Transcripts For CSPAN2 In Depth 20th Anniversary Commemoration 20240712

To what you would call a prom i was equivalent of a freshman at the university and i came home at 2 00 oclock at night the light was on. America is in the war. Yes. Was that touch you so much . What did that mean for you in hungary . How old were you . 18. Yes. With the late author john lucas in depth form 20 years ago since 2000 over 130 leading nonfiction and fiction authors of our time have appeared close to underscores my head, head, woodward, and just to name a few over the next three hours our goal is to review the last 20 years of indepth but also to ask you some questions and sure they are. Who is your favorite in depth and guest and a favorite author 202 7488200. 202 7488201 mountain pacific you can text your thoughts as well. The same year William F Buckley junior, milton friedman, gore of it all and Arthur Schlesinger junior all appeared. He was a portion. And then to go to harvard if i hadnt chosen the army instead. But schools control the opinion of the children of the rich and or powerful. I have a stepbrother who is going to inherit a lot of money and he was sent to groton and st. Marks. For those who will be which not only to make them into gentleman and scholars but inculcate certain values. You know what they will get in the way of political training by belong to the ruling class i will not inheritnh any money so im set for two exeter which is the bright boys of the ruling class will eventually work for the rich boys become judges and senators and editors of the New York Timesk and bankers and not properly speaking but by birth of the to my class but thats how they continue. Theres always a move in england they know about the upperclass the most intelligent upperclass i have ever seen overall. Nobody knows they are there. For who really controls what. And to be there and never have been named anything theyve done marvelous work with the people at large. So they go on and on occasionally but by a march it is a close corporation. Passing away in 2012 his books include the United States and lincoln. For the next three hours we take your calls and what youre reading, who is your favorite in depth guest and favorite Nonfiction Author. In 2001 and Toni Morrison appeared and she is the Pulitzer Prize winner and author of beloved here is a little bit from tonini morrison. Had to get inside these people . Its difficult but and then to realize and where close where the shoes so we would have to project what kind of soap they were and where and what kind of food they dont like and then to try to imagine those things. That works for me. I can suspend. But you have to love them for the moment of their portrayal. Do they come from europe and fully formed or do they develop as you write . As you sit down do you know the story will tell . I thank you know the questions of the story or i am provoked as i was like eric gardner or in paradise to hear about those people who walked that distance to get to that free black town to free black people who also slaveses like the them. So i know the story is about i know the journey now i have to find out who will work that out for me. W i didnt want to know too much about her what she looked like it wanted to inventor to start and then i put them together so they are never solely realized immediately that it takes coddling and stroking and personal introductions and whatever i can do to get them to speak and to trust me. Host Toni Morrison was in february then James Mcpherson and studs terkel, richard burr kaiser and David Mccullough all appeared and 2001 and now just one know when it came to richard burr kaiser he started the show but the war in afghanistan started that day so we had to cut it short we brought him back for later date one of the few that have appeared twice. Which of those three questions you want to answer . Favorite author, what are you reading your favorite in depth guest . Caller my favorite author is mary roach. I have most of her books. Host have you watched her . Caller yes and every plated a couple of times i like the way it works have the one word title i even emailed her and she has emailed me back she is a very good guest in a very good autho author. Thank you for calling in. David good afternoon. Thank you indepth. I want to answer the question about whether my reading . I am reading a book called twilight of the gods talks about the conclusion against the japanese of world war ii we recently had the 75th anniversary and i find it to be an excellent book. Host we have covered him on booktv did you see him when he appeared . Yes i have and was anxiously awaiting the third volume of his trilogy. Host is it world war ii that attracts you . Yes and specifically the Pacific Theater because of the notoriety of the pearl harbor attack and the supplies that it garnered and the story how it was a difficult task the japanese about the advantages early on and it took quite an effort for us to become victorious. Sometimes we take in depth on the road in 2016 we went to Hillsdale College right before the president ial election at that point and Dennis Prager was on the program in front of an audience of students. Is there any way we can come back that socialism is the utopia that the left is promoting of paper to my generation we both know they are systematically does establishin establishing. That such a nice thing to hear from a millennial but that is exactly what is happening that is factual that is not opinion they are on doing what the founders meant to do but there is one simple answer of all the arguments that i gave socialism bankrupts countries this country will be bankrupt and then i have no pity for you because your generation votes democratce so therefore as a big believer in consequences that is what folks should learn i have zero pity for millennial several democrat that they believe and voting democrat comes to their generation. Perhaps i will be gone will have my defined retirement account so it has no effect on me. But it will go bankrupt just like greece, just like portugal, just like italy, justusta like spain, just like venezuela. And we will also with the borderless country because the left once the borderless country just like the European Union they dont believe in borders because i believe National Identity there will be a country called the United States between canada and mexicoity, will be not be any different than canada or mexico that is the left dream so that ones great country that existed because you things to the indoctrination you got in high school and college voted for so that is the non pity message. Host december 2016 by the way all of these programs are available to watch in their entirety lets talk to carol in Prince George virginia which of those three questions do want to answer . My favorite interview on indepth it was the year you did your affection and it was David Ignatius i am a super fan of his it was such an engaging and involved interview i appreciated it so much. Host do follow him on the Washington Post . I will go on the archives and watch the interview again i have read his books and follow him whenever i can i think is an amazing and careful and precise and thorough author whether fiction or reporting. Is at the topic of National Security that interest you . Yes i am particularly interested in intelligence and the work of the cia. I have any professional background. I am a retired lawyer. But i have always been fascinated by it. I keep the job dispassionately but respectfully related to the work of cia and other intelligence agencies are in terms of protecting us nationally and protecting foreignpolicy. Thank you for calling and we look at those fiction authors and 2018 a full year of fiction authors and we look at those as we go. Shall be for it was one of the authors who appeared 2001 and in facted we visited his home in memphis. You also use that plan that we talked about before. It used to be in the post office and i found a bunch on the shop that was on 44th street and i bought myself a lifetime supply it doesnt take inc. The way it used to. What is this i have in my hand . That is a manuscript for shiloh and at the end of each day i have the final collective draft and then type it up. s is the original or a copy . And the day by making the final copy. Up on the shelf how many other original . Any idea how valuable those are . What you do with them . Leave them to my son. And on the back of your desk . Is a confederate scout robert e. Lee. That was one of her favorites . Absolutely. He is an irish immigrant and i was interested to note there. Getting a real good close up on the board so folks can see i it. You mentioned him even earlier. He was born four years into this century he has a tremendous influence and those that are influence for the good. And then you cant explain it. We could never figure how to get it. He passed away four years after the interview 2005 texting and from dubuque iowa i am currently reading the origins of discontent by Isabel Wilkerson she has now appeared on q a on sunday nights and booktv as well and available at booktv. Org teeeight on type name in the search function at the top of the page. Good afternoon and welcome to book tvs. Caller thank you for taking my call i was tempted to call in an earlier with a woman who talked about the Government Agency like the cia. I have had a bizarre life like to share my name if i can because i am a vietnam era veteran from the heartbeat of america and also whistleblower with the front page wall street journal article that can be seen on the internet that triggered an investigation that led to the resignation of jim right from speaker of the house in shame. I also have some interaction with high level cia operative who authored the book the kgb the eyes of russia that was interesting synchronicitys that i discovered with him i even share common background the president but im not going on the ego trip the president is on we went to unite the people. The secret Government Agencies have to be transparent. Host was the name of the book . The kgb the eyes of russia. Host thank you. John go ahead. Caller yes i have a question if you are somebody can answer on tv and in the newspapers they talk about russia interfering in our elections. China interfering with our elections. This goes on and on but nobody says a word, they all say foreign governments should not interfere in our election in any shape or form. Host we are taking a on talking about books today in our 20th anniversary anything of the book world you like to talk about. Caller no. I watch television and read the newspaper. Host we appreciate your call. Good afternoon the work what are you reading or who is your favorite author do have a Favorite Program . Caller i have been reading this book by an author regarding truman. Host is that the new one . Caller yes. Host he has a new one do we defeats truman. Caller an interesting book. Truman did have a good second term after he won the is the favorite author have to be nonfiction . Host to have a favorite fiction author . Caller thomas berger. Hes not well known but he will 1 mile of history and 18 or 20 novels died 2014 at 89. Hes only known for one book Little Big Man but some people say hes not so well known because he works in different genres and so fiction and also a take off and with a grasp of the english language. Where do you get your Books Library or bookstore . I get them at the library. I got on the site visit if you like this author then you like him. He