history too. . . >> full schedule available at booktv.org. this is live coverage. [inaudible conversations] >> welcome everybody.

i am david moscowitz, i am head of government relations and public policy at wells fargo and i'm pleased to be here with you today. we are pleased to serve for the eighth year as a charter sponsor of the book festival and prouder to watch it grow to the incredibly popular, impactful event it has become. i wouldn't be surprised [applause] >> wouldn't be surprised to see us move on to some bestseller lists today. it's even more important to keep the book festival a free event for the community. the real purpose is literacy which leads to learning an opportunity which matches our goal of helping our community succeed. learning to love books and learning are what the book festival are all about. in this session, - - will discuss his biography of ulysses grant. if we are lucky, certain other popular founding fathers. [laughter] >> one thing i learned from the

story of president grant was how people can evolve and through persistence and hard work and knowledge and overcome their imperfections. it's an incredible story that reminded me a person of goodwill can learn from their mistakes and reach their potential. i hope you enjoy this session. it's my privilege to introduce the deputy director of national outreach at the library of congress in our session moderator,colleen - - . [applause] >> thank you. welcome to the 18th annual national book festival. i am pleased to be joined on page 5 launcher now. is anstage by ron - -. in 2015, won the national humanities medal. his book on alexander hamilton

was the inspiration for the award-winning musical for which ron worked as a historical consultant.the library of congress is honor to have you join us today at the national book festival. [applause] >> it's worth noting that our cochair of the festival, david rubenstein was supposed to conduct this interview today. due to scheduling changes, become of senator mccain's funeral, he was unable to do so. but i have david's questions here today and i just happened to be a big admirer of ulysses s grant and ron's books so i think we will have a fantastic time at the book festival. before we talk about grant, we need to ask a question about alexander hamilton. how could we not? lin manuel miranda first

approached you and said he wanted to create a hip-hop musical based on your book, what was your reaction and did you think it would become a cultural phenomenon? >> people say when you are writing the alexander hamilton biography, did you have any idea it would be turned into a hip-hop musical. i always think the question answers itself. when i first met lin manuel miranda in the fall of 2008, he was co-storing incostarring in musical, the height. it asked me to be this historical advisor to this yet nonexistent show. i said you mean you want me to tell you when something is wrong. he said yes, i want historians to take this seriously which was music to my ears. i was a little skeptical but i was quite intrigued. i thought nothing could be more delightful than to watch the evolution of a broadway musical. i was a lifelong theater goer and the offer to be on the

other side of the lights was absolutely irresistible.it turned out to be a rocket ride far beyond anything i could have anticipated. >> so moving on to grant, you penned a definitive biography of grant. i have to start with a cute question but has a good story. who's buried in grant's tomb? [laughter] >> when i first started working on the book in 2011, i found that approximately half of people when i told i was working on grant shot back, who's buried in grant's tomb? so naturally i got interested in the arts. i traced it back to groucho marx. and some of you are old enough to remember had a - - he was dismayed that someone could not answer a single one of the questions. so he decided he would ask the

contestant the question that every contestant could answer. that question was who's buried in grant's tomb. to his astonishment, half of the guests got it wrong. such is the staying power of a great comedian that the line has become a part of popular culture. >> let's start at the beginning with grant. where was born, what were the conditions of his upbringing and what was his family like? >> he grew up in a series of small towns and southwestern ohio, near cincinnati. point placid was right on the ohio river. the significance of that was it separated the free state of ohio from the slaveowning state of kentucky. on winter evenings, the ohio would freeze over an refugee fugitive slaves would spring to freedom. important terms of thinking of grant later.he cryptically straddling the world of both north and south and understood

both of their cultures. he came from a fairly well-to-do family. his father was mayor of one of those three towns. his father was really the vein of his life. he was very pushy and domineering character. and then grant went to west point. he didn't want to but his father wanted him to go. his father saw west point as a free form of vocational education. >> how did he do at west point? >> fairly well. i would say his performance was lackluster. he was 21st in the class of 39. there was already considerable attrition before that. he became famous for two things at the academy. one was he was probably the best sportsmen of his generation, if not century at the academy. he established a high jumping record. they set the bar and more than five feet and grant managed to clear.

he was also very good at drawing. this may seem strange and insignificant but, it was important for generals to be able to draw maps during battles. grant was very good at lying. during the civil war, he had an uncanny ability to visualize the battlefield. and it comes from this visual sense he had that was first reflected in his capacity to draw.>> after west point, he eventually ends up as a quartermaster in the mexican war. why is his service as a quartermaster, why does that turn out to be important? >> extremely important because being quartermaster in mexico gave grant a nuts and bolts knowledge of the logistics of an army. looking ahead to the civil war, grant would be in charge of 4-5 different armies stressed the costs 1300 mile front. his mastery of logistics and the railroad and the telegraph

enabled him to supervise these vast armies. it goes back to being quartermaster in mexico and her like? >> grant comes from this abolitionist family. he marries into a slaveowning family. the kernel becomes the vein of his life and was very hard on grant. julia was very outgoing and vivacious. julia always had a vision of grant future that he sometimes did not have himself. during the 1850s, he's trying and failing to establish

himself as a farmer in st. louis. he's failed at a real estate venture. julia has a dream. she dreams that her husband was going to be president of the united states. when she tells her friends and family about this dream, everyone laughs. nothing seemed more preposterous. this man is struggling to support a wife and four children. julia knew. >> you spent a fair amount in the book talking about grants struggle with alcohol. what did you conclude? did he have a problem with drinking and what evidence did you use to draw those conclusions? >> the debate has always been was he a drunkard or not? i was on the term drunkard was a loaded moralistic term because it implies a person who is dissipated and irresponsible and is gleefully indulging this

vice. he was an alcoholic. i say that because he could never have just one drink. i say that because even one glass of alcohol changed his personality but this is something he struggled against his entire life.he was a member of the temperance - - when he was in his 20s. the reason i think they were so much difficult with previous writers and his drinking. he could go days without having a drink but he would go on these vendors. it's a problem he struggles with. by the time he becomes president, he's largely conquered it but it's certainly a problem that bedeviled him throughout the civil war. >> that causes him to leave the

military. it precipitates in exit from the military. >> he was assigned to only, bleak garrisons in oregon and in california where he could not afford to bring his wife and children. he was lonely, he was depressed. he starts drinking. in 1854, he shows up at her - - table drunk and is drummed out of the service. so there was an active rumor mill. all of these stories of his drinking will follow him into the civil war and will very much color how people see him. i think were it not for that history, all of these stories about grants drinking. abraham lincoln may have - - sooner in the war to act as general. >> you have a poignant description of him. he ends up on the streets of st. louis selling fireworks to support his family. how does that happen?

>> try making it as a farmer. julia's wedding gift was to receive 60 acres which grant worked. he was very industrious but he couldn't make a go of it. he and the takingfirewood , 10 miles into st. louis and he walks beside the wagons. people who saw him in those days selling firewood said, he was bearded. disheveled. unkept looking. one of his old army buddies ran into him on the street and was really shocked by his unkept appearance. he said to him grant, what are you doing? his response was, i'm solving the problem of poverty. one christmas he had to pawn his wants to buy christmas presents for his family. this was circa 1857. the civil war breaks out in 1861. >> then something happens, fort

sumter. you're right he eventually joined the infantry in illinois and gets a position in the union army. you write a change overcomes grant. what was that change? >> when the civil war broke out, there was a desperate shortage of officers. about one third of the army officers were from the south so many of them, most of them defected to the confederacy. there was a crying need for trained people. grant still had that war from west point stored in his mind. he had fought with great distinction in the mexican war. had been assigned to four garrisons before the civil war. and so, his efficiency and his military knowledge needed to come to the four point his rise gives new meaning to the term, meteoric. two months after the onset of the civil war, he's kernel. four months he's the bridget air general.

