Transcripts For CSPAN2 In Depth In Depth Highlights 20240713

South of tulsa about 60 miles south. My father and mother moved there about 1911 or 12 because he had had experiences in shreveport, louisiana. These are as red experiences that were not present. He was ready to give up on the white people because the way they treated him. He had been thrown out of court in shreveport, louisiana. So he retreated from shreveport and where he was practicing and went to an allblack town. Due to the humiliation he experienced in shreveport. They moved to in about 1912. What was that experience like . It was not all that much better because although the strife that was going on separated the methodist from the baptists and the baptists were hard on my mother and father because they were methodist. And the result was, the strife was not racial, but religions. Not at all convenient or comfortable. I was born there. They lived there for several years after i was born. But they were not happy there. Not nearly because of the hostility but because it was such a Small Community that it was not practical for a lawyer to pursue his profession there. So my father moved on to tulsa, oklahoma. Left us behind and we went to the school where my mother was teaching. We went to move on to tulsa at the end of that school year. And the family would be put back together, so to speak. The tulsa riots happened in 1921. We were just about to move to tulsa and we were all packed as a matter of fact. We were waiting from my father to get us to get us on the train where he had already made arrangements. Secure the house and that sort of thing. We waited for him and he never came. Access to television or telephone or anything of communication, we simply didnt know what had happened. Finally, my mother read in the newspaper in the daily phoenix that there was a race riots in tulsa. And that there were many casualties. That increased her anxiety and apprehension even more. She wondered whether he was really living. We wondered if he was living or dead. It was about 10 days later that she got a brief letter from him saying he was all right. He was unharmed. Except that everything he had acquired, his law office was burned to the ground. The house he acquired was burned to the ground and that he had been in detention for those days and couldnt get in touch with us. This was his first contact. He said he didnt know when he would be there. It would be some time before he could make it down there. What was even more important i suppose was, he was saving that as an opportunity to make good contact with victims of the riots. He was suing the city and suing the Insurance Companies on behalf of his new clients. That kept him busy. He was practicing law in attendance at that time. The entire black community was burned to the ground so the only thing to do was practice in a tent. What sparked that riot . A young black man who was accused of assaulting, a sexually assaulting a white woman in an elevator. He had been acquitted. But the White Community felt justice had not been served. And that most of the white people felt all the blocks should be taught a lesson. Although he had been in jail and was being accused of this crime. The white people said they would get him out of jail and commit the kind of harm to him that would teach all the black people in the community a lesson. So the black Community Felt he would be seized and lynched. Large numbers of black people went back to the courthouse, armed. They were about to take him and give him protection when they were assured nothing would happen to him. And that they should go back to that part of town. Which they were willing to do but as they retreated from the courthouse. Someone fire the gun and the rest is history. Good afternoon and welcome to in depth. Our guest is john hope franklin. Author and coauthor of 17 books. Well known for his book, from slavery to freedom. His most recent is his autobiography. We will begin taking your calls in just a few minutes. You can see the number on the screen. If you live in mountain or pacific time zones, and book tv cspan. Org is our email if youd like to ask a question. My mother taught in elementary school. And then in where i was born. Shortly after i was born, i suppose within three years, she took charge of me and took me to school with her every day. Put me in the back of the room. Give me a pencil and paper and told me to be quiet. I was quiet. And she was teaching the children and had the alphabet on the board. So i copied those things on the board. When she was going around one day to see what the children were doing. She came back to see what i was doing and i have the alphabet and my letters and some simple sentences. She was astounded to learn i had taken in everything she was teaching. Im not certain when i learned to read and write but i guess it was at that time that i learned to read and write. From that point on, i was a student. House where was it to be an africanamerican in 1915 and have two pallets that were College Graduates . I suppose it was fairly rare. The africanamerican colleges and universities founded in the reconstruction. Were scattered throughout the southern states. And the last part, the last decade of the 19th century, statesupported schools, particularly ferguson. Of the law that brought an end to whatever move was made in the direction of whites and blacks being together. This separated races entirely and completely. States began to establish schools, colleges for africanamericans in the last decade of the 19th century. And so, by that time, youve got state schools, and schools established by their religious denominations and and they are scattered throughout the south. Some of them are fairly good and others were borderline i think its fair to say. And many were inferior. But you didnt have large numbers of blacks going to colleges from secondary school. It was rather remarkable. You had a very interesting point because it bears on what happened many decades later. And that is that more young black women were going to college then young black men. Men could fend for themselves parents believed. But young black girls could not fend for themselves in a world that was primarily a white world where they could become exploited. Become victims of white activity or exploitation or whatever. Much more care was taken educating the young black women. This is a trend that will continue for many decades to see. There was never a time as many black men were exposed to education in terms of Higher Education as young black women. Your grandparents were slaves . My grandparents were slaves. My father and grandmother on my mother side were slaves. My grandmother and my grandfather and my father side were slaves in mississippi. Where my grandfather as a young man crew what and married my grandmother. He became, after freedom, he became a rancher. [indiscernible] i got hooked on orchids. When i was at the university of hawaii. I was living in brooklyn. Thats when i really got started then. I had a good friend called [indiscernible] he taught me a great deal about growing orchids. He went to chicago from there and had a much larger greenhouse. And i grew up about 15 years. Then i came to in 1980 and built my first really substantial hobby greenhouse. And its sort of my dream greenhouse. Although sometimes i want a larger one. Anything larger than 17 feet wide and 24 feet long, you will become a slave to the orchids. Although i do grow and i have some some ferns and so forth. Banana trees. All kinds of things. Primarily orchids. Not blooming now but they are orchids. They are getting ready to bloom. I have orchids blooming all the time. These have been blooming for a year, nonstop. Its really remarkable. Even i am enjoying that long. This blooms all the time and i enjoy it so much. Where do you acquire these orchids . I brought some of these in from you get a permit from the department of agriculture and get some from brazil and some from the far east. Southeast asia. Some from the caribbean. All over. The good thing about coming into the green house every day, you see something today that you didnt see yesterday. I got this in bombay in 1976. It blooms every year. It will be blooming in february. Been taking care of that for 30 years. Yes. Ive got offspring out of it too. It sends out little plants, break them off and put them in a pot. The orchid i brought from bombay, india in 1976. This is which is getting ready to send out its new sleeves. This little fellow will grow up to be like these and then it will be blooming. The mayor of all fault gave me this. When i was there a few months ago. Its not blooming now but it was full bloom then. This