our good friend judith hurd stats and i also want to thank the viewing audience on c-span's booktv. now, let me know if hudson institute is the policy organization based in washington d.c. we are dedicated to promoting u.s. international leadership for the sake of security, prosperity and freedom. most of our work is in the public policy space. we do a lot of work on the future of security and asia. ..

i include myself among them who feel that there's the possibility of hope for a brighter future or among those who felt as much as the country disgruntleed due to results of the election. it's an opportunity to come together with our families whether we are in red america or blue america, come together perhaps contentionously to celebrate holidays and express deep gratitude for common blessings that we share and that's why this book is an extraordinary book and would make a wonderful holiday gift and beyond, you can purchase and

will happily sign it or order it online if you will. the book begins with some reflections that i found profoundly moving. melanie talks about visiting a high school in queens. 850 students from 64 different countries. melanie has to go teach a class about the meaning of thanksgiving by a friend and this is something, the discussion is something all of us can identify with because as melanie points out there, all immigrants in the sense share a bit of the experience and all americans do of the experience of the pilgrims who left looking for religious freedom in this country and i know in my family and my mother who came to the

country at the age of 8 was a refugee from nazi germany, every thanksgiving was a deeply moving moment because we felt gratitude and the immense blessings that she has a child thought she would ever see. deeply touching, uplifting, has a wonderful examination of the lessons that it teaches us. now, for those of you who don't know melanie kirkpatrick, she's well known analyst of asia, well known for first book, escaped from north korea. the brave men and women behind asia's underground railroads and incredible efforts that they do to escape from the tyranny of north korea. we have decided her friend,

articles of wall street journal and appearances on wsa opinion lives. [laughter] >> two of them will have a conversation about the book and we will open up for questions from the audience without any further due it's my great pleasure and honor. >> thank you. [applause] >> i would like to offer my thanks on c-span and all of you for being here. on a personal note, this is a very deeply moving moment for me. melanie is mentor of mine,

somebody i've always admired and inspired to be more like as a journalist and as a person, it's really wonderful to be here to celebrate her and to have a chance to talk about her latest book. it's an appropriate place for us to be. for those who don't know mel any as a girl from buffalo going to japan in the 14970's, well, this is like going to the top of everest in 1800. so it's wonderful to be here at the explorer's club, now, thanksgiving is an unusual book. i think i'm on safe ground to put it that way in really the best sense of the word if history, religion, politics, cultural issues, feminism, our purpose here today is to give you a sense of why melanie wrote this book, what interested you in the topic and to touch on a couple of themes.

so i wanted to start by asking you, every author has an obsession. you have to have an obsession to write a book. what obsessed you about thanksgiving. what motivated you to do the kind of work and the research that resulted in this volume? >> i will answer the question and first let me say a few thank you first to explore's club and hudson institute for having me here. i was grateful for hudson support in writing this unusual hudson book and thank you very much ken and bill if he's here in the room. thank you, bill. there's also a hudson trustee and senior fellow that you would like to thank. this trustee and senior fellow has a third role. he's also my husband. [laughter] >> his name is jack david and he was my first editor and my best editor.

he never let me get away with anything and this couldn't have been as good a book as it is without you, jack, so thank you. and i certainly would like to thank my stepdaughter jacqueline david, jacqueline did some of the research for me. she spent many hours looking at micro film at the new york library and reading 19th century magazines. thank you, jacqueline. and that's thank you, mary. it's wonderful that you are here. >> you don't know what questions to expect. >> right. [laughter] >> so i will answer your question. >> yes, please. >> the book first began as i look back at my thought processes, september 11th, i was in downtown manhattan that day and saw the towers fall and like

many americans in the wake of the terrorist attacks i began to think more and reread -- read more about what it means to be an american and my search took me to william bradford's book of plantation, long-time governor of plymouth plantation. he wrote the journey and the first few decades here. and so i got interested in the subject and like any journalists, i think, i approached it from a journalist point of view, i started trying to find out more about it and because i was in the happy position of being a senior editor at the wall street journal, i could indulge my interest by writing an occasional article on thanksgiving which i did.

