president in gerald ford, and the cold war at its peak. kevin: it goes into detente at that period but it is in a state of flux. you got the end of the vietnam 1973 tong place over 1975, the opec oil crisis. there was a great deal of chaos. it seemed to be a moment that theripe for making post-cold war order and think about new trends that came about. steve: what did you learn? kevin: i learned a lot. for us, it was a real adventure because we were really writing about the history of our own lives. ofwas a process rediscovering things we thought we knew as teachers and people who had grown up in these

decades. steve: what surprised you as you looked back at the presidency of jimmy carter, ronald reagan, george h w bush. kevin: the reagan revolution comes in and really sweeps everything assigned. what we discovered that there is a real stickiness to ideas and institutions that survived the reagan revolution and there is a real preservation of some of those old values and old policies so rather than a conservative ascendancy, it's a conservative versus liberal type of war. steve: you're on social media with more than 220,000 followers on twitter. how did that come about? kevin: i have no idea. i think it's because i had a willingness, and i'm not alone in this, but a willingness not just to provide anodyne historical antidotes but rather to take on people who were propagating falsehoods, whether knowingly or unknowingly spreading mistruths about american history.

steve: so give us the history of social media. when did it really begin and where are we today? kevin: that's something we talk about in this book, "fault lines." it really begins with the rise of the internet in the 1990s, very crude forms of interaction. it takes off in the early 2000s, with sites like meetup.com and later on facebook. it comes into the world we know today with the rise of twitter. and so, over these periods, the country has become the -- the globe has become much more tied together, intertwined, much more engaged in good ways and bad. steve: teddy roosevelt called the presidency the bully pulpit. how would he view donald trump using his megaphone, twitter, today? kevin: i think he would see it

as the new bully pulpit and trump is putting it to good use. steve: what surprises you about how he's used social media? kevin: the total lack of filter. so when roosevelt or other presidents would use the bully pulpit, it was done with a very carefully prepared, carefully crafted message behind that. we have a strong tradition, especially through the modern period. if you look at presidents like reagan, he had a team behind him who really crafted a very important message and they were very careful to shape every detail, they would pick backgrounds for photos. they would have key words of the day that they stressed throughout the day, and that they hammered home one theme and it was all very carefully thought out by a team of experts . trump does it on the fly. he does it, you know, seemingly on a whim. i guess on a phone perhaps. there are typos. there are plenty of inaccuracies. it comes out without a filter and that's really unusual. usually the bully pulpit has a

great deal of structure. this is him out there on his own. steve: as we go through so many questions about the trump presidency and democrats saying it's time to impeach the president, have you ever thought about what richard nixon would have viewed in terms of twitter if he had that capability in the early 1970s? kevin: there is actually a great twitter account as someone who poses as nixon, dick nixon. he does a good job of capturing his voice. what we see in that account and our own imagination as historians and what he would do, nixon would do here today, nixon would have somewhat of a fighter instinct that we see in trump but he would show more restraint. nixon was careful about what he said so we have all of these examples of nixon flying off the handle and using colorful language, attacking opponents. it's behind the scenes. instead, with trump it's all right out there in the public sphere. steve: if you could go back to the 1990s, the start of social media, do you think the pioneers of, you know, social media and technology really understood where they were heading?

kevin: no, i don't think so. i don't think they thought about it that much. there is a real movement in the mid-1990s where they see the internet is going to be this free and open space and self-regulate, self-govern. it won't impact the real world. it will be a separate place. i don't think they saw the real impact it would have on day-to-day life, the way in which it would shape political discussions as it does today. steve: as you know, people now say individuals have their silos. they are in this tribe or that tribe and they don't tend to gravitate to the other side, which has created a discourse in our politics today. would you agree or disagree? kevin: i would agree completely. we talk about that in "fault lines," the way in which -- this begins, we would argue, with the changes in television. so you see the effects start to happen with cable television in which they advocate behind what

