good afternoon, everybody.

welcome to barnes and noble. today, we're arthur martin dugard. he's the author of several bestselling books of history, including taking paris into africa and the explorers and with bill o'reilly, he's the coauthor of the killing series most recently killing the legends, which is a current bestseller. so without any further ado, to talk about taking. his latest book, it's martin dugard. could guys come in and my voice does not carry you and if you're out there, you're not going to hear anything i say. the nice people at c-span have me to let you know ahead of time. if we get to the q&a portion of today. if you have a question we will bring a microphone to you. everything is going to be on mike. so if you have question, raise your hand and they'll bring the mike to it. we'll do that. anybody for coming out. used to be as a writer, things

like this were fairly common. you know, you'd you'd a book come out and you do you know dozen and so many that travel around the country and because covid and because of the change of shape of the book world you know book signings are kind of rare these days. so it's really fun to be out and talking about taking berlin, which is my latest labor of love. so i see my cross-country team out there. i see a lot of good friends in the audience, everybody for coming out. you know, we have some chairs out front if people want to come said everyone's just kind come on, come on down. don't be afraid. it looks good, but it looks good for the tour. guys, help me out. i'm trying to try to look like i have a following following. there we go. there we go. so let me tell you a little bit about taking role in that. i kind of give you a little backstory about me and about the writing world. and, you know, it's like i said

it's fun to have some of my runners here today because they usually to see me in sweatpants and sweatshirts. and this is the only time you're going to see me in a button down shirt ever. so it feels good to not be wearing sweatpants. taking earlier is the second book in the taking series. the taking the series was something i wanted to do some standalone after a dozen years writing the killing series. bill o'reilly bill's a great nothing against bill we 20 million books which is you know great but i you know at some point wanted i wanted my voice to be the voice that made its way onto the page and so i did taking parasite host here and taking paris was great. it was about may 1940 through august 1944, and it around the city of paris and the events that to to the the nazi capturing of paris. but then ultimately it's its liberation. and it was a lot of fun. the problem with writing taking paris was that worldwide pandemic thing. i couldn't actually go to paris

too, to write about taking paris. so i cover i used to cover the tour de france during my journalism lifestyle, lifetime. yeah. so i had all the notes from the towns and the cities i had gone. you know, in the ten years that i covered the tour. so i was able to lean on those for descriptions taking paris. but, you know, isn't writer will tell you there's nothing that beats travel in you know being at the location to to tell the story best so and i got to do that with taking berlin and so take marilyn tells the story of the last of the war and why is that why is the last year of the war important? well, first of all, i wasn't really done with the story when we got to august 1944. and, um, and, you know, in paris was liberated. there was still a war going. they still had a lot more fighting to do, but also to, in the big scheme of things, the last year of the war shapes has shaped everything about our modern world. ever since 1945, and especially right now with the things going on in ukraine. it's a carbon. putin's doing exactly what it's like right out of the stalin

playbook. so it's nice to to kind of visit some history to see that. so when i when i was writing this book, you know, paris was about paris. and so everything i could just do events in paris. some of the the atrocities happened in the fighting in paris because berlin's a different book, berlin. it could have it could have been a thousand pages because we've got all the big battles. we've got d-day, the hurricane forest battle of the bulge, the russians had operation migration, which was immeasurably bigger than our d-day. but those are a book in themselves. so with this book, what i tried to do was show all the action. but through the through the the eyes individuals. and so we have george patton, we have we have bernard le gomery, we have winston churchill, we have martha gellhorn, the third wife of ernest hemingway, who a phenomenal journalist, her own right. and she was crazy brave. i mean, she literally stowed away on a hospital ship so she could cover the d-day landings and literally ashore, even

though she wasn't supposed to be there. i mean, just this phenomenal journalist and also general james gavin, who of two star journalists, age of 37, one of the first paratroopers in american history, later had a very torrid mid midwife with martha gellhorn and, you know, not often you get to write a war book and also you have this romance in the middle of it, which was kind of cool. so let me let me backtrack a little but for those of you who don't meet naomi and maybe for some of the students who have wondered, you know what, how do you become a writer, what that life is like? i always wanted to be a writer. i mean, ever since was a little kid. but i remember literally years old telling my mom, mom, i grow up, i want to be a writer and. the first thing she said was, don't be silly, writers don't make any money, find something else. and you. yeah. so that kind of informed my thought process and of, you know, i'm a bad example of how to go into your career path

