pedestal about the fierce battle of world war ii. >> the troops prepared to land bases still empty in the crossfire of german guns still breaks the shore the arrival of

motorized equipment marked the end of the landing. the lci's their first loads of men on the beaches to the transports to bring more troops ashore. >> that was 77 yearsea ago today on the shores of france, our guests joining us from england sir, max hastings has written sa book about d-day overlord d-day in the battle for normandy came out in 1984, max hastings 77 years later do we have a different perspective on d-day. >> i wrote that book many years

ago i was able to interview a host of people american and french and british and german who had actually been there although you should never get the evidence and supported by anything but they do give you a feeling for events of how they felt that is very hard to get books and movies while i was watching that clip one particular guy interviewed was lindley higgins, he was very articulate guy and he landed at the beach on d-dayay and i asked him before it all happened, the huge event how did alstyne and he said lindley higgins age 18 he said i could not get my mind around the idea that i was about to invade france and one has to be incredibly young with most of the guys doing this work and they could see the tiny bit but

it was only in most cases long after that it was over they understood one of the biggest events in human ministry one reason d-day still has a fascination, first of all a lot of wars are before-and-after and people had doubts i don't think it a buddy really doubts except a few lunatics, argives our parents and grandparents are the good guys in this event and secondly d-day was a bring achievement in the british and americans in the canadian stood incredibly well to take pride in what they achieved. >> max hastings september 11, 9392 things was a surprise? and could have been prevented?

it was not a surprise and a lot of people were there at the time in 1979 they said the huge difference between 1914 the beginning of the first cold war in 1939. 1914 was a shock when i was writing a book like that 1914 myself i was going through the newspaper filesl in 1914 and wht is amazing right up two or three days before the war broke out, all the headlines in the newspapers all over europe they were about all sorts of stuff industrial disputes, troubles in ireland, the british, they had really focused on the fact that this was happening, nobody in the end of july 1914 could see this huge catastrophe that was

happening, it was completely different and awful lot of people who read newspapers could tell from 1933 that sooner or later the democracy was going to have to take it on they could see the were coming it was a very slow burn and some historians would argue that britain and france should've gone to war in 1938 in czechoslovakia i did not agree i think in 1938 there was a lot of people desperate to avoid the war who still believe that you could bargain, what was dramatically different in 1979 wasr a behavior that everybody was hard to bring to see that this guy was somebody who could not negotiate and only be dealt with by the forcece of arms,. >> what is neville chamberlain's

reputation today in great britain. >> it is pretty low he is always remembered the man who signed away czechoslovakia and i don't think he was a veryy impressive prime minister, i don't think he was impressive leader but all national leaders can only go as fast as their nations will allow them to, franklin understood this very powerfully between 1979 and 41, it was essential all the way through attempting to drag the united states into the war, frankly roosevelt was desperately anxious that the democracies should lose the war but he knew he would have to carry the marker people with ito until pearl harbor he knew that he could not carry them with a after the declaration of the work and in the same way i wrote in my book that churchill was lucky he did not become prime minister until may 1940, because he was able to shuffle the blame

for the disasters on thehe battlefield including may 1940 into neville chamberlain, but churchill was able to take over without bearing the blame of chamberlain was responsible for, before he came prime minister he was veryr, successful, radical politician and radical minister he was a great minister and did terrific things to britain the domestic issues before 1938 but became prime minister he never did anything right he would always be in british eyes as a man who signed the agreement that allowed hitler to take the czechoslovakia in a way it's unfair but writing history is unfair. >> max hastings book on winston

churchill final years 1940 - 1945 came out in 2009. >> i may save i held on writing a book in the other book that i've written writing about winston churchill he was a fantastic character and i really enjoyed every moment about that and sometimes it seems like. >> has his reputation change? >> has his reputation changed. >> his reputation curiouslyou enough churchill is more admired in the united states and he is in britain but in particular in britain those of you who may know he's become entangled in this great jealousy of support for slavery and racism itself, my argument always as a historian what i'm trained to do all the time when i write about

other periods was close my eyes and think not how does this look to us, but how did it look to them at the times in which theyy lived and i would not hesitate to say churchill was a racist, everybody in this generation was, he behaved and treated black and brown people with a degree of even contempt but it makes ugly weeding but so did the generations, he was a victorian involved in the victorian era's, one cannot defend that, you can't say that they were attractive, they were very ugly i remember one particular issue that i written about in my book was a question arose for british troops stationed in india during world war ii, the question arose of whether british soldiers who have to salute india and others in the social city wouldn't have

it he said you shouldn't be applies to a band that, he these are terrible things to say in our own lives, i think what is been overdone with every historical character you have to say nobody was perfect, you have to say did they do more good than harm and very strongly i would argue that churchill did not receive but one has in a ministry as an example in 1944 a disaster in which you have millions of people starving in the british remember india was ruled by the britons in they

signed a waiver in appeal for shipping to send relief supplies, churchill wasn't interested he said they will have to learn to tighten their boats as the british people, this is a monstrous thing to san because indians were living on half of shorter rations than anybody in britain but you suppose tightening their boats were people were dying. they were able to eat on limited eggs and bacon. this was one of the most deplorable emissaries in churchill's heirs of leader. but again i still believe his great achievements in the positive side outweigh the negative. people throwing paint on statues

demanding more from of parliament square, to me this is a test this is victimless, we have to keep a h portion one of the hardest things of the movements that are going on at the moment whether race, gender or political events, very few things in life are plain and simple choices between good and evil, it's a nuance after you get lost in the ferocious debates and when people are arguing before churchill was a racist and his statutes should be removed and all the books about him should be rewritten and they reflect a lawful lot of

people are driving these movements and as we all did they married credible little history. >> max hastings is the author of 30 books most on military history he is a former editor-in-chief of the daily telegraph in the evening standard newspaper and he is our guest on in-depth for the next two hours, sir max you were born in late 1945 after the end of world war ii, what do you remember what were your earliest memories of postwar britain. >> i grew up in the shadow of the war alongside which we lived as a child it was a huge empty space covered in weeds which was a huge bomb site and destroyed by bombs and there was a lot of uniforms in the streets that were still rationing, they were suites that can be rationed and it was pretty painful. we didn't we were a typical class so i would not say that we suffer that much but things like that with rabbits and pigeons because we were mostly in the country.