is the orchid named for me. Its called lily of john hope franklin. These are named for my wife. They were developed by a place in south carolina. They were friendly and very fond of my wife. They wanted to do something in her memory. And they did that. Do think its an important thing for a historian to have a hobby like this . I think its important for everyone to have a hobby. Orchid growing is always challenging. You learn a lot. If a person didnt have a scientific botanical background, its always fascinating. Im enthralled by the orchids. Ive always been interested in growing things. My mother was a gardener. She likes to grow things and i follow her around when i was a little boy. So this is a continuation of that. It was a bestselling Nonfiction Book of the year in 1980. It sold over 1 million copies is it still on the market . Is still on the market and is still available. How many languages has it been translated to . I dont remember but i think like 20. That book was published in 1962. Its capitalism and freedom. Its sold well over half 1 million copies. The reason i mention that. Before they were first published, it was not reviewed. In the tribune at that time which was a major paper. It was only reviewed in the the reason is no doubt because of the fact it was in defense of capitalism and defense of free markets and that was not a popular topic at that time. [indiscernible] thats my wifes and my memoirs. How long have you been married . About 62 years. She was born as a matter of fact. I dont know what it is now, i think it is ukraine. She came to the United States just before world war i. As a child. But her birth certificate had been lost. It was burned up in the First World War wherever it was held in that town in east europe. Went up in flames. Theres a question of whether shes one year younger than i am or when youre older. In that book, you say you dont read the new york times. Very seldom. These days i read it more because i can bring it up on the net. Why is that . First of all that i live out here in San Francisco so i read local newspapers. When we lived in new york, i did read the new york times. In general, i have found its much too wordy for my purposes. I dont have time enough to read it. And im not very sympathetic with their general editorial position. In your lifetime, what other authors have had a impact on you . Probably the writer was we talked about that on book notes. Did you know him . Oh yeah, sure. Very well. I first met him in 1946 i think. Why was that book so important . It was not simply the road to it was the other books he wrote. It was because it helped me organize my thoughts about the way in which society should be organized about what was special about free society. What were the essential prerequisites of a free society. I was generally sympathetic to those ideas but was a very deep thinker. You cant read him without thinking. And you cant think without having your basic ideas honored. When did he die . Im not sure of the exact date. Must have been 1015 years ago. He was born and i think 1986 and he lived too, i think the age of 90. Who in your lifetime have you most disagreed with when it came to economic theory and this whole subject matter you write about . Obviously the marks and the socialists. But to pick out a single name, i should mention, the people that influenced me of the equally greater influence was arthur burns. Who was chair of the Federal Reserve system. He was my teacher when i was a graduate at rutgers university. Had an enormous influence on me. I mentioned, frank and item. Those people had a great influence on me. In your book, the two lucky people. Your autobiography. You mention the whole discussion for the nobel prize that you won. It took a number of years for you to get it. What impact did that have on you . It really didnt. I cant say it did. What about once you got it . The impact was not on me. Dont think you have much impact on the as a person. But it did alter my opportunities and made me much more visible and available. For the last two hours, your husband has all the same. He usually does. I heard it all. I never like to talk very much. He does the talking. Why is that . I dont know. Its in my jeans. Your picture is on the book. And i had an equal role in writing it. But i never thought id go out to speak about it and i refuse to be on the Television Program. I was very careful i did a lot of the planning. Nothing was done in advance. Then i got out of the way. Do you have any reason why you dont like to speak . No. I dont really like to compete. He speaks well. Hes done it all his life so why should i compete with him . I asked him why it has worked. Thats one of the reasons. Weve never competed with one another. What about economics in your life . I was trained fine. When we got married, my idea of being married, at least at the very beginning was very different than what people these days feel about getting married. What was it . I did not attempt to have a career to equal my husbands. And where did your family come from . My family came from what was russia when we were there. Its now its not russia anymore. Its the ukraine i guess. I never really kept much track of what happened because i was an infant when i left and i really have no ties to that part of the world. Where did you grow up . In portland, oregon. How did your parents get there . Under what circumstance . I guess the main reason was our relatives were there. My father came to the United States twice. The second time, he earned enough money to send for the rest of us. You went to the college for a couple years. Why did you transfer . Primarily because my brother was really responsible for my complete education. He wanted me to go with him to chicago when he first went to their on a very modest fall every modest salary. My mother thought i was too young and she wouldnt let me leave. And i graduated from high school. My brother persuaded her that i was old enough and that he was going to be there. So i went to chicago. Do you remove the first time you met this man . Yes i do. University in the first graduate course. Professor you heard this story so many times probably. He arranged the class alphabetically so he could identify people. His name began with s and mine with the. So we sat next to each other. And i was the only girl in the class. [indiscernible] this was graduate school. In the 30s, very few women went into graduate school. You told me briefly that you completed the work for your doctorate but didnt get your phd. Why not . Why not. I worked on it for one year after we were married but during that year i also had a job. So i didnt get a great deal done. After that we moved around from one place to another. One year in wisconsin, one year in and washington and one year in new york. I forget what the sequence was. We decided we wanted to have a family and that took a long time. How many kids . Only two but we lost the first one. First one was lost at delivery. So that took one year of my life. Then i went back to washington and went to work again and quit with the hopes that would help to produce a child. Where are your two children today . Our daughter has been in california. Ever since she went to berkeley. She decided then she was never going to leave california and she never has. Then she went to Berkeley Law School and got her degree there and started practicing in San Francisco. And she stayed there. Your son david, weve had on book notes. He was in the chicago chicago 456 years. We are going to the phones shortly and our guests here on booktv are doctor Milton Friedman and rose friedman. On the cover of free to choose which i guess is your most successful. Yes. What do you remember about working together on this book . It was very easy. We had the Television Program notes. In the book was written from that. So each started with one chapter and added for the next person to go over the chapter. So we went back and forth that way. So in the end, we really dont know who wrote which words. That was probably finished in the shortest time because we had a deadline for it. He wanted out to be available for the Television Program, when it was shown. So we started in march 1979 and we got it to the publisher by labor day. They got us published by january which is when the tv program started. What does she do that you dont what does he due, that you dont . We both tie. We both use the computer now. We talked about aging. Both of you 80 years old. Are you surprised how well you do. For those that cant see these two people, they move a well move around like nobody else. Many say we are bouncing around. I dont think we bounce around. I dont have the energy i