Hes previously been editorinchief and American Heritage magazine. Several books including two novels in a book of poetry. Hes written for films including coney island. Thank you for coming and enjoy. [applause] thank you very much. Thank you to word. What a nice store. Thank you for having me. This is the books publication date. Soap or the last few weeks, ive been and what a writer friend of mine called the law before the wall. Im pleased and honored to have the debut of not only in brooklyn, but in greenpoint. Brooklyn has made technological wonders. But perhaps the most impressive is the hero of my book. I mean the uss monitor. The single most influential warship ever felt and was born about 400 yards away from here. We tend to think of the civil war. People think of gettysburg, shiloh. Its unlikely anyone will remember the navy. Accounted for only 5 of the Union Manpower and losses for the entire four years of the war were often surpass in a single day of fighting on land. But ther
The number of years they had to wait to get naturalized, and one of the things jefferson promised was to undo that restriction, and he got elected, and he did undo the restrictions. In the 19th century, probably the election of 1880 was one of the ones where, again, people were debating the role of immigrants in american society. Then it was the irish and in particular irish catholics, and there was a lot of antiirish and anticatholic sense, and that was a very important factor this that election. And then when you get to the 20th century, people forget one of the big issues in the nixon versus kennedy election of 1960 was also immigration. But in that case the two candidates agreed to ease the restrictions placed in the 1920s. And you if in your book you highlight certain history. When you were doing that, who was the most fascinating to write about for you . One of the most fascinating to me was alexander hamilton. I hadnt realized he was an immigrant, and his story is really fascina