on where they happen to be born. .. the 17th national book festival. i must tell you we've had quite a day, and this is going to be another special session. i'm delighted to be here at the history and biography stage. i have to admit that i'm a pretty history geek.

and personally, this means so much to me. first, i want to sing, and i'm not a singer but i'm about to saying, for helene cooper as a reporter. she joined the "new york times" in 2004 as an assistant editorial page editor, and she has been a diplomatic correspondent for the times as well as a white house correspondent, she is now the pentagon reporter for the paper. and in 2015 she was part of the team that won the pulitzer prize for international reporting specifically for work in liberia during the ebola epidemic. and that same year she received the prestigious george polk award and the overseas press club award. and prior to joining the times she spent 12 years with the "wall street journal" where she was an assistant bureau chief of the washington bureau.

and i know that many of you are fans like i am of seeing her on sunday mornings giving insightful, thoughtful, words for us all to think about. long before her life working high-profile job in the countries top papers, she experienced firsthand what it needs to be swept up in the larger forces that make front-page news, her best-selling memoir, the house at sugar beach published -- [applause] >> published in 2008 poignantly describes a world of india. the book begins with her happy secure upbringing as part of quote, what passed for the landed gentry upper-class of africa's first independent country. the overthrow of the liberian government in the 1980s

brought chaos, violence and tragedy to her own family were forced to flee to america. and with unsparing pros she recounts this past and ultimate return to liberia more than to take it after a near-death experience in iraq. her newest book, "madame president: the extraordinary journey of ellen johnson sirleaf" extensive work to biography. certainly survived laborers political and social upheaval became the leader of its women's movement and was the first democratically elected female president in african history. and in 2011 -- you can give a hand for that. [applause] >> and in 2011 she received the nobel peace prize. we are all thankful that

ms. cooper has returned to her birthplace to write this book. and a book is impressive for both its detail and insight in providing something that we can all look to. ms. sirleaf is dessert and a person life and her presidency, is examined in this book. we are all thankful that ms. cooper is extending her writing career to biography and history, and we look so forward to having her talk and be with us today. now, at the close of her talk you have a chance to ask your questions. one of the microphones pc set up on the isles. and you should know that this is being live stream and you're on cam and you will be archived at the library of congress. [laughing] so make these questions good.

so please join in giving a warm welcome to ms. helene cooper. [applause] >> hello. thank you so much, carla, for the great introduction. this morning i woke up to the sound of rain. i thought nobody is going to come, so i'm really happy to see all of you managed to make it today. you clearly like myself, book lovers. for me this book began 12 years ago while i was on a reporting trip in eastern congo. i didn't know it at the time. we never realized in the moment when significant things are happening, at least i don't. i've been on assignment for the

"new york times" in eastern congo as part of a series of stories that is writing about development in africa. i went to ghana, to ethiopia, to kenya. and remember that with each place i kept thinking that despite the poverty and challenges, none of them seemed as bad off as my own home country of liberia, which are just come out of two decades of civil war. until that is i got to the congo. finally now i'm home, i thought, as i crawled out of the small single-engine plane. after the semidesert of ethiopia and the savannas of kenya, this was otherworldly, just like my home country of liberia. leafy green mountains, luxury banana trees, the same beautiful landscape we had in liberia. and the same sense of abandonment that comes from

having a population ravaged by years of pointless wars. hundreds of boys troll the streets with nowhere to go, downtown buildings were marked with wholesome rockets and grenades. the only cars with a white u.n. suvs. what struck me most though where the women. as i drove into the city, women i had known all my life, there were old women with huge bundles of bamboo sticks on their backs. there were market women in their colorful dresses huddled at the side of the road selling oranges, eggs, nuts. there were young girls sitting in front of hearts bathing the little brothers and sisters in rubber buckets. no electricity was anywhere around, but 110-year-old girl had dragged a drag a bucket of dirty creek water up the hill to her house so she can wash her four-year-old sister.