used to have. Getting old is no fun. Is there any advice for people if they knew they would live to 88. If you knew you would live this long, would you have done anything differently . I think live more extravagantly. We were always saving up pennies. My brother used to say we were always saving pennies for a rainy day that never came. He would say youre saving your pennies for a rainy day and living in a perpetual drizzle. Did you agree in the beginning . We learned from the same teachers. Our home, he grew up very much in the same kind of home. And there was no reason, one should go one way and the other should go the other way. Go ahead please. Hello. Hello doctor friedman. Which doctor friedman . Either of them. Ive a question ive been wanting to ask someone knowledgeable about this situation for a long time. Seems to me with all this push for a minimum wage that thats going to automatically lead to galloping inflation. I havent heard anyone comment on this. Its just my own idea. What do you think . The question is whether or not the minimum wage will lead to galloping inflation if you raise it. I dont think it will lead to inflation but a lot of unemployment. Why . Because people for hiring these people dont feel they can pay the more. Therefore they would reduce their employees. At this time in washington, there is a sense that theyre going to pass an increase. Why are the republicans going to go along with this . Theyre going along with everything these days. Because its superficially politically profitable. On the surface things look very good. After all, whats wrong with raising minimum wage. The problem is the indirect effects which are unseen. More than counterbalance the good. If you raise the price, you will buy less of it. Whether its sugar, automobiles, whatever. If wages are higher, now how will that lead to inflation for theirs element in truth to what this gentleman is saying. If you raise in which to much and cause massive unemployment, theyll be great pressure to do something about that unemployment. What would that pressure lead to . It would lead to inflation as a way of really reducing the real value of that minimum wage. Prices have been going up. You havent had much inflation but youve had 35 percent over the last few years. 6. 15, two years from now is probably about the same level of real minimum wage of 5. 15. This place, in place of a live callin program, weve opened up archives to present highlights from our monthly program, in depth. Next, heres a look at studs terkel that appeared in april 2001 to discuss his work and take calls from viewers. Einstein is celebrated, thats true. Theres no meaning to the word, celebrity. No point in interviewing them. So the ordinary people are capable of extraordinary things i found out. Whether you question world war ii or their daily work, matter of race, aging. In a sense, my motto was a contemporary charles dickens. And henry menu was a prototype of mccarver. This guy tapped into the voices of people who were the chimney sweep, the seamstress, made. He was astonished at what he found out. When alex the dutch wrote roots, the first thing he wants to do was visit the land of his forbearers in west africa and speak to all of the historians. So, what ive been doing is ancient except that i have a tape recorder. One guy with a tape recorder was richard dixon. I described him and myself as. That is, i take, therefore i am. In any event, thats what i do. I give voice i suppose, to the voiceless. Where do you write . I write and i dont write. I do combination but i improvise at my house with a typewriter. Electric typewriter which is a tremendous advance for me. Most of my letters are written long hand. He mentioned computer to me, thats what you said . Im sort of a i believe in the refrigerator because where else can i freeze my martini glass. I was saved by technology. I had a quadruple bypass about four years ago. Were it not for that, id be dead and here i am condemning technology. I have a hearing aid. This is state of the art its called. Doesnt do any good. A bionic man thats not quite formed yet. Its an experiment. We are flying without a net. How did somebody born lewis get the name instead . I loved back in the 30s, about a chicago guy. And his life was wasted and i was taken with that trilogy of books. But it got me in trouble once. When i did working, there was a fireman in the book. And he told me and so, this is a letter i got from a librarian in georgia. The life of a librarian is not too exciting but when he wrote the book working, one of the people that worked for me was a spy. And looked for dirty words. He said ms. Cooper, a request has come for a book. He said we dont carry pornographic literature. She said whats the name of the book . She said by studs terkel. Thats when i knew i had a bestseller. Lent us money to rent a rooming house. [indiscernible] the wpa writers project had a civic servant for a time in washington. Making thats the lowest. I became an actor by accident. A chicago gangster in radio soap operas. They were all the same. Guiding light was about all the same script. Many jobs, lousy tenure. One thing led to another and i became a disc jockey before that word was used. I love the jazz and i was eclectic. Id play classical jazz, a takeoff on operas. [indiscernible] that kind of program. One thing led to another. Finally i wound up on this Radio Station interviewing people. Called one day and said you should do this more often. I says, what . Interview people. Some of my interviews appeared in a magazine of the station. The new press called me one day and said i had an idea for a book and thats how it began. What was studs place . How can i describe it . It was a Radio Program about a neighborhood restaurant run by me, myself. Whos and wonderful actors played the waitress named beverly. He was a singer by the way. Chuck played the piano. Bluesy kind of guy. Without realizing it, the full aspects of American Life in these people. People thought there was a studs place. 20 years after it struck, they would say to me, where is the place . I said here. And that was it. It ran for a short time and then i got in trouble because mccarthy days, and as you gather, i have a big mouse. So i would talk about his anti [indiscernible]. I found all of these petitions in one day they come to me and say, you are valuable property. I like that phrase. I say, but theyre in trouble. Thats when i get smart and say, suppose communist come out against cancer. Must we automatically came out come out for cancer . In the first guy said thats not very funny. Finally they said, you are a fool. To this day, people say start, you are heroic. I dont know what they were talking about. I was scared. But my ego was at stake. My vanity was at stake. So its really my vanity that did it and i lost the job and was out for a while. [indiscernible] she says i must be the host of her program on cbs radio. He said youve got to sign this. I said i dont sign those things. And the blessed is that what i think it is. Anyways, she says to him, tell to find another you know what happened . He disappeared. Vanished. The show went on. Nobody said no back in those days. How old are you . I was born the year the titanic sank so may 16 i will be 88. So thats it. Youve got the story of my life. You were 45 when this book came out, giants of jazz. That was early. 1957. About that. Its for young people. King oliver to john coltrane. Written for young people. So Billie Holiday is in it and the duke of course. Then 1965 or so i got that phone call from and that is something else. Let me go back to the jazz book. You say jazz is the music of multitudes. So few famous, so many nameless. For more than 70 years, these musicians have been playing and singing jazz. Millions have been hearing it. If it only happened here in the u. S. Jazz, remember, he saw the series of ken burns. Its a good series. Jazz origins of course are africanamerican. It is an expression. Connected with spiritual with work songs. From slavery days on. It was improvisation. Using whatever means you can. Whether you had slaves or free. Blues is an aspect of jazz. And i love blues. [indiscernible] i love muddy waters. Blues, all the things i wanted to be but never got around to being. Book up this morning and blues was around my bed. Ate my breakfast. Blues is and these are all definitions. And came out in 1967. That was a big one. [indiscernible] he was forced out. It was during the time of the civil rights movement, antiwar movement. He published a book about a chinese village. What happened was in the chinese village, there was a revolution. I said are you out of your mind . Then they said how about a