scores across the board on being open because not many people are writing about the history of wildlife protection or the history of conservation that you might think. and so, for me to come in, having written a number of books and sam interested in your collection, they like it a little less so at yellowstone or yosemite because it's been written about a lot. but if you go to spiderlake, every american should go to their in oregon this year it is spectacular. the most dazzling blue color lake in that whole region of southern oregon which teddy roosevelt did so much to protect. the back story had never been written about greater lake, so they're helping me get documents left and right. if you pick a site that has not been covered very much or written about very much, they're willing to help you because you care about the history. people don't think of history and national parks. they're coming for camping

experience or hiking. they're less interested in the history. i would try to look at the history of them. >> what evidence does your publisher have that this kind of book would sell? $35 apiece, 1000 pages. >> you can get it online. with presidential studies and bitter roosevelt is beloved like washington or lincoln, so people want to read about a president. wanted to do the book as thoroughly and accurately as possible. i had to cut a lot just to get it down to -- hundreds of pages were cut just to get it down to a thousand pages. it is that rich a story with that much untapped archival material. i don't write these books, brian, i'm not saying i won't do it in my career, but if roosevelt is saying he's saving

these parts for generations, i wanted to let it is down as a track for libraries that every kid will know what happened, that there were battles fought in this country to save these places, they did not just happen by osmosis. we don't just sort of have a wind cave s.d. save for no reason or antiquity sites that people loved in the mexico. each crown site was a battle of whether the federal government should have the land or not. each state had a local hero. i tried to focus on some of those people. my book is not a new york- washington but per se. some of the states i focus on our washington, oregon, hawaii, oregon, alaska, mississippi, louisiana, oklahoma, virginia. i did the battles to a lot of these places. hopefully giving a new generation of people some

environmental heroes to look at. the oregon coast, it was a battle of their to save the islands off a san francisco, also. roosevelt in hawaii, if you grab a map of hawaii and see the hawaiian islands, look to the west of hawaii going towards asia midway. roosevelt saved all of that bird sanctuaries. when -- he threatened war with japan when japan would try to kill birds on that island. he threatened war with japan. an alaska chain where he saved seals, roosevelt heard a group of japanese seal hunters came to an american archipelago and killed americans seals, he was gearing up for, if need be, with japan over seals.

this wilderness warrior, it was not just a policy for him. you cannot understand the essence of their roosevelt if you don't understand his relationship with dahlin, ornithology, and with the big game and forestry of america. >> what about darwin? >> roosevelt's father was an early reader of darwin. we don't know exact moment teddy discovered darwin, but the when he was 14 years old or 15 he was in egypt. he writes about darwin at 14. brian, in my book he draws out how we evolve from the stork. roosevelt has himself evolving from a store and draws little pictures of it and shows his brother is evolving from a.

dom 1's origin of species cannot in 1858. it did not hit america because of the civil war. -- he drew darwin was all the r. it was a revolution. people talk about him becoming a marxist ideologue. people became darwinian ideologues. darwin was the central figure in roosevelt's intellectual life. some people don't like the survival of the fittest and were going to be the biggest power in the world ideas. that is one side of him, but erroneously ventured into social dollars and quite a bit. on the flip side of this, domestically, he was bought on right on his understanding of natural resource management and how to make sure you say to species and entire environments interact. he was a great lover of the

prairie. data roosevelt felt the most at home on a horse in kansas and nebraska. he would get terribly seasick. he was our first president to go abroad. he went to panama. then he went to puerto rico. what he's writing about down there, he's taking notes of the wildlife of panama. he saved forests in puerto rico and the philippines. is this imperialism, and for the spanish-american war, president, we control these properties. he had a big concern of protecting eckler systems and species in the place is required. >> why the gloves? >> they make you wear them here. they do and a lot of archival places. this is from 1902. it's the birth -- this document are molding, you could call it the birth of u.s. fish and wildlife right here. in that little matt. that is what made roosevelt started it all with the wildlife

protection. >> has that ever been seen outside of your? >> you would have to ask mark. i don't know. it is probably a minor when something with the pelican island site. c-span should go to pelaton island some time. u.s. fish and wildlife has built an incredible boardwalk down there with each refuge set up like a plant. it goes out with an incredible view. if you do in a family vacation over the summer in florida, take the time to go to pelaton island to the center there. because it's really worth it for kids. you're guaranteed to see a piece of wild florida. >> it's close to vero beach. i would stay in vero beach which is in between st. augustine and palm beach on the atlantic coast. also, the darling national wildlife refuge, he was a

cartoonist, but the national wildlife refuge is spectacular. roosevelt created the national forest in florida that links the atlantic to the gulf. if you look on a map you will see the big green swath of natural forest. that is a heavy manatee area he preserved. >> i've been interviewing you 15 years. how do you remember all this? >> i love history. you know that about me. i have a good memory, i guess, for things when i get into something. >> photographic memory? >> i don't know. but my enthusiasm is so high that when i find documents, i'm very excited about it and i'm able to incorporate all that because i like this. this really opened my eyes. before i wrote this book i was going to parks and i was not thinking about the back story of how we got this system. we're always looking for good news in america. i will give you a good news story. look at our incredible park

system we have in this country of wildlife refuges, national parks. we give that right -- we have the responsibility to maintain it properly. >> how do you, when you're doing research, keep track of it all? what is your system? >> stephen ambrose, the latest jauron, told me to abandon chronology at your own peril. i realize even-- he was a histo. when i'm writing i tried to stay chronological because roosevelt lived his life chronologically. then i would get the dates of all the places and say that as an appendix. the date he declared something, i have that date. so now i have his biography, the dates of all these places, and i make sure they intersect properly.

then i say, well i know, you don't create an everglades national park or grand canyon is the was not a fight, so was the champion that got the winning result? who was the great grand canyon champion blue was the great yosemite champion? then i bring them into the store. so i'm dealing with two time lines and then a cast of characters. >> where do you put it? is it on cards or pieces of paper? >> notebook after notebook, note cards, a yellow legal pads, spiral notebooks. output boxes by states for these. i also wanted a diversity, so i wanted devil's tower in wyoming, so i wanted to make sure i had a devil's tower box. if you went to the big horns in montana or wyoming, when he was a young man, so maybe arrange it in different ways. kaai'm terribly influenced by my

environment where i am. the places i went to are the ones i wanted to write about and i collected everything. i want everything i can get on the painted desert or on the petrified forest. roosevelt saved the petrified forest in arizona. >> how do you insure your manuscript is accurate? >> it's hard. always that the new worry about the most. if you're going to have a mistake in the book and you're about to -- somebody will e-mail you or write your letter usually and then you say you're going to corrected. additionally, like in this manuscript, i said chapters to all the people that helped me. >> like mark madison, the historian. >> i sent him the entire manuscript because he's with fish and wildlife. i would send individuals like one in florida the works at

pelican island, i sent by florida tetris. -- i sent imy florida chapters o him. if he did not know the answer, he would get somebody who did. roosevelt's triea professor at f kansas is the national expert on the arid west. i would send donald my chapters and he would give me feedback on what i got wrong. everybody i sent a chapter to find something wrong. in this case i did not get anything big wrong, just maybe word change. i would say the wind blew from the southeast, but it was actually the northeast. i would sent by byrd things to

the audubon society to make sure i would not misidentify a bird species, because they are very particular, people in the audubon world. >> you have some first edition books written by theatre roosevelt on your hand. how much do you trust those? did you write them himself? >> he wrote. one of the things people ask me is how i write so much? i'm nothing compared to theodore roosevelt. this guy was doing five times more while he was running the country. he was writing books at regular intervals. these are his letters to his children in this book. it is a wonderful book because he would write them a lot like, here's a letter to his children on the love of flowers. later in his life, towards the end he became a wild flower experts. and does randomly opening this. "porter reconsider rapier " when he went down there he was not

writing home, he's righ--corridr lleyt puerto tican rican flowere year. some people say he wrote over 50 books. something's came from speeches. he did not make this book for its children. it came from letters that were turned into a book by someone. >> can it be true that he read a book a day? >> yes. >> how can go all around the world with all the problems we had and then still read a book a day? >> he was a phenom.

his mind was at such a rapid pace. i've noticed that people read a lot, reid quicker, because they know how to read. he knew all the classics. even in the woodsy would bring the pigskin additions. he would bring his favorite classics. he would read and memorize them. it informs everything he did. what was unique about him was the focus on naval history, military history, and wildlife conservation. and forestry. >> , a navy experience? >> 0 his first book and harvard called "the summer birds of the at around docks pookutty road about birds in new york. his second big between the naval war of 1812 which made him the top naval strategist. he became an assistant secretary of the navy. he would juggle navy with this sort of western, hunting -- like

this one with the buffalo on top. roosevelt knew everything. as president, roosevelt did not just know about gray wolves or cougars, he was the world's authority on them. in a scientific way. george berger ird co-founded the boone and crockett club to save the game of america, to save buffalo, antelope, deer, terrible from being exterminated. they would commission articles and roosevelt would write this one right here on elko. you can just turn the pages. roosevelt got involved in bringing out the books. it was about gentleman hunters. they were working to save animals to shoot the animals. people have problems with that today. it was the hunters of america

that formed the early conservation movement. it was done by field and forest magazine. field and stream magazine writer. all of the sporting journals that started putting in -- that you have to have bag limits, you have to put a fischbach if it has eggs. you have to not shoot a dove. -- you have to put a fish back, if it has eggs. at ohio university, a man there? read my chapters on george byrd grunell. he was the american authority on game. >> who tased for your travels to all these sites and all the research? is tha-- who pays?