in one got used to everything was short britain was very poor and it was ruined by the war and it was something a lot of british people felt better it was certainly unfair that after britain was born with existing hitler in 1940 and 41. while russia was hitler's ally in the united states is still neutral, it seemed unfair but that is the way it was in the other thing i spent my life since my child and getting away of the stupid ideas as i was a kid when my father and uncles and cousins somehow all the men in her family managed to enjoy the experience is of the work my great uncle has made his first peers to jump at the agency and my father had done that and he

was a war correspondent to a famous magazine which is equivalent to life magazine in britain. he managed to enjoy the work and my cousin with sss was a military cross they spent most of my job telling stories to each other and it was my mother who would say to me don't listen to the stories of your father and uncle louie when they talk about the war from beginning to end. war is costly was second world war the united states had a relative privilege second world war which is invaded but they were pretty privileged war compared to the russians or occupied europe, i think another thing in particular when i started writing about wars i thought it was all about soldiers but actually soldiers or an important part of this

that some of the victims and you think for example the women who occupied europe in world war ii and what it meant to be millions of women to be entirely at the mercy of any teenager in the sexual mercy as much as anything else, what women endeared at the war was something we hardly thought about when we were very young, i've come to devote more space in my books to the synod come to realize how important it is and for every soldier who in some cases to find the war exciting or enjoyable and there are thousands and there is nothing enjoyable with the experiences they speak about, i'm not a passive mist but i believe we have to be willing to speak up on the things that we believe in. but i also think one has to

understand nobody should ever get into n a war without thinkig very carefully what they're getting into. >> mass enter max hastings book on world war ii and for no or all hell let loose came out in 2011, why the name change the copy i have is all hell let loose but was it the american version that was in for no? >> the one that we use around the world all hell let use what it encapsulated to me if you listen to the stories again and again, of what i'm talking about the things from the battlefield they pulled back on the cliché it encapsulates what happens if

you're very young man or teenager and even brought up in a community in the back streets of new york in oregon or whatever and you live the life of peace in a community of people and you suddenly find yourself on the deck of a destroyer or flying in a b-17 or on the battlefield in normandy. and you see human beings literally one dishrag before your eyes and your expected to keep shooting and running and keep fighting in those circumstances you're seeing it all around you. the violence in the horror that people saw, all hell let loose the phrase seem to be vividly to encapsulate what a huge number of young men and young women experience in the war, they

thought and for no and they would argue the publishers but i did regret it because although the narrative of the war is what happened between 1939 in 1945 i wanted to tell it is a people story i wanted to tell it from the bottom up and not the top down but yes i written other books about the great war leaders and the judges and so on and so forth. it was to show what it meant to different people because the war meant something different to people according to where you live and if you were and a ration to improve incredibly re-and you complain constantly of how great it was but on the other hand if you live in many

for two years by 800,000 started and they face each other after the course, to stay alive and they complained about the food and i always believe that they invaded by the germans and i do believe that britain was a western democracy and the people of britain would've put their hands up and i think the same is true in america the ones eating each other with the russians they were accustomed to terrible hardship which 1942 it killed a lot of people in the russians were accustomed to living in these conditions of starvation and a bully british and american

people were in the same circumstances and it's not as the russians did to get through that. and again, all the time all hell let loose what i was trying to do is show the comparisons and if you are chinese and awful lot of people have no idea that the united states and britain lost about 400,000 give or take, china lost about 15 million and russia 27 million and the sufferings of the chinese, again i try to bring it into the story because most people who study the history of the second world war if you live in britain and you study and don't really get into what went on. i think of the 21st century people like me too justify going on writing books of that.

it is not the great revelation it's only a great secret with the generations of scholars and to look at them in a new way and a new perspective, especially a new human perspective. >> all hell let loose in 2112 years later catastrophe 1914, europe goes to warat came out about world war i, first of all max hastings similarities between the two wars did you find those and basically how did world war i start. >> that's a huge question let me tell you the similarities in the second world war and of course this is nonsense, the bottles more terrible in the first world

war took place in world war ii with more casualties but it wasi the russians who were fighting them and aware of the british and american is only relative of the british american troops especially bombers to an submarine cruise which suffereds terrible losses especially in the first half of the war. the only campaign in the second world war in which the british and americans were up against the same experiences as a russians is in normandy in 1944 everybody focuses on the day but people were killed in the days and weeks to follow in the losses and some infantry and the british and american was much worse than i was in the other campaign but for most of the war

the british and the americans if you reduce it between the british in france in 1940 and d-day in 1944 most the british army in the american army was training at home and they did not get into action and the famous az company, that was june of 1944 and of course germans and russians have been fighting ferociously terrible losses, so i am afraid the real listeners when you get huge wars between industrial past and also an awful lot of killing which is what happened before you reach anything and you really arguing about the killing in the british and the americans were very fortunate in world war ii that

the war i as in world war ii. but those world war i experiences were attacks in the

in 1962. they were very enthusiastic about missiles and invading cuba and kennedy was not having not because he knew of a huge danger if he brought into that scene and dramatic escalationti covid9 14 germany especially was accustomed to regarding war as a usable instrument of policy, germany had bought three wars in

the preceding half-century against denmark, against austria in 1878 against france, all of which had been huge successes for germany and germany had to overtake the beast and before until 1871 that russia was the leading component of the german state but most of the senior officers of what is been the russian army in 1914 they regarded wars as a usable instrument of policy and many of them could see russia becoming ever more successful of economic industrial he and they were profoundly uneasy but their best

chance of defeating the russians was to fight a war in 1914 while they were holding up in 1916 whensi the russians and especiay the railroad system would become stronger and all the people involved in 1914 and what is terrifying how they understood the immensity and the horror that they t were facing, many of them genuinely believe what they do have people cheering and seeing throughin the street in 1914 at you most certainly brought in any sensible nation in 1939, first of all many that saw history to 1939 to think that they could see the germansr but in 1939 generally most capitals responded with the seriousness of becoming a more

in 1914 was an idea that it could be something romantic and inciting and all sorts of people who should've been better have plunged into a terrible conflict without thinking too much, german kaiser i don't think he wanted a big war but he did want to allow his allies to invade serbia, he thought that would be a fine thing and what has been called with a blank check to attack serbia and even when the russians made a play to support serbia and germany carried on regardless but everybody watches scenario unfolding in a few weeks in 1914 it was very good