book about the depression. So i did that book. Thats how it began. Studs terkel will join us for the next two hours and 20 minutes. Our phone lines are open. 2027370002. You talk about this book hard times and in the book to write about an invisible scar during the depression. What are you talking about . Having certain quirks. [indiscernible] we are going downstairs to eat. Theyve got the lights going and the tv set going. He says what are you doing . You can buy a for jeanjacques csa csa gabor. But the big scar is one of keeping quiet. Im not telling that kid what its like. The only time kids are told, youve never had it so good. Wanting to work and not finding a job. To be on release, which is the equivalent of welfare. You were a teenager during the great depression. Officially began in 29. But in that day in 1929, i was in 1929, i was 17 years old. We worshiped the free market. And it was, too much of big government. I was talking to a guy who was the Adam Greenspan of his day. I said what happened . He said i dont know. You dont know . Guys jumped out of windows. They were waiting for some kind of announcement. The purpose of all these books is to recall history from the bottom up. Because we are suffering i think from a national alzheimers disease. In a sense, thats the reason we are doing this stuff. Highlights from our Interview Program in depth continues with Christopher Hitchens who appeared in 2007. In this portion of the program, we visit his apartment in washington d. C. Where he talked about his writing and habits. This apartment which wraps around the top floor was originally built with this wonderful [indiscernible]. The greatest distinction was that it was used by to film. The president ial motorcade goes up and we often hear it. All of these walls were covered with knockoff paintings with the treasures of the national gallery. I was really hoping that the producer would let me keep them but he had to take them away. Our little west village. So, ken mobilehomes on one side, guatemalan music, ethopian restaurants, on the other side and then counsel down connecticut avenue, book stores, cafes, restaurants, three starbucks. What youre witnessing these confluence of washington, dc, our nations great capital. Thats connecticut avenue, this is northsouth artery that runs from the white house up to maryland, crosses massachusetts of knew, lower down at dupont circle. That axis of the city. Due west is california street and this is columbia road curving around to adams more began district. The russian trade mission. Im told theres still an apartment in this building run by the National Security agency to monitor the goingson there from the days of the old soavity union. You probably cant see it but a on the honor is the russian compound, and thats domes in the woods of the naval observatory building where the Vice President wins. And the extreme west end of massachusetts avenue, embassy row. So a good reminder of the small size and centrality of the district of columbia. Then there in the the middle on this course is general mcclellan, president lincolns worst general. The man from whom heed a one point asked to borrow the money since the general appeared to have no you for it and was a defeatist. Ran against lincoln later as a pro slavery democrat. May have had secret simple pays with the other side. Makes me laugh because on his horse hes still pointing south in the wrong direction. A little reminder of our history. I tend do work at night and may not have gone to bed until 3 00. The next writing day will not start until noon but if you had to average a day it would blow like this, get up, try to inhale some coffee, forcing myself to eat oatmeal for cholesterol purposes, before lunchtime i wouldnt get much done except answering emails. And fending off whatever had accumulated. The world of telegrams in anger. Just coping with that. And then have lunch which i do reading by myself. The essential thing for being a writer is bag good reader. The main thing, never tire of saying, is to keep testing yourself against other writers who are better than you. Thats what qualifies one as a writer, i think, running the risk of having to say, i dont know why i bother. Think theres certain authors of whom one should have all their books even if you can borrow them from the library. I know i have in this apartment every single word George Orwell ever wrote, including his expenses reports to he to bbc, the lot. Everything that has ever been published by him. Most of james joyce. Not all of pg woodhouse. Some books of his that arent worth keep, seems almost blast familiar mouse to say. But karl marx, leon trotsky. A bit eclectic as you can see. Salman rushdie. Ian mccune. I have pretty much all of what theyve written. I like to think that i have a live rather than a job or a career. And its all to do with reading and writing. The only choosings i was ever good at and public speaking of thats how i make my living, but its also what i am, who i am, what i love, and fortunate for that because theres nothing else for that. Its not as if could have ban lawyer or doctor and chose this. This chose meful this is one of your more recent books, god is not great, how religion poisons everything. When you look through your body of work, the 18 books you have written, religion or atheism kind of permeates. Yes. There was the my check on mother teresa, me review of her, misspent life. In a way Thomas Jefferson is a lot to do with the origins of our First Amendment and the virginia statute of on religious freedom, and another recent little book of mine about thomas paine and his rights of man, has to discourse on his other great work, the age of reason. I think he for him most important of all for people to be free, they be free of superstition first. They liberate their minds from the what william gray called the mind forged, the things we rivet on sufferses, particularly the believe in the super narrowly. Was thomas pain an athiest. Guest no. Mr. Jefferson may privately happen been an eightist but they professed daytime, dsm. There was a create for them universe seems to of the order, rhythm, routine, before einstein darwin. This god didnt answer prayers, didnt intervene in politics and wars. Ous muss clam to know his mind, nonsensical position. Host who is mrs. Watt. Guest mrs. Jean watt was my nature and scripture teacher when i was eight. Until i was about 12. As a little Boys Boarding School in devonshire. Im one of those lucky ones who sent off to boarding school at the age of eight. Made a man of me, and she was a fine old lady, a widow, very little Cultural Education but she could take us on nature walks and show us this beauty of nature. Ed to bev able to tell tree, flower, plant, and then she would teach us scripture as literal truth more or less. Have to go through the bible. Its compulsory still in england to have religious instruction. And one day she overstepped her mark, vaulting ambition of mrs. Watt, trade to fuse her two roles and discussing vegetation, she pointed out it was largely green which you will have noticed, too, and we had noticed, and she said this is an excellent thing and proof of the glory of god because he could have made it orange or red or something loot that really clash with our eyes and green is the most restful color for or our eyes and how deposit of god to make trees and flowers and glass not the flower but trees and the grass that way. I that in my little corduroy shorts and thought thats absolute nonsense. Dont know anything about this point. Dont nor about chlorophyll. Dna. Nobody newt double helix. Its the other way around. Eyes adapted to the vegetation. So that was my first moment of thinking, im not sure i trust what the authorities are telling me about religion. Of course i thought i was the only one, as all of us do but you fine as you get oldermarks many people have the same experience. A perfect sunday morning conversation. Host were you raised in the church. Guest not very vigorousry. English education requires you go to devine service. Host what about your parents. No. My father was refugee from a very strict baptist family with a very temperature rannal operate trackal father of his own whom i remember quite wail. A brutal calvinist, and my mother was from a jewish family, originally from what is now poll land but would have been germ my when the left it germany and didnt want to be affirmatively jewish. Wanted to pass as english. And had succeeded in doing so. So nothing was inflicted on me hat home. Host when did you back u. S. Citizen . Guest on my birthday and mr. Jeffersons birthday. Host why. Why that day or i host whoa did you back u. S. Citizen. Guest i applied