wrote white noise. Host is a specific genre . Intelligence or National Security . Caller i dont even know where it is unreadable. Host thank you for calling in. 2000 to our guest included cornell west, tom clancy Peggy Noonan David Herbert Donald and bob woodward in her first guest of 2003 here is a portion of her talk. Remember kennedy was assassinated late november 53. At that time the president of the Illinois Federation of republican women and i had speech is scheduled in december and it just seemed inappropriate to give the Standard Party space i worked up a new speech how political conventions are stolen starting t the first week in december and how the rockefeller establishment was given the nomination to like thomas do we. And then to put into a book to influence the convention. Voted on my typewriter at home at night and then i self publish it and takes them two years to get their act together the little publisher that i set up to produce the book. I sent it off to the printer in march with 25000 and copies arrive in my garage and typed out a one page letter that says please read this book today and then to send to your delegates the Republican National convention then i went down to the basement to put the stencil on and sent out 100 letters the only advertising i ever did. One friend called up and said the airfreight. And took him downde to the airport and set them out with statewidere distribution the california primary was the first week in june and we sold over half a million copies between the first of may and the first of june in Barry Goldwater use the title as soon as i heard it i knew that was it. Good afternoon who is your favorite author and your favorite indepth program of the past 20 years . Long time viewer first time caller im reading the illustrated guide with authors and illustrators also a book called after the space sleekly the life and times of the barbarian. My favorite author regarding nonfiction is max blumenthal. I met him personally and a nice gentle man. That is similar if you read fiction not anything sensational but its a nice place and not boring and one of the best authors regarding criticism of the middle east and my favorite indepth aghast like asking your favorite child but i would say my favorite is chris hedges and then the close second is tom hartman both are great men. Host what do you do in chicago . I work as an election judge and studying engineering before trump was selected now and try to do everything in my power to make them a one term potus do advocacy and on campaigns the current tax assessor for the county. Moms demand action and moms raising and also individual chapters and do good groups if not doing that im walking my dog 5 miles a day thats why 100 pounds later. Host one of our fiction authors appeared tom clancys. Does an author come out with the first book and have a bestseller . I know i percentages happen to i suppose it is rare. Im the first person to tell you i got extremely lucky do want to hear the whole story how it happened . In the book came out in octobe october 1984. November that year not the post, the times was a retired marine colonel who has since deceased unfortunately and wanted to get a copy of the book for his son in argentina he was too cheap to buy one so as he was headed down in one of those Public Affairs people who really does know everybody its a long flight from miami to buenos aires. So she h comes home and she buys a whole case of books, 20 copies to go to her friends for christmas and one in friend was president reagan waiting two or three books week when he was president so he started to talk about at the white house someone who the talk and shazam i made the bestseller list its really because of president reagan. Host passing away in 2013 i believe in 2003 a guest on indepth martin gilbert, susan sontag, harold bloom, Stanley Crouch and Doug Brinkley were all our guest that year. Lakeside california you are on booktv. I was just going to recommend for our fellow citizens a couple of books from gore vidal and the first one is imperial america i like the author and his writing style he comes from the aristocratic family with this old world stoicism and with those unpleasant things with the stoicism and its a nice way to get information. New york city you are on booktv. Caller good morning. I will start from the top one book completely wellwritten Andrew Roberts biography of churchill. My favorite Nonfiction Book is the wise men by evan thomas. Now to the two authors. I each of them a little bit the wise men i talk about all the time to have a huge influence on american and foreign policy. Host how do you know Walter Isaacson professionally or personally . Personally because my sister is an author as well. He has written about queen elizabeth. And at the Athletic Club i do Nonfiction Book events sally is there as well as evan thomas teeseventeen thats right written several books on the monarchy and other topics and is well known to the booktv audience as well. Thank you for calling in. The prosecutor the 1969 manson murder and the crime book was helterskelter. Lee Harvey Oswald did it. Absolutely. Host you list all the conspiracy all caps that could be going on saying the whole world would conspire to kill kennedy. I do have these Conspiracy Theory every administration tries to cover up you cannot believe oliver stone for instance that was one continuous live. He had the correct date, the correct victim in the correct city other than that one continuous live. He came up with ten groups that he thought was involved bitter enemies but they got together on this one and asked me who did it Time Magazine gave me a page on oswalds guilt that i can summarize if youre interested. If you look at those theories and ask about the kgb somebody says what about castro . Iiz try to summarize that for you. I learned as a prosecuto prosecutor, common sense if you are innocent of the crime chances are there would be no evidence at all pointing toward your guilt because you are innocent but the nature of life in the unaccountability for certain things that will point toward your guilt even though you are innocent and the extruder on extremely rare situation this will point toward your guilt even though you are innocent because in this case here, everything points toward lee Harvey Oswald i set forth 53 separate piecesd of evidence under the circumstances it cannot be humanly possible for oswald to be innocent not in the world in which we live not in that world only can you have 53 pieces of evidence and still be innocent. He passed away 2015 heres a list of our guest and then we went to the store and bookstore then the late tom wolf in december 30 percent of those authors we just showed you are still active and writing. My favorite indepth offer interview was david the color mondays David Mccullough. Best wishes for another 20 years of indepth. We appreciate that. And 2007 it was Newt Gingrich who is our author so this section we will show you hear from 2007 is a little different and we will explain it afterwards. And then you gradually build it up we are in one of those fascinating periods of dramatic change to have the enormous dialogue so let me give you an example how this evolves over the next five or ten years. But the whole process of the avatar is a new one but we can explain how this works. Let me just say that this is from the new technology but this was the beginning of a very different kind of system where we see happening in front of us people from all over the world that can share ideas and i think its very important how this technology will evolve spent the First Successful manifestation the matter versus the Virtual World was pioneered in science fictionn novels and stevenson since 1992 but then to come as a teacher by trade but i shall not the first to do so teaching a classns last year and the law of Public Opinion and with the study groups with those other meta verse environments. Host 13 years ago an early version of an avatar you can see how technology has come in the last 13 years. Sarah from mississippi. Caller im calling from vicksburg. I look forward to watching cspan every weekend and the first sunday of the month to see the latest author will be. I will tell you. Right now i am reading. Host please hit the mute button on your tv. Caller my Favorite Book of nonfiction is coming of age and mississippi she wrote the memoir 1968 and its the only book i have read twice my Favorite Book the affection by Toni Morrison. I know youve had tony on several times but i dont recall you having and moody. Host and her book came out in 1968 . We started in 1998 so perhaps she had passed by that point or not an active writer. Caller i think she passed a few years ago but that maybe you just had her on one of your shows. Host that does not ring a bell we have been limited over the years as you know staying with nonfiction that is an appropriate but given the title. Thats a great book im just a book person and i love books. Host what is sitting on your table right now . I have a lot of books sitting on my table but i just finished reading claudias book just us and im presently reading her other book citizen and american lyric and also wandering in strange lands her daughter reclaims her roots. I have seen her on your program. Host and she was on as well recently. Caller i believe it was last week. Host did you pick them up because of booktv. Caller i was a bookseller years ago but i get the new york review of books and when i see new authors on your program and it seems interesting of order i believe an patronizing independent bookstores and the one i usually order my books from his square books from oxford mississippi. Host a lot of history and vicksburg mississippi do you ever read any Historical Books about the civil war or the attack on vicksburg or the battle there . I am trying to think of the authors name i cannot think of it right now. He did do a book the gentleman who will mississippi in africa. There is another guy who just passed away he vote for scott and it a book on vicksburg. Thank you for your time this afternoon we appreciate and thank you for watching. Hello janet. Host turn off the volume on your tv. I turned it down. Yes. What are you reading who is your favorite author who do you enjoy watching on tv . Actually the book i am presently reading is not the book i am calling about but she doesnt address it in this book the subject of three other books and thats the getaway want to mention my Favorite Book im africanamerican im 80 years old and jan the ghetto until i could escape it because you have to escape it but the first book that i read that was like a bible to me the construction and the persistence that was written in 1993 the segregation in the making of the underclass and i will never forget one of the statements they made in the book and people moving into predominantly White Communities so when that happened people must have some where they can go where blacks cannot follow so after that happens the powers that be will make a community that you move into will make that a ghetto but the other two books i wanted to mention the second was written in 2009 by a professor at Princeton University writing a book called Family Properties and what really struck me in the book that when the fha would not give . Mortgages, we had to buy houses on contract that was held by a realtor or the owner of the house and the stipulations were such you never could help the contract so you lost the house and then they would sell it to