Transcripts For CSPAN2 2017 Southern Festival Of Books Reair 20171015

Talk radio show host eric erickson. Liza randy and many others. For a complete schedule visit booktv. Org. We are Facebook Twitter and instagram. Were kicking off todays coverage on the life and politics of mohammed ali. This is live coverage on cspa cspan2. [inaudible] of money. Think you for coming and welcome to the 29th southern festival of books. It is my pleasure to have the opportunity to introduce our author. Another that i really admire and have been reading his work for years. Hes here to talk about his biography of mohammed ali. This is only his third stop so thats an honor for us. Before he speaks the book festival is free but if youd like to contribute to the cause you can do that at the headquarters for the book festival outsider online. Also remind you that after the remarks will be heading over to the signing tent seeking to have him cite your book over there. Is one of the typewriters of nonfiction a fantastic author in addition to writing for bestselling books jonathan has written for the New York Times, the new yorker of the Washington Post and he is a contributing outer for the wall street journal. Its the most highly rated book as well. Theres always a national connection. Either of these points i wanted to say that the widow was a vanderbilt graduate and if you ever had a chance to meet coach at temple and its word cashes clay and after those olympics he would come down he was looking for wilma so i dont know if you jew drove down but were excited to have you here. Thanks for coming. [applause] thank you. You know it mohammed alis to say is to say thank you for that introduction, youre not as dumb as you look. I went to that. Theres a lot of things that i cant get away with. You might notice that we both have unbelievably fast jab. As important as a biographer to recognize they dont have that much in common with your subject usually. Now you can understand that as best you can that means paying attention to the facts about 600 individuals for this book i counted the number of times he was punched i worked with statisticians to do that. I will looked to see how that affected his speech the biographers job is to help you understand that persons life and how that life was shaped and how it shaped us as a country and people. With ali one of the most important men of the 20th century was a huge responsibility. The other thing they have to keep in mind is empathy. You have to empathize with the subject. You dont always have to excuse him he was pretty enough to begin with. But ties have empathy for your subject. So i want to talk about the process someone i learned along the way. The challenge that i face. Dick gregory said to me when i interviewed him said theres no point in me writing this book if youre not going to explain to me and the readers how black kid growing up in jim crow louisville felt like he could be special. What made him think he could call himself the greatest. And the laws not just the people said so too. Youre going to have to help me and your readers understand what makes them special. I began this well he was still a live and i like to take on that journey. One of the first things i did was interview some that i knew best. In the beginning process its reading a lot of material. I began with his second wife who came to chicago a lot. She was known as belinda and was 17 years old. She now goes by khalil paul. She was here this night for a movie career. Shut up and said im writing hurt alis biography and i like to talk to and she looked at me like who are you and who gave you permission to write this the answers nobody. But id like you to talk to me anyway. The sense of responsibility that a biography feels untaken this is life in my hands. Going for it anyway. I explained that i wanted to do it right and give him the kind of biography it deserves, another lovefest or something that shows how important he was and i need you from the vietnam protest through all of the joe frazier, need you to tell me what it was like to be married to this man. They said how much can i pay you. This is alis brother and i called them up and he went answer finally said just one question and he said im not talking to you unless you pay me. I just want to know the name of the dog. Thousand dollars he said and i said was that docs in . And he said no to tell you less i get a thousand dollars. I said i dont pay for these things but im very persistent. Boxing they say youre fighting above your way but my wife is an oppressive woman the fact that she would go out with me. I set out on this quest for alis life. This is the home where ali grew he told me that hes to stand in cracks between the houses on the right and challenge to throw rocks at him. Theres not much room to judge. 72 inches between the two houses. The view out the window with 72 inches away. He would stand and challenges brother to throw rocks at them. Some people say thats one of the reasons he became so quick. I also learned that ali was dyslexic was never able to read well in school. Thats why he became a class. His father was abusive running around with women ali came from difficult circumstances. Is not poor middleclass neighborhood to block where he grew up with School Teachers and others who are all africanamericans that he saw opportunities around him. The biggest opportunity to find a way out when he was 12 years old. How many people know the story of the stolen bicycle . Most people know that his bicycle was stolen so often when i dive into the sinks he did not put his arm around Jackie Robinson and 47. Always ride in his bicycle one day it starts to rain and he ducks into the auditorium and he comes out in his bicycle is gone. Hes looking for a Police Officer finds one in the basement of the gym. The Police Officer said you know how to fight . And he says no but im tough. And the Police Officer said, learn to box. And he begins boxing and falls in love with it. He is transfixed by the sites of the gym. Something else really important, their black kids and white kids fighting together. Their black kids punching white kids. You did not do that in america in the 1950s. If you did you got in trouble. You could be arrested for far less than that. Ali saw this and it began to rewire his brain. He begins taking boxing seriously another one he used to race the bus to school. One things that i learned from robert carol is that uis ask what was it like to be in the room with your subject and you ask it over and over so i would ask his classmates what was it like to be on the bus and i asked it over and over and it wasnt making sense. I couldnt picture it. One of the things you said was it was a city bus and they paid 10 cents to ride to school. And then one day it hit me and i said he said it was a city bus doesnt that stop a live like almost every block . He said yes so he is racing the bus but it kept stopping. So plus we got out and transferred. He would wait with us for the next bus was he really racing the bus they said no of course not he was trying to entertain us and remind us that he was a big shot boxer. He didnt want to be faster this was a key moment. He wants to box and become great but he also wants attention. Now start to get to know my bed. This is a gym he trained not only what he trained there but he would go to another gym he was a white Police Officer who is not arresting black kids. Hes rewiring the blam brain bue works so hard that he goes and trains with fred and another gym. By the 60s hes the olympic lightweight champion. He comes back hes feeling almost every class partly because hes out boxing on the time. The principle of the cool says sunday biscuits can be famous and i dont want to be remembered as the principal who flunked the chant. He discovers that he loves the attention. He becomes the mayor of the olympic village. He is such charm and charisma. Being outspoken and loudmouth its good for his career. Its getting more attention to making him more money. He talks all the time about the cadillacs hes going on in all the different shades of the rainbow. The attitude of standing up and making himself known as helping them get bigger fights. By 64 he gets his first shot of the championship. The biggest baddest meanest man on earth. He knocked out his last opponent in a matter of seconds. And ali is perhaps more on popular and has a criminal record his autobiography is the chant nobody wanted. Ali is more popular because a black kid being so unsportsmanlike and bragging about himself is seen as repulsive to most white americans. People are rooting for his opponent. Seems this is the end of his career. Liston is so bad but ali has something thats not prepared for thats incredible speed perhaps learn from dodging the rocks but also given as a gift to him. He boxes like heavyweights are not supposed to. This was keep their hands up hit hard, and duck the punches. But these punches glance off the opponents are so frustrated they cant get near him. You see him throwing these giant punches and ali is gone before the punch is halfway through the air. And then that left jab is probably in the face. Liston is getting tired and man, the matter gets the harder he swings in the more he misses. By the fifth or sixth round hes gone. He has no chance and he doesnt get off the stool at the end of six round. He gives up without being a downer knocked out because too much form. After the fight ali announces that he is no longer, he is the champion king of the world. He says i told you on the greatest. And by the way im now a member of the nation of islam. Im not a christian. Christianity was a religion forced upon me, the rate name cassius clay is a slave name. And he makes this pronouncement that changes the world. Changes way people not only see bacblack athletes spoke like pee over. He says that on have to do it you tell me to do or say im free and in 1964, those are fighting words. Heres on popular before, is way more popular now. Soon after he announces that hes changed his name name given to him by the founder Elisha Mohammed. His brother named rudy at the time is somewhere in the picture. Thats Elisha Mohammed in the middle. Ali joins a group thats considered by the American Government a threat to democracy. This is not orthodox islam. The playback people in america are never going to be treated equally and theres no point in wasting your time. They need to forge there will way out to build their businesses improve their lives and help and eventually start their own country in america will be forced to give a segment of the United States to part of his long for black people to start their own country. Ali heard something similar from his father also thought black people would never be treated equally. He said you never gonna be rich or anything because the color of your skin. Ali believed it but wasnt prepared to get used to it. People he because he was different in a boxer in america had to listen to what he said that he could fight that. They gave him of platform to do. One other black leaders in this country spoke or malcolm x. Or Martin Luther king the words are filtered by the white media. The New York Times decided which quotes choose. But when mohammed ali stood in the center of the ring and said i am the greatest. A lot told me that i was going to win this fight and all praise is due to Elisha Mohammed, the whole world heard the that gave him a special platform helped explain why he thought he could play when many black athletes were forced to accept the deal and that being that you did your job and you kept your mouth shut. But ali did not think he had to accept that. He paid for it and refuse to fight in vietnam was convicted. First he said i dont want to go. We think them now as being this pacifist but he said text my tax dollars and go by all the bummer jets you want. Then he said this was not fair to black people there dying in disproportionate numbers over there. Many said its against my religion. So he evolved as many people evolve. But he paid a huge price for convicted and sentenced to five years in prison. Loses millions of dollars in endorsements finally after three and half years out of the ring he gets a chance to come back. This is a key moment in his career as an athlete. He comes back against joe frazier, the only time that heavyweights have squared off the ring. By now its 1971 interviews of vietnam has changed. Most americans feel like the war was a mistake. He suffered and was willing to sacrifice for his beliefs whether you agreed with him or not you respected it then he gets put on his rear end by joe frazier the 14th round. Was up in the second half. He was unconscious on the way down in the ground will come up. He bounces up and finishes the fight loses and he has to fight his way back to rematch with fraser. This is when you start to see americans showing respect probably. They used to think he was so quick and pretty and talkative that he couldnt fight when he wasnt a true chant. But now people admire his tenacity. The Civil Rights Movement has moved off the streets and into the courts. Is becoming a popular figure in is on Johnny Carson all the time. Hes also joking around with Johnny Carson and he has this ability to charm us. Some passable to hayden. Said you cannot be in a bad mood around him. Even people thinking this is a draft dodging trader, they couldnt resist him. He was so likable. When he starts fighting his way back the writer says ali in the 60s was a grizzly bear. His wild and on teams. The 70s hes more like a circus bear. Still dangerous, but fun and entertaining. The last act of his life we all just want to embrace them. Think about why thats the case. He gets a shot at the heavyweight champion again fighting George Foreman. This becomes the fight for black pride to declare whos the toughest black man on earth. Don king pulls off a spectacle, nobody has ever seen anything like it. Ali is a slower fighter. I counted all the punches he took he probably took about 200,000 punches if you include his amateur fights but by this point hes actually training to take those punches. He believes he can build up resistance and nobody cannot come out. Like calluses you taken a punches and you will be immune to a knockout. The left George Foreman the strongest man in heavyweight boxing pound away at him until his arm start to get tired and then he begins to fight back. Foreman told me that he believed he was drugged before that fight by his own manager. He also gave 25000 cash to make sure was a fair fight and later found out alis people gave more than that. Then this manager said thats ridiculous thats the stupidest thing i ever heard really give them 10000. Take it for what you believe. But it beats George Foreman and becomes the heavyweight champion and elisha calls him and says youve done it all its time to retire. Devote the rest you life to your religion family. After this he divorces