shortly after the attack on the United States in september of 2001. Snow, not shortly after. Not very long after. I made up my mind to do so anyway then. That and the arguments that came out of that and the clashes, especially the sudden european made me realize i had come to identify with the country i lived in with my country of adoption. And as gesture of solidarity because i thought i was cheating on my dues, i ought to take citizenship. Host do you miss england . Guest no. You have to in a way. Its only five hours away by plane, and going there tomorrow. A lot of my best friend are there even if i go somewhere else i stop there. So ive never regretted leaving. Songs i was quite young i had a very strong impulse to leave and to emigrate to the United States. Host youre well known as a smoker. Is a fivehour flight a long time for you snow no. Can go for much longer than that without smoking. Its a funny thing. Thats why its such a stupid habit. I dont really need it. I doesnt bert me now. Used to be able to smoke on chops, on cspan, unbelieve by. If you want to give me a glass of sherry because we must be getting toward lunchtime, that would be great. Host another one of your books, why orwell matters, why does he matter . Who was he. Guest George Orwell was an englishman born in 1983, the book came out in what would have been his centennial. Made eat into the second half of the 0. Under. Died january 1950 are completing 1984. What else was he . He was born into the upper middle class, not with any money or capital. Father had been the opium business in between British India and british china, in a sense an imperial drug dealer. Orwell briefly worked for the empire before he found imperialism disgraceful, and from then on identified basically with the victims of the british system, came for a while a tramp, an odd job, low page medium low wage met mood ya work, enwhen fascism came he went to spain and fought in defense of the national public. The leftist militia. In bars lone india. Shot to the throat by a fascist and shot in the book eye communist and wrote a book called homage to catalonia but the spanish civil war. The reason i say he is important is of all the write efforts the 20th century when the big three issues of that century were fascism, communism and imperialism, orwell was the only one to analyze all three of them correctly, with no mow resources than a perfect of average intel grigg and honest intellectual honesty. He never had a steady publisher or proper outlet. Often books were banned or suppressed or his articles were went unpublished. So he is my exemplary case of how much a single individual with a bit of nerve and literary an can do in a very short life. 46. Host if he war alive today who would he write for. I have played that game and you cannot people do because of his reputation for integrity, and appreciatens, people want to invoke him. Its not relevant to ask anytime because he would be more than 100 now so the game stops a bit before that. Host i want to show other books you have written over the years. This a long short war, the postponed liberation of iraq, rather short book, about iraq. Guest a pamphlet really. Host the trial of henry king king, do people still wang to talk about henry kissinger. Guest yes, they do. And they should. Because he still around. Hes still his advice is sometimes sought bit the administration, which if to in the case of iraq might explain how badly michigans are going and paul bremer, the catastrophic first pro council of post liberation was a member of Kissinger Associates and kissinger wrote in have to be careful with iraq because its a. Host well, speaking of dish. Guest it goes on. The malign. Still be felt all over the place. Host speaking of iraq the cspan book tv bus travels the country and goes to book fairs and book stores, and often times we ask people if they have a question for a guest. One gentleman that we spoke to had question for you about iraq. This is from garden city, idaho, outside of boise. My question for mr. Hitchens is, you were a strong supporter of the iraq war when it began and before hand. Could you maybe tell me how you feel and if you regret at all the [inaudible] and tony blair to do before. Guest i regret more not having argued more forcefully in 1991 when my view was rather different anyway, that sad saddam should have been removed earlier than he was. If we were to have an inquest on the war which i agree and a full accounting what went wrong and how statecraft failed us, then the inquest cannot begin with the george bushs intervention in 2003. The minimum must begin with the decision to leave Saddam Hussein in power in 1991. The socalled realist decision, kissingers friends, and another faction around the president himself, george bush senior and others. Thats where things went creditly wrong could have spared the iraqi people 12 years of sanctions and fast shim and degeneration of their society the consequences of which we now see. Host another topic you have covered in your books are the clintons and this is the same book that came out with two titles. No one left to lie to the value of the worst family in paper bach and in hardback no one left to lie to, the triangulations of William Jefferson clinton. Guest the pink one is actually a later and expanded edition as well as a theres an extra chapter, one on the politics to the first lady. And one which i have not been able to finish in time for the first one, wasnt shore i could ever finish, about the very important and never asked and never discussed question of whether or not the women who reported being raped by mr. Clinton were telling the truth. The only book you can read that discusses this question is by my and ive interviewed and talked to three of women who dont know each others existence, and i would say i was as sure as can be theyre telling the truth. So thats the difference. Thats why i should get the pitching one if youre strutting past a buck story. This is booktv on cspan, television for serious readers. This week were showing you authors who appeared on our regular callin program, in depth. The late author Toni Morrison was the guest in 2001. One of the few novelists to appear on the program. Up next she discusses her work, reads from her Pulitzer Prize winning book, beloved and describes what it was like to win the nobel prize in literature. For me it just seems enormously a long, long time from my grandfather being born, he was five years old when emancipation proclamation was declared. He was born in 1860. And he was crying, he was frightened, because he kept hearing the adults say, its coming, its coming. He thought it was a monster. So he crawled under the bed and they had to pull him out and explain to him. And im very keenly aware of the really life threatening circumstances under which they lived the difficulty my parents had as a young couple, and a kind of miraculous thing i suppose in my generation. I just knew i really wanted to go to College Mitchell mother was not interested in my getting married. She didnt think that was necessarily the ultimate goal of a womans life . Rather she thought it couldnt come too soon. She and my father were supportive and told me we dont have enough for you to get a full college education. But we do have enough for one year. And i said, thats all i waned, just one year. So thats the way i went off. Convinced i could survive financially for one year. In 1949. And i was able to work and do the rest myself, but thats how iffy it was in those days about getting a college education. Host not just for africanamericans but for women. Guest women in general, oh, yeah. Host how did you finance the rest of your edindication. Guest i had temporary jobs in washington, at Howard University where i was an undergraduate, and actually my mother got a job, she was so happy that i was here, i guess, in college. So she took a job at night as a woman in a ladys room, collects tips and she made 15 a week. Five dollars a night. And she sent it to me. Host she did that in ohio. Guest uhhuh. Host how did chloe, your birth name, become tone toni more. Guest i loved the name chloe. Children couldnt pronounce it. Some adults refused to pronounce it. And they called me which hilo or kloe or other things that were not chloe. In my family because my sister and i were so close in age, they call always together they called is low his and chloe so i didnt have a separate syllable for myself. To make a long story short, when i got away to howard, i used the name toni, a short phenomenon or any santas name, anthony so i was toni warford and then my exhusbands name morrison. Host you married and became a mother. Were you writing its this