but as -- when i retired from the journal and writing the book on north korea, i decided to turn again to thanksgiving and i realized that thanksgiving and my interest in the same subject covered same big issues that i covered as a journalist in the wall street journal. interest in politics, religion and economics to a certain extent and in american culture, everything except foreign affairs, i think. i see this book as a totality of what i learned in my career. >> you talked about the very american thing that we can examine our history in that way, that we have actual artifacts and firsthand accounts of thanksgiving, were unique as a nation in that respect. you write about a museum that you visited. >> if you go to pilgrim hall in

massachusetts, you can actually see artifacts that were held by the pilgrims. one of the artifacts that blew me away was william bradford's bible. it's on display there. it's a geneva translation of the bible, which predated the king james version. and the pilgrims believed this was a more authentic translation than ones the follow. they were great hebrew scholars by the way. william later taught hebrew so he could read the first books of the bible of the old testament in the original language, the language that god gave. >> i'm glad that we turned to religion because many things in the book, religion seems to me the strongest theme and the holiday is fused with religious meaning. does that derif -- derive from

europe or come from a particular place? >> as i learned the idea of celebrating a thanksgiving was a judeo christian tradition. hope i'm pronouncing that correctly. you don't really know but protestants denominations and catholics celebrated in the old world. in the pilgrims case they did have thanksgiving days and usually but the association were for specific such as rainfall to harvest or a military victory

or, you know, good health. so later that became thanks, transformed into thanksgiving for general blessings and in the 11th century this was controversial. >> why? >> some people argued that if you had a thanksgiving for general blessings you would take for granted god's goodness and you would forget to be thankful. so it wasn't until the end of the 18th century that massachusetts, which was one of the hold-outs gab -- began to celebrate annual thanksgivings as general blessings. >> came from judeo. it was some sort of dispute as to who could participate and what it was for.

they thought they were left out of thanksgiving because it was proclaimed -- well, they were, how did that come about? >> the governor of south carolina in 1844 issued a thanksgiving proclamation that was exclusively for christians and charleston has jewish tradition, first jewish american to be elected to a political appointment was a jew from charleston and the first to die in the revolutionary war, the first jew to die in the revolutionary war was from charleston. they have a long historic tradition. they objected and said we are not going to celebrate thanksgiving because you excluded us and there was -- there's quite an extensive written debate about this and in the end, the governor was just completely entrenched in his

viewpoint, he wrote back when they objected, no, america is a christian country. this is only for christians and there were other that were excluded too such as union tar ains. unionitarians. >> let's go back to how we got our modern thanksgiving, george washington's proclamation, how did that come about? >> george washington is an important figure in thanksgiving. first proclamation as any president was his proclamation for national thanksgiving. this is in 1789. congress -- the first congress

was meeting downtown in federal hall since march 1789 and september came along and they were ready to take a break so a congressman from new jersey elias, wanted to go to washington and ask him to issue this proclamation. members of congress objected to it and they raised issues that are still relevant today. first he did not have executive authority to issue such proclamation. [laughter] >> was that jefferson's argument? >> he had issued proclamations when he was governor of virginia

. that was the first objection. the second was religious freedom. congress debated the first amendment, the idea of separation of church and state was very much in their minds and some argued that religion was -- thanksgiving was a religious holiday and therefore the president should not issue a proclamation. >> how did washington walk that line? >> washington as in so many things had a brilliant solution. he issued the proclamation and then he sent it to the governors of the 13 states with a cover letter requesting them to celebrate thanksgiving, not telling them to do so. also there were two other traditions that he sat -- three others. first he called for the last thursday of november, second he