khalil but he cant stop. He keeps boxing. In the last year see he keeps getting slower and slower and takes more more punches. He begins ask his friends do think this is hurt me . If you just go on youtube and watch his videos you can see how a speech is slowing and he slurring his words. It hes a celebrity and he likes hanging around with sonny and cher and he likes the entourage just like a little boy he loves the attention this goes on and he continues to fight into the early 80s. Finally and 81 he fights larry holmes and takes a terrible beating. He loses his last two fights not the way he wants to go out. But he gets a third act in the late 80s and early 90s we forget about him. He disappears and you can hire him to sign autographs. He loved being around people. If use board hed stand to fill up an intersection and see how long it would take for people to notice in. And then hed invite them to go to lunch or dinner he can get enough of people. If he couldnt sleep he called taxing go to the hospital and visit people. But he was depressed. In 96 may remember watching this . Nobody knows whos gonna like the olympic torch in atlantic and theres rumors that Evander Holyfield might alis name wasnt mentioned that goes up the steps and is handed off and he emerges this white tracksuit the crowd doesnt roar it is silent and then you hear an audible gasp, its only another chance starts going. Ellipsis if we rediscover him. Weve forgotten him and we have forgiven all the horrible things he said you have to admit, the sky he took his punches in his hand is shaking. He cant quite light the torch the flames are waking up toward his arm and were worried he cant pull it off and he gets it lit and the crowd begins to roar. Its in that moment hes rediscovered. The next day you can see that he becomes a teddy bear plywood argue that we dont want to remember him as the teddy bear, we want to remember him for the warrior he was. Its great he was willing to do this and see him suffering and see what this disease had done to him but thats not who he was and why he matters today. Ters today. One thing i needed to do in working on this book with model the interview his wives and brother and friends and fighters he faced in the ring but to try to meet mohammed ali. I have been working on this more than three years before he passed away. Several times i went to fundraisers where he was supposed to appear and he was ill, didnt make it that time but i met his wife and told her i was working on this and told her the same thing i told friends and family, why they should talk to an yes. So i got back after one of these events i said how nice it was to meet her in my daughter who was fired after she could write a letter to muhammed pro i said sure. She wrote year muhamed my daddy really loves you. Do you love my daddy . [laughter] that is so sweet. So i stuck it into these envelope and they said bring will love when you come to visit. It just so happens we will be in phoenix can revisit . She said sure. Is on digital come with a tape recorder or a camera as i said now i spent five years of my life so we went to phoenix and we went to hisan house he was not doing well he did not come out of hiss room we could not meet him. Nt she liked my daughter more than she liked me that i found he would be of louisville a few weeks later we went there and hung out with his brother and childhood friends but what will i asked him or say to him . Th i decided to go for a run on his route im thinking how ridiculous is this . Im trying to wonder stand but i really think the running in his footsteps would learn what it is like to be a black kid growing up in jimla crow bill . It is preposterous and i thought now i know i will ask him. I and one of his friends grabed me to say we have to meet him first and lonnie introduced me to muhammed and i said i and jonathan eig and i am writing your biography. You did not ask me to bed it is an unbelievable privilege i am doing it so right. Dividend to say . He didnt answer. I think he knew what i was saying later lonnie said he knew who i was. That was hard for me that he did notas answer but that was good because it is my book and it is his life. He lived it and he told us every day why he mattered what he was trying to do from the minute he knocked out or defeated sunday but every step of the way i am here to say a black man can call himself a Great White Society tells me to do i your we have a responsibility he did those things and show this every day of his life and i think when you do those things and stand up to power that is when you earn the right to call yourself the greatest of all time. Think you very much. [applause] re this is your ultimate treat for readers. Lineup that the microphone and then again we will head over to the tenant to sign copies. Of the book. The question and that i have decided my your ali and one of the stories of mohammad ali was after he won the olympics, he threw his goldea medal into the river. I have read that but is it true . Did you discover that . The story goes the first appeared in his autobiography he was back from the olympics and wearing his olympic medal that he wore everywhere. Touche a lead off and he slept with that and he could not get served in the restaurant so way white motorcycle being chased him out of the restaurant and as he was fleeing going across the bridge he threw into the river out of frustration and protest even though it does not occur news service. Butso when the book was published somebody asked him if he said water you talking about . He said i didnt read the book what are you talking about . And i asked is whether heel said he definitely lost and was granted four days he barely touched get off. But some of the kids said he definitely lost it. I am a vietnam vet at the time i was involved in the Civilrights Movement and the majority of the people those that were involved and my unit was mostly black so there was the basis for his belief that the government was out to m stop the Civil Rights Movement at the time. No question black americans were serving in dying in disproportionate numbers. Good morning. I am a published author as well. When you spokey about to be sure you were expressing things the way they were come i am in the process so i have that same obligation so you start to ask questions before that had you considered the authorized biography . That is a great question when his lawyers found out one of his lawyers called and asked if i would be willing to make an offer and exchange there would give me access to the family and to ali. And they would take half of the money. The question and was deridingng unauthorized book your subject to your partner and their wishes and they may not want certainou things. He was clear he was not a saint. Late in life he talked about it a lot. There was an angel keeping track of all the good and bad things. If you have more good he woulds go to heaven but he did a lot of bad things and he needed to make up for those. He believed he had a chance to do that. He worked very hard with acts of charity andht diplomacy. But he was not ahi saint and it shows the man in full. So i never even considered the idea to do the authorized book with the ali management team. What was your love affair with Mohammad Dali and what made you want to write that book . I am interested in stories of rebels like the of Birth Control pill and i was a huge fan as a kid i have a poster on the ceiling of my room thinking why he seemed to be so different from all of my sports heroes. He was at a different level than terry bradshaw. First off as the individual sport that he would not give enough attention. So he had to wear a helmet nobody could see how pretty he was. [laughter] but he seemed like a super heroev transcending the sport as an unbelievable entertainer. He was witty with his engagements and to have his own variety show. Also this unbelievably political figure making frontpage s news. I have never been interested in writing a straight sports book and ali seem like the best possible story. To me it was the greatest opportunity and i was so thrilled i got the chance. Good morning. Whatat about the relationship between muhammed ali and Howard Cosell . There was a Great Partnership it really was a Business Partnership e they recognize they were good for each other. Cosell wasas the first to except the name change to say he can be whatever religion he once maybe because Howard Cosell was jewish. We didnt u tell hollywood actors said they couldnt change their names are tell jewish people to drop their names it was hypocrisy and racism but Howard Cosell saw pass that. And to call around to show the warm and human side until they favor super best friends but they have a mutual professional aberrationet. Can you comment i found it odd when i read the obituaries that we praised him for his resistance and courage but then later, six months later or three months later my math is off, one year later dealing with dealing Football Players in the National Anthem and it just seemsms like his legacy has evaporated. It is a good question and troubling because you think we would have learned something that ali sacrifice that black athletes in particular should be entitlede the yet we have a president saying they should do the jobs and keep their mouth shut and running into those issues. It is deeply ingrained. And you bring them back to life. This is a testament your talent but a lot of the book with king of the world these are all written by a white ment that the most wellknown are written by white men . Where a the black Community Writing about him . But the collection on ali is superb i dont know why but i b think ali was somebody who appealed to sportswriters and at that time very few africanamerican Sports Writers covering boxing. That doesnt excuse it there probably has something to do with it. Last question. Then i will sign books after word. What did you learn that up until his death of joe frazier was disheartened during those y fights. Ali we should fight it with his promotion but they took it too far but i thought thatou frazier died bitter and was that relationship of her rectified . And that gave him some bad scores but joe frazier wasgs kind to ali. He would lend him money to find work and when ali returned to the ring he was brutal toward frazier. And tried to humiliate him. Because your daddy is an uncle tomte because he would treat his white opponents better than his black opponents. But ifou somebody said back off. It isnt funny anymore. Ali thought that would give him an edge but he later apologized but i got the impression it was too little too late thanks for being here. If has been a pleasure. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] heres a look at arts recently featured on booktv afterwards our weekly Author Interview program. Former radio host and msnbc contradict tore charles provided his thought on the conservative movement in america. Investigative journalist art lavigne reported on Mental Health industry, and New York Times magazine contradict tore suzie reflected on her travels abroad and weighed in on americans global staging in the coming weeks on afterwards federal judge john newman will reflect on his career first as a prosecutor and now as a federal appellate judge. Former face the if nation anchor Bob Schieffer will exam role of the media today and this weekend on afterwards craig shore shirley discuss life and political career of newt gingrich. Bush courthouse despised him and Bush White House did and Bush White House did. The Bush White House despised him and did everything they could to have him be elected. From the moderate establishmentgr republican. In the white house was apoplectic about this because they would not carry and he was his own man. But the cultural difference between the two. In then to quickly assimilate. To see how easily he moves and bush was of a different era and a the culture. And it is about where it comes from or represent of the environment you live in. Cad trump had enough resources you cannot knock him out. If i look back with a great acts ofe genius with fdr inventing the fireside chat. This is part of why i wrote the book understanding trump because donald trump had of prime Time Television shears show 4 for 13 years the top in the country for four years. Because it was not on pbs or follow down navvy nobody understood that. [laughter] so when heha announced a guy who knows television that will bite definition is formidable. And t decisively. So any publicity which printed your name correctly buildhe strength. He was happy. To say 10 percent less trump is 100 percent more effective. And to figure out early on if you couldnt gauge the media the founder of the 24 hour cable of the system you could take all the air out of the room. And then to set up the argument with the morning showed a model is taking is called they wouldld argue 25 minutes then he calls to fox and friends with a love fest. [laughter] and then he would have breakfast he already generated media. They are covering the argument that 10 00 he does a president to keep up momentum that at 10 00 he does one how were for free he has 1 million free media meanwhile all of his competitors are off the year running around trying to raise money to get on the year. So negative tier name recognition. There is only one poll in the entire campaign where trump is not a head for the nomination. He was the front runner from the day he announced except where dr. Carson pulled ahead. But nobody could say. If he is the front runner every single poll could he be the front runner . Everybody of washington elite knew he cannot be the frontrunner because everything they believe would be crazy and they are not crazy so he is crazy so he could not be the front runner even though he was the front runner. [laughter] so i am in a situationed i watch these socalled experts have learned nothing. This stuff is stupid and wronghe as the people who laughed when he announced and the primaries or laughed at the convention wafted the generalth election. It is a repudiation of their own life. Theyre choice is believed in the fantasy that validates me or as the world has changed dramatically. And then see how the dance continues because gradually trump will figure out in a bowl to breakout that isis historic. Look at the western fantasy. They said hillary could not have lost. For miami book fair. Featured authors will look include senator al frank opinion biographer Walter Isakson and many more. For more informs about upcoming book fair and festivals and to watch previous festival coverage click the book fairs tab on our website. Booktv. Org. So could you recount for us the importance of the black burn affair and the underground railroad no doubt that detroit played. I think earlier we had a sculpture see if i can go back to it that ed dwight who is a fantastic and down to the quarter front where you have these a group