to understand this in the horror of what they were taking on. >> sir, max you did not mention the assassination of thehe arch duke of austria-hungary and generations of americans schoolchildren have been taught, hathat was the key. >> it was the trigger because it gave in theri serious thing by service on june the 28th, nobody in austria-hungary much like france was the ad to the austrian throne but nobody really liked him and when he had been killed a lot of foreigners, the austrian hungarian

government seized with the assassination as the excuse they had been looking for for years to remove serbia and they had been causing the most trouble austria-hungary was a mess in the 200 days in the minority nation and all of these were getting rescued and they were always minorities, and speaking of dependence, the government was desperately anxious in all these countries would come in german but they value the empire and they didn't hang onto it. and really western hungarian

went to war to preserve the empire that most people would've told them when they had no chance of hanging onto and they thoughtha invading serbia was going to tidy things up, it was going to end all the nonsense and far from that precipitated a huge war in the russians when incoming behind serbia france was committing to support russia and the germans had a war plan and they took out france before they plan to do it with the russians and they told the french that they would only accept in 1914 and focuses which they would never do as a guarantee of their intention and it was a mad progression up

against each other and it was certainly the case in the assassination that provided the trigger but there were forces on the move and when we had not mention in the politics of germany and the socialist who are very antimale to lure a stick was the largest party in the german polymeric and one of the generals who hated the socialist and hated the parliamentary democracy, they thought the glory of a successful war was needed to have socialist approach in 2021 the people could've thought like this but they did in itis was almost about the readiness and

on top of this we have to remember nicholas the second was overthrown during world war i. >> he was a more sensitive figure and he was very weak now and he knew how fragile he was and he realized better than most people that russia was becoming engaged in the war and he could bring down but he went ahead anyway because those around him, they thought this was an opportunity and nicholas saw more clearly than most of what thisis could mean but i will say

he was too weak of a man to resist to say that we would not have any part of this. but what is extraordinary the people around you in most cases honestly who believed that war would do them good in this is an opportunity to assert russia's new power and again, this was bombing for the benefit but there they were in again they were in the streets of moscow over the outbreak. >> sir, max hastings you the author of about 30 books but two of these are very broad looked at world war i and world war ii and all hell let loose catastrophe 1914, how do you begin a project like that. >> i suppose it's an advantage

because i've been studying war in a particular in the century of all my life that one can draw upon in every time i started i picked up over the last 50 or 60 years because he was a teenager and i used to read about that and i was a researcher on a series on world war i called the great war and i was only 17 and the writers without series for the british historians and i live in the atmosphere even when i was very young and when i met i started working in there seem to be a lot of wars and i went through a lot of wars including

ovvietnam several times in the middle east were and i became increasingly fascinated by the experience of war and the more i saw the more i went in the more i wanted to write about it and when i wrote about it it sorta became my life most of my books are designed to discourage people in operation pedestal which is about a british fleet across the military a terrible cost in the summer of 1942.

in 1982 i was a correspondent with the british task force the women capture the poor person when i was writing operation pedestal that the whole time i was seeing in my minds eye some of the scenes that i'd seen in the south atlantic with the ship sinking in the plane shut down and respectable until we've seen it you can hardly believe when we see huge ships and you see these vast ships and request the waves in the scenes and the way that young men behave all of those things having seen something it was a very small

war by comparison with anything that happened in world war ii but we had seen what it was like in those memories were very much in my mind. >> just to give you an idea of the military and civilian these members are little difficult to find and get completely max hastings reaction to it but according to world population review and facing history.com world war i9000000 literary civilian death, 70 million at least the korean war about 5 million in the vietnam war 1.3 million, were gonna talk to max hastings about hisweax other book in the experience in the vietnam war as well, this is the caller program once a month on booktv on c-span2 we invite an author to talk about his or her body of work sir, max hastings

is joining us at england during this anniversary, here's how you can participate as well use the area code and you can call in at 748-8200, if you live in the mountain or pacific iphone 748-8201. if you are watching us from the uk and would like to call and feel free to call in on either one of those numbers. if you can't get through on the phone line still would like to make a comment you can send a text this number is for text messages only (202)748-8903. if you send a text include your first name and your city so we could identify that way, facebook, instagram, twitter, you can make comments there as well booktv as her handle and

that's what you need toha remember, you will begin taking those in just a few minutes max takes teens when we go back and look at these words that numbers i don't know if you can see this or not, you can probably hear 9 million in world war i, 70 million are those pretty accurate. >> any last numbers have got to be not quite guesstimates but the truth is you take the second world war in china and its 15 million chinese all you can say is a numbers represent a magnitude i mentioned earlier

1944 and given magnitude, david really knows, the only people you don't want to believe in you take for example even when you get onto the casualties and normandy, you know who died in normandy nobody knows which they died off of you know roughly how any people died the great

principle will accept any figure of some numbers in the order of magnitude and don't believe is literally true in the same way the other we are making us to a what happened if you ever see on a book jacket that was a definitive history or the definitive no such thing as definitive, were groping the truth people have a lot of reports, combat reports even from world war ii to say if the

unit ran away at some units did nobody is going to write an official report of the 22nd infantry in the position and we got into trouble with british units when i mentioned and i mentioned that they ran away and you can't say that and it is amazing how many men are in wars but not everybody isan a hero, i are all making a stop at the truth but were all struggling to get it right. >> one of the small statistics i found in all hell let loose you report that more people died crossing the street in london because of a blackout then

killed by the blitz.d. >> is not crossing the street in london then killed in traffic in the blitz and blackout. that is true. in the same way another statistic is a 1944 and began raining his weapons, his rockets and applying bombs on britain. they devoted enormous effort to knocking out the sites in which these will be launched but they resulted in more french and dutch people were killed by the bombing of the sites the british people killed by the weapons in britain. and that is the typical the irony of war and we set many boundaries of war. you can make a case that if you left all the lights on and

certainly one of the things america was grateful to spanned across a blackout nothing more than the five years of those blackout nights and blackout long winter nights. >> april 29, 1975, where were you. >> i was very scared with the reporter at the u.s. embassy, i was one of the least distinguished reporters, i spent a lot of time between 71 and 75 and once it became that you would see the last act in the drama, i wanted to see it in one

most of the journalist and americans still in vietnam salute the evacuation in the last morning before the cities i told them i would stay and report the arrival and i forget how many other germans who stayed all the americans and the british around the country. but around lunchtime we have seen one aircraft shut down first thing in the morning and they were shooting going all over on, pretty serious and i was more frightened one was more

