. >> this weekend on booktv, rebecca on the best selling immortal life of henry adams whacks. on afterwards president reagan's ambassador to the u.s.s.r. on mchale gorbachev's role in bringing down the soviet empire. his book is superpower illusion. and inventing the idea of a white race in the history of white people. find the entire weekend schedule at booktv.org and follow us on twitter. >> the national book critics circle authors of books of six categories. fiction and general nonfiction, biography, criticism, winners in each category are presented their awards and joyce carol oates receive the lifetime achievement award and check if joe is given a prize for reviewing. the new school in new york city hosts this event. is about an hour. >> it is my pleasure to welcome you to the awards ceremony at the national book critics circle. we want to welcome everyone who attended the powerful evening of reading by the nominated raiders. you will lead it you experienced something wondrous and where. we want to welcome all the critics who came from newspapers and magazines all across

it's wonderful as is henry adam's democracy. i highly recommend them to read.inaudible] >> male dominated world of the lobbyists in the late 19th century. in your book, you teasingly mentioned that there were also women lobbyists even at that time. could you elaborate out that end of course that the schlesinger library are there other collections on women's lobbyists? >> i wish there were. the question is about women lobbyists in this period. there is definitely women lobbying. they were known as lobby essays, which is a really hard word to get your mouse around. the lobbyists as were definitely on the scene. their mentioned courts of ink describing them. we know that there were real-life women who were lobbying for their own claims. these were known as many reporters as the poor things. these were the civil war widows, daughters, orphaned by the word, daughters were the only child left in the family whose time had been taken by the war or lifestyle. and they would come to washington themselves and they would sit outside members offices and try to get a moment

. >> "the moral life of henry at the lack madrid of henry adams -- of henrietta lacks." and other authors. find the entire weekend schedule at booktv.org. >> throughout april, see the winners of our student cam competition. they submitted videos on our country's greatest strengths. watch the top winning videos every morning at 6:50 eastern just before "washington journal." and then meet the students that made them, and for preview of all winners, visit the web site. >> afghanistan's ambassador to the united states and the john hopkins student for advanced international studies announced a new initiatives to train future afghan leaders. following the announcement, the afghan ambassador to questions from the audience. this is 50 minutes. enumerated. the floor is open. . >> i learned a lot by going to graduate school. "the new york times" today to which the ambassador is sure to a taken a look at today, the front-page story is about president karzai's brother, who everyone feels as a drug dealer. and in an op-ed piece laid out the things that we have done wrong in dealing w

with king, the historian henry adams wrote men worships not so much their friend as the ideal americanthey all wanted to be. but of all of this, of her husband's true identity and even his real name, ada had not a clue. not until he lay dying in phoenix in 1901. his last hope of a desert tour going did james todd write a letter to his wife and tell her who he really are was. that's the beginning of the book. and i thought i would just step back from a moment and talk about some of the larger issues here. this book was a challenge to write. because of the celebrated clarence king we know much, of cope ran, very little. born into slavery, she had few records. clarence king fought very, very hard to be assured no record of his life would survive. most 19th century americans managed to leave some trace in the records. that's the historian's job to find. the story of@@@ % haired and blue-eyed. how could we pass himself off as a black man? well, he was exposed about the racial classification that sprang up in the wake of emancipation has southern states struggled to define black people and d