of black people who are looking across the Detroit River you know to canada i think it is the next one here. This this here particular, many people have come to detroit and sometime i can say scratch their heads what is that all about . This symbolizes you know, the determineness of the you had underground railroad. When you have people like lambert and joy bap east liam webb madison, i mean you can go on and on in terms of these pioneering abolitionists. They were joined by some extent bit white ab ligsessist many of them being quakers because we many lamb better schooled, educated when he left tron ton, new jerseying and arrived in detroit he for me is a phenomenal individual because he was like one of the main conductors of the underground railroad. I know in my class in knox when i talk about the underground railroad the first thing that hit their mind is a train ordered d train they say no. You know the white head has done his thing in terms of the metaphorical treatment of the underground railroad but this was a process, the biway in which you know, these here fugitive slaves you know, could get away from bondage to get away from socalled peculiar institution. And end new detroit. So this here dwights sculpture symbolizes and poem and after 850 when you have parking lot fugitive slave law, when that act was passed that meant that although and we have the black burn case, the black burn affair, of these run away fugitives who arrive from louisville, kentucky and thought they had found a safe refuge away from these bounty hunters but with the passing of the 1850 slave act that meant you have to go a little bit further, so these people are looking across you know the Detroit River to windsor, and sometimes even cor wasnt far enough you have to keep going up 401 on to chat ontario on to toronto and, of course, chatham later on would become a very profound what you Call Community of abolitionist web talk about agedder son one of the black men who wrote with john brown and Start Talking about the later period after their whole abolition fist beginning with William Lambert heres frederick are douglas cools to detroit, and he meets with john brown a mark downtown and Second Baptist Church who is very instrumental in that. Of course Saint Matthews will be instrumental later on we cannot ignore the church in this whole coming together in terms of resistance the idea of selfdetermination cooling from a number of Church Leaders who were affiliated with Abolitionist Movement but nothing more pronounced profound than William Lambert his story, i mean, that would make just a fascinating film to see the kind of stuff he went there that mystery system that he put together. They have a coating kind of a secret code secret language you know they had trained all of these individuals on the underground railroad incase you encountered some of the bounty hunters out there. I mean so instructive and later on his pl involvement with Frank Matthews church and his involvement in the educational process. Working with people like Fannie Richards who was a pioneering black woman in terms of the first africanamerican to teach in socalled Public School system here. So we have this conjunction you know that is a collaborative situation from one generation to another spurred on by the other as you know taking this kind of influence and its enthusiasm for the break throughs occurring in the previous generation. Were going to sew that happening time and time again and this whole odyssey of black detroit. You can watch this and other programs online at booktv. Org. Live from the southern festival of books in nashville our coverage helicopters with discussion on the middleclass and politics with a form or advisor to senator elizabeth warren, and National Book Award Finalist nancy maclaine. Good morning Everyone Welcome to nashville and southern festival of books, and to our session, behind the curtain money, politics, and imperialed republic. We are very fortunate today to have two authors who are really addressing smflt issues that we deal request today while we do live in many way in peril time and dealing with concentration of economic power and political power pep and so again, we are very fortunate to have two very renown speakers today after the session is over today we will have a signing session that will tack place on the war memorial section between the capitol and then the library. We will go there for 12 30. W e is there have questions and answers a q and a session after the presentation this is morning to your right theres a set of microphones if you would if you would like to ask questions of the authors to your right a set of microphones at the if end each speaker will speak about 15, or so minutes. Dealing with their books, and then again well open it up to questions. If you could, you may want to take a moment to silence your cell phones if you have not done so as of yet and well get started right away with a brief introduction because im really excited to see what they have to say this morning. First speaker is going to be professor Nancy Mcclean shes a william h. L professor of history at Public Policy at duke university. And our second speaker is professor cedar who is the professor of law at vangder built also a senior fellow at the center for Human Progress so if we could give a round of applause to get started and im excited. [applause] thank you very much michael and thank you all for coming out today im delighted to be back here at the southern festival of books i actually came here many, many years ago as a assistant professor to talk about my first book on the ku klux klan which sadly is becoming more relevant again today. But its been many, many years since then i wont count them but it is really nice to be back with you here today. I also want to say that im so pleased to be on this panel with professor because our books and our concerns are so complimentary as i think youll see as we both speak. My plan for my 15 to 20 minutes which is what i was told is this, i thought i would read a brief selection from the book to orient you to it, and to look at basically the place and the moment where i start this story. And then, provide a hint of how the bock reaches up to our own time with a new account of the unprecedented political crisis in which we find ourselves today in america. Which as the sessions title so ally puts it is an imperialed republic so let me start with the reading this is from the opening of the book. As 1956 drew to a close, Colgate White the president of the university of virginia feared for future of his beloved state, the Previous Year the u. S. Supreme court had issue its second ground versus board education rules calling for segregate in Public Schools with all deliberate speed in virginia, outraged state officials had responded with legislation to force the closure of any local school that planned to comply with the Supreme Court. Some extremists called for ending Public Education altogether. And shifting to a system of private schools beyond the reach pflt court. Darden who earlier many his career has been governor could barely stand the contemplate a rash move would inflict even the name of the plan massive resistance made his gentlemanly virginia sound like mississippi. On his desk a proposal written by man chair of the Economic Department at uva. 37yearold James Buchanan like to call himself a tennessee by but no less a figure of freeman stole the pom. Aside darden reviewed the document he might have wondered the newly hired economist had read his mind. For without mentioning the crisis at hand, buchanan proposal put in writing what he was thinking. Virginia needed a better way to deal request the encourage on state rights represented by brown. To most americans living in the north, brown was a ruling to end segregated schools nothing more, nothing less. And virginias response was about race. But to men like dartedden and buchanan two well educated sons of the south who were deeply committed to its model of political economy brown voted a c change on much more. At minimum, the federal courts could no longer be counted on to defer to states rights arguments. More concerning more lineally to intervene when prepghted with compelling evidence that state action was in surveillance of the 14th amendment guarantee of equal protection under the law. States rights ineffect to individual right and it was not difficult for either darden on buchanan to imagine how a court might rule if presented with evidence of virginia archaic Labor Relations its measures to suppress voting, or its efforts to the power eve reaction their rural by underrepresenting moderate voters of the citys and suburbs of northern virginia. Federal medaling could rise to levels once unimaginable. James buchanan was not a member of the virginia elite. Nor is there any explicit evidence to suggest that for a conservative white southerner of his day he was uniquely racist or insensitive to the concept of equal treatment. And yet somehow all he saw in the brown decision was coercion. And not just in the abstract. But the court ruling represented to him was personal. Northern liberals the very people he was sure looked down upon southern whites like him tell his people how run their society. And to add insult to injury he and people like him with property were no doubt going to be taxed more to pay for all of the improvements that were now deemed necessary and proper for the state to make. What about his right it is . Where did the federal government get the authority to emergency society to pits liking and then send him and those like him the bill . Who represented their right it is in all of this . I can fight this. He concluded, i want to fight this. Find the resource it is he proposed to darden in a ebb fact for me to create a new center on the kamption of the university of virginia. And i would use this center to create a new school of political economy and a social philosophy. It would be an Academic Center rigorously so, but one with a quiet political agenda. To defeat perverted liberalism that thought to destroy their way of life of social order as he called it, built on individual liberty. A phrase common on the right that darden qowld surely have understood. The Center Buchanan promised qowld train a new line of think percent many how to argue against those seeking to impose what he called an increasing role of government in economic and social life. He would win this war and he would do it with ideas. Some may argue that darden fulfilled his part he pownsd money to establish this center. But he never got much many return Buchanan Team had no success in decreasing the federal governments pressure on the south all the way through the 60s and 1960s and 1970s. But take a longer view, follow the story forward to the second decade of the 21st century and a different picture emerges. One that is both testament to buchanan intellectual powers, and at the same time the utterly chilling story of the ideological origins of the single most powerful and least understood threat to democracy today. The attempt by the billionaire backed radical right to undue democratic governess. I dont think i have to make a case to you today that our political system is in crisis. That a government that is supposed to be of and by and for the people is in crisis and that even elementary norms of civic decent city and truth are in crisis. You know this. It has become abun dangtly clear of late to any who have perhaps not been paying close attention before. What you may be struggling is to figure out what it means and watershed in our public life has been fed by many streams some of which have received extensive tension and include Movement Conservatism that made mary gold water the republican candidate for president in 1964, just after his campaign against brown versus board of education and vote against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 another and related streel is religious right and a white supremacist right to that resurfaced with vengeance in last year all of these are important, and they have produced something of a mass base to push for radical change. But hiesm here today to talk about another piece of the puzzle how we got into dangerous situation in which we now find ourselves. A missing piece in our public discussion and it is the ideas that are guiding the billionaire funded libertarian right made notorious by charles koch and i believe it is crucial piece that we have missed because it explains so much that otherwise seems mysterious. Ifng it is also crucial because knowing this may equip citizens such as you here today to lead the way out of this mess before it is too late. One reader contacted me a Public Health nurse and provided a wonderful analogy for this, she says you have to get the diagnosis right to determine the right treatment plan, and i think thats quite apt. Because theres an pun marked peril in our situation right now. Where so many are commenting on so many frightening things in coming from so many directions. But as the noisyist threats are getting the most attention among them, im sad to say as a scholar and a citizen that now chronic race coming from the white house and the bullying but if thats spectacle draws media and voters and attention and even mother plan is moving along a pace. It is doing so in the now 30 states dominated by the architect of this cause through the organizations, funded and elected officials put in office with the help of charles koch. It is moving along in federal agencies and state agencies and in the court. This plan is being pursued by a much smaller clause. But one that is averagely determined and breathtakingly well funded. And this causes architects aimed to rewrite the rules of our society permanently. More than that, they have shown that they are quite willing if to use other more popular sections of the right the religious right and white supremacist right to get what they want. Ill state my case simply behind all of the seeming chaos and dysfunction in our public life right now, theres a strategy in play a cold eye calculated strategy. Flearn that strategy is far along one of the field donors said this in late 2015 and im quoting, were close to winning. They meaning the critics orest rest of us doapght have the real path. They dont have the real path. Thafsz mark holden head of Coke Industries government and Public Affairs operation gloating to an invitation only o audience of billionaire and multimillionaire donors. Youve heard about the fortune charles koch shall be trying to rerout our politics but what you have not heard about i would imagine is the ideas that technology as coke refers to them and it is a man who has three engineering degrees from m. I. T. So refers to ideas as technologies of very smart man. What you have luckily not heard about is ideas that are making investment so effective. Because by charles koch eying own admission