At the end of the war, towards the end of the war as the japanese were withdrawing their forces towards the north, birch moved from south ofchina, the area here, up to this province which really was behind japanese lines. And many in this area the nationalist forces were primarily in the southwest where theyd been, they had to retreat, withdraw after fighting so long and hard with the japanese. The communists were forced up to the area after the long march, but their power increased through the course of world war ii. So when birch yets up there gets up there, he is in contact with communist forces from time to time, and the policy of the United States government is a very pragmatic policy, and that is to cooperate with the communist forces if necessary when theres a good reason to do so. He didnt have any particular sympathy for the communists or their cause, nor did he have any sympathy for the nationalists. His loyalties really were with the chinese people. There was great relief on
Who have ties to al qaeda, or are affiliated in some way, i think some of those players were involved in what happened in benghazi. It may depend onit may depend oe ties are. I would tend to agree with senator feinsteins reaction. I think it oversimplifies matters to say we had no involvement and it oversimplifies things to suggest the core al qaeda planned this because i dont think that is the case. Host does it matter . Guest it does matter in the sense that we want to know exactly who was responsible and we want to know whether there was any al qaeda instruction so from that point of view it does matter. From the point of view of if they are not affiliated with al qaeda do we not need to worry about them so much . I dont think thats the case. One of the things we we are all in agreement on is the role of onstar alsharia Organization Part of which we were counting on for some security. Its almost worse if people that we were counting on to help us turn around and attacked us. From th
The life substance of the companion world in cyberspace. Mind and invasive expedition in the name of commerce or government surveillance. For the use of corporations, and Excited Police departments, you can call it quantify indication. It in the out of we called it reification. Kind of dehumanizing and so it turns out that the story for all of this, oddly enough, is the eviction story from the bronze age telling of the consequences coming from eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. So like all world, it comes with the heaven and the hell. What does u this mean for all of us in this room . We writers and our publishers . We dont want to give up the presumably inconvenient thing we do. Something as old as paginated written narrative. We dont want to lose heart in frank norris, the author of naturalistic works of fiction in the 60s. Norris despaired of the Western Union telegram. Ten words and stop. The twitter of today. He feared it was the end of literary discourse. People could
Washington journal is live every morning at 7 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan. Friday at 11 00 a. M. Eastern president obama speaks about changes to government surveillance programs. Well bring it to you live from the Justice Department here on cspan. Later a panel reacts to the president s speech. Well hear from a former c. I. A. Analyst. Live coverage at 2 00 p. M. Eastern also here on cspan. When gow behind the scenes as a photographer, you are there to seerks not hear, not listen and not repeat anything that you hear and its kind of a mutual agreement because we are let into meetings. When you are behind the scenes that are sensitive. I was there when president obama same a rally and at the time the hurricane had just come up the east coast and was up in the north and he was on a secure phone talking to a fema director trying to organize it at the same time of the campaign. Really unique time to be in there and hear him in a really heated or serious conversation about what was going on o
My definition of a historical novel one that makes literary history. Its quite contemporary. And i always operate under the admonition of the poet who said, make anu. Thats what i try to do. Are you exoited to be here tonight . Its fun. Its great fun. Have you attended this dinner before. Yes. I have won a National Book award. For which book . World fair. It was about 25 years ago. Anyway. Some people may not know after you you are named after edgar allen poe. I think its probably true. My father liked him. Thank you for spending a few minutes on booktv. My pleasure. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] nice to meet you. 3 [inaudible conversations] nice to meet you. I spent an hour with bryan in washington. Yes, on q a. We are covering you down in miami this coming weekend. Youll be live on booktv this weekend. But youre one of the finalist in the nonfiction category. Is this a first time you have been nominated . Yes, it is. Its exciting. Its tremendous. Its an honor. T