oliver wendell holmes, the great justice, was an enthusiastic eugenicist who upheld laws mandating sterilization in america with the memorable aphorism, three generations of imbeciles is enough. [laughter] so we shouldn't -- we laugh, and then he went back and wrote to his friend this morning i upheld the law mandating thesterrization of imbeciles. the idea of him as a cuddly, liberal saint is too simplistic. so now what would the new eugenics look like? as you suggest, if these brain scans are only sophisticated lie detector tests, maybe we're not so uncomfortable. you could take someone off the street and show them a picture of a training camp in afghanistan. if they'd been there, their brain would light up in a certain way, if they hadn't, they wouldn'ted, and you could just -- wouldn't, and you could just make decisions based on that. maybe that's just like a lie detector. but imagine the other scenario, take someone off the street, hook them up to the brain scan, find that the gray matter suggests the area for impulse control is overactive, and the prefrontal cortex which restrains you is n

grounds were -- and i think some of you will find this abhorrent, as all of us do in 2011 -- oliver wendell holmes who wrote the majority decisions said that was just like immunization. that immunization could be coerced then there was okay to have a voluntary sterilization and at the end of this very famous decision of his. he wrote degenerations of idiots is enough. so i tell you the story to give you the context in which singer was working. she turned to eugenicists because she wanted them for the were genetics and also she herself believed that there was something to be said for this progressive idea that went badly wrong of course of the holocaust. but remember, even after world war ii five states continued to use involuntary sterilization on the mentally ill and on some of the feeble mind it and today there are very peculiar statutes in some states that suggests to me the possibility of involuntary sterilization which is the far out point is eugenics and the reason that we all think this was a terrible thing. >> her mother was a practicing catholic, her father would be in the church. her mot

>> guest: it comes from a speech that oliver wendell holmes made about the civil war, and it seemed to me very appropriate. he said, "to our great good fortune and our youth, our hearts were touched by fire. and we learned at an early age that life was a passionate and serious thing." i haven't exactly quoted that, but the point is that people who were young during the civil war were inspired and matured in a way that perhaps hasn't happened to every generation. c-span: but the subtitle on your book is "the life, death and mythic afterlife of george armstrong custer." who was general custer? >> guest: well, custer was part of that generation that was touched by the fire of the civil war. he had a splendid, heroic career as a general in the civil war. and then afterwards, the time when he becomes very interesting to me, at the age of 25, he was one of 135 unemployed major generals. he had to redirect his life. for the first few years, it wasn't easy. and then he found a new career on the frontier. so he's a fascinating study. c-span: what was the battle of the little bighorn, and where

oliver wendell holmes the great justice was enthusiastic about you'd eugenics to uphold laws withholding sterilization in america with three generations of imbeciles is enough so we shouldn't for a minute, we laugh and then he went back to pray to his friend. this morning i have upheld the law withholding the sterilization of imbeciles. nothing all week has given me such pleasure. what would the new eugenics look like? if these brain scans are lie detector test maybe we are not so so you can take someone off the street hook them up to the port of brain scans scan and show them a picture of her training camp in afghanistan and if they have been there their brain would light up in a certain way. you could make decisions based on that. maybe that is like a lie detector but if you take someone off the street and hook them up and find that the gray matter in their rain suggest that the amygdala, the area of impulse control and the prefrontal cortex which restrains you is not sufficiently active and based on this you have the brain map of a potential terrorist and you are and definitely detain