in 1997 he had been funding intellectuals for three decades and not getting anywhere but seeking technology to help him break through, and he did not find it. But by 1997 he believes that he had found it and he shoved in first 10 million to George Mason University a Public University over the potomac from washington d. C. And i learned through my research that it was an academic economist at george ma son university a man buchanan who taught charles koch for capitalism to thrive democracy must be enchained. And book im here to talk with you about today democracy and chains provides the unknown back satisfactory of this defining moment in which we now find ourselves as also uncovers that real path to which mark holden referred. In its essence it is a story of two men, a thinker and a ceo. Who does lives converge through a shared commitment to transform the molds of government our krpght built up over the 20th century under pressure from citizen action. From the reformers of the progressive era to the labor union of the new deal to the civil rights organizations of the 1950s and 60s to the old o tear retired citizens who organize od for security in their old age environmentalists, this cause finds all of these things to be a violation of economic liberty and they are taking aim at them. Their got his degree at middle ton state i saw a sign out there but he spent his life in virginia institutions. And the ceo is, of course, charles koch who spent most of his adult life when he wasnt turning coke centuries into one of the most successful priefltly held corporations in america indeed the world who spent most of his adult life so you can say his leisure time seeking away to make our country and the world, in fact, conform to his arch vision of economic liberty. A kind of free rain capitalism akin to the 19th century that were skewered by novelist charles dickens, and history my book conveys is first, in which beau can man came up with this idea of enchaining democracy to insulate economic liberty. He did so as Civil Rights Movement was making head away in that state on his campus and in the nation in that feared. And it show it is how charles koch made that a reality in a quest that produce volatile situation were now confronting. Its a frightening story i have to admit. Ive had five readers now tell me that it read to them like a steven king novel now i have not read one so i can not attest to that, i think that was a stretch but i gatt where theyre trying to convey of that it was scare is rei so i have to say as an author, scholar and i found myself scared many times. When i realized the reach of the these combined operations funded by charles koch and his tell low donors. But i also firmly believe as a scholar and a citizen that knowledge can be empowering and thats what im hearing back from readers who are saying it things like it feel like the curtain has been pulled bang and now we can see what is really going on. Im getting many letters to that effect and im really gratified to know that people are finding this story demystify of what has been going on in our public life empowering for them. So i was going to start the story in virginia in late 1950s with the states reaction to the brown versus board of education decision. Which created the surprising opportunity to privatize Public Education a verb that not exist then but which buchanan and colleague pushed for and we can take that forward through the 19 0u78 as they learn more in reacted to the campus unrest of that era. Into 1980s when buchanan went to advise dictatorship in chile on constitution that a later president described as putting locks and bolts on what people of chile could do a constitution is that is now coming to america as coke Donor Network pushes for an in their lengted officials and American Legislative Exchange counsel and groups they work with theyre pushing for constitutional amendment to radically change our founding document. Now, you need 34 states they have 27 but they have 28 but common cause organized and took new mexico out of the mix so they have 27 of 34 states for those of you who havent had your u. S. History course lately the last time we have a Constitutional Convention in this country, was 1787 which the document was created. It is an exceedingly thing to cull a constitutional con vegs and we have rules how such a convention would be staffedded how delegates could get there but once you get there it is open season and you can make all changes yowpght and theyre coming in with at least ten liberty amendments as they call them that would radically change the way our government works. To permanently transform it and undermine that model of citizen led changes to government and Public Policy that weve built up over the 20 9 century so it is an exceedingly radical project and i will stop there because i think thats a perfect segway to my colleague who will tell you about the crisis of the middleclass constitution. Thank you. [applause] thanks so much nancy for that presentation, and for the kind words. I want to thank michael for hosting us here in the session. This southern festival of books humanity tennessee, and National Public library which is a Great Institution here in nashville, as a local im excited to see some friends in the audience excited to have all of you here and you friends and i want to thank people watching at home on cspan as well. My book is called the crisis of the middleclass constitution. And in the book i argue that economic inequality is a threat to our constitutional system. A threat to our republic. And then it would been under as such throughout founders and most of american history, and i suspect thats surprising to many of you because our constitution doesnt say anything about the middleclass it doesnt say anything about economic equality opportunity say anything about economic inequality. It is silent on many of these questions. But for most of the history of western political thought from ancient greek and roman up until the 18th century when our constitution was drafted, people were very choired about economic inequality. They worried that the society was divided between rich and poor, the rich would oppress the pour and poor would try to confiscate the rich and result strife, violence, and revolution. But founders themselves were very worried about this divide between rich and poor as well. During the Constitutional Convention in 1787, governor morris said the rich will strive to establish dominion and enslave the rest they always did, they always will. And the result was that america wouldnt be a republic. It would become an oligarchy as a republican descends into olold revolt but they havent. They require leadership. So a famous rapper named Alexander Hamilton said of men who overturned liberty of republic greater number have begun career by paying court to the people commencing demagogues and ending tyrants. Unequal societies were therefore condemned either to oligarchy or to o tyranny. Not a great situation if youre trying to set up a new government that you hope will last for the ages. And so statesman and thinkers came up with two solution to this problem. The first was to build economic class right into the structure of government. So in england you have a house of lords, for the wealthy the house of commons for commoners per everybody else in ancient rome you have a senate for the wealthy. You have a tribune for everyone else. And the idea here is that both classes have a share and stake is in governorring but also a check on the other that creates stability. The second solution was first articulated by aristotle and he said best government was a government in which the middleclass was bigger than the rich and poor, and it was the middleclass therefore governed. He called it a middle constitution i call it middleclass constitution. And this solution is something of a cheat. It basically says if theres no inequality in society, then you dont have the problem of inequality so best society is one that doesnt have equality because you have no problems then, thats the argument. And what i think is surprising is that our constitution isnt one of these constitution that builds class right into the structure of government. We dont have a tribune, while some people think of the senate as elite theres no property requirements to be a senator. Theres no wealth requirement to be a senator or a member of the house of representatives or to be the president. Our founding charter does not have any structural provisions that are checks and balances between economic classes. Not between rich and poor, not between corporate interest and workers, and that is a radical change in the history of government. This change also wasnt an oversight. The founding generation knew how to design exactly these kinds of class war fair constitutions. And they even debated such proposals in the summer of 1787. But the ultimately chose a frame qork for government that didnt get class against class. Now part of reason was pratt call they couldnt figure out how to do that we know that from James Madison secret notes on convention in 1787 but part of the reason was political. They knew that the American People would never accept it. And the reason why is because at the time of the founding, Many Americans believed that the new nation qowld not be afflicted by economic equality problems. Because theres simply wasnt economic equality within the Political Community of qhiet men. And ill have more to say about that in main. But how unique america was no feudalism and unlike yiewrm america have vast lands available to the quest which meant that families could own property and become farmers and have independents economically. So with relative equality as a back drop when they founded our constitution they adopted a middleclass constitution a constitution based on assums that america had relative economic equality and that equality would exist in the future. Now, of course, in the course of the 19th century everything changed. Industrialization urbanization, closing of the frontier, the shift from agricultural work and after advertisal work to wage labor in factories these develops all put significant pressure on the economic foundations of our constitutional system. And so during the guilded age, economic inequalities started growing. And economic power was increasingly concentrated many a small number robber barren and small number of corporations and monopoly and people at the time thought this was a serious threat to the republic a threat to our constitutional system. And so im going to read you a brief passage from the book to get a feel for this situation in guilded age. This is from about the 1890s. Marcus dailily determined to stop Andrew Williams clark. Clark like daily was an industrial who owned copper mines, mills, lumber, bank, retail stores, newspaper and utility. But what clark really wanted was to win elected office in montana. Partly he wanted the status and power that came request public leadership. Partly he wanted it to support policies that would improve his Business Holdings and harm those of deals. When clark stood for congress in 1888 daily man pasted hand pick candidates name over clark on ballot leading to clarks loss in an instance of spectacular fraud. And so began montanas war of the copper kings. Over the next two deck cads copper in montana would engage in some of the most belay surprise and shocking effort to gain political power in american history. Daily cancel Business Contracts with those who would not support his political aims he started his own newspaper to compete with clarks the two fought over whether the State Capitol would be located at Anaconda Company town or helena which clark supported to block daily and they gave away cigar bought round of drinks and sometimes handed out money for one city or the other. Clark decided that 1899 was his last best chance to get into the senate. And he was willing to pay legislators whatever it cost. The opening bid for a bribe was 10,000 a vote with many reportedly coming in at 20,000 and one rumor of 50,000 for a single volt. Clarks son remarked that they would send the old plan to the senate or to the poor house. For his part, clark said that he never bought a man who wasnt for sale. [applause] by some estimates clark spent 431,000 to buy 47 votes in the state legislature and offered 00,000 more that was robust. Commenting on the brazen corruption in the election mark twain said hes said to have bought legislatures anden judges as other men buy food and rainment by his example hes so excused and so sweetened corruption that in montana it no longer has an observancive smell. Senator william clark, took officer in washington. Only to have investigations open immediately, after hearing testimony from state legislators and even Montana Supreme Court justices, who m clork agents amendmented to bribe the Senate Investigations committee declared clarks election void. An amazing maneuver clark resigned in his allies in montana contrived to get the governor out of the state making the Lieutenant Governor a clark ally into the acting governor. At which point the Lieutenant Governor appointed clark to fill the now Vacant Senate seat that clark had just been denied. [laughter] so this is what was going oned t the time corruption that mixed economic power and political power former senate richard of south dakota reflected later in life what it was like being in congress in the 1890s he said i could only form one possible conclusion. That the power over American Public life whether economic, social, or political rested in the hands of the rich. It is a word that means ruled by and for the rich. The United States is a country run by and for the rich therefore, it is a so in respond to this kind of fear over the loss of our republic, pop lists thought it was time to antibiotic and said there can be no real democracy unless theres something approaching an economic democracy. Income tax, wealthier people pay progressively higher rates. They establish minimum wage laws and protect workers so theres more balance. To prevent economic power from influencing politics that is the first Real Campaign finance laws and a constitutional amendment to prevent create the direct election of senators and the legislative action which leads to the corruption leading to senator william clark. These battles continue through the new deal to world war ii but after world war ii the idea that economic inequality was a threat to the constitutional system disappeared from the national consciousness. Few people think of any quality and think of it as a constitutional problem. This happen for three reasons, the new dealers had fierce constitutional battles over the ability of the federal government to make policy over the economy. After the new deal fights over economic inequality, shifted to regulatory issues, not constitutional issues. The second big shift was the