challenges and that's why a make a point of reframing change. we talk about these cycles. if it's just climate change like this big looming, it raises fear and there's nothing we can do about it except protest against the oil companies which we certainly need to get our fossil fuels, we know that but we also know that isn't going to be enough and that's the stress that is lurking. if we work on the basis of these cycles, and by working on ecosystems and restoring landscapes yes, i think we can get there. >> does your book and with a lot of hope? >> yes there's hope in every

chapter, i'm talking to people who are very hopeful and to have seen tremendous improvement in their lands because that's what i wanted to see. i wanted to see what is possible because if we don't know what's possible, what can spark our imagination of what's possible yes, there's a lot of hope imac. >> again i want to thank you all for coming and judith will be available downstairs to sign books, thank you. >> you are watching the tv, television for serious readers. you can watch any program you see here online at the tv.org.

>> what are some of the books that are coming out from basic this fall? >> i'm very excited about one called the word detective by john simpson which is a memoir by the former editor-in-chief of the oxford english dictionary who has been there for about 40 years and whose retirement in 2013 and overtop oversaw information of dictionaries or lexicography in the language. i think for anyone who can remember the descriptions of what it was like to assemble a dictionary in the 19th century and it was pretty much like that in the mid- 70s as well. there were readers all over the world would smith index cards with usages and send them into the dictionary where they would be put into card files and eventually those usages, whenever the the dictionary was revised which was about every 80 years would make it into the next round. it took a long time to update new meanings of words or new etymologies that they had discovered.

of course now it's all online and instead of readers all over the world, you have crowdsourcing and people reporting tweets or websites in a has led to this massive democratization of language is in a really interesting way. it has also led them to go back and relearn whole words, with all of the newspapers online, you can discover usages that no one had possibly ever heard of the last time the dictionary was revived. it is this revolution in language, but along the way introduces us to all of these fascinating histories of words, my favorite is the word serendipity which was introduced into language based on a story he had read called the three prince's of prince's of serendipity that the historical name for sure locked up. when you say serendipitously, you're referring to the name of sri lanka which is something i had never known. i also didn't know there was a

word to describe a place on a dog's back that they can't match. i didn't know some words have been introduced by the duke of wellington. i think it's the perfect book for word nerds and anyone who loves between you and me by mary noris and anyone who's interested in books or words, it's just a fantastic read be met is mr. simpson in favor of this democratization of language? >> absolutely. one of the thing that's great about the memoir, he was very much an outsider, he wasn't cambridge trained and he wasn't from that class of that world. realizing the extent to which the dictionary had been shaped by upper-middle-class readers because the kind of people who have a lot of people to read and send in words on index cards are people who don't spend a lot of time working. the dictionary had really been shaped by people who read milton

and tennyson and a detective novel but it was very male and very white and very british. this is long before the dictionary starts going online. he forces it into the modern age he gets interested in magazines like popular mechanics and get interested in reggae and he's trying to figure out the proper definition of thinking. he makes this man's tank in front of him so he can take notes. he's an old gentleman in the countryside. he is part of a mission and he wants to open the dictionary to new readers and new riders. >> will he be going on book tour? >> absolutely. he better be we are gearing up

to have him do a lot more. i think for pictionary remains very important for certain kind of nonfiction it does as well. a lot of the books are for future events are driven by radio. i think we have certainly seen through smaller and smaller factors in the way that we publish and promote books and there's all these other ways of promoting books now to like social media where people can go to many channels like youtube

and i think other social medias and traveling from town to town is less important than it used to be. i have a history of the caliphate coming up which i think is a book that is particularly important right now. i think the word caliphate isn't something that we've spent a lot of time talking about the caliphate. he has written a number of books on middle eastern history and this is his effort to establish the caliphate as it was in the history of an idea. i think there will be an appeal for young muslims. it was a time when islam rolled the world. baghdad had half a million people during the time when london and paris had maybe a few

thousand. i think what he is trying to show is that the caliphate, with this incredible genius quality that there is no one caliphate. i think people think about the idea at a time when islam was. and when the quality was led purely by worship of god. like any political structure, it's more more complicated than that. they were some that were deeply spiritual and some that were deeply warlike. find a justification for almost any form of political action in the caliphate. i think this is a necessary corrective to this rhetoric of the caliphate at a purer and better time. >> one more book. >> there's an interesting book and political science coming out who is a professor and statistician and it's about why

we struggle with mass incarceration and how everything you think about mass incarceration is wrong, it's not about the war on drugs for private prisons, it's really about the role of prosecutors in our criminal justice system. i think a lot of people haven't really acknowledged that as the major factor behind is very high level prisons in the united states. one of the things that's fascinating is that he shows that the crime rate is dropping and there's a surge in the number of prosecutors who are working for the u.s. government and as a consequence, you just start seeing this incredible surge in prosecutorial deals asking for longer sentences and prosecuting at a higher level than they would have before. this is actually the crucial factor in creating, i think people think of the conventional wisdom behind where we are where we are right now.

>> what kind of books do you publish? >> we publish only serious nonfiction by expert authors. that means about 90% of our authors are academic and a handful of journalists and politicians. the intellectually high-end books. >> where is basic? is it an independent or part of a larger corporation? >> it was until two months ago and independent publishing company and remains part of the perseus book group but we have just very recently, about a month ago been bought which is the fourth largest publisher in the united states. >> how does that affect what you do? >> so far, not much. i think i have to learn a new computer system. think it's a really good fit. they're known in the united states for publishing a lot of

fiction, perseus is all nonfiction so i think it's a really good counterbalance and it's been really lovely. they're taking the whole group and picking it up and moving it over. i still have the same staff in the same books in the same boss. it's sort of minimally traumatic as a buyout can be. :