then he's a major general. and by the end of the civil war, this man who had been working as a clerk in his father's store in illinois in 1860. the man who seemed like a viable failure in life is general in chief of the union army with 1 million soldiers under his command. far and away, the largest military establishment in the country up until that time. >> he had some early victories that catches the eye of lincoln. >> absolutely. very often, the history of the civil war there's a disproportionate focus on virginia. it seems like the confederacy is winning battle after battle. grant was winning one victory after another. in early 1862, he has twin battles against twin ports. in the northwest corner of tennessee. for henry and donelson. they were significant for the following reason, fort henry was on the tennessee river and

fort donelson on the cumberland river. those two rivers penetrated deep into the confederacy. particularly grants victory at fort donelson. was one of three times he captured an entire confederate army. it also led to a new nickname for grant because the confederate general inside the fort was simon buckner who wants to send a message to grant. he wanted commissioners appointed to negotiate a truce and grant wrote back, no terms except unconditional and immediate surrender will be accepted. i propose to move upon your - - immediately. he became unconditional surrender grant. it was the first large-scale victory of the war for the north. >> in late 1862, he issues order number 11 which expels

the jews from his military district in the south because he believes there engaged in an illegal lack market cotton ring. was grant anti-somatic or did he regret that decision later on? >> he regretted it almost is as he issued it. as it is lincoln sought to immediately override. it was an inexcusable thing to do. people know that piece of the story. what they don't know is grant spent the rest of his life atoning for that action. as president, he appointed more jews than all of the other presidents combined. he became the first president to speak on on human rights abuses. in both cases was because of persecution of the jews but one time in russia and one time in poland. then most remarkable of all things were sitting in washington d.c., during the last year of his second term, he was invited to the

dedication of a synagogue. a very tiny synagogue. grant went with his son and was a u.s. senator. it was a three-hour ceremony. here's the president of the united states with a congregation of 30-40 people. one hour into the dedication of the synagogue, the elders went over to grant and said mr. president, we are very touched you would come to this humble function. you can leave now in good conscience. grant insisted on staying the full three hours. reached into his pocket and gave a donation to the synagogue. it was one of the pleasurable things writing about him. he was not a prejudiced man. not a man full of hatred. you can read statements - - hair-raising atrocious things but you don't see this and grants life at all.

luckily, he apologized and atoned for it the rest of his life. >> he has a number of successors. and then he has to victory at vicksburg. why is vicksburg so impressive? it was really a daring capture. >> new orleans, baton rouge and memphis had fallen to union forces. it meant that the one great citadel, the great bastion on the necessary river was vicksburg. it was located at that time, there was a bend in the mississippi that forced folks to slow down. there were seven miles of every elaborate fortification. it seemed like this in pregnant fortress. he had a very daring strategy to take vicksburg. under cover of night, he had ironclad transports come down the river, despite heavy selling from the confederates.

he also marched troops down the bank of the mississippi. they then crossed over vicksburg to the only dry land in that area. and then grant has this lightning campaign. he wins five major victories in a three-week period. surrounds vicksburg, lays siege and vicksburg surrenders at the same time as the victory of gettysburg. and for a second time, grant i captured an entire confederate army more than 30,000 soldiers. at that point, the union not only controlled the mississippi but it bisected the confederacy. a lot of these supplies, particularly horses and livestock came from the mississippi. so the confederate army was suddenly cut off from this major source of supplies. and that was grant. >> when did president lincoln bring grant east to lead the union army?

>> in february 1864, thomas passes a bill reinstating the title of lieutenant general. the only one who ever held that was george washington. and grant becomes that lieutenant general. it's a wonderful story because in march 1864, he comes to washington. although lincoln loved grant, he never actually set eyes on him before. he happened to arrive the same day that lincoln was having a reception at the white house in the blue room. grant goes in. lincoln warmly embraces him. there was such pandemonium in the room because grant was such a hero. that they urged grant to stand up on the sofa so people could see him because he was relatively short. he stands up on the sofa, he is perspiring profusely. so that people could see him. he was always a little bit socially awkward. grant later said the hottest

campaign he ever fought was standing on that sofa in the white house.[laughter] >> so grant was impressive on a tactical level, operational level and on a strategic level. how rare was that to find all three qualities in a general and how did he compare to robert ely in that regard? >> - - had an interesting comment when he was comparing grant and lee. they said his strategy embraced the constant, lee strategy - - [indiscernible]. lee had to inflict so much pain on union forces that the northern public would weary and decide to give up the war. grant actually had to capture and destroy robert e lee's army. he really had a strategic vision because the various union armies and different theaters of war had been operating independently of each other. grant coordinated their movements so that he turned them into a single fighting

force. he saw the way to wear down the confederacy was by having union forces simultaneously attack different confederate armies to that they could not switch reinforcements from one to another. he finally pins robert ely down in richmondrobert e lee . he said, ulysses s grant would have attacked the bedroom in the kitchen. i'm not sure what he meant but - - in terms of attacking the kitchen. that goes back to grant the quartermaster. but what he did with lee if he began systematically to cut off every railway line and every canal feeding supplies to lee's army. finally starting it outand forcing them to flee . and forces surrender.

that was then the third confederate army that grant captured. robert ely never captured a single union army. >>. [indiscernible] >> it's the most touching part of the story because he refuses to allow his soldiers to celebrate. is very generous. the confederate soldiers are are starving. he issues rations to feed them. really i think the most beautiful passage and grants memoir is about the meeting at - - because grant instead he was sad and depressed when he met lee. he writes, i felt like anything rather than rejoicing over the downfall of a faux who fought with such ballervalor and suffe

such hardship for a cause. even though the cause was the worst any army could have fought for. i think it's a beautiful statement. we've had a prolonged discussion about the confederate monuments and i think grant paved the way. on one hand in that passage, he pays homage to the bravery of the confederate soldiers and they were brave. they were quite extraordinary in many battles. at the same time, the cause for which they were fighting, the perpetuation of slavery was one of the worst causes people could fight for. i think that the humanity, the sadness and balance he brought to that subject is one that should stay with us. >> grant does not accept president lincoln's invitation to attend ford's theater. would history perhaps unfolded differently had grant been there? >> quite a story because late march 1864, abraham and - - go

down to city quarters. mary lincoln who showed increasing signs of mental instability, mary lincoln froze a jealous fit. she imagines the young wife of general - - is flirting with her husband. she starts to berate her can't figure out what's going on. and burst into tears. julia grant was there. she intervenes to try to protect young mrs. - - and we all know what happens when you try to intervene in the middle of a fight. then mary lincoln turned on julia grant and turned on her so angrily that the night that the lincolns went to ford's theater, lincoln thought it was important that the public see the victorious generals at the same time. julia grant laid down the law to husband and said i refuse to go to ford's theater if mary lincoln will be there.

so they made their excuses. they went off to burlington, new jersey where they had a house. one of the great what is of history if ulysses s grant had been in that box at fortford's theater with lincoln. would he have had his security detail there. or, it's entirely possible that - - would have killed grant as well as lincoln. >> how did grant managed to win the republican nomination in 1868? had shehe showed an aptitude fo politics previously?>> there was a guessing game in terms of what grants party affiliation was. his only vote was for james buchanan for president. no one knew exactly where he stood.

he was in the right place at the right time.yet a certain symbolic standing in america as the victor of the war and also reconciliation between north and south. what happened in 1868, there was a failed attempt. they didn'tdid impeach - - pres johnson which weekend the radical republicans in congress. grant was in a position to straddle both of the wings of the republican party. still have his immense prestige from the war. he did not campaign openly. he had a funny way of not campaigning for things and sort of putting him in the position where things just happened to him. >> and his first time of office, the 15th amendment is activeactivated. there's a 1856.

it starts as a social club of confederate veterans and they start wearing their old uniforms and drilling. it becomes a militaristic secret organization. and of course they start putting on robes and hoods at night on horseback and terrorizing people. nothing terrified the white south more than the black man. so the terror was very much directed against black voting or registering to vote. there was no southern sheriff who would arrest a member of the kkk. there was no southern jury that would convict or white that would testify. there were hundreds, maybe thousands of murders of blacks

that went on prosecuted. grant met a very crusading attorney general. ackerman brought 3000 indictments and got more than 1000 convictions. it was his greatest achievement as president. the kkk we know is from the resurgence of the clan from the 19 teens and 20s. and they borrowed a lot of the techniques and ideology of the original kkk. >> why were there so many corruption scandals was he complicit? did he turn a blind eye or was he just oblivious to what was going on? >> he was incredibly nacve.i will tell a story from his childhood. when he was a boy, his father wanted to buy a horse so he told ulysses to go to this farm

and he gave him instructions. he said offer $20 to the farmer. if he doesn't take it off for $22.50. and he still doesn't take it, offer $25. so ulysses goes to the farmer and says my father says i should offer $20 and if you don't take it i can offer $22.50 and if you don't take that i will offer $25. so there was a learning curve. scrupulous people began to spot grant a mile away. in the so-called whiskey freeing scandal, brewers were updating this tax by paying off revenue agents. one of the people involved was grant's chief of staff. when babcock is being investigated, grant writes a letter to babcock's wife

saying, i have full face in her husband's integrity. i've had the most intimate and confidential relations with her husband for 14 years. he says i can't believe that he's not a trustworthy person that i imagine. guess what? he was. he was kind of like chief of staff. at the desk right outside grants office. he would review incoming and outgoing mail. grant fired him or reassigned him. he became inspector of - - on the florida coast. >> grant goes on a trip around the world with his wife for 2 and a half years. how was he received on this trip? >> during that almost and a half year period, he meets with virtually every head of state in the world. queen victoria. windsor castle.

prince of bismarck. berlin. the pope at the vatican. alexander ii and st. petersburg. then he goes to the far east and the crowds are immense. like 250,000 people at a time would turn out. the emperor of japan would never actually touch people. when he saw grant, he stepped over and shook hands with grant which was unheard of. grant actually pioneers a certain post presidential role that would be followed by other presidents. he arbitrated a dispute over offshore islands between japan and china. so he comes back with really this sort of great reputation. very much enhanced. he's become a statesman on the world stage. it's amazing. >> after trying to get the nomination again in 1880, not

winning it. he decides to move to new york city and try his hand in the investment world. how does that turn out? >> will again with money, disastrously. he formed a partnership with a young man named ferdinand ward was 21 years old. they created a partnership called grant and ward. it was only time grant allowed his name to be used in a business. grants name attracted a lot of money. for those who don't know this story, ferdinand was the bernie made off of his day. it was a ponzi scheme. he was using money from new investors to pay at - - [indiscernible]. grant imagined he was a multimillionaire and he wakes up one day to find out that instead of being a multimillionaire. he is worth $80 and julia is

worth $130. not only had his fortune been wiped out, all of his children had invested. he had a lot of cousins, friends. the entire grant family was engulfed in this catastrophe. >> in 1884, grant falls ill. what was wrong with him and what was the prescribed treatment? >> the illness coincides with the exposure with ferdinand ward. grant one day, they had a house in long branch, new jersey. julia serves him a plate of peaches and he bites into one of the peaches and says, ouch. that peach just on me for some reason. it was the first time he realized there was a problem with his throat. he finally consulted his doctor in new york found a cancerous mass on his throat.

anton and tongue. it was incurable so grant realized this was a terminal illness and he was petrified that when he died, julia would be left destitute. because they lost all their money. he decided to do something he swore he wouldn't do.he wrote his memoirs. during the last years of his life in excruciating pain and with his mind being followed by opiates. he wrote a memoir that is considered one of the greatest memoirs of the english language. >> his publisher was mark twain. in one letter, he writes grant wrote 10,000 words today. it kills me these days to write 5000 words. he couldn't believe grants productivity. this memoir really poured out of him and many people imagine

that twain wrote the memoirs. the style is flawless, no man can improve upon them. >> why did he die in the city and what was his funeral like? >> they were living on east 66th street in manhattan. his funeral, i was just thinking about it today because of the john mccain memorial gathering at national cathedral. when grant was buried in new york, he and julia felt very grateful to new york and the city provided this beautiful spot in the new riverside park. grants funeral spoke to the public very much in the way that john mccain's memorial service has been speaking to the public. that is, at grants funeral, 1.5 million people flooded new york city. the parade went on for five hours. but grant and his seemingly made afamily made a statement.

it was a north and south reconciliation. they were major confederate generals. it was part of his reconciliation theme. the stonewall jackson brigade from virginia came up and marched. black regiments marched in the parade because grant had been instrumental during the civil war in terms of recruiting and training and equipping black soldiers. this was really grants final statement from beyond the grave. i think grant in many ways reminds people of what people can say about john mccain in terms of his patriotism.his bravery. his dedication to public service.

the fact that he distinguished himself in civilian service and military service. reminds us of what old-fashioned patriotism should look like. >> last question before we take questions from the audience. as we reconsider grant as you have in this magnificent book, what should we learn from grant and his leadership? >> i think one reason people have responded. all the other people i've written about, they were sort of built for success. that great drive, energy and focus. grant didn't. i think people are responding to the book because the highs are as high as any story but the lows are a lot lower. this is a story of light and shadow. a story about a man who suffered repeated failures and setbacks. in fact, i was coming into the room, someone said, i loved your grant book.it's the greatest story about a comeback. repeated comebacks in his life.

success was the greasy pole and he kept slipping back down and work his way back up. >> if there are any questions for ron. we'd be happy to take a few. >> hello, very good book. loved it. just want to ask you a quick comment on grants relationship with george armstrong custer and how you described that relationship and the book. >> it was a very troubled relationship. grant was very critical of custer and blamed him for the massacre at - - said he was not following orders and put himself and his men in harm's way. custer had also been an outspoken critic of grant as president. that certainly helped to fuel

the animosity. >>. [indiscernible] >> i'm going to be to questions by becky. if grant had gone by his first name, would anything be different? secondly, what is happening with the adaptation? i know someone bought the rights. >> grants name, he was born - - ulysses grant. which gave him the unfortunate initials as hug. he was mercilessly teased and became just plain ulysses. then when a local congressman nominated him from west point, he bungled the name and send it as ulysses s grant. his own wife didn't know what

the s stood for. rollback this funny letter and says the s stands for absolutely nothing. it's not going to be a hip-hop musical.[laughter] but it will be a feature film and it will be directed by steven spielberg which is very exciting. [applause] >> produced by leonardo dicaprio which is also exciting. looks like i will again be the historical consultant. [applause] >> you've written about washington and hamilton and now grants. are there any lessons you've learned through studying these that you think is worth sharing? >> it's a very good question be one strange thing when people have asked me about a common denominator to these lives. 20 with every person i've

written about, they had to cope at an early age with a difficult and even impossible parents. i know that sound like a strange response to your question. there was the washington with a very self-centered mother. hamilton with the absentee father. grant with the overbearing father. there's something about a parent that shapes character and forces people to be self-reliant at an early age. all of the people i've written about because they had such difficult parents, they never talked about it. sometimes i imagine if i could conjure them to life and ask questions, i think i'd want to zero in on the family dynamics. >>. [indiscernible] >> i'm sorry, not sure i

understood the question.>>. [indiscernible] >> did he help catch him? >> no. what happened was, grant was inexcusably complacent that ford andferdinand award put securities in the safe that only anand had access. grant should have never allow that. he would sign letters without reading the letters point grant felt because they were sophisticated wall street people, who were investing with ward that he was absolutely certain that he must be sound. he should have been suspicious because some of the people were getting like 18-20 percent per month. if that doesn't raise warning flags right there. i wish i could tell you that

grant had been part of exposing ward but he was not. what happened is the bank that was lending money went bust and then the whole scheme blew up. >> time for one more question. >> someone whose legacy has been unjustly tarnished, what has been like to write this overdue - - about grant. >> it's been nice because i felt he was suffering from this image that he was this cruel, total butcher and that's why he was a successful general. in fact, there were six union generals fought against robert e lee before grant with the same advantage of manpower and material. they could not defeat leave. grant could. i felt his presidency had been portrayed as a failed presidency and i think in many ways it was successful in terms of protecting african american communities in the south.

