>> comcast is partnering with a thousand community center to create an associated with low income families and schools anybody for anything. comcast along with the television company supports tv as a special as a public se >> next his book tv's monthly in-depth programs with best-selling author military historian max hastings many books includes "catastrophe 1914," "overlord: d-day and the battle for normandy," and the recently published operation pedestal about one of the fiercest battles of world war ii. [inaudible].

>> troops prepared to land .[inaudible]. [shots fired] [inaudible]. the arrival of arise equipment came into the first phase of the landing. it healthy eyes now the men now on the beaches transports to the shore. >> and that was 77 years ago today on the shores of france

and our guest joins us from england and there's a book by max hastings "catastrophe 1914," "overlord: d-day and the battle for normandy," and he met the 1984 and 77 years later, to have a different perspective on today. max: i was the lucky winner of that book all those years ago was was able to interview those peopleri from american and frenh and british and german who actually had been there. although you should never take up the evidence of all of the witnesses but they do have a feeling prevents of itself. is very hard to get and hundreds of those and one particular guy with higgins, he was very articulatete guy who i met in nw

york and he landed on the beach on d-day latest him, before it all happen this huge event. how did all seem to you and he said lily higgins, he said i just couldn't get my mind around the idea and one has to know how incredibly young the most of the guys work. and they could see that tiny bit of it predict but in most cases long after was all over they were part of the biggest events in human history. i think that one reason the d-day still has this fascination in the anniversary of it is because the law horse before and after the second world war people have doubts whether and i don't think anybody really does except a few lunatics. but our guys and parents and

grandparents with the good guys in this event. and secondly a d-day maintenance the brilliance but the british and americans they did incredibly well. and we would like to take pride with our forefathers achieved. >> september 1st, 1939. two things, was a surprise and could've it been prevented. max: it was not a surprise. none in 1939. when they said the huge part which was in 1914 and also 193-1914 there was a colossal shock that i wrote a book in 1940 myself i was going for all of the s newspaper filings 1914 and what's amazing is right up until two or three days before the war broke out, that the

headlines in his papers all over europe were talk about all sorts of stuff, industrial disputes and about troubles in ireland, the british, they couldn't really focused on this is happening printed nobody in the end of july 1914 could see this huge continent wide catastrophe. it and off a lot of people who did the newspapers see right through the 1933 that sooner or later the democracies going to have to take it on. vacancy the more coming as a very slow boil. some historians have argued that it should've gone the war in 1938 over czechoslovakia. i think in 1938 people were

desperate to avoid war. he still believed that the bargain with hitler but what was dramatically different after 1939 was the behavior that everybody with half a brain could see this guy could not negotiate with him and only be dealt with by force of arms. it. >> was chamberlain's reputation today great print printed. max: it's . . low because he's always remembered about his side way czechoslovakia printed he was a very impressive prime minister. but not in the present leader but called national leaders can only go as fast as nations will allow that. they understood this between 19391941 that all of the way through the dry did the united

states in the war. franklin roosevelt roosevelt was desperately anxious that above all he would not lose the war but he knew that he had to take the american people with it. he knew they couldn't carry enough to the declaration of war. an assembly in my book that he was lucky churchill was all he did become prime minister and somebody 40 because he was able to after britain on the battlefield disaster. up to including but the brilliant and but churchill was able to take over without shifting the blame of chamberlain's responsibility. but the curious thing is that chamberlain had regarded as a veryam sensible radical ministe. he did thanks for them on

domestic issues before 1938 printed after became prime minister he always been remembered as the man who signed the agreement that allowed them to take or czechoslovakia. the writing of history on it. >> churchill's finest years, 1940 - 9045 came out in 2009. max: i had fun writing a book. writing about winston churchill, such a fantastic character. i really enjoyed every moment writing a book. >> has his reputation changed.

max: curiously enough, i think churchill is today more admired in the united states than in britain but in particular britain, he's become entangled with both slavery and racism. my argument always is trying to do all the types of historianth when i write about is to try to close my eyes and think not but to ask how does it look to them in which the times they lived. i would hesitate to say he was racist. everybody in his generation was targeted you treat black and brown people with a degree of common sense. but so did all of his generation.

the victorian era. you can defend that. i remember one particular time in the book that a lot of british troops stationed in india during world war ii. the question arose whether the british should have to salute the indian officers. drusilla the churchill city would have it. you should be obliged to defer to a brown man. it that would be totally racist us in our times. but i think now to every historical character you have to nobody was perfect. you have to say did they do more good than harm. in one there would very strongly

argue that churchill was so great that had great power over his feelings printed and 44 it was a disastrous famine. in which you had millions of people starving printed in the british remember they were rolled by the british printed and ppl put to the judge to rele supplies and churchill said the indians look to tighten the belts as the british do. the indians were living on shorter russians. and people were dying in the

