columbia university american studies professor andrew delbanco's recount of the political and moral divisions of the united states in the antebellum area. and in civil war barons, jeffrey work. look for these titles in bookstores this coming week and watch for many of the or authors in the near future on booktv on c-span2. >> host: and now joining us on booktv is vicki alger. her book, "failure: the federal miseducation of america's children," came out in 2016. ms. alger, is it any better today the than it was in 2016 when you wrote your book, in your view? >> guest: well, sadly, no. test scores haven't gone up. we have slipped in the international rankings a bit. common core has been fully entrenched, and we didn't see the improvements, and we saw some losses. so, no, things aren't getting better. but there is, on the positive side, what we are seeing is advances in the states in parental choice programs which empower parents over their children's education and restore that critical local control are. so that's silver lining here. >> host: have we seen any changes in the federal department o

andrew delbanco will recount political and moral divisions that separated the united states in the leadup to the civil war. that's a look at some of what booktv will be covering this week. many of these events are open to the public. look for them to air in the near future on booktv on c-span2. .. >> today we will have maya rao who will be talking about-- talking about her new book "great american outpost". she's a writer with "minneapolis star-tribune" and has had works appear in the atlantic, the howell, philadelphia inquirer and other publications. let's bring up a maya. >> my book is about the north dakota oil fields. north dakota's been in the news nationally a lot in the last week. democratic senator heidi heidi camp made a lot of news for deciding to vote against supreme court nominee brett kavanaugh. she is one of several democratic senators who were representing states that were won heavily by donald trump in 2016. a trumpet one north dakota by about 36 percentage points and so even in the face of a very difficult reelection campaign, she chose to vote against kavanaugh and her o

columbia university american studies professor andrew delbanco's recount of the political and moral divisions of the united states in the antebellum area. and in civil war

also on wednesday in washington, d.c., columbia university american studies professor andrew delbanco will recount political and moral divisions that separated the united states in the leadup to the civil war. that's a look at some of what booktv will be covering this week. many of these events are open to the public. look for them to air in the near future on booktv on c-span2. .. >> today we will have maya rao who will be talking about-- talking about her new book "great american outpost". she's a writer with "minneapolis star-tribune" and has had works appear in the atlantic, the howell,