point in your life . Guest i think i was but i wasnt certainly didnt call myself a writer. I was a teacher and i was interested in the work of some local people here in washington, from the faculty members, some were artists, and they had a group of writers that they formed. I was invited to attend, and i brought with me some flail Little Things i worked on as a very young person, and one of them was a little story that i had to write fresh because they wouldnt let me come over and over again if i didnt bring anything new. So i wrote a story, and brought it to that meeting, and used it much later as the heart of the first novel i wrote. Host it was called . Guest the blue sty. Host id like to show it to the audience and as i do, would you explain how this book actually made it to print from that beginning. Guest well, i wrote the story for the club. I remember my baby, my oldest son, was hanging on my shoulder, pulling at my earrings while i was writing, and i remember him spitting up on the manuscript, some orange juice and i tell the story, must be important because i didnt wipe it up. I wrote around it and then went up and stopped. And then went to the meeting, had a good time, heard some serious criticism of it, some delight, and that was it. And then later on, several years later, when i was in another place, not teaching anymore but working at a Publishing House i began to work it up, and then i sent it around to i think 12 or 14 publishers before somebody was interested enough to take it. Host who said yes . Guest hult. Host do you remember the letter or phone call that said, yes, well take this. Guest a phone call. So many phone calls, i wish i could take this book but i dont think they will. Ill try. Thats what i remember. And then sufferedly im sitting at my desk in random house, and i took a phone call that said, they said yes. I remember that. Host from simply a point of view of your artistry if one were to read this book and your latest novel, paradise, what would you find dust but your style, about different about your style, you approach to literature. Guest in the most for me, the striking thing is the person who wrote the bluest eye, that voice, that quality, exists in paradise also. Thats very important to me, and odd to have a style immediately. Not to halve to develop one. I had to learn how to write better, how to seduce a reader faster, how to challenge a reader, how to open up the world, how to manipulate, but what im pleased about and i depend know it until i wrote the second book, which i do have a recognizable style. If i took one page out of any of those books and read it, i think i would know it was me. Host you tell the story just give is a quick synopsis of beloved. Guest a story based on a historical figure of black woman who killed her children or tried to, when she was other fugitive and didnt want to return to slavery. Beloved is about her life as imagined by me, significantly altered by the return of what she believed to be the daughter she killed. Host pick it up when the fugitive slave act is about to be enforced with the picking up of these group of people by the sheriff. Guest the sheriff turned . The sheriff turned, then said to the others you bet gore on. Look like your business is over. Mine is starting now. School teacher beat his hat against this thigh and spit before living the wood shed. They didnt look at the woman in the pepper plants with the flower in her hat, and they didnt look at the seven or so faces that had edged closer in spite of the catches rifle warning. Enough, the sheriff, enough, bigger eyes for now, little gger boy eyes opened this is and little nigger girl eyes staring ten the wet fingers that hell her face so he head wouldnt fall off. Little nigger baby eyes, crinkle up to cry in the arms of the old nigger whose own eyes were nothing but slivers looking down at his feet. But the worst ones were those of the nigger woman who looked like she didnt have any since the whites had disappeared and they were as black as the skin. She looked blind. They unhitched the School Teachers horse, the wereowed mule that was to carry the fugitive woman back to where she belongs. Thing with the sun straight up over their heads they trotted off, leaving the sheriff behind among the damned bunch of coons theyd ever seen. All testimony to the results of little socalled freedom imposed on people who needed every care and indulgence in the world to keep them from the cannibal life they preferred. You chose an interesting one. My efforts to think the way committed slaveholders think. The naturalness of their content. The effortlessness of their belief in their superiority to these people, coming in the book at a moment after the reader has been in the lives of these people who they have cat forrized as nigger and nigger, man, nigger baby. Because the characters are so familiar and intimate they portrayed, i was hoping this section i read comes with a chill. Not just because of the events of the slaughter but the way in which at this point they are looked at. Host how do you get inside the psyches of these people. Guest its difficult but i use what i think are methods that maybe actors and actresses use. When you have a vague you try to make it specific, fully realized, and you want to be in that persons head if youre on stage, to wear the clothes, wear the shoes, behave the way that person would, so you have to enter or project and know where they part their care and what kind of soap they would ware and what food they dont like, whether or not it appears in the book, you try to imagine all those things. And that works for me. Can you. Host can you tell me the for of when and how you found out you won the nobel prize . Guest i was stepping out of he shower, i think. Phone rang, friend of mine on the phone. A woman who was very instrumental in bringing me to princeton. Right ruth simmons is her name she said you won. I said won what, she said the nobel prize for literature. And i thought, instantly that she couldnt know anything that i didnt know about something as important as that. And i said who told you that . She said she just heard it on television so i knew it wasnt true because why would to the today show know. So i told her to sleep on it a little bit and call me back later. I really just dismissed it. It was so remote and never crossed me mind. It was not anything that i ever thought about. So her telling me that assumed odd and i had seen the media rush over to all sorts of people with cameras and journalists ready to record their words upon having received not only that prize but other prizes, only to be told that the person didnt win. Happened a couple of times in my presence so i was totally unimpressed with what she had to say and then the phone started ringing. And then i got dressed and went to work. Went to my class. And the campus was full of reporters and telephone calls. Big fat cable lines and i thought, well, i guess its true. But it was out there. It wasnt really in my head. And also i had not heard from the swedish academy. They didnt say i had won. So all these people may be misled. So asked them when they finally called about 12 00 or 1 00 that afternoon, i asked them to send me a fax iwant to see it in writing. Host were your parents stale alive. Guest my mother was. Host had to be something almost unexplain able to share with your mother. Guest it was wonderful. I was so glad she was still alive. She didnt fully understand the level of the prize. She knew it was important. She got to enjoy it. Host did she go to sweden with you. Guest she was too sick. Host i have a copy of your speech. How did you use that opportunity . Guest to deliver this acceptance speech in a kind of lecture they want the literary winners to do very much like the scientific ones give scientific papers. I thought i would try very hard to give a speech that did enact what the subject was, which was the value of narrative, that it is the major form in which we acquire knowledge. We set it up as a narrative. There other forms, isome bowl cal and musical but narrative is the major way in which we absorb knowledge and remain intelligent. And the stories we tell, the invention of them, is a learning process and intellectual process. I wanted to say how valuable literature was one doesnt want to just say that it. I wanted to theatricalize it so i made up a story, once upon a time and i used an old story that every culture has about the blind woman or man, who is presented with a bird, and asked to say whether the bird is living or dead. And the old person says, i dont know. The young Person Holding the bird but its in your hand, and its pregnant. But i wanted to use the