talk with professors who also read the book you might not have heard about and joining nellis meredith lair a history professor and her book is not quite out yet. it should be by the time this airs but here is the cover of its. armed with abundance. consumer is signed soldiering in the vietnam war. professor lair, what was the typical experience of the american soldier in the vietnam? >> guest: that is the great question to start because the american public has an assumption what it was informed by television, movies, media coverage of the war that tends to focus on the experience of the ground in the boonies in imminent danger living a life of obscurity and degradation and enduring the frequent danger and that is a powerful image and experience that many vietnam veterans have during the war but it is probably not the dominated experience of the war because by the late 1960's the united states had built an incredible logistical a apparatus to support its combat so most soldiers and the viet nam or serving in some kind of a support capacity living largely out of harm's way and as the war wen

this we can we talked with meredith lair, author of .. the politics of size, representation in than 90 -- of united states 1776-1850. for a complete schedule and the list of other george mason university interviews go to booktv.org. >> you are watching book tv on c-span2, 48 hours of nonfiction books every weekend. we are on the campus of george mason university in fairfax, virginia, on the outskirts of washington d.c. for our universities series. we had the chance to come to some universities and talk with professors to have ultimately let's as you might not have heard about. joining us now is meredith lair, a history professor here at gm you. her book is not quite out yet, but should be by the time this airs. here is the cover, "armed with abundance." professor, what was the typical experience of the american soldier in vietnam? >> guest: that is a great place to start because i think the american public has an assumption about what that experience was. informed by television and movies and media coverage of the war. it tends to foregro

>> guest: >> host: meredith lair, what duties? >> guest: american history, vietnam war, and war in american society. >> host: her new book just coming out is published by the university of north carolina, "armed with abundance: consumerism and soldiering in the vietnam war". thank you for joining us. >> guest: thank you so much. >> and now an interview from george mason university. >> george mason professor. in your book you begin by saying you have the deepest and most antagonistic conflict at the federal constitutional convention was the controversy over representation in the national legislature. why is that? >> well, i think that a lot of people think about the constitutional convention and they think that slavery was the major issue in toward the delegates apart. and, of course, slavery was a major issue and it was very contentious, but the fact was that it was only the debate over how people would be represented in the upper and lower house of this new congress that was the major issue that nearly stopped the convention and

written books that you might not have heard about joining us now is a history professor called meredith lairer book is called of armed with abundance. consumerism and sold during in the vietnam war. what was the typical experience of the american soldier? >> guest: i think the american public has the assumption to be informed by television, movies and media coverage of a rifle platoon and those and limited danger living a life a of deprivation and a dead in during frequent danger. that is a powerful image and an experience that many vietnam veterans had during the war but not the experience of the war because by the 60s the united states had built an incredible apparatus to support its troops who more soldiers serving in a support capacity out of harm's way and as the war went on in jury the increasing comfortable way of life that was designed to minimize the difference between living conditions in the u.s. in the u.s. military bases in vietnam. >>host: how many soldiers in vietnam? >> 542,000. >>host: how many american soldiers were killed. >> off the top of my head i don't it was the deadl