scared and there was large numbers and bitter about the betray and i just thought it was pretty scary being a westerner inre the city and around lunchte on the last day i was in reuters news agency office in a british reporter much braver than me as we were capping out he said to me i think in the next 24 hours in the city are going to be pretty uncertain and i was absolutely terrified that afternoon i could see the helicopters in and out of the u.s. embassy compound a mile away and to see this up and to

the embassy and was a great crowd of civilians around the world and a push my way through them and marines on the embassy help me over the war and later that evening i got out on one of the evacuations but i never regretted it and i'll save the moment that shall be a truth haabout my soul and one that somewhat likes to think to do the brave things and regardless of their braver than me. >> calling in from cleveland, ohio you are on with military historian max hastings. >> my question is what is the way historians fight about a war

when their country loses, for instance how do gentlemen and japanese historians write about world war ii, what is their perspective can mr. hastings give the name ofti any authors names. >> thank you very much. >> that's an extreme the good question in a terrific different, i cannot come up with a specific thing but what i can sayy is the germans are writing books about the german h experience a for instance the nearest thing through an initial history the germanies refused and it is recognized by all scholars within upstanding

objective and relative in the second world war that faces up to, the japanese i am afraid from a different angle is very depressing that the japanese do not want tong go there and almot all the important writing about world war ii in japan is found by american and british and i am afraid of japanese and is a tragedy they just do not want to go there. there are some other countries it's interesting, france is the only major belligerent that is on the allied side that is never produced an official history of the war because even to this day in 2021 the french could never agree what took place with the whole business of france on the

occupation of the collaboration of the germans and of important work the french behavior during the second world war was done by american british historians. it is a pity but french scholars without hesitation the germans if i reach around behind me one could come up with a whole string of exemplary books by ergerman scholars but not in the case of the japanese or some of these others that you mention. >> max hasting has mentioned armageddon the battle for germany 1944 - 1945 that came in 2004. >> donald, new york city, good afternoon. >> goodrn afternoon mr. hasting first i want to say i father participated in d-day he was

with the 82nd airborne and also the german army when hitler was posed to czechoslovakia with my readings and they would stage this coup if britain and france supported them, do you think aithis would've made a big difference of why happen why did it happen, also the british journalist said after the war saw an uprising in 1944 churchill became as much ofn appeaser to stalin as chamberlain had been to hitler and i would like to know what do you think of that. >> regularly but there that's a lot of information.

>> is a very difficult question whether there was a a realistic prospect of the german army before the war, i think the best historians and it's probably the best accounting, it was made up that some german officers were strongly opposed to hitler but the bulk of the german army was prepared to support them and i think it's very debatable with enough support before the invasion would overthrow him but my favorite historian he makes the point july 94 which is extraordinary how small the german resistance was we rightly honor the germans soldiers and civilians whoho did oppose to gt

rid of them but what is amazing to the bulk of the german people and i'm afraid you could get rid of it of western armed intervention and i'm very doubtful whether the strength in germany and on the other half one of thing that we must never discount his history could've been changed of somebody had killed him and i'm sure you know it came very close to successfully killing him and that would include history but churchill i think likely had a deep prejudiced against promoting the assassination to most leaders and i don't know -- it always seems one of the most

difficult things of the americai history and the fact that the market president it would be very grateful if they had succeeded but i'm still not quite sure whether they would've been well advised, as for your second question about the wars arising it is true churchill was much less deluded about his ability to negotiate and part of his personality could create a

working relationship with stalin and that did not exist in churchill was very foolish to believe, churchill became very bitter in 1945 and the reason he didn't attend the funeral because he was so bitter that roosevelt wouldn't support in dealing with russians but you are absolutely right in raising the point that for quite a long time between 1941 in 1944 churchill deluded himself that he could have a relationship with stalin and this is never on the cards one of the most fascinating documents of ever read in the british national archive in may 1945 churchill was so bitter about the soviet

that he told the chief of staff of the operation unthinkable for liberating poland was 44 divisions of the british american armies and god help us when they bought the british chief of army and the whole idea was ridiculous. but the prime minister asked us in the national archive 93 pages of the draft plan for operation unthinkable. to drive the army and when americans asked about this they were sensible they said under no circumstances in the british people would never have supported the russians when before previously they were the

greatest is extraordinary story. >> to think roosevelt's help in january and the conference three months prior to his death affected his ability to negotiate with the russians. >> there's no doubt at all that he was a very sick man at the time of the outcome but i'm afraid some historians who believe that the west could be very differently and much more tough, i do not agree i think the truth the russians that we wanted a free eastern europe and we would had have got there before the russians and the russians have to suffer with stupendous and determine that they were going to get the reward which met in europe, identity and historians who

believe, the army was already deep in and having blood flow and demanding more from to a tyears earlier. with the outcome could've been significant. >> a reminder to our friends in the uk if you cannot get through on the phone line you can dial on any number that you see on the screen you can also send a text message (202)748-8903, that is for text messages only, please include your first name intercity and this text message comes from spot in danville virginia, he says i'm a history teacher my question is why did spain not throwing the powers during world war ii and if they

had, with the help germany when the war? >> that's a very good question. the answer is general spain's dictator was quite a hat and turn nasty human being. he was leading in stalin and had a better sense of self preservation. . . .

>> but at that stage in 1941 when hitler had hopes that france would become ally of germany in the war. he wasn't willing to say france colony to franco. that was another reason that franco didn't come in. he sent a token division but he didn't take the last step. i personally believe there's a scenario, my favorite historian.