situation of that encounter between the old, be the wise, the blind, and the young, and give the young agency to really talk back to the old person, what are you, tricking us and have the two of them debate, argue and come to the third place. Host what was it like standing there in front of the academy and all the people in the room accepting the prize . Guest well, i was the only woman. I told them they have to give me more time. Or give women more time if they going to give that prize out to women because not only do you have to write a speech thats worthy, but you have to find something to wear. The men just come in talk. They just host rent a tux. Guest and if you are leak me and not interested in clothes it took forever. So i felt very representational. I feet female. I felt american. Felt writerly. I felt like an ohioan. I took all these responsibilities of representation on. And i felt like the first black woman i felt all of that. Which was really serious but at the same time kind of protection so i wouldnt have to shoulder it all as me. I could sort of redistribute myself out there a little bit. And for me, living in the moment, happens after the moment. If only upon reflection, much later that i knew what i felt, and what i felt was so happy, unabashedly thrilled, joyous, delight, there was no false modesty. I didnt sort of say, awe, shucks. I really enjoyed it. It was the most Glorious Party with the most generous people in the world. So it was as good as it gets. Youre watching booktv on cspan2. In place of our regular live callin program, were showing you some highlights of previous authors who have appeared on in depth. We conclude today with the late novemberist and historian, shell shelby foote. Our guest on in depth is novelist and historian, shelby foote. Cspan when did you move into this house and how much of your civil war writings were down here. Guest all three volumes written in memphis weapon lived down a bluff overlooking the river and moved out to what was then the eastern city limits and i wrote the second volume and then moved back in the middle of memphis for the third volume. Cspan how many years did you live there. Guest been in this house since 66 to de. Cspan what room is this and how much of the house plays in how you write and how you think . Guest very much always has. Ive never been able to write away from home. My desk is where die my work and i dont write while i travel. I have dh lawrence and john keiths who can write at any time but could i never do that. Ifs i take off two days, take mist four days to get back to work and i have to be at my own desk. Y. Cspan y are we in your house. Guest this is a sitting room adjoining my work room here. The bedroom is onioned it there. Cspan most of us got to know you in set 90 when ken burns did his show on the civil war. Where was the interview done. Guest on a coach in his roo. What impact did the series have on your life. Guest tremendous impact. Had not realized the enormous power of television until that time not only to sell books but to people think you have been in their homes. They will call you up, call you by your first name, very nice to have you in their house last week. Eight kind of strength and startling. Well chat for the hours. The audience will get involved in a half hour with phone calls and im others. For someone who might be happening on the Program Never seen you before, how much in your life have you written . Guest you mean how long have i been writing. Cspan no, how many words, how many books . Guest the civil war is a million and a half wards wards e rest of miswriting is the same amount. So ive written something over two million words. Cspan how many books total. Guest six novels and the three volumes in the civil war ask then recently some thing is ive been doing for the modern library, like the long essay chekov. Youre fresh mississippi. Guest i lived in mississippi until i moved here, except for school in and the army i was analysis greenville for the first 40 years of my life. Cspan what impact did mississippi have on you. Guest a great impact. One thing that happened, i now everybody thinks they had the worth or the best possible childhood. Was raised in a town in the mississippi delta, and it was population then of about 15,000. Which meant that every child in that town, between the ages of, say, 13 and 17, was na that school so you lived the rest of your lives with people you hand been to school with during an impressionable anytime your life and a town that size one of your wednesday friending can be the sitting president s of the bank and at the other end can be a son of almost anything and it gets you to know sort over like the army in that regard. Get to know all kind people and know them well. Cspan short distance here get on the bridge and drive to arkansas. How far are we from mississippi. Guest mississippi is 14miles south of here. Memphis is the capital of mississippi delta. Its house it. I found something on the can be i want to share withyou. This is from i wont give the students name because it might be a tad bit embarrassing but a student i believe from austin Pea State University in tennessee. She wrote an introduction in a biography about you. The last line of the opening says, foote is a tremendous writer who served in the civil war and his writings come from his permanent experience personal experience. Guest im glad she got that impression. Thats the impression i waned. Im in that book, you see. Hope. And thats the way i think history should be written, as if you were living in that time. Totally unfair to look at it from 150 years later and pass judgment on what the people did without knowing that their values were and what the laws were even. Its what causes an awful lot of of misunderstanding trying to apply a different set of standards to a different nation, really. Cspan you have how many books in this house . You have bunch back there. Guest oh, books this way, books this way, books that way. Id be guessing if i said around 8,000 books. Cspan whats on the shelf thats a favorite. Guest i have particular reason for having a favorite. Theyre all my favorites. But up on the next top shelf there, theres a leather bound thats the new york edition of henry james. It belonged to walker percy. On the right over there, on the third shelf from the top, is a limited edition of shakespeare. That was my favorite possession and the james was perhaps walkers favorite possession, and 20 years ago we get to talking and we agreed that whichever one of us died first, he would leave walker would leave me the james, or i would leave him the shakes shakespeare and he lost the contest and i won it. Thats walkers james he was on his death bed and told his 2005 make sure i got it. How many years ago did he die. Guest he died in 1990. Cspan that shakespeare, have you read all that. Guest men times i guess. You cant read too much shakespeare. Why. Guest because the beauty of the language and the skill which with he handles immigrant the language itself, shakespeare. We get to talking about art and write, shakespeare is out any calculations and music its mozart and you put them off to. Thes and then talk about various other people but they are from the moon. Cspan we are going to hear what . Guest im sorry. That rom. Guest thats where i do my work. Thats my work room. Always has been. Ever since we moved in. I had the desk built in, the bookshelves are built in. Cspan since 1967. Guest 66. Lets see what we can find here when you were writing did you sleep to is in room . Seldom. Sometimes when is was very anxious, i would get up in a hurry or work late i would sleep here. Right on this bed is your life behind you. Guest very strange to see i laid out like that. I get the impression i somehow managed to swallow a cannonball. Very strange to see it together. Whats the first one. Guest the first thing i ever published. A friend of mine at the newspaper in greenville was ran a linetype machine and he bought the paper and people put it together and its signed and number. There will 260 copies, and i charged a dollar and a half apiece for. The. The whole town was furious i could put such a high price on such a junky little thing. Its worth a good deal of money now. Cspan now, tournament was your first novel. Guest my first. Cspan when did you start and finish . I started it the first two years chapel hill i decided i had had enough college and it was time for me to come home because i newell the war was coming. This is like 38 or 39 and i came home, and while i was away i join the Mississippi National guard, and while i was waiting for husband to be mobilized i wrote this, and i sent it to the world