i thought there would be more resistance but people accepted the portrait of grant more readily than i thought would happen. so i'm happy for that although i was surprised. >> please join me in thanking - -. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> you've been listening to - - talk about his most recent book

on ulysses grant. he's the author of the hamilton book. furthermore, he is here for the 18th national book festival. find the whole schedule on our website at booktv.org. the next author you will hear from in the room at the convention center is - - talking about her leadership in turbulent times. we are pleased to be joined on our set by fox and friends cohost an author, - -. your book is andrew jackson and the miracle of new orleans. it's your third history book. just coming out in paperback. what was the war of 1812 about? why did we have that war? >> we felt we were being disrespected in trade. they were trying to say no go

. [indiscernible]. the british never got over the fact that they lost the revolutionary war. there were radicalizing in the americans view. so it was a sense mainly in the south that we have to go get some revenge and our pride back. kind of pushed madison into taking on britain. in my view from my research, the view was they are so busy fighting napoleon, they will want a war with us.they will realize what we want and have a quick end. man, did they want a war with us. they were powerful on the ground.

they said we will get these colonies back. we will send a message to the other colonies, you will not fight for your freedom and emancipate. so this war of 1812 ended in 1815. right after the new year and the battle of new orleans. i don't want to be presumptuous but in school they said the battle didn't have to happen. it was a substantial victory for america. >> i'm always intrigued by this war. i've going to the white house and they said we will bring you to a place not a lot of people go by the bowling alley. this is for the british burned the white house to the ground. i was moved by the fact at how - - looked. our army has been annihilated. the british had their way with them. they're dominating us in the

water. there polarizing the eastern seaboard. mr. madison can't catch up with mrs. madison. they've already separated. must have looked like america was flat on its back and maybe be destroyed. i thought, how did we do this? how did we end up. what did we do to actually prevail? what was really at stake? the more i read and researched, the more fascinated i got. >> we often go from the american revolution to the civil war when we talk about this. we skip right over this, the war of 1812. off we go. >> and it's a huge mistake. i'm not really sure why. maybe america wants to celebrate substantial victories first. why do we fight it? there were people that said we could avoid it. the - - didn't want to take

part. the hartford convention they decided, they were going to washington to say we are leaving. we are not into this war. so who we are, washington is burned to the ground. our army - - [indiscernible]. leaving us totally naked and we had to do this on the fly. in the end, the series of wounds that galvanized us on the ground. the series of naval victories that happened in the ultimate when in new orleans. then when you start studying jackson. the unlikely major general. put together a battle plan on the fly in 3 and a half weeks using a conglomerate of troops.

where do you get it? knowing that the british who just defeated napoleon were going to invade. i wanted to rebuild jackson's journey to that moment. >> we will get into andrew jackson and the war of 1812. [indiscernible] >> what was andrew jackson doing prior? was he the head of the army at this point? >> he was a major general. his older brother died in the revolutionary war. his mom died. he and his brother were taken prisoner in the revolutionary war. his brother died after his mom lobbied to get them out at 14

and 15 years old. he took a blow to the head from a soldier, a british officer was at clean my shoes and he said no, i'm not going to do that but i'm a prisoner of war point however, the story goes his brother never fully recovered from the head below point and the dying is as he gets to his house. one brother dies of heatstroke during the war. the mom dies trying to earn money to sustain andrew. young andy jackson. so does he blame for that, the british. in his words, he blends red, white and blue because the country raised him but he wanted to exact revenge.

yet the god-given leadership ability, not formally trained to do it. he took the militia, he grew them, trained them. madison finally said, andrew jackson. munro, back jackson and jackson did his thing. >> this is your third history book and you take a little bit of a twist. george washington's - - thomas jefferson and other war of 1812. >> you just had - - on. john meacham. i never read one of their books and thought i could do it better. i just loved it. so i tried to produce something and that is focus on what matters that i believe is not getting enough attention. besides the fame of former president and founding fathers. you will learn more about

andrew jackson. you will learn about bainbridge. you will learn about william eaton. and george washington's spy ring. you learn about a bomber, bartender, grocery store worker. a british analyst was a printer who was working for us. i believe this country, as much as welove our founding fathers , they were so-called average everyday americans doing extraordinary things who were patriotic at their core. doesn't matter democrat or republican, patriotic. >> from your book, the victory in new orleans overshadowed the

dark humiliation - - [indiscernible] >> before the civil war, it was the second biggest holiday outside the fourth of july. the battle of new orleans. how do we beat the british would just defeated the french and took down napoleon. a relatively invincible. this group was going to churn up. but instead they got stopped an american said, what was at stake? they saw this as a threat. not the eventually ally we would be. we would never be invaded again after this. the rest of the world would know america was not an experiment, america was for real. i am paraphrasing what jefferson said was a retired president at the time. not a fan of jackson and vice versa. who said this is a victory and a message to the rest of the world. america is not going anywhere.

and we would be a superpower. but a humble superpower. he said nothing's stopping us now and you've got to know we are playing ahead. the midwest expansion. it wouldn't have happened without new orleans. it got under his again, from doing the tour people say how big of a deal. it was a big deal. they say what you think, did they really have to fight this, he said if you think - - and his men if they would have defeated my hodgepodge of an army. if you think they would stay and keep us from growing, you don't understand history. it would have undone the louisiana purchase which believe it or not, the rest of

the world thought it was a sham. that napoleon had no right to sell it. even though america doubled in size and it hurt our economy temporarily. it was a good move. but they were looking to undo it and take it back. >> - - is our guest. let's take calls. let's begin - - from texas. you are on train a. >> thank you. i just want to tell them that i've read all three of his books. i'm a high school algebra teacher and i wish people had written books like this when i was taking history. he makes it so alive. - - talking about ben ghazi. my question is, what is the next project because i'm watching for it and i've loved all three of his books. >> thank you becky. you made my day. i would say this. i'm working on another project but i will a october 19-21st,

i'm combining all three talks in tampa, and nashville.hope you can join us. the next book i'm working on that i will talk about is sam houston in avenging the alamo. - - knew he couldn't grab texas. some of those things i try to unwind and i'm finding it flat out fascinating so hopefully you like it. >> is your co-author working on that book. >> just me. i'm working on that now. getting my feet underneath me. texas has been great so far. they've kept great records. even back then. >> more a comment than a

question. i've been struck by how tough that sop jackson was. whether you like him or you don't. man was he ever tough. he had both of those people - - i hope you can hear me. he was shot, cut. it would be to do with his cane. he was tough as leather. ...

die think he would have divided the union or authored the civil war? absolutely not. he was about the union first. he had many battled with american indiana inside 1818. the battle with the creek indians issue he was told by monroe go get them, and he did. george washington was slaveowner. thomas jefferson, james madison, andrew jackson. so, this is something in our day and age.

be so twisted and recallized behavior. i know they have done enough great to deserve the statues they have. but you should talk but a the wholeman and that's why andruw jackson was controversial in his day but what i try to say in the paperback is say take trump out and i'll put in ronald reagan, i abraham lincoln, franklin delano roosevelt and teddy roosevelt. they knew about his -- teddy roosevelt did a bioon him and said, in times of trouble, what i am looking for leadership, i read jackson. starting with lincoln. how die stop the division of our country? how did andrew jackson -- how did -- get his country ready for war? he went to hermitage, crippled, insisted on walking up the steps. wanted to feel jackson. so, he is a great american and i

hope you'll read "a great american." >> host: elizabeth in littleton, colorado. go ahead with your question or comment. >> caller: hey. i love you, c-span. brian, you talk much about the pirate in your book. >> guest: yes. one of the key moments is -- -- a demoment approach bid the -- they were kind of done a wink and a nod deal. we'll expunge your crimes and we'll pay you.

jackson said, i don't deal with bandits and the more he talked to people on the ground, he realized and the pirates were able to fight and use their weaponry and supply the money and knowledge of the area to allow him to put together this army. since no -- jean la feat was fighting in the battle and supplying armaments and men. the conglomeration of people, indians, free men of color, regular army, tennessee riflemen and kentucky riflemen and the rites. hope you like it. >> time for a couple more calls for brian kilmeade, this is richard in north carolina.