he could have seized gibaltra through spain. and by sending another couple of divisions to reinforce in north africa. i think he could almost certainly -- he could have got to cairo. british could have seen and

didn't like churchill that just tried to depose churchill and tried to make the best they could. i think if spain had come in and germany and even delayed his invasion of russia by a few months or a year, i think one can see things looking much more difficult for the western allies. but fortunately it didn't turn out that way. >> that speaks to your recent book, the battle to malta, doesn't it? >> yeah. what i'm trying to do, now that i reached the advanced age of 75. i'm a bit reluctant now to do more huge blockbuster books like vietnam or catastrophe. instead i'm trying to look at

specific episodes which one can talk about why those things and i had never written a whole book about royal navy which i think was britain's most effective fighting force of world war ii just as the u.s. navy was americans most effective fighting force and i locked onto operation pedestal and in 1942, close to starvation and the british attempted to run several convoys to the island and failed. the germans and italians had more than 600 aircraft all over mediterranean. they got italian service fleet and looked pretty desperate and if they couldn't get supplies to malta by september, 300,000 population could no longer be

fed. the island would have to be surrendered. some people, the top of navy and british foreign forces, that's the way it's going to be, that's the way it's going to be. the malta in the grand scheme of things didn't matter that much. a lot of people thought russians were going to be defeated. they thought while malta goes, we lost a lot of other stuff already, so what? churchill, he was in 1942 deeply politically embattled. he knew that many americans, many russians are foreseeing britain defeated so often in the battlefield didn't think much of this. there was an opinion poll, when americans who they thought was

trying hard toast win the war, after america, the second choice was the chinese. the third choice the russians and the british didn't come near it. the british weren't up to much. in russia there was the same feeling that stalin told churchill, your navy runs away. calls one of the arctic convoys from britain to russia have been disastrously defeated and broken up and most of the ships were american, most of the ships. and the whole credibility of britain as fighting ally is at stake. churchill was personally embattled. people were saying, all right, he talks a great game. he's always talking about

victories but all we are seeing is defeats, british army had had to surrender to a smaller japanese army and another british army surrender to a smaller german army and the british people, we are feeling pretty disillusioned but to lose malta, jewel in the mediterranean crown, lost to the access would be disastrous blow to the credibility of the whole empire. and so he gave the order to the navy that supplies have to be run to malta at any cost and they knew that having a chance of getting ships through they would need air cover. britain had lost 4 carriers in the war and we only had 7 left. smaller than american carriers.

well, four of those carriers. four of the 7 were committed to operation pedestal along with two battleships, 7 cruises and 30 destroyers and submarines and these ships beginning of august 1942 were dispatch to cover 14 vessels to malta, what followed 3 or 4-day battle which was one of the bloodiest naval battles of the western war. and sometimes when fleets put to sea, they weren't sure if they were going the find themselves engaged or not. knew that they were going to have the fight the battle of their lives and so they did. the first day august the tenth, nothing much happened. and the weather was gorgeous as it is in the mediterranean in

that time of year and some of the young sillier people with the fleet, they start today think, maybe this is going to be the end and they didn't think that anymore after the next day, august 11th, because they were in the middle of a flyout for one of the carriers being sent to malta when suddenly everybody hears the terrific noise and they start looking over to one of the other carriers, they see the carrier eagle had been hit, wham, wham, wham, wham, four torpedoes in a german u goat that got through the screen and the eagle began to topple, topple and topple with planes falling into the sea on its deck and hundreds of men falling into the sea too and 8 minutes eagle was hit. there was nothing left except bubble and debris and a lot of

bobbing heads in the water. that was one of britain's 7 carriers gone. well, after that everybody knew that this trip was not going to be effective. and the second day they started, they knew from first light that it was going to be really rough and they knew that the enemy's air forces was going to be coming. all through that day, 12th of august, attack after attack by german and italian submarines and german and italian aircraft, wave after wave of them. by about 5:00, 6:00 o'clock that day of august the 12th, every man was exhausted. the fighter pilots were exhausted, flying all day to try to drive off the waves of aircraft. the gunners on every ship were exhausted. they've been firing, extended ammunition. two italian submarines have been round and sunk, quite a few more

driven off. so 5:00 o'clock second day, the british were thinking, well, it's been a terrible day, but we are still here. but all the rest was still intact but after that 5:00, 6:0e next 24 hours, suffered one of the most disastrous losses in the war. first, a formation of bombers descended on the carriers, one of britain's newest carriers and home of the fleet, a thousand of men on the other ships with column descending and didn't achieve anything and one, two, three, 500 pounds, sorry a thousand pounds exploded on the

-- and the whole ship was shrouded and what they have seen happen to eagle the previous day, oh, my god, here goes another carrier. miraculous a single blink from the situation under control. the ship could no longer fly aircraft but it was still a flood, he looked like the british lost two carriers in 24 hours. they felt it was no choice but to order the carriers, remaining carriers and the battleships to turn around and head to gibbraltar and they couldn't do -- they couldn't convoy on the

last day. the vessels were left to be escorted and of the destroyer and -- >> you know what, i'm going to interrupt you there max hastings, that's a little bit of his newest book, operation pedestal of british navy and malta. let get our callers back and hear from mike, mike, thanks for holding, you're on with author max hastings. >> thank you, book tv and thank you, mr. hastings. my question was about the end of world war i, i was impressed with the various parties and what their thought into getting to world war i they had earlier. coming out of world war i, the method america is that woodrow

wilson started the league of nations and even the good lord, even ten commandants which is pretty good and all of a sudden it was maybe a british or area, french politician who said it's about the end of the war and the treaty of versailles. just a little of a candor about the british. perhaps lord gray and some other characters decided to butter up president wilson and contribute that the league of nations was his brilliant idea all by himself, perhaps. >> mike in lake side california, sir max. >> i can keep here all night if

you brought a sleeping bag talking about this because it's one of the most complicated issues in history. i think the short points to make was never a good way to become a cliché among some students to say that the treaty was a disaster and unfair to germany. there was never going to be an easy way to -- to call an ending to sign a treaty after a war that destroyed 3 empires but the allies did manage to pretty up, they had the worst of all words. they didn't occupy germany as they did in 1945 and they left germany to manage their own affair. and also germany was undamaged whereas france who suffered terrible damage in the war. germany had suffered almost no damage at all. and it was very easy for the german right wing to develop their theme after the war that

germany had never really been defeated and stabbed in the back by a global communists and socialists. the ally decision to make germany sign this brutal treaty or apparently brutal treaty but not to occupy germany left the germans and the other thing president wilson, his involvement, he was repudiated by the u.s. congress as you well know which was determined not to get involved in european problems. and because the united states was the only path with wealth and moral authority on undiminished by world war ii, the only part that might have been able to exercise some effective influence and stabilizing europe and in preventing the outbreak of world war ii and willing to do so. but the americans, many americans have hated the

experience of being involved in europe, problems of world war i. there's no doubt that the public sentiment in america was very much with congress and not wanting america to have to get involved in europe's troubles but what i think by far, my friend, canadian historian, brilliant study of what happened at versailles. it was never going to be an easy way to get out of world war i and if you study germany, whatever we got wrong, germany shopping list, if germany had been the victor in world war i, germany was going to rule the whole europe and germany the victim would have been posed to europe and far more brutal. >> let's hear from carol in