another black under the same types of circumstances and written in 2016, ghetto. Another princeton professor im in the subject of the ghetto because i see it as the poor of race in america emblematic of the idea that was the ghettos way to belong and then to have Educational Opportunities to those of the books. So what is your comparison. Wilkerson actually talked a lot about the ghetto and i just started reading that i believe she talks about the ghetto so much in this book but for instance it is not in the index the people that made the great migration like my parents who left the sharecropping farms that they did not live was in the ghetto certainly by the 19 forties they did. Host where did your parents begin their life . Where we raised . Caller i was born in chester pennsylvania i learned in the projects they were torn down about 20 years ago. But the ghettos where i lived until i was 16 years old when my parents managed to buy a house. My mother and father had a fourth and eighth grade education and it was designated and even to this day that were of race persist. Host we appreciate your time this afternoon. I was reading woodwards book but but he does the same thing that is going on a lot over the past decade or two. With all of the socalled sources. I think they had sources so how does this happen continually . Host have you read any of Bob Woodwards other books . Caller no. This is the first one. I have seen him around for decades and we know his history but the thing is getting back to this is how we keep allowing this to go on and then they really dont have sources with that source but then we allow that to go on and profit for them. So when will we get back to real journalism instead of people calling journalist . Should they have training . Host what made you pick up this book . Caller i just seen it so much and him profiting off of it i had to take a look at it. I want this to be about me but with Naval Intelligence and i see things like this so blatantly going on so back in europe they had play in propaganda. That is entered into america that is what were dealing with now and why we are fighting all the time and with each other. We are not making these writers without having sources that they can verify and improve to you that they should not be able to cite these people. Host we will leave it there and 2005 in depth in its fifth year. And in 2013 the caller referenced this earlier that mary roach who often is very humorous in her writing appeared on the program here is a portion of that. I try to find them i care if somebody had done it technically in space but i thought theres the commercial flights so i called them and they said nasa is the contractor so we would stand to lose a lot of money so no. So of course hes going to say no. Maybe they were working out the kinks maybe they are owning up to it. And that research including locating sylvia saint. Okay. Supposedly there was a trilogy and what i heard there was a scene a shot in zero gravity in a simulator 22nd so zero gravity so conceivably you could i tracked down the producer and we had a conversation about this. Said ill send you a link and you can check it out and said i have a timeshare on the Corporate Jet and we got the pilot to do that. And then afterwords to make sure they were okay and then i downloaded the uranus experiment in fast forward to thef point right away if you know anything zero gravity you can tell this is fake because her ponytail is hanging down like floating in zero gravity other parts of her anatomy from zero gravity there should be no hanging downin as zero gravityow. But there was an those experiments. But then the money shot. That was mary roach in 2013. Is your favorite author and guest . My favorite author historian is howards him and so disobedience and democracy and the student nonviolent correlating committee with a phd thesis. Hes also ben pbs news by judy woodward. You can type at the top of the page, there is a search function. Thanks for watching and thanks for calling. Curtis in vancouver washington. Caller hello. I wanted to remind you the name you are lookin were looking fort gumps author and i would recommend about a lot of behind the scenes things going on in that. Host i had a chance to meet him at the southern festival of books and very delightful, delightful person to meet. [inaudible] what is it about mr. Hansen, ha, doctor hansen that attracts you . His insight in his classical education and history from the greek and roman era what the impact was long term where socrates or the battle of okinawa or the battle of shiloh where they had to backtrack and made up for it by writing the book host hes still a very active author and columnist. He in fact was on our after Words Program a couple of months ago and its a book in support of President Trump so i dont know what that does to your opinion. Guest i concur. I had a couple of books to recommend. One is a biography called a third face that has a lot of really nice insight into his original career and then as a documentary filmmaker another book to recommend is twilight of the gods and a trilogy about the war in the pacific. Host you are the r second caller to recommend that. Caller another is james on his pacific war books and Rick Atkinson and his trilogy on the european war. Favorite author growing up is still my favorite but hes passed on a long time ago and for books to recommend, i got some books from reading murder mysteries by rick m stout and te way he kept his place in the book is used a special bookmark and that is one i looked up and it covers about the english language and African Genesis about the development of humanity from primitive the civilization by Robert Audrey who retired from writing scripts for movies. He wrote the scripts for cartoons but then decided he would specialize in researching anthropology. Host you seem to spend a lote of time with books. Do you have a lot of free time or is this your hobby . Caller its just what i enjoy doing more than anything else. I have a whole room dedicated to a library i had to tear out because our daughter moved in with us for a while so they are all boxed up in the garage. Host thats a lot of books. Guest caller i have a third on the hand reading and wanted to recommend for the civil war buffs thee trilogy about u. S. Grant starting with captain sam grant who passed away after taking the notes and writing. He passed them on to the subsequent biographer who everybody in the civil war knows him. There was a great anecdote when grant came back from vancouver he had time at the post where he wasnt very happy and he came back in two the store and had one of the guys sitting around a very prominent local lawyer and he said you look like hell. Rahe said whats it like and grt said the same as here. The lawyers closest to the fire. Host are you a lawyer by profession . Caller [laughter] no, im an engineer that kind of transitioned into education so right now im a substitute schoolteacher semi retired. Host we appreciate your time. Carolyn on iowa is reading a couple 90 east park place and the irregulars and the british spy circle that has appeared on booktv several times and you can watch online. Glenda is in humble texas. Caller i wanted toti call attention to the book grant by ronas sure now as well as his bk on alexander hamilton. A lot of people today dont like books that are that long, but i find his books hard to put down once you start. They are so well done and well documented. I appreciate that in the current climate of people playing fast and loose with information. The other writer i enjoy and would recommend to anybody is Richard Brooke kaisert in the recent book its an excellent theme for people to read right now. It goes back to the founders early beliefs and its just not a long book, but its so worth your time. Host thank you for calling in in humble texas. Mr. Brooke kaiser has appeared several times and in fact a year or so back we did an interview with the historian who writes for the National Review and his wife who is a psychotherapist and she had written a book called basically how to get along with your friends and neighbors politically if you dont agree on politics. We interviewed them in their apartment and you can watch that online booktv. It was in 2002 on one of his many appearances on booktv and cspan that this gentleman appeared on in depth. As i matured [inaudible] they seem to be here and here. How do they intersect . Youth listen to john cole trn love supreme and it brings together the phrase and the spirituality of giving and serving. That profound love, passion and kindness to get out of the judeochristian tradition brought together and he takes it to such a higher level and returns to the musical genius. With cole train and with the check off you certainly do not have a poet in prose of such profound compassion wrestling with death, disappointment, wrestling with the steady ache of misery and heartbreak of daily life but trying to convince us to keep going but still im steady and un accusing compassion and love that you dont find into many others. You would have to go to Toni Morrison to get that sweetness of line and h temper in one figure. Host whenn did you find guest. 15 and it blew my mind. Host 18 years later joining now is doctor cornell west. Doctor west, listening to that is there anything you would like to add . Guest i want to congratulate you for a force of good youve been in 2020. Thereve been so many bleak times and you have been a light and so kind to me and so many other voices as well, my dear brother. I hope your loved ones are strong and safe but im blessed to be breathing. Today is a blessing, my brother. Almost 20 years later but im still tied to cole train and revolutionary host cornell west, how many books are you up to now . Guest i dont even count. I guess maybe 20, 21 or Something Like that. But as you know, it isnt a matter of the quantity. Its the quality of the words on the pagehe and you hope those words can help somebody and try to heal some hearts in the best way that we can and that the action that we do in the finite lives that we live. Host are you working on a book now . Guest ive got these different lectures in scotland coming and its on catastrophe, catastrophe and intellectuals. One died in the bubonic plague and made it through the monasteries with a brother and sister in their common life and became the first public intellectual in modern europe press and it goes all the way to Toni Morrison. A lot of towering figures in between, culminating with Toni Morrison and cole train as well. Its in the making. Ive got about two years to work on these lectures and thats going to be the next big book but at the moment as we try to get through this election to see what the democracy is going to be left. Ive been reading ag hopkins on the american empire, global history. A professor at the university of cambridge. The treatment of the american empire and decline of military overreach across the board and the feeling among everyday people that they dont have the kind of power required to turn this thing around. I hope we are not on the titanic and all those ships that were just going under because we lost access to the best and we were unable to mobilize the kind of resources and spiritual, moral as well as political and civil that can keep a fragile experience in the democracy alive. I think that is whereiv we are now. T but thank god the life of the mind is still at work, it is indispensable. Its always insufficient. We have to have courageous