if you watch the game tonight think about isabel wilkerson. so tell us about your process. >> don't forget the matrix. >> that's right. [laughter] look look look. your range of pop-culture is great. tell us about your writing style and skills and methodologies and how you put it together. >> first of all i'm always listening for and aware of inspiration wherever that may be an constantly on alert for some moment or fragment or something in the news something i might read or hear and ideas and constantly making notes at all times. constantly engaging with my environment wherever i happen to be. i'm always taking notes constantly taking notes. i never know where it will lead. so the idea comes from those notes that i gather along the way. eight and up doing as much research as i possibly can i love the footnotes of other people's books i love the endnotes i get very excited going down these rabbit holes no matter where they may be whether the internet and the matrix was a very long rabbit hole. >> so i am constantly on alert for inspiration and

isabel wilkerson, and to have this opportunity to chat with you. they're calling it a a conversation but i'm just going to fan boy out and as as a sayn the hood, ask you some questions. and see if we can stimulate the conversation. a remarkable book to be certain. i want to begin with a kind of the conceptual inquiry, if you will. so in the warmth of other sons, you take the massive movement and mobilization of like people from the south out, i kind of intra-american diaspora, if you will. and the way with black people say my mom is in alabama come my daddy from georgia come i live in chicago. they ain't nothing but a suburb of mississippi. negroes in louisiana went over to california and from texas over to los angeles. that's why snoop dogg talks with fake gangster link. the imprint of the great migration in the total patterns of the verbal tics and the rhetorical habits of black people, but you imagine in that book the mass mobilization in migration, both the push and pull of those instances black people fanned out, right? it seems in this book y

colonel wilkerson, if i could start with you. what do you make of what we're hearing from people like sidney powell, steve bannon and the president's former national security advisor michael flynn, and we're learning it was floated in the oval office meeting pushing for martial law in order to rerun the election? >> i think we're seeing just how desperate trump is becoming himself and how desperate the last remaining rats on the ship, if you will, are becoming because of that. we see bannon apparently coming back on scene again probably most ardently seeking a pardon. we see things like you just pointed out, general flynn -- i don't know if i was in charge of the military, but i'd call flynn back to active duty and proskite him under the code of military justice. you can pick your charge there. incitement of insurrection or whatever. but these are desperate people. don't take counsel with your fears. and that's one of the things we need to do now. we've just been through an election that was monumental. more americans voted and v

army colonel lawrence wilkerson. at one point, colonel, this is a similar story to others we've heard where the president has a crazy idea and people are trying to walk away from him. in this case, though, it's hard to get your head around how wildly danger sbous offensive it is. what is your reaction to what you've heard about this meeting and what the president is attempting to consider? >> my first reaction, of course, is don't take counsel of your fears. we've just gone through one of the most incredible election sequences in our nation's history, certainly since world war ii. more people voted by more methodology, in a pandemic environment, et cetera, et cetera. i have to commend all those people who worked so hard to deliver a free and fair election. at the same time i say that, i have to say my fears are somewhat significant with a former lieutenant general in the united states army saying what flynn said with regard to martial law, going to the battleground states and essentially reconducting the elections. w

and isabel wilkerson is with us to discuss her latest, "the origins of our discontent."d to see all of you. isabel, i want to start with you. you tackle the very difficult subject of race in your book, in which you describe a task system in our country, and skin color is the metric to where you fall in the hierarchy. is the awakening in our country this year for the issue of systemic racism begin to tear that apart. >> we still face disturbing levels of division in our country. this idea of racialized polarization still continues. but i do hope that some of the things that have happened over the last year, this past summer particularly, involving the sense of awakening and outrage over what happened to george floyd and breonna taylor, and so many people who have become part of our conversation -- i hope this has been leading us to some type of awakening to get past these divisions. >> brennan: jon, you profiled one of the giants of our civil rights struggle, john lewis, who we lost, and you wrote about his famous march in selma, where he was severely beaten. you said whe