streets while the white officers were able to eat. this is one of the most deplorable episodes and churchill's career printed and i still believe the great achievementsev far outweigh but there is a mood be on this people throwing paint on statutes and they were removed. to me this is grotesque. we have to keep a portion one of ofthe hardest things the movemes going on at the time. whether or not race or gender or political events were happening. very few things in life are plain and simple choices of good and evil. most things aren't. it's the nuances i feel get lost in these ferocious debates when people are now arguing whether

he was racist therefore the statues should be removed. that's childish. an awful lot of people driving these movements are very young. they don't know a lot of the history. >> max hastings is former editor-in-chief. military historian, author, and former editor-in-chief of the daily telegraph (uk). and these are just an in-depth for the next two hours. max hastings, you are more than 1945 of the d end of world war i and what he remembered what assuming your earliest memories of postwar printed. max: i grew up in the shadow of the war. ride-a-long side of the house which we lived as a child, you today space covered in weeds.

and the house next door and destroyed by bombs. we were still rationing. it was . painful. i will say that we suffered that much but we had russians during the and when you use to was short and everything you been ruined by the war printed a lot of british people felt differently about it printed it was certainly unfair. and those who were resisting killer 1941 while russia was hitler's ally predict in the united states, it seemed terribly unfair. but it's true that's the way it

was. the other thing i stressed the whole of m my life since my childhood, getting away from some of the stupid ideas i had as a kid for my father and uncles and cousins. our family has managed to enjoy the experiences of the war. my great uncle made his first parachute jump and my father went to work two and he was a very famous magazine which was the equivalent of life magazine. it came managed to enjoy the work. and they spent most of my childhood telling stories about all kinds of things it was my mother would say to me, your father and uncle lewis from beginning to end and of course

work is ghastly. united states was not invaded or byad britain to an . privileged war as to the russians who occupied europe. i think one thing in particular ti thought it was all about soldiers although there an important part of this some evictions for example the women that occupied europe as well what is meant millions of women's of any teenager with a gun as much as anything else. what the women endure for the war is something that we could talk about when we were very young party i come to realize how important it is every

soldier in some cases managed to find the more exciting. there are thousands of people who enjoyed it and experience was unspeakable. i'm not a pessimist at all. it we have to be willing to defend the things that we believe it. but i also think one has to understand their thoughtful things and more nobody should have to get into a war without thinking very carefully about what they're getting into. >> and inferno i'll help let loose by max hastings and came out in 2011. why the name change, the copy i have is all help let loose the americann version. max: is delightful. the one that was used around the

world. what it encapsulates me is if you listen to the russian stories, again and again when they're talking about the battlefield, theyy call back on that cliché and then they'll say all was let loose. to me it encapsulates what happened. if you are very young a man or a teenager, run but maybebe in a farm in oklahoma or back streets of new york or and or a gun or wherever. then he lived in a community of peace. and you suddenly find yourself on the back of a destroyer or in a b-17 nor a battlefield in normandy. agency human beings being torn

to shreds in front of your eyes. and you keep running and you keep fighting. you're seeing total darkness all around you. in the violence in the horror that people saw all heck let loose, the phrase assumed be vividly to encapsulate a huge numbers of young men and women it have experience in the war. they thought your know i'd rather regret it because when i was trying to do with all heck let loose was although the narrative of the war was habit i wanted to sell it is a people story. i wanted to tell it from the bottom up. no from the top down printed but yes it's about the great war.

the specific idea of that book was to try to show what it meant from the people who really it meant something different because it was the way you lived and if you were in prison for instance, a monotony of russians and incredibly strong bring word complained constantly about how dreary it was than the other and if you lived another area two years prior some 800,000 people starved to death. and a lot of people cannibalism, the 82 other. it just to stay alive and they complained about the food. they started to ease each other. either they will be paid germans. i do believe that because

britain was western democracy, i think the people of britain would have is probably true in america. they started to eat each other versus the russians who they were accustomed to terrible things until id 42 that killed a lot of people predict and the russians were accustomed to living in these conditions of drastically starvation. i don't believeth the british ad american people would have faces much as the russians did to get food. and all of the time with all heck let loose i was trying to show these comparisons and i think if you were chinese princeton's and outlaw full of people have no idea that the united states and britain were about 400,000 dead each. china lost about 15 million and

russia 27 million and the sufferings of the chinese again and try to bring this to the story because most people study history, used in the british for the american end of it. and i think in the 31st century, people like me to justify writing books about that period of time, we have to get the information that we will produce, only the secrets of generations of scholars. this is written in a new way the perspective especially new human perspective. >> all heck broke loose kamal in 2011 and two years later "catastrophe 1914," "overlord: d-day and the battle for normandy," came out aboutt word war i and first of all, max

hastings, the similarities between the two worse. did you find those. i just basically commanded world war i start grade. max: that's huge. let me take a similar to ones first. if the common cliché among the people in britain and america, the second world war because of course this is nonsense. when the first world war took place in world war ii and more casualties but as the russians who were fighting in well after thehe permissions and that americans only relative with the british and american troops print especially with the former. they suffered terrible losses especially in the first half of the work. the only campaign in the second