publisher and they raved it and wrote to me and said they like it very much. But they didnt think it would sell. And i would do best to go on and write my next novel and theyd be happy to see that but they thought this would give me a bad name with booksellers. So, i put it away in a drawer. I came back from the war five years later, and i got it out, and revised it, and sent it off and i was published. Cspan the main message. Guest a study how each oneunder us is alone and a study of a mans rise and fall without being able to answer the question. Chekov, he was not interested in answers, he was interested in stating the question well. I feel the same way. Cspan how long have you been in are you life. Guest it is hard to say. I dont know how to put time how too you mean . Cspan you sea hes alone. Do you feel alone. Guest i think each of us is alone. Being alone is something that you prize highly to be align, is to a good thing. But you breaking out of it is something else. We are alone in strange times. Youre most alone during you also most alone perhaps during orgasm. This loneliness thing is a thing that can go on forever. Little islands of quiet in the middle of the racket and noise. Its a strange business when you start imagining how each man is alone. Cspan you had a bout with cancer. Colon cancer. What was that like . Guest you take medical things as they come. You leave it up to the doctors to do something about it. You do what the doctor says. I have had all kind of medical things since i turn 65. Lord, lord, had one of the first balloon bypasses, and each one of those came along and you just take it as thats the hand you drew at that time and leave it up to the doctors and thank god i have had real good doctors or i wouldnt bet wouldnt be here. I wouldnt be here if they hospital developed medicine as far as they have. You are going to be 85 in november. Guest right. What doeses file like to be that age. I cant associate myself with anybody 85 years. It amazes me the first place. Cspan do you still write. Guest of course. Ill stop when they lay me down but nearly all my friends are dead, closest friend has been dead 11 years, hard to believe. But thats the way it goes. You take it as it comes and hope with some form of grays. Youre married to gwen. How long . Guest be 45 years in september. Whats that been like. Guest i cant imagine being married to anyone for 45 years. Its just amazing. Cspan one thing i want to tell you to talk about but a we talk about it before, what is over here on this shelf. Talk about time. I remembered some things past, marcel and right here is the guest my favorite 20th 20th century writer. Ever since my mother gave me this full volume for my 17th 17th birthday, and every time i feel ive earned the right to do it i quit everything and reread this. Ive done in the back of this when i wrote each time. Theres the ninth reading in 1993. I havent felt justified and taken off too much since 93. You have read this book, 3,000 pages . Guest yes. Cspan nine times. Guest right. Cspan why. Its two reasons. One is pure enjoyment. First one of the most end and he can too much you something, a writer can learn from proust and shakespeare, thats the grandmaster teach i. What teacher. Cspan what is it about the written word that is atrachetonight to people or separates it from television. I really think that the written word is what defines us as superior creatures to all the other creatures on earth. Man is characterized by a number of things. One of them is hes the only animal that knows he is going to die some day, and knowing that, he also has an obligation to make the most of whatever time he has. And making the most of it is enormously assisted by reading, by learning about the world, and learning about the past and the present. And an able to look to the future ability to look to future. Cspan shelby foot y wilber and well go to phones and give you a chance to ask him any questions you might like to ask him about anything, including all the writing he has done. What else are your favorite things in this room . Guest that is a very large question. Cant put my favorite things back. Cspan well talk but that when we get into your seat hip have the music eve here. Guest the music over here and mostly over here. And then it starts as all dickens and conrad, jane austin, on of the best faulkner collections in the country. Cspan you read it all. Guest oh, yeah, and over and over again. What i appreciate more but reading is rereading. Im a writer, its my craft and when you reread a book, especially by a real good writer, you enjoy seeing how he goes about getting what he ising going because youll know when he is going so you see him prepare for what it coming and the skill with which he does that is enormously instructive. Cspan when you read thats the circumstance. Guest its a funny thing. I do not see a scene when i read. I read words, and even punctuation. A lot of people tell me when they read its like looking at a movie. They see the characters and what the author is saying and theyre doing i do that to some extent but mostly im looking at the way he moves words around. Cspan i remember reading that back in the university of north carolina, chapel hill, you got lost in the nine stories of stacks in the library. Guest i didnt get lost. Was very much happy to do that. I imitated a graduate student and i would get in the cubicle and saw books id never seen before and to me, university is a library with build little around it and i spent more time in the library than anywhere, even the desk, classroom, the library. I was fascinated. Not only was all of shakespeare there, there wallle all the book about shakespeare. What kind of music . Guest two kinds. Im crazy about Classical Music and also a big fan of the blues. Robert johnson especially but smith and a great many others. Cspan we talked one time many years ago hat a when you listen to music you dont read . Guest no. I can listen to music while im going to sleep but its a distraction. I canned put up with when im trying to read. Cant do both at once. Cspan so when you i dont know this is going to work but lets go through the process. Phenomenon me follow me down novel written what year. Guest 1950. This came out in 49 and that in 50, 5, 1 52, 54 and that one, 75 i think. Novels about what. Guest the mississippi deal to with the possible exception of shilo and one character from any home place. Cspan the next level we have the three volume set of the civil war. All nonfiction. Guest right. Cspan i remember reading you said you read 350 books to get ready to write that. Guest i had about 300 books that i actually work with right over my desk. I didnt much go to libraries and i did got to original material in the department of archives. I wrote from the printed part but the civil war so widely written about, that you dont need to go back to the original documents. Theyve all been gone over. And these are just few of the over 200 authors who have appeared on in depthor, you can watch the programs in their entirety on our website, booktv organize. Org booktv. Org. As the coronavirus continues to impact the country, heres a look at what the pershing industry is doing to address the ongoing pandemic. In recognition of last weeks world book day, the association of american publishers, the authors guilt and the american become Sellers Association released a joint statement that encouraged readers to patronize their local book Stores Online to make a donation to save indy book stores. Com. It was launches as end to professor inched book store wisdom a great are online sales presence. In the first moll the site posted 50,000 in revenue, with a so thousand disburse. To stores. Also in the news, npd book scan reports that book sales were down 3. 5 for the week ending april 18inch. Adult nonfiction prison sales saw a decline of 12 from the year prior. Many book city ofs and conferences forced to cancel are now offering attendees a virtual experience. The American Library association, which canceled their annual conference in chicago this summer, will hold a Virtual Event in june the by a bay area book festival has author programs this weekend and marylands book intends to go online in may. Booktv will bring you new programs and publishing news. You can watch all of our past programs from the last 20 years, anytime, at booktv. Org. Television has changed since cspan began 41 years ago but our mission chins. To provide an unfill materialed view of government. Already this year we brought you primary election coverage this president ial impeachment process and now the federal response to the coronavirus. 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