Which will get two and a little bit. So rights approaches holland, greece to finance the entire operation. He agrees to do with the government bureaucrats. In return, holland has designed over not to raise personally, but tuesdays electorate will company and many of you may know still the best, part of General Dynamics and building submarines. And when i found that out, i started looking into John Philip Holland and he became another one of those fascinating characters. He was born in county clare. Or they spoke gaelic. He had no training at all. He was a choirmaster. Christian brothers you for taking his final vows he decided not to enter the priesthood he had no mechanical training, no mathematical training, no engineering training. His brother, one of his brothers came across to the United States and the potato famine which is a really big deal and people died and another million were forced to leave come in many who came to the United States. The irish nationalist groups that a peaceful transition was not going to happen was to cut the irish brotherhood and the republican army. The irish brotherhood in great written. Helens brother was sacked is and holland came across and they were kind of this odd group. Kind of the gang that couldnt shoot straight. Had this weird kind of plan to invade canada. They turned out to be the british service. They were going to start an Irish Government exiling for reasons that are totally obscure. Among themselves almost as much as the british. Holland goes to the meetings. He said i am going to invent a secret weapon. I am going to design for you a secret weapon double sink british warships. The case then this design, which is technically feasible and they look and think hes very quiet, softspoken man. Thank you. Thats really nice. Im not the same time, they hatched their most bizarre, weirdest, most ridiculous plot yet. Six of their colleagues sentenced to life in prison in australia on the west coast. It was almost impossible to get to. I do is no place to escape. There was a small town and then the colony. They decided what they are going to do is get a boat, go do some simple headache sea captain. Hes going to give them a ship. They are going to convince the commander,. , whatever he is that they are british inspectors come even though they all clearly were from ireland. The british inspectors, as british and spec whose they were going to be able to contact prisoners, tell them what to do, hide a rowboat. They were going to get in the rowboat, rollout to this ship and sail back to america to a heros welcome. It was a bizarre plan, but it worked. This ship is called the cataldo, 81076. A sail to the west coast of australia. The commander of the prison mustve been so happy to see anybody that he just said sure, yes, i would love to give you a tour. Wouldve been slipped away come and talk to the six prisoners. The prisoners are trustees. They go to work in midtown. There is no place to escape to. They given a rowboat and start rolling out which is forced to anchor in the day for security reasons. All of a sudden, a British Patrol boats seized them from the start feeling towards them. Cannot get to them, that threatens to fire if the prisoners get on board. They run the stars and stripes and say if you fire on the ship company fire in the United States of america. He retreats of the six prisoners could initiate. They have a raucous and wonderful voyage home, which mustve included a great deal of drinking. They get off in new york in 1876 and all of a sudden, the athenians are awash in money because this is such a big deal that everybody thinks these guys are brilliant and they give money and then they start thinking the sky, this holland fellow, maybe we should give him a little money. They did get taken in 15,000. John holland went often built the first primitive but is modern submarine, which he tested near paterson, new jersey, which is still to this day was dredged up decades later and is now in the Paterson Museum in this becomes not really interested because maybe weve got something here. They gave him more money and in total secrecy, holland is told to go off and build the next generation. The problem is that couldnt do anything in total secrecy. They talked about it so much that a reporter from the new york sun was there essentially every day watching it being built and writing about it and even named it. Holland liked the name so he adopted the name, which is also by the way he has some ideas and are now back to fighting among themselves and one faction is very upset at the other faction seems to have been a submarine designer, so they kidnapped the boat. They sneak in at night with the forged letter from holland. They hope the boat up to their own ship until it to connecticut. In connecticut, they try to operate themselves and discover it is not quite as easy as they thought comes that they get in touch with holland and said excuse me, could you tell us could you teach us how to drive this . And he said no. From there, holland went off and try to sell the boat to the navy. It took 20 years. Back up a little. Submarines one of the things i learned as there were three axes of motion. There is role of side to side, pitch front to back and basically keeping it straight. And surface ships come you dont have many of those issues because the density of air is much less than the density of water, so daunting ship physically sits in the water and if its not too far they will move back under the water. That is not true because water pressure is all around. You have to control submarines under the water in the same three axes that an airplane has to be controlled. This was an enormously different engineering problem. At the center of gravity thats why its fascinating. At the center of gravity shifts in the boat starts tilting forward in using water because you always need to keep in