>> my publisher and gives me an advance. this book on theater roosevelt was very expensive for me. >> any idea? >> i rent the cheapest car i can and stay at a modest inn when i go to these places, but nevertheless, it adds up to the point where you're wondering from a lifestyle point of view, it probably does not add up to a dual nature. once you do a serious, heavily to unaided researched book like this, my next book i could do something i could do at home without so much travel. >> how did you know it was over? but this book was finished? what was the last moment? >> i ended the book -- i wrote the chapters on the ex- presidents' it, but i did not want to bring the focus on brazil. my book is subtitled about

america. so i ended the book in march of 1909 when he is leaving the white house so the reader could see your is what this man accomplished on behalf of america from 1901 through 1909. i went through his whole life and ended the book in 1909. i'm doing my next volume on how roosevelt influenced the whole new generation, including young franklin roosevelt, got very interested in conservation and started planting trees all over. it would kind of be like teddy roosevelt -- he was trying to be like teddy roosevelt. eleanor roosevelt also got involved in conservation. leopold as well. and doing another volume. i'm planning on going from this book beginning in 1958, the birth in new york of roosevelt. then to end with global warming that we have now and march through the multiple volume history. >> thank you, professor brinkley.

>> brian, thank you. host[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2008] >> , history standpoint, where did you find a different artifacts and materials, did you bring them some morals? >> good question. most of the materials we have came from fish hatcheries from the field, everything in our archive is donated by former employees or steal the officers. these historic things that doug brinkley has written about, they were in garages, basements,

attics, suffering from all sorts of environmental deterioration. once the open and archived, we filled up the archive in 10 years of historic artifacts so the public could see them and we could teach from them. >> the thing that motivated us is rachel carson is our most of famous employee. when she retired from the fish and wildlife much of her papers went into the incinerator. we will never let that happen again. >> who put them in the incinerator? >> they saw no value back then. >> put rachel carson in historic perspective. >> it's easy. theodore roosevelt was the starting point for the american conservation movement. rachel carson plays the same role with the american environmental movement. it has different concerns than roosevelt had. a little more holistic concerns, concerns about toxins and

pollutants, endangered species, preserving all species, things that even might have been predators or pests. beginning in 1962 with the environmental movement for her. that began. in 1901 with the roosevelt presidency is where the conservation movement began. >> you told me you have a son named theodore. your relationship, any relationship there to the president? >> it's not a coincidence. he is named in honor of theodore roosevelt. theodore roosevelt had so many admirable qualities. he loved nature, as my son does. he had exuberant energy. my four year-old exhibits that. and he made a difference. and everybody knows that. >> you have a facility where there are rooms where people can come to put on a conference. how does that relate to the outside world?

can the average company or organization print it? >> the important thing to remember about this place is it is a center for conservation leadership. that is not only mean the federal government. that means everybody involved in conservation, whether it be the fed's, state government, non- government groups or corporations. we think the only way to address our conservation challenges in the future is through partnerships across all of those sectors. so it's open for people to come here from any sector to talk about conservation and to try to figure out solutions to the challenges we face. >> but you cannot just walk in the front door? >> no. anyone interested in coming to do research in the archives, were happy to have you, though. >> the need credentials to the researcher? >> the archive is open to the american public. most people that come because it's a serious archive, there are -- they are researchers,

historians. we worked with the smithsonian and even worked with walt disney world. we serve the broad cross-section of the public. >> fit this into the american government structure. who is the boss of the boss of the boss? >> we worked for the u.s. department of the interior. overall, secretary of interior. above that it's the president of the united states. we work for whatever administration is currently there. >> what is the budget for an operation like this throughout the year? >> a little more than $23 million a year. that gives us almost 600 events per year and more than 15,000 people coming through our programs. >> industry, how much are we spending all this kind of effort compared to what it was 50 years ago? >> i don't think we are spending

much money at all 50 years ago. i am the first historian we have had for the fish and wildlife service and i was hired 10 years ago. 12 years ago we did not have an archive or a historian. we do not have a history program. if in the last 12 years we created a history program. we still want it tight. we don't spend a lot of money purchasing artifacts or anything. if we manage to archive and the museum and manage a couple of personnel and that's it. >> if you could have whatever you wanted to make of this better, what would you ask for? >> what i would ask for would be for the the public, the general public in the u.s. to know what the fish and wildlife service is. we have really dedicated folks to do great work for critters and for the american people. a lot of people don't even know we exist. >> how many different places are there in the u.s. under this umbrella?

>> about 800 field stations. we manage 150 million acres. >> what would you wish for? >> i was there but would think about the environment when they study history. it transforms things. i wish everybody would go out and enjoy the environment. a park or refute. that is where we get our constituents lyncy, people going out and join places like these. that is where our future lies. >> gentleman, thank you. >> thank you.

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>> next week, this author's first nonfiction book, the under

education of an overachiever, and belmar on his time at princeton in 1980's. that's next sunday at 8:00 eastern on c-span. . >> this morning, a political roundtable. in the next hour a look at preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction with peter brooks of the heritage foundation. and then r