mencken. we're talking with professor hart about his books on evangelicals. >> thank you. >> it is hard for the media in ways that they will find convincing. usage chile this is a reaction to nationalism focusing on the use of reason and at the most happy where it is based on evidence and facts to. a reaction but when we talk what matters most is some id:dash and it is very keep that the authentic and i use the word authentic but i think in the eyes of the of the holder. but people do strow tool to appear to want to feel like him look -- the leverage. this begins 19th century and famously in the '30's the european fascist with germany and italy but in though quake so they focused much more on these stories. i am like you i speak like you but together we can of water off the french that would be. [laughter] but the today maybe for the elite that we're the only harvard hearing but then those contributions are not properly rewarded or excepted and whose values that have been undermined by eight y

hl mencken has a lot to do with nietzsche's superstar am. not to say that there weren't other folks reading nietzsche and popularizing nietzsche in the united states, but he is the one who writes the first full-length monograph on nietzsche in 1908. that's where we get a kind of fall on synopsis about nietzsche's life, his travails, struggles with christianity, struggles with health care could get a bit of his sexuality took it would not be mencken if there was not something racy thrown in and then we get nietzsche's ideas. this book sold widely and sold well and it helped do two things. it's helped really establish nietzsche's reputation in america, but did something else, which helped mink and become mencken. >> host: so, if someone says i love friedrich nietzsche and i agree with him, what are they saying to you, professor? >> guest: if they are just saying that, not much because someone-- i mean, i use that example of chest thumping atheist and bible thumping christians could both make that claim about nietzsche and that's what's so star

. >> host: so mencken active in the 1930's? >> he started in the teens at baltimore morning harold, i believe. gradually he started editing, coed iting a magazine, literary magazine with george mason and eventually he founded the american mercury, published and he -- by that time he was a notable american, celebrity, popularity declined in the 30's because he was quite critical of the new deal in fdr and sometimes made fun of americans at a time when they didn't want to be made fun of. but he had remarkable kind of resurgence at the end of his life or at least the end of his career where he wrote a trialology of memoirs that were quite successful, quite popular. there are wonderful books. wasn't of them is growing up in baltimore and has fynn qualities. i can't remember the last play, so i'm just going to stop there. >> host: that book comes back november 2016, damming world, the life and religious times of hl mencken. >> guest: thank you. >> this weekend on book tv's after words program, former state department official jones