The march of progress westward. Doing the smallpox book i come across this Huge Population of out in the middle of north dakota. At the time of the revolution, population hub bigger than charleston, south carolina, the fourth biggest city on the atlantic seaboard and i just said holy cow, what if we told this story of america from the center of the continent . What if we called this is American History and this is the quintessential american story. Thank you dear ill stop there. [applause] you are watching booktv, television for serious readers. Watch a program you see here online at booktv. Org. Irwin gellman is next on booktv. He recalls the relationship between president Dwight Eisenhower and his Vice President Richard Nixon. So not her speaker. Our speaker tonight is pretty brilliant. Irwin gellman is an author of books on for president s. Is taught at uc irvine Chapman University and out franklin and Marshall College in pennsylvania. He authored a book on president nixon years in
Chief. Susan swain in 2008 barack obama was elected as our 44th president and he and First Lady Michelle Obama went into the history books as the first African American first couple. Now one year into a second obama , term, the first lady continues her focus on childhood obesity, support for military families and access to education. Good evening and welcome. Well tonight is the final installment in our yearlong series first ladies influence and image, and we finish appropriately with the current Michelle Obama. First lady, for the next 90 minutes, well learn more about her biography and how shes approached the job in her six years in the office so far. Let me introduce you to our two guests wholl be here with us throughout that time and theyre both journalists who have covered the first lady. Liza mundy is a biographer of Michelle Obama; her 2008 book was called, michelle. And Krissah Thompson is a Washington Post journalist who covers the first lady as her beat, thanks for coming bot
You dont want to climb to the top of the mountain without a healthy ego but his goes in very many odd directions. Theres something not psychologically right about him. Are you going to ask him about china or are you going to spend the morning trashing nixon . Well, i just mentioned china a minute ago. I just said much of the book is dealing with china and the china opening. The big deal about that is that it was a three way deal. Soviet union, china. The United States. He was trying to wedge china away from the soviets. So much so he thought if you bomb a lot in vietnam, it would impress the chinese about your toughness. It had a deterrent quality to it that it would deter adventurism of them into hong kong or taiwan or japan and yet at the same time he would back pakistan. Nixon was a huge admirer of the country of pakistan. That was a proxy state of china. They were fighting india and nixon couldnt stand the country of india because they were close to the soviets. Nixon hates russia,
With an assessment. Because Richard Nixon had so many characters inside his singular, unusual and capacious mind. Thats an astute observation. And, tonight, we will hear from nixon the statesman, nixon the thug, nixon the historian, nixon the bigot, the sentimental father, the vengeful bombing commander and thats just for a start. Im shelby kauffe, vice chairman of the museum. Wed like to welcome you to this that will fulfill the wish on the night before the 40th anniversary of the president s resignation. First, we will have the tireless dr. Luke nichter from texas a m. He has spent over a decade digitizing and researching the 3700 hours of white house tapes. He is teamed with the renowned historian douglas brinkley, our second panelists, to produce the new book, nixon tapes. Its from 197173 in the critical vietnