clark talked about countering the narrative and the narrative now is carried worldwide on the internet through videos. this event will be watched are around the world by people interested. we have a different problem than we did ten years ago or 15 years ago in speaking to the world how to the address that way that everything we say literally here but especially the administration and political leaders everything is perceived around the world, what is the right thing to do? how should we change our behavior in light of the fact we are speaking of just in domestic audiences the international audiences are interested not only at heart? >> can i defer to my colleagues to answer that and then at something and not necessarily now but direction as some point try to answer the other question depots and that is what should the administration be doing when forward and i would also like to -- >> maybe we will go down the line and get two minutes each of you on what the administration should be doing. so the to the communications question and then prescriptions. >> i think i will just add one pie

it seems to me the war metaphor for what we're engaged in here -- it plays into the narrative they'reat's oppressing their society. it plays into that metaphor. it ealso helps their efforts in some sense to create fear and anxiety in our population as a way of kind of pushing us into political changes. it magnifies the sense of the threat and danger they represent. so it seems to me there's a couple of very clear cons. i'm not clear on what the advantages of this are. >> and getting to the communications strategy, this is another thing during the press conference where secretary napolitano was asking rhetorical questions, we need to look at the whole issue of what is called counterradicalization, how do we communicate better american values in this country and around the globe. if the american value we want to communicate around the world is that if we don't like you, whatever country you're in, we're going to send a predator drone out and blow up you and your family, then we should probably be expecting some hostility as a result of that policy. it's ironic that secretary napolitano

it was a wonderful, wonderful to knowledge e4 narratives.electronic media is a great for narrative. you hop around, it's a web. you jump around and gather information like a hunter and gatherer as opposed to sitting around the fireplace saying, let me make a narrative. that is why, i think, in the future, electronic media will always coexist with paper. i think we will someday realize that paper is an awesomely good technology and as much as we admire electronic ways of getting information, if we had been getting information electronically for 400 years on screens and some latter-day guttenberg had come along and that i can take all his beautiful pictures and put them on page and put it together and delivered to your doorstep and you could take it into the back yard or the bathtub on the bus coming you'd say wow, paper, that's a great new technology that will replace the internet someday. [laughter] i think i will be able to use digital and electronic technology to do all sorts of things. i hope my next book combine music and words, as you'r

this is the narrative we are getting from copenhagen. he walked into a meeting that was bus to be bilateral, the chinese were trying to evade him, and he sat down next to the representative from brazil and changed the deal. it perfectly fits this narrative of obama's saving the day of what have -- what would have been a complete disaster. i have noticed this cuba policy, where even up to three days before the summit of the americas, the a former ambassador to mexico was essentially delivering the new conservative line on latin america. there was no evidence at all that they were going to. position where obama went. when he got the portfolio, 180 degrees shift. -- when obama caught the portfolio, 180 degrees shift. when you get his attention, there is a need, almost a need, to fundamentally change the dynamics. and when you get those successes, show that narrative in the story. >> as moderator, i think that was adequately responsive to the narcissism question. [laughter] >> i am with the nation and rolling stone magazine. john bolton said

the narrative resonated with me. everyone has their own journey. okay. that's good. do you need to say some closing -- i don't know. thank you everybody. [applause] >> thank you very much. >> alia malek is a former justice department civil rights attorney and contributor to the columbia journalism review and the "new york times." for more information on the author, you can go to alia malek.com. >> long time journalist steve roberts and professor of media and public affairs at george washington university has just written a new book called "from every end of the earth." steve you want to tell us about one of these families that you followed. >> well, one of them is pablo romero who dropped out of school in rural mexico when he was 11 years old. came to america as a farm worker when he was 13. spent his entire teenagehood in the lettuce fields in salinas, california. never went to high school. then he got drafted in the american army. got his high school equivalency, blossomed in the army, read every book in the post library. came home and got to junior college because

clark talked about counting the narrative and the narrative that is carried worldwide on the internet through videos. this event will be watched around the world by people are keenly interested. we have a different problem that we did 10 years ago or 15 years ago, much less 40 or 50 years ago, in speaking to the world. how do we address that? knowing that everything we say, literally here, but especially the administration and political leaders, everything is perceived around the world. what's the right thing to do? how should we change our behavior, not just to domestic audiences but international audiences that may have our interest not always at our? >> can i defer to my colleague answer and then at some point, not necessary now, but try to enter the other question you pose. and that is what should the administration be doing going for. i would also like to pursue that. >> made will go down the line, get two minutes each of you on what the administration should be doing. so to the communications then and in our prescription. >> i think i'll add just one piece of evidence here to st