these with the women that i'd grown up in liberia, the women all across africa, the worst place there is to be a woman. who some a managed to carry that entire continent on their back. i remember one woman in particular stood out to me. it was twilight when i pastor and she was trudging up a hill with all these locks on her shoulders. her husband was walking just in front of her. he carried nothing. nothing on his back, nothing in his hands, nothing. he kept turning around and telling her to hurry up. that image has stayed with me for 12 years. a few months after my trip, i was back in the united states when the women of liberia, my home country, staged an incredible power play. define centuries of history in the most patriarchal of places, they flooded to the polls and

stage a democratic coup. they upended years of male role and voted for ellen johnson sirleaf to be president of liberia, the first woman to be democratically elected president in africa. i knew instantly that it wanted to write about this. this book looks at the what happened. it's a book about ellen johnson sirleaf and what it took to upend all those years of male role in liberia. but it's also a book about what drove the women who put her in power. and it is book that looks at how they did it, how these women got so fed up with being exploited and raped and assaulted that they decided the only way forward was to turn the tables on the men anyway that they could. in 1985 a young ellen johnson sirleaf was thrown into jail by then president of liberia.

she was put in a cell next to men who are condemned to die. she listened in that cell as a man next door to her were executed by firing squads. afterwards she sat in the corner, her eyes shut, her lips moving silently as she prayed wondering if the soldiers would rape or before they killed her. hours passed. outside the soldiers drank and became even rowdier. then just past midnight one soldier walked up to her cell and stared at her. several minutes passed in silence. then he said, i'm going to -- you. he opened the cell door and she rose to feet, her heart pounding.

bubudgets as a sort of entering herself, a voice behind him said, as you were. the soldier dropped his hands. retreat, said the voice of the soldier closed the cell door, locked it and moved away. her savior step forward into the light. he was slightly older than the others, in his mid-20s, with beautiful dark skin and a serious face. looking at him, ellen wanted to cry. they say -- he asked her? [inaudible] she replied. say something. [speaking in native tongue] a rescuer stare at her for what felt like forever. finally he said, okay, i will spare you tonight. nobody will harm you. so on that night ellen johnson sirleaf was not raped. but someone else was. a young girl who also had been captured and brought their come

was gang raped by soldiers in the early hours of the morning. as alan huddled in herself. whether she would be raped, she would never know. after brutalizing the girl, the soldiers brought her naked and crying hysterically into herself and pushed her in. she was to be around 19 or 20. he was bleeding and her eyes were wild with fear. jumping up, ellen put her arms around her and lowered her onto the floor. in the corner, that you rocked back and forth clutching each other. slowly the girl cried software her naked body started to tremble. leaving her new cellmate for a moment, ellen went up to the bars. there were a few soldiers building around alongside the one who had rescued her. [speaking in native tongue] her voice shaking. the soldiers looked at her. she tried again. [speaking in native tongue]

still nothing here. [speaking in native tongue] finally one of the men left and brought back a piece of cloth and helene helped the girl cover herself. for the rest of the night the two huddled side-by-side. they did not sleep, just sat and rocked back and forth as the minutes ticked away until dawn when the soldiers came for ellen. as she walked to the jeep, ellen looked at her young cellmate. the two women had spent less than 12 hours together. one was now going to face the man she was certain would be her executioner, the other was staying with them in who are certain to rape her again. the jeep pulled away and elven turn in the seat to stare back at the young girl. she would never see her again. by the many that young girl would change the course of history in west africa. the girl would become another stick, a fuel in the fire of the

women's movement in liberia. little girl still come out of the womb vowing to become activists for female power. it has been a childhood thinking about how they will repair -- it's a series of things that multiply and turn ordinary women into movements of female determination. you are living your life sweeping floors in madison, wisconsin, when your husband storms and feel you in front of your white boss lady. you are stunned by the violent shock of the hand slapping your face delivered by the man who promised to love, honor and cherish you till death do you part. you feel the warm wet skin of a brutalized naked hysterical young woman as she crouches in the corner bleeding after being savaged by the men who swore an oath to protect liberia and her people. i wanted to be a schoolteacher-mother, allen said, looking back 30 years later.