a boat and its like this in the water has run to the front of the vote, it goes down and it keeps going down as many submarine designers found out to their peril. Many people died in some of them died because they couldnt figure out how to keep the boat in the water. How to keep it going straight. Any change in weight will tend to change the center of gravity. If the engine if you lose power and is heavier than the water, it will sink and theres no way to get out. They didnt go very deep in those days. The two brilliant things were to keep buoyancy positively buoyant but after that in a second. Undersea travel like air travel has been a fascination of humankind forever. Leonardo, also said people hypothesized isaac newton about travel in the air and under the water. The first reported successful submarine was in 1620 by a man named cornelius trouble. Trouble was a dutch inventor who ran across james the first, convince james that he could bring on these marbles in james put them in a palace and supposedly invented this machine, this closed wooden structure with a worst that would be kept under the water by the momentum of the orders. Supposedly he went back and forth and supposedly james the first even got in the boat and it was like 300 pounds and was notoriously timid. Report, if you look, if you google the submarine, you will see there are models in museums across the world because he was so successful that people not only didnt know he had never created a submarine, the real inventors promise. Robert boyle, the founder of modern chemistry started investigating Edmond Halley and also did a lot of basic diving belt and started investigating the policy of undersea travel. There is a man who is a french a frenchman who created a submarine and there is a 1747 article in something called gentlemans magazine which was widely read. There is a picture that also had invented the Pressure Cooker and if you look at the illustration, it is almost certainly the Pressure Cooker. Put all of this research came to the attention of a man from sabre, connecticut, a farmer said it would not be accompanied david bushnell. At the dawn of the revolutionary war, bushnell kept terrifying them because they would go to bodies of water and heard the explosions of the night. He tried to figure out how to set up a charge under water. The reason he was doing this was because he was also going to create a secret weapon. And in this particular case that he was aiming for admiral howes flagship in what he did was put to a hollow logs together. He had one operator. Taken in little palms. With a foot pedal right hand paddle, a pillar, almost impossible to figure out how one person could have done all the operations. But the plan was listed on the surface, go under the water a little bit, go up to the top. The guy would screw them in, placed the charge. The charge would go off in april with think. Unfortunately, the upgrade did not penetrate, so the operator seriously trying to get back his spotted shooting night and he gets back to new jersey where they have marched it for him. They tried to my times and it didnt work. Bushnell after the revolutionary war generally upset that general washington did not give him the credit he deserved for this better weapon and went off to france and stayed with the painter named benjamin west. Benjamin west is a premier portrait painter who had ingratiated himself into french society. He stays in paris for a while, eventually leaves, comdex incognito in dice in obscurity and only after he dies does he realize david bushnell. While hes in paris, either just before he leaves, another american shows up in this american is a brilliant job organizer who is acquiring a fabulous reputation in philadelphia, painting people like benjamin franklin. He came he went to britain. Excuse me, this is written first. He goes to britain where west was. Though its terrible. Anyway, back it up and replace britain with france. The other american portrait painter shows up and instead of staying with portrait painting, he gets involved in engineering and decides engineering is for him and developed a way to equalize watering canals without locks and then turns his attention to submarines. There was no there is no previous interest. Whether or not bushnell and the american portrait painters almost certainly was talked about in the west home. Eventually he designs the english are interested, tries to sell it to france. Napoleon takes over, but nothing comes of it good to english at that point why came back not because they believe in the invention, so this portrait painter goes back to england. There is no interest they are. He comes back to america, turns his attention to Service Vessels and develop claremont, which is the first steamship and it is robert fulton. After faltering, theres lots more research in the next big step forward was by the Confederate States of america and needed a secret weapons so they thought. They developed two kinds of boats. One was david and goliath, which was powered by a steam engine and the other one was they couldnt power in india was called the high money. The First Submarine to sink a warship. Boot up, place the charge, also sank because they were doing it on the surface. One of the things about innovation is although we tend to remember the winners, we tend to remember the people who actually did it. It is almost always that person among a group of people who are moving everything forward who are getting closer and closer and closer. Gutenberg wrote lots of people getting closer and closer. The right others, any number of people. In fact, someone at 81099 who actually used the Wright Brothers technique, the one they patented in 1903 on a glider. He was an iraqi ale and it was successful and theres plenty of witnesses. He was going to do more with it anyway back to his fellow instructors at the ale and im