strength to keep doing what you need to do and make the connections and etg cetera. finding that stability and trust and believe and home in your community and all of that, that is crucial. >> i am very sorry that we could not get to these questions. if you ask us those questions there we will definitely answer them. thank you so much for coming here. i think you may want to go. thank you. god bless you. >> more from the 2023 library of congress national book festival. >> we are pleased to have joined us here in the book tv set author and historian doug brinkley whose most recent book

is called silent spring revolution. the great environmental awakening that came out in november of last year. professor, how is that book done ? >> really well. you know, climate change right now and it's in the news every day the environment, what are we doing on our planet as i am talking to you. hawaii is another devastation. people jumping into the ocean to escape the wildfire which was the biggest natural disaster in hawaiian history. and, so, talking about the environment, how did we get to the place where we have some victories from the 60s and 70 s. the birth of the environmental protection agency. the clean air act and the ancient species act.

ithe ideas when can we have a w climate revolution when we will have a new way for the whole country galvanizing the menace that we have now. >> as a presidential historian you have written about -- et cetera et cetera you observed the last few years of the history. a friend of mine called the current. we are in the great realignment. i just wanted to get your take on the last 10 years in american history. where's the ark? >> 1933 ronald reagan in 1980. winning world war ii or social security or the interstate

highway system. the department of defense on and on i. it was a revolution that went from reagan to trumpet. we need to not waste. maybe we need to balance the budget. now, we are in kind of a neo- civil war. many reagan people, you have a new world order going on in the united states with donald trump in the way he has been able to consume so much of the oxygen of our country. we don't know where we are at. this 50 to 50 divide as you mentioned, al gore and george w. bush just down the middle. the florida recount. hilary clinton won the popular vote but hilary clinton --

donald trump became president. dead center a few that is going on right now. currently, i think that the republicans, modern republican party are waiting in the sense that they were able to get three recent supreme court justices and during trump's presidency and that has really fueled a kind of unraveling of some of the great société programs dismantling the roe v wade tax on clean air and the clean water act. the list is long. we are now in an era where a lot of americans think that less government is more. the libertarianism going on right now. the other hand, biden wins. we may be living in the age of biden. giving all the media oxygen. biden may be a two-term able to hold a status quo with the rest of the presidents of the past. time will tell.

>> what does all of that mean? does it have to break at some point? is it inevitable? >> because we have been defying red and blue states, you and i right now know what will be the red states and the blue states and the rest of the election. wisconsin, arizona, georgia, maybe virginia is in play, there are others but we are really looking at five or six states that will determine things. the electoral college as it is now structured through a republican party, the democrats that have california and new york for example, they may win the popular vote but they don't win the presidency. that creates frustration because , you know, people wonder whether democracy itself to the

electoral college to be scrapped and et cetera. >> what do you think. >> i think it's here to stay for a while. you have to have such a whopping majority to get rid of them if it is working for the republican party. why in the world what they want to suddenly do away with the electoral college. it is here. that is a rule of engagement. if you are democrats you have to make a very defying strategy of winning the electoral college map. it means spending a lot of time in wisconsin, michigan, at the midwest. a place where democrats have to hold firm. i think pennsylvania they do pretty well. there is been a corrosion, you know, i would call ohio. michigan, bluebeard wisconsin, you can't tell. florida read. the democrats have to, keep virginia and may be put north carolina in play.

obama had one north carolina and the democrats probably need to expand their terms of winning the electoral map. do you fear separation in this country? >> i think we t are more united than we think. if you break it down on a local basis, people live day-to-day. we are doing pretty well in our country. our corporate a structures, we still have great r&d and universities, research centers. there are warning signs that are frightening. the public's lack of trust in government. leaving in 1981. having a 70% journalism approval rating. down to 16% or something. congress.

low marks. supreme court seems polarized. 40%. so, it is a lack of what government can do for the people and, yet we have a record voter turnout. it mayay just be that trump will be seen as one of the great disruptors that he was sort of expressing. feeling like they have been marginalized. nafta had brought jobs to mexico . there is a lot of public anger and said that things have not gone as well. only new immigrants treasure the american dream. others find it very hard to

obtain. >> you teach -- you taught it to other universities. which technology has education morphed andnd is a traditional four year here you go college still is a strong approach? >> i think it is essential. i want to be a teacher that teachers students. you want to be in a classroom with students discussing the book that you read or arguing over a point of history. it is so much fuller. this is not just my believe. that online learning we did in covid was very disappointing to people. a generation kind of loss.

i think there colleges and universities that are vibrant. there is an uproar all the time. getting the privilege to spend four years in an environment others your age and learning about that is still the golden aim in the united states. >> you mentioned that the book to her has been your favorite or the most nourishing book to her. what is your favorite book that you have ever written? >> i would have to say my favorite is by theodore roosevelt. looking for the role of president and conservation. alsaving 234 acres of wild amera i expanded from the national parks and monuments.

i love national historic sites. on a preservation and historic reservationist and tr was that way. that book brought a lot of joy to me when i wrote it and i am proud of the amount of research that i did. theodore roosevelt now they are building a n presidential libray for him in north dakota which will open in 2026, july 4. it will be quite an event. it is just beautiful up there. he became a rancher. it will be built along the little missouri river there. one of the really special spots when i like going to north dakota. >> one of your first books was about jimmy carter. are you still in touch with the family? >> jimmy carter will be 99 this october 1. when he had brain cancer, people were like, oh gosh.

the more recent announcement of him going on hospice, they will, we often write about presidents and their spouse. jimmy and rosalynn carter are one. they are a unit. he is a principal caretaker of her. he worked, i believe, to make sure she is taking care of. he is there and planes with her. one of the great aunt song love stories of presidential history. they knew each other since they were children. the village, you know, and planes and their journey to america together is really something special. so, i am of the belief, i have love for them both, they are around for a while and making it to 100, the 100th birthday. the longest living president in

american history. >> looking back to 46, who is over rated, who is underrated? sorry to be so simple about that question. >> that's okay. you know, some of the people that have been underrated are suiting up in people's estimation. dwight eisenhower in particular. finding a spot where democrats liberals, moderates and conservatives, we have seen his two terms as this great kind of prosperity that he dealt with. the interstate highway system, nafta, intervention in little rock. the more we are looking at what eisenhower accomplished with good and honest government for yearsp . in my estimation he is going up. also scholars at large. jackson is taking a big hit.

it used to be one of the top five and now he sinks all the time because there is a much more keen awareness of what it was with indian removal and kind of, you know blood eastside to andrew jackson and his disregard particularly for black americans and native americans. so, he has been seeking estimation by a lot of scholars. donald trump had raised jackson and ass a populist trump right, jackson is having a bit of a renaissance. and the presidential scholar world, he is moving downward.

i recentlyri saw a good documentary on calvin coolidge. he is starting to have a little bit of an upward revision. because, like eisenhower in the end, integrity matters. the long length of history. not just the defining thing, someut people said fdr, you kno, would never let his right hand know where his left hand was. i am not talking about this more elected to, but feeling that you were an honest broker and with e white house. >> as always, we appreciate you spending a few minutes talking with us at c-span on book tv. thank you so much. >> now more from the 2023 library of the congress national book festival. >> good afternoon. i am kevin butterfield. it is my pleasure to introdu