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joining is now on book tv it is history professor laura beers, authors of the new book, "orwell's ghosts" . laura , what does it mean for people who love orwell. >> orwellian is a word that is misused most. of misinformation of social control, of thought policing, to use a term that orwell coined and propaganda. and, you know, i heard dnc described in a right wing newspaper th >> heard the dadnc subscribe in the newspaper the other day as an orwellian kamala harris show which she was being presented as a big brother figure. certainly, there have been no shortage of people critiquing the trump administration of orwellian . on the flip side, pro truck supporters critiquing

the platforming of trump after january 6th as orwellian leasing . both sides of the political sector use the word with more or less accuracy. >> what does the term, orwellian mean quick >> pretty shortly after orwell's death and he died in 1950, the word had the association with the manipulation of language, with censorship and thought fleecing which is another orwellian term which comes from his novel 1984. the transformation of orwell from a living author into an adjective happened fairly rapidly after his death. >> who is erica--eric arthur blair quick >> it is george orwell. it is his pen name. he takes it not to embarrass

his parents. he is writing about a local subject and working as a police officer and his disenchantment with the empire. also, being down and out in paris and london, slumming it in the two metropolitan capitals and his experience with the unemployed and underemployed of 1930s europe. he never formally changes his name. his first wife keeps her name. >> went and he's right--he write his first novel? payment he wrote countless newspaper articles over the course of his career. he starts his first novel in

the 1920s while he is serving as a police officer. the first bookie publishes is down and out in london in the early 1930s. he has a quick succession of novels and nonfiction before the two that become commercially successful. first, animal farm in 1945 and 1984 published in 1949 pic >> you mentioned you are a professor at an american university and you teach a class on or will. students who come to your class, what do they know about george orwell when they enter your class? >> that is one thing i ask them. there is a wide range. there are always a few orwell enthusiasts who have read beyond the standard animal farm and are familiar with his essays or his book on unemployment in 1930s england. most of them come in having read one or maybe both of animal form and 1984 in middle

school or high school. their knowledge is not an excessive familiarity and one that comes from a class context. before they leave they are all orwell experts. they have read several ways pass as waste--essays. >> in today's context there is a censorship at work within broader society and that is how orwell uses it in 1984. the thought is policing what you say aloud and what you think. >> orwell talks about children who will rat you out. as someone with children i can empathize with this. as the idea that you have no private internal self and you have to train your thinking with what is expected of you.

the right condemns the woke left as they term it. on the flip side you have the left that says that the political right, with their obsession inside of what they see as fake news and an orwellian disinformation is engaged in their own type of thought fleecing and cult thing. that idea of a cult way of thinking around what in 1984, is called the big brother is something orwell developed in 1984 and it has become closely associated with him. >> one chapter in the book is titled the thought fleecing. i want to expand on this. is there any discussion of orwell's contribution to the base around politics and language cannot limit itself to censorship and free speech or truth and falsehood. crucially, these issues were

both to orwell's political age into our own time. he was equally outspoken to the ways in which politics unconsciously, but inevitably corrupts political discourse and language more broadly. >> in one of his best essays, politics in the english language goes into this idea. the intentional misrepresentation that political language invariably deploys. for example, collateral damage pass when you think about that it means the loss of significant innocent civilians, usually civilian life. it becomes a word that in political speech used to say the mission was achieved, though there was some collateral damage and there is an derosier. --erasure. when they talk about the humanity of people receiving welfare and the nuance of that

situation and those people's lives and orwell was conscious in his political time, and he is working when britain is fighting a war against nazi germany. he was very conscious of how political life was manipulated in the context of the british empire. he served in the imperial police and felt there was censorship in the british empire with as transient as it was in the soviet union. >> how would he define politics quick >> he turned himself a democratic socialist. he was identified strongly in his life with the political left. when he passed away because his novels came iconic text, he was reappropriated frequently by the political right in a cold war context and continues to be seen by many on the right as a

kind of icon of free speech and an opponent of censorship. his own politics were very firmly leftist. >> two more passages from your book, when you start to look for signs of mythology and elitism in orwell's writing they become hard to escape. orwell's views on reproductive rights and writing about women and his seeming casual acceptance of sexual violence cannot simply be seen as the product of his time. >> that is a fair statement and i stand by it. orwell's political writing, i have a lot of sympathy for his critiques of doublethink of thought fleecing and the problems with political discourse in our modern area. continues to have salient value. the way he wrote about women and gender relations does not stand the test of time, as well.