citizens and loving human beings but its indispensable because all of us in some way we are laboring under certain frameworks, certain lenses through which we look at the world and they come from the poets and writers and musicians. The poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world, he says. On apprehended inspiration. The mirrors of the future shadows cast on the present the young brilliant genius before he died at 29yearsold. His t last great problem, he understood we have to be connected with our past with the notion of our visions and narratives, my brother, to intervene on the present and we hope to focus on the least, the poor working class and all around the world of all colors, all genders, all orientations. And for me it begins with equal scripture. When i talked about 18 years ago that loving kindness and persecuted those that had been rendered invisible, that is the covenant that god makes with israel and it sets the standard for everybody including israel and including jews. What are you doing for the least of these and for your poor, what are youat doing for those that e dominated and occupied, it is the moral and spiritual standard that is greater than all of us and no one of us ever possessed that kind of truth. And i know you know what im talking about because it relates to your own formation and family and community, that intellectual humility and unbelievable compassion or a deeply concerned to bring together different peoples at each others throats and hes trying to create some kind of peace that goes beyond justice. But its hard to believe 18 years later. Host three years ago you were on again and i dont know if you remember that. Guest brother rodney, yes, rodney george. Absolutely. We had a great time. We had jointly written reflections on truth seeking. We put out another one for the need of honesty just recently but yes we had a magnificent time on the show, trying to hold up to the best of our ability, honesty, decency, d generosity. Anytime you talk about racial identity, whatever identity you have its got to be rooted in integrity and in a solidarity with those across various nations so the moral and the spiritual standard must always be highlighted or you will end up with massive spiritual dk and that is part of what we are dealing with right now. Host to tell the audience if they are not as familiar, Robert George is a professor at princeton and author and one of cornell wests best friends ande he happens to fall on the conservative side of the political spectrum. Is that a Fair Assessment . Guest hes my dear conservative brother. We wrestle and engage with each other but we have a love that is not reduced for the politics. We have a profound friendship that is introduced to a public policy. But its an acknowledgment how we can revel in each others humanity even when we have a deep political disagreement thats also an understanding of the difference between deep love and justice. Any justice that soon generates into something less if it doesnt grounded in something more profound. Pyou can love somebody and have deep political disagreements but if its only about a justice and you end up with a narrow selfrighteousness you end up in your own a sil silo and you aree to make the humane contact with folks you have disagreements with. We already understand this in terms of our own families. Thanksgiving dinner you sit around the table. Youve got some disagreements with aunts and uncles and moms and dads and brothers and sisters but youd still take a bullet for them. That is the love we neednt tale for serious justice and it doesntca mean we dont have political fault. Of course we have political faults. There is no doubt about it. Donald trump, no doubt about that but i dont want to lose sight of his humanity and that hes made in the image of god the same way that i am and i dont want to lose sight of the fact if he didnt change his life and act with integrity heo has that capacity. He could do it if he wanted to but he chooses not to. As long as that image of god there is that choice we have to be different and go another way and be better. You dont ever want to lose sight of that when you are engaging human beings. I learned this in baptist church. You hate the same but you can try to stay in contact with the humanity of the sinner. And if in fact as i also learned that the Shiloh Baptist church the kingdom of god is within you and everywhere you go you leave a Little Heaven behind and the question becomes what kind of heaven behind are we leaving in terms of our relations with others and concerns with poor people and working people and concerns with Indigenous People and black people and poor white people, our concerns with those in lithia, somalia, ethiopia, nigeria, thailand, japan. Its got to be global, international. Thats partt of the greatness of the prophetic legacy of jerusalem that every flag christians ought to be under a cross, every flag, jews under the unnameable yahweh the god of justice, justice that how, shall pursue not just for the group, the ego but for all of those who suffered. These are some of the great moral truths of the species if we lose sight of that we end up losing the planet and we end up losing american democracy. We end up losing the best of ourselves. What does it profit w the nation that is zero jean oneill and his literary genius. F host it is a pleasure to see you virtually and i look forward to seeing you again in person. Thank you for your time here on indepthth today. Take care. Congratulations, stay strong. And this text message favorite guest he was on our year of fiction which was 2018. Colson was one of our guests. It was in 2006 our guests were wrong powers, taylor brand, francis fukuyama, shelby steele, marc boutin, joyce appleby, gary gallagher, terry bruce, John Hope Franklin and president jimmy carter. Francis was on in 2006. Here is a portion. So you are also interested in photography. Thats been a longstanding hobby of mine and i gave it up for aboutt maybe 15 or 20 years but then the digital age hit and ive been doing it now for about ten. I travel a lot so i take a camera wherever i go but i got interested in being able to control lighting and doing more studio type work so now i got set up with an annual ritual with my kids i do a portrait of them every year so we have a clear record of what they look like atli yearly intervals. One of these days id like to take pictures of all of my friends because i know some pretty interesting people, get them to pose but unfortunately ive been a little too busy to do that. Is this where you do your portrait work . Its just the basement yes but i can set it up with all of my lights to do portraits. What kind of camera is this . I love this camera. It is a medium format. It produces a big six by seven. It produces the most beautiful highresolution pictures that ive ever scanned into the computer. It produces about a 500megabyte scan when youre done with it. Ive taken this all the way to australia. Its not an easy camera to use ybut its flexible and produces beautiful pictures. How long have you been using this . Ive had it about four years now. I have another medium format that is a little bit lighter that i use for travel photography, but i have a collection of icons and other things. Im afraid the digital revolution is going to make these cameras obsolete because the resolution you can get now on a pro digital slr is getting up to this level but im going to be very sad because the film they make for medium format cameras are just beautiful at the moment that theyve perfected it. All of that is going to end. How does the processing work you just get a negative and manipulate the digital . I have a medium format scanner so i scan either a slide or negative and then its all photoshop from there. I used to have a dark room when i was a kid and i did black and white. I even did color for a while but the computer makes that so much easier these days. You feel kind of bad all these skills people develop to darkroom skills like ansell adams. There is one print ansell adams printed repeatedly and it took him 25 years to finally get the print that he felt happy with, and unfortunately its easier, all of that effort and that craftsmanship you lose when you move to computers and digital. One of Francis Fukuyamas best known books is the end of history and the last man. Hehe is still in the virginia aa and still writing. That was a visit that we took to his house. Richard hall of cspan went out there with him. He did that for many years for booktv, traveled to the authors homes. We will show you a couple more of those today. Tucson, thanks for holding. You are on booktv. Favorite books, Nonfiction Author, what are you reading and have you had a favorite guest . Dy caller well, my Favorite Book of all times is the autobiography of malcolm x, because i read that when i was a kid about nine or 10yearsold. It was my First Library book that inspired me to continue to read. But cspan and just the wonderful across the board. I have a diverse background in reading. My careern, has been education. This is my 40th year assistant principal for 22 years and it moved me when you were talking to delaware because im originally from wilmington delaware and went to high school and graduated. Thats how i ended up in tucson. One of the books when she was talking aboutm the ghetto i thought i am also reading a book called the color of law by Richard Rothstein and thats an interesting book. I had the pleasure of meeting doctor cornell west back in the 90s when i was working for my district the africanamerican studies department. I was reading the book at the time democracy matters. Its one of my Favorite Books and doctor cornell west was trying to get me inspired to go to princeton to finish my doctorate. And im reading a book beginning again. One of my favorite historians professor meagan. I have a kind of crosssection of things. One of the things i like about cornell west is how he talks about some of the news today as a form of entertainment that they present. You just have to read between the lines and know whats what the people you had on today i admired everyone you had on that are deep readers and i think one thing about cspan im so glad that you have this program because it gives us a chance to broaden our horizons intellectually. One of the people you have on before was a book by michelle sullivan. Ive read her book that im reading a new book, tomac in search of the voices identity. I kind of just go back and forth. One of my favorites you also had almost doctor dyson. I have several of his books, so i enjoy that kind of reading, tomac. Host with cornell west, what you see is what you getw with him. So hes always been consistent overco the years. But i tell you, we sure missed going down to tucson for that wonderful book festival put on by the university of arizona this year. Have you been there in the past . Guest caller yes, yes, i go every year and pick up a couple books. Host weve covered in the past ten years or so and of course this year it didnt happen, but we look forward to going back down. March is a nice time to be there after a a long winter, tomac. Caller is a beautiful place. Host thanks for your time. We appreciate it. He mentioned a couple of historians, another historian who appeared and is still working today, this is from 2001 and this is best selling author and Pulitzer Prize winner David Mcauliffe. We have some video of your home and writing shed. Guest first of all it isnt a shed, it is the