on thanksgiving day made a charitable contribution, usually he was quiet about such things but this time he was -- he did so publicly because, i think, he wanted to set an example for people to think of the poor on thanksgiving day. third, proclamation was entirely inclusive of all religions thereby setting the example for future presidents to include all religions. >> so we've talked about the religious theme, political theme, we see the tension between the states and the federal federal government but we also see a kind of cronyism emerging, political cronyism emerging in thanksgiving when you write about fdr and his decision to change the date of thanksgiving. talk a little bit about that. >> well, fast-forwarding to the 20th century, in 1939, fdr,

middle of the depression had the dumb idea that if he moved the date of thanksgiving forward by a week it would extend the christmas shopping season and the economy would boom. well, americans would have been too happy to spend the money if they had had it. it was a failure. in 1941 he admitted that. but along the way it was interesting as to how americans responded. some people or some states just said, we will follow the president's example, others were outraged and so in 1939 you had the example of half of the states celebrating on the original traditional date which was the last thursday of november and the other half celebrating on roosevelt's date

which came to to be known as francés giving, in texas being texas announced that it was going to celebrate on both days. [laughter] >> just curious, what happened during the civil war. >> but in 1863 lincoln did something different, he issued a proclamation for a general thanksgiving following in washington's tradition and called on all americans north and south to give blessing, to give thanks for the blessings of the country and if you think about that, 1863, one of the bloodiest if not one of the

bloodiest year in our country, the battle of gettysburg had recently taken place, he was lincoln asking people to be thankful and i think what he was doing was pointing the way to what the country was going to be like after the war. >> this is a fabulous book, by the way. thank you, c-span. yes, you can clap for that. the book isn't just a history, it doesn't teach you about the religious roots of this, the politics of it which are reflected in our own modern era but there's also the interesting figures that you profile or pop up at different points and one of them is a lady named since we are talking about the civil war, sarah joseph hale, which is kind of a feminist theme in the book, if i might. is anyone with the audience familiar with sarah joseph hale?

raise your hands. only a few. melanie, for the audience, can you talk a little bit about her and how she fits into thanksgiving and what her role was in our holiday? >> widely known as the godmother of thanksgiving. and she was an editor of the 19th century. she was born in late 118th century in new hampshire and her genius as editor was that she believed -- she thought americans we wanted to read about american things. believe it or not this was unusual in the early part of the 19th century. back then magazine editors would wait till the magazines of london to arrive and would take articles from the british magazines and publish them in american magazines but sarah

joseph hale did something very different, she started hiring american writers to write for her including the daniel hawthorne and edgar alan poe who went onto describe her, i love this phrase, imaculine energy. she was editor of the most popular, most circulated magazine of the precivil war era. one of the great editors in american history and her -- her passion was thanksgiving. starting early on she believed that a national thanksgiving would be a way to unify the country which was splitting over the issue of slavery. so in the pages of her magazine, she would run editorials, writing about the different state that is had thanksgivings because thanksgivings were

called by governors and she would publish fiction that was set around thanksgiving trying to create a very happy sentimental feeling for the holiday and she also published recipes. she may have been the first editor to publish recipes which, again, sounds pretty amazing. >> these are american recipes, american ingredients, right? >> that's right. in addition to her work, the magazine, she would write dozens of letters, hundreds of letters actually over the decades to what we would call opinion-makers today, politicians and others who had influence and it wasn't until 1863 that lincoln, she writes them asking them to support her campaign for a national thanksgiving and finally in 1863, lincoln, he did her call and did so. >> she lived a very long life,

she lived until 80's or 90's. >> when asked about this, she said she was very happy that we had a national thanksgiving. it had to be inshrine with the legislation. it didn't happen until 1941 when congress did to and roosevelt signed it and we celebrate on the fourth thursday of every november. >> you think the book is 400 pages but it's not. so we have a religious aspect. we have a political aspect. >> that's because i was use today writing editorials which are short. >> right. [laughter] >> well, i love it. it's a great book. you should definitely buy it. so religion, politics, kind of figure in a way. we haven't talked about food.

there's also a culinary history here too. what was thanksgiving like for the people who originally celebrated it? >> well, if you wanted to eat today what the pilgrims and the indians ate, i would have to put oysters, mussels on thanksgiving dinner. there may have been a turkey there. bradford addresses abundance of wild turkey in the area. there were no pie, no potatoes, which not make their way to this part -- to new england yet and there were no cranberries. probably no cranberries because if you have bitten into a cranberry you would understand why you would not have some without sugar and they had no sugar. >> how about apples?

