but that is not the case because we have the great historian, one of my favorites, david mccullough,ill be joining us with "the wright brothers"! so, yes! (cheers and applause) what could be a better gift kicking off my final late shows, nothing better than talking to an historian non-fibbing writer. a great way to start the final run. but first, hard to do, but as a hard-hitting news program we turn to i.s.i.s. who has their own i.s.i.l or the worst people you've ever seen on youtube. >> i.s.i.s. is the biggest threat. >> i.s.i.s. is not your parents al quaida. >> jon: are you accusing my parents of being al quaida in that would not have gone over well at their temple. so what makes the f.b.i. think i.s.i.s. isn't lame like al quaida and doesn't drive an oldsmobile? >> the reason i.s.i.s. surpassed al quaida as a danger to the u.s. is because it has mastered twitter and other social media. >> the i.s.i.l tweeters in syria have 21,000 english language followers. >> ooh! 21,000! guess what? pink berry has 49,000. my guess, out of the 21,000 most is followback monday from deejays. >> i

>>host: recent edition of by the book david mccullough is in their. how do you choose questions? >> originally i that i would be very strict to ask the same but then realized that was an idiotic idea very quickly with the help of my former boss because if you have the first person who did that you will not ask them what is the funniest book you ever ratter the greatest comic writers you have to tailor to the author so that is the column i personally at it and write the questions myself. >>host: one of the questions was it who are his favorite presidential biographers strikeout could you not ask him of that? the you would not ask that of other. >> he puts a book out every couple years is that an automatic review? >> there are some that our pretty automatic maybe we don't think the latest thriller is with us but we know that their readers want to know that surges worthy of review not necessarily because of the quality i'm not saving david mccullough but we know will be of interest so the review may not be positive but it is worthy of attention. >>host: f you ever had a rare all rev

but, you know, david mccullough is a fantastic author. he does a great job of bringing history alive. so whether it's that book or john adams or some of the others that he's written i look forward to spending some great time this summer doing that. additionally cheryl atkinson her book "stone walled" is fascinating when it comes to really holding our government accountable. serving on the oversight committee, it provides a new light as we start to see some of the things that are done or not done as it relates to holding our government accountable and transparent. so it looks like it's going to be a fun summer as we look to round it up, and so i would encourage all of you to get out and read a good book. my particular emphasis is looking at historical books of great leaders of the past. >> booktv wants to know what you're reading this summer. tweet us your answer @booktv or you can post it on our facebook page facebook.com/booktv. >> and now on booktv, "in depth" with author peter schweizer. the author of several books including his newest

without argument he is you can argue david mccullough if you want to as the best narrative nonfiction writer alive. [applause] he is also a terrific human being and you are unfortunately have to listen. the first time we have ever had a conversation that did not involve cocktails. >> that is true. >> so we may not be as normally fun as we normally are but we hope to be. right now does lusitania you describe as a floating villages and steel i will not concentrate much as you'll have 50 minutes to ask questions we have specific questions but to talk more of the process. you are now in what you call the dark country of the new ideas. >> that is not a term that i came up with but my good friend came up with that to describe the period with i am looking for my next book idea because i'd like other writers, when i finished a book i have nothing else on my plate so i start from scratch and that could be a long process typically it could be one year before start the next project that i am to see and snappish and pissy. [laughter] >> host: you need something to attract your attention? >> mostl

adams, was it -- i want to talk about this, because in recent years there has been my thanks to david mccullough and tom hanks, there has been a revitalization of adams. was fdr, the focus on talk radio, they would say it was bolshevik, but was there to the jefferson rule, was there another kind of rule that could be legitimately couched in historical times? david sehat: i don't think so. hamilton and jefferson are often the two founding fathers that are contrasted and in the popular imagination, jefferson is a small government republican and hamilton is the big government, democrat. this was in the 1790's or whatever. but the problem there is that that imperfectly works, because it is a vastly different era and if you go back to what hamilton was talking about, in many ways, it was supporting capitalism. he was at the beginning of this capitalist revolution and the industrial revolution and so in a sense he looks like a republican, and another sense he is not. if you look at jefferson, in many ways he is an agrarian, sometimes very anti-capitalist. i get concerned when people want to bring thes

