can go to detroit, the property's cheap. there's more kids coming there. there's a boom of artists and tech people and activists and it's got, to some degree, that same sensibility of anything can happen that motown had. parts of it might never come back because of the geography of it and the loss of the jobs. >> when it will be published? >> it will be published next september, 2015. and, simon has been the publisher has been the same -- i've had the same editor for all of my books and i've worked at the washington post for 38 years so i'm kind of loyal to certain institutions.

>> david, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> we continue with the book, about how madison became the wisconsin state capital. f >> i decided to write a book that covered all of the history of madison because i'm not from madison. i group up in a suburb of seattle and i moved here not really knowing much about wisconsin and i started learning more about its history as i spent more time here and i really wanted to write a book for someone, like me, who may be didn't grow up here, wasn't really familiar with its history, as well as maybe people who have lived here their whole lives. i think one of the things that was the most surprising thing to me was how hard madison had to hang on to being the capital of wisconsin.

they were in constant jeopardy of losing it stat -- losing its status. first, the territorially capital and the capital. there was a guy named james and he was a land speculator and he invested in the land and the only people were living here were people with a camp along the shores and fur traders who occasionally set up shop here. so, he comes through and sees this land and thinks, i think this could be a great town. so he hired someone to draw out the boundaries of a town and, you know, presented to the territorially legislature. he had to convince a lot of

people because there's nobody living here, at this time. i think that has a lot to do with how madison, both grew and really had to fight to hang on to its status because there were other places in the state that had more people living in them, larger industries. so the process of selecting a state or territorially capital was convincing legislatures. you put forth a statement. at the time, the major center of population in wis con -- in wisconsin was in the other part. there were also quite a number of people up in the green bay area, a lot of fur traders along the great lakes. there was a heavy consstration of people -- heavy consstration of people

there. it would be easy for people all over this territory to get there if they needed to get in touch with their government. it's a marketing job. so when james went to the legislature to present his idea that madison should be the capital, it wasn't the only city competing to be the capital. the legislature's job was -- the only thing they needed to do was to pick a capital city so they met in bellmont. he brings an extravagant plan and he is a little bit manipulative. he has a financial stake and names it madison after james madison, who had just died, and he was trying to play on national sympathys. he also named the city streets after the signers of the constitution, again, trying to

show this was a very patriotic place. so, he brings over to bellmont where this legislature is meeting and prevents it. as i say, 19 other cities are competing to be the capital and he starts bribing people. the building was a little bit chilly, you find lots of people complaining about the poor quality of the building, how cold they are. he knows this, he's very smart so he brings with him, his plan for madison, as well as a bunch of buffalo robes saying, here, want to hear about my city? are you cold? here's a buffalo robe. so, it does go through quite a number of votes. his word carries a lot of weight because he had

been in wisconsin for along time and had been to the cities that were under consideration. he came in the 1820's and he was a prominent figure. if he said madison had potential, people were bounds to listen to him. after many, many votes, they selected madison as the capital and he made a mint off of that decision. so, wisconsin, by the early 1840's is experiencing a lot of immigration, particularly from europe and people from new york and new england. those are the two immigrant streams. wisconsin has enough people by the 40's. and, there were various groups that were trying to push forward a legislation to move wisconsin towards statehood. they were from differing political parties so

it took awhile for us to get to a point to move forward. so, the democrats are successful in 1846 and they go to work, trying to work this state constitution and they think it will be an easy endeavor. getting to the point to consider statehood took so long, no one thought the constitution would be problematic. the constitution they wrote was a little too radical for the people living here at the time. they had allows african americans to vote. they also outlawed all banks. people were very mistrustful of banks, at the time. and so they thought by outlawing banks, they wouldn't have to worry about fraudulent activities. another controversial measure is they allowed married women to own property. in every other state, a married woman was property.

these were radical provisions in this 1946 draft constitution. there was debate, could they move forward? it was overturned. he couldn't agree on this radical constitution. they drew up a new constitution that was approved and got rid of those controversial measures and it was passed so that wisconsin could become a state in may. by the time we get to the early 20th century, there was a man hired, a architect and planner. he's hired to come up with a plan for madison. he delivers this -- i don't know -- shocking message to the residents of the city and says madison has the potential to become a

world-class city. he is not unsparing in his criticism of the city, as well. he also sees and prevents very specific plans for what the city could do to become somewhere up with paris and new york and i think, for the first time, people in madison were, you know, reminded that they had this potential, that they could be -- that someone from the outside saw them as this really fantastic place, filled with potential. john called madison a model city and a lot of the things he set out for madison took decades to develop. in a lot of ways, a lot of the things he suggested, in 1911, came true throughout the 20th century. one of the things he suggested in his plan for the city was that there

should be an arb treatm -- arboretum. we didn't get one for a couple decades later. he also suggested that state street should be a closed pedestrian -- pedestrian mall. a place where people could gather together. that didn't happen until the 80's. but that was really part of his vision for the city. he also suggested that the buildings, downtown, should not be taller than the capital dome. he thought the capital dome was the center piece and not to obscure it. that has held true. he proposed several parks that he thought -- one of the things that's fascinating to me about madison is we are completely surrounded by water, but up until fairly recently, it was

hard to enjoy it. there is a shocking lack of restaurants and things on the water, where you think they would be and madison has turned its back on its lakes. he said, we need to pay attention, this is beautiful, we need to protect them. that's something that's become much more important to the city. i wanted people reading my book to understand how madison's history is really connected to the history of wisconsin and the history of our country. local history is really diminished. people see it as not being important if you are only intere interested in that. knowing the history of your little corner of the world tells you so much about the world. so i really wanted people to understand that part of it. something else was

understanding how we got where we are today. >> we can continue our study of wiscons wisconsin. he spoke about his book, dollarocracy. f >> the inflow of huge amounts of money to our politics has changed almost everything about our politics for the worst, not for the better. historically, in an american political campaign, the dominant force in the campaign, the center of the campaign was your human level engagement with people. that has just been blown apart. now, we have campaigns that are defined by sound bytes, not real address, not real interactions. they are defined at the state