world war which was the british and americans were up against the same sort of experiences as the russians had which was normally in june of 1944. and they focused on d-day on june the sixth but the horrible people killed in the days and weeks that followed. and the losses in some instances again were appalling. much worse than the campaigning of thehe war but in the remaindr of the war the british americans between the british in june of 1940 and d-day in 1944. the moments of the british army was training at home and not get into action. in the first taken action was due to 1944. it and the germans and russians

were suffering terrible losses. several years before that. the real lesson is huge wars great industrial had also offloaded dying killings is going to happen before you get to an end of them. only thing you really arguing about us is going to do the killing of the dying printed the russians did most of the killings in the dying that was necessary. whereas in world war i course the french especially difference but alsoo the british terrible casualties. they nostril twice many people. but those worldri war one fexperiences attacks printed thy happen in world war ii sure

enough but her parents and grandparents got lucky. most often and asked you a question about how started. i think the underlying cause was that we now recognize the great wars terrible things that you want to think before you get into a great war. one of the things it's helped kept the world safe and alive, through the missile crisis was that jacky kennedy established the guns of august about how war came about in 1914 almost by accident and he was determined doubt nothing like that would happen on his watch. he was determined to find himself sliding back into work.

that was his chief of staff 1962. but the talked about the bombing bombing russian invading cuba. the kidney new huge danger and he got into dramatic escalations. butno in 1914 germany especially was accustomed to regarding more as a usable instrument and germany had h fought three warsf the preceding passenger against denmark austria in 1870 gets front. all should been huge successes were germany. and until 1871 russia with the leading component business but most of the senior officers of

what had been the russian army is not germany, usable policies. many of them got in their heads of the idea that they could see russia becoming ever more successful in industrial. and they were hardly uneasy. the best chance of defeating the russians was tofi fight a war in 1940 rather than holding up until 96 years later when the yrussians more with their real ratetr systems. it was terrifying the horse they were facing but many of them genuinely believed that would

haveid people cheering in the streets. in 1914. in any sensible nation in 1939. ... ... without thinking too much about it. i don't think he wanted a big war but he didn't want a small war. he thought that allying his ally

to invade serbia would be a fine thing for us to do. and even when the russians made it plain that they would fight in support of serbia, they carried on regardless but everybody watched this unfolding with very few of them understanding what they were taking on. >> you didn't mention the assassination of the archduke. generations have been taught that was the key. >> it was the trigger because it

gave on june 208th the curious wthing is much like ferdinand t nobody really liked him and after, there are a lot of foreigners that are amazed but the austrian hungarian government seized on the excuse to remove serbia from the map that they had been causing all sorts of troubles with 20 or 30 different minority nations.

they were desperately anxious and thought it was glorious to have these places like montenegro and so on so forth, but they value it at the empire in our massively and would try to hang on to it. they went to preserve and empire but they thought that invading serbia was going to tidy things up it precipitated this huge war with germany coming in behind austria and hungary and the russians coming in behind on the

other side but france was committed to support russia if the french surrendered which they were never going to do as a guarantee so it was a sort of progression of these alliances up against each other but it providedca the trigger and there were forces on the move it was the largest party in the german

parliament and they've been in charge with each other but they thought the glory of anotherry successful was to see but they did about the readiness they went to war. and on top of this we have to remember that nicholas the second was overthrown during world war i. >> bazaar was a more sensitive figure and he was very weak now and knew how fragile the russian empire was and he realized

better than most that for russia to become engaged but he went ahead anyway. they thought this was an opportunity and he probably saw more clearly than most but he was too weak to resist to say we won't have any part of it. but what is extraordinary is around him in moscow they honestly believed as did the germans that this was an opportunity to assert russia's new power and again this was with a benefit of hindsight but there they were and again over

the outbreak of war. >> you are the author of these broad looks at world war i and world war ii. how do you begin a project like that? >> i suppose in a way because i had been studying in particular the war of the 20th century all my life that one can draw upon every time i start a book and picked up over the last 50 or 60 years. my first job i was a researcher on a huge series on world war i called the great war that i was

only 17. the british historians of that period so one lived in that atmosphere and then when i left the university and became a journalist there seemed to be a alot of wars in those days including vietnam the more i saw and the more s i read i found there was an audience willing to read what i wrote about it but i

suppose one is lucky and it's ironic most of my books were designed to discourage people going to war but i suppose because i learned a good deal about the war my latest book on operation pedestal which is about a british fleet in the last year or two but all the time i was seeing in my mind the size some of the scene in the south atlantic with the ship sinking and the plane shot down, and extraordinary spectacle in

the south atlantic we see the crest of waves [inaudible] all those things having seen by comparison one had seen what it was like and those memories were very much in my mind. to give you an idea these numbers are a little difficult to find and we will get max hastings reaction but according