cold war. Generations of americans from the founding forward didnt think of aristocracy or oligarchy is something you read about in ancient history books. Those governments were the government of europe that they left, they rebelled against and fight wars against in order to have a republic or a democracy. These were not imagined forms of government but after world war ii the focus was the difference between communism and capitalism, not aristocracies and democracies. As a result fears of communism, discussing equality even though that was an important part of the american tradition. Finally we entered a period of prosperity that economists called the great compression. The post you years gdp was up, median incomes up and americas middle class was growing larger and larger. We undertook policies that helped make this happen, regulated finance through the sec and glasssteagall, created a g. I. Bill that sent a generation to school, build infrastructure like highways and invested in r d from the space race to the internet to create opportunities and build for the country and put into place programs that lifted people out of poverty, medicare, medicaid, head start, Social Security, economic inequality was less of an issue because the economy was working at the policy matter made it less of an issue. Some of you have probably been objecting and seizing from the start but what about africanamericans . How can the story im telling coexist with the reality of any quality across groups . We have to distinguish between two traditions, one is a story i told you so far the one i focus on primarily in the book, for the middleclass constitution, for there to be a republic you have to have relative economic equality. It leaves open and important second question in the Political Community and this is a question that has been fiercely contested over our history including violently but over time we can trace a tradition of inclusion that has expanded our Political Community to include women and minorities and everyone. The key thing is to about what happens when these traditions intersect, when you expand the Political Community, it now becomes necessary for all members of the Political Community to be able to join the middleclass. Throughout our history statesmen understood this. After the civil war the reconstruction republicans thought not just for emancipation and Political Rights but 40 acres and a mule, economic opportunity. That he is stevens, reconstruction republican from pennsylvania proposed confiscating the wealth of the top 10 of confederate planters in the south and redistributing that wealth to their former slaves in 40 acre parcels. What he said is, quote, the Southern States have become despotism, not government of the people. It is impossible any practical equality of rights can exist where a few thousand men monopolize the whole property. After his death in 1968, one of his colleagues summed up his views saying he knew a landed aristocracy and landless class are alike dangerous in a republic and bicycle act of justice he would abolish both. Civil rights movements of the 60s understood this as well, march on washington where Martin Luther king gave his famous i have a dream speech, titled the march for jobs, economic and political. The interplay is not clean and neat, some movements like the jacksonians were inclusively economically but not racially, reconstruction republicans expanded voting for africanamericans but not women and others were more inclusive, the Civil Rights Era and certain strands of populists in the 1890s that tried to build biracial coalitions. The key is to have a republic like ours all members of the Political Community needs to meet members of the middle class and the problem is today, we are once again in an era of Rising Economic inequality. The wealthiest individuals take him a greater share of our national wealth, major sectors of the economy, banking, airlines, pharma, telecom, economic power is increasingly concentrated in a small number of companies that control entire sectors. Much of the debate has been on moral or economic consequences of inequality the fundamental problem is our constitutional system might not survive in an unequal economy because it wasnt designed for one. What i the long history of constitutional theory is we have a couple options to deal with this. We could embrace we are in Unequal Society and create a class warfare constitution, one house for the rich, one house for everyone else and some suggested this. This is a pretty unlikely solution and undesirable. That leaves us with a second option which is we have to rebuild the middle class, reshape our economy and make our politics more democratic and there are a lot of things we can talk about here on the economic side and the political side but the bottom line is we have to do these things to preserve our constitutional system and what is extraordinary is some of the founding generation understood the we would have to do these things. James madison toward the end of his life commented the number of americans who had only the Bare Necessities of life would one day increase and when it did, madison said, quote, the institutions and laws of the country must be adapted and it will require for the task all the wisdom of the wisest patriots. Today what i we need as we see any quality rising in the middleclass collapsing, wise patriots will adapt institutions and laws in order to save the republic. [applause] thank you, Ganesh Sitaraman and nancy mclean. We open questions, there is a lot of food for thought presented here. If you have any questions you would like to present to the authors to bring their thoughts together and have a discussion on what we are doing in Todays Society now is the time to do that. Any questions . Up here on this side . Both of you referenced Constitutional Conventions as potentially a good or bad thing, we want to make fundamental changes to the way the system of law work so could you talk about what is going on . My father is an expert on state Constitutional Convention but i dont know much about movements to start nationally. At one levels what is happening from your perspective . One thing that is a big challenge is so much is going on in our politics that is not getting Media Attention it needs and part of the problem is fewer people subscribe to newspapers and dont have investigative staff, there is a vacuum of information but i think in the particular situation we are facing in the last year, the president is absorbing so much attention with his tweets and daily things that get people into a hydrogen that people are not paying attention to the rest of what is going on in our politics. The politics of distraction frankly. One veteran journalist pointed out 70 of Donald Trumps senior appointees come from koch donors, operations funded by the koch Donor Network and pushing through radical changes, pushing for radical changes in my state of north carolinas they want to make judicial races partisan and want to use redistricting for judicial races. It is terrifying to be honest, what is being done to our legal system while we are focused on the president s tweets so there is a serious issue at the state level and some in this operation, for a long time dont want to take much time, one of the founders of the institute for justice, a very rightwing litigation firm, now on the Supreme Court in arizona thanks to the tea Party Governorship and he has pointed out is easier to change state constitutions than federal so these things are going on unparalleled tracks. My feeling and what i urge audiences to do is stop focusing on the white house for a week, ignore the tweets and stories, ignore the mayhem and take a chance, take a breather, you will feel better, look at what is going on in your own state and Pay Attention to what is going on in federal agencies from the department of justice to the Environmental Protection agency, the department of education, very radical agenda is being pushed through that also includes changes in our law and even the constitutional norms, theres much to Pay Attention to. A lot of different ways constitutional change happens. There are two big ways, you can have specific amendments, a bunch of them, the bill of rights, and another way is a Constitutional Convention where a wide variety of people get together for recommendations about specific amendments but the worry most constitutional scholars have is if you have a Constitutional Convention you could change everything if you wanted to. There is a lot of opportunity for changing things there. When we think about constitutional change in formal amendment processes there is a lot more risk to a convention where there is a lot up for grabs than specific constitutional amendments being proposed and adopted. We had lots of constitutional amendments lowering the voting age to prohibition, alcohol, revealing prohibition of alcohol, though their specific individual things as opposed to a convention which would have a greater opportunity to change. One other thing about constitutional change, one way that it happens is through the Supreme Court which interprets our constitution. The constitution is partly the reason it survived so long. It is really short document without a lot of details or specifics in a lot of places. It is very general. The Supreme Court interprets what is in the constitution and because of who is on it over time it creates a sense of what our constitution means. People are involved in that, social movements shape that. But one way, another way change can happen is interpretation and that depends on who is on the court. People interested in things like constitutional change, those are different avenues you might about, pursuing or advocating change. To give a concrete sense that connect our two books, one of the changes this libertarian koch funded cause is pushing for his get rid of the 17th amendment for the direct election of senators and put back into the state legislatures and if you read Ganesh Sitaramans book, that is one of the huge achievement of the progressive era because people watching as corporations found it easy to terminate start State Government as opposed to local governments, even easier than the federal government in those years over there reason progressives pushed for the direct election of us senators to democratize the senate and the idea that the 21st century there are people trying to take away the success of a century ago in order to entrench the Corporate Power that is causing such a problem as our two books point out, the idea that that is underway gives us a sense of how extreme this agenda is from todays right. Good morning. In the bible belt, you made a reference to 9 rands influence on change the cannons philosophy. I need to buy a copy, i need you to comment more on that and the influence and religiosity aspect because it struck me this philosophy is immoral and contradictory to judeochristian muslim religious world religious ethics and if you could comment on that. I cannot agree with you more. One of the things that struck me in doing this research is realizing there is some in the way of a libertarian morality and we saw in the Health Care Debate there were people who would rather see people die from not having healthcare and to allow them to have healthcare funded by the government with tax revenues that have come from others. That is the morality that says it is better than people died ally on government. That is all the way through the libertarian cause. Im not usually stating that sharply but that is the reality. One thing that struck me doing this research is realizing this is antithetical to all the worlds major religious traditions, christianity, judaism, islam, buddhism, all of them, all those religions have compassion as a core feature, we should care for the poor, look out for the sick, be kind to the stranger, as jesus said, what you have done to the least of these you have done to me. That is the best core of all our religious traditions and the morality of this cause i write about is antithetical to all that and as you said, ayn rand was contemptuous of religion, many early libertarians were as well but something happened when they started to get serious about political power. For charles koch this happened in the 1990s, he used to insist, never compromise, we must be totally radical, we must not give away anything to others, we must be very determined in our views but when he got serious about getting political power he understood libertarians are at most 3 to 4 of the electorate in pulling terms and many dont fully understand what the cause is about so they needed more people if they were going to make change. They were not going to get them from the left side of the spectrum so they looked to the right and people who always called themselves radicals began to call themselves conservatives. It is not true. There is not conservative they are radicals of the right but they are deceiving people about who they are and what they seek to achieve their ends. To give you a sense how serious this is, one of the nations leading sociologists and one of her students, Vanessa Williams did a book about the tea party and they did more research on local Tea Party Chapters than anyone today, talk to as many leaders as they could, they went around the country, could not find a single Grassroots Tea Party member who wanted to see the privatization of Social Security or medicare but they pointed out that is exactly, they, roving billionaires, charles koch and people in his Donor Network, what they were using Commodity Party as a battering ram to get to in congress. That is what troubles me about this. Im a historian of social movements by my training as i believe anyone has the right to make a case for what they think would make us a better society, get it out and argue and organize for it but you have to be honest with the people. The most of what and finding of my book is these people have said over and over they recognize they are a permanent minority if they tell the truth of what they seek and what the end game is and they have adopted this strategy of not being honest with the people and doing things like gerrymandering to misrepresent the will of the electorate, extreme Voter Suppression when they know voter fraud, there is no empirical support for the idea of mass voter fraud undermining labor unions without revealing that is the real intent and so forth and so on. The point you are raising is so important about this cause contradicts our major religious traditions and i hope there will be more folks like you who will ask those questions and think about this. We are at one of those moments like the 1930s when we have some very antidemocratic forces at work in our society and we need to take a deep breath and think about who we are and what we value as people, citizens, what we want our country to be like. What happens in the next 5 to 10 years will determine i believe the future for generations to come. The people i write about say they want to achieve permanent change and they think they are close to winning so we are at a moment we need to drill down to our core values and cannot who we are and where we want to see our society go, you. [applause] we had some Great Questions and great discussion. Our time is up. We will have time after, we will be moving to legislative plans a for a book signing and for any questions you may have or others, you could do that there. Thank you all for attending and thank you for your participation. Have a nice day. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] you are watching booktv on cspan2, live coverage of the southern festival of books in nashville. We will take a short break while they set up for the next her presentation about evolutionary biology. We will be right back with more live coverage from nashville. Heres a look at the current bestselling nonfiction books according to parnassus books in nashville, tennessee. Some of these authors have or will be appearing on booktv and you can watch them on our website, booktv. Org. People have asked us why did you choose who is in the book . One of the things we have said as we have been interviewed is the fact that there are countless stories, so many women we couldve put in the book and one reason we launch the platform was to highlight more of these stories. There is a visibility gap but one of the reasons we chose donna is because not only does she have this supercompelling story about failure and becoming incredibly successful but she is a Fashion Designer and a writer and the maker, she is really kind of the opposite of the stereotype of you would think of who works in technology. We both love that about her, she crushes that stereotype and that was important to us as we were meeting these different women from different backgrounds all over the country to see how creative and collaborative not only their jobs are but how they are in their lives. A big goal for us was to choose people others in our audience would hopefully file connection to in some way and dispel a lot of the misconceptions of what it means to work in tech. People assume it is lonely, cold, not collaborative, these are the things you hear from young girls when you ask them about it but we found so many women we met that was a complete opposite. They were supercreative, artsy, they care about fashion, they had families, they have these incredibly multifaceted lives, and their jobs are very collaborative. That was a big point for us in terms of the message we wanted to get out in hopes of Inspiring Women to think twice about going into these types of careers, to see the breadth and depth of the kind of people who work in these jobs and how interesting they are. Anyone seen the hbo show Silicon Valley . It is pretty hilarious but very stereotyped. There is a hacker house, computer genius, the coder guy, richard hendrix, ceo, founder of pied piper, the tech company. I spent a week in Silicon Valley in memo park at an accelerator called the women start up lab. I spent a week at a hacker house, eight female founders, Technology Founders living in a hacker house and the interesting thing i learned about was female entrepreneurs dont look like richard hendrix, you hear about in the media. These women were from all over the country. One was from santa fe, new mexico, two little kids at home, so this is the first time i have been able to breathe and not have my kids all over me. She is starting a baby rental Equipment Company she wants to make into the air b b of baby equipment so when traveling with kids, all the things, toys to carry, you go from one state to another and rent the equipment. And focus on my company, these other entrepreneurs workshoping and training and learning so you could go out and pitch investors for capital for a business. So i met carrie and other entrepreneurs and the other interesting thing was it was building a network with women entrepreneurs, the loneliness, you hear about so and collaborative. It is not, working together introducing to investors, advisors, mentors, build her confidence, she got home and her husband looked at her and said who are you . Wheres the old carrie . This is the new carrie, she is so confident. Fran meyer, cofounder of match. Com, one of the advisors at the women start up lab. She says i want to partner with, take your vision and scale it and make it into a billiondollar company so fran meyer is her cofounder and ceo and carrie is the techy one and they spread the company to 40 different markets across the country and it is booming. Back to the collaboration, sisterhood of finding people who will help you not just scale your business and find investment but build the confidence that you can do it, youre not alone. You have a network of supporters. You can watch this and other programs online at booktv. Org. Reporting on an evolutionary experiment, the the domestication of foxes. This is book tv on cspan2. Come o thanks for coming to the southern festival of books which is my Favorite Book festival in the entire world but dont have when i was at three days ago. I am a nonfiction writer. I know what it takes to makes writing serious information into compelling human stories look easy. Lee does it incredibly well. In the presentation i did yesterday i said one of the very best things about the profession of being a writer is that it introduces me to so many people who are very passionate about the work they do and they became experts out of enthusiasm and thinking what they do is the most fascinating thing in the whole world this is a prime example of that the suspect lee and i met about two hours ago that weve known each other through our books and weve communicated electronically for many years. Before i knew that lee is a distinguished University Scholar and professor of biology, i knew him as the author of mr. Jefferson in the giant moose which is a vivid and detailed book about Natural History early in the time a country. He has written and coauthored many books, occludin including acclaimed textbooks on animal behavior and the principal revolution. He exemplifies, and im not the only person who says this, all tourism and operation himself. He has legendary generosity as a colleague in the field and ive experienced it myself for today is when you talk about his new book called how to tame a fox and build the dog. I will give you any background because he will tell you the whole story. In the New York Times book review they said its part science, part russian fairytale and part spy thriller. I know riders would ransom their grandmother for the kind of reviews this book has been getting. One of the great intellectual and emotional expenses of my own life was the realization many years ago of what i got from the scanner book. Its the realization that is with me all the time is a nonfiction writer and thinking about it greatly improves rushhour traffic and becomes part of my way of seeing the world. When you walk out of here, you will think differently about how nature works. The realization i get from this kind of book is that natures creative medium is the individual living generation which means its never been more creative in the drastic era more than it is today. It also means theres never been a member of the homo sapiens on part of the calendaring evolution then you are. Four years ago. [inaudible] thats another thing we have in common. We talk about this because we dont on extraordinary people. The fun thing about this book is the crossreferencing that sets off in the brain when you see the world differently. I think the second volume, the creation of the world did not occur at the beginning of time. It occurs every day. Please welcome lee. [applause] thank you so much. Ive really been looking forward to this. I had the chance to be introduced by my favorite writer, michael fins. Administered off in an unusual way which is to ask you a question, suppose you could build the perfect dog. What would be the key ingredients in your recipe . It would certainly want you, maybe floppy ears, a curly tail that wags in anticipation whenever you are around, smart loyal, intelligent, the thing is you dont need to build this because for the past six decade decades, a dedicated team of russian geneticists in siberia have been building it for you. The perfect dog, except its not a dog at all. Its a fox. Its a domesticated box. They built it in the 40degree winters of siberia and they built it in the blink of an eye in terms of evolutionary time. One hundredth of the time it took our ancestors to domesticate wolves into dogs. This is a picture of my friend and colleague. She is 83 years old, and every day, including today for the past 58 years she has been leading what is known as the silver fox domestication study. The last seven years ive had the honor of working with her to produce a popular book where we tell the science and the behindthescenes story. What i will tell you about today are foxes that will melt your heart and lick your ears, just like this fox did five seconds after they put them in my arms in siberia. More than that i will tell you about the science thats been done that made us rethink the process of domestication. A process thats critical to our own evolutionary history. We will try to walk through this experiment in about 40 minutes. It all starts with this fellow. In the late 1930s he was a College Student in the Cultural Academy outside of moscow. He was studying genetics and because it wasnt agricultural college, you have all sorts of interactions with many domesticated species. After you finish their, like almost every single russian mail at the time, he went and fought in world war ii. When he came back, he landed a job at a place called the Central Research laboratory in moscow. This Laboratory Work with all sort of for reading animal but the two key animals were foxes and minks. That firm was some of the very reliable sources of western money coming into the soviet union in the 50s and 60s. It was while he was at the research lab that he came up with the idea for the silver fox domestication idea. From his own reading and interaction with domesticated species, he knew that many domesticated species share a common set of traits. They tend to have things like floppy ears, curly tails, modeled much like for pattern, low stress levels, they produce longer than their ancestors and he thought this was interesting. He thought why would that be because if you think about it, weve domesticated the species for all sorts of reasons. We domesticated some species for transportation like horses. We domestic others like pigs and cattle for food, and yet other species like dogs for companionship and protection and yet many domesticated species share those traits. Floppy ears and curly tails of low stress hormone levels, so much so that its been known as the domestication syndrome. Why should this exist. His hypothesis went like this. All domestication events began with our ancestors choosing the call missed, t missed animals. You cant have your domesticated species biting your heads off so they all start by choosing the call missed payments to animals. All those other trades that i mentioned, somehow or another they must be genetically connected to tame this until he decides hes going to test these ideas. He is going to run a domestication experiment in realtime using what he knows so well. The experiment, at one level is incredibly simple. What they propose to do was, every generation, choose the call missed fox and breed them. Then he could test first whether or not he was getting tamer and tamer animals over the years and whether or not the floppy years and curly tails develop. When he came up with this ideas in the early 30s and 40s and 50s, hes coming up with an experiment in genetics. At this time, it will illegal to do genetics and the soviet unio union, and thats because of this fellow on your lefthand side. He was a charlatan, a pseudo scientist who had risen up in the ranks not just the political ranks, but the scientific ranks, and the way he did this was by arguing that western genetics with lajoie science that was being promulgated by wreckers, it was an idea that had long been disproven. It was in fact correct and more in line with soviet philosophy. He became so important that he literally was stalins right hand man when it came to science. Hes going western geneticists wreckers and saboteurs. For thousands of geneticists in the soviet unions lost their job because of him. Hundreds were thrown into prison and dozens were murdered. This was the environment in which he came up with his experiment in domestication which is an experiment in genetics. They knew all too well how dangerous it was to do this. One of those two dozen people were wha murdered was his brother who is an upandcoming geneticist. He would be careful with his experienc experiment because it involved a lot of people and he didnt want to put other people at risk. He decided he was, start. He doesnt have time and money to begin of fullblown experiments in the 50s. They work with a couple dozen boxes, choose the famous ones and they watch you after your to see whether or not, does it look like they are getting tamer over the generations and the answer was yes. What had happened was he was offered a position as a vice director of a new giant institute of biology that was being built in siberia. It was part of a place thats known as the academic village. Basically what happened was some leading scientists of the day cleared out a large chunk of siberian forest and built two dozen worldclass institutes. Everything from biology to chemistry to figure physics and he was going to be vice director of the biology institute. So now he is going to have the power and the money to start a fullblown experiment. What he wont have is the time. He will have tremendous Administration Duties and what he needs to do is find a young scientist who can lead the fullblown silver fox domestic experience. Before he leaves moscow to start in siberias he visits moscow state university. He talked to some colleagues, he tells them heres what i want to do. Every generation im in a select the common fox and do this domestication experiment. I need a young scientist to help me. One of the people that comes in. [inaudible] at this time he is 25 years old. She is just finishing her undergraduate degree. She comes in on the interviews for and they remember the interview as if it happened yesterday. She said i want you to build a dog out of a fox and he laid out the experiment. Every generation we will look to see if we get tamer and tamer animals. By this time it was not quite as powerful as it was before but he still decides to make an issue of it and he could thrown in prison. Everybody knew that, but she was touched up he understood this was a dangerous