-- they advocate what people behind mtv call narrowcasting. they will reach a specific small segment of society. reach out to rock fans or sports fans or news junkies or that or this. the internet picks that up and amplifies it. social media, it's the exact effect where you can have this sealed off eco-system in which you only get information from sources you already trust and it becomes reinforced by other sources. you have this echo chamber that doesn't get penetrated by anything outside it. steve: is that an underlying factor in where we see the political discourse today in the country? kevin: i think it absolutely is. what that does is it reinforces the political siloing that happens in the political realm, too. so things like gerrymandering and the extreme polarization of the two parties are reinforced by that because the media sources that these voters then pick up on reaffirm what's going on in the political sphere. steve: i'm curious, as you look

at this topic and you're teaching to a group of students that have twitter accounts, facebook, instagram and other social media, do they fully understand what they have grown up with and how different it was for your generation or mine? kevin: we try to explain it to them. like, you know, it's like a fish in water. they have lived in it their whole life and they don't understand what's really novel about it. we do do a decent job, trying to explain what it meant when someone like walter cronkite came out against the vietnam war , how important that was that one single voice was trusted above others and that his shift in didn't really matter for the country and that's something they don't quite have today but it's something that we do try to re-create. steve: there are probably more sources of information today than ever before. is that a good thing or a bad thing? kevin: it can be a good thing. the problem is people need help navigating that, so we've had a movement in the country, a kind of revolt against the elites, and that elitism is a bad thing. that's also thrown out the role

of experts with it. and i think we need experts to help guide us in our daily affairs and to help us figure out which of these sources is actually trustworthy. kevin: so you're putting this -- steve: so you're putting this book together. who surprised you the most what intrigued you the most, what was the one thing that you learned that you didn't know going into the project? kevin: that's a great question. we've been at it for so long i'm trying to remember what i didn't know at the start. i think what really impressed me the most, and what was new to me , was the revolution in communications. i'm a political historian by training so the politics were all things that i knew fairly well but the media side was something i wasn't quite aware of. i had a vague sense, having grown up in the 1980s what mtv was like or what cnn was like when it started but i was 8 when cnn started, i didn't quite remember that. to have a sense of where these institutions came from, where c-span came from and what that did to politics had a real impact.

something that was really new to me and really a revelation. steve: i guess a follow-up question is, where are we head ing, what's the next big thing? kevin: i'm a historian so my training is in hindsight. it is hard for me to make predictions about the future. i would say that we're entering into another period of reckoning. in a lot of ways, that book starts in the aftermath of watergate with the ways in which the country has to pick up the pieces, in the aftermath of that scandal. i think we're heading into that moment again. steve: really? kevin: yeah. steve: what do you want people to take away from reading your book? kevin: i want them to take away an understanding of the way in which they themselves understand their world. that title "fault lines" we mean in two senses of the term. one, the division across american society, in terms of politics, economics, race, gender and sexuality. but also the lines people believe about who is at fault. and that comes through the way in which they receive their

information, through media, through social media, through traditional media. i hope people would start to question the way in which they themselves form their opinions about the world. steve: so before i let you go, as somebody who studies social media, how are historians using it and what are some of the lessons we can take away from others? kevin: i think historians are using social media to really provide fact checking that only historians can provide. there is a certain duty that historians have, the same duty that scientists have to push back against climate change or -- against climate change deniers or doctors have to push back against the fight against the role of vaccines, historians have a special expertise, a special knowledge about our past. and there are a lot of mistruths being spun about that in both the popular media and among social media. we have a duty to step in and correct those. steve: how do you use or apply that in your own craft? kevin: a lot of it happens reactively, so when i see the president or another politician or a cable host or cable guest

make a misstatement about the american past which i know well , i can offer a correction on twitter. one which is read, not just by the people who follow me but hopefully can be spread by some of the journalists who follow me and serve as a corrective to that. steve: how do you do that? there is so much coming at you 24/7n our society, in our cable news and media environment. how do you keep track of it all? kevin: you can't keep track of it all. it's like drinking from a fire hose. it comes incredibly fast so what i try to do is to limit it to the things that i know best. i'm an expert in the civil rights era, southern politics. when things like that come up, that's where i step in. luckily, i know there are lots of other historians on twitter who are doing the same thing i'm doing. they have different areas of expertise and they will step forward when it's their topic on the table. steve: are they making a difference? kevin: i think they are. again, i would like to think we're making a huge difference. but i do think that because of

