e george armstrong custer. there will 10,000 items, and he annotate them all. 3,000 of them were books. so i think the logical first question to begin with is, t.j., why custer? >> i hate myself. no. i have to say thank you very much for coming. i love to have a constance to talk to rathers and potential readers and to have a conversation with paul andrew hutton, you is not just a great hoyton a and a great writer and has a become coming out this spring called "the apache wars" it's phenomenal. so watch for that. so to have this conversation with a good historian and a good writer is terrific. there is -- i could easily go on and on and give a hoe spiel about custer and why by book is justified, but the subtitle complain mitt approach. sometimes you go into a subject because it hasn't been written about enough before, or you really feel like people have gotten it wrong, and is a say there's a lot of great writing as well as a lot roof writing about custer. my approach was to change the camera angle, and i'm ver

-- recent book about george custer: go to our web site, booktv.org and get the full schedule. or you can follow us on twitter to get schedule updates all day long at twitter -- [laughter] >> when i tune into it on the weekends usually as authors sharing their new releases. >> watching the nonfiction authors on booktv is the best television for serious readers. >> they can have a longer conversation and delve into the subject. >> booktv weekends, they bring you author after author after author. >> i love booktv and i c-span fan. >> hello? evening everyone. thank you for joining us here at politics and prose for our monday evening event. before we get started just a few quick things. one, please take a moment to silence your cell phones or pagers if anyone uses so stupid or anyone that could possibly make a sound during our event. after his talk, mr. brady carlson has agreed to take question. if you could line up behind this microphone and speak clearly into the microphone because we do have c-span filming today. just make sure both the audience can hear it and it can be recorde

-- recent book about george custer: go to our web site, booktv.org and get the full schedule. or you can follow us on twitter to get schedule updates all day long at twitter -- [laughter] @booktv is our twitter handle. thanks for being with us today. we'll see you tomorrow. everything you've seen today will re-air. that begins at midnight tonight, and our full day of coverage begins its re-air at midnight. >> you're watching booktv on c-span2, television for serious readers. here's a look at what's on prime time tonight. we kick off the evening with crystal wright who discusses her book, "con job: how democrats gave us crime, sanctuary cities, abortion profiteering and racial division." then at 8:30 edward langel reports on the financial papers of george washington. at ten, michael eric dyson discusses race and the obama presidency on booktv's "after words." and we finish up our prime time programming at 11 with npr's

civil war commander george custer is said to have uttered the famous words, "it's not how many times you get knocked down that counts. it's how many times you get back up." nowhere is that spirit more evident than in las vegas, and we found one spot where it looked like they might not get back up, but they did. ♪ so, here i am in reflection bay in henderson, nevada, a place that went from riches to rags and now back to riches, one of the greatest stories of redevelopment and resurgence in america. this entire area five years ago was ground zero of the real-estate crisis in america, and today it is an american success story. ♪ lake las vegas is a beautiful, 328-acre lake that was actually man-made. it was a massive project spanning decades, creating the lake, the golf courses, hotels, and luxury communities in the middle of the vegas desert. but when the recession hit, the area was devastated. >> this was the kind of situation that's very rare -- to have a 300-acre lake and have all these residential areas around it, with the hotels and golf, but when the economy changed, people walke

general george armstrong custer led an expedition into the region. settlersers and flooded into the region. they fought battles with the lakota. ultimatument an saying all residents the two go back to their reservations. comply, thedn't general attacked. general custard suffered one of the worst defeats in u.s. history by sitting bull. violence exploded throughout the and it washe 1870's, often the indians who suffer the worst. from the perspective of the reformers and policymakers who advocated the peace policy only a few years prior, it looked like there was no peace, native people are resisting aspects of the civilization policies. from the indian perspective, this makes sense. they wanted to retain their homeland and things the united states owed them. they could choose to accept or not accept whatever they wish. as a result, reformers are in gauge of the conclusion it would have to change indian policy once again. the reservations have failed because indians were too community-minded. would then work, these reformers, to break apart reservations

you have to mention george armstrong custer, idiot he was. he was always glory-seeking and fool hardy, especially after the war when his major general rank moved back to lieutenant general, and he wanted his stars back and got them by killing indians and in 1876 he was to attack an indian village. and he would be in the center column and two support columns and he got in position, got impatient, failed to wait for his support and attacked straight ahead. with 247 men. he expected to find a couple hundred indians and found 2,000 sioux and cheyenne waiting for him. and what ensued was a slaughter. i know many of you have scene dramatic paintings of custer's last stand. that's not true. it was a rung fight for your life and national geographic archaeologists have check the hair and they found bodies in an area over four and a half miles. 247 men were killed. 247 horses were killed. one horse survived, quote, quote, custer's last stand. but the news of his death by indians reached the east coast, and on july 4, 1876, the centennial of our birth,

civil war commander george custer is said to have uttered the famous words, "it's not how many timesed down that counts. it's how many times you get back up." nowhere is that spirit more evident than in las vegas, and we found one spot where it looked like they might not get back up, but they did. ♪ so, here i am in reflection bay in henderson, nevada, a place that went from riches to rags and now back to riches, one of the greatest stories of redevelopment and resurgence in america. this entire area five years ago was ground zero of the real-estate crisis in america, and today it is an american success story. ♪ lake las vegas is a beautiful, 328-acre lake that was actually man-made. it was a massive project spanning decades, creating the lake, the golf courses, hotels, and luxury communities in the middle of the vegas desert. but when the recession hit, the area was devastated. >> this was the kind of situation that's very rare -- to have a 300-acre lake and have all these residential areas around it, with the hotels and golf, but when the economy changed, people walked away, not ju