to a population review and facing history.com, world war i9000000, 70 million at least, the korean war about 5 million and the vietnam war about 1.3 million. now we are going to talk to max hastings about some of his other experiences but this is a call in the program once a month on c-span2 we invite an author to talk about his or her body of work. maxus hastings joining this monh on the anniversary of d-day and here's how you can participate as well. 202 if you live in the eastern alcentral time zones you can cal 748-8200. in the mountain and pacific time zones 748-8201. now if you are watching from the uk and would like to call feel free to call on either one of

those numbers, and if you can't get through on the phone line but would like to make a comment you can send a text. this is for text messages only. (202)748-8903. if you do send a text please include your first name and city so we can identify you that way. also facebook, instagram, twitter you can make comments in there askt well@booktv and thats what you need to remember. we will begin taking those in just a few minutes. when we go back and look at these numbers, and i don't know if you can see this or not but you can hear what i said 9 million in world war i. are those pretty accurate? >> the truth is for example you take the figure that is most

commonly used with no reliable sentences of who lived in what areas and so on all they say as it represents an order of magnitude and we can be pretty sure they are pretty accurate but for otherss we can't be sur. we think that around a million people died of starvation there has to be an order of magnitude. may be the people who don't want to believe are the people that try to give exact numbers and pretend they know but if you

take for example the casualties of normandy that you know who wdied in normandy but very often you know which day they died because of the casualty reporting got pretty confused you don't know exactly because quite a fewed people that enter and having died sometime between june 6 and april 9 so the difference was accept any figure giving that order of magnitude and in the same way the other point i love to make because i think it is very important, all of us historians we are making a staff of what happened but if

you ever see the book jacket this is the divinity there is no such thing as definitive. it's incredibly difficult to arrive at any approximation because a lot of reports even from worldeo war ii if the unit ran away nobody is going to write an official report of the 22nd infantry.

but of course, it's amazing not everybody is a hero one of the small statistics i found out you report that more people died crossing the street in london because of a blackout. it isn't literally crossing the street but in traffic accidents during the blitz and the blackout. in 1944, hitler began flying bombs on britain and they devoted an enormous efforts to

knocking out the sites with which these were being lost but the net result is that more french and dutch people were killed by the allied bombings them british people were in britain so that's another typical irony and you can make a case that it wouldn't have made that much difference anyway. certainly one of the things but nothing depressed the british people morehi than that. april 29, 1975 where were you? >> i was a very scared young

reporter in the embassy and i felt i had done a lot of reporting in vietnam one of the most distinguished reporters but i had spent quite a lot of time between 1970 and 1975 and once it became plain when in fact the evacuation and i told the arrival of the north vietnamese. there's probably about a dozen others that went for

understandable reasons. but around lunchtime we had seen one aircraft shot down over saigon there was definitely shootingng going on and one was scared of anarchy in saigon and there were large numbers bitter about being betrayed and being a westerner in the city around lunchtime on that last day i was in the office with another dish

reporter and he said to me i think the next 24 hours are going to be. that afternoon i could see the helicopters in the u.s. embassy compound a mile away and i just didn't have the nerve to see this thing up. later that evening i never regretted it and it was a moment

that showed me the truth about myself. >> calling in from c cleveland ohio you are on with military historian max hastings. >> my question is what is the way historianss write about the war when their country loses, for instance, how do japanese historians write about world war ii, what is their perspective can mr. hastings give me the name of any authors names? >> thank you very much. that's an extremely good list

and difference. what i can say is there are exemplary books and for instance the nearest thing to an official history. of all of the horrors, the japanese i'm afraid to come out it in a different angle. i'm afraid especially about japan's behavior in china it

wouldse be regarded by westernes as a travesty. they just don't want to go there and there's some other countries it's interesting those that never produced because even to this day the collaboration and of all of the important work of the french behavior during the world war has been done by the american and british historians. they don't want to have any part of it but i would say without hesitation if i reached around behind me and wanted to come up with a string of exemplary books

but not i'm afraid in the case of the japanese or some other nations. max hastings has written as well armageddon the battle 1944 to 1945 that came out in 2004. donald new york city. good afternoon. >> good afternoon mr. hastings. firstft i want to say my father participated and was in the 82nd airborne. also, the german army when hitler was told to invade czechoslovakia was by my reading is going to stage a coup and they would stage this if britain and france supported them and britain and france didn't. do you think this would have made a big difference if it

happened, and why didn't it happen? the british journalist malcolm said after the warsaw uprising of 1944, churchill rcbecame an appeaser we are goig to leave it there. that is a lot of information. >> whether there was a realistic prospect some german officers were strongly opposed but the bulk of the german army was

prepared to support it and i think it isg. very debatable my favorite sort of mentor. what is extraordinary is how small the german resistance movement was they did do their utmost but what is amazing is i'm afraid i think that it would have been difficult to get rid of it of the western armed intervention. i'm doubtful whether the strength was there. on the other hand one thing we must never discuss as i'm sure