because i mean, i got fine grades, but when i got to college, my favorite thing to do was, skip classes and go to the beach and, read two or three books. i mean, that was that what made me happy, you know. but having said that, i that i couldn't actually become a writer i wasn't allowed to become a writer because you know that, wasn't a viable career path. and so i graduated from college, got a job. my wife and i, you know, we had a condo. we two kids and i come home every day from work. i was just miserable. and my wife said, you know, maybe you'll see a career counselor. you know what? you know what are supposed to be doing with your life. and i went, i pay this woman $350. it was an enormous amount of money to us back then. and she had to do all these tests. and if i back a week later and she had all the results for me, she goes, have you ever thought about becoming a writer? you know? and here we are so. and it was one of those things i couldn't just up and leave the corporate world. so i began writing on the side, you know, i'd write in the

morning before i went to work, i at work what i'm supposed to be doing other things i wrote at lunch and what i did was i started very small. i just covered triathlons and marathons for endurance sports publications and it just grew. so you know i got i started working with, you know, triathlon today and competitor then all of a sudden i was working with outside and you know then it became sports illustrated and esquire. and i got to the point where i had to pick one or the other and. i got a chance to go to madagascar for big journalistic assignment, came back after three weeks. and my boss takes me to and fires me and. i think he thought i was going to be, you know, devastated. and i was the happiest guy in the world. i went home and told wife, hey, i got fired today. it's amazing. and she said, one, the most profound things ever, because we we went back and forth for a few weeks and she finally said, if you're going to be a writer, you're all in you know, i don't want you looking at the one as i don't want you talk about other careers. you can do writing. you're going to do writing.

and so that has informed the last 30 years of my life, ever since february 24th, 1994, when i walked out of the corporate world for the last time, been writing my. writing days is pretty simple. i get up every day at about 630. i read the paper, edit what i wrote the day before, and then about 8:00 i sit down, i write and i take break for a workout, kind of 11 ish. then i go back in writing until two, then i go down to the track and coach cross-country and track and i do that. you six days a week, seven days a week. and yes, i do spend that way. and the one thing that i've learned about writing is that it is. yes, it's a feast or famine profession, but it has revitalized me. i was reflecting today one of the things when i was working in the corporate world was i remember, you know, like i was 25, 26, 27, you know, every day i go to lunch, you know, in the corporate cafeteria and would hear these people, you know, in their sixties talking about, oh, we've only got four more years of retirement. i've got two more years to

retirement, you know, 65. and when you're 25, you want to hear people talking about starting to live their life when they're 65, because that's what they talked about too. like when i retire, then i'm really to start doing cool stuff and and it's been great because of writing. i mean, i have, i have traveled the world. i've, around the world on the concorde at twice the speed sound i have like said cover the tour de france. i mean have met amazing people in in so i've been able to live that life for for all these years that i would have been in the corporate world just kind of withering away. i'm pretty sure that if i stayed in the corporate world, i'd be one of those guys who, you know, drinks too much and smoke. cigarets and just to is is angry at the world it's it's writing has transformed and the weird thing is i'm 61 now and instead of 68 being 61 saying oh i can't wait until retirement. i'm 61. i'm saying you know, i've got i got way more books to read. i got more to do. i got to get better. i got to sharpen my math skills and i've got the best job in the

world and i love it. so and it's fantastic. and the great thing as to when we do all this travel for these for a book taking berlin my wife has to come with me so you know we we see these cool places you know for instance for instance when we were doing three of the latest research trip, we were it was kind of frantic because we're about i was about halfway through this and i was on the taking the legends book with bill at the same time so i wrote two books concurrently. you know, it would be literally 3 hours of me than 3 hours of bill and bill's calling all the trying to get me to edit his stuff. he's and i'm trying to you know literally trying to write two books. it was like this walk through hell because it's it was six months of just create of craziness and of you know so in the middle of all this, you know, valentine's was approaching. i thought wouldn't it be to go to paris, valentine's day? that would be amazing. and i could dress it up as a research trip, which was great. so we flew.