>> caller: hello. mr. kilmeade, thank you for your work. like your analysis on history. are you interesting in the battle of -- my understanding it's the cherokees against the creeks and that later on jackson betrayed them in the trail of tears. if you would respond to that, please. >> guest: i think that happened. i'm not an expert on the trail of tears. didn't focus on his presidency but a lot of people feel he betrayed the american indians fighting for him and ultimately expunging them from the area. the only thing people talk to me on in that day, the number one was how does america continue to expand? people are coming in legally. attracting people, and the american indians were stopping the expansion. so, whoever was president, who was dealing with the american indian issue and this is one of the top issues for lincoln.

up to the turn of the center. that's true. i have not become an american indian expert but that was part of the reason why in oklahoma, for example, there's people that won't carry around the 20 because they don't want any part of jackson, because famously the trail of tears ended with whoever survived with the american indian relocated in oklahoma. >> host: one more call, john at west lake village in california, please go ahead. john ins we lake village, california, last chance. how did the war of 1812 end up ending essentially in new orleans? >> guest: they signed and it they signed a deal in -- at kent, and john quincy adams -- it was going tear my. s were came back the white house

burned in the ground, what's the rush? the signed it not knowing the outcome of the battle of new orleans, and the americans are thinking, we didn't have satellite television. they're thinking thes or they're getting, the americans represented in the treaty conference were thinking probably going to lose this, let's sign this quick. after the battle of new orleans the word comes back about the battle before the treatying signed and becomes a national celebration but jackson didn't buy it. so he thought they were going to come back again through tennessee and could take another shot at new orleans, and jackson kept everybody together and then just before a major battle was but to take place, word came out to the british it's over and they left. it was the final battle but the treaty -- people did celebrate but the treaty wasn't relayed back to us, then, that peace was there. so that's how i ended. ultimately actually stopped the

battle, so the major battle. >> host: 1815, january 1815 that happened. when did he become president and how many years later? >> guest: he ran for president and then last in the most controversial election that we -- of those times where he got the popular vote, and he ended up in a thresh way race, and john quincy adams became the presidency. what jackson did was that he showed up at the inaugural, he took -- shook everybody's hand, talked about everybody coming together but sneyd four more years i'm coming back, and he came back it and wasn't close. i'll ad something else. jackson was the first to leave washington and campaign. he would go out, pictures of him in battle and good out and speak to the people outside the so-called beltway where we are today, and he brought his case to the people, so by the time the votes were placed there would no longer victory for him.

so the ran for president three times and actually won three teams but elector toly and with the deal behind him, behind closes doors takes the rug out from underneath him but you can learn lake al gore did who lost by 500 votes, he shook his hand and moved over. we can all learn from what jackson and be did. you fight -- what gore did. you fight, controversial, heart revenging but parent to have an ascension and nixon turned over for kennedy despite the controversy in illinois and everything like that. we can learn a lesson. >> host: andrew jackson and the miracles of new orleans is the book. the battle that shaped america's destiny is the subtitle. this is brian kilmeade's third history book. brian kilmeade, can't bet you go without asking you about the mccain funeral, what has been going on in america, the fact

that at the national cathedral today, couple miles up the street from here there have been shots taken at president trump during the funeral itself. is this something you'll be talking about on monday morning on fox and friends. >> guest: no. it's done. monday, tuesday, i'll be off monday -- i think we'll talk but it but i'll make sure i -- such a great man, he had opinions about everything but he was a man of action, he never got along with donald trump, meghan mccain was really the -- she is the closest thing to -- president trump has a lot of the same agenda, understands undersr on terror, going pass $700 billion for defense but he couldn't get them together.

aretha franklin, during her funeral, took shots. that happened and if john mccain dish heard meghan mckay something to the effect of america has always been great. which is very different from governor cuomo who said america was never that great. so, we're going back and forth. my hope is that dish said this before -- the president doesn't tweet about it, my hope is it's a funeral that is a solemn moment, it was a great moment to see both presidents but two thing is can't figure out. i can't figure out where senator mccain win out of his way to bring people together, when it came to sarah palin, and president trump two things he wouldn't do. i don't judge him. i note that he has been my favorite interview because he is so candid, when i was -- before i got a job at fox and looking for an interview, stale give me the time of day. one of this guys you-protect. a lot of time you don't have a

prestigious tag and they walk past you and he never did. the first time i had a conflict with hmm him d him, i hosted the ufc. and i have to talk to him? he let me know. thought it was too brutal, no rules and which is true, and when i get my radio show by myself, brian kilmeade, he was my first guest. i would replay that interview and he said, because -- said some good things. so i just think you can learn this from john mccain. be consequential. when you take a position, people will be mad at you but when you go out and experience it, he didn't say syria would be a mess. he went to syria. he didn't say the russians -- he met vladimir putin and says i see nothing but evil in this guy. he's kgb. when he thought afghanistan was getting neared down, he went there so he is not somebody who

sits back and just wants to get famous. he wants to take action. but you get a lot of people getting mad another you. bucking your party, how do you, because he cared about america more than republics and more than he hates democrats. i hope we get back to that. couldn't be anymore fractured than we are right now. >> brian kilmeade, thank you for your time. >> guest: thank you so much. i appreciate it. >> coming up, another chance for you to talk with an author. this is terra westover, here's the book, call "educated" came out in february it and has been on the bestseller list since. she has a ph.d from cambridge. you'll meeter in man. first a little bit more of our interview with librarian on congress. >> it's two years since you were named librarian of congress. >> yes. >> what have you learned? >> guest: what i have learned

in -- will be september 14th, when i was sworn in two years ago, what i have learned is there's so much more that can be shared with the public that the library has, and so we are launching a number of programs to let people know we have not only leonard bernstein's collection and the warmed's largest collection of comic books and a new baseball it and, because we have a the largest collection of baseball cards. that's been really exciting. >> host: you're holding a folder with a new logo. >> guest: very purposefully. because we just lost -- we're new strategic plan that will be very user centered the library of congress is for you, for congress and for you, and this is our representation of our new visual identity that has the

word "library" but the book ends. that word can contain anything. the collections, videos of the people, all kinds of things can be contained. >> host: i'll show that to our viewers right now. the inside here. you have -- that wonderful folder you showed me earlier. sorry about that. >> i had to keep up with the names of all the authorses. look at that. you have ancient manuscript, photographs, you can put video in there but you see that the word library is one of the few words in english language that if you separate it you still know, and that we think is very significant. so, people will be seeing all kinds of things contained in those bookends. >> host: this past summer you did an interview, you were the interviewer. who did you interview. >> guest: well, i tell you i have much more appreciation for interviewers as i told you i got the honor of interviewing first

lady michelle obama at the american library association conference in new orleans. and of course i was nervous because i admire what you do in terms of being an interviewer, but she shared her thoughts on her new book coming out and that was great. >> host: "becoming" coming out in november. >> guest: november, and so she was able to talk bolt the elements of the book with the over 9,000 librarians right there in new orleans. >> host: the national book festival founded by laura bush, 2001. the obamas were always the national co-chairs or the honorary co-chairs when they were in office. what about the trumps? have hey. >> guest: not yet. i'm so glad you mentioned mrs. bush. librarians have a strong affinity with her. the first fitz lady to be a librarian and started book festivals -- a book festival in texas when she was first lady of

texas, and hen when she became the first lady of the nation, she started the national book festival and we hope that she'll be able to, when he have an anniversary coming up, she'll be able to be with us. >> host: this is the 18th. are you looking at the 20th. >> guest: definitely. it will be wonderful because instant meant so much for her to start that right here in washington, dc, and the state book festivals are being replicated. the mississippi book festival was modeled after the texas, and so different states are having them. so we have a lot to be grateful for with mrs. bush. >> host: c-span's book tv covers several of the back fared live throughout the year. what is on your reading list? i'm trying to catch up and had he papers of the different authors coming. have john meachum's book.

