rates in the city, and yet the families don't -- they want their kids to achieve in school, but they don't -- unlike the chinese, they have not figured out how to do it. and there's an assumption, which turns out to be false, that the schools are doing -- will do the job and they can put their kids in school and turn their backs. the schools today dish don't need to tell anybody sitting here -- are not going to do that for an awful lot of kids, and the difference between now and earlier generations of immigrants is not just that the schools are worse, although i suspect they are, but that education has become much more important to getting into the middle class. so you have low-skilled immigrants which we have always had, but instead of being able to move up the ladder through

the industrial sector, they are going to have to go through the knowledge economy, which means they've got to be successful in school. and that's not happening in an awful lot of enclaves. >> please join me in thanking kay. [applause] >> thank you. >> this booktv on c-span2. television for serious red readers.

this has a place just pretty soon after the assassination of kennedy, and bob told us about the things that need to be done, left hanging, decisions about railroad, featherbedding, about wage price guidelines, political deadlines like the state of the

union address and the budget for the next year, never find the election of the next year and whether or not johnson would receive the democratic party nomination. time was running short. and then this is -- bob goes on to say -- this is passage that i think is really sort of representative and wonderful of something, but. tangled with and complicating the time factor and every a factor associated with the transition looming over every aspect of johnson's ascension to the presidency, was, one, that made that ascension uniquely difficult. a complication that wasn't out of the new age but seemed, rather, as if it were out of an age long past, complication that required -- of shakespeare. the president, the king was dead, murdered, but the king had a brother, a brother who hated

the new king. the dead king's men, the kennedy men, the camelot men, made up inspires -- shakespearean factionon' due do the faction and the brother these were not the crucial days because of the king's faction and the king's brother decided to contest lyndon johnson's light to the nomination this, crucial date would be the primary on march 10th, less than four months off. unprecedented shock and grief and anxiety, unprecedented danger to american, human rights, unpress debbed tomorrow pressure on problems with staff and cabinet made uniquely difficult by the brother factor. even truman's transition problem was easier than johnson's

situation which was extreme. the whole use of shakespeare. takes a shakespeare, not a james reston, and then the kind of following through with the whole king and the brother's king, and do you in a sense make it like a shakespearean drama. which i think sets -- is not like, well, then he did this and then did that and so forth. you step back from the narrative, from the story, and almost tells another story. or tells a way to understand the story. >> guest: yes. well, that's -- yeah. you picked out a -- you said it. i said it for myself. those who read the book know that lyndon johnson and bobby kennedy hated each other. when jack kennedy offered him the vice-presidency, the next day bobby kennedy came down the stairs in the hotel in

los angeles three times to try to get lyndon johnson to drop off the ticket. it was the worst --on-on sonwide to say that what's worst day of my life and i'll hate him forever, and bobby kennedy hated lyndon johnson. i'm researching this and saying this is henry iv, these -- when someone comes to write the history of the united states in 500 years like when we're writing concern reading shakespeare, this is shakespeare. it's the president has been murdered and the president has a brother and the brother hates the new king. what is going to happen? of course, then you can put a lot of things like, two divers the assassination, as those who have read the book know, those who haven't read it the test is tuesday -- two days after the assassination, arthur schlesinger convenes a dinner with kennedy men.

the idea is to deny lyndon johnson the nomination in 1964 and make bobby kennedy the nominee. and for the rest of johnson's presidency, bobby kennedy is this looming figure of two men who truly hate each other. that's -- you hate to use the word like "hate" because it's so strong but that word is correct. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. >> alec ross, why do you open your new book, "trophies the future" with a story about vomit? >> guest: the first sentence of the book is. it it's 3:00 the morning and i'm mopping up whiskey smelling puke after a concert in west virginia. not a typical beginning of a book about the future. start the book that way because i want to be clear that the perspective i give is from somebody who grew up in west