we to paris, we went and, you know, and so it's like it was like, hey, honey we're going to stay in paris and do romantic things. it's like, let's get in the car, let's go to belgium and go go see a battlefield, you know, let's go see where people died. that's kind of our thing and we went to, you know, nijmegen for the bridge too far stuff. we went to, you know, we went to dunkirk we went to normandy and then in the middle of all this, i'm still on this book with bill. and so and bill doesn't know i'm in paris working on, you know, my own thing. and so he is calling me and he goes, hey, let's get on the phone, let's work. right. was edited that last chapter. and so we were literally in this beautiful little french seaside town that coincidently was captured by the germans in 40. and so sitting in the back of the book and i've got my headphones on so i can i can hear bill were editing in the car and people are past us like what is this? what is the meaning of this? why is this man with this laptop in the back of the car talking to the thing and it was just one of those things that just reminds you how the world has

changed because the fact that could edit a book hit this remote beautiful seaside place the middle of you know my romantic getaway for valentine's. it was just kind of surreal. it was just a little bit different. so it was just kind of the writing world you got to you to be flexible with it. so so for people have read the killing series, you kind of know the the style of books. the books are when when we started the series with with killing lincoln, bill kind of unleashed me. he said, you know basically go off and in come up with how the book is going to look. it was supposed to be one off. we were just going to do, you know, killing lincoln. and so i set in stone formula that we would use for all those books. you know, short chapters present, tense, a cliff, a cliffhanger ending for every chapter than a than a big, you know, very evocative opening. a couple of sentences for the next and just a in a timeline, everything is crunched in

chronological order and. i've taken that. you know, we that for all 12 of the killing books to great in but i found that some of the chapters are a little bit longer i liked i remember i did some work with james about 20 years ago and he was like no chapters should be longer than 12 and words which is jim can get away that but those are short that's like three pages that's i need i need to breathe a little bit more when i write. so but i try to keep these chapters to 2000 words. so that's about six and a half, seven pages. and i think that that well, that works well for this. but the whole goal, though, is i love history. in addition to, this this writing thing, i, i have i've been a of history history nerd, if you will, ever since i was a child. just, you know, all those books that made me want to become a writer i actually have some of it on the little children's history books. i have one of of captain cook in it of writing a book about you

know 30 years later. right. you know, written martin dee in like a little four year old handwriting in the book. so the history thing is very real me. and it really my one of my bugaboos is that i feel like history should be something that people are just drawn to they should be fascinated by history. you know, instead you know, a lot of academic history writing a lot of traditional history is just very slow in it's dull and it's an attempt to, you know, put as many details the page so that you're not telling a story. what you're doing is you're just throwing facts at the reader. i mean, in fact, i was reading a book last night and i get like 20 pages left in it and i can tell you the name of the book and i could tell you the author. at some point i realized that the author had stopped telling a story and she was just throwing research at me and i've got 30 pages left and i really just want to put the book down and walk away from it, you know, in my goal is i don't want anyone to feel that way about anything that i write, i want this to read like a thriller.

i want it to be like a, like a ludlum book or a stephen king book. i want people to turn the pages. i want people i don't want this to be a book for you. open it. you read two pages just before you go to bed and you fall asleep on the second page. you know, i want to be one and i get these emails. it makes me happy. people email me and say thanks to you. i was up to 4:00 reading your book. it's like, that's what i want to do, you know? i feel like history should be like that. it should be something that, you know, as you read it, you're transported just like great fiction, you know, and you turn the pages and you can't turning the pages in and you just want to more and more and more. and you, you know, and, you know, maybe you put it down after a couple of hours, but the next day after work, can't wait to go back and get get more to it. you what? i'm not writing. writing history. i don't read history for the most part i usually read like really good fiction because i, i want to i think when you read other stuff, you can see what you're doing well personally and you can also see what you to do better personally. because sometimes a writer will

turn of phrase, you know in a fiction piece. i'm saying, how can we transport that into nonfiction? you know all these ways to always try to find a way to get better and know again it all goes back to making history book something that you want read and that's what i try to do with with taking berlin. it is, you know, we opened in may 17th, 1944. which is it is this little known moment in history when all of the the top generals and admirals and officers on the allied side gathered in north london to hear the plans for d-day, which was going to take place three weeks later. and so you have all these people in the room and and dwight eisenhower even said that if hitler had dropped a bomb on that room, that they would have destroyed allied war effort and interestingly enough, we were back there a few weeks ago. i went to that just because i'll tell you, this is much of a nerd. am first of all, i wanted to i wanted to actually go to that place and see what it was like, see with the rumors like but in the opening line of the book i