>> no apples. apples were brought later in the 147th -- 17th century and the phrase did not apply -- >> that was all a lie? >> well, it was -- in a way. >> in a way. right. the book also has readings in the back and it contains these two accounts that we have of the original thanksgiving and not long accounts. so -- so that meal that they celebrated changed through the years not just because of the food that we imported but also the availability. i remember there's a one passage in there -- oysters sound great to me but they are expensive today. they weren't always that way. >> right. in the 19th century they were cheap food. oysters were popular for thanksgiving as were chestnuts

which were also inexpensive. if i may just speaking of the culinary history, one of my favorite stories has to do with president coolidge. after lincoln named first national thanksgiving of the modern era, he passed away, every president after lincoln called for a thanksgiving and starting with guarantees presidency, there was a turkey -- a man who raised turkeys in rhode island. he was known as the poultry king. every year he would send a turkey to the white house for thanksgiving an he did that from grant until he died some time in the wilson administration. but others took up his -- after his death and the presidents started getting turkeys from around the country. well, mississippi had a different idea.

they sent president coolidge an annual mall that they said had toothsome player and it was racoon. the coolidge family decided to turn it into a pet which they named rebecca. >> that's another wonder aspect of it and american aspect of thanksgiving is the way that it's adapted by various parts of our country, you know, when you think about a thanksgiving table in america today, how does it -- how does it differ? >> pretty similar, lots of pies for dessert was taking shape in the 18th century. certainly by the end of 18th century, reports that it was there. one of the things i enjoyed writing about in the dinner chapter, there's chapter and dinner, has to do with who was invited to dinner.

the tradition with being with family extends way back but also family had a larger and has a larger meaning. it includes the larger community and so there's a wonderful letter from the revolutionary war era of a young woman in connecticut who writes about unsighting the elderly woman who had no children and inviting the orphans who were being tutored by the minister and new neighbors and this resinates. this is the same today. in addition to that, mary, there's also the idea of a thanksgiving generosity and i trace that back the earliest example i could find was 1636 in massachusetts where the

wealthier people were encouraged to take care of people on thanksgiving. >> how do native americans view thanksgiving? >> this was one of the most difficult chapters for me to research and write. the title of that chapter is day of mourning which comes from part indian minister who wrote in the early part of the 19th century referring to the fourth of july and another holiday, but there are some native americans who starting in the 70's when the red power movement took over gather every year in plymouth and fast during the day and march through town and see thanksgiving as the beginning of the tragic, the tragedy that the native american people. but they are unusual.

there's also a native american celebration on thanksgiving morning at dawn in alcatraz island. this started out in the 1970's. ..

kind of amazed you haven't washed mention the wall. how long is the then associated with thanksgiving and why to reassociate associate football with thanksgiving? >> as i said, the first in the modern series of national things it needs to place in 1863 in the first american football game took place in 1869. and then the first thanksgiving football game was a few years later in the 70s. 1870s. so they've been together for a long time. >> and not always happily. the other interesting thing about this book are the little historical tidbit is that you get such as the san francisco disaster of 1900, speaking of the last coast. on thanksgiving day, what

happened? >> was a football game that ended in disaster and some of the people that did not have tickets decided to the building collapsed and is still the largest disaster in our history. one thing i wanted to say about football as it became a moral issue for a lot of people. this is such an interesting debate and people are discussed in houses of worship, in the newspapers and whether football was detract and furniture made in a thanksgiving day. and of course as we know, football one out and i think the answer generally was now, there is room for football and family and religion than this holiday. >> it's an important holiday for americans. when i was living abroad i still

celebrated thanksgiving. did you do that and if so why? >> i certainly did. one of the challenges of being able to find a turkey in hong kong or tokyo. and if you found one, and is incredibly expensive. he lived in hong kong. you know this, too. >> the wife celebrated halfway around the world? >> sarah joseph hale said she believed wherever americans got there, they will celebrate a scathing day. it is not a patriotic holiday per se, but a celebration of american values and american heritage. all of our ancestors, and mustard native american came here and learn to an appreciation of our country partly through thanksgiving.