>> host: soul of american. >> guest: yes. dooris kearns goodwin, amy tan. permanent fun and other authors i want to touch on so i have basket of books that i'm reading. >> host: and that full interview with karla hayden is available on our hundreds web site. i "educated o'the author is tara westover who is live now. before we start talking about your book, miss westover, which came out in february and has been on the bestseller list since, does this situation here with this crowd watching you and all these people around, does this make you uncomfortable or are you used to it now sunny wouldn't say makes me uncomfortable but still very surreal. doesn't feel completely real. it's a surprise to me. i wrote the book -- as a write

are you said in a dark room and you're alone and you write something and there's never a moment you realize other people have read it. i don't see people reading it and yet they have and it's always just a surprise to me. i have not quite wrapped my ahead around it. >> host: to be in is situation in the first 17 years of your life, would this have been odd to you. >> guest: extremely odd. never went to a festival when i was a child because i was raise by survivalists and to find myself on the stage is -- this is different. it's wonderful, it's great, but it's an adjustment and i'm still justing. >> host: when did you first meet formal education? >> guest: i set foot in the classroom the first time when i was 17, because i was raised by parents who didn't believe in schools in the traditional sense so we were kept at home. me parents didn't believe in other lot of other thing toes, doctors and hospitals, didn't believe in anything to do with the government so i didn't even

have a birth certificate until i was nine. >> host: were your folks friends with randy weaver. >> guest: they didn't know him. lived in a similar way but didn't know him. >> host: how did your life change at 17. >> guest: 17 is the outage i decided to try to go to a everytime and hadn't had a lot of formal education, any formal education before that so i had to teach myself math to kind of fake my way through the a.c.t. and wad it's met to byu. brigham young university. i wasn't qualified. i had done all right on the a.c.t. but it was the first examination i'd ever taken. never written an essay. one of my first class i asked what the holocaust was, never heard of the civil rights movement. i thought europe was a country, not a continent of the book i wrote is a memoir but my

experience of education, going from extreme ignorance to getting an opportunity to engage with the world and learn about things and have access to a whole university system. mean i had a wonderful experience. evenly was able to go to harvard and cambridge and experience in some of the best of what education is and can be and this country and other countries. >> host: we'll put the phone lines on the screen, 202-748-2800,. >> a lot of beautiful things bases it.

>> my parents cared about us. they loved us. >> host: so, at that point, at 17, when you applied in college, what that with reaction. >> guest: my father has not happy but mow mowing, this path was i would get married, have children, become a mid-wife like my mother and stay on the farm the system of government and education made so it he didn't want me to go to college. eventually as i became more owed indicated i would become more into conflict with my parents. i would become more mainstream or i would have my own ideas and for my family, because there's so ideologically victim that would become difficult and at that point there were some hard question is had to ask myself about what the obligations are

that you owe to your family, and that was the hardest question, what due you do when the obligation you owe to four family is in tension with the obligation you owe to yourself. >> host: what is the result of that? >> guest: for me the result was that would come to a head and my parents would -- i had an older brother who was violent and i would confront my parents and they would refuse to accept that. we would end up becoming the -- then i would have a process of trying to accept what that meant for in the and what loyalty meant to me, and ways i could kind of love my parent and value my childhood, what was good, and even while letting go some things that i felt were harmful to me. >> host: are you still in touch withier parents? >> i e-mail with my mother regularly, but my mother refuses to see me unless i'll see my father. so i haven't seen her for quite some time. >> host: now, your mother has e-mail so you are connected. she is connected to the outside

world. >> guest: we got the internet when i was a teenager so they have internet. >> host: what was the biggest surprise but formal education at 17? the things that you just didn't quite get. i never had friends who went to public school, never went to their house, they never went to mine. social aspect, was a weird kid. didn't know how to talk to people. didn't know how to interact with people. think the academic sign was equally dawning. had never heart of the holocaust before. raise its me hand in class and asked what it was the world is a very different place when you know but the holocaust and you don't and there was a period of -- the fact of learning about something horrific, very difficult, and then there is that fact of coming to terms with the depth of your own

ignorance and realizing something like that can happen and it's possible you won't know about it. everything that we know about the past, but history, comps to us through a filter oomph people tell us. but i hadn't had access to that body of knowledge. so i had been kept away from it. so i think learning about the holocaust for me was -- it was a horrible thing to learn about and then there was also coming to terms with how isolated i had been. >> host: tara westover, often people can hang on to an anger from their past. are you angry about those first 17 years? >> guest: i would say there were a couple 0 years i went through after i last my parents that were very ang by years. i have a fear of angry. think it's a healthy thing in some cases, self-defense mechanism your brain use get you out of situations that will do you harm. once you're out i'm not sure you nude it.

went through a period when i was angry, had no good memories, and i feel like once i accepted the decision i had made to let good of my parents and stopped blaming myself for it and forgave myself for making the decision. the anger was but justifying me to myself and once i stopped berating myself i didn't need the anger anymore. >> host: let's hear from callers. this is bob in downer's grove illinois. bob, you're on booktv with author tara westover. >> caller: good afternoon, i enjoyed your book. to me it was fantastic story of what you went through, but i'm just kind of curious you mentioned but your mother and you had e-mail with her, what is the current status between you and your family? >> guest: so, my mother e-mails me occasionally and i usually

ask if she'll see me. my hour has a policy she won't see me unless i see my dad. i have some friends with a similar situation and they decide there's one parent, not that they don't love but just don't think is a positive influence in their lives and sometimes they're able to maintain a connection with one parent and sometimes they're not. and in my case i'm not able to. not by my choice but because of her choice. >> host: janine in danville, kentucky, hi, janine. >> caller: hi. thank you for taking my call two quick questions. what is your degree in, and secondly, how did you pay to get all this advanced education? how did you pay for that? i'll hang up now and listen to your answer. >> guest: so my degree is in history. and i was fortunate i was able to go to brigham young university, owned by the mormon church. the tuition at byu is affordable because it's subsidized by the

church. i paid for that myself, $1,900 a semester, and after that point i got scholarships. i kept my grades high enough to keep any scholarships. >> host: so you have a ph.d through cambridge. >> guest: yes. >> host: in history. what specific area? >> guest: i did 19th century ideas about the family and utopian communities. -- communes. very specific. >> host: what is your family think but this, the fact you're a ph.d from cambridge you have written a best-selling book. any response from them. >> guest: from my dad i think he was proud of me in some ways. some weighed he didn't like it at all. thought it was socialist country and didn't thicket was the right path for me, wants me to stay at home but i think there was part of him that was proud of me. always had -- always two sides to my dad. >> host: tara westover, has your

faith changed? if you were raid mormon, has your faith changed? >> guest: i wasn't raised mormon. my father is a much more radical version than any mormon you would meet. a mainstream mormon so i was raised in a different religion altogether and then as i -- when i got to byu i converted to more mainstream mormonnism for a while and that wasn't quite the right fit, mostly for issues having to do with gender. have a lot of respect for the church and for religion generally mitchell concept of faith has changed. what i think of as faith, there's a beautiful verse i love in the bible, i think it's hebrews 111 that says faith is the substance of things, the essence of things not seen. and i think i like that definition of faith because it's about hoping for a different life and i think anyone who embarks on education, anyone who is reaching to try to become a different person than they were,

to affect real change in their lives, is practicing a form of faith. >> host: pardon me. i was in south lion, michigan good, ahead with your question. >> host: i his you with us? we lost iris. what prompted you to write this book? >> guest: i think it was going through this quite difficult process of losing my family and i kind of became aware of the stories we have, that we have about family, and i started to feel like a lot of the narratives we have about family fall in one two of categories, that family -- either the message is reconciliation is always the right course, or the message is about families that are so difficult and so terrible that you never -- you leave them and never look back because the abuse is so awful.