describe the room and i, i talk about it, but i describe the, the wooden doors going into the room and i did my research next kind of, you know, they're they're gothic. i think it's gothic. they're not victorian. but i was thinking maybe were maple, you know, maybe there were oak. and i'm thinking, okay, okay, you know, this, you know, big oak doors. but then there was something about the in the room was pine. then i thought the doors pine. so i finally settled in pine, but i wanted to go back to see this, to make sure that i made the right choice, know i actually read the plans for the thing and it like they were pine but nobody knows. and it's not there anymore because the nazis blew it up. they did a bomb on it eventually, but years later. so yeah, just of a nerd thing, but it's really, really fun. and that's the kind of detail like to bring to the book. but don't want to overwhelm me with it. so let me read the opening chapter. it's short. hang in there with me. like i said, you've got to listen close because my voice doesn't carry that well.

but so like i said, it opens in 1944, 19, 1944, and we kind of we introduce a few of the. because then i get into my work, my wife is sitting over there, she's trying to do. prolog may 15th, 1944 london, england 9:50 a.m. winston churchill is on time. lecture hall entry doors are thick pane victorian. the prime minister does not stand in the long line nor the king of england, but both men know better than to be late. this morning's presentation at st paul's is the most important audience in western history. rules to be obeyed. doors closed and locked at precisely 10 a.m. late arrivals denied admission. british general law like summary of st paul's alumnus and host for today's event has made this

very clear as everyone entering the room well knows, monty always gets his way. military police blocked the entrance. the large men unsmiling americans polish helmets, sidearms, generals and admirals stand single file to present their engraved summons an assemblage of stars and bars 100 officer strong no invitation, no admission every important military figure world war two, the european theater waits in the queue. except for the french. they're not invited it also the russians, but they war plans of their own. churchill makes his way to the front of the room in a black knee length frock coat, small ring, double corona, wedged the left corner of his mouth inside its wood paneled walls. cigaret smoke, british and accents. and a most intriguing visual display quote on the stage was a map of the normandy beaches in the immediate hinterland set in a slope so that the audience could see it clearly and so

constructed that the high officers explaining the plan could walk on it and point out the landmarks. churchill will write. st paul's students and staff have relocated to the countryside for the duration of the war for ago. let me transform the empty building of gothic victorian design with peaked roofs, stained glass and chimneys everywhere, and 153 hammersmith road into personal headquarters for the purpose of planning the invasion of france. the headmaster's house is now personal quarters. monty organized today's event down to the minute each officer takes a seat on the hard wooden benches more often by teenage schoolboys. the is broken. no one takes off their coat, primitive churchill sits in the more comfortable front row of next to the stage in padded armchairs reserved for himself. montgomery, american general dwight eisenhower and no less than great sovereign king george, the today's presentation

is top secret. no cameras or press eisenhower. eisenhower will later joke that nazi german dictator adolf hitler could have killed every tough american and british with a single, well-placed. but the invasion of hitler's festering europa fortress is hardly a surprise. the whole world knows hundreds of thousands of allied troops been assembling in great britain for months, training each day for the singular of wrenching control of europe from hitler's grasp. sometime in the summer, coincidentally, on this very day, general montgomery graces cover of life magazine, a vivid portrait of monty's character runs inside cromwellian, in churchill's words, austere, accomplished, tireless while also playing off the journals esthetically, style, quote. he lives in complete simplicity. it's the plainest food has no recreation, except that of writing novels and detective stories. he is often impatient of human frailty, but an equally large

feature runs under the headline american invaders mass in england. a dozen photographs show montgomery and churchill bundled thick coats, scarves and cloak gloves against the chill english spring. if they observe soldiers preparing to french beaches or drop from the sky, the left does not know the exact number. 156,115 allied soldiers transported in 11,590 landy craft and 6939 other naval vessels. i'm kind of going down the rabbit hole in geek way there. bear with me. we'll way to shore in a 50 mile stretch of northern beaches that been subsection into smaller zones named omaha, utah. sword, gold and juno. paratroopers will go in first quote, invasion by air will be the biggest history reason life's subtitle accompanying a photo of 100 parachute canopies blustery high over the british countryside during the practice jungle. a subsequent story is more