that native americans had their own thanksgiving ceremonies, which i read a little bit about in the book, too. >> i don't want to occupy the stage. we'll open it up to questions and answers. because this is also being broadcast on c-span, i'm going to ask you to state your name and a question. not a statement, a question. please raise your hands and we will call upon you. it can be a simple question or a complex question. anyone out there in the audience? if you don't ask, i'll keep asking questions. they have a gentleman in the back. the microphone is coming to you. go ahead and talk familiar name, please been a question. >> safford reynolds. can you go into some depth about the fallout of relations between the original indian and the plymouth folks. can you give us your most accurate summary of how many

years and kind of what happened there they seem to ensue thereafter. >> i can't really do that. i focuses on thanksgiving, not on the later years. but i will say the following, which is that at the time of the first thanksgiving in 1621, relations between the english sublayers and the wampanoag confederation of indians were very good. there peaceful. they were friendly and as they -- i think this moment in time at least pointed the way to the diverse people we have become today. of course a few decades later as you indicated, it would all collapse with the local indians and english settlers. they began to fight each other.

the indians held the upper hand they were the ones who taught the pilgrims how to plant in the soil that was different from the soil they were used to finding. the fishing was good and many other things. >> i think not. only half the pilgrims survived the first winter. there were 102 or 103 on the mayflower and only 52 or so on the day of the first thanksgiving. >> we have those artifacts in plymouth. >> this is an amazing statistic. they're on the mayflower.

>> next question. this gentleman in the back name in question. we'll cut you off in the mouth of the statement. the anecdotes >> -- had a relaxed attitude bears one declaration of proclamations for thanksgiving i don't remember the exact words. they attend religious services in the morning and then party in the afternoon. >> that sounds like modern-day new york. more questions than the idea. you have a question right up front and we are going to ask our hearty fellow here to run up

to the front. >> tgg research on canadian thanksgiving and why did i develop? >> thanksgiving is a much more recent phenomenon and probably copied from the united states. it doesn't have a connection with history. it can't be traced back to an event the way it can be in the residences in the culture. i can't prove that, but at the time of the revolution, many of the loyalists in the boston area fled to halifax there is evidence to suggest that they took the custom of things giving with them and that there was some celebration of things giving their.

one of the very early thanksgiving, by the way, speaking of canada that predated the program arrival on our continent to place in the 1500 for martin frobisher how the thanksgiving aboard a ship and what would now be the canadian provinces. >> moderators privilege here. that's a fantastic aspect of the book. there actually parts of the country that claim to have the first thanksgiving. texas. of course texas. >> florida claims the couple. >> great state of florida. >> various home state. virginia. one of my favorites always about these early tanks giving has to do with virginia and berkeley plantation near richmond claims that they had a thanksgiving

before clement. in fact they did. when jfk issued his thanksgiving proclamation in 1962, he referenced massachusetts, his home state. well, a virginia state under a decade to send a telegram to the white house say no, no, no comer junior was decided the first thanksgiving. so it fell to the presidents assisted to reply to this man. he was there? but his dorian arthur's life and your junior who was working in the white house at the time. what did he do? he wrote back in that there is a bias in the white house. you're absolutely right. virginians celebrated a thanksgiving first and we will correct this next year. sure enough we did. in 1963, kennedy had a thanksgiving proclamation which referenced the thanksgiving

celebrated in virginia and massachusetts and know that their state is mentioned first. >> in texas they celebrated both? wonderful. more questions from the audience. >> tom rosenblatt. you notice that originally we understand, muscles, corn. when did the food that we are more familiar with now such a pumpkin and pecan pie and do their whole significance? >> the food that we traditionally eat, you know, now, really took hold in the 19th century. that's when a lot of traditions became embedded in our culture. turkeys were widely produced, so they became affordable to middle-class people.

