Always here. James hunt is next on the spokane, washington. His book restless fire is it about the life of john muir while he is considered one of nations most significant and firemen to leaders and father of the National Park service. John muir was probably one of the most significant environmental thinkers, leaders pick is basically the protagonist for the National Park system. He helped to bring about the creation of yosemite as a National Park. It was a state park before his work. He was instrumental in glacier bay National Park. Also influence information of olympic National Park and Mount RainierNational Park. For a long time ive been interested in the impact of travel in leadership formation in young adults and ive done previous work on frederick douglass, on john quincy adams, on jane addams, all of whom had significant travel experience before they embark on their career. In the case of john, he found his career through his travel. And he kept as many of the others did journals of his experience. So it gave me insight was happening inside his head as he traveled that thousand miles. This was a life shaping experience for him. It really gave him focus and direction as a young adult, that meant the changing of history. So for me that was just a bonus opportunity. Called restless fire, first 11 years of his life he lived in scotland which is on the Southern Side of that, opposite edinborough. It was a small scottish town, seaport town. There was an old castle he played in. There were lots and lots of cliffs and plenty of birds nests, which he discovered. His father had a dim view of his wanderings with the village boys pick you wanted to confined to the garden in the backyard, but john had little interest in that. It was also a place where he received his education. He attended school and he memorized through his fathers influence, especially after he left there to come to wisconsin, he had memorized all of the new testament, threequarters of the old testament. He could say in one sitting, he said by combinations of bribery is in beatings, so he was well educated. He brought that education with him as an 11yearold to wisconsin. Then then he lived in wisconsin up until the time he left the farm at age 21. He had fairly narrow early experience in dunbar. His father was an evangelistic preacher was more interest in establishing the church on the frontier than building a farm with physical labor. So he set his daughters and sons to do that task. It was hard hard work as his grandfather warned him it would be. He was 29 when he began the journey. He was prompted by a number of factors. First of all a as a young boy on the farm he had read about travel. He had read the travels of africa. He had read the complete works of Alexander Von Humboldt travel through the south in latin america, south america, and the amazon. So he was well read. It was a struggle for him to get hold of these books because his father privileged only one book, and i was the bible. Only the new testament. So we had to work out a deal with his dad, and this was, this led to his education. The deal was that if he got up early enough in the morning, nonfarm time come he could read to his hearts delight, knowing all well after full day of labor a teenager would not want to read anyway. So what he did is he created an invention with two large wisconsin boulders tied with you during 2 00 so at 2 00 in the morning the boulders would fall down and raise is better than you get up out of bed and youd go about his inventing or his reading. Can you imagine that any household . Suddenly clank, clank. Father would have heard it for sure. His father was in it of his work and allowed him to continue in that reading. The invention acts of the game his ticket to the university of wisconsin because a neighbor suggested he show these inventions at the wisconsin state fair. As a youngster he went off to the fair. He is now about 21, 22 at the time. He was leaving home, first time in his life, got on a train, the first trai thing he had ever ben in his life. He decide to sit in front of the cow catcher so the wind would whistle to his beard and is. He went up there to show his invention. Professors wife who is very important in his life later on was on the committee to watch these inventions. He won an award for that but he also won a scholarship to attend the university of wisconsin. His father had a dim view of that, but the two farms had been built. There was no reason for him to stay home so he spent two years at the university of wisconsin. There he discovered botany. And became enthralled with that. There was a classmate of this is by the name of griswold who showed him a little key find. Then he showed him a huge large hickory tree and the hickory tree had exactly the same kind of seed as, i was in the hickory tree, im sorry, a locust tree, and locust tree. The locust tree had exactly the same kind of seed as the small p5. In other words, they are connected. How could something be so large as a locust tree and this little pea vine be related . It just brought a limitation to his life. He said thats fantastic. Griswold, you and i need to go out and bought lies the entire countryside. Jean karr had also allow the body so that was nurtured. Then one night he was working on some belts and its laced together with laces trick thats how they had to make the belts in those days, out of buffalo hide. He took a pointed end of a file and rounded up against the real and a lot of pressure was put to bear and then suddenly it sprang back and hit his eye. It punctured his right eye. Fluid fill out into his hand and he was rendered blind, almost immediately from that. The other i went out with sympathetic blindness and for about three or four weeks he was in a darkened room in indianapolis. Miraculously, his eyesight came back. Theyre pretty good i can basically laying down in a dark room is the way you handled those things. Nothing permanent took place. That was the turning point, because at that point he says i am no longer interested in human inventions. I want to discover, explore gods inventions. There was a really unfortunate episode with his father. It had a profound impact on him. He came home. He wanted to say goodbye. He had a very Good Relationship with his mother, a great relationship with his brothers and sisters. Kept in contact with them all the time. His father was a little ticked at him, and wandering botanist, whats that . Not coming back to the farm. He had it with farming. And so he was nobody to depart and his father said to him, john, i think your