in the 19th century, middle class american families began displaying wealth and status in their homes by purchasing globes and furniture and portraits made by local craftsmen. david jaffee looks at the decorations and how they helped develop in early american material culture. this is about an hour. [ applause ] it s really a pleasure to be here. i wanted to start with winthrop chandler who in many ways begins my project in chronological terms as well as how i thought about it. i ve spent a lot of time with the antiquarian society and also in worcester county, and as i was doing that work, i really was struck by the number of portrait makers and clockmakers and chairmakers, thinking about gardner and sterling and other communities. so when i moved to this new project, which i confess was quite some time ago, but is, finally the fruits of it are done, it is a pleasure to be here where much of that project started. i really have been involved in a long-term education and real
book that the atomic energy commission actually has a system of secret keeping that runs parallel to the president s system of secret keeping which is the national security system. that is not the way the constitution was written, but it is what the atomic energy agent of 1946 allowed, so when the charter was written right after world war ii for the atomic energy commission, they created the system of secret keeping which the slang for it is called born classified. scholars who looked into this secret keeping system say that it allows them to have unanswerable authority, and that is certainly the case, and that is why the atomic energy commission was able to do so many things. the bomb test i told you about sending the bugs up to 90,000 feet, that thermonuclear bomb test involved 12,000 people in the middle of the pacific ocean. no one knew it was going on when it went on, so secret keeping it an important part of area 51 for some reason, but it s also not a good situation fo
host: thank you for being on the communicators and correspondence for the intelligence correspondent for the wall street journal, thank you as well. this has been week one in our four week series on cybersecurity. next week, two members of congress on the legislative proposal. republican of texas, jim lavegin, democrat of rhode island. in a few moments our specialbooktv and prime time schedule begins. next, investigative reporter on her book area 51: uncensored history of america s top military base . she spoke for an hour. good evening, everyone, and i wanted to thank the commonwealth club for having me and everyone for being here. it s a real author s dream to have a full house for a book speaking event, and thank you, gill, for having me on the show and moderating tonight. we ll get to questions because people love to ask questions. i certainly do, and i wouldn t be here without that sense of curiosity so what i m going to start with is actually read you two ph