headquarters. Thats our home, thats on music street in west massachusetts, a village in the center of the island of Marthas Vineyard. The house is part of its 18th century, part of its 19th century, part of it is 20th century. That is the back porch looking back over the acre that we own and where we have gardens and a nice reach back to the bordering to a neighboring farm which has been the same family since the island was first settled and this was my walk to work that is mwhere i work right there. That measures 12 by 8 feet and has windows on all four sides. I absolutely love it it has about 800 books in there and my faithful typewriter upon which i have worked now since about 1965. Ive written every book ive ever written on that typewriter and theres nothing wrong with it. Its an example of a beautifully made american machine. Its probably got 750,000 miles on it and it runs perfectly. Cspan have you written every word . Guest part of it was charlottesville whenro we lived there for a year, the better part of a year when i was doing research at the library at the university of virginia. But essentially all of it was written here in that room. I work all day every day. Im not writing all day, im reading or correcting what i wrote the day before or im going over notes. Theres no telephone, no music. I have my back to the views s vi wont bee tempted by it. Its far enough from the house there you see general washington and some of his soldiers marching along. I hope they show the end of it because there is a guy at the end that i identified. Hes the one thats always a little slow in catching up. Hes not quite i look at him and hes my example. Hes always a little behind. Host david is published by Simon Schuster and president and ceo on your screen now. What has david meant . Hes the franchise. First, happy anniversary. Hearing his voice just fills me with such admiration. If hes watching, we revere and love you and we will be reading you forever. He is one of the great writers at work today. Every time ive had the privilege of reading one of his manuscripts, what struck me thes most is that there isnt a single wasted word. Hes a careful writer and also the way hes able to find inspiration in American History is distinct. I dont think theres anybody quite like david. Can you tell us is he writing a new book now . I think so youd have to ask his editor but i sure hope so. Host have you been to his shed . Guest i havent and hes hard to reach on the telephone because as he said he doesnt answer the phone. Aihost 20 years weve been on the air, doris kearns goodwin, bob woodward, did naomi klein, Simon Schuster offers that have appeared on the program. How has the world of publishing in the last 20 years changed and you only have two minutes to answer that question. Guest a lot of them are still around writing bestsellers and books that have had a tremendous impact but i guess the short answer is that theres more books being sold online. I think that the pace of publishing just like the news cycle has accelerated and this may be the nonfiction culture. Its taken a little bit of attention away so those are the big pointsts i would value. Host when you planned the whst recentok book and you talk about the timing, what went on to that . Guest we thought that is when attention would be most focused on when the Trump Administration has conducted itself but a lot of it also depends on the reporting in his own timing. He kept saying it could be earlier or could be later. That reporting is what determined the schedule so although we had hoped that it would be september, nothing was certain until he was done and then we moved. Host what has been the effect of the pandemic on the Publishing Industry specifically Simon Schuster . Guest its been unusual because for several months we actually didnt publish that many books. When the pandemic began in march we put out several titles that were coming out in april, may, june and then we started to publish more really going into july. Then ultimately book sales were up. The industry book sales had been up about 6 industrywide for the major publishers and people were home and had time to read so its turned out to be through the hardship and suffering for the readers its been alright. Host now, Jonathan Karp, while knowing the Publishing Industry figures at Simon Schuster have passed. Guest its been a tragic year for people in the book Publishing Industry. He the only ones who died. Just the other day, i mean, it seems as if there are a lot of major people have passed away this year. Carolyn was our ceo and had worked for simon and schuster for decades and was a great leader. One of the greatest editors of our time and one of the leading editors of nonfiction and was Bob Woodwards editor and doris kearns goodwin. She was working right up to her final days. She called me about a week before she died and wanted to sign up to do two more books and her work was her life and she loved her authors and made in immense contribution to publishing. Host did alice make you leave the manuscript behind because that is the book everyone would like to read. Guest alice was a deeply private person but we did actually publish a book about alice. We asked a bunch of her authors to contribute memories off her and i think that its available free to the public and it is a wonderful book of memories and was reviewed quite favorably by the Washington Post. Host what books are coming out thisis Christmas Season that we should be alerted to . Guest since you asked i have one out right now. I dont know if you can see this the luckiest man which is an account of his years working with john mccain. I was in tears by the end of this book. Its a story you wouldnt be able to get any other way. For many years coauthored seven bucks with himut and so you are seeing mccain from the most intimate perspective any politician or political leader could be seen from and its a story even if you dont agree with mccains politics, this was an honorable man and a man who cared deeply about the country and i think its a story regardless of your political ideology you could appreciate, so thats one. I think other books we have for the holiday, the biography of jimmy carter, his very best which is a terrific account of president carters life. It took jonathan about six years to write. Weve got a book by evan aust knows that just came out on joe biden. Evan won the National Book award for his first book on china. Hes been a new yorker staff writer and he has been covering biden for many years. We think this will be the book everybody turns to to understand joe biden. Host president and ceo of simon and schuster by the way a couple of years ago booktv went to the Headquarters Building in new york city of simon chuster. If youd like to watch, type in Jonathan Karp in the search function. Thanks for spending a few minutes with us. Host guest thank you. Host in 2007 on the indepth program these authors appeared. Michael barone, edward wilson, Christopher Hitchens, david horowitz, Vincent Bugliosi and Newt Gingrich. Dan and massachusetts, good afternoon. Who are you reading and who is your favorite guest . Caller id be glad to tell you. First i want to complement you on the wonderful job you are doing. I find it very interesting and educational. Ive been promoting it to other people. Iin talking about some fine educated people. I have a couple of buddies of mine one was a librarian at the bostonon Public Library and i td him i said these authors say they couldnt have achieved these books without assistance from so many librarians. I dont want to take too muchh time but i want to answer the question also i enjoyed the replayareply you had of williamf buckley that was a phenomenal interview. Hes written so many books i think you said 41. Also i enjoyed listening to the fractured republic. Most people think of the great debate with lincoln and douglas but you cant forget thomas paine and edmund burke and also i want to mention doctor ross a few minutes agoor i really wantd to talk to him i think that he is a well educated man. I thought that book was fascinating. He really brought up an interesting subject to observe the behavior of students and whats going on on collegele campuses today. It was back in the 70s and things have changed. It was interesting hearing the view of commonwealth. I think that he is very fascinating and a wonderful writer. Host what do you do in massachusetts . Caller sure, id be glad to answer that question. After college, i ended up getting a degree in sociology and worked for the commonwealth of massachusetts as an employment counselor for years and got involved my family has a Small Business and i did some retail work with them and lectured at College Campuses and to clergy and different, the llhouse of correction. Ive been involved in some community service, and thats why some information gives me current background when i talk to people. Rm one question i want to ask you if you dont mind and i hope your listeners will probably get something out of this. Id like to hear did you find a central theme that comes through the various authors . For me it was a variety but id like to say a number of your authorsau have the point that is been a decline in our morality in the country and i think that is part of the cause for this [inaudible] i think part of the problem is that o if our country would improve its morality may be more peoplege would get into this secular life it would cause less liberalism going on in Society Today which i think most, some of the authors refer to as a problem that we may have to face in the future. Host and that is dan in pittsfield massachusetts. Bob from detroit says we should go back to three hours. Its now this last year i think weve put it down to two hours. 202 7488200 in the east and central time zone, 202 8488201 in the mountain and pacific and if you want to text a thought include your first name and city 202 7488903 is the number for you. Mike is in Needham Heights massachusetts you are on booktv please go ahead. Caller i would like to mention probably the greatest Nonfiction Book ever written. The author is long gone but it is through the history of the peloponnesian war. Its probably the first Nonfiction Book written but also probably the greatest. The most important fiction book ive read was 1984. Finally, thomas soul we appreciate you calling in. It was in 2009 that a woman appeared. Shes somebody with autism who designs livestock [inaudible] here is a portion of what she had to say. What do you mean when you say call. In pictures . Guest instead of asking me an abstract question why dont you pretend im Google Images and give me a keyword. Dont give me something i can see in the studio like control room, just i will tell you how myor mind searches the database. Host cspan. Guest my hotel room, ive got the tv on and i was watching cspan. Booktv wouldnt turn off and i had other work to do so now im seeing the Remote Control and im pushing all the buttons. Thats how i got to cspan, the Remote Control and i had to call the staff to get the Remote Control to work. Now i am into like therk hotel castle file. Host corral. Guest many of the facilities that ive designed. They start coming up like slides. It tends to be a ranch facility. Thats something that is my business. Im going to tend togo see my on stuff. I am seeing them. You are not being very creative and what youre asking. The only way i can explain what i think is ive got to show you how and it kind of gets off the subject in the same way