you know that could have changed history but most politicians i think rightly had a deep prejudice and i'm writing at the moment about the cuban missile crisis and it always seems to me one of the most difficult parts to come to terms with. it's a very dangerous course when you start in on assassinating foreign leaders. i think there would have been caused had they succeeded but i am still not quite sure whether

it would have been well advised. as for your second question about the warsaw rising, it is true churchill was much less deluded than roosevelt about his ability to negotiate with stalin but it is perfectly true that it was a vanity of churchill's. churchill believed part of his personality could create a working relationship that never existed and churchill was foolish to believe. he becameer very bitter and roosevelt wouldn't support him over the dealings but you are absolutely right that for quite

a long time between 1941 and 1944, churchill deluded himself and couldn't have a working relationship. but one of the most fascinating judgments i've ever read in the british national archive churchill was so bitter about the soviet takeover that he told the chiefs of staff on the operation unthinkable for liberating poland with i think 44 divisions and the remains when they brought the british chief of the army but the prime minister asked us to plan for this, so we must and indeed in

the national archive with 93 pages of the draft plan for the operation unthinkable to drive the army out of poland and of course when the americans were asked about this they said under no circumstances they never would have supported churchill and going to war with the russians when they had been told but it's an extraordinary story. >> do you think that roosevelt's health in january of 45 during the conference three months prior to his death affected his ability to negotiate? >> there is no doubt at all that roosevelt was a very sick man at the time but i'm afraid i think some historians believe they could have handled it much more

differently. we would have had to get there before the russians. after suffering they were absolutely determined so i don't agree with thehe historians who believe things could have been different if the red army were already deep in eastern europe. stalin was absolutely determined for what russia had suffered and even if roosevelt had been the man he was two or three years earlier the outcome could have been significant.

>> and a reminder to our friends in the uk if you can't get through on the phone lines you can also send a text message 748-8903. that's for text messages only. please include your first name and city. this message comes from scott in virginia. he says i am a history teacher and my question is why did spain not join the powers during world war ii and if they had would they have helped germany when the war? >> that is a good question and the answer is he also had a better sense of self-preservation and was unquestionably supportive but

was terrified that if spain came openly into the war they would prevent the resources that only just emerged but it was a tangled story of why he didn't come in. a bizarre aspect of it is that he thought he might come in after hitler was willing with morocco and tunisia but at that stage in 1941 when he was bargaining with hitler he still had hope that they would become an ally so he wasn't willing to

change so that was another reason he didn't come in. he didn't take that last step and i personally believe there's a scenario that says don't waste your time. so many other alternatives become possible. but i do think that in 1941 you could construct a scenario that instead of invading russia he could have prevailed in the mediterranean. he could have taken more and by

sending another couple positions i think that he could have certainly if that had happened it wouldn't have been disastrous but it might have meant the rest of churchill. they would have seen especially conservatives they sought to make the best piece they could. i think if spain had come in and committed the resources to throw the british out which i think they could have done but it

didn't pan out that well and that speaks to the most recent book operation pedestal the fleet that battled. >> what i'm trying to do i am a bit reluctant now. instead i'm trying to look at specific episodes it was the most effective fighting force in world war ii and i locked onto operation pedestal but in 1942

the british had attempted to run through and failed. they had more than 600 aircraft. he was told that if they couldn't get supplies through then the population could no longer defend and they would have to surrender. they thought if that's the way it's got to be, that's the way it's got to be in the grand scheme of things it didn't matter. but at that time a lot of people still thought russians were going to be defeated and they

thought we lost a lot of other stuff already. so what. 1942 he knew many americans and russians after seeing the defeat didn't see much of it. when americans were asked who they thought was trying the hardest and most replied the third choice was the russians and the belief was very widespread and in russia there was the same feeling when stalin told your army runs away and it

had been disastrously defeated and broken up and most of the ships. and in the beginning of july it had been a disaster. the whole credibility was at stake. people will say he's always talking about the victory but now we see the defeat of the british army during the crown of the empire they lost would be a

disastrous blow to the credibility and the whole empire so he gave the order but supplies has to be run and they knew having the chance. britain had already lost for carriers. four of those carriers were committed along with two battleships and 30 destroyers. the ships beginning in august of 1942 were dispatched to cover the passage and what followed was a three or four day battle

sometimes they were not sure if we would find ourselves engaged or not but they knew they were going to have to fight the battle of their lives so they knew the first day nothing much happened. the weather was gorgeous as it always is in the mediterranean in that time of the year and some of the people said maybe this is going to be. they didn't think that anymore after the next day because they were in the middle of a flyover being sent they had been hit by

the german u-boat and they began to topple nothing was left and that was one of the carriers. the second day they started they knew that the enemy air forces were going to be coming. they had attack after attack

