register. if you want to get your book signed to the right of the table and please leave your chairs right where they are. thank you. >> i think it is a very exciting time. some are a little bit. worried we are fighting too much, or getting too much, disputing too much like hatfield and mccoy, and i say that's great because that means these are signs of vitality of life, not a moment that's cracking up

or is on it's last leg. people are fighting and debating and arguing so strenuously because the something of value is a concern command that is the conservative movement which is still the major actor in american politics. at the same time, we have an opportunity to accept change and that is part of what it means to be a conservative today cannot be so resistant that we won't allow anything to happen. edwin burke said change is inevitable. it prudent change, and that's what i as a traditional conservative am looking for in the right kind of leadership and debate and discussion, so i welcome all that's going on right now. all the various strands and strains of conservatism. that's good. coming out of that is going to be a bigger and better and more relevant conservative movement

in the years ahead. >> i want to read a quote. barry would go absolutely crazy if he were watching this today. he would be yelling at the television and think that it's embarrassing situation we have with donald trump. it's not the republican party or the country that we knew 25 or 30 years ago. that was susan goldwater, marc march 21. >> right. well, there's something to be said for that. but at the same time, goldwater was a practical politician. he wasn't just a man of principle for which he was the conscience of a conservative, but also a practical person, and he would have said wait a minute. 63 million people voted for this guy, why? and what is he doing, and they would have began to say let's see now, the supreme court nominations deregulation, tax

cuts, national defense being built up, being concerned about trade that isn't just free but fair. barry goldwater would have applauded all those things. i'm sure he would have been at the same time he would have said something like well, why didn't trump's mother wash his mouth out with soap and make him understand that we don't need a potty mouth except goldwater wouldn't have used the word potty. >> how did yo he become known aa historian of the conservative movement? >> i don't think i am. the historian of the conservative movement is mr. nash who wrote a marvelous book many years now since 1945,

and that is what he referred to we want to know what happened 40, 50, 60, up until the 70s. george nash is a marvelous, careful, painstaking brilliant historian. i count him as the historian of the conservative movement. it so happens i've written some books and biographies and histories, so maybe i am sort of coming up from fifth or sixth or making my way up into this race. i didn't start out to be a historian. i starte start all those years i say to be a novelist. that doesn't work out so well. i wrote three very bad novels that never got published, thankfully, because they would have been an embarrassment, and then they got into the political writing which is where i was for

20 to 25 years. then one day i said i am burned out. i've had it with worrying about campaign and all that. i want to go and teach and write. so i went back to school, got a phd can begin teaching and that's where i've been the last 20 or 30 years. i guess i've also picked up a little bit from churchill. i loved the one line of his in which somebody said what is history going to say about you, mr. churchill and he said i know because i'm going to write. i think what i'm trying to do in a small way is to paint a picture of the conservative movement sometimes from the inside, sometimes a little bit from the outside so that people 20, 30, 50 years from now will be able to refer to my books and understand the conservative movement better and in more depth.

a guide for the intelligent conservative, what are some of the books that are contained? >> therthere's 109 books, and se of my favorite books are in the conscience of a conservative, my own biography goldwater which i think is a good book. bill buckley, frederick hayek's road to serfdom. i think what we try to do, we have about i developed is it eir nine different categories we took these 109 books and put them into various statesmanship, economic politics and history and so forth and what we did was to take a book like the road to serfdom, and then to boil it down and just a page or page and i have to try to get people to see what it is and perhaps to

spark their interest in it and make him picthey can pick up thk and read it. actually, that little book is only 125 pages, something like that. it is one of the hardest things i ever did, because i had to read a book and then condense it down to 300 or 400 words and that really is not easy. that takes an amount of concentration and focus and i could do that for more than a couple of books so it took us a while to come up with the 109 books. >> to what the rest of the interview and other offers on in depth, visit the website, booktv.org and click on the tab at the top of the page.

>> one reason kids who score low on those tests if they don't have the background knowledge to understand the reading passages. it's not that they can't make an entrance, they make inferences in their lives all the time. some toddlers can make an inference, so that isn't a problem so much as they lack the background knowledge and vocabulary to understand, and that has been a big problem. >> tonight, 9 p.m. eastern on c-span2. >> now the real reason we are all here. tonight's featured author is considered to be the leading expert on the history of modern american soldiers and combat. his best-selling and