describing that night at the barracks to become she would use the mental sleight-of-hand that is, among survivors of unimaginable horror pic she would relay the events of that night with no emotion whatsoever. the joy right on the beach which the soldier told it would be her execution site. the useless pleas and the condemned men that she found a way to help them be spared. the overwhelming terror of men i know they are about to die. the overwhelming terror of knowing you're about to be raped. the cat clutching anger of holding a young woman after she is been raped by soldier after soldier after soldier after soldier. that's what he wanted to do when i was young, ellen said, to teach. the young ellen, may you start off wanting to teach but this is not a woman who was destined for the granular. hers would be a different destiny, one launched int in the jeep by the young girl who

within her cellmate. president doe didn't realize it but in blocking ellen johnson sirleaf up in jail he created both an international cause célèbre and ignited the women's movement in liberia. all across liberia young women were riveted to the start of this jail female political dissident who stand up to the men running the country. eventually, after a year and under pressure from women's groups and the international community, she was released. he had created a monster. the stage was now set for the revolution that would overturn gender politics in west africa. but the men still had one more act to play, and it was a doozy. i can stand appear for hours going on about what charles taylor did to liberia but that needs to be the subject of his own book. the tribal wars he started, the

child soldiers, the hundreds of thousands of people killed, the wars he launched in sierra leone and in the ivory coast. he kidnapped children from their terrified mothers. his forces went on a raping and killing spree that spared almost no one. once again as they have so many times before it was the liberian women that carried the countries through. while the men were waging war, the women in liberia all became market women, traveling by foot to the border to get food to bring back to the starting population. they had the babies of the rapists in the forests, strap those babies on their backs and went back into the market stall or set on the side of the road selling oranges. and they bided their time. when the war finally ended they made their power-play. in 2005, 12 years before the nation became a secret facebook

group and i am with her button and bumper stickers stroud i couldn't spot on lapels suvs in america, the women of liberia held a metaclass and how to get a female elected president. [applause] they had a perfect vehicle for their guerrilla campaign, ellen johnson sirleaf, a woman who was extremely qualified, by far our qualified the men who were running but who also had no qualms whatsoever about playing dirty politics, and fighting any dirt the men would fling with smellier dirt. the election came down to a choice between the 67-year-old harvard educated global bureaucrat, and the professional football player. george was a world-renowned football player, a star in europe where he was a striker for the italian team. in 1995 he won the belonged work

turkey was named player of the year and african player of the century to goals in particular stood up. one was against -- in 1994 when he and there's not one or two that three defenders with his quick pivots before letting rip a gorgeous salad into the near post. the other goal known around the world as the goal was in 1996 when weah destroyed the verona midfield as he single-handedly prolonged his way down the pitch twisting, turning, bucking and reading all the way to the verona goal in the legendary performers that liberians who watched it using the makeshift tiger batters because there was no electricity still talked about a decade later. that weah had no college education didn't bother his supporters who countered that the verona goal showed his own education. at the other end of the spectrum was ellen johnson sirleaf,

finance minister under former president tolbert, dissident under former president doe, united nations world bank, imf pedigree, ally turned fool of him. she morphed from an abused wife, towering and hunched in in the front seat of her husbands car while he beat her come to an international bureaucrat and iconic political dissident who was attempting to do something no woman had ever done before, when by popular vote the right to leave and african country. the men all fell in line behind george weah a complete the women supporting ellen were sexist. [laughing] it was a remarkable display. given the choice between a football player with no credible college education, but to fantastic goals-against byron and verona, and a harvard educated develop an expert, the top male presidential candidate who fell short in the runoff

