clare cushman who were the "courtwatchers"? >> the "courtwatchers" are the justices themselves, their wives, children, oral advocates, court staff, reporters who cover the court and even some just random bystanders who happen to be in the courtroom and witnessed something exciting and then went back and reported it. so most of what this book is is its meet digging up all this stuff over the last 220 years the court has been in existence and finding all the insider stories written by people that were affiliated with with the courts. >> would have -- is one of your favorite insider stories? >> i have so many because there are some that are funny and some that are poignant and some that are educational, but i guess the ones that i like the most are the ones written that the supreme court spouses because you really get a sense of what it was like at home. so my favorite is

i am very grateful. >> clare cushman, what is your day job? >> director of publications at the supreme court historical society. i write books about the history of the courts. >> what got you interested in the courts and the first place? >> actually, i was a national geographic magazine writer. warren burger called me up one day and said we are looking for somebody who is young, cheap, and good to edit a book about the supreme court

. >> here is a new book by clare cushman, "courtwatchers: eyewitness accounts in supreme court history." >> and snell from george washington university, twitter.com/booktv talks about his book, "the making of modern afghanistan." >> professor benjamin hopkins, what is the east india company? >> the british east india company was a semi commercial company founded in the year 1600 by royal charter by queen elizabeth, which gave it the exclusive right to trade with the indies, english merchants. over time that transformed into a kind of peer saddle juggernaut and the myth that is extremely complex and difficult to understand, but the key thing about the east india company was that after the mid 18th century these to the company came to rule over much of the south asian subcontinent, which included most of modern-day bangladesh, india, and pakistan. the east india company was rolled up in 1858 following the great beauty of 1857 and 1858. control of the south asian subcontinent passed directly to the british crown. >> how did this to its charter? >> its charter was granted to a group of mer