you can read accounts of other pies for example in some of the literature of the day, including the coyote never heard a called marlborough pie, which was a kind of apple pie and it is very popular in new england in the night and century and into the 20th century as chicken pie, a thanksgiving. so we can see how they can develop that they publish recipes that were associated with thanksgiving and still are today. they are showing us what we aided with the tradition was. this gentleman here right in the middle. we are going rely on our microphone. >> my question kind of relate in

terms of the portions where we think a thanksgiving we think of this big feast. it sounds like from your context that thanksgiving was more getting family together. for the portions of large as they were today than they were back then? he might guess, actually the impression i have for reading and literature is thanksgiving for even more bountiful. we would have on our table today the accounts -- third to first person accounts at the first thanksgiving in both of them are very much focused on the bounty of the country for the continent and all the food that was available to them at that time. the indians brought a gift of five dear, which would've served the people for several days.

that's one of the things the pilgrims were giving thanks for was the abundance of food. but then as he read accounts of the jitters in the late 18th and early 20th century and the thanksgiving dinner was served into courses. beecher stowe spoke about how she didn't like the french style of courses for meals. what they'll do is put out there could be bennison, beef, pork or chicken pie and lots of side dishes and that was one course and everybody would help themselves. according to one account i read, i love the description of this. those who couldn't get around

would lean over and help themselves. the second course was dessert. there are marvelous account of letters, but also in fiction of all the many pies that were served. in the 1960s, they interviewed people around the country in a new england are said to her that it would get embarrassment to serve fewer than three pies for thanksgiving. and you could not serve an apple pie because that was much too ordinary. the tradition of bounty has been with us from the beginning. >> three pies. i was a better rage. was there ever been in hot in particular. >> i'm sure that exists, too. the founder of the american vegetarian society did not like

thanksgiving dinner. he thought it was not good for our health and so he opposed it. that was a man named olcott. doesn't mr. kellogg of the kalat family that founded kellogg cereal who he and his wife were great vegetarians and they promoted a vegetarian things in the mail. >> i don't concur. anyone else in the room for questions? lots of questions. excellent. this lady in the front from the explorers club. just behind you. >> i am wondering in various periods of time there tended to be specific areas of people in those areas proposing search native foods that were common in

that area and that they fared, at least for a time different cuisines evolved. caroline at their certain kind of wild herds. i various periods of time, local tradition. >> they are very much local traditions and also using a cuisine when i spoke with the teenagers had newcomers high school and asked what they were going to have a thanksgiving dinner. they all had turkey are they all wanted turkey. i don't know whether their parents are going to succeed in this dimension data is. they're a part of their meal. >> i'm getting hungry. i don't know about the rest of you. we are giving a lot of exercise there. are at home if you can't see

that that the microphone guys running everywhere. >> to change the subject a bit, the book is fascinating. the thanksgiving after president kennedy's assassination that i want to get reflection of the remember how different it was because when i've read about it in the past it's obviously very challenging time for the country and people came together and it was really painful moment. >> remember his assassination, but i don't remember the thanksgiving that year. i do remember after september september 11th and the meaning of help for a lot of us. that gives me an opening to say something i've been stressing when i speak about thanksgiving,

which as this year as you indicated in your opening remarks, this is thanksgiving could be a real healing moment for our country, for people to think about what unites us, not what divides us. one of the quotations i particularly like in the readings for thanksgiving day comes from benjamin franklin who called thanksgiving day a day of giving thanks for our -- the lake and the very liberties of civil and religious. i hope that americans will come together over thanksgiving dinner and that it will mark a time when we could move on. >> beautiful thought. we have time for one or two more questions. yes, no? right in the back.