despite the fact that he married not one but two very accomplished women, both unlike kim had a university education and he stopped schooling after leaving eton, which is one of the top prep schools in britain. and then, joined the indian police service. despite the fact he was married to these accomplished women who he respected and they respected him, he had a default obsession of patriarchy, which was the natural order. both of his wife's give them selves over to furthering his career. female characters in his writing are marginalized and not offered humanity. one of the most famous lines from orwell's "1984" is the dismissal of his lover, julia and feminists have read that against the grain and said it is a recognition of the power of sectional politics and the idea the person is political.

i don't think orwell intended to do it that way. i think the body suggests that he wasn't someone who afforded women the agency he afforded to men pic >> i know you teach a class on this. "animal form--farm close", do you think it gets the attention it should get quick >> i went to an all girls high school, in which i read "1984". i can tell you there is a passage in that book of startling sexual violence where winston smith, before he begins his relationship with julia imagines and murdering her in this violent fantasy. that was not a passage we discussed reading it in high school. we talked about this idea of what it meant to call julie a rebel from the waist down, but we didn't get to these other

moments. he also fantasizes about killing his first wife and pushing her off a cliff to her death but that is nothing we unpacked. it, for me, i went to and all girl high school with a male teacher. even when that is not the situation in play, and packing the extent of the messiah djidji and some of orwell's for and even in "animal farm" --molly the show pony is the villain in this book in that she is narcissistic and willing to sell out the revolution for her own personal gain. it was not something i remember being discussed when i was at school. in terms of my conversations with my students coming into my university level classes, it is not an angle on orwell's writing that is being approached today, either pic >> one more line from orwell, they never end happily ever after. why do you think that is quick >> orwell, himself didn't end

happily ever after. he died at age 46 of tuberculosis. he has moments of optimism in his writing and in his personal life, but i think he was someone who fundamentally was quite pessimistic about society. i think there is a real tension you see in his work between i hope for a better social revelation--revolution and the change that will improve society and real testament about whether human beings are capable as a type of self- sacrifice and abdication of the will power to secure that social change. you see that at large throughout "1984". i think that is general pessimism about human nature shows through in all these novels for the heroin is always a gangly, awkward male comes to a bad end pic >> let's come back to the student to teach. what is the biggest misunderstanding of george orwell when you walk--they walk into your classroom?

the biggest understanding is very few people come in believing they are setting --studying a writer of the political left. however orwell is taught today, he is not taught as a social writer but he saw himself as a committed socialist revolutionary. in his obituaries, especially in the united kingdom, when he died talked about his social conscience and about the wintry conscious of a generation in which he was committed to having integrity in the need for social change. i suspect that was erased in the 21st century. >> do you have a favorite orwell novel or writing or nonfiction? >> base on the fact that i had to count up all my quotations from orwell for the publishers, i clearly have a soft spot.

>> the road is a but he researches in 1936 when he traveled up to the northwest of england to look at coal mining communities in the life of the long-term employed. the economy in britain has started to slump even before the great depression in 1929. you had people in 1936 who had been out of a job for more than 10 years. he is writing about the lack of opportunity and social inequality in english society and arguing for the need for dramatic social change. it is a very moving piece of social investigation and very different from his other writings. >> you mentioned he died young. what appears on his tombstone? >> i don't know. it says eric blair on his tombstone. there was a time when i knew the epithet and i can't remember it. he was an atheist but one who had a christian burial.

he had a fondness for the church of england and for the king james bible. he was a lover of the english language and a lever of the forms of the church, despite his own atheist and socialist politics. >> eric arthur blair is george l and the book is "orwell's ghosts", whiston's and warnings for the 21st century. laura beers is the other. thank you for your time on book tv. as the 2024 presidential campaign continues, american history tv presents its historic presidential elections. learn about the pivotal issues of different errors and uncover what made these elections historic and explore their lasting impact on the nation. this saturday, the election of 1980. >> i have been president now for almost four years. i have had to make thousands of

decisions and each one of those decisions has been a learning process. i have seen the strength of my nation and i seen the crisis and have had to deal with those crises as best i could. >> are you better off then you were four years ago? is it easier for you to go and buy things in the stores and it was four years ago? is there more or less unemployment in the country then there was four years ago? is america is respected throughout the world? do you feel our security is as safe, that we were as strongwe were four years ago quick >> in a landslide victory, republican ronald reagan defeated incumbent democratic resident, jimmy carter. what historic presidential election saturday at 7:00 p.m. eastern on american history tv on c-span 2.

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