and his wife comes the door, -- always man who is the drunk -- and she says, what are you doing? he is on his hands hands and knn the front porch. he goes issue dropped my keys. she said he they are not here. they're by the car, and he said -- he has a big pile of papers in a collection -- libby saved his letters and i got to dig into big piles of letters which is wonderful. with vanderbilt issue actually had a little bit of a taste of the modern world.

i found out why no one had written a big guyography of vanderbilts because no one hated themselves enough to do it. it's not because there's no big collection of vanderbilt papers about there's tons of stuff out there scattered all around. so now they're starting to digitize newspapers, during his very long life, i searched for every reference to vanderbilt and found out just mom pieces of property on vanderbilt avenue in brooklyn were for sale and what a storied career judge john vanderbilt of albany had. usually people worry about the digital media, meaning historians will have nothing to work with. in fact, as some of my friends are saying, it's the opposite. we'll be deluged with this stuff that will be difficult to sort through. >> -- [inaudible] -- algorithms. >> and you have to find ways to narrow the search, and doing something like i did with

vanderbilt, search for everything, it's going to be impossible. so, with custer, i had to learn you have to such for custer, custer and also custard, and cull reference in the newspapers to general custard, sometimes serious, and share -- sher dan would write about custer. >> i can't tell you how much you appreciate that. within that one answer you described hi chosen profession as being both drunks and engaging in self-loathing. and that's pretty correct, actually, is a think about it. yes, sir. >> good afternoon. you spoke earlier in the session on how -- even though custer was not well like he was well-respected as a fighter. what reverberations occurred and how large were they back at the war department after his demise? after they received notice, and

with that regard, for him being such a fighter and being massacred at the little big horn, how did the war department or the president change his approach to fighting in the west and westward expansion? >> that's an interesting question. again, the things with custer is that he was well-liked by a lot of people actually, and one of the difficult things is after the civil war, actually like immediately after the civil war, kuster starts to do things that create messes for himself and this is part over the wheel -- the fun of writing about him, is that -- i like to compare him to walter white of breaking bad. sometimes you like him, other times you realize he is doing horrible things but he is creating disasters he has to get out of and that's custer's life, and more and more so after the civil war. a lot of people loved him so when he got himself deeper and deeper in the hole and became

more and more morally ambiguous and sometimes reprehensible, especially with issues of race. the struggle for the writer, why people did like him. some people hated him personally, but some people always loved him. and so that dual nature he had is very hard to keep in mind. there's a very -- whole books written about the aftermath of the little big horn. just want to say there was a real scramble to try to lay blame, and a lot of the whole image of custer as being reckless started after the war, sheridan and grant led the way and said custer was reckless and did all these things, even though, as i posted on my public facebook page, sheridan's last telegram to the commander of custer's immediate commander of custer's column said you have to rely on your own column for success ex-only hope the indians

hold together, you have enough to fight. this was the expectation the army had. what won the war with the sioux afterwards was just persistent dogged pursuit because the lakotas and cheyennes had to disperse to behind to sustain themselves. why lee could not sustain himself in the invasions of the north. his troops had to spread tout out to gather supplies. lee would have had to retreat. it would have been demoralizing hat the ewan not won but constant pressure brought the plains indians down in the en. wasn't big battlefield successes. and so it was just deploying the troops and keeping them out in the field is the way they won. you have to really go to the apache wars to find innovative thinking when its came to indian warfare and that's a really interesting story. it's all interesting because you have a few individuals in a vast

landscape, many whom knew each other, one degree of separation apart. it's just an incredibly dramatic story, and the fates of nations are in play. so, it's always good history, even if we sometimes can't stand some of the people involved. yes, sir. >> appropriate for you. just a military -- your pin. if reno had charged the indian camp like he was ordered to do, would that have made a difference if he had completely gone through the camp rather than stop? >> maybe shy refer to man who spent more years studying the issue weapon can't knowment we don't know. and as i like to say, the way i would answer it is that the -- all the emphasis tends to be placed on the mistakes custer made, and certainly could have done things differently, but as robert noted. it's less that -- you have an