with one exception, endorse the football player. weah meanwhile wholly his message for why he and not the old lady should run liberia settled on it educated people had failed theme. [speaking in native tongue] became the weah runoff slogan. that theme was endorsed by the failed male presidential candidates who endorsed him. liberia had one of the lowest literacy rates in the world. the literate population would get by with the present who dropped out of school, right? wrong. what the need to endorse that strategy failed to realize is how much the very idea was angering the market women. those women may not even educated themselves, but they worked day and night in the field in the market stalls to send their children to school. the men were telling them that education was important? just as the men fell in behind weah, the women fell in behind ellen pickett didn't happen all

at once. female political candidates had appeared all over the ballot in elections running for senate and the house on the same ticket as weah and of the male candidates. once the time came for campaigning for the runoff, those allegiances peeled away as even the women who are staunch members the parties that opposed allen's party, abandoned their men and took up the new mantra, vote for women. door to door the market women passed out t-shirts and handed out flyers pick us up on the side of the road at night curled up on the mats. they walked from village to village exhorting women to vote for woman. weah supporters responded by predicting that if you lost come the country go back to war. no weah, no peace they chanted. thus the run astarte resembling past elections like the one in 1985 and which don't support a suggested the same thing. vote for transfer of the country

goes back to war. in liberia this tactic was how men managed to get their way. they simply threaten the people. except that in november 2005, they appeared to have met their match. because of women had their own trick, trick that would make weah's tactics look like boys play. give me your photo id card, i will buy you beer. [inaudible] who is looking for money? bring your voter id card. the group of women stationed himself at a bar near the major intersection along the roads to roberts field. but when -- during the young man and a time honored fashion,

except this time it wasn't sex on the table. this time the women were the ones with the cash and the young men with the ones with the commodity for sale. some of those boys were stupid, one market woman recalled with a smirk. she was happy to go into detail about what she called the women's crafty techniques. one silver tooth glisten in the sunshine as she laughed. many of the young men thought they were done with voting after the first round and didn't understand that they would need the id cards again if the man was to assume the presidency. others didn't care. late in evening of a muggy, hot day, the lure of a crispy cold and multi-club beer are shown whatever benefits they thought the voter id cards could bring them. as to the winter too smart to sell their voter cards, well, their mothers simply stole them. [laughing]

[speaking in native tongue] looking sheepish and defined at the same day. one market women who agreed to be referred to as -- says she snuck into her sons room while he was sleeping, slipped his voter id card out of his wallet and buried in the yard. [laughing] years later there was no shame among the women who still there sound id card. yes, so what? i carried him for nine months. i took care of them. i thank him when he was hungry. after burying her sons voter id card the women supporting ellen then dug up an old video of a

naked george weah. somehow a 14-year-old commercial for cologne that we were made in italy just happen to serve in the liberia media. in the commercial, weah at the time an the world-famous striker with the football team walked into a restaurant to greet his white dinner date after dousing himself in cologne. he is fully clothed at the beginning, but when the women season from across the room, she is so overcome that she imagines him naked. the commercial then cuts to a naked weah strolling across the restaurant while other white women in the restaurant drool and fanned themselves. finally, weah arrives at the table, leans over in torches date and smiles. when he sits down he is clothed again and he says,. [inaudible] to get an idea of how this

commercial played in liberia, you have to understand this countries bible spouting puritanism and it's a deep racial scars. many of the freed american slaves who founded liberia out more than mixed race children of white slave owners who proceeded to set up the same can society from which they had fled, except this time the lighter skinned colonist with the upper class over the native liberians. the matters of race still struck deep into the heart of the average liberian. that's why for many liberians it was bad enough that weah was strutting around naked on italian tv, but in front of white women? that was too much. weah walked but naked, scream the headline in the new democratic newspaper, which provided this on larry's synopsis of the commercial for those without access to youtube. they video scene portrays white women in the test sexual and