that a search does on the internet even when youu do a verbal search, y be the first two pages and then it gradually gets off the subject. Host how many people in the u. S. Think like that . Guest there are people that are visually thinker finget are not autistic. A lot are graphic art and design. One thing im more extreme i can actually test run it in my head a Virtual Reality system. I thought any other designer can do that and when i found out they couldnt, i interviewed people about how they think and i was shocked to find out most people didnt think the way that i do. They talk like specific slides, i put them in the file. Other people were getting a generalized image. I only have specific ones. Host that was Temple Grandin back in 2009 on booktv. This is lisa. I just finished reading parable by octavia butler. The book was recommended in the alumni group. My Favorite Book is called the first and last freedom. The reader will find a contemporary statement of the fundamental together with an invitation by and for himself. And the search for security. His last name is Krishna Marty i read a book not long ago as a result of watching cspan i dont think it was booktv but a. Q. And a. It was called clandestine relationships a black mans odyssey and it was a very illuminating book written i think 1998 so im not so sure. Its a very interesting book. Those who are ignorant and those who are stupid and he goes on to relay that people that are ignorant tend to do stupid things. But it was a very illuminating book and i enjoyed it and it was amazing how a black man was able to become very Close Friends with members of the ku klux klan to the point where they not only trust each other, but they became very Close Friends at which point at the end of the book he realizes his best friend has a daughter and he wants davis to become his daughters godfather. Host and he is in macon georgia. Go ahead, please. Caller yes, to answer your question on my favorite authors it would probably be David Mcauliffe and goodwin. Mcauliffe was one of the first to put you there. Im in my 60s so i remember Walter Cronkite tv show called you are there and i remember mcauliffe talking about what it was like being a revolutionary war soldier and trying to get home after the war or if you go wounded exactly what kind of care would you get or how did you put on your shoes or did you have matching shoes. He was one of the first to introduce me to that line of thought and i have used it so far to tailor my reading list. Im reading the liberation trilogy now and i just finished Victor David Hanson thpeloponnesian war. Hansohansen was the first one iw that could make thatre interesting. I first heard this on a replay like a 2000 booktv thing. So you have really i wouldnt call myself a cspan groupie i dont sit about 330 at night watching but all of my friends are probably tired. Ive downloaded all of your communicators and stuff like that. Host im going to go out on a limb and say that you are a groupie. [laughter]t caller i will say this you have made me feel better about this years election. Basically from the contenders that youve played or the landmarken cases and stuff i consider myself studying history but basically there was always a big issue for every year al smith back in the 1920s and every year theres always been some big deal and if you were to only listen to the propaganda out there today on other channels, you wouldnt get that picture so im kind of thinking even though itsth a big electi, trump and biden, whoever wins or loses i believe as long as the machinery in the system stays the same place we will be okay and i have cspan to thank for that. Host thanks for calling in and watching. Over the years from the publisher regnery, several authors have appeared including ann coulter, dinesh desousa, david horowitz, Newt Gingrich, michelle malkin, marc stein. What do they have in common . I think that its fair to say they were all conservative and including this gentle man who was in our first year. This is 49yearsold . Yes about 1951. A rather amusing that i had calculated for it to come out on the 250th anniversary of the founding of yale. In fact it was coincidental. Brianna max the picture on the back, do you remember those days . [laughter] guest no. Cspan what is in the books . Guest it was an examination of life at yale with special attention given to the impulses in the courses to which having to do with government and enthusiasm for the greater government or was it enthusiasm for the respective religion. What was encouraged in those courses in which religion touched faith or skepticism and i concluded that in those days it was a collective and diagnostic. Should i rattle on . I was going to say someone reminded me that i had volunteered to read out loud the section on christianity. From the fraternity of the christian minded. Doing prior to that quick. I was an editor at 2012 through this year. We have seen her editors will lead editors that is in most publishing houses that takes the manuscriptw and does the big picture editing and then a copy editors take it from there. Host i think during our visit here in washington i picked up a copy of god and man. Buckley . Kim and when we started the company in 1947 and as we heard in the interview clip and another important book in that division that regularly published and that appeared at roughly the same time and those two books agree on the map and established the tradition we try to carry on to this day. Host who are some of the authors have you published at regnery . It is quite a variety. With conservative name figures. And then to have politicians it is one vote away from senator ted cruz. That came out right at the same time with supreme disorder. As a conservative intellectual and with another academic and the canadian and is a podcast celebrity we have one that came out with a book with the governments response to the pandemic. With a statistician a biologist so we cover the spectrum. From your perspective that regularly is it better to the Republican Administration or democratic when it comes to book sales . The joke has always been half of america is good for wagner he. The clinton years were very good for regnery. When a conservative is in the white house maybe they are less worked up about things so seeing the opposition has been good for regnery. The trump years everything about donald trump he stirs the pot but in general with the opposition years are good for our business. Host the new ceo and publisher thank you for spendingew a few minutes with us today. Congratulations on your 20 years. Host we have about 50 minutes left thomas you are on the air go ahead tell us your favorite author or Favorite Program or what you are reading. Caller , im a big fan of tv it might be my Favorite Program. My favorite Nonfiction Author and favor guest. First thanks to the color a few minutes ago but i think he has been on booktv at. And with the spectrum of consciousness with the integrated paradigms to be called americas greatest and has been talked about like bill clinton and his importance. Thank you for calling in. In 2004. And for purposes. It happened by accident but i finally got a job in new york from 1962 summer was coming on i had only two jackets to a name. So i went into thed store so it was made of some heavy material and i can wear in the summer so i would where it this time of year and annoyed people to know and. And, with the magazine pieces i have done and i was interviewing and they were asking my opinions i didnt say very much but the articles would say what an interesting s whman he wears white suits. It took the place of a personality for many years. Host how many do you have . Now i have 22. I can get by with that used to have a lot of them. Host how long does it take to get them cleaned . Six hours and people thank you have one and actually have three. I have three suits i brought along to come here all made of the same material. Simply does not hurt to have a trademark. Host he passed away in 2018. Here were other guest on indepth. The booktv went to alice walkers home and did the program from their. And with bob marley, i never met bob marley while he was alive and i feel i have met his spirit every year since i discovered him. He has meant a great deal to me and the energy is part of what we do. It may at some point that part of what we do is just give this energy when you are part of the culture that is past its a big gift because people can keep going so i feel it keeps millions of us going he ishe a shaman so you see just the purity of his giving and i think millions of people around the world have connected with that. And then to be completely free given the transmission. That was alice walker at her house in the berkeley hills. I peter thank you for taking my call. I dont know who is my favorite guest i have had so many like harold and john mcwhorter. I adore nicholas any bibliophile should love him and then lynn cheney i remember i got through to talk to her i will never forget it. I ordered the program i have got all the books it was lovely. Host she has a new one out. Caller i know. I will get it it was so unique this time with her husband interviewing her i thought that was neat. I love you all so much. Its the greatest thing in the world, booktv. Host we appreciate you watching relative american washington. Caller Great Program Victor Davis Hanson and Christopher Hitchens and as a genius so anyway i really love your show have a great day. Heres a picture along with what he just said my favorite end up author Christopher Hitchens although ironically have not read any of his books and he is finishing his book now america the farewell tour the next from laramie wyoming. Thank you with your service and cspan john meacham have they been on indepth . I think sebastian has been on and who else . John meacham. Host john meacham, not yet. We have been trying. But sebastian, just a couple of years ago from the new york studio. He owns the bar up there so we went up to new york to visit with him there. Was the name of theim bar . Host i remember thats a couple of years ago. Excellent what a great writer. The authoritative literature on vietnam. Im not a somebody with that. Andha we did interview him during the National Book festivalle. A great sense of humor. She grabbed a book and brought it back to him to sign it was a john grisham novel. [laughter] we also interviewed john grisham a couple times here which is always entertaining to say the least. Caller we like our local authors. Thank you. Hud secretary doctor carson prior to being heardeihu secrety and appeared on this program in 2014. I was extraordinarily selfish. So people are always infringing on my rights and then once i even tried to stab another youngster with a knife. The scene is world depicted in the scene of gifted hands that cuba gooding junior plays my part. After that i locked myself in the bathroom i started to contemplate my life trying to kill somebody i was seriously deranged. I prayed and i picked up a bible. And there is a verse about fools and i said that sounds like me. And then just to get right back into it from the man that control his temper on and then chapter after chapter is seem like they were written for me. While i remained in the bathroom for two hours a came to an understanding it was not a sign of strength to punch somebody or kick down the door was a sign of weakness that you could be controlled by other people or the environment and then came to understand it was my selfishness because