forgotten something. No. What, father . Aint your forgotten to pay me for your board and room . John took out some money and paid it and said i thought i came it as a guest come as welcome guest, as your son. I see that you still dont believe in what im doing. And actually he never saw his father from that point on until his death bed in 1885. Now, his father kept in contact with him by letters but all the letters were pointing that he was living his life in a misdirected way. John was having to defend himself against his fathers fatr sliders, classic illustration of that was john had climbed the mountain in california and wrote a wonderful account of that was published in wisconsin, wisconsin magazine. His father read it and fired back a letter to them. John, you will never find god in those icy mountains of yours. And john wrote back and said, i am closer to god in that mountain that night and every in any of your churches. So there was clearly friction still between the dirt on the other hand, he said, while his fathers zealous and religious, he was foundation only kind. It was kind of a double thing and paradoxically the relationship between a son and the father. He provided resources for all the kids to say their goodbyes when his father was on his deathbed. He was there. He showed up when his father died. He then makes the decision september first, 1867, to become a wandering botanist. No job security in that. What hes going to do is hes going to parts of the country hes never been to before. Its in the northern plants in wisconsin. Hes been up in canada. Hes been in wisconsin but he doesnt know much about tropics buddies read these books about the tropics. Theres one or two key points you would want to see. He wants to see a palm tree. Why . Because thats in the bible. Its also in milton. Somehow he links that up with gods glory as the palm tree. He wants to see a palm tree. And he also establishes a goal of wanting to go all the way from the south across the gulf to the amount of the river, travel up the river, find headwaters of the amazon, go down the amazon, then go over to africa and go up the congo river. Huge ambition. He didnt make it. The reason is, he got sick of the dirt in of his walk and that changed history acyclic. So his motivations were he read a lot of travel. He had profound experience in botany and biology. It also taken what is at wisconsin some geology classes. That will improve important much later on race in the sierras. He was curious about the unknown. Yet this profound curiosity, how things work, how things are related. And he had the goal of the palm tree and the goal of the amazon. So thats what motivated him. Now, what he took with him is pretty limited. He had one rubberized back, one suit of thin wool clothing which pretty good travel gear. He would average about 1820 miles a day walking. If you take a look at the 186566 maps, there were maps, outlined country roads going from one county seat to another. So john likes to write but he went through the wilderness here but no, he was falling country wrote some going from one county seat to another. Thats pretty well lined out there he was taking a boardwalk road out of louisville down south towards mammoth cave and elsewhere. So it was on a regular router he followed a Railroad Track route through florida. He avoided going through swamps. He bypassed the swamp in southern georgia and part of northern florida. Hes basically following maps of the area. Lets think about the year. This is 1867. Its two years after the civil war. The south has been devastated by the war. In some areas more so than others. So he thought of lot of war devastation that he saw a lot of poverty. He saw a lot of folks who were Milling Around trying to reconnect families. That was misunderstood. White southerners would often refer to them as vagabonds, bandits, potential robbers. And so the word robber negro was often used anonymously during this time. John actually lived with africanamerican families and travel with africanamerican teamsters and encountered africanamericans in florida. Either way, the first time in his life was in the south. By and large he describes it as a next experience. Some positive, some not so positive that mostly positive. A kind of kindness. A kind of openness that he felt also among whites. He was a very chatty kind of guy. That was one of his fathers complaints against him. So he could chat at base of the new. Chat up and africanamerican and get along just fine with them. They were curious about him. He was curious about them. But he saw a lot of devastation. He tried to stay clear of cities. Savannah, hes running out of money. Hes waiting for the adams express officer, money to come down his brothers promise to send to him when they were paid by accounts of the canada. Hes out of food and he wants to stay out of the city, savannah. It looks troublesome to him at that time. He takes this road that leads up to the cemetery about five miles out uptown called the bonaventure cemetery. Its a beautiful place. In 2007 i visited, went there, they had these huge oak trees with spanish moss and the oddities tombstones. And john muir said nobody is coming into the cemetery. Not safe here. Africanamericans who lived not too far away said stay clear of the cemetery. Whites didnt visited. Because of the civil pentagon into a little disrepair. It wasnt trimmed. He built a little wiki hut. In one of the journal sketches that he did, it shows his wiki hut with a whole bunch of bugs rented and thats probably when he contracted malaria. But it didnt come into full effect until he finished up in florida at cedar key. His first entry about bonaventure are pretty limited. He doesnt go into great depth about nature or depth there. But once he came down with malaria in cedar key, he was so sick. He had to depend on others to provide aid and assistance to them. He was working in a lumber mill at the time. He fell on the trail, woozy thom tillis. Everybody thought he was drunk, they realize he had malaria and they cared for him. Eventually he cant return and there are times when he mentions in a journal sitting underneath a large oak tree looking out over the cedar key estuary near the home. And he reflected back on bonaventure. And so at that point he rewrites a section of the bonaventure cemetery, talking about what is death . What does that mean . Some of his viewpoints are really interesting. He feels its very important to children to walk in nature to see the intermingling of life and death. Thats real. He also says human beings will do what