going to do this. He said just give it up. Go do something else. So we now remember the Wright Brothers if any of you are sending your kid to yell. So we have holland coming along. There are after in turkey, greece, buying designs. The one place where theres no interest in technology was germany. After he kidnapped, hall and then turns his attention to the united state. He eventually persuades, not directly, but her reputation precedes the secretary of the navy at the time to fund the competition with the best design in just 200,000 to build a book. There are now other people, a man named george aker, simon lake and they convince the navy with the change of administration in convince the powers to be not to dispense the money. They have another competition in holland wins again. Again, they are persuaded not to dispense the money but have a third competition. They have a third competition in holland wins the third time. This time a man named simon lake who is very well known in submarine technology so close, mostly because he was a brilliant designer. He just dropped. His interest for salvage and he made a fortune doing it. He was telling everyone that is boats were better than he wrote so much afterwards that simon likes reputation, a lot of people think simon lake did what holland actually did. The third competition and this time he gets the money and by this time the navy put the number of restrictions. They want steam instead of gasoline or hydrocarbons will steam engines were incredibly hot. How do you vent the spent exhaust . The first ship had to have three. Holland wanted to have one propeller. Holland ended up rebuilding one to three. The only way he realized he was running out of money and the only way he could actually satisfy the contract and build one that build one network is the as the one on its own, privately funded, where he could then show the navy and say okay, this is what it should look like. Thats an isaac rice came in and a lot of times its abbreviated to holland and Network Interop better and further i do want to go into detail because i dont wonder when the book for you. From there it is an amazing story of congressional they were competing on who could buy their own congressman, how did it influence. Started stories that isaac rates josephine was with congressmen being carried out with loose women in order to vote. These stories are in the news papers at two major congressional investigations and the cast of characters is just hilarious. It is the kind of thing that if you try to do fiction, david salo, you know, you either going to do this is a comedy or a story. Ultimately, isaac rice and a. B. Frost was originally holland partner and then became racist partner forced right partner forced right side of his own business. Rice had developed a Fast Attack Submarine designed which was tested. The records are a little sketchy, but he had a boat that was reported to do 22 nods when they were doing 89. So you have this situation were just to go back to the whole innovation issue, he was at utterly brilliant inventor, one of the great scientist this country has ever produced and im not going to go into birdman, but chose to focus on his business and instead in 1909 token all sorts of highpowered investors to go back to the workshop and improve the wright flyer. And dad is subsequently killed him. The last letter he ever wrote in his life was not while he was dying. It is to frederick fishers patent attorney complained about the slow progress and how much money it was costing them. Henry ford who has a reputation as a great inventor, but is actually not an inventor at all but a bright as this man. And then you have John Philip Holland who is a pure inventor, a man not suited for business. He was willing to go into business. He was willing to let other people, better people run the business and subsequently he was frozen out of it. For me, the story of the development of the submarine parallel and they have less and not simply, i always try to do something when history is very pertinent to the president. These three books is like reading about Silicon Valley startups, where somebody invents somebody in its rundown of his business and complained and the ceo of cooper with a more complex situation. The ceo of cooper who has arguably changed the way americans will travel is now out of his own company. He had other personal problems, but these issues i am covered in these three books seemed to me so pertinent that that is why they were really fun to do. I didnt get a chance to do the congressional dust and other procurement and how the money was dispense and its an absolutely wonderful story. There is a 1472 page record of a congressional investigation. Ordinarily when you research this and i dont have researchers. I do it all myself. I wouldnt have time to read this. But i literally couldnt put it down. This telegram, this response, this accusation. One guy was accusing people of being insane. It was just wonderful stories. The last thing i would give you is this. I opened the book with an incident september 22nd, 1914, when a german uboat sinks three british cruisers off the coast of holland. It was a 90 minute and 15 to 1700 people died in war and see on that day, but the three boats that were sunk change the face of modern warfare. The irony and i alluded to this earlier. The one country in the early 1900 had no interest in submarines because admiral turgut, how does there their navy thought it was a gimmick. In 1905, president roosevelt went down in a submarine. He went off wasted day and it was for page news all over the world. There is no record linking the two, but coincidentally did about 12 to 18 months as a contract from the german navy to begin to build submarines. Commissioned in 1909, and 10 for change captain lieutenant takes the three british cruisers. He died six months later and warfare