endeavor. He also told her, i think im onto something here. It could take ten years or 20 years or your whole life before you find something interesting, but she was hooked. She wanted to be involved so she takes her husband and their 2yearold daughter they take a train ride from moscow to siberia to begin the fullblown experiment. Now, shes going to work at this institute of biology that is still not a place where they can run an experiment with the silver foxes. She has to travel around the soviet union and visit these fox farms that exist mostly for breeding foxes further for and there are hundreds of these owned by the government. Just to find the right place that she can start the domestication experiment. Eventually she settled on a place about 225 miles south of where she was. An overnight train ride, four times a year she would go there, sometimes for weeks or months to start the experiment. This place is a massive fox farm. At any given time there could be 10000 foxes there. It was a cash cow for the government. When she went there and said what she wanted to do, the director looked at her like she was crazy. Why would anybody want to waste their time domesticating foxes when all this money exists in terms of fox for. They said okay fine you can work with a couple hundred foxes. She starts the experiment. The protocol is pretty basic. Every morning at 6 00 a. M. She gets up and she starts. She moves from fox caged fox cage and shes forced the foxes on how tame they are. She scores him as she approaches the cage. Are they tame, neutral or aggressive. He scores, she opens the door to the cage and she scores the messy places something inside the cage. She does this for hundreds of foxes each year comes up with a composite score of all of how cold they are. Then she takes the top 10 of the coldest males in the top 10 of the team as females and she breeds them. Some of them were a little calmer, some of them were hyper aggressive. Even after a couple years she was seeing hints that the experiment might work. Even after a couple generations of reading the fox was calm enough that she could pick it up and hold him in her arms. Every generation she did this in every generation they got slightly calmer and tamer as a function of the breeding. Then she had to come up with the classification system. She had class three foxes who were aggressive and never made the cut for breeding. Five generations later there are class to foxes that are tame enough to pick up but dont show any emotional response. Then there are class one. Their friendly and they display whinin behavior when she leaves and a tail wag when she approaches. These are the foxes making the cuts the next generation. A year later she has to come up with another category because the experiment is working so well. The class 1e, elite foxes. Six generations of the experiment they are pups that sought contact not only tail wagging but whining, whimpering and licking our hands in a dog like manner. Whats more, they werent only wagging their tails. They were wagging their curly tails. A few of the domesticated foxes have curly tails. Thats one of those traits that we see in lots of domesticated species. All the sudden it pops up in the foxes. You never choosing the animal based on whether they have a curly tail but its coming about as a function of choosing the calmest animals. The first of the trait in the domestication syndrome now pop up. A couple years later they secure the funds in the space to bring the experiment to the institute of biology. This is what the experimental fox farm looks like on a nice day in a siberian winter. There are about 50 fox and each shed are now her and her team are restricted to just working with them four times a year, they can work with them every day. Thats a plus. Another big plus is he is only a couple hours away and he can come interact with the foxes. Something special happens she can pick up the phone or jump in the car and bring him over to show him. One of the special things that happened very quickly was this bo data fox. He was the first of the domesticated fox to show floppy ears. In just a few of the tame foxes it existed, but over time it would grow. He looked so much like a dog. When she used to take the slide and show that talks around the soviet union, people would accuse him of putting a picture of a dog to convince them that the fox experiment was going well. So now we not only have animals that are getting tamer and tamer and calmer and, but they are now showing curly tails that they wag and floppy ears. He said what kind of wonder is this and thats what everyone who saw her said. As time and on, every generation they were getting slightly calmer and slightly tamer and they were seeing all types of other things emerge. By the mid 1970s, they found the pups of domesticated females open their eyes a day earlier than normal fox. They responded to sounds two days earlier. When she takes off her population geneticist hat and talks freely, she will say its almost as if the foxes were itching to interact with humans early. Another thing that was happening was females were extending their breeding season. The domesticated foxes were breathing a little earlier than normal and a little bit later so extended the. About a week in late january or february and they kept reading a cap breeding a couple days later. Its now appearing in the tame foxes. Strange color presents starting to emerge. These much like colors that we see in so many domesticated species, including a strange white star that often appears on the four head of the domesticated fox, if you know courses you know that sometimes this odd things happen in horse horses. And on and on and on. At this point they decide theyre going to expand the experiment at every generation they been selecting the calmest, tame as the animals. They will keep doing that but they will add another experiment align and what theyre gonna do is in this line they are going to choose the least tame, least calm animal. They will choose the fox that are most aggressive toward humans, not so much because theyre interested in aggression but because having this line of aggressive foxes will allow them to better understand their tame foxes. For example, in genetics, if you do breeding crosses between aggressive and tame foxes, you can understand something about the underlying genetics. More portly for us, what this line of aggressive foxes does is it allows them to address a question that is always sitting there under the surface when youre doing these kinds of experiments in genetics. This is an experience in behavior and genetics. When you do these experiments youre always worried about something. You think the changes you are seeing are due to underlying genetic changes that occur because you are breeding certain types, but youre always worried that Something Else might because in the changes you are seeing. Maybe pups learned by interacting with their moms and thats why some of them are more tame and others are more aggressive. Maybe theres something about the cocktail that you experience in your moms womb as you develop so that when youre born you act one way or another. Theres all sorts of other nongenetic things that might be explaining whats going on and you can never know that until you run an experiment, and the classic way to do this is to run whats known as a transplant experiment. So new it does this in basically, heres the setup. That involves pairs of female foxes, one pair is attained fox and one is an aggressive fox. Theyre pregnant, there about a week pregnant and theres many of these pairs. What she does as she learns through intricate surgery thats necessary and what she does is she transplants half of the developing embryos from the aggressive fox into the tame fox uterus and half of the tame fox developing embryos into the uterus of the aggressive fox. So now each of these foxes is holding their own developing biological offspring plus foster offspring. This is critical because this allows you the power to know is what youre seeing due to genetic change or is it due to Something Else because you can look at the pups when theyre born. If the pups behave like their genetic mom even when they are raised in the uterus of the opposite kind of female, then that tells you their behavior is due to underlying genetics. You look at the behavior of the foster pups to see two they act like their foster mom or do they act like their biological mom. Of fact like their biological mom, changes you are seeing are due to genetics. So she does this and let me just show you, the first problem she had which was this. Yup she can go in and transfer one week old embryos from one fox to the other, but when they give birth, how is she going to know which offsprings are which. Fortunately the foxes themselves present the answer. The coke color of the mom and dad will show the coat color of the offspring. They color code themselves so they know whos who. Let me just show you one example of what she found. Heres her description of a crutch of pups born to an aggressive moms. This is what she was describing what happened. Everybody, theyre all waiting for them to give birth and theyre waiting for the pups to get old enough that they can just watch them and heres what we know happened. It was fascinating. The aggressive mother had both tame and aggressive offspring. Her tame offspring were barely walking and if there is a human standing by, they were already rushing to the cage doors and wagging their tails. She, the mother was punishing her foster offspring for such improper behavior. She growled at them, grab their neck, threw them back into the corner of the nest and what do they do but get up, walk over to the front of the cage and start licking the hands of humans. This is exactly what you would expect if tame this is due to genetic changes. Furthermore they described with the other pups did. The biological, the genetic pups that were born to this aggressive mother. They retained their dignity. One of my favorite phrases, growling aggressively the same as mothers and running to their nest. They behaved like their genetic mom and the foster pups behave like their genetic mom. The changes they are seeing are due to underlying genetics. The experiment is working. Its working so well that she now decides to push it as far as it can go. She wants to know just how far among the path of domestication they have come in so she goes with this audacious idea. There is this tiny little house on the experimental farm. She says i want to move in the house and i want to live with one of the tame females 24 hours a day, the way we live with our dogs. Okay. She has the perfect fox in mind. The foxes name which means tiny ball of fuzz, and this is the only known picture of him being petted. From the moment she opened her eyes, she was the most calm social of the foxes she had ever met. She knew from then that this would be the foxes would move into the house, but she waited a year because she waited for the fox to be pregnant. Now she could move in and watch her but she could also watch her pups who, from the moment they were born would be interacting with humans, the way that we interact with our dog pups. She would take notes. Heres the experiment too, the outside of the experiment a house. It still stands today 45 years later. This experiment is 1974. On the inside, it might be hard to see but its rebel now. Nonetheless, when i was there and it was minus 35 degrees outside and there were 3 feet of snow on the ground, she insisted that she give me a tour of the inside of the house, and she went from room to room saying here is where i used to pet her. Heres where the pups used to play this game with me as if she was reliving it. She lived with them exactly the way you would live with your dogs, playing with them and letting them run outside in the yard without a leash. They would respond to their name. So theyre living together and about three months later, in july of 1974, something extraordinary happens. Its the summer and while this is what it looks like in the winter in siberia and actually gets quite hot. You get 90 degrees. So every night she would sit out on a little bench outside the experiment a house with the book reading around 6 00 p. M. This is july 1974 and every night when she did this the fox would lay by her side and she would read and pet the fox each night. Before this night lots of people had come to visit. It had sort of become a celebrity house and whenever a vip would come around they would bring the vip to the house and let them see the fox and everything was always perfect. The domesticated fox always behaved in a hyper friendly way to humans. But on july 15 she was sitting outside reading her book and heres what happened. Every night there is a watchman who comes around to make sure everything is fine on the farm, but they had just hired a new guard, a new watchman that nobody knew. This person was approaching in a brisk pace that might be interpretive as being somewhat aggressive and the fox sees this. She stands up, she bolts toward the night watchman and begins barking exactly the way a dog barks. She had never heard the fox bark like this. Her immediate thought was she is protecting me, but she had to step back and say wait a minute, its easy to infer those things, i know better. Then Something Else happened. As soon as she began talking to the garden a calm voice and it was clear that she was not in danger. She went back down and sat next to the bench and waited for her to pet her again. She is convinced that she was standing up to defend her. Are there other conclusions, sure, but from that night on she knew she would never leave that experiment and she never has. Let me go and try to tell you some of the other remarkable things that have happened in the six permit. I mentioned to you before that one of the things that happen in the mid 70s was that the domesticated fox were breeding a little earlier and continuing to breathe a little later. In the mid 1980s, something remarkable happens. Some of the domesticated females were ready to breed a second time. Not only in the normal time of january but in september. They were in estrus. They were ready to breed. That year there were no domesticated males. The next year a few more domestic females were ready to meet in september and that year some of the males would meet and when she mated those pairs and those females gave birth to not one but two. Think about the restructuring of the reproductive system thats necessary for that to happen. All as a function of them being selected on whether they are tame and call. Remarkable. Whats more, these animals were beginning to look eerily doglike. For example, when you look at their faces, when you think of a wild fox you think of this lon long when you measure the faces of the domesticated fox, they have around or more doglike snout. Whats more, their bodies also