and i didn't resonate with those messages '. i really needed a story for myself that was but people that you had to let go ofout you still loved that wanted the best no your but that want -- i didn't find that story so i decided to write it. >> host: what do you do today? what's your job today. >> i'm a writer and also working on documentary project about rural education. have kind of moved into these career space where you do kind of one project after the other and hope for the best. >> host: now, your family has been financially successful in their work, haven't they? >> guest: my mother has started an alternative health kind of business, she sells essential oils and they've done well. >> host: what the jungyard successful or just maining a lifestyle. >> guest: it supported my family

for many yours but i think junk yard is a hard business. never going to do -- it's a hard labor and you'll never necessarily -- you barely stay ahead. keeping you head above the water. >> host: when somebody who has read your book or somebody you meet tells you they happen been home-schooled what's you reaction. >> guest: home schooling can many so many different thing. my brother home school us hi children and never seen better adjusted or informed kids. so well taught and socialize it. i think for some people home school becomes a way to limit the perspective their children get. don't want children to be taught things they disagree with and that seems less but education and more about control. so i feel like education is about getting access to as many different perspectives as you can and using that access to decide what you think and to participate in the making of your own mind and ideas. as long as the reason for being

home-schooled is that, education, access to knowledge and privilege are it can be a good thing. a lot of times people do that in order tree strict that information and that's not an education. >> host: could you go would took living a rural lifestyle? >> guest: a rural -- injuries are you living in new york city. >> guest: i have been in new york to work on the project ask so far i like it. i'm not much of a city kid. see if it takes but so far i like it. >> host: tara westover's book, educatedded, memoir, has been a best seller since february. is there another book come snag eventually. right now there's just the documentary. >> host: what is the book about? what are you looking at -- >> guest: the situation that rural kids face where because of the death of the family farm and small towns shrinking they can't stay where a lot of kid can't, but i think rural school does fantastically well at test scores and at graduation rates

but struggle with that transition, which is difficult now. they have the same situation that's difficult to get out and difficult to stay and i want to try to shed some light on that. >> host: thank you for being on booktv. >> guest: thank you. >> book tv is live at the 18th 18th annual national book festival. by the way, this is book tv's 20th year that we have been on the air, 48 hours of nonfiction books and authors every weekend for the last 20 years. that's over 1,000 weekends, 54,000 hours of programming, over 15,000 authors have been featured on booktv, and we have get a couple more hours of live coverage from this year's book festival. now tomorrow i want to let you know that the noon to 3:00 p.m. it's part of our special fiction edition of dep depth and our guest will be jacqueline woodson and it's your chance to talk with this young adult author.

she has won the national book award, the newberry prize. she'll be on for three hours to take your call. i you grew up reading her or your kid read her, join us tomorrow from -- on sunday from noon to 3:00 p.m. also, this is labor day weekend so it's a three-day weekend on booktv. we'll be live -- not live but we'll have programming all day long on monday,ing on booktv c-span2. the full schedule for all of this is available at booktv.org. well, back to live coverage of the national book festival. comingup next, it's doris kearns goodwin who took calls earlier today but she will be speaking about her book, "leadership in turn bent times." after her you'll hear from john meachum and pulitzer prize winning author, lawrence write, talking about his book "god

bless texas." all live on the national book festival. now in just minute, doris kearns goodwin. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [applause] >> good after l. >> good afternoon, on behalf of

the library 0 congress we would like to express our deep gratitude to aarp for making this presentation possible. they're a long supporter of the library roz educational initiative and we arer grateful for that. it's now my honor to introduce the cochairman of the national book festival, a champion of reading and literacy, david rubenstein. >> thank you. we're very honored to have one of our country's for most historians and write erred, biology gaffers here, doris kearns goodwin. thank you for coming. how many people here have read "team of rivals"? "bull in pulpit?" book on lyndon johnson, what

about the kennedys and fitzgeralds? okay. and how many people here agree that she's one of for most writers and historians. [cheers and applause] >> for those who don't know her brown, just very briefly, grew up in, new york, black lynn, and win to colby college, got her ph.d in harvard, white house fellow in the johnson administration, helped president johnson with his memoirs and then ultimately went back to teach at harvard and for the last number of years has been writing extraordinarily well received and terrific biographers and histories, and win ore the pulitzer prize for a become. so, you're going to be writing a new book coming out september 18th. it's on leadership. and it's about a book on the leadership skills of four people you have within pout. one is abraham lincoln, one is teddy roosevelt, one is franklin

roosevelt and the other is lyndon johnson i want to ask you first, why did you decide to write a book about four different anymore you have already written books about them. why not pick somebody new. >> guest: what happens is each time i'd finish writing one of the becomes, and i have to take all of that person's books otherwise of my study to make room for the next guy. felt like i was pea traying the person who was there before and it's like having an old boyfriend and moving to a new boyfriend. so, i figured what if i could keep my guys together this time instead of doing that? i knew i'd have to do it by having a chance to look at them anew in a new way, and i've always been interested in leadership. once upon a time when i was graduate student we would stay up late at night discussing questions but leadership. you're adding plato and aristotle and thinking whether where does ambition come from and does the man make the time order the times make the man,ings leadership traits been or made. and we also talk but boys and girls but those are the kind of

things that interested us. so i decide little what if can -- i call them my guys. seems maybe at disrespectful but i have lived with them so long that i feel familiar to them. what if i take them and look at them through the exclusive lens of leadership, and so it became a great project for me. took five years, not as long as some of the others but nose shooter asking thought pause i didn't know as much about them is a thought i should and i loved every minute. it's been a great -- >> host: the only one of these presidents that you actually knew, of course, wasline don johnson, and -- lyndon johnson, you might relate how you actually came to know lyndon johnson and how you almost lost your job on an article you wrote. >> guest: true. when i was chosen as a white house fellow i was 24 years old and we had a big dance, a fabulous program, the white house fell -- colin pawing, leslie clark, we had a big dance at the white house and he danced with me that night. not that peculiar, only three

win out of the 16 white house fellows put he whispered he wented me to be assigned directly to him any house but that not a simple. in the months leading up to my selection, like many young people, was a graduate student in harvard i had been active in the anti-vietnam war movement and had written an article against lbj and came out two days the dance in the white house, and the title of the article was how to remove lyndon johnson from power. so i was certain he would kick me out of the program. but surprisingly he said bring her down here for a year if i can't win her over, no one can so i worked for him at the white house and i was the most extraordinary experience, the more formidable, interesting, streaming, brilliant, colorful character i've ever met and what a privilege to have spent so many hours with this aging line of a map. i'd like to think the empathy i

had for him without my feelings busy vietnam is what i hoped to carry over, and might not have been a presidential historian had it not been for lyndon johnson. >> host: let's talk about each president. what you have done in your book is each of the four presidents and there are the parts to each description of the book -- of the presidents. one is how they were educated and grew up some whether they were kind of destined for greatness or not. second, what was the problem in their life that depressed them, maybe thought they were not going anywhere in life and they were even suicidal at points, and erred third what challenge the mets president that showed hey had great leadership skills. lincoln first. drew up not a wealthy family. his father tried to educate him. what was it like growing up as the son of mr. lincoln. >> guest: the circumstances that lincoln grew up in took enormous perseverance and determines to overcome.

it was subscription school in illinois then so the only way to go to school was to pay a certain amount, so he never went to past the age of nine or ten in school because the family not only couldn't afford it but the father thought it was waste of time for somebody to educate themselves when he should be work neglect fields. so meant that lincoln had to scour the countryside for books and get everything he could lay his hands on. at one point he walked 16 miles to get a certain book that he wanted to have. and in a certain sense books became much more important to him as a result of that. it was said when he got a copy of the king james' byele of shakespeare play they was so excited he couldn't eat or sleep and there was a sense in which books carried him to places he could never go through books he began to develop an alternative thought for what he might be in life. he was really smart and those few years when he was in school he was without peer and i think that's where some of this confidence came from. after a while he was teaching the other kids in this class rather than the teacher because he learned so much. but in a certain sense once he

started reading but other people and other places he began to think, maybe i can have another life other than shucking corn or splitting rails, and he had to get away flown father who when he would see him reading would destroy his book. so he finally left the home. you couldn't leave until you were 21 and he finally left and went to new salem and that's where heir political career began leadership ran for office after being there only six months and writes this amazing, amazing hand bill that he gives out to the people explaining why he is running and said every man who is 23 years old, feather hand pad his peck already ambition. minimum is to be esteemed by my fellow man to do something worthy, to get their esteem stocker think that why win you're 23 and young and unknown to many of you and if you don't put me in office i wont be disappointed that much because i've head so much disappointment in the life but if you die promise i will do everything to pay you back.