name in question, please. we'll try to get in a couple more. >> tonya miller. it sounds like there's controversy on first thanksgiving was. was there an intention of creating a holiday that would continue into perpetuity to start eventually as a one-time day of coming together. >> the pilgrims would not have called the feast in 1621 of thanksgiving. and for them the first thanksgiving that they celebrated in the new world was two years later when there was a rainfall that saved their harvest. it wasn't until the colony of connecticut issued a thanksgiving proclamation in 1639. this is a very important step to the holiday we celebrate today

break up what reasons. one was promulgated by civil authorities rather than religious authorities. she was supposed to the annual entry as i mentioned earlier was for general blessings, not for specific blessing. this is a controversial theological subject. >> we have time for one more and then we were the ctp. this lady right here in the front. we will wait until the microphone comes because we want everyone watching on c-span, thank you. please go buy the book. >> first president to pardon a turkey? >> .tradition kind of goes back to lincoln. his son, todd had a turkey that was intended for their christmas dinner. the turkey famous jack.

and the boy asked his father if he was there the turkey and lincoln agreed. but the contemporary pardoning of the turkey probably started with george h.w. bush. as i've mentioned after the poultry king of rhode island died, lots of people started sending turkeys to the white house for thanksgiving including these national federations of turkey growers. when president george h.w. bush was in the white house, the turkey growers presented him with one of these turkeys. it was a great photo op. everyone loved it. outside the white house there

was a protest going on by animal rights supporters who did not like the idea of turkey on thanksgiving. so president bush have been very clever idea of pardoning the turkey. so that is where that transition as. >> please join me in giving a hand to train for her. >> and sarah stern, chairman of hudson and u2 are magnificent. thank you for your probing questions and thank you for a terrific book. i have to tell you i was out of town and got home. my flight was delayed. got home at 2:00 a.m. sunday night. a copy of the book had been delivered to me. i should've gone straight to sleep but i thought i would just take a look at it. hour later i was still awake reading it. it's not only fabulous, it's a

page turner. thanksgiving, yeah. i encourage everybody to buy it. there's copies outside. i want to mention that the ultimate chap or is called helping hand about basically using thanksgiving to make the world a better place than the examples you cite really have to do with helping those less fortunate who maybe need a turkey or need something on thanksgiving. i would like to give a little plug in and say that hudson helps the world in a little different way. we are not as helping an individual who needs a turkey and his pot, but we are helping to make policy that changes the world for the better. so i encourage you to go to hudson.org and find out what we

do and if you feel at being generous, that's a good way to make the world a better place, too. thank you very much for a fantastic book and happy thanksgiving. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> june at the national constitution center in philadelphia in dean ruger.

>> to branches are in advance of each other. checking the president, backing down from the president of the president pushing congress, being worried about taking it to fire. >> is possible to have a gun. this brought her idol which cancels out committee humanizes them to not make the already been accounted for her. i that there is a real problem. once you start saving you isn't

a history, then there's a suggestion of a grape that you could get her it would be worthy did not go to booktv.org for the complete weekend schedule.

good morning. i am alice cary. as a reviewer for about page, it took beth macy 25 years to enter the saga requiring painstaking research of multiple friends. two whispers turned to it. the result is deeply moving and endlessly compelling and such an intricate trail that is worthy of not one, but to subtitles.

two brothers, kidnapping and another's class and also a true story the jim crow south. "truevine" has been long listed for the andrew carnegie medals for excellence. at the reporters, that's one more than a dozen awards and earned an even fellowship at harvard university. her first book, factory man was odd the best of 2014 last and is currently in development to become an hbo miniseries executive produced by tom and jerry gottesman. please join me in welcoming beth macy to the second festival of books. [applause] >> well, "truevine" -- it is true. could you explain how you first heard about the story? >> i would love to. as a young journalist who arrived in roanoke in 1989 to