is changed forever. So with that, if any of you have any questions, i would be pleased to answer. [inaudible]. For all the money he made, and e made a fortune, ended up he was always short of money because it cost so much to do all the research. So everyone was looking agz in many as in many innovations, everyone was look at the military applications first x the civilian applications would follow. And because in this case a submarine performing the way we thought a a submarine should, the way the nautilus did in jules verns was very much what holland was working on. It kind of dovetailed with the military applications. Do you have [inaudible] so you clearly have an eye for good stories, and they all revolve around mechanical inventions. And by just just and i was just wondering what your personal experience was. Because you also talk about several people that didnt have any formal training. Im just curious how far into that youve gotten even just researching these stories, the engineering aspect. Do you know, its interesting i have noening nearing training. Im no engineering training. Im an american historian and political scientist by training. But when you start one of the tricks to writing the kind of books is to take complex concepts and make them explicable to a general reader. What i want is for ordinary readers to be able to go, oh, yeah, i get that. I see how that happened. And in order to do that, ive got to simplify, ive got to take a lot of the complexity that would ordinarily be intrinsic to the subject out and figure out if i can figure out how it works in a reasonable way, then i can write how it works in a reasonable way. Excuse me. So while i dont have training, as i read and, for example, you know, i wouldnt know boo about aerodynamics. But the basic concepts ive learned enough about that im always asked to speak in front of aerospace and aeronautical engineers. They say, well, you know, how do you do that. A lot of it is, its how you read the material. Theres one other thing i should say. The internet has provided a wealth of material thats absolutely stunning. There is a magazine called aeronautics which started this 1907. On internet archive they have the magazine, not just text of the articles, but the actual magazine so you can turn the pages and see the ads. They have all sorts of Scientific American was a wealth for all three books, technical world. There were all these engineering journals. So i am able to read through the progress of any of these innovations kind of as the people who were learning about them are reading, and some of them you read and some of the articles and in Scientific American and some of the more prestigious journals, they are ridiculous in the face of other later knowledge, but thats what they knew at the time. So one of the things i can do because of the internet and because of all of these site is the to work may way through the development of one of these innovations kind of as the people who were either doing it or monitoring it or thinking of investing in it did. So its amazing, and its really fun. Its leafing through these journals, there are pictures in aeronautics and automobiles particularly, there were pictures that have never been reproduced, you know . Wilbur wright had his teeth knocked out when he was young playing a hockeylike game, and theres no pictures of him smiling. Ands there is a picture of him, and he smiles like that without opening his mouth. So you learn about people, and i learned about John Philip Holland. He gave a lot of quotes. So you learn about people from their contemporaries and from the people writing about them. So its a really cool and really fun exercise. Yes, sir. Let me ask you something. I grew up in the caribbean, and ive been told a story that during world war ii the island where i was born in aruba was one of the big refineries, you know, United States got a lot of [inaudible] and that, you know, the germans had come with submarines to try and [inaudible] what i want to ask is a larger question off of that. How do you see, because theres [inaudible] what do you see, do you believe that the submarine during the horrific cold war era when i was growing up in the netherlands, that the submarines played any type of role in keeping things from exploding . You know, the difficulty to, you know, like a [inaudible] and how do you see someone in technology moving, in essence [inaudible] become like drones . What is the idea moving forward with these type of things . You know, down the road and maybe doing your research you have come up with some ideas about it. That, that is a difficult question for me not and particularly because we have two gentlemen in the audience who actually know what theyre talking about. So im going to be really, really careful here. My first job out of graduate school was a think tank, a place called hudson institute, and they did these kinds of war studies all the time. And the notion of assured mutual destructioning which is, which everyone hates, when youre dealing with people who do this stuff all the time, you may hate it, but they believe it has kept the peace. So weaponry, the more sophisticated and the more destructive weaponry becomes the riskier it is, but also the more of a deterrent it is generally to war. Now, im not going to take a position on this because the question is how do you balance the risk of this immense power against the deterrence because lesser weapons have been used much more frequently, sticks and spears and we worked our way up. Poison gas has been used almost not at all, and Nuclear Weapons have not been used in 60, 70 years. The answer is so i dont know. In terms of whether submarine technology is going to become more sophisticated, yes. I mean, certainly. Everything is going to become more its, i have a chapter in one of my books which i titled the inexorable progression of