ecstasy glancing at the black man with his athletic build and muscular features exposing his genitals, flipping, walking before them. weah's political supporters tried to brazen their way out. mr. weah committed no crime by posing but naked one party official told reporters. only constitutional deviance should not be elected. but the body politics quickly dusted off their holier than thou cloaks, adopting the convoluted sentence structure which liberian men were particularly adapt. joshua duncan freedom, principal of the king pentecostal high school, told reporters, if the congress for democratic change through its -- can justify george weah's butt naked video on the international information superhighway while some constitutional rights, then liberians must be prepared, god for bid, and ac/dc will to give audience of the legality and

normal list of murder and even cannibalism. [laughing] the truth is this cloak of religious indignation simply cover up what liberians of both sexes were really mad about, that weah was flashing his oil well chiseled body buttocks include in front of white women. liberian women sought as the rejection of black women. liberian men were jealous. either way this was a loser issue or weah as ellen supporters knew it would be. [laughing] on tuesday, november 8, the people of liberia woke up and went to the polls for the second time in four weeks. there was a real and palpable sense in the air that something big was happening. helpful poll workers at a station in -- were like pregnant women and nursing mothers to cut to the front of the line. so bernice, luis, and handful of other women were passing around babies and toddlers. [laughing]

you want to borrow the baby? sneaking a look over his shoulder. put the baby on your back. another woman she advise, act pregnant because they think you're pregnant you can vote in the front. it was unclear whether the poll workers noticed how many different women were carrying the same baby. [laughing] that night a bunch of women were listening to the election views when an informant came in with an update. the official results were not in yet. samples were still open. the final tally would not be known for weeks, but already it was a whisper in the air from the spice post at different polling places. people were not supposed to disclose voting trends at the polling booths for fear of swing those who had not cast their vote. yet, but all across the country the army of women were finding ways to skirt the regulation. the workaround came around

referring to an old nursery school chant used to teach children out of it. every liberian kid knows this chant. on one of night that she took on a new meaning, hanging outside a polling booth she nervously asked an informant, but was going. he eyed the voting officials ann attendance and then grinned slyly -- he sang, then he added, you keep up, unity party up. they started dancing and singing. when the election officials click enter she said you can't stop me from singing, she said. she went to bed that night singing. the old lady was in the lead. wednesday morning ellen woke up and walked into her living room to find already full of campaign aides excited about the preliminary returns.

she wasn't just in the league. choose in the lead by a lot. 60%-40%. it was a late that she never relinquished during the days of counting that followed. the old lady would be madame president. as .5 years of carnage that was liberians dissent into hell, have emerged a new leader, and the person was a 67-year-old grandma. on november 23 after the official results were announced, ellen was heading back to how some campaign headquarters dr. juggling congratulated vocals all of the world. in the backseat of her suv her american friend steve turned to her grinning the white house just called. president bush wants to talk to you. he recited a very secure phone number to call that phone number. a minute later ellen was on the phone with the american president accepting his congratulations. then the phone went dead. liberia in 2005 had no land

lines, thanks to the war so everyone use cell phones to get paid for that service from lone star cell company by purchasing scratch cards from boys on the side of the road. the president elected liberia had just run out of credit on her scratch card. [laughing] turning to cash, this is a very presidential at all, is it? when word spread about our victory, the markets of monrovia emptied as the women who mind the stalls at balaton ran jubilant into the streets. go to school, go to school some of the young. don't play football. [laughing] isil think about that woman i saw in the congo all those years ago. the one walking weather has been carrying all those logs on her back. in so many ways i guess this book is for her. thanthank you, and i'm happy to answer any questions. [applause]