pragmatic a manual of how to treat the of this war. when the return to civilian life. hitler is well aware allied forces will soon attempt to land in france. but the führer not know the date d-day as it is known in military parlance. nor does anyone shivering inside. this lecture lecture hall, the only man who knows that answer is general eisenhower, and even he is uncertain right now at 10:00 and his clothes and lock the doors. montgomery is famous for giving an audience quote 2 minutes to cough sneeze, blow your nose. after that, there will be no interruptions. those words are unnecessary this morning. the room quiets, eisenhower rises to begin the proceedings. he's every officer's boss, supreme commander of the allied expeditionary force, the is impatient to hear each last detail of this enormous plan naval bombardment, aerial assault, bridges, paratroopers must capture in the of night in the location of the landing

beaches were all those soldiers will confront a well-trained and highly disciplined force that has fortified the coastline with guns big and small intelligence report intelligence reports confirm that field marshal erwin lincoln rommel sorry germany's notorious desert is personally overseeing in atlanta a wall designed to throw the invaders back into the sea. i welcome you, says eisenhower, on the eve of a great battle, the generals rehearsed speeches immediately. cut short is a thunderous pounding on the lecture hall doors fills the room. general, let go. marie stands and glares furious. he gives no indication for the military to open the doors, the pounding resumes. most everyone in the room knows who might be on the other side. he is the most audacious of them all. the one man whose absence was noted in monty's main rival, eisenhower, remains silent he could order. the doors opened or even have

the insistent perpetrator sent away. but this is monty show, britain's favorite general who is not backing down, must make the final call, more pounding, louder, impatient reality sets in montgomery's carefully scripted remains the sideshow long as the hammering continues, whoever stands on the other side of that door, either a fool or a force of nature, so determined to walk through those doors that he is unafraid of offending anyone. the lecture hall supreme commander, prime minister and king of england among them bernard law, montgomery angrily orders the doors flung open to absolutely no surprise a six foot two silver haired american general wearing a pair of ivory handled revolver his knee high riding boots and an immaculate overcoat tailored on savile row. strides into the lecture hall. unrepentant smile on his face. winston churchill recognizes the officer immediately and will order him a whiskey over to celebrate this bold maneuver.

so it is the george general georges patton makes his entrance. so that's a so the thing is that now the prolog what a first wrote the book you know it's always tough to find a way into the book you always want to know you know you had to start the story at the beginning but whereas the beginning and so my beginning originally was the fall of paris just picking up or taking paris left off. and then i realize, you know, it's kind of funny when you write sometimes these people you're writing about, they want to they want to tell their own story and they kind of yell at you as he research to to be more in book. so we don't start with august 26, 1944 in paris. we start there in may 15th, 1944, and we go through the d-day length. so chapter one, which i wrote was about that. the paris moment is now chapter i think chapter 14, though, because all these people and it's funny you write these things, you know, i could hear patton's voice telling me he wanted to be more of the story. i could churchill saying, you know, let's go back to d-day. you know, weren't you writing

about it's the biggest event in western. and so that's the wonderful thing about writing these stories is that it begins you have this dramatic event, you have something called taking berlin, which if you you know, without the context, you think of taking berlin, it just sounds like a very kind of blasé military book, like yet another book about, how the allies captured berlin and you know, the war was over, but i wanted to make this more human. that's why when people spoke to me, you know, churchill eisenhower, gellhorn, gavin, even stalin, you know, i felt honor bound to tell their stories and put it in here. but again, do it in a way that made them human instead of just these these dry historical figures. and i think as you read it, that's that's what you're going to come away with and pleasantly surprised that the the reviews so far have extremely kind. but but what i like about it is they'll say stuff like i never of gellhorn before she's amazing or you who is this james gavin.