charlottesville, virginia. >> i do have a question concerning vietnam war. had the johnson administration had not expanded our involvement in, you know, with combat troops into vietnam in mid-60's, it's easy to identify the positive consequences especially for the u.s., but just want to know have you given some thought of what the negative consequences would have been had we not been more involved in vietnam and let's say the south had fallen in the late 60's instead. just want your thoughts on that, if you don't mind. >> thank you, sir. >> i personally believe it would have served the interest of the united states very well to stay completely out of indo-china. i've said in my book, the fundamental reason that the

other side won and i have no time, i think that vietnamese horrible regime and terrorized their people including us in 1975 when they won the whole world. they won ultimately because they were vietnamese. the problem always with america and vietnam was that the vietnamese don't like foreigners and foreign rules all the way through the regime, perceived as just that. it was well known that generals in couldn't get out without asking american advisers which side to get up. one of the things that one realize in early stage, of all the meetings in washington to

discuss policy in vietnam, the vietnamese were never invited to attend the meetings but all the decisions were made by americans and all the way through, south vietnamese who i interviewed for my book he said, all the way, he said the communists could always taunt, you were occupied by these foreigners. and i'm afraid it was ever a good way for america to be involved. but i think thesenationist wars, i'm afraid the best thing to do is to stay out of them. >> richard, ventura, california, please go ahead with your comment or question. >> i think it's appropriate that you were on today. i personally attended the 40th anniversary of d-day beaches in 1984 when touring france and i was in england in 1982 when i first became acquainted with you by reading your account and i've

ensured your many books ever since. they are all great reads. >> thank you for those kind words. >> you're more than welcome. i've enjoyed it enormously. since you do reviews in do you have any comments in world war ii books, stalin's war which has just come out and i'm reading. >> and what do you think of it, richard? >> well, it's sort of a revisionist history blaming in the sense stalin and saying, you know, in effect, he was in at the beginning and then he was in at the end, defeating the japanese and that a lot of this was really directed by him even as much as hitler. it's a very interesting take and i was wondering what sir max wish to say about that.

>> thank you, richard. >> i very much dislike getting personally comments on fellow historians but i have to confess that i'm not an admirer of work and in all of the books he takes points and carries them too far. i'm afraid i think he's a sensationalist and in earlier book about the outbreak of world war i, he sought to argue that it was entirely russia's fault because russia was determined to dominate. and he was sort of a bit right in that we seem to be a bit right in that he was quite right that the russians were keenly interested in the control but he widely overstated his theme and i have talk today some of my fellow historians about beacon's latest warning on stalin and i

think there's a considerable measure of agreement that he just pushes some of his ideas far too far and search for headline grabbing material, i'm afraid no i don't really rate him the way i admire some of my other fellow historians. >> whenever we have an author on in-depth, we ask him or her favorite books and here is what max hastings reported, guns of august by barbara, the young lions by irwin shaw, the london observer by raymond lee and eagle against the sun by ronald specter all american authors, 1945 to 1955 by harold yonner. we have a text message here about barbara tookman for max and it says in the guns of

august barbara describes how the french general staff ignored the threat from the german army marching into france through belgium. >> a lot of historians say she gets a lot of things wrong but she had a huge influence on me because i was very young when her book was push licked in 1962 and i thought narrative, she says that they're absolutely right. the french general are plans to war-planning for war was faunasically misread almost everything that the germans will likely do but the french were

obsessed with the doctrine of attack and the french were -- ha what they were doing. >> we have about 30 minutes left with our guest sir max hastings, military historian, former editor-in-chief, evening standard. mr. hastings, how does one become sir max? [laughter] >> mostly luck, i think. my contribution to newspapers and books and for these things one should never think that either i'm a better historian because -- highly respected,

it's one of the silly british things, but, of course, we like and honor if anybody gives them to us. it's like winning literary prices. that's very much a matter of luck. and we all hugely enjoy and appreciate but one doesn't make too much of them. quite useful if you want to get a table in a crowdie restaurant in london. >> who nominates you to be a sir and do you get knighted by the queen yourself? >> you do. that's all very exciting. the prime minister puts your name, the prime minister of the day which was tony blare and god knows i became critical of tony blare over the invasion of iraq. so if -- but, yes, you do. you get down on one knee and the queen taps you on the shoulder.

my grandchildren are very interesting and would be able to see and it's a big moment. i'm a passionate admirer of the queen like a lot of people are. it was one of the most exciting days of my life. >> do -- you said you're a big fan of the queen. are you a monarchist, is that a correct term to use? >> i think -- i guess i am a monarchist. when i think of some of the people that stand for president in britain, it's not the power that the queen has which she never uses anyway and denies that to anybody else. i think it's going to be a very difficult time when the queen dies because there are far more

elizabeth, admirers of the queen than the monarchy. the royal family -- has had pretty bumpy times in the last few years. and certainly at the time of the monarchy in serious trouble in late 1990's. close eyewitness and spent a lot of time with all of the players at that point. and the late 1990's when we feel like the monarchy was unraveling but it would be a mistake to think that everything is forever. if the british people would turn against the monarchy as it's always possible, 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 in 2010 called did you really shoot the television. [laughter] >> i want to read a quote from there and perhaps you'd like to expound on this a little bit. quote, my mother's capacity to make me quail remained undiminished. she was in her late 80's when i told her that i respected her decision to leave her entire estate to my sister, but that i would love to have had one of her good pictures. a year or two later she telephoned and mentioned the picasso drawing i had always liked. would you like to buy it she asked, i choked. i said to my wife, penny, if i murder her i shall plead extreme provocation and no jury will convict me. [laughter] >> i wrote a little book of memoir in my childhood. they all had fairly exotic lives

and it was perfectly true that we have a program on bbc in which you're interviewed about yourself and you choose records to take on island. i don't know, 30, 40 years ago, i was quite discreet of all our family. i never really got along. she didn't hold back anything. my father with guns of the second world war, 10 or 11 or so, when parents were away, i would play with them and it was a miracle i didn't shoot anybody. that was one occasion, yes, somebody came up to me in a filling station and told the story. i said, yeah, did you really