we really are contemporary narratives in contemporary society. yet on the other hand there were all these representations of arabs from over there and arabs as foreign. and arabs as not part of your. i don't have to go into detail as to how not to gleek human eyes of those portrayals were. and this was basically what i thought about it then, i thought that really all kind of sucks and i hope somebody does something about it. i'm going to keep being a civil rights lawyer and where i can do something i would do something. i thought it's pretty inevitable that someone will write a book or somebody will sort of do something that enters into the discourse, these are the kinds of images, other sorts of stories that have been so painfully absent him, not our micrograms, and i went about my life and that included re-signing my post at d.o.j. on these of the invasion of iraq in 2003 and a move to lebanon and worked there as an attorney. went about my life and then when i finally decide to make sort of the switch into journalism and came back and went to j

and i think there is a counter narrative that we can go into, but the point of a counter narrative isthat the '60s resulted in a huge range of reforms, and as these reforms were achieved, the '60s came to an end. because of the spirit and energy and the organizing resources faded with the success. this does not exclude repression and trials and assassinations and many other aspects of the '60s. the core point is, the '60s might have been felt as radical or even revolutionary, or inspiring to revolution, the outcome i found in my attempt to get a grip on it, was again and again reform. now there might have been -- it might have been imperative that they were revolutionaries to help bring about reforms. but the problem with reform is that, it is quite often an orphan. because movements start with a minimal demand like the right to vote, right to eat at a lunch counter, and they will escalate to a point that by the time the demand is achieved five years later, many of the participants are disappointed. because they've lost careers, loved ones.÷ they become too radical for the reform. the

the narrative gives us a historical context for the cartoons especially for people who weren't there and didn't live this period. i think they will enjoy this. for those of us who did live the period the book helps us to remember and relive the times. we were talking before we came out and i was saying one of the things the book offers is the chance to -- the realization that there have been other bad times in american history when people were really acting in x ways to one another and herblock's cartoons are so evocative. he wants to talk to us about this. i think this book will endorse and hopefully be used to teach history classes. college professors -- makes it easier for college professors to give a book of cartoons to their students. i think that we owe haines a great deal of gratitude. it is great to have you with us tonight. [applause] >> thanks. i feel like i am coming home here. this is the first time -- third time i have had politics and prose and never two book that one. it is a strange feeling but it has been wonderful. i repeat what i said when i came here before. i lov

it demonstrates how important is for us to have an intervention into the narrative.have some media intervention. we have to make more aggressive attempts to shape the national narrative in ways that reflect -- >> probably a lot of lessons. i think more about what i have learned about fred hampton's life more than the circumstances of his death. it seems to me one of the differences between 1969, and 2009, young people, young black people from poor communities in this city and elsewhere have a reason to be angry. have a reason to be angry in 1969, have an enormous reason to be angry today. we have a prison system that has an insatiable hunger for black bodies and brown bodies, we have a school system that is increasingly looking like a military operation. kids do not have jobs. they are lousy jobs. we have the same kinds of state violence that other people talk about. there is a reason to have a righteous rage but the difference it seems to me and we will see this -- that rage is not directed. that anger turned in on ourselves because there is not the kind of politica

the first one i have though is one of those kind of by way of retracing some of this narrative. so jonathan, can we pick up on what you mean when you say the meaning of schizophrenia changed? you're really careful to emphasize in the book that schizophrenia is not just a social or political construct, but an actual condition that affects the lives of families and hopes and futures of the afflicted, but at the same time you argue that the condition became increasingly identified with black men. in response to some extent to the social upheavals spurred by the civil rights protests and the rise of black power. so is it possible to distinguish the reality of the condition from the diagnostic culture associated with it? >> do you have all the questions? >> no, why don't i just do one by one. >> absolutely. that's great. so i would say that, you know, it's hard because there always is this tension between -- basically, there's a tension of doing cultural history i would say so on one hand, we get in to people who have taken my class know i'm totally opposed to saying it's either soci