unprecedented number of lakotas and cheyennes together. also more militants than ever before because of the orders given to give up the nomadic life, and they're incredibly confident and then you have an amazing concentration of tactical and spiritual leadership in sitting bill and crazy horse and you can go down the list, all the legendary figures together in one camp. so they act completely differently than custer expected and had every reason to expect, and they fought bravely, fought well individually, and as a group, and so we can argue and people will forever about whether they should have done this, and the conditions on the other side and the leadership and the determination and skill on the other side and the numbers all came together to be completely different picture than any other battle in the

history of the plains wars. it's just remarkable. so, i really have to say, one packet -- aspect of people when they sympathize with the native american and defeat, you run do you custer and he got what he deserved and you i can take that viewpoint. but also you have to forget that we run him down too far, diminishes the magnitude of that victory. >> he was the best the united states had. and he got beat. thank you all so much for coming, and thanks again to the tucson festival of books. t.j. will be signing books in the tent, just right outside here. which is sponsored by the university of arizona book stores. thank you, t.j. >> thank you. thank you, everyone.

[inaudible conversations] you've been listening to pulitzer prize winner t.j. stiles talking about his book on george custer. this is booktv, live coverage the tucson philosophy of books, locate on the university of arizona campus, enough in its eight year. it's a beautiful venue, beautiful day out here in tucson. and if you want to see more behind the scenes photos or anything, you can follow us on twitter,@booktv is our twitter hasn't, or on facebook,

facebook.com/booktv. couple more author panels coming up today, and in the meantime, though, we want to introduce you to city university of new york philosophy professor linda alcoff who has written a book called "the future of whiteness. "professor, the first line in your book, this is a book about a topic many would rather avoid. what is that topic? >> guest: white identity, where it's been, where it's going, and what its relationship is to political problems we're seeing in the country today. >> host: what is white identity? >> guest: well, it's historical and social formation that emerged in the new world and then the americas after european colonialism here. it's includes different people in the beginning than it includes now. didn't yesterday to include southern europeans for example. today it includes them.

so it's ever checking -- ever changing and written other into the constitution, and rights to land and citizenship and voting. so, it's crafted in way to have racial superiority, but that is now changing. that is now what is in open-ended future. >> are we a white majority country? >> guest: for a little while longer we will be, but by 2042 we will no longer be white majority country. but all of these fortified states of white minority and most cities and most people who live in cities already experience majority/minority living spaces, work spaces, universities, schools, neighborhoods, so it's going to grow and grow until whites will be a minority by 2042.

>> in your book you write reports from the 2010 census chart the national changes in the u.s. clearly, between 2000 and 2010 the u.s. population increase bid 308 million people. latino and asian numbers jumped the most with each group growing by a remarkable 43%. african-americans grew by 12%. whites, one percent. >> guest: right. and even those numbers of whites are a little misleading because they include north africans and arabs in the white category so probably a little less than that. >> what does that mean? >> guest: well, i think it is the elephant in the room of our public culture today. it's what is causing a lot of fer -- ferment bat what the future is going to braining for wages, working conditions, political culture, and it's uncertain what it will bring.

it depends on what we who share this geographical territory decide to make of it. let me just stress that even if we stop immigration today, as some want, this is a done deal because if you look at one-year-olds in the united states, they're already a majority/minority. most of them are already nonwhite. it's just matter of time. >> host: we'll put the numbers on the screen if you want to participate in our conversation this afternoon with linda alcoff, the future of whiteness is the name of the book. 202-748 u-89200 in the east and central time seasons 202-748-8201. we'll get to those calls as quickly as we can. linda alcoff, you have approached this not from a statistician point of view but from a philosophical point of view. >> guest: yes. i think there's a lot of o