stone by people like david mccullough. robert carroll they are reaching out. they are reaching out to a broad public audience in a way that i think has made history more and more relevant and more more importance to a broader audience. but i regret to say it's not my academic colleagues who are doing this. peter: i'm going to disagree with you little. i think a lot of things that come out. a good academic run as a thousand copies. but, i think there's a real synergy between academic historians in public historians. i think there's a place for that focused narrow work, i think of some of these other scholars are building upon what scholars are doing down in the trenches. i agree with your point, much of what we see especially in scholarly journals unfortunately does not resonate or connect with the public. i'll even take a step further, you are good example of this. i will know when you brought your first fencing class to gettysburg i think that it had a profound impact on your thinking about the common soldier, it also led to activism and no reservation. you a

and there's a good deal of, i think, jealousy in the academic world of people like david mccullough, who have a large readership. and it's our own fault. we're writing for one another, and we've become very narrow and very specific. there's a place for that, too, but at the same time, i think we have an obligation to reach a large readership, as well. c-span: go back to your comment about your peers not liking the fact that newt gingrich was heralding your book. there are conservatives watching this program that are saying "yeah, that's what's wrong with academia. they're not the slightest bit interested in the other side." >> guest: well, there is, of course, and has been over the last, well, maybe 30 years, a good deal of criticism of ourselves. it's self-criticism. i don't think that's wrong. i think any democracy, any healthy democracy has to have a certain amount of self-criticism, and that often takes the form, for historians of writing critically about the past. i think there can be excesses in that, and i think people who say that the american revolution was a failure are mak

the great historian david mccullough and many others have written about it. combating malaria and how much machinery was needed to accomplish that. all in the name of america and monroe doctrine, supremacy in the hemisphere, and our big navy, and be able to protect our borders. theodore roosevelt was a great leader as president because he knew how to manipulate the press. and he would tell every reporter he saw, your article was the best thing i've ever read! because he knew how the egos of writers and all they wanted to do -- you can't hate a president, just write your stuff and lined it. and also he was a genius with cartoonists. he would bring cartoonists with him everywhere. and in fact, one of the bits of bravery in leadership of t.r. was right when he came into the white house, he invited booker t. washington to dinner. and this was scandalous. the south was up in arms and an african-american not only was sitting in the white house dining with the president, but had his legs next to a white woman, edith, the first lady's legs. and scathing, racist, bigo

david mccullough could not write the books that he writes without having access to historical newspapers even from the colonial period. they're rich. they give you characterization of individuals. it is the stuff of making heroes and villains and even our historical narratives. but the bottom line is that the ease which we can key word search information strips us of the time it takes to search for things the old-fashioned way which produces serendipitously new kinds of information. you always find much more than when you're looking for when you don't key word search. >> who is langston hughes? >> langston hughes is the greatest black poet of all time and one of the world's greatest poets. his work here is read by ozzie davis. langston hughes is also someone who for who years used this library and hadn't mat relationship with the libraries at the time, so much so, 25 years after his passing in 1967 he returned to this library which was started in the 1920s and permanently inturned his ashes are -- entered his ashes are part of the main floor of the lobby that is named for langston hughes

david mccullough discusses the birth of flight in the right brothers. a look at the best-selling books continues with president jimmy carter's recalling of his life and career in the full life. next they discuss the hidden biases of the criminal justice system. wrapping up the bestseller, the double agent for the united states in how to catch a russian spy. that's a look at some of the best-selling nonfiction. >> book tv recently visited capitol hill to ask members of congress what they are reading the summer. >> i decided to reread a book i read 20 years ago entitled the monk who sold his ferrari. it's written by robin sharma. it's a nice little fable about a lawyer who is a very successful trial lawyer who has him massive heart attack in the middle of a trial and goes to nepal to search for the meaning of life and comes back and teaches everyone that the meaning of life is to help others. i also started reading a book by stephen ambrose. we re- watched saving private ryan and that wanted me to read the book d-day. i heard evan thomas talking about a b