i don't agree with that narrative and i don't believe the scenario with iran is automatically one that depends on complete -- >> what is achievable? >> what is achievable is changing the environment around iran was within the middle east and other great states like india, china and russia to essentially both running room to spread its influence through transnational networks also closed on other opportunities but then to offer what i think obama wanted to which was a constructive course, i am not a believer in that kind of hillary clinton's style of course of diplomacy at the moment because i don't believe the united states has the wherewithal to achieve that but i don't think we have put on the table a strategy with iran that ultimately will change the direction. in fact i worry about the sanctions policy because it is likely to dissuade iran from moving down. it becomes an emotional and political holding place for the fears and ambitions, not something that will necessarily be efficacious in moving the direction. >> that's good. richard what do you think is achievable, and also if yo

what is the narrative of this new global power range?oes the president have a vision of a world that is detectable, and secondly, looking forward to the end of his first term, what is it reasonable to ask of this president in shaping this post american world -- to use another phrase present at the start of his inauguration. the one to take another pass at this? >> -- do you want to take another pass at this? >> i would say first i am not sure it is a post-american world. for me one of the lessons of copenhagen was that madeleine albright's phrase still holds. we are an indispensable nation. we do not get a lot done, but nothing happens on some of these global issues. i think for example in asia we tend to -- i thought the coverage of obama's relations with asia was terrible in that how little coverage there was to the fact that right after he came back from asia, the prime minister of india came to the white house for a state visit, and obama actually is effectively in searching the united states into asian politics -- in searching the u

, work out a narrative structure and fit them together.nd that happened. not so much -- not just by jonathan and myself. and one of the two of us it was more jonathan than me to begin with but we had four law students who are mentioned in the book as coeditors. they spent thousands of hours trying to figure out how to fit one story in with another. if you look at it, you'll find some stories are done in three places. 'cause we didn't want a collection of essays of people explaining their entire experience starting at the beginning and going through till the end. so what our goal was to present guantanamo through the eyes of the lawyers as reporters. and the stories of the detainees as reported by the only people who were the primary source, first person accounts of what they were told and what they saw. now, the reason that we decided to do this actually came about with the conversation that jonathan and i were having a few years ago, a question is how would history look at guantanamo? and it dawned on us almost at the same time that it wa

too -- the nastiest narratives of 2010. to the democrats in conk at home, oh, yeah, and the dollar dies. and finally take a sad song and make it better. could this be the glory year when barack obama proves the great american president pushing through health care, rallying the economy, getting things straight in afghanistan and getting free from iraq. chris: hi, i'm chris matthews. happy new year. katty kay is a bbc and washington correspondent. dan rather is global correspondent, john harris, is et tor in chief of the politico. helene cooper, white house correspondent. john, you came up with seven story lines that obama's critics are starting to push. avoiding those stories could well be his new year's resolution. giving the critics a storyline that he's plang with monopoly game. >> another story line looks like he's yielding to nancy pelosi. looks likee's more interested of being president of the world? critic bill crystal says this -- >> obama is making us weaker. he tries to placate adversaries. >> this idea that he's s

those are the two narratives' right now. and i just don't see the benefits to the united states being involved with the negative one. >> daniel? >> i would say three things. so first of all of your policy to the position you can be raising this issue in terms of the strategic long-term interests, the stuff in your chapter and that jim wolfensohn talked about and that andrew has talked about. america has a strategic dialogue. there is an incredible density of relationship with israel. so be moving in that conversation. the second thing i would say is in terms of dealing with the practical problem, remove the pretext. if part of israel's predisposition is related to the situation to getting the freedom of the israeli, and i hope he's freed, be encouraging the deal. america doesn't have a key role to play but it's certainly be encouraging that he negative one of the pretexts is who can we deal with in gaza, then i would say be encouraging palestinian reconciliation for many reasons but this could perhaps be one of them. so remo