shoot the television. and i explained it was a very small set but nonetheless, i'm afraid, yes, i did when i was 10 or 11. it was not my finest hour. it's one of those stories i'm afraid i can't -- one of the reasons i'm so keep on gun control i do believe people like me when kids shouldn't have access to firearms. >> please go ahead. >> thank you. sir hastings it's an honor to be able to ask you this question and to speak with you for a moment. what i'd like to go back to is when you first started talking about nation states and their doctrine of attack, using war as the main instrument of power. in 1914, in that time and culture and the political forces, i'm interested in your perspective insights into now,

today's time using history in the present time, are we on path to go to war with iran, do you think that america and maybe israel itself is untasked to go to war with iran based on our political forces, senator cotton statements attacked the administration or even china as i see that they're misreading what might be going on and i'm interested in your -- >> all right, ron, let's get sir hastings taste on the current world. >> there's a huge issue. >> one of the best things we have going for us is that in the nuclear world all sensible powers realize that war would be an absolute catastrophe. the best way to adverse a war is

to be prepared to fight one by which i mean strong armed forces and it's one of the articles with bichir newspapers, most of all european partner and don't take receives or security seriously. i think that we have to have strong armed forces in order to have a realistic prospect of deterring war but, on the other hand, all my experience with war both as a writer and having seened it firsthand is desperately careful. i remember before invasion of iraq and he just came back from washington in the end of 2002 where they were making the preparations for the invasion of iraq and i said, well, how does it look and he said, well, getting to baghdad will be --

what are they going to do when we get there and, of course, that proved remark and same way with iran. iran poses a very serious threat. the rule is iran are unpleasant people but not persuaded on going with iran or invading iran offer any good outcome because huge country and what happens after. i think one has to exhaust, churchill was right. always better than world war. i think a different view, realistic prospect than say air strikes might take out iran's nuclear capability. i think there would be a case for this. everybody who i trust says that in this one uses nuclear weapons to destroy the nuclear facilities, very unlikely that

it can be successful in knocking out nuclear capabilities. i think one has to be very careful and try every possible, the combination of diplomacy and sanctions and also the position of force before one actually results the use of force. i think war with iran would be a very serious step for the world. >> you mentioned tony blare earlier when you got your knighthood but you're acquainted with the current prime minister, aren't you? >> i'm not an admirer of the current prime minister and i bitterly regret that he occupies the office that he does and i'm afraid our relations with europe would poison british politics and we are going through a very unhappy phase when i think the democracy is generally short talented people and it's very hard to say why good people

don't want to go into politics, but boar sis johnson in tend i'm afraid, i don't think as a serious person and i wrote 3 or 4 years ago if johnson achieved the ambition to become prime minister, britain would have forsaken claim to be regarded as a serious country and i'm afraid nothing has happened then to change my view about that. but it matters less, the leadership of the united states matters far, far more than the leadership with britain. britain these days, middle-size country and no doubt muddle through somehow but we were very much who is in charge in the united states is far more important because -- however you dress it up, the united states must always for the leader and we look to -- we in europe, everybody whom i respect, we look to america for moral and strategically leadership and

unless america takes the lead, nothing important gets done in the world. >> is it fair to say sir max that britain has punched above its weight for several years. >> sorry -- >> punched above its weight for several years. >> britain has tried to but i don't think it really does. i'm talking to americans so much and i'm well aware of americans always polite in their dealings with us and but i'm very conscious of -- i think americans, most americans i know deeply regret britain's rundown of armed forces, their armed forces nowadays and i think most americans privately at least in places in washington, they think we rather lost our sense of direction. i'm rather inclined to agree with them. so punching above one's weight, we certainly try today punch

above our weight and it's difficult to justify britain having a seat at the un council. i don't think we are important enough to justify realistically, we are there. british government will cling onto dear life to cling onto it. >> david, rochester, new york, good afternoon. >> good afternoon, it's an honor to speak with you, sir, and i have all your books in my library and i have a couple -- two quick questions. one leads to the other. i've been collecting for years a series of books, published in the 70's in england called the valentine illustrated history of world war ii and they were great, a lot of great picture, photographs and good -- some are british best historians at the time wrote for them including sir michael howard and also sir

john keagan and i was wondering if sir john keagan is famous for the book the face of battle which talks about -- many historians have said it's the first book by a military historian to emphasize the common soldier as opposed to the generals and the tactics and everything and i wondered what your opinion of that is, thank you very much. >> thank you, david. >> i totally agree. john keagan was a friend of mine. he changed the way that we look at military history. but military history before john was overwhelmingly about which division went this way and which division went that way. on the face of battle which although john is now dead for quite a while and you wouldn't thank me for saying this. it made us think about the

reality of what war is like and instead of just thinking of it in terms of numbers of which division went what way, all of us who have followed john, writing about the history of war, which i like to say i write about history of war and not military history. we owe our debt to john because he -- i think the book, i read it quite recently and still reads fantastically well. i mean, he looked at all of the things what battle is really like. for example, not everybody is a hero but in any -- in any given battle, probably about a quarter of your guys when you say, okay, a quarter of your guys will be up there with you and half of them will come along behind and another quarter will probably never get out of their trenches.

that's not surprising. that's just the way that mankind is. but john actually got down to the nitty gritty of what fighting means and how people behave in a way that nobody really has before. and so i think we all owe terrific debt and admiration and it was enormous. >> john keagan has appeared on the program on in-depth in 2003 you go to booktv.org and use the search function at the top of the page and type his name in there and you can watch that full interview. sir max hastings, how is your world war i book different than his world war i book? >> from john keagan? >> yes. >> well, i wrote a book about something very specific which was the outbreak of the war. john wrote a book, history of world war i. but -- but catastrophe, my book, what i tried to do is look at

the manner in which the war, how the war started and what the first battles were like because there's a phrase in churchill he said no period of the war match it is extraordinary excitement and the extraordinary sensations of those first days and weeks and i thought this was so and i quite often get people saying, i've written a book of 1914 and i am going to write about 1915, no, i shared all i have to offer about 1914. for instance. a lot of history in the past was totally nationalistic whether written by americans or british or whatever. i think that nowadays we all try to get away from that and try to see things in more and global terms and, for instance, i report to think out of the

british army and sort of major factor and yet the british army, fought at the beginning of the war if belgium, the germans and the french had a thousand battalions each and even the belgiums had more troops in the field than we did. i got fascinated. everybody thinks that 1916 was the bloodiest period. it wasn't. it was the 23rd 1914, the heaviest losses than anybody suffered in one day. i wanted to tell all of those stories of stuff that i had written in any other books. >> al in north las vegas,