we'll talk with pulitzer prize winning author and journalist isabel wilkerson. her new book is "cast: the origins of our discontent." his truth is marching on, john lewis and the power of hope is the latest from jon meacham. susan glasser, writer for "the new yorker," and her husband, peter baker, wrote "the man who ran washington: the life and times of james a. baker the third." plus, we'll talk with two midwest governors, michigan democrat gretchen whitmer, on ohio republican mike dewine. it is all just ahead on "face the nation." ♪ >> brennan: good morning. and welcome to "face the nation." there are only four and a half days left in 2020, and the wicked blow this year has dealt is not letting up. there have been more than 80 million cases of covid-19 worldwide. here in the u.s., we've seen nearly 19 million infections, and more than 33 1,000 deaths. los angeles county alone is seeing a coronavirus death every 10minutes. washington is quiet, as the president is vacations in florida, but yesterday jobless benefits for nearly 14 million americans ran out, and t

cast by isabel wer wilkerson a memorable book that exposes american history in which you can take pride. to all of the finalist, we needed your voices this year, thank you for sharing your talent with us and congratulations to all of you, the winner for the 2020 kirkus prize for nonfiction is. stakes is high. >> wow, i genuinely am so excited to be a finalist and it's such an honor, i don't expect to win anything and it's an honor to be a finalist among such an amazing group of authors who are doing incredible work, thank you to the judges, thank you to kirkus, $50000 they gave me for my birthday a lot of money to be responsible with an eye promise i won't let you down. my editor katie o'donnell is my best editor in the whole world and makes me a better writer, this is as much her award if it's not mine, my agent jessica who has been with me for so many years and see me through so many iterations of my career and who has been a rock for me, brooke who is my publisher who has worked so hard on everything and marketing and thinking all the people, this book does not exist without any of t

la cocina, one of the recent books was cast by wilkerson. eye-opening learning and for me, that's something very easy to roll out into the community. the asian-american history documentary series on pbs, amazing and something that we all have a lot of tv time now they found incredibly eye-opening. i'd love to s.t.a.r.t. sharing things like that, but also formalizing a little bit more of the vocabulary and terminology they think i was surprised that i needed to learn. so -- >> i think we've all done some reflek reflection during this period of time and have become much more aware of how far we still need to go. we have only about a minute left, but i do want to ask you this. with the title of being first, i think representation is fantastic. it is something that i am such a proponent of, but it's just scratching the surface. what is your message to others in the bay area who are starting to appoint their first blank and their first x, y, z of some background that they need to really remember going forward? >> you know, i'm really grateful. i

isabel wilkerson and michael eric dyson discuss race in america. the american enterprise institute dan blumenthal talks about china's ambition to replace the united states as a world leading power. for a full schedule visit book tv.orc consult your program guide. now here's a look at the cosmos. >> good evening everybody was connor moran i am the director of the wisconsin book festival and i am delighted to be joined here tonight by bryan greene, author of until the end of time. and janet levels author of the blackhole survival guide. we also joined this evening by eric wilcox who is a colleague sitting on the wisconsin science festival board pretty south of the dean of the college of science at the university of wisconsin madison print the department chair the department of astronomy pre-thank you all for joining us tonight and taking part in the 2020 book festival. it is delightful to me to it be able to host cultural events. and because madison public library and the public library foundation of the organizations that allow me to it do so

i'm currently reading cast the origin of our discontent by isabel wilkerson. i highly recommend it she write writes. isabel wilkerson has now appeared on our q&a program on sunday night. all available @booktv.org. just type in her name in the search function at the top of the page. hued from ashland, virginia. good afternoon hugh welcome to book tv. >> thank you so much for taking my call. i was prompted to call in by the earlier call from the woman who was looking at the government agencies like the cia. i've had quite a bizarre life and would love to share my name if i can because i am a vietnam era veteran changing the world for my dining room table as it's proclaimed to the heartbeat of america printed also a whistleblower to wall street article that can be seen on the internet present written up it triggered an investigation that eventually led to the resignation of the speaker of the house. i also had some interaction high-level cia operative who offered a book, the kgb the eyes of russia from harry rasinski and had some very interesting synchronicity's