so we are getting to a more sophisticated narrative to explain why we have all these loans. but my explanation i think is the right one, and that is they were following government requirements. okay. what do we do about fannie and freddie? we know where they are now we know what they're doing a. we know they are absolutely essential to the financing of mortgages in the united states today. wheat didn't have them function now under government control and the conservatorship, we wouldn't have a financing system for mortgages. ic for alternatives dashing ic for alternatives for fannie and three. nationalization, the service for some sort facility or cooperative that a return of chorister status and then finally, privatization. and what i'm going to try to explain is why none of the alternatives, none of the options makes very much sense, except privatization and then suggest how we get from where we are today to a privatized market. first of all, nationalization is retroactive to some people, because it would simply allow an organization like fannie and freddie, maybe both of t

his people because a lot of what he was always doing was elevating his people into the biblical narrative. he put an end to the crucifixion. this is the cross we bear for our people. or he was putting them to exodus or the other stories of testament delivers but sometimes it was the indignant king and this indignant king when he seized with racism was an angry black preacher. and he would say it is the black man who produced the wealth of the nation. and if the nation doesn't have enough sense to share its wealth and power with the very people who made it so. and i know what i'm talking about this morning. the black man made america wealthy and before long he fell into this poetic meter that you often use in black build meetings which established a claim to america that was deeper than civil religion in jefferson we were here. that's his phrase, we were here before the program fosters landed at plymouth and 6020. we were here, yes, before jefferson etched across the pages of history the majestic chords of the declaration of independence we were here, we were here and sometimes that "we we

conflict a war, narratives about guantanamo, narrative's about other aspects.in the process are a couple of things. we are going to lose a thoughtful review of of what works, what does not work on the intelligence side of this. we will lose an opportunity to coolly take a look at aviation security and what we need to do. more importantly, if we lose this thing in partisan debate, we are going to hand a victory to the terrorists that will be equal to what they achieved then if they had been successful in bringing down the airplane. causing world wide alarm, causing us to oblige increasing resources to security, but all said enabling them to exploit the partisan divisions in this country. at some point, you have to say, what is the national interest here? host: on the issue of home grown terrorism, the associated press is reporting that a review of the shootings at four cuts said the review of nidal hasan voice concerns over his use of islam in his inappropriate behavior, yet they continued to give him positive performance ratings which allowed him to move throug

if we do, we play into al qaeda narrative. and we make it more successful organization every time we put additional forces overseas into muslim countries. >> reporter: experts say that al qaeda is using yemen to try to lure the u.s. into another ground offensive. that's something that obama administration wants to avoid. >> rachel martin. >>> at least 96 people died when a suicide car bomber drove into a crowded volleyball game in pakistan. and the rubble is being searched for more bodies. the village had been fighting to resist taliban infiltration. >>> the cia is vowing to avenge in afghanistan. tonight, we have new evidence that the bomber was someone that the agency knew. nick sifrin has the story from kabul. >> reporter: along the afghanistan/pakistan, america's most dangerous emies have a safe haven. and the cia officers killed this week were trying to break that. abc news has learned that the suicide bomber was a regular informant for the cia. a pakistani, invited on the base ltiple times. on wednesday afternoon, he was

that means the narratives changed.imply that these loans were forced on people by unregular late forge brokers. it is now g.s.e. greed. so we're getting to a more so test indicated -- why we have all of these loans but miest summation they were following government retirements. what do we do with fan and if freddie mac? we know what they are doing now and essential to mortgages in the united states today. if we didn't have them now we wouldn't have a financing system for mortgages. i see four alternatives. nationalization. public utility or cooperative. a return to g.s.e. status and then finally privatization and what i'm going to try to explain is why none of the alternatives, none of the options makes very much sense except privatization and then i'll suggests how we get from where we were today to a privatized market. first of all, nationalization is ar attractive to some people because it would simply allow an organization like fannie mae and freddie mac, maybe both of them, probably merging into a single instituti

those are the two competing narrative's right now.nd i just don't see the benefits to the united states being involved with the negative one. daniel? >> three things, be -- first all, move your policy to the position where you can be raising this issue in terms of the strategic long-term interests, the stuff in your chapter, the stuff that jim wolfensohn talked about and andrew talked about. america has a strategic dialogue. there is an incredibly density of malaysia chip with israel. so be moving in that conversation. the second thing i would say is in terms of dealing with the practical problem summary of the pretext. if part israel's predisposition of gaza is related to the situation to get to freedom of the israeli soldier, and i hope that he is freed, be encouraging that deal. america doesn't have a key role to play but certainly would be encouraging that deal. if one of the pretext says who can we deal with in gaza, then i would say be encouraging the palestinian reconciliation for many reasons. but this could perhaps be one of