they can with gravestones and little artificial plots and writing on to memorialize the dead. Its seen as a place of gloom and despair. He says, but now that ive lived in bonaventure with the eagles soaring around, with the vines climbed up, the birds chirping, this is not a gloomy place at all. This is of vote of the living, not the dead. Nature trumps death. Thats he is a view. It may not be our personal experience. We may be under the ground, but nature is still going on. That is more real than my life. He comes to this view that we are just part of the bigger system. Then he goes even further than that. He said human beings have only been on planet earth for a very limited amount of time relative to other species, dinosaurs. What looks like a dinosaur in florida is an alligator. His father held the view that anything that was predatory, including animals that could kill us, was satanic, evil, of the devil. And he was scared about alligators because he would plunge on blogs to find a particular flower and put in his flower press. He didnt know if the log was an alligator or a log, so he is pretty frightened. I think he only saw one alligator during his whole track across that. I have my theory about that. They were food supply for hungry people who are off the plantations. But in any event, the absorbed and reflected about that. He came to the conclusion alligators have a role to play. What is the role . Well, they have every right to exist on planet earth as do human beings. In other words, hes moving away from the teaching his father gave, human beings are the apex of the chain of being, that we are chosen of god to have a special place, to have dominion, if you will, over creatures. He eradicate that whole concept of dominion and goes the other direction. We are right about an alligator, no different than an alligator. These alligators have every bit to exist as we do. Because they play an Important Role in the system. He called that a divine harmony. This harmony is interconnection, it entered dependence is sacred. Its not just utilitarian. The alligator does exist just to provide food. That bear doesnt exist just to be killed because its taking out my sheep. You see . So he so radical by 1867, he has an entirely different worldview than one that dominated agriculture of america in 1867. The two things to remember about these journals and tried one. This his first journal, 1867, the 1000mile walk. Its not published in his lifetime. Its published two years after he died in 1916. His second term as the most famous one. My first summer in the sierra. In many respects its what he calls his baptism by light here he finds his vocation and goal in yosemite. He finds his work. Many respects what happened in the 1000mile walk was showed in his limits. It taught in a very important lesson in humility and he felt that was an important lesson for urban americans to know, too. Its important to realize you have a limited find that role in this universe, and to live with the major humility and not be so arrogant that you know the difference between a weed and a useful plant. He would call that a self interested, egotistical distinction. Likewise, between a predatory animal and a domesticated animal. And more importantly, i think coming out, the interconnectedness of things. Hes really moving towards a whole new Environmental Way of understanding things of the system as being one, and also moving away from a dominion concept. And then ethics come out of that. It alligators have value and dignity, how much they and i respond to bears, alligators, diodes, walls . Coyotes, walls. So you treat them with respect. Then he was organizationally skilled later on. You saw in his management skills running factories. He envisioned how to create an organization that would continue beyond his death to carry forth those values. Of course he also founded the sierra club and the National Park system. From my perspective, there are about two to three important things. Number one, travel issue two important in shaping worldviews. That young adults looking for direction, looking for a career, looking for a vocation calling would do well to serve and travel in the 20s, okay . The second thing is, when that takes place we can see by the evidence that consciousness changes. Worldviews change. I think hopefully it changes for the better. I have not read too many travel accounts where persons traveled where the worldview is narrowed. That sometimes have. Sometimes we have dramatic and bitter experiences. Most cases theres an opening out into a new consciousness, a new way of relating to human beings relating to the private. That certainly happen for muir in this instance. Booktv is on twitter and facebook and we want to hear from you. One, investment fraud is the pyramid scheme which involves promises of profitability and then initially delivering on those promises for my delayed investors put in and using that to have the dividends to early investors. Of course this cant last forever because eventually you run out the people at the bottom of the pyramid. One of form of that is very consistent but so is the mode of marketing. In almost all of these types of schemes the approaches look for some group of insiders, and a somewhat in that group, almost all of the schemes are perpetrated by individuals who can expect to have trust because they are selling the scheme to people like them your distinct from the rest of society. So the muslims example of this probably still is the ponzi scheme and thats what we call it a ponzi scheme, Charles Ponzi operated this in boston in the early 1920s any focus on the Italian Community which is where he came from. The earliest example i know is a scheme by a woman actually in the 1870s in boston. She focus on unmarried women. Cspan where history unfolds daily. In 1979, cspan was created as a Public Service by americas Cable Television companies and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite providers. Next on book tvs after words, former wall street journal writer and editor George Melloan describes the papers role in shaping america in his book free people, free markets how the wall street journal opinion pages shaped america he is interviewed by Rana Foroohar , Financial TimesGlobal Business columnist and associate editor. Thanks so much for being here george, its a pleasure to be discussing your new book free people, free markets how the wall street journal opinion pages shaped america. I have to say oneof the most interesting things about this book to me is its breath. That you got such a long time