knowledge. And it will, we as a species simply move forward. And we have not demonstrated as a species the ability to control our movement through technology be it cloning or we have often tried to control it after the fact. So if youre asking me do i think submarine technologies may become more sophisticated, less human based, more sure. You know, why wouldnt to why wouldnt it . Is that a more dangerous situation . Probably. But again, these are issues none of these issues are simple. Youre always balancing one thing against another. These are not, this is never something where you can say, oh, thats obvious, you know . It may be obvious we shouldnt use Nuclear Weapons again, but how do you not develop Nuclear Weapons when you think your enemies may be doing it . So theres a level of complexity with us living together, greater and greater populations, closer and closer proximity, more and more Sophisticated Technology that we as a species are going to have to deal with, or much of this amazing progress we have made as a species will be wipe away, and people will are going to have to come to grips with those questions. Will they . I dont know. I hope so. Anyone else . Yes, sir. This is fantastic. Thank you very much. Im just interested because you talked a lot about how they kept running out of money, a lot of people trying to push these projects forward, and its made me think do you think perhaps that the business side of this might be the central ingredient in actually making these inventions available to a wider audience . Or is the knowledge, does the knowledge [inaudible] play a bigger role . That is a great question. I remember a man named paul tsongas ran for president , and he said democrats love employment but they hate employers, you know . We have a sense, and also in one of my other many existences, i worked on wall street for a while. There is, like everything else, there are aspects to the world of finance that have been absolutely essential to human progress. There are also aspects in the world of finance that have been anathema to human progress. So if youre asking is business essential, it is essential that someone who knows how to translate an idea, even a prototype into a commercial military application, we need those people. Because with the wilbur wright, with a John Philip Holland and with the people that henry ford employed, you see that if it is left to them, things dead end a lot. Do we need like this is very similar to this question do we need in some way to control or manage how we deal with those financial interests . The answer to that is, of course, yes. And, again, you come down to this choice how much of one are you willing to accept to get some of the other. But if youre asking me do i think the business side is essential, is necessary to move things forward, it always has been. And i suspect it always will be. You know, the one other thing im going to say is that things are initiated often with the best of intentions because of need. And then there is a level of corruption i dont mean necessarily corruption with bribery, but there is a level of stultification or corruption that comes with anything as it matures. So the trick is to keep things vibrant, and in Silicon Valley now or the period i wrote about. , one of the things that was so great was the things were just, it was one thing after another, and things were kept vibrant, and people were investing in things and they failed and you can seeded. But then you and you succeeded. And then you reach a period where you wring the last little utility out of an innovation, and that goes the other way. But thanks. Yes. Sort of following on from that last question but also picking up on your anecdote about the navy asking for specifications and holland saying youve got rocks in your heads, this is what it really needs to look like. And it made me think of the current force with the air force, and the Australian Air force is also buying into this particular fighter jet which is otherwise known as a flying piece of crap because every innovation the planes going to catch on fire, or the pilots going to be denied oxygen. And its way over budget. And it seems that [inaudible] disinterested with the inventer had some level of control, there might have been some success. And im just wondering if in the studies that youve done in land, sea and air if youve had a look at this particular exercise with this fighter jet to see if there are not parallels where there are such differences that you could say, well, learn from previous experience . I dont know this particular fighter jet. As you were talking, ive kind of done my own surf and turf. But i will say this, there are examples when an inventer has been frozen out of his own company and the company has suffered. There are examples where the inventer has maintained control. Wilbur wright demanded control of his own company and ruined it. There wasnt a single innovation that we know theres not a single aspect to the the modern airplane. Ask the rights, wilbur particularly while he was alive, insisted on maintaining this wing warping technology which was dead end. So there you have an example of an inventer who was utter hi brilliant who should have stepped out of the way but did not. But then you have other examples where inventers are shunted away prematurely. John holland is the other side. If john holland was allowed to stay in the company, isaac rice and his partners saw they didnt want to deal with more innovation because they had spent enough money, they had the product, the product was going to sell, and why have to invest more in this Fast Attack Submarine when you already have an attack sub a marine that nobody else had . So you had the opposite. And the problem is when dealing with any of these issues and from my business side, from my business experience i can tell you theres no rules. Theres