and that more or less is the pakistani narrative. but the soviet invasion of afghanistan was a lot bigger threat. and we might have crunched by saying to the general, if you want our help, here is our conditions, and we expect you to keep them. instead, we approach them from a position of weakness, and we said, if you'll sign up with us in fighting the soviets in afghanistan, you know, we will provide all these goodies, and they said yes, and i want to control. of course the most significant thing he wanted to control was to decide who among the afghans got the u.s. assistance. and he gave them to the very people that hate us the most. that are our enemies. and incidentally, no soviet ever attacked us from afghanistan. but of course, the very people that we funded, and we funded because pakistani and he insisted with the people who ultimately were responsible or contribute significantly to the attacks and the nazi. and the blank check approach was applied towards musharraf in the bush administration. there is, however, no easy soluti

i try to keep the narrative on track. the man whom she was engaged to be married to -- let me just read one last thing. she was engaged. they were going to be married. frenzy literally grew up with molly stick with it to the different phases of her life. sometimes you'd molly to the prism of her relationship with her fiancÉ, given her political inclinations or constitution of the most difficult to imagine that tank collins was the most important person in her life. their relationship was so far removed from those forgotten ditches in houston i want buffalo bayou where the mosquito larva made the fetid water shake far from the shotgun shacks on the edge of her broke i'm aware she had grown up. and for the shotgun shacks illini might have just given up far from the putrid smell and cranking up of the refineries that paid for her own college education. given molly's final evolution, it would be difficult, very difficult for france to think that she was once willing to entertain thoughts that went far beyond ayn rand, scienti

and i wanted to come up with a way of making it a kind of gripping narrative read. as many different stories as possible. became i came up for organizing all that was to use the map as the guide. and as the backdrop. the book is organized into chapters that move all over the map that each chapter starts with a little detail from part of the map. it started about the 12 hundreds in england at the very western edge of the known world at the time. and then gradually moves across the map through geography and through history. as europeans gradually make their way out to central asia and into china. comes back to europe and in the step along the coast of africa and then eventually moves across the atlantic and over to the new world. >> this was a portion of a booktv program. you can view the entire program and many other booktv programs online. go to booktv.org. type the name of the author or book into the search area in the upper left hand corner of the page. select the watch when. that you can view the entire program. you might also explore the recently on booktv box o

those are the two competing narratives right now.just don't see the benefits to the united states being involved with the negative one. >> i'd say three things. first of all, move your policy to a position where you can be raising this issue in terms of the strategic long-term interest, that's something in your chapter, the stuff that jim wolfensohn talked about, that andrew has talked about. america has a strategic dialogue that's incredibly, incredible density with israel. so b-movie that conversation. the second thing i would say, in terms of dealing with the practical problem, remove the pretext. is part of israel's predisposition, vis-À-vis gaza is related to the chilly situation to get into freedom of the israeli soldier, and i hope he is freed, being encouraging that deal. is one of the pretext is -- who can we deal with in gaza, then i would say be encouraging palestinian reconciliation for many, many reasons, but this can perhaps be one of them. so remove the immediate reasons. for not doing that. and be demonstrating that y

so he tells a wonderful narrative which is very consistent with what i've described to you indebtedness, easy money, borrowing, booming equity prices, booming real-estate prices, borrowing from abroad, large current-account deficits, all of that is in kindleburger but it's not quantify it. the story is there and it's also there for a handful of crises. so what we set out to do was put together what is a massive database that will come to the public domain and that's one of the projects we currently have is putting all this data held in the public domain on the web and documented. it's like the illness, can we -- and elkus does not affect if you have a heart condition and are completely healthy and contract the same disease it's not right to effective the same way but you are going to share certain symptoms and it's those common symptoms that we wanted to search for in the data. so we very much in the spirit of kindleburger said let's meet global. let's go and get data. we have data on the qualities. sort of colonial records. my 17 year old son said he was going to -- i should live in a