isabel wilkerson in her book whereabout the incidents it would allow otherwise reasonable people to do some of the most beastly things to people, whether it was in during, whether it was slavery or after that point here , or what has taken place in parts of india. she did this comparative analysis where you have the right type of emotional plug-in to individuals who have a different type of fear, they are looking for somebody or somebody -- somebody to blame for their hurt and buy into white supremacy or entitlement and sanction the taking of children on the border or sanction calling the global pandemic a china virus and politicize the wearing of a mask, or sanction the mass murder of a synagogue or destruction of a black church -- the list can go on and on. that is coupled with elected officials who should be voices become puppets of see this interests who level of fear mongering so they can get bigger tax breaks. at the end of the day, you have a lot of individuals who are hurt in the white community. we have watched over time the .pioid epidemic we have seen this hopelessness and t

. >> i know one reporter, was a great report alex wilkerson taught software and with that idea in mindthat he be able to do it. so because back to new york city. and he starts the process of writing and they know this point or sean knows that they want a piece in what would seem to us given the scale of the ambition, a very short order . >> originally there the anniversary. it would be the first anniversary of the bombing and i guess it's important to mention that hershey was there in may and early june so that would onlyhave eight weeks to turn it over . and so i don't think that they all knew how huge the story was going to be when you started writing it in terms of length but ended up being 30, 31,000. it was a monster. but he does, hershey immediately set out to write in what he called a white heat . and his, some of the previous books have been written that way he was used writing under a wartime pressure of the deadline for this one was just that . he was meeting the anniversary, doing it under enormous pressure because he knows what he's writing is going to really embarrass the

and later pulitzer prize-winning author isabel wilkerson and kasten. that starts at 8:00 p.m.tern. enjoy book tv this week and every weekend on cspan2. ♪ ♪ >> book tv on cspan2 has topped nonfiction books and authors every weekend. coming up this new year's weekend, friday to new year's day, starting at 8:00 a.m. eastern, lynne cheney on her book the virginia dynasty. susan eisenhower author of how i

and later pulitzer prize-winning author isabel wilkerson and kasten. that starts at 8:00 p.m. eastern. enjoy book tv this week and every weekend on cspan2. ♪ ♪ >> book tv on cspan2 has topped nonfiction books and authors every weekend. coming up this new year's weekend, friday to new year's day, starting at 8:00 a.m. eastern, lynne cheney on her book the virginia dynasty. susan eisenhower author of how i lead. and sara waggoner who wrote what remains. and saturday at 10:00 p.m. eastern, on "after words" while professor john fabian witt, author of america contagions, academics and the law from smallpox to covid-19, he is interviewed by georgetown university law professor and director of the institute for national and global health law, lawrence and austin. why should book tv on cspan2 this weekend. ♪ ♪ >> hello everyone. thank you all for tuning into nights. today we are hosting a panel discussion that a person they am excited for. peterson for her new book can't even, how millennial's have the now generation bridge she will be joined by some writers kate young, kate smith. if

michelle alexander, adrian kennedy, carl beatty, angela davis, william kelly, robin kelly, frank wilkerson, carol harris, -- [inaudible] vsos he for advancement of -- [inaudible] roscoe mitchell, george lewis, et cetera et al. as well as the entire modern jazz tradition from the so-called mainstream expression of the light from circa 1890 to the present. especially kenny, general baker, mike cameron. finally first last and always i'm a solid and fake a very special person whose love, friendship and support, counsel, compassion, insight, humor, in this generosity i have been and remain happily reliant on for many wonderful years now. i'm very fortunate to not only be her marital parter but some who also cherishes for exemplary example as as a writer, visual artist, editor in human being who continues to deeply inspire -- to matter what, her name is -- thank you for everything, honey. i know you know this already but it bears repeating nonetheless, i love you with all my heart and soul. and thanks again american book awards for the very important and essential work that you do. >> again, tha