wave after wave by about five or 6:00 every man was exhausted. they had been flying all day. two of the submarines had been around and quite a few more had been driven off so by 5:00 on the second day they were thinking it's been a terrible day but we are still here. all the rest was still in tact but after that from about five or 6:00 that's the next 24 hours

from the most disastrous loss of the war and one, two, 300,000 exploded and the whole ship was shrouded. after what they had seen happen they thought here goes another carrier. miraculously after ten minutes, the signal blinked with the situation under control. they could no longer fly the aircraft but it was still

afloat. they had lost to carriers and they felt there was no choice but to order the remaining carriers because they were getting so close to the airbase but they couldn't convoy and -- >> i'm going to interrupt you there. that is a little bit from his newest book operation pedestal about the british navy. let's get our callers involved and hear from mike in lakeside california.

you are on with author max hastings. >> thank you. my question was about the end of world war i and i was impressed with the various parties and what they thought about getting into world war i earlier. but coming out of world war i, woodrow wilson started the league of nations and i think it was maybe a french politician said it is pretty good and it was also may be a british or french politician that said there were 20 million, too many germans and so it was basically like let's not sign the treaty too quick. >> given all that you are saying, what is your conclusion?

that's mike in lakeside california. >> i could keep you here all night. i think it's become a cliché among some students to say that it was a disaster. there was never going to be an easy way to call and ending to the treaty after the war that destroyed the empires and left a

legacy germany itself had almost no damage at all and it was very easy for the german right wing to develop a theme after the war but had never really been defeated backed. with the decision to make them sign this treaty but not to occupy but to let them go on running he was repudiated which

is determined not to get involved. because the united states was the only part. to exercise some effective influence. with the experience of being involved in world war i, there there'sno doubt the sentiment wy much with progress in not wanting america to have to get involved. but by far the best is a brilliant study of what happened and was never going to be an

easy way and if you study whatever we got wrong, germany's shopping list if they had been the victor in world war i they were essentially after the settlement would have been far more brutal. a. >> let's hear from carl in charlottesville virginia. good afternoon. thank you for taking my call. i know you are not a fan of counterfactual history, but i do have a question concerning the vietnam war. the johnson administration had not expanded our involvement with combat troops in vietnam in the mid 60s it is easy to identify the positive consequences especially for the u.s. but i just want to know if you have given some thought to what the negative consequences would have been had we not been more

involved in vietnam and in the late 60s. >> i personally believe i have said in my book the fundamental reason the other side one and it was a horrible regime including after 1975 so it's not that one is enthusiastic about the regime but they won because they were vietnamese. the problem was they don't like

foreign rules all the way through the saigon regime to see those as just that. it was well known they couldn't get out of bed in the morning without. i found when i was writing my book one of the creepiest things one realizes is of all the meetings that discuss the policy they were never invited to attend the meetings. all the decisions were made by americans and all the way through aside from the vietnamese i interviewed for the book said all the way through you were occupied by these foreigners and i'm afraid i don't think it was ever up for america to be involved in the

nationalist floors. please go ahead with your question or comment when touring france and i was in england in 1982 when i first became equated with you they are all great reads. >> thank you. you are more than welcome especially the new book of stalin's war which has just come out and i'm reading. >> and what do you think of it?

he was in at the beginning and a lot of this was directed by him even as much as hitler. he takes some interesting points and carries them too far. i'm afraid i think he's a sensationalist and he doesn't do

nuances for the earlier book he sought to argue that it was entirely russia's fault and he was sort of a bit right that they were interested but he overstated this theme and i've talked to some of my fellow historians about the latest and i think there's a considerable measure that he just pushes some of the ideas too far. whenever we have an author on in depth on booktv we ask him or her their favorite books and here is what max hastings reported barb barbara tuchman

and by erwin shaw the london observer and eagle against the sun by ronald spector all american authors mr. hastings notes and currently he is reading a book called aftermath life in the fallout of the third reich 1945 to 1955 by harold. we have a text message here and it says it's described how the general staff ignored the threat marching into france and belgium. what is your viewpoint on how this happens and is it right here in washington, d.c.? >> i'm a huge admirer. she had a huge influence on me

because i was very young when it was published and i just thought it was narrative history that brought back a lot of the stuff that she says is absolutely right and perfectly true. it was fantastic and misread, almost everything the germans were likely to do. but the french were obsessed with the attack and were committed. but you are absolutely right they had no idea what they were doing in the planning. >> we have about 30 minutes left with our guest, military historian, editor-in-chief at

the daily telegraph and evening standard. mr. hastings, how does one become sir mac. >> my contribution to writing both of the newspapers and books think i'm the better historian or there's all these silly british things but of course it's very much a matter of luck and we all enjoy but one doesn't make too much of them. >> who nominates you and do you

get ignited by the queen herself? >> that is all very exciting. as i became critical if i hadn't been in 2002 but yes you do, you go down on one knee and the queen taps you on the shoulder. it is a big moment and i'm afraid a lot of -- >> are you a monarchist, is that