nevada. hi, al. >> the german generals in world war ii, after the war they wrote a lot of books saying, if it wasn't for hitler, you know, we would have did a lot better -- [laughter] >> and second question is the british navy today, how would you rate it as a sea power? >> on the german generals, of course, yeah, they -- they sort of had a bit of a point because i've also heard -- in the days when a lot of british veterans were still alive to be interviewed, some of the senior officers who i interviewed in 1970's and 1980's, they would say i can't think how we ever won if hitler hadn't been on our side because hitler did make decisions that definitely help the ally, but, of course, the german generals' accounts were entirely self-serving and they were always trying to

explain it would have been all right if left to them. i don't believe them. i think, for example, they went along with hitler's decisions even though they should have realized that germany was -- is not powerful enough and the german army was not powerful to take on russia and russia was vast and had enormous resources. i wouldn't buy the view of german generals that if left to them they would have won. the royal navy today, i think we made a huge mistake committing oh to two enormously aircraft carrier to fly f-35's, we are a middle-ranking power. i think they are way out of our range. one of our carriers is in south china sea to show the flag with eight f-35's instead and because

we can't afford anymore and i'm afraid the carriers, the navy has to be deployed to provide escorts for those carriers and it was the pentagon's office of that assessment that concluded 15 years ago that the future of carrier groups is very speculative in the new age sea to sea missiles and so on. i personally think we would have done better if we had far more platforms but cheaper and cheaper platforms. so i think the royal navy is not well configured today with the huge distortion of the big carriers. i have my doubts if they are ever going to be deployed and if they are, we find ourselves up against the chinese, i think we could get a shock. >> 9 minutes left in our conversation with max hastings. tom, ann arbor, michigan. go ahead. >> mr. hastings, i am in awe of

your understanding of the details associated with these different wars. i'd be interested in our absolute certify vagues of two generalizations that many clueless americans have, one ise most peaceful periods in history and western europe as well. >> thank you, tom. >> let me say one first, again, michael howard, the british historian was so much my mentor and one of his phrases that he often used, he said we used the

word peace far too much. the greatest good is not peace, it's stability and the reason that michael was among many people including richard hass, the president's of american foreign relations and american strategy groups think we are living in such grave time because stability is out of the window. we are living in unstable times and the word certainty during the cold war that advantaged and you find awful lot of senior military on both sides of the atlantic, they almost -- you could predict what the soviet union might do and china was not a serious part. today there's uncertainties and i think the world looks dangerous and frightening place. they are absolutely right. statistically, fewer people die

by violence each year and not what the headlines suggest at all. do i think these are very dangerous times and i think stability is -- is very elusive in the way which we now exist. i think we have to thread extremely carefully. i forgot what first question was. yeah, yeah. i think most historians agree that one has to look on world war ii as an extension because really it was the long german war and on the other hand, i also, i've said it in one of my books that i think we would understand what will be better if we called world wars 2 because everybody got into world war ii for different reasons. the japanese were there for quite different reasons up from the germans and the americans came in for different reasons from those that the british and the french went in and in a way

we sort of almost -- calling it world war ii. it was certainly different strands but the fundamental, you have to say in the end this was germany's two attempts to secure domination of europe and the second one after the first one, the big difference in 1918, a lot of germans were ready to believe that they hadn't been beaten whereas the great australian, wrote in april 1945 in germany, he said in germany, i found no great sense of guilt but an absolute sense of defeat because of the level of destruction that had been imposed upon germany with cities flattened and so on and the germans were in absolutely in no doubt in 1945 thought they had been defeated in the way that they were in 1918. >> rachel in princefield,

florida, hi, rachel. >> hi, can you hear me? >> we are listening. >> thank you. hello, mr. hastings. i like that you mentioned nuances. i know about metons and such complications. my question regards war culture, however, this idea that men have evolved to make war of the male warrior hypothesis that men have a propensity for heroics and that war has provided competitive advantages. but also to keep young men off streets generally. i'm thinking of lionell tiger's group, men in groups among others, war as a platform for organizing young men into battle. it may be a naive or feminine question impossible to answer.

>> i can answer -- i can answer your question in one sentence. one of the big changes in attitude is that i grew up in a very male-dominated household where all the men as i mentioned earlier had somehow to think they enjoyed world war ii and i grew up with a wildly exaggerated idea of the importance and when i was young i wasted a huge amount of time parachuting with the army and going to wars and so on and so forth, but the older i've got and the more i've come together, awful lot of young men possessed physical courage which was rather exaggerated although can be useful in wars but actually i think moral courage is more important and i'm not saying anything here that i haven't written, written myself, but

it's taken me many years to see this and i look back on my teens and 20's when i thought that it was the highest virtue and the implication of some of the stuff that you're saying is that war can be a very corrupting force for young men and i'm afraid it can be, yeah. >> let's hear from one last caller, ken in torrence, california, last call today. >> thank you very much. i'm pleased to speak with you, mr. hasting. i'd 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 that directive was not carried out. do you take that as some sort of a sign that he would not have gotten into the quagmire that lbj did and secondly, if you were lbj, what would you have

done to end that war in a way which you would have thought would have been satisfactory and -- >> thank you, and i will tell you max hastings, you two minutes to answer that very large question. >> with kennedy, we can never know, i personally think kennedy would have got out of vietnam because all his thinking was directed toward reelection campaign in '64 and he repeatedly said, only so many concessions i can make for the colonies in one year in hope of reelection. but a long day's march between saying he wouldn't have gotten out of south vietnam and we can never know is the answer. i do not think he would have gotten out. as far as for lbj, i don't think he ever had good options. first good option was probably to cut his losses and get out as soon as after he took office. he too, he felt he had an

enormous amount to proof and didn't feel able to do that. maybe american foreign policy quite a few periods in history is that stuff has been done to serve domestic american political rather than in accordance with the best judgment of the president of the day. that's very often been the case but i don't think lbj ever had any good options in vietnam that probably the worst option is to escalate on the scale that he did. >> for the past 2 hours, we have been talking with best-selling author and military historian, former edtory in chief of the daily telegraph and the evening standard, max hastings. there's his website and his latest book operation pedestal as he noted he's working on a book on the cuban missile cries. crisis. we will look forward

book tv every weekend on c-span2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or visit c-span.org. >> annette gordon-reed on the 245th anniversary of 1776, are we that exceptional nation we often tell ourselves we are? >> we're certainly trying to be.