so to kind of introduce these people to a world in in again when i write about these if they walked into my office they're so real to me if they walked into my office would i would not be surprised if their physical and so to be able to introduce them to the world in and hopefully tell their in a really you know fast pace intriguing way that maybe at the end of the book you you don't just wait for the next book in the taking series taking london which comes next year you you're you want to know about gellhorn you know you want to know more about hemingway, want to know about the dissolution of their marriage. and, you know, new year's day in 1945, you want know about churchill in and how he oversaw the the demise of the british empire in those waning days of world war two. and it was so saddened by all you saw and then rallies next year because this great speech in missouri where predicts everything that has happened so far he breaks the the iron curtain. he predicts soviet empire. he predicts that the there will be a war between the east and the west for control of europe.

all that stuff is just amazing it's fascinating. and so i hope you should read the book i mean, you you take this away and you don't just say, you know, as you read, you know, go i have to read this history book. i want you to say, well, this reads like a piece of fiction. this reads like something that makes me want to read more. and this makes me want to read deep into the night. so that's my thing. let's take some questions. anybody remember? got to do the microphone guy. microphone. guys here. so when you're doing your research was there and traveled around, you know, to europe and germany, was there anything particularly that stands out, like any location that you said, wow i really feel this. you, too, for this book to significant first there was in the dutch city of nijmegen where the 82nd airborne famously if you've ever seen the movie a bridge too far as you know

robert redford is the hero you have all these american paratroopers they've these flimsy collapsible boats and they're paddling them across this river to where the enemy is waiting on the other side and the enemy is firing at them. they don't have enough paddles. they're using the stocks of their their rifles to actually paddle the boats. you know, i can't remember the number i think 26 boats set off. 13 made it, you know, and the way these people died was horrific because they they were just basically a shooting range for the enemy because they were in plain sight. they're they're moving. it was a horrible, heroic thing. and ultimately the paratroopers triumphed. those that made the other side were furious. and they went after the enemy with a vengeance. and so for me, you know, it's fun to really something before you do the travel. so that the travel is like the, you know, the cherry on top of the of the cake there or the the pie, whatever whatever. so we got to know megan and céline and i had driven, i

think, from brussels that morning. it's pretty good drive. and then you've got to find these side and and i but i had researched it and so i knew like the bridge at grove, the 82nd airborne, had to capture and just, you know, intuitively, i knew that if i followed the, you know, series of roads outside town, i would cross that bridge and boom, there it was. so ten miles later we got to nijmegen and we get to the nijmegen bridge, which has been rebuilt world war two. but that's not what i wanted to see i wanted to see where the paratroopers crossed. and so i just kind of did a little map study and figured out that it had to be about a mile downriver next to a factory. and the factory still stands. and so we get there. and it's one of those things where literally, just like gut told me, stop the car right now. and i literally stopped at the monument, the set, this is where they launched the the boats are also, you know, and it's the of a crossfit gym now. so it's so it's not like

everybody's waiting on history but it's great because, you know, if there's like a little berm they had to pull the boats up over the berm, then they walk 300 yards down to the water. and i did all that, you know, kelly, waiting in the car, she's she's like, oh, can we get this with. yeah, but, you know, i'm geeking about this, but that that was great. and then, you know, i've been to normandy before and i've been to omaha. you know i was american cemetery there one time during the tour de, france. it was this cold, misty day that really stayed with me. but on this occasion, i wanted to see exactly where general norman cota led and you know, he's, he's like chapter four led the american troops off the beach and had the rangers, you know lead the way, kind of stood on the the road where it all took place. laura so you're the beach here. you got this this berm, you've got the road, then you've got these houses, then you've got this, this cliff. and then and i realized that the road i was standing on was nothing but barbed and and landmines in the war. and the berm down below was

where the american soldiers were cowering because the germans were everywhere, just firing right out. them in because the bar where they had no way off the and all of a sudden this very brave general says we need to get off the beach or we're going to die. so we're going to die. let's go. dillon which is we literally to him and i realize i was standing in that exact spot and and you think it's going to be this this scene of devastation but the houses that are still there, largely the ones that survived the war, the same houses that were there then and they're nice summer houses it'd be like if someone had a place in you know laguna beach on the water it was that kind of thing. like that's where people for their summer vacation, you know, just had that feel to it. it was really hard to imagine that a place that was so inviting and genteel and the air smelled of, you know, salt from the, you know, the english channel. it was just wonderful it was hard to imagine that this the site of such tragedy and