changed. Another thing you think of a fo fox, when you think of wild fox is they have these really hostile limbs that allow them to move around easily. All of this as a result of selecting on behavior and only behavior. As time went on and new tools became available she began working with people to understand the underlying molecular genetic changes that happened during domestication. And so, she worked with a woman and they looked at domestication at the genetic level. They asked all sorts of questions. One of them was this. If you look at the fox genome, do you find that the changes associated with domestication are localized in one area or do they kind of spread everywhere and when they asked that question, they found any of those traits associated with domestication were located on fox chromosome 12. Thats interesting to know where they are. More interesting is at the same time, people who work on dog domestication were asking the exact same question in dogs and so now they could compare the underlying molecular genetics of dog domestication and fox domestication, and what they found was amazing. There are different numbers of chromosomes and boxes and dogs, but you can, easily map out the fox chromosome 12 is found on parts of three different dog chromosome scene right here. One of these is where most of the underlying genetic change that occurred in dog domestication is found so even at that deepest level, it looks like they are mimicking what happened in dog domestication. I might finish up with one last treat. Before i show you the trait, heres why its my favorite. The straight to not appear until the experiment had been going on for 45 years. Today, if you worked on the same exponential system for 20 years you would be giving a litime achievement award. If you had done that you wouldnt even come close to finding what were going to see here. Its hard to imagine anything more perfect in a domesticated pet than what we will see here. One of her colleagues was studying the sounds that these foxes made. What they found was this. The tame foxes, and only the tame foxes made two kinds of vocalizations. One of them sounds like this. Can you hear that at all . That sound, if you map it onto a spectrogram is the closest sound to human laughter that any nonhuman species makes. It is hard to imagine a more perfect thing to have in your domesticated species than this. They dont know the details. They dont know how this emerged. They dont know why it emerged, but the fact that it did is almost too remarkable. If you ask her today, 58 years later about her aspirations, her hopes and dreams for the experiment, and believe me, i asked her, which will tell you is a number of things. First of all she wants is registered as official house pets. Right now there are a few dozen that live in houses but theyre considered exotic. Theres a board that allows you to certify something of a house pet. She wants him to be certified as a house pet. She wants more of them to be living with people in their houses. The other thing she will tell you is one day i will be gone and i want my foxes in the experiment to live forever. I know i do and i hope you do as well. If you have a question, please come up to the microphone and ill be happy to answer for you. While we do this, i will put a few domesticated foxes playing in the snow up there for you to enjoy. Any question. Do they shed a lot. Yes. There are two problems associated with them becoming true houseguests. They shed a lot and they really stink. This is the problem, but the third problem is they get so excited about interacting with humans that they be all over you, all the time. Aside from those little things, they are trainable, they will fetch, they will do everything your dog will do. You have a question of whether. The question is was she involved as a collection that was occurring at the time . In the sense that basically they tried to convince everyone when the soviet union is starving to death because of various policies like collectivization, he is saying his brand of genetics that has long been disproven would allow them to produce crops at a level that would feed everyone else. They made up data so it would appear that was the case. How do they explain away the experiment . Basically what they did is they told the authorities that they were working on fox physiology and fox for her. That was something they were all keeping track of. They kind of knew what was going on but so much money was coming into the soviet union that they kind of turned the other way. They flew under the radar. There was a number of instances we talk about in the book with ailments got shut down. It didnt happen but it was razor thin, it was only because of the daughter who convinced him not to Pay Attention to what he was saying, this is when he was beginning to wane in power so he didnt close the experiment down, but almost did. At one point you were talking about how he was approached by a strange caretaker or something somethings. I can understand what happened. Every night a guard will come around to make sure everything was okay on the farm. That night the guard was a new one. Nobody had seen him before and so when they were approaching, she was doing so in a fairly brisk way that might be associated, mightve been interpreted as aggressive, and thats when the fox bolted toward the guard and began barking the way a dog will bark when they were protecting the master. David. Thank you for a wonderful presentation. My question is about the genetics. Now that we have new Genetic Technologies and we know where , roughly on the commas on these genes are located, could you comment on whether or not we can imagine taking american foxes or others in using this insight to shortcircuit some of those decades and produce some animals that were domesticated. Its a good question. Only touched on some of the genetics they are doing. Most of the changes they see are not replacement of one gene by another but rather differences in how active they are. Gene expression patterns, thats where most of the action is. Im not sure if you take that information to create an experiment we got domestication faster. I suppose in principle, its possible if you could use other technologies to insert or delete particular sections, you might be able to speed up the process but i dont know theyve ever thought about that but i could ask and get back to you. Today have other longterm interest is. Many but if you go to the other side of the experiment of fox farm where i was showing you the pictures, there are hundreds of minks. For the past 40 years, they have been running the equivalent of the domestication experiment using minks. Selecting the call missed in one line and the most aggressive in the other and they find results that are remarkably parallel. When you select for calm, tame minks you get them but you also get changes in color and facial structure that parallel what happened in the foxes. Theyve actually also done the same domestication experiment in rats, selecting for tame rats, aggressive rats, again you get the behavioral differences but you get all those other differences as well. In the book we talk about working ideas on why thats so. One thing i havent told you is okay, they select for behavior and lo and behold they get these other things with domestication, but why . Whats going on that allows that. We dont have time to get into the details but their understanding how all these things are connected. Other questions . Thank you so much for allowing me to tell you the story. [applause] how long were you over there. I was basically over there for a couple weeks each time in russia. Her team is phenomenal. I wish i could get her to come over here but she has some medical issues that allow her to fly. You can buy the book, yes, great question. [inaudible] straight out toward the capital you pass a big ten. [inaudible] we are talking cortisol, not only cortisol but thats one of the very easily interpreted findings because basically, at the hormonal level when youre selecting for tame animals, youre essentially selecting low cortisol levels, but its not only that. Theyve also found the other side of the coin in addition to having low stress hormones they have high levels of all sorts of chemicals that are associated with happiness so serotonin, dopamine, all those things, they have higher levels than typical foxes do. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] you been listening to evolutionary biologist. We will be back with more from the southern festival of books in a few minutes. Next up is radio talkshow host and founder of red state, eric erickson. For tv tapes hundreds of author programs Rough Country all year long. Heres a look at some of the events we cover this week. Monday we are at the New York Historical site he to hear the founder and ceo Success Academy charter school. Eva discusses her experiences with the u. S. Education system. Later that night we will be out word bookstore in new jersey where diana will describe the events leading up to the worst day in wall street history. October 19, 1987. Back to manhattan for the personal and political life of president Herbert Hoover at the roosevelt house. Also in boston, katie will share her experiences covering the trump campaign. On thursday will be at the Jewish Museum on the life of golda meier, israels fourth prime minister. On sunday we are at the west coast in San Francisco for the 2017 american book award. Thats a look at some of the events book tv will be covering this week. Many of the events are open to the public. Look for them to air in the near future on the tv, cspan2. Good morning. How are you today. As soon as i heard gig, i said i know who this is spread this is the famous. [inaudible] its so good to hear your voice. Thank you for your work and the discussion youre having around this whole german nazi issue. As you and i both know, every german during that time period, if you wanted to buy bread you had to have a nazi card so it wasnt really a matter of choice. The thing that i really would love for you to talk about is the notion of, you touched upon it briefly, binary choices, and where i live here in Northern California the bay area, there is a growing population of people who call themselves progressives, and it seems to me that term has been hijacked to the point where, its really at the exclusion of god. Its progression toward the notion that yes we are making our culture better, we are progressing but its to include everything except god as the focal point and centrality issue. Id love to hear you talk a little bit about how progressives are collecting and hijacking what it means to be alive and working in gods kingdom. Before we hear from him, tell us about yourself. As eric well knows, my grandfather was also in the german military. He was one of those in the german resistance. Another relative an uncle is also in the german conspiracy against hitler, and another uncle was the german ambassador to russia and is the architect of the nonaggression pact. All three were found guilty of treason when the famous bomb plot failed and they were all executed. These things are very near and dear to my heart. I just think eric for exposing a lot of these things that there are really some brave germans. The sad truth is that i think eric mentioned germany has been paying this notion of guilt, this debt of guilt for so long and youre right. You can never get past that. I was gonna say, if guild didnt take himself, his family are heroes. His family, they gave their lives to defeat not see is him from the inside. Many gave their lives are were tortured horribly to stand against hitler. That brings us to the larger question i think people of good faith in america. I think people understand that when they take to the streets in violence and when the Democratic Party on the angry bitter left, you will have problems. Something has happened. It does seem to me that the anger, the gloves off incivility tells you something. Even if you didnt agree with Martin Luther king junior, the nonviolence would give you pause to say theres something there. These people look so humble and so noble and so dignified. When you have people behaving like animals, even if you agree with them, you are disinclined from supporting them because you dont approve of what theyre doing. I think theres a lot of young people who are angry and looking for an excuse to break something and they know i can smash a columbus statue and nobody will prosecute me. It is troubling to me. I do blame the news media coverage. Ive been really, incredibly grieved by the New York Times in the last year or so. They printed an article in effect excusing the violence as defensive or people who are willing to fight if necessary. That is rank nonsense. They ought to be condemning this. This is not going to lead to a better america were to a safer america. I think we have to be fair you better condemn everybody who is an idiot and his willing to divide the country along these lines. Its really, were in a bad spot, and of good people on the left dont stand up and if good journalists dont emerge to do their job, we are in big trouble. We depend on journalists to do their job. Its not your job to take down this president , its your job to tell the truth, and if you cant tell the difference, you should get on the journalism business. We are really in need of honest journalism today. Im really concerned about the state of the union because of that. You can watch this and other programs online booktv. Org. Heres a look at some of the current bestselling nonfiction books. Topping the list is pastor john with his thoughts on making the Christian Community more inclusive in a bigger table. Followed by we were eight years in power, an examination of race, the Obama Presidency and the election of donald trump. After that, in braving the wilderness, social scientists asks what it means to belong. Fourth is Hillary Clinton with her thoughts on the 2016 president ial election. Followed by the landscape that inspired the little house story in the story of laura ingle wilder. We continue with astrophysics for people in a hurry. Followed by petty, recount of the late rock musician tom petty. After that in strong inside, andrew recalls the collegiate years of harry wallace, first after american basketball player in the fec. The coowner of produces books with her memoir, this is a story of a happy marriage. Wrapping up our look at bestsellers, according to parnassus books in nashville is katie you are watching the tv on cspan2. [inaudible conversations]. My name is nathan but 3 and i will be your host for an hour here. I want to welcome everybody who is watching on booktv to the southern festival of books sponsored by humanities tennessee. I want to say thank you to all those who donate, your individual donations make this event possible. Thank you very much. If you would like to make