thank you for being onbook tv and our look at the 2010 review of books. : guest hosts to interview authors. this week, to the surprise winner john dower examine significant military attacks that led to american invasion and occupation of fraud in his new book, cultures of war to read the former mit history professor explores the attack on pearl harbor, the bombing of hiroshima, the 9/11 attacks and the invasion of iraq, finding commonality in these major events at an institutional level. he discusses his findings with institute for policy studies fellow sanho tree. >> host: professor dower, it's an honor to have you here. i've been an admirer of your work for two decades now, and your latest book, "cultures of war" is something so sweeping and impressive i want to thank you for the opportunity to sit down and have this conversation. could you start by telling us how you are a historian of japan both imperial and japan, how is it you came to write this book that links both purple heart, hiroshima, 9/11 and the iraq war what gave you the idea to make those linkages? >> guest: in this case i

thank you for being onbook tv and our look at the 2010 review >> why are white people called caucasian? have you ask yourself that? do you know why? note? this was -- it is still happening. the russians and the chechens in chechnya were having tremendous struggle. so why are white americans called chechens? i did find the answer. the answer took me to germany. took me to germany in the 18th-century. the idea of race was invented in the eighteenth century. it doesn't go back to antiquity. there were not white people. since so many people thought that i thought i should address it. so my book actually starts with the greeks and romans and their commentary on the people who became europeans and what the greeks and romans discovered were people who lived in various ways. they talked about what we call culture and for the romans who work in various ways because they were imperialists and very interested in who could help and had to be vanquished. i followed this german idea into the united states via a french intellectual and thomas carlyle who was a british intellectual and ralph waldo eme