so when rosalie and i went to paris. went there to walk to walk and i went to see it in the winter when it's awful and damp and cold and grave. the summer and the spring and the fall i went to the augustus saint gaudens and i made the walk over from his apartment to the studio to see if that was right. i want to be out the way the others were and feel what they felt. c-span: that's a bridge. >> guest: yes, that's a bridge. and pontiff means the new bridge. the whole -- i think listening, smelling, feeling what the chair feels like, rubbing your hand on the surface of the cathedral sculpture, on the exterior, all of that is part of getting closer to it. i'm trying -- always trying to get closer to those people. closer to that place. closer to that time. and asking questions. i do a lot of -- i spend a lot of time with students, lecturing or visiting occasionally at the university or college and they're so programmed, responsible for being able to answer questions that i wonder sometimes how much experience, how much time

people, also lake rosalie and holly as i call them, who were hungry -- actually hungry during the course of her workday. and i must say, with a middle-class blinkers on, for a long time i thought there were just dieting and that's what they were eating lunch and i had to really eventually deduce that they just not have the money or the food at home for lunch. or people like george, a 19-year-old immigrant from the czech republic worked as a dishwasher in a restaurant in return for the job at night to a dormitory, where he slept in a bed that had just been vacated another man is left during the switch while he was working, something i can only happen in an 18th century. so they're not a lot of polemics in this book. but there is a message i hope. and none is that there is something really wrong. something very fundamentally wrong when people can work so hard, full-time, year-round, and never make enough to live on at any kind of content or dignity. so let me start here intern to questions or comments. what she. where are they? okay, yeah. i can skip the ones i don't know the answer to. th

david, you dedicate this book to rosalie. is she here. >> guest: here's my chance.how much time do we have. >> host: you got all the time >> guest: rosalie is my editor in chief. she's the mother of our five children, the grandmother of our 18 grandchildren. and she is mission control for all of us. and secretary of the treasury. [laughter] >> guest: and chair of the ethics committee. [laughter] >> guest: and she's my guiding star and the best dancer i ever danced with in my life. and i want you to meet her. here she is. please stand up, sweetheart. mra[applause] >> host: all right. back to questions for david mccullough here on booktv on c-span2. another question from the audience. >> caller: i'll begin by thanking you as so much -- can you guys hear me? >> host: a little louder, please >> is this good. all righty. my name is ian hitchcock, mr. mccullough, i would like to thank you for all your contributions to bringing history alive for all of us. my question is about the founding fathers and the way we interpret that history. i've recently been reading a people's