a correct term to use? >> it's not the power that the queen has that she never uses anyway i think it is going to be a very difficult time. [inaudible] then there is the institution of the monarchy. a lot has gone unnoticed. at the time from the late 1990s and i was a sort of close eyewitness that spent a lot of time with all of the players at that point and the

moments in the late '90s it would be a mistake to think that anything is forever. it could go remarkably quickly. >> in the middle of all of these military history books that you have been writing and editing, the daily telegraph and the evening standard a book came out called did you really shoot the television, and i just want to read a quote from there and perhaps you would like to expound on this a little bit. my mother's capacity remained undiminished. she was in her late '80s when i told her that i respected her decision to leave her entire estate but i would love to have had one of her pictures.

she mentioned the picasso drawings i had always liked. would you like to buy it, she asked. i said to my wife if i murder her i shall plead and no jury will convict me. >> i wrote a joke about it and it was probably true you have a program on bbc and you choose records and what i did 30 or 40 years ago i had always admired my mother and she didn't hold

back anything. and it was a miracle i didn't shoot anybody. there was one occasion where somebody came up and said did you really shoot the television and i explained it was a very small set but yes, i did when i was ten or 11. it wasn't my finest hour, but it's one of those stories. one of the reasons i'm so keen on gun control. ron is in virginia.

you are on with max hastings. go ahead. >> it's an honor to be able to ask you this question and speak with you for a moment. what i would like to go back to is when you started talking about nationstates and the doctrine of attack is the main instrument of power in 1914 in that time and the political forces i'm interested in your perspectives and insights into today's time using history in the present time and are we on pass do you think that america is on path to go to war with iran based on the political forces, senator cotton or maybe even china and as i see they are misreading what is going on and i'm interested --

>> let's get his take. a. >> there's the huge issue looking at some of these things in the nuclear world the sensible power is realized in absolute catastrophe and the best way to avoid a war is to prepare having relatively strong armed forces and regretting the fact most don't take defense or security seriously. so i think we have to have strong armed forces to have a realistic prospect of deterring the war. but on the other hand, both as a

writer and having seen it firsthand one should be desperately careful about going to war. i was on the streets of london one day and he had just come back they were making preparations for the invasion of iraq and i said how does it look and he said well they don't know what they are going to do when we get there and that proved a remark. i am not persuaded for any outcome.

one has to exhaust. it's very unlikely. of the sanctions and also the possession of course before one results to the use of force. i think the war with iran would be a very serious step. >> you mentioned to tony blair earlier but you are acquainted

with the current prime minister, aren't you? >> i regret that he occupies and our relations poisoned the british politics and it's hard to say why they don't want to go into politics i wrote three or four years ago to become the prime minister.

because it is a middle sized country and we should sort of muddle through somehow. nothing important gets done in the world. >> is it fair to say that britain has punched above its weight for several years? has punched above its weight for several years? >> britain has tried to but i don't think that it really does.

most americans privately think we've lost our sense of direction. i just don't think that it is important enough realistically but they will cling onto their lives. >> david in rochester new york. good afternoon. >> good afternoon. it's an honor to speak to you, sir.

i have all your books in the library and two quick questions. one leads to the other. i've been collecting for years a series of books published in the 70s in england called the valentine illustrated history of world war ii and there were a lot of great pictures photographs and good historians at the time. many historians have said it is the first book by a military history and to emphasize the common soldier as opposed to the generals and tactics and everything. and i wonder what your opinion of that is. thank you very much. >> i totally agree.

he was a close friend of mine. he changed the way that we look at military history. but military history was about which division went this way and that way and he wouldn't thank me the same. it is what the war is like instead of just in terms of numbers and i think all of us that are writing about the history of the war and i would like to say i write about the history of war, not military history, we all owe a debt to john because he showed the way.

it's an incredibly thoughtful book. he looked at all the things of what the battle was really like and not everybody is a hero in any given battle probably about a quarter are right up there with you and will come along behind. that's not surprising. it's just the way mankind is but he got down to the nitty-gritty of how people behave in a way that nobody really had before so i think we all owe him a terrific debt. >> john keegan has appeared on the program in 2003. go to booktv.org, use the search

function at the top of the page and you can watch that full interview. how is your book different than his? >> i wrote a book about the outbreak and history of world war i but catastrophe in my book is what i tried to do is look at the matter in which hell the war started and what the first battles were like because there was a phrase of a terrific history where he says no period of the war matches the extraordinary excitement and sensation and i thought this was so and i get letters from people

asking am i going to write things about others. i thought i said all that i had to offer but for instance a lot of history in the past was terribly nationalistic. i think nowadays we try to get away from that and see things more in global terms. i.e. report as a sort of major factor. they had about a thousand battalions each and even the belgians had more troops than we

did. i got frustrated. everybody thinks it was the bloodiest period but it wasn't. the french army suffered the heaviest losses of anybody and i wanted to tell all those stories. >> al is in northwest las vegas nevada. >> it's an honor to speak with you, sir. two quick questions. the german generals, world war ii. they wrote a lot of books saying if it wasn't for hitler we would have done a lot better and that stuff. the second question the state of the british navy today how would you rate it? >> they sort of had a bit of a

point because i often have the days when there were officers interviewed in the 1970s and 80s and they would say hitler did make so many ludicrous positions to help the ally but of course the german generals account were entirely self-serving. i think they went along with the decision to invade russia even though they should have realized the german army wasn't powerful enough to take up russia they had such enormous resources. so i wouldn't buy that.