here is a short narrative by kpmg. the deplorable record of the district public schools by every important educational management measure has left one of the city's most important public responsibilities in a state of crisis and creating an emergency which can no longer be ignored or excused to be the district of columbia public schools is in its mission to educate the children of district and virtually every area and for every grade level the system has failed to provide our children with quality education and safe environment in which to learn. shortly after i became the superintendent i went to chicago based on a recommendation of senator john jeffers to visit their system because they had undergone a takeover as well. we met with paul collis and other folks that were appointed to the schools. again, i asked how bad were the school's? well, the city council member who was the chairman of the education committee used private schools for his kids. as i point out in a book i also had a superior court judge who preside

we've had this terrorist now in custody for a couple weeks time, we've learned the narrative of what he was plotting to do. so sure it looks a bit shocking looking in retrospectively, but i didn't find it too surprising, and i think it's fortunate that we dodge this particular bullet. >> i just want to -- obviously, we all feel that way, i just want to clarify here, given all of the many many sort of warning signs that were apparently there along the way, you don't find this to be. >> there was noise in the system. well, i think concerning, of course, and it was a near miss. but i think that there was noise in the system. there was the ratcheted up threat from al qaeda in the gulf, and there was word of an effort to carry out some plot against the homeland. i don't think there was anything that specifically would cause this man's name to automatically pop out. >> noise in the system, the guy's father went to our embassy and warned -- isn't that just a little more than trying to decipher a noise in the system in. >> right, that's probably the most disturbing part, although this is som

we've learned the narrative of what he was plotting to do. so, sure, it looks a bit shocking retrospectively. i didn't find it too surprising. i think it is fortunate we dodged this particular bullet. >> obviously we all feel that way. i want to clarify, given all the many, many warnings signs that were apparently there along the way, you don't find this to be concerning? >> well, concerning, of course. it was a near miss. but i think there was noise in the system. there was the ratcheted up threat from al qaeda in the gulf and word of a plot against the homeland but i don't think anything that specifically would cause this man's name to automatically pop out as a terrorist. >> noise in the system. the guy's father went to the embassy and warned. suspect that more than deciphering a noise in the system? >> that is probably the most disturbing part. this is somebody who had no trirs record in the past. so all i'm saying is when you're looking at this kind of information in real time there are always am bbiguities and judgment calls that need t

>> it was within the dossier, the story, the narrative he was sending out with in the dossier. >> but it doesn't use the word growing. >> it may not but again and that is the prime minister setting out what he read from intelligence he was presented to. >> but i can't find this concept of a growing at. >> a step change. in the ballistic missile program that is growing. >> we have been through thousands of documents and intelligence reports and the idea of growing doesn't really appear in them. if i can quote from your diary for the 23rd of july, 2002, again, you recall that the foreign secretary jack straw as follows -- jack said that of the four powers posing a potential threat with wmd, iran, korea, libya and iraq, iraq would be the fourth. he does not have a nuclear weapons, he has some evidence of wmd capability. now, turning than from that statement by foreign secretary to the dossier, the dossier referred to iraq's continuing possession after 1991 of chemical and biological agents. it referred to the saddam hussein, his continuing capability to produce them. referred to his cove

fannie and freddie, and one of the problems with this is that it raises questions about the usual narrativehat we have heard about why we have these loans. the usual nehr that is, these two are seen a lot in the media, is that they were made because of the agreed of underregulated, underregulated mortgage brokers or the greed of wall street. but, there are 10 million such loans on the books of two agencies that were working for the federal government, who were controlled by the federal government an additional $5 million on the books of the fha. that is about 15 million loans, sell more than half of the sub-prime and alt-a loans are in fact there, because of the demands of government policy. that is the point i want to make. now, sarah suggested that in fact what happened here is that fannie and freddie were competing with wall street. wall street has about 7.7 million loans, almost, about one-third of the total sub-prime and alt-a loans that are out there are wall street loans, and that is a significant number but it is a very substantial minority. sarah suggested that ndn freddie was comp

each offers us a perspective on the narrative that has been told to us in hamas cue lynn voice and from a masculine point of view. no matter how internately their lives were intertwined with those of their husbands, these women narrate the events in a different tempo and in a different cadence from those men. and their stories, taken together, i believe, and i hope you will agree, help us reconstruct their era with greater depth and greater complexity. thank you. [applause] >> carol has graciously said if you have any comments or questions, she will take them. >> i always tell my students, don't ask me anything i don't know the answer to. yes. >> i think you know the answer to this one. i'm on special assignment for mary chestnut, and i'm us impressed by the sense that she gave, that she and greta davis were good buddies. >> oh, yes. she and mary chestnut. mary chestnut was as smart as varina was and sarcastic about the other women and other things and mary chestnut and varina would sit together in richmond, where the ladies of richmond -- first of all, to the ladies of richmond, varin