somebody was doing something to me was always me and my so you can step outside the center of the circle to b about somebody else and maybe that would change things. I started to try it that day and i havent had another angry outburst since that time. Host prior to being heard secretary Frank Williams and medford Christopher Buckley bill errors Temple Grandin were our guest that year. Several callers have brought up mr. Hitchens and it was in 2007. One conceals the selfconscious thought is a reasonably good businessman and then as a contemporary of his with James Templeton wrote a memoir then he realized what he was talking was complete nonsense and said can you really go on saying this stuff . Its what you expected of me and now we are in business i dont want to sound vulgar about it to mean everything or a very great deal so i think that racketeering has always been an important part like scientology or mormonism its nothing more than a successful con job but the life cannot be entirely reduced to that because they dont know any more than you do they say i believe it then they still r believe it today so they are asking us the propensity to faith. If somebody wants me to believe that then i will but then i feel they are arguing against themselves and that is the injustice. Host you think billy graham is an evil man . Yes. When i say that that there are some kinds of prejudice as it happens i dont know why like i would be a better person but it is a horrible intellectual meanspirited you read the stuff and with the jewish question from what president nixon was. And you find that he is outmatched. And then does that in private. And that is enough to make you sick. Host passed away four years after that interview in 2011. In 2010 our guest were and paul johnson was on the british historian. Hi we are living in an age that was comforting and considerable and we must be grateful for that and with the email correspondenten there hasnt been much improvement there. And then to go back to look at the time of George Washington with the middle ages and the crusades to the age of julius caesar. E to put the morals on the whole have not substantially. Mproved there is still a large number of dreadful things that occurred. Anyone who has lived through the middle decades and then to improve the moral standards i amt not without hope but i still take the view that the world is a good place it to be a better place and we must all work are hardest to improve the moral standard because that is what is required. Host South Padre Island texas. You with us . Caller did you ever have all of her sacks on . Host i believe so. Caller he made famous the movie awakenings and what reading right now i so enjoy your program and i feel the books are so overlooked nowadays. Its rare to see someone reading a work. Some people waiting to vote have a book in hand but i feel the country is at a loss. I love booktv. Host what is on your table right now . Caller actually i have a table full of stuff. Im staying in a vacation condo the author of the Bourne Identity . Host are you staying down there on vacation or the pandemic . My parents retired here in the eighties. Im from kansas city we still have the house so im lucky enough to stay on the beach. I still have my sister here but its a beautiful place. Its the best beach in texas and not as crowded. They have left the beach open with social distancing you can have an umbrella but only two people p 15 feet apart. It is the last stop if you look at a map from the tip of texas basically and we had a gorgeous day today. Thank you so much. I learned so much and i feel like i am part of the Community Use find that people dont read the books they read the internet. Thank you again. s host booktv is active on social media with our facebook and twitter and instagram page. At booktv is the best handle for that. Go online everything we have talked about all indepth programs a tab at the top of the page in 2018 booktv had some authors on we made a concerted effort to have only fiction author certain types and then here was the list we had on. Those were the 12 that we had on here is judy from her program in 2018. I do love the concept of the novel as a way to educate about social justice. Because for example when i read the book i read countless institute studies about reproductive rights and. Bortion statistics people dont do that on the daily basis and the think youre picking up a book that will whisk you away but if i have done my job right at the end of the book you are thinking very hard about a topic you have not approached and in that way it gets peoples minds to crack wide open. Host calliope from pennsylvania. Caller how are you. I wanted to say my favorite Nonfiction Author was Christopher Hitchens by far also sebastian younger. Host thats quite a range of people. Host i have a very eclectic taste. Fiction only but o has been on the cspan has been my favorite. Brian lamb is a wonderful interviewee for many different respects because he knows the subject. We are all waiting for him to complete the final installment of the biography. Host i think that it was over a year ago conan obrien who is a big fan of robert caro got himim out to california to interview him and we covered that on booktv as well. So that was an interesting hour. Caller a lot of us out there were not as high celebrity levels as conan obrien, but many of us are interested in robert caro. Host a lot of uss are also waiting for him to finish that. Caller i keep asking when hes going to finish but do we have any hand when it might come out . Host i dont have any. Maybe we should email him directly and find out. I think it finishes when it finishes. Caller absolutely and it will be worth the wait. Host all right, eleanor. Thank you. Along with history and politics, we also talk with science and tech writers and it was in 2006 that futurist and inventor ray kurzweil was on the program. We are going to send devices in our bloodstream in our bodies and in our brains through the capillaries to do two things. One to keep it healthier, to reverse destroying pathogens, destroy debris, dna errors. That sounds futuristic i point out we are doing at least a first generation of that already in animals. Oncene scientists cure diabetes scientists at mit have a device that actually destroys cancer cells by releasing toxins and destroying theod cells. This is today. Take this magnification expansion that i talked about in the quarter century on the capabilities of information technology, computers and apply that to what we can already do and in 25 years we will have these devices that will be very sophisticated and they will be capable of keeping us healthy from inside and interacting directly with our biological norms. Weve already shown that thats feasible, and expanding human intelligence. Host how small are the nano bots . Guest it means the key features are measured. It doesnt mean that its 1 meter. It means they are measured. The whole device is actually microns which is the size of a blood cell and a blood cell is basically a nano robot and quite sophisticated and can detect friend from foe. Ultimately these will be able to do that in just seconds. They wont be subject to autoimmune disorders. If that sounds futuristic, today there is these like for parkinsons patients so i think it gets smaller. We are shrinking technology at the rate so in 25 years these devices will be 100,000 times smaller in terms of key features and they will be a million times more capable and they are already pretty impressive rate. Host 202 if you want to make a comment in the last 20 minutes, 7488200 in the east and central time zones, 7488201 for those in the mountain and pacific time zones and 202 7488903 if you would like to send a text. Please include your first name as well. Here in the baltimorewashington area, go ahead. Caller hi, peter. Its wonderful to talk to you. Where to begin. As i have been watching the last little while i was thinking about the last interview i think brian lamb did with Christopher Hitchens while he was getting chemotherapy and it was so powerful and moving. It just re aired a few weeks ago but anyway, Christopher Hitchens, Christopher Buckley, pj orourke, im writing now intellectuals by portal carl johnson. Magically when i turned on the show, there was a clip from paul johnson. I wondered why you stopped going to visit authors and their workstations. I thought maybe it got too expensive or something, but i enjoyed that future when you oure doingoo it. Host you are one of the many people who have chastised the decision that we cut back a little bit. It was timeconsuming. They were important, youre right and probably something to reconsider. But i appreciate that. Washington, d. C. Caller thanks for taking my call, peter. Really Excellent Program this afternoon. I am a big booktv fan. I have a book here i finished reading a couple of years ago. I was on one of the cspan programs and write on the stomping grounds of the area it was a good read. Ial think we covered that on booktv. Caller ive got so many books here that i havent actually read. I would like to make a comment im going to order some of the books because shes a fascinating offer. Shes so rich in her dialogues and perspectives they are so educational. Thank you. Host thanks for calling in and watching. It w was in 2011 feminist phylls bennis was on along with conservative political activist are material, pauline mail, ishmael read, eric pozner, linda hogan, and culture, ellis coast, michael moore, Ben Meza Rick and david brooks were all on and it was in august that and culture joined. Joel journalists that are allowed to interview. Its about seven names and i will find it here in a minute. Youve got on the list, john cloud of Time Magazine, Jonathan Friedland of the guardian, jamie of th frontpage magazine, taylor hill, jonathan from the baltimore sun, charlotte of belief net. Com and fishbowl dc. Why are those chosen few allowed pe interview you . Guest originally only three and i chose them specifically because they ran a tape recorder when i talked and then apparently played the tape recorder back before typing what i said. And i promise you that is shockingly rare. Host do you get misquoted a lot . [laughter] g guest somehow i say we need to reduce the Capital Gains rate and it comes out as i support hitler and all his work. [laughter] no, its insane the misquotes. I mean, often the malice in my statement is there, but the quote is completely vacuumed out. Like i say the joke bomb squad. Originally it was simply the ones and by the way they were all liberals who do not agree with my politics and yet they quoted me accurately. I dont care what they say in the body of the peace or about me, just quoted m quote me accu. If you got added hooted quote me accurately but after that it became kind of a special request thing people would interview and say i want to be on that list which is a good incentive for them to have. Host that was ten years ago. Who are you reading right now, who is your favorite author . Caller when theres an sffer out there the ones i like and support i pay full price. The ones i dont like i buy the books at the library so i can support the library. Host who are some of the authors that you like . Caller all of the political ones and i do have to say my husband is one political bench and im the other. Weve been happily married for 57 years so he pays regular price on the books he wants and i payeg the regular books i want and then we have extra copies because a