i think we have made a huge mistake by these aircraft carriers. they are way out of our range and one of the carriers instead of the 24 were they were supposed to be. and i'm afraid i think the carriers have to be deployed to provide escorts to those carriers. they concluded 15 years ago it's very speculative in the new age and i personally think that we could have done better so i

think it isn't well configured with this huge distortion of these because i had my doubts whether they will ever be deployed and if they are if we find ourselves up against the chinese -- >> about nine minutes left in our conversation. tom in michigan, please go ahead. >> i am in all of your understanding of the details associated with these different wars. i would be interested in your observation that many have. maybe that world war ii was an extension of world war i. the second is that since the vietnam war over the last half-century we've had one of

the most peaceful periods in our history and perhaps the history of western europe as well. >> thank you, tom. let me take the second one, first. one of his phrases that he often uses he said we use the word he's far too much. he was among many people including the presence of the foreign relations and the other strategy in such dangerous time is because stability is out of the window we are living in very unstable times and there were certainties during the cold war

you find an awful lot of people on both sides and you could predict what they might do at any given stage. today there are so many huge uncertainties and i do think the world looks like a dangerous place and you are absolutely right the international organizations are coming up with statistics which isn't what the headlines suggest at all but thatthese are very dangerous tis and i think stability is very elusive in the world that we now exist. i forgot what your first question was. >> it was about world war ii. >> most historians agree that one has to look at world war ii as an extension but on the other

hand i also have written i think we would understand world war ii better if we called it world wars to because everybody got into it but didn't reason. the japanese were there for different reasons and in a way we call it world war ii. but the fundamental, yes you have to say this was of the attempt the second one after the first one the big difference was 1918 a lot of germans were ready to believe whereas the great

correspondent wrote in april 1945 he said i found no great sense of guilt but an absolute sense because of the level of destruction that had been imposed and they were absolutely no doubt that they had been defeated in a way that they were not. rachel is in spring hill florida. >> hello, mr. hastings. i like that you mentioned nuances. i know about such complications. my question regards culture however this idea that men have evolved to make more of the

hypothesis that men have a propensity for heroics and that it's provided competitive advantages but also to keep young men off the streets and generally. i'm thinking of the book among others, war as a platform for organizing into battle. it may be a naïve or feminine question or impossible to answer. i can answer your question in one sentence one of the big changes is that i grew up in a very male-dominated household and with a wildly exaggerated idea of the importance.

when i was young i wasted a huge amount of time going to the war and so on and so forth but the older i got and more i had come to believe an awful lot of young men possessed physical courage which is an exaggerated virtue but i think moral courage is more important and women more often have it. it's taken me many years to see this and i look back on my teens and 20s when i thought it was the highest virtue and the implication of some of the stuff you're saying is that it can be a very corrupting force. >> let's hear from one last caller in california please go ahead you are the last call

today. >> thank you very much. i'm pleased to speak with you. i would like to ask you this. before he died, president kennedy intended to have 1,000 troops withdrawn from south vietnam and then of course he was killed and the directive wasn't carried out. do you take that as a sign that he wouldn't have gotten into the quagmire that lbj did and second if you were lbj what would you have done to end that war in a way you would have thought would have been satisfactory? >> thank you and i will tell you you have two minutes to answer that large question. >> we can never know. i personally do not think he would have gotten out because all the thinking was directed towards the campaign in 64 and he repeatedly said we can never

know is the answer but i do not think that he would have gone out. i don't think lbj ever forgot it probably was to cut his losses and get out as soon as possible when he had an enormous amount and didn't feel able to do that. it's been done to serve domestic rather than in accordance with the judgment and that's very often been the case but i don't think lbj ever that is probably

the worst option. for the past two hours we have been talking with best-selling author and military historian, editor-in-chief of the daily telegraph and the evening standard. there's his website and his latest book. as he noted he's working on a book on the cuban missile crisis so we will look forward to that. thank you for the past two hours. >> thank you for having us. >> schools and businesses and and we powered a new reality

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books. next on booktv "after words" former california democratic congresswoman jane harman argues past administrations failed to confirm some of the most challenging security issues. interviewed by janet napolitano former secretary of homeland security during the obama administration. >> representative, good to see you. i enjoyed your book. you entitled it insanity defense. why a title it that