then he said -- if i don't win this time, i'm going to try five or six more times until it's too embarrassing and too humiliating and then i'll never try again. he didn't within the first time but didn't dampen his ambition. the second time he tried he met more people. they had seen the kind of person he was, the kindness, the hughity, the story-telling ability and he wins the next election and that's the beginning of this extraordinary political. >> host: career. >> host: is there a reason to think that maybe not going to school enables you to be great write center he wrote the gettysburg address without being educate? he had a gift for in the rhythm of language. maybe you're born with that. more importantly maybe he read great books. he was not spending his time reading a lot of horizontal

books just radding thing like the bible, great poetry and shakespeare, and dived so deeply into them and said whenever he read something he really loved he wanted to readded it aloud and would take his knife, if he was on a plank where he was working on a rail, and would write out the words on a rail and then transfer them to paper and memorize them and became part of him. i was vertical learning was deeper -- than reading wise things andening hardly remember them he read the best. >> host: ran for office and got elected state and served two years in congress and a competent lawyer but there were a lot of competent lawyers and people work in congress. anybody who said this man is destines for greatness? >> guest: theodore roosevelt once wrote something but the importance of a cries making a lead are great, and he said if lincoln had not had a war, no

one would have known his name. but he is wrong. because all the people who had seen him from the time he was young, even he had never become president, they knew they were in the prepares of somebody special. the saw how much he was trying to learn. they wanted to help him on his upward climb. thaw would lend him becomes. the guy who was the village cooper would keep his fire on late at night so lincoln could read because that what's one place where there would be lightment they watched him help people who needed something done for them. they saw his sense of humor, even as a young kid he learned how to tell stories. used to listen to this father entertain people who came by the street andtle story. the father had the one thing he valued which was being a great story-teller and lincoln became a fabulous story-teller and had a sense of humor that matched his mel lan -- melancholy. he thought he would never reach his goal but he whistled through

sadness with his humor. they knew he would become president i doubt they could have thought that big but there was something about this guy. >> host: late talk about teddy roosevelt. did not grow up in a poor setting. his father was very wealthy but did that mean he would be necessarily a very smart person or very good athlete? what was it like growing up as teddy roosevelt. >> guest: the most important thing for teddy roosevelt growing up was that he suffered from an almost life-threatening asthma when he was a child which meant he couldn't participate in physical activities but meant that he developed his mind. he read books, too like lincoln did in every spare moment he could fine. unlike lincoln all he needed to do is pull a book of the library shelf or told his father, who he loved and had a fabulous relationship with and he said he wanted a book it and magically disappear.

the read 50 novels one summer and his father took him on trips around the world himself father was like a tutor and evenly that sense of reading became a huge part of him. he said that books were the greatest companion that a leader needs to know about human nature more anything net world and the best way to learn about human nature is through books. for him, too, books created an alternative future but a here's theirs little kid who wants to be fearless person and he is very timid and he's got this asthma, so he reads about explorers in africa, about soldiers, he reads about deer slayers and begins to imagine himself one of those and later becomes a strenuous guy because hi father said to hemorrhage teddy you have the mind but not in the body and without the body, the mind cannot go as far as it should boulevard u must do something to make your body. so he said i'll macmy body and went into strenuous exercisers and becomes a champion and a very strong person by the time

he gets to be past harvard and into the presidency. >> host: so he goes harvard. is well-respect thread. >> guest: an odd duck at harvard but a he wants to be an ornithologist and collects dead birds and their na this room and when he first comps he is kind of a prig. the is also different from the other kid. speak numbers class, interrupts the professor. those were the times when you just were a b student and that's what you were supposed to do but he worked hard and did very well. the interesting this once the gets out of harvard heeds up at the age of 23 running for the state legislature because, again, somebody comes to him and says, maybe you'd be a good candidate because your father had been well-known. a philanthropist, his father. and once he started going around, leading people from the working class, meeting people in the other part of he district --

he's in the silk stocking district and there's also tenements in this district but he began to feel at ease with them and he lost that sense of privilege the had before. he became a natural politician. >> host: so, he is in this state legislature but kind of full of himself a bit, doesn't make as many friends as he might want. did anybody say this man is very smart, good athlete and he's going to be profit the united states. >> well, what happens to him is you're absolutely right. when he was first in the state legislature he developed what he admit was a swelled head. a great way of language. so he could make headlines in everything. he would pound his desk and say outrageous things and back well-known in new york but after a while he couldn't get anything done because he had burned so many bridges. so he finally realized this where is humility came in. an important quality in all my guys, when they finally develop humility which means the able to recognize your limitations, to acknowledge your mistakes help realized he couldn't fix it

alone -- didn't say it that way him said i can't do it alone. i need cooperation of other people. and then he became a more mature politician. people knew he was special. whether they could predict at that point that he would be a president, i don't know but they knew they were in the presence of somebody with charisma, with energy, somebody with quite a lot of brilliance. >> host: so, he is related to fdr how? >> guest: he's like a sixth cousin to fdr but moe importantly, teddy roosevelt's brother, elliott roosevelt, was the father of eleanor roosevelt. so that's what is the real connection. so eleanor's uncle is teddy and her father, elliott, teddy's younger brother, had an epilepsy as a child, became an alcoholic died young, so teddy roosevelt became like a father to eleanor, but in franklin loved teddy roosevelt. so, all three of. the become this wonderful circumstancal fdr grows up in a wealthy setting.

the only child of his father's marriage with his mother. but it's buie alcoholic setting in -- bucolic setting in hyde park but nick thought he would be president of the united states. >> guest: certainly not fdr. teddy roosevelt and fdr were the center of their parent's love which gave them a certain confidence. with teddy roosevelt he was not only the sir of miss father's and mother's love but the other siblings made him he story of the life because he would tell their stories and they would sit around and he would organize their games. and so to fdr was the center otherwise his parents' life. in fact teddy so wanted to be the center of everybody's life that his daughter said he wanted to be the baby at the baptism, the bride at the wedding and the corpse at the funeral. so, fdr had that same sense, i think, of being adored as a child but he -- and he had any book the he wanted.

he learned in a different way. liked to read aloud. liked to listen to his mother read. that's a stories one time when hit mother was reading to him and he is playing with his stamp collection he loved to check -- collect thinks and his mother said you're not listening to me. and then he recited back the whole passages of what he said. he said i'd be ashamed of myself if i couldn't do two things at the same time. but because he was not a regular student, he became a c student at gotten, at harvard, columbia, people thought the wasn't as mart as he was. in fact the famous quote where oliver wendall holme saturday he has a first rate at the of tempererment but a second rate temper appointment. he was right about the temperment was the greatest gift that was endowed with but he was much smarter than people knew help had a problem solving intel

electric. he is a little kid now and wants to know where at the country that issued the stamp came from so would look in the ensign lowpedia and then figure out if he didn't know the words he said to his mother, i'm halfway through webster's dictionary he studied math and at that hases s and read about mountain and the environment and that became so personality when the had to lead uses through world war ii, when he becomes a leader later on he has a brain trust he can bring information out from the other people by listening to them. so the idea that he wasn't smart because he didn't do well in school is something we make terrible mistake about. >> host: lyndon johnson is sort of in between al of. the. no pure but not rich. he is not a book learner but he is pretty smart. so how do you describe his background and his father's relationship with him. >> guest: the most interesting thing is that what i learned which i hadn't known all that much before is that when he was

two years old he learned the alphabet. at four he learned to read and he could recite long passages of tennyson and longfellow because he mother wanted him to bev that kind of kid. the mother was college educated. wanted to be a writer. she had met her husband, when he interviewed him and so this mother really -- he said when he would recite these passages she would hug him so much, she was so proud of him that he felt like he would be smothered to death. ... >> he had wine and cheese