no, theres no, theres nothing where you can say, oh, its that always. It is a casebycase situation almost always and dependent on the quality of the people on the innovation side, on the purchasing side and on the financial side how good, how what kind of foresight do they have. It all depends. So you look and, you know, we all want rules. There ises a brilliant book called the drunkards walk by leonard [inaudible] who used to work with stephen hawking, and its about the role of chance. And its how much people want hard and fast. They want to know, they want certainty. But it simply doesnt work like that. Anyone else . Oh, yes. [inaudible] if i can be a little greedty. One, youve got a huge enthusiasm and curiosity. And then my brief experience with meeting you and knowing your books, theyre about unventers and about ideas inventers and about ideas, and you seem to be very interested in that. Is that something you always go for . Like, are you really drawn to thinkers and creative actors . Ooh, first of all, thank you. No, actually. My i got involved in birdman and drive are both involve patent lawsuits, this third one doesnt. But i write about constitutional law by training, and again historically, always from the political side. Im not a lawyer. Starting with the Constitutional Convention and through the end of the 19th century. But what i am drawn to are, as a historian, theres people who ignore the lessons of history. Its so true. People say, oh, yes, yes, we should all study history, we should all learn about history, and then they proceed to ignore it. And i like shining a light on the present by using the past. So if im writing about the history of constitutional law, im writing about issues that were decided, say, by strict construction after the civil war. If im writing about this, im writing about the kinds of people who are involved now. So i am drawn, i am drawn to examples in American History where i look i say, yes, this is essentially now, this is and immediately to your left is a book, the guns of august, by Barbara Tuchman. For narrative historians, Barbara Tuchman is like god. Shes a brilliant writer, she had, she could encapsulate an entire concept in one line, and she was right there. One of her books is a distant mirror which came out during the vietnam era, so thats what im always looking for. Im trying to find ways to use the past to enlighten the present. I ask one more real quick about your methodology . And is it always sort of the same . Does it follow a similar pattern . How do you just dive in on day one when you decide im going to write about the first attack sub a marine . What do submarine . What do you do on monday morning when you get up . Is there a pattern or every books different . Every book is different, but, you know, one, one leads to another. Sometimes people will just tell me things. One woman reminded me of a Supreme Court case, buck v. Belle, which was the when a young woman was sterilized against her will, and Oliver Wendell holmes wrote the notorious decision that said three generations of imbeciles is enough. That got me interested in holmes, and then i found a 1903 case, a giles v. Harris, a Voting Rights case in alabama, where holmes was recently on the court and wrote another terrible wrote a decision justifying disenfranchising black people from voting rolls in alabama. And i said, okay, i have to write, i have to write about this. Sometimes theyre dead ends. I was going to write about buck v. Bell, but a lot of peopled had done it. You read around, but finding giles v. Harris, that sends me off in a different direction. Youre attuned. You know, when you do this for a living, things click, and you go, ooh. There are Supreme Court decisions now, as soon as i this notion of corporations being people, for example, started in an 1886 Supreme Court decision, and it wasnt even in the decision. It was in an aside by the chief justice who said we believe 14th amendment guarantees apply to corporations. This after disenfranchising africanamericans. So, oh, i have to write about that too. And thats kind of how it works. But now with the internet youve got [inaudible] before that literally good oldfashioned oh, absolutely. Yeah. You know, now with the internet we used to be buried in paper. And now when the internets down, the server is down, no yeah. [laughter] okay. Well, so its a good, oldfashioned yes. You just keep, you follow trails. Its just youre like a detective, and you just, you see something, you see a clue, and i want to follow that, i want to follow that, i want to follow that. And you do, and sometimes it leads someplace, and sometimes it doesnt. There are times when you spend a lot of time researching manager and you go, you know, bummer. [laughter] thats the word i use. Bummer is a term historians use a lot. [laughter] anyone else . Well, thank you very much. Thank you all for coming. [applause] [inaudible conversations] big thank you. When youre standing up, if you have a chance, if you could lean your chairs up against the side. Lawrence is going to be signing books for us down at the register there. There is more wine available for you should you desire. Ill grab some books [inaudible conversations] every summer booktv visits capitol hill to ask members of congress what are you reading. Heres a look at some of their answers. Just a few weekes ago i finished h. R. Mcmasters book could dereliction of duty about vietnam, and thats a timely book because h. R. Mcmaster is now the National Security adviser to the president. Is reading his book which is an incredibly powerful analysis of the Lyndon Johnson administration and the mistakes they made in vietnam was very instructive. And one of the things thats really interesting is the library of congress does a lecture series almost every month, and theres an author that comes in and talks about a book. I had the