>> thank you for your presentation is expecting a lot. i wasn't expecting newry, so that was great. [laughing] >> you need to really google the georgia kremlin naked video. you got to do it. i spent hundreds of times research hours watching it. [laughing] >> research, i like research a lot that way. my question is actually, there's a big part of the story has to do with her education. i had the opportunity to meet her about tinges go just after she was elected very briefly, and she talked a lot about what you wanted to do a lot about education for her country. surprisingly though ten years later it hasn't been as fast

expected unless you schmidt conscience his decision to bring in a public for profit education company, bridge academies. just as a collective gasp of education advocates and sort of public education advocates, and i'm wondering because i understand she is a lot of priorities and the one she would be committed to that. do you have any insight as to why maybe in a broader spectrum what she's up against in terms of bringing education to all the kids of liberia? >> education is a huge deal, and for the entirety of her presidency test scores and liberia stayed in the toilet. a big part of that is because of the civil war. you have to remember that for almost two decades everything stopped. nobody went to school. so you don't have, you don't even have teachers in liberia today or able, it's not just a matter of building schools. you have to have people who know how to read and write in or to teach students. it's such a big challenge, a huge uphill battle.

i think her decision to bring in bridge is definitely controversial but it's not as if the education system and liberia could get any worse than it already has been. it's been pretty bad. i'm very curious to see how bridge does the i'm sort of a skeptic myself, but at this point people are throwing a lot of different ideas out there in an effort to get -- one think it is a look at hopeful though is, what other go back to liberia, i do go into schools and to talk to students. one thing i've noticed is that the young girls in the school system and liberia now all think they can be president, which is actually, it's been a cool thing to see. >> i just want to say first, i'm enjoying your commentary, so thank you so much for that.

>> thank you. [applause] >> my question has to do with an ancestor, my great-grandfather had visited monrovia in about 1920, 21. 21. and what i'd like to know is, someone did an interview with him but we don't have the masthead to tell us where the source was. since the civil war, are there any records or archival information available? i don't know what the structure sounds like it's kind of tour up, so do you know if there's any newspapers or any other sources? >> yes, and no. there's a history museum in monrovia but this got, it was destroyed. it was not completely destroyed but it was crippled during the civil war and a lot of stuff, a lot of artifacts were destroyed.

so is something that still there. there is an national archives in liberia, so you can look there. liberia has a very, very healthy newspaper publication, and there's a healthy press there. i don't know if they will have archives that will go back to 1920. so it's sort of, you might have to go and kind of, i mean, it would help if you knew who did the interview. did it appear in a newspaper? >> i believe it appeared in a newspaper, because of the way it was written. >> but they were not doing microfiche and i kind of set and liberia back then. >> oki. well, maybe i will visit the country. thank you. >> thank you for your book. i have worked with president saleh for a while and i'm continue on a project with her and her book, which it didn't

think anything could get better than her autobiography, but the way that you're able to extract that, merger with your own interviews and put your objective lens on it. it really is, it is a tour de force fo of people want to readn women in politics. my question to you is, now that president sirleaf's presidency is coming to an end and he has a liberian education trials with the success she has had in education in that arena, you've got the rebuilding of the hospitals, some of the roads are back. you certainly have, she's indicted and bringing to trial some of the major leaders in the government for corruption. and, of course, ebola. what do you think are most long-lasting legacy is?

>> i think it's got to be the women. there is no way no matter, and she's had, she said sort of this, she has a lot of flaws,, after 12 years have disappointed a lot of people who expected more, while at the same time she is still been the best that we've had ever. but i think that when you look at the legacy that she leaves behind, i can't say enough how big a deal that gender barrier that she busted through is. the idea that all over liberia you have, whoever you're scared this country on the backs economically, realizing they can turn that into political power. you don't have a viable female candidate running to replace her, but that doesn't matter because i think in the future the women now have come understand, these market women

now understand just how powerful they can be when did want to. >> incinky very much. >> thank you. >> i was an education volunteer in liberia. i think about the time when your first book came out, and before in preparation for my trip i tried to find and read as much as possible about liberia, and most of the books were out-of-print at that time. i ended up going to liberia, loving my experience, and lived there for three years, and now i'm actually getting a phd and my topic is around liberia. my question to you is, i want to know if you could talk about where you see what your intent is in terms of historiography on

liberia and a lot of material that is out there, is inaccurate or just there's lots of gaps in that as well. so i'm wondering if you could speak to history on liberia and literature that may be coming out and what you see there. >> you're right, there's not a lot out there. i realize that one is working on my first book, but there's more than people think. and there's a growing cadre of liberian writers who were also putting some of them are here now, who are putting their own stories to paper pics i think you are going to see more coming out. but you're absolutely right. there is a lot of things were destroyed during the war. this is a culture, liberia is a culture that has much more of an oral tradition that a written one, and the writing is starting, is picking up now.