wife has to serve her husband once in a while. Host that is roseann in california. Appreciate the call. Speaking of politics in different political i love you but i hate your politics is the name of her book, probably good for this season. Cheryl in south carolina, good afternoon. Caller good afternoon, how are you. I want to thank you for my education and happy 20th anniversary. Host thank you. Caller i was going through a divorce and a buyout of my husband on Marthas Vineyard and i got an attorney from cape cod and i didnt understand what was going on with the money market. He recommended i read the colossal failure of common sense by Lawrence Mcdonald with Patrick Robinson and its the inside story of the collapse of lehman brothers, and it was fascinating to me. Host did we cover that on booktv . Ie know we covered one book on the collapse but im not sure caller it was so informative and ive been ar rel estate broker for so long and i was in massachusetts. I wish there was more than i did come across a great book and found out about it by your television show. It was on cspan and its cant pay wont pay. Its about the collision where the change would be the sum of the parts to leverage bad loans and the changing of how mortgaging, lending, school loans, helping the tenant, landlords food taken advantage of the collapse and bought things and how when you buy property it goes host that was a pretty recent book, wasnt it . Guest its free online. Thats where i stayed up pretty much all night. I think i read for about six hours. Host thanks for calling in. It was in 2006 that the awardwinning historian from duke university, John Hope Franklin was our guest. He was in his 90s at the time he was here but this is one where we had gone down to visit nm at his home ahead of the program. We are in professor John Hope Franklins backyard and he has a greenhouse backl here. I got hooked on orchids in 1959 at the university of hawaii. I came back, i was living in brooklyn, teaching and i came back and brought a few. Then i built a greenhouse and i really got started there. These are just beginning to open up. Is it a difficult task or Specialized Task to keep them healthy . Guest you have to keep the greenhouse fairly clean of fungus and various things that could be a deterrent to their successfulir growth. This has gotten out of control its the most important orchid. Host doctor franklin died about three years after that interview. 2012, chris hedges was on the program along with marc stein, randall kennedy, richard rukeyser of the National Review, tom brokaw, historian, julian maldonado, Kenneth Davis and former senator, the late tom coburn. 2013 the year following bartlett and steele, Donald Bartlett and james steele were the guests that have written a couple of bestselling political books and exposes. Randall robinson was on the program, randall schweikert, amy goodman, melanie phillips, Rick Atkinson whose few viewers have referenced it is now working on a trilogy on the early days of the u. S. , mary roach, ben carson, ben schapiro, john lewis, the late john lewis, kitty kelly and christina off summers. In 2009 a few callers have brought him up and of course we talked about his father, but Christopher Buckley was on the program. Hes an author in his own right, mostly satirical fiction. Here is a little bit of his program. I got the idea for thank you for smoking. One day i was making summer watching the news hour as it was called and by the way i still think of it as the mcneil larra. It still makes me chuckle to think, but they have someone on who was there to present the latest evidence that smoking is, hello, bad for you and he had to phd use at the bottom of the screen. To balancece it out they had someone from the Tobacco Institute which of course is Tobacco Industries lobby and it was this gorgeous attractive woman. Every time the scientist from ene National Institutes of not smoking said something, presented the evidence that had at least seven words that were incomprehensible. She would say please and make it sound as though he was just being the most preposterous phony in the world. I thought thats got to be an interesting job you get up in the morning, brush your teeth, say goodbye to the kids, go off and sell for a living. I called and said ive got to come hang out with you. I was a little oblique about what i was up to. So i got to hang out with her and at one point, after a couple of days i said you know, theres something im really dying to ask but i feel a little awkward about it. And she said i know, whats a nice girl like me doing in a place like this and i said yes thatsct exactly it and she said im just paying the mortgage. This becomes the yuppie nuremberg defense. I was only paying the mortgage. Host Christopher Buckley in 2009. This text is from mary in dearborn michigan. My favorite interview was with geraldine brooks. I loved people of the book and the year of wonders. Her next Nonfiction Book hopefully is cast by Isabel Wilkerson. Robert caro has been mentioned a couple times. He is writing the multivolume set on Lyndon Johnson and the johnson years. Here he is talking about one of those volumes. A. Going to live as long as it takes to find out exactly what differences it made in the life of black people in the south when Lyndon Johnson got the voting rights. I am going to go on a book tour and then we always spend two months in france and then im going to start. Cspan i know you mentioned in the past going to vietnam. Guest you remember everything. Thats the two things i want to do because if i can say i tried to write about political power and i feel that you dont write about it fully enough unless you write not only about the man who uses it but about its effect on whom its used, Lyndon Johnson through his great Civil Rights Act transforms the political power of black people in america. Go to a Southern City and see what does that mean. How do you feel about the sheriff now that you can vote for a sheriff. Sheriff. Are your schools better, exactly what difference. Do you have more hope in your father did that your childrens life will be better than yours however the other side is vietnam and one of i the thingsi intend to do is to try to show what it means when a modern industrialized nation makes war so i want to go to vietnam and see how that works and probably live in one of these vietnamese villages that were bombed by the b52s. The horrible thing about that is they flew so high not only were they invisible from i the groun, but you couldnt hear y them so the villages never even knew they were being bombed until they actually hit. Host in 2014, marc levan, bonnie morris, then west, luis rodriguez, amity slays, ron paul, mary frances berry, joan biskupic, Michael Korda and cord Arthur Brooks all appeared. Nell degrasseh tyson was with us in 2017. Here is a portion. I was asked by the New York Times several impasses ago in congress and they thought they would have fun and ask people who were definitely not politicians what solutions do hithey have for getting things through to congress and fixing asings. I think the way they asked it is tif you were president what woud you do, what solutions do you have so i wrote back if i were president , i wouldnt be president. You can find this on my website. If i were president , google that and my name and it will take you to the New York Times part that i duplicated it. They cut out a paragraph because there wasnt enough space. The full response to that question is there and it comes down to the expectation that if you run for office you somehow can change everything. And i am not convinced of that. Im a little contrary in here. In fact my views would be a little opposite of what a lobbyist does. Lobbyistsce go straight to the thpolitician to influence the politician in ways that serve the interest of who they represent. For me, any elected official represents people who put them into office. So, as an educator what matters is not so much who the official is. What matters is what is the state of enlightenment of whos doing the voting because if people, for example, all recognized and valued what science is and how and why it works, they would never even dream of voting for someone who doesnt know that because that person would then not represent their full interest. So i would rather educate an electorate so they can put people in office who can make scientifically informed decisions about everything they do rather than just install myself into office and lead people who dont yet have this knowledge or insight. 88 of Congress Stands for reelection every two years. So, you can convince one congressman or another, but then youve got to start all over again. You educate the electorate, we are good. I can go to the bahamas, elect people who will take this country into the future rather than back into the cave. Host unfortunately weve ran out of time. We had other video to show from michelle malkin, noam chomsky, bernadine, studs terkel and jimmy carter. Unfortunately we were unable to get to p the video. All of those programs are available on the website at booktv. Org to watch in their entirety. Thanks for being with us and for the past 20 years. In her latest book what can i do actress and activist jane fonda reflected on environmental issues. In this portion she offers her thoughts on the state of the federal government. We also have to dig deep into ourselves and figure out who we are. Who do we want to be. We have two fundamentally, and i hope we will and i think we will we have to change the way we think and feel and function to care for each other and not let these dog was selling politicians who really dont care about us at all but lead us down a dead end road which is whats happening now. But i always tend to look at the bright side. Covid didnt break us. It exposed where we were already broken. So people saw things i dont think they were aware of. They didnt realize how our federal government is and has been so weakened and crippled by the guy thats in the white house right now. When you are facing a pandemic and a climate crisis, you need a strong federal government thats coordinated and strategic and prepared. People are now faced with whats happening when you dont have that. Another lesson from covid is Pay Attention to the experts. The medical experts and the scientists which hasnt been happening and i think people see what happens when you dont do that. And then i think people are seeing the essential workers, the farm workers, the nurses, the domestic workers, the delivery people, all the people that make our lives function that are missing so much and getting so little in return, clapping for them even isnt enough. We have to really fight for them. In the future that they are able to earn a decent living so they can support themselves. So all these things that reflect on who we are as a people are happening at once and i think we are being shaken awake so i feel hopeful. To watch the rest of the Program Visit our website, booktv. Org and search for jane fonda or the title of her book what can i do, using the search box at the top of the page. Next on booktv after words, the wall street journal discusses how the conservative movement has evolved since the reagan era. Hes interviewed by Washington Post columnist karen. This is a Weekly Program with relevant guest hosts interviewing top Nonfiction Authors about their latest work. All after Words Programs are also available as podcasts. Thank you so much for joining us today for our conversation about