opportunity to go see a gentleman who wrote a book on lincolns second inaugural address. And the address is Something Like only 800 words. Its a page and a half. And it was interesting hearing his perspective of on such an important piece many our history in our history. You know, i love the ipad, and in the pad theres different apps, so i always look at whats out there. And one of them is called plunk list which is an app that will give you summaries of books, and you can either take the option or reading or do it by audio. And then if youre interested in looking at the whole book, then, of course, you buy the whole, the book itself. But itll give you a snapshot, and at the very end, itll give you the key message, whats the take away from this book. Booktv wants to know what youre reading. Send us your Summer Reading list via twitter booktv or unction gram at book underscore tv or post it to our facebook page, facebook. Com booktv. Booktv on cspan2, television for serious readers. So could you recount to us the importance of the blackburn atear and the underground railroad that detroit played . No doubt. I think earlier we had a sculpture let me see if i can go back to it that ed dwight, whos a fantastic sculptor, and he did the one down at the waterfront where you have these, a group of black people who are looking across the Detroit River, you know, to canada. I think its the next one here. This here particular. Many people have come to detroit, and sometimes i guess they scratch their heads, well, what is that all about . This symbolizes, you know, the network us in of the underground the terminus of the underground railroad. When you have people like william lambert, george debaptiste, william webb, hadson lightfoot madison lightfoot, i mean, you can go on and on in terms of these pioneering abolitionists. They were joined at some extent by the white abolitionists, many of them being quakers because we in lambert had been schooled and educated and lived among the quakers when he left trenton, new jersey, and arrived in detroit. He, for me, is just a phenomenal be individual because he was like one of the main conductors of the underground railroad. I know in my classes in new york city when i talk about the underground railroad, the first thing it brings to their mind is a train, you know, the d train. [laughter] you know, Coulson Whitehead has done his thing in terms of the metaphorical treatment of the underground railroad. But this was a process, the biway in which, you know, these here fiewblgtive slaves fugitive slaves could get away from bondage, get away from the socalled peculiar institution and end up in detroit. So this here, ed dwights sculpture, it symbolizes the people. And certainly after 1850 when you had the fugitive slave law, when that act was passed that meant that although and we got the blackburn case, the blackburn affair of these runaway fugitives who arrive from louisville, kentucky, and thought they had found a safe refuge away from these bound tin hunters bounty hunters. But with the passing of the 1850 slave act, that meant you had to go a little bit further. So these people are looking across, you know, the Detroit River to windsor. And sometimes even windsor wasnt far enough. You had to keep going, amherstburg on to chat ham, ontario, on to toronto. And, of course, chatham later on would become a profound what you Call Community of abolition arists that was up there. We can talk about osmond anderson who was one of the black men who rode with john brown. And when you Start Talking about the later period after the whole abolitionist beginning with william lambert, heres Frederick Douglass comes to detroit, and he meets with john brown. Theres a marker of it downtown on, you know, Second Baptist Church was very instrumental in that. Yeah. Of course, st. Matthews was going to be instrumental later on. We cannot ignore the church, you know are, and this whole coming together in terms of resistance, you know, the whole idea of selfdetermination . It was coming from a number of Church Leaders who were affiliated with the abolitionist movement, but no one more pronounced and profound than william lambert. His story, i mean, that would make just a fascinating film yeah. To see the kind of stuff he went through, the mystery system that he put together. They had a coding, kind of a secret cold, secret language, you know . They had trained all these individuals on the underground railroad in case you encountered some of those bounty hunters out there. I mean, its so instructive and later on his involvement with Frank Matthews church and his involvement in the educational process, working with people like Fannie Richards who was a pioneering black woman in terms of the first africanamerican to teach in the [inaudible] so we have this conjunction, you know . And its going to be a collaborative situation from one generation to another and spurred on by the other. Each, i dont know, taking its kind of influence and its enthusiasm for the breakthroughs to occurring in the previous generation. Were going to see that happening time and time again in this whole odd to city of black detroit. Odyssey of black detroit. You can watch this and other programs online at booktv. Org. Youre watching booktv on cspan2 with top nonfiction books and authors every weekend. Booktv, television for serious readers. Next on the communicators, a discussion on how businesses, banks and hospitals can protect against cyber attacks. Then a forum examining how the gaza strip factors into the middle east peace process. After that, a discussion on south koreas military defense system. Cspan, where history unfolds daily. In 1979, cspan was created as a Public Service by americas Cable Television companies and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. Host and now joining us on the communicators is jeff moulton. Mr. Moulto