but no, we don't have a lot of -- that our history books on liberia but your again right that not all of them are accurate. >> i wanted to thank you for "madame president." i just finished reading it. i've ever turn peace corps volunteer and i taught history and english at the central high school. this was in the 60s and there's only one woman in my classes. there were not all that meant either because the high school was fairly new, and so the students were like in their 30s who are graduating from high school. but there was only that one woman and always felt for her. but i wonder, it's my understanding there's another election around the corner and liberia, and there are a bunch of candidates. i believe weah is running again. >> yes. >> that's what i would ask you.

what is your perspective on that election? >> it's going to be a great election to cover. as reported i am like a drooling because you all these characters running, not just weah but charles taylor's wife is running. his form allies are running. we've got george weah's baby mama was running but she just pulled out. [laughing] it's like such a great, i mean liberia is like to add a port is like shooting fish in a builder you just go and the stores just pile up. i think they interesting. you have pepsi-cola air, former board of directors executive, alex comics and the vice president, sorted you do sort of the establishment candidates, but liberia, liberians can be very perverse and i don't at this point no who they're going to end up going with. i don't think anybody can call it right now. it's completely free for all.

i can't wait to go home to cover it. [inaudible] >> no. in 2005 they had that pic at this point in their election cycle they have not coalesced behind ellen either. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> first i want to thank you for writing this book. it's very impressive like history is coming to the limelight. my question is, 3 38 days are nw we're going to have an election, specifically october 10. october 8. it's most likely that this naked soccer point would be the next president. what are your thoughts about what is is going to mean for the future of liberia? the economy is a mess. healthcare is a mess. education is a mess. and citizens are hungry for much more.

because they are disappointed. a lot of things have improved as far security, of the parts of the economy, but going forward what do you think that will mean as far as one of these people -- [inaudible] or someone else becoming president pic and also what you think ellen is going to do going forward for the remaining part of liberians fabric, political fabric as well as societal fabric? >> thank you. first of all, i would assume, i don't think it is a foregone conclusion that george weah is going to win great prizes earlier i think it's a free-for-all. i think anybody at this point could win. and i think that maybe people go into -- i do think that one of the reasons i find, one of the

places where i find optimism is that in the 12 years that ellen johnson sirleaf has been president she's really opened up freedom of speech and freedom of the press in liberia to levels that we have never had before. so the liberian people are far less tolerant of the sort of things that they accepted decades ago. that's when the reasons why with ebola, liberia was hit harder than either sierra leone or guinea, but liberia came out of it much faster than either of those other two countries. and i think that is in large part because liberian people were not going to tolerate the kind of ineptitude that caused this to linger and linger. so i think the sort of free-for-all atmosphere that we have in liberia and the freedom of speech, the freedom to criticize something that liberians are not going to be willing to let go of. i think that something that causes me to get a bit more optimistic about our future.

i am being shown a wrap it up sign, so i think this is all the time that we have today. i really appreciate all of you come in on this rainy saturday. thank you very much. [applause] >> booktv is on twitter and facebook, and we want to hear from you. tweet us, twitter.com/booktv, or post a comment on our facebook page, facebook.com/booktv. >> and now booktv want to introduce you to author, professor and winter of a hayek prize in 2017, deidre mccloskey. personal who was friedrich hayek? >> it was an honor and powerful. it was $50,000 in which as a poor retired professor i'm delighted to have.