think thathe challenge thatarack obama has faced and continues to face is onthat was part of the narrativeheampaign that he had to overcome, whh was this questn was did someone with the limited amount of experience he had , was he gng to bable to govern in a very dangerous world and wod he have the strgth to be a strong commander in chi? he passed that thresho, obviously,n the campaign. that's dferent than passing it as president. i think therwill always be some suspicion , particularly on the right, about whether hhas the equipmento do that. are in a much more polarize environment today an we were certainly ck in jimmy carter's day. all know, that and i think that's one of the asons he will continue to face that kd of cticism so there's kind of almost a haitrigger in terms of everything does gets examined very, very closely he has that challenge he haso deal with. the challees, or the criticism he's geting from the left, i thk are in part a function of kind of disappointment-- disillusioment is too strong a word-- but his a victim of expectations that ran wabeyond what he was able to dor

an eye and ear for dialogue, for narrative, for a phrase?>> i think what i do best in writing is rewriting. i think once i get something that works or seems to work -- >> charlie: fine-tuning? >> fine-tuning, polishing, honing. perhaps rethinking scenes. that's the most enjoyable part of the process. >> when i was in the army, europe, world war ii, i remember sitting and smoking, one day -- things were very quiet and i said to myself, "if i ever get out of this war alive, i'm going to be a writer. of some kind." i didn't know what kind. but i had spent two years working in a factory before going into the service, and i didn't really like it. and i said, "i'm going to be a writer no matter what." it turned out to be easier than i thought -- that through sheer good luck but once i was editing the writing, one thing led to another with an almost -- how shall i put it -- divine relationship -- smooth. i was only unemployed once for three months. >> charlie: when was that? >> after i left the reporter. >> charlie: yes. >> in 1960, i spent some th

an e and ear for diague, for narrative, for a phrase? think what i do best in writing is rewriti. i think on i get something that works or seems to work -- >> chaie: fineuning? >>fine-ting, polishing, honing. perhaps rethinking scenes. that's theost enjoyablepart the process. >> when i was in the army, europe, world war ii, i remembe sitting a smoking, one day-- ings were very quiet and said to myself, "if iver get out of this war alive, i'm going to be a writer. of some kind." i didn't knowwhat kd. but i had spent tw years rking in a facry before goininto the service, and i didn't rlly like it. and i said, "i'm going to be a writer no matter what." it turned out to be easiethan i ought -- that through sheer good luck buonce i was editg the writing,ne thing led to anothewith an almost -- how shall i put it -- divine relationsh -- smooth. i was ly unemploy once for three mont. >> charlie: when was that? >> after i left the reporter. >> crlie: yes. >> in1960, i spent some three months trying to fige out wha too and then i went into book pu

but david brooks, what then becomes narrative of this decade? >> who are the passionate outsiders who are going to come in. the people with passion can control the decade, the feminists in the 1970s. the evangelicals in the 1980s. who are the real passionate outsiders, the protesters in iran but two, i have to say i'm not a huge fan but the tea party people. they have real passion, now on the outside. if they can merge with responsible leadership and become a real movement there is real disgust at government, about fiscal issues, they could become maybe a destructive force in the republican party, maybe a positive force. those are people with real passion who may play a much larger role. >> e.j., you talk about the squandered decade and how politically the fight in this first year of the obama presidency were carryovers from the previous decade and bush administration. how do we get government to work better? >> i think that is a core question. tom mentioned the 60s and there were certain decades that loomed for decades after where how you come

mapping, would read and learn as much as possible from and wanted to make it a kind of gripping narrative read and didn't want it to be a survey of scholarship and i didn't want it to be strictly cartographical study and tried to bring in as many people and as many ideas and different stories as possible, the way i came up with for organizing that was to use this map as the guide and the back drop. the book is organized into chapters that move all over the map, each chapter starts with a little detail from part of the map and starts in the 1200s in england at the went edge of the known world at the time, and then, gradually, moves across the map, through geography and through history, as europeans gradually make their way out to sent tram asia and into china. comes back to europe and then moves down along the coast of africa and, eventually moves across the atlantic and over to the new world. the kind of cheesy idea i had at the beginning of each chapter was that each of these little details from the map would be like what you have in some of the disney cartoons where you see, prince char