bloodshed and it's one of my favorite, you know, chilling took a nice photo of me standing there was one of my favorite photos ever so mike, thanks. that's a great question. jerry. so why didn't they like the french and why didn't they invite him? the. well, let's go to that. we had a lot to do with charles de gaulle, and so thank you. that's a great setup because. i can push for taking paris. we talk a lot about charles de gaulle and taking and i like what i like about the goal is that a nobody writes him and he's a very influential 20th century figure. but he was so arrogant. he was so awful and he was so insistent on getting his way, even though he came in hand to the british and the americans and everybody, nobody could stand him. but at the same time, he was so sure that. the french, you know, that that, you know, france needed to be liberated and the americans

needed to go in and paris, you know, not bypass paris like they going to. and they didn't want de gaulle around because he was just going to be a fly in the ointment and. but at the end of the day, they they didn't need him, but he made he made himself he inserted himself into the discussion about two months later. so so, yes, to to preface my question, i was watching too far last night. okay. i to i started the book tuesday and yeah, i got to that point. the beginning of the movie, there's two german generals and they're talking about what would happen if the allied troops decided to invade holland. and they said, who would they send and would it be patton or montgomery? and they said, well, of course it would be peyton. yeah. and then one of them says, well, i would rather be montgomery. and you know, one says, well, eisenhower is not that stupid. yeah, my my question is, the whole market thing, was it just money showboating or did they think there was a chance of

going up around into berlin way? yeah. yes, yes. to all of us. money showboating because you know, to set scene for everybody in world war two not to get too deep in the weeds you know in the low countries know holland in belgium the british were there you know patton after after paris felt he is south of paris and he's going into germany you know a couple of miles south and patton style was just go here's the calvary just go go go, go, go let's attack montgomery like he was very, very british. he very like to take his time. he like to gather his men. he like to have all his armament in only. then would he attack and so but that was the downfall market card was because it was montgomery the whole thing was planned and then executed within a week which which was not montgomery style and so he needed to behave like patton to win this battle and he was incapable of behaving like patton in an interesting little

sidebar about market garden in it's in the book, it's really it's one of the great battles and encourage it'll even go further afield learn more about it after you the book is that the the dutch war college before the war had done a full war study about okay if if if an enemy is going to come into holland and try to get through holland into germany, which way should they go? and they they like three or four different roads. the one road they said that we should not use, by any stretch of the imagination was the one that montgomery used when he left the belgian border. and jumped off. so you kind of filled it didn't feel horribly but a lot of people died so. it was especially sadly the americans came out of it looking very good. so. any other questions? yes, sir. testing. testing.

so i'd like to just your opinion on this and this kind like a two part question. one, why do you think people like kyrie irving are getting slammed to be a historical figure and to going back to the war? is it true that the french were robbed by the germans for their arts and, culture? yeah, in a world oh, i'll repeat the question. the question is why is kyrie irving in trouble? and into the did the germans loot french art treasures. i'll start with the second one first. so the the the french were ingenious they took everything out of the louvre in their other major museums before. between september 1939 and in june 40, when the nazis came in. so they use that time to hide them in the country and, you know, chateaus. and so that's the nazis, although the nazis did a great deal of art, they didn't get as much they wanted to like, for instance, the mona lisa was not theirs for the taking.

you know, you could you could, you know, kyrie's trouble right now go back to 1933 with hitler, when hitler, the term that he called, i can remember the german for he he coined what's called the big so if you if you make up a lie and you in it's big enough and if you say it often enough people will believe it. and he used that to disparage the -- and blame the --. the downfall of western civilization that that perpetuates now and by way, stalin stole the big lie concept he loved so much from from hitler, putin is using the big lie right now. it's made to flow into american politics. so all those things that happened all the way back then, they're here with us right now. so history does repeat itself. it's going on right now. i mean, i'm not going to go into it, but it's it's happening. it's there. it's a thing. so how we doing? can we take one more question is no burning questions. all right.

let's it. so, everyone, thanks very much for coming out. i'm going to sit here and i'm going to books. if you want to get a book signed. but this is fantastic i see friends. i see just many wonderful people. thank you very much for coming out. thanks. appreciate it.