the way in which twitter is a place where so many journalists are on there, and journalists are looking for the truth and looking for experts to be able to speak to these issues and the fact that historians are on there providing this expertise is an excellent source for them to correct the record themselves. steve: kevin kruse, professor at princeton university, thank you very much. kevin: thank you for having me. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] remembering george h w bush and the inventor of the world wide web. sunday at 8:00 eastern on the presidency, former secretary of state james baker remembers his longtime friend, president george. >> i was privileged to serve as his secretary of state for four years. i was extraordinarily fortunate to serve a wonderful friend and a beautiful human being, as we all know. to serve as secretary of state to a president who understood

that he had to defend me, protect me even when i was wrong. >> at 9:00, on the 30th anniversary of the world wide web, a conversation with its inventor, computer scientist tim berners-lee. >> imagine they have a big problem like how to stop climate change or solve cancer, and the pieces of the problem are in different people's brains. but they connect on the internet. so can the web be a place -- the goal for the web should be a collaborative place. when i have an idea, i can put it into the web. as i wander around the space looking at other people's ideas, i can pick them up and take them together. you are thinking of that, well i've been thinking of this. >> watch american history tv this weekend on c-span3.

book,ert caro on his "working," and his search to find out how american political power works. >> he had torn out the walls at the end so it is all one big picture. center of this big black leather chair. out the window as the robert moses bridge. it was the tower of robert moses state park. -- intimidating. , he had thisforget wonderful charm in his smile. still mighty, still at the height of his power.

the youngo you are fellow who thinks he's going to write a book about me. atrobert caro, sunday night 8:00 eastern on c-span's q and day. -- q&a. >> we are happy to announce the winners of the video documentary competition. we received almost 3000 entries from 48 states with almost 6000 students. congratulations to all our winners. our first prize middle school winners are from eastern middle school in silver spring, maryland, for "mcamerica, how america runs on fast food." >> it started with mcdonald's, then things like burger king, kfc. food affects our society

and so many more ways than we realize. it fits with our nation's and part of what makes us america. >> our first prize high school east goes to students from winter park high school in winter park, florida, for b, america's num right to a free press." anwe realized that being american is about so much more than national pride. it is about the freedom to function in a fair and just manner. >> amidst a flurry of fake news and other media controversies, we often forget the role that journalism plays. >> the first prize high school central winners are from urbandale high school in urbandale, iowa, for fighting for a better tomorrow. >> did you know it is almost the 50th anniversary of the king or

the des moines -- kinger v. des moines court case. armbands to were protest the vietnam war, leading to a suspension. weste first place prize went to students from colorado, about what it means to be american. >> in this age, one of the most important ideals was that every man was represented. this is what makes us american, voting. the concept that everyone affected by government gets a say in their government. >> the grand prize winners of $5,000 are from imagine international academy of north texas in mckinney, texas, for their video, "what it means to be american." >> citizens have the powers vested in them to hold government accountable rather

than just sit around and complain. the greatest thing about the issue of corruption in the in most cases, the people are willing to recognize the nation's flaws even when the politicians don't. >> over the past 15 years, c-span has given up over a million dollars in prizes to the winners of our student documentary competition. the winning entries will air on c-span in april and you can watch every c-span studentcam documentary online at studentcam.org. >> sunday night on q&a, two-time pulitzer prize winning biographer robert caro on his "working," and his search to find out how political power works. >> you went up the stairs into this rather modest cottage. but he had torn out the walls at

the end. he sat in the center of this big black leather chair. the robertdow was moses bridge, the robert moses causeway. out the right-hand thing was the tower of robert moses state park. there is robert moses sitting, framed by his monument. this wonderfulad charm in his smile. tough old guy. thel mighty, still at height of his power. i believe he was 78. he said, so you are the young fella who thinks he's going to write a book about me. >> robert caro, sunday night >> it has been 40 years since the accident at three mile

island. bookshelf, ary discussion of a book about the nuclear crisis. he describes the events before and after the march 28, 1979 accident, and offers insights into the decision-making of officials and the impact of the media on public perception of what happened. thean recorded the talk at museum of natural history in washington in 2004. it is about an hour and 10 minutes.