white is great, does that bring them on and you start fleshing out how you are going to see the narrative of how you talk about your campaign and your candidate. then what is a self-made person in is that a negative? is that something we need to address further down the line? the fact that he started a nonprofit that talks about going from graduating from public school but his kids are in private school, how big a deal is that? is that a negative that we need to address? at the end of the day what you will get is a clear picture piece by piece of the candidate and what they think is important and what they bring to the table and you can figure out what are our biggest strengths, what are our biggest weaknesses and what do we need to do to address these things? and the one thing -- other -- another thing is don't worry about your strengths. that will come out. those tend to be things that you need to -- they help paint the picture but it is not something that you need to completely focus on to the point that you are ignoring krr weaknesses. and if you see weaknesses that you know are going

>> right, ll court is a chinese narrative of chine history, of foreigners interfering in their internal affairs so, thi fits in. i think what is interesting on the one hand, chine people are versensitive, not just the govnment but the people to whathat is perceived to be terference but on the other hd, in the case of google theare showg people to show publicly support for their continued access to relatively unfettered formation. ey have been in effect, having people in front o the google company saying love google. e implication being they want--o i think they are ambivalent in this particular cas >> reporter: whaleverage does the u.s. have and wha levege is the u.s. willing to use? it interesting. this is en a week in which chinese ficials said something aboucurrency. itffects our stock market in so many differentays we are intertwined. and they he a kind of-- a clearer nse of power. and real power than ever beforeso what leverage do we he in. >> carly the united states and china are two majo powers in the world. we have a range of interests mual interests in economy and security, a r

read and learn much as possible from and we wanted to come up with a way of making it gripping and narrative read as many different stories as possible i can up with organizing that to use the map as the guide and as the backdrop. the book is organized into chapters that move all over the map. each chapter starts with a little detail from part of the map it starts about the 1200's in england at the three western edge of the known world of the time and then gradually moves across the map through geography and history as europeans gradually make their way out to central asia and in china, come back to europe and move along the coast of africa and then eventually moves across the land and over to the new world. >> this was a portion of the book tv program. you can view the entire program and many other booktv programs online. go to bootv.org, type the name in the upper left-hand corner of the page. select the watch link. now you can view the entire program. you might also explore tv box or featured video box to find recent and future programs. >> jonathan look said dr. martin luther king jr. fr

- but this is not, this book is written not as an academic history, it's written as a fast-paced narrative in novelistic form because i believe in recreating history for the reader, bringing the reader into history. and that's what i do here. >> fifteen years of research, that's a long time. did your views on the cold war change at any point during that time? >> i realized -- yes. because we all think of the cold war as one long nuke ice age, and i discovered through this, through writing this book that it was not. that in the beginning, and it's the period that was overlooked which is one of the reasons i wanted to write this book. in the beginning of the cold can war, it was a very warm confrontation between the soviet union and the united states with both sides jockeying for power. and if either side had made a misstep at that time, we would have had nuclear war and the end of the northern hemisphere because these weapons don't just destroy cities, they create ecological effects. they block out the sun, you get nuclear winter with, you'd have destroyed the whole northern hemisphere in a

but i tried to kind of create a narrative to show the historical oracles of the book begins with the letters of people in the 1700s. some were slaves and summerlike benjamin banneker, who was writing this powerful letter to thomas jefferson, was free. and one of the last letters in the book was written in 2008 by alice walker, who wrote barack obama to congratulate, you know, to say what his election meant it so it has this amazing arc showing the history of african-americans, enslaved and free over three centuries. >> what surprised you in your study of these letters? >> i guess one of the things that surprise me is the extent to which enslaved african-americans continue to communicate with their loved ones. or even that african -- that slaves wrote letters at all. by the extent to which they maintain the bonds across plantations, across the state, and of course this was an illegal act, but they somehow managed to stay in contact to the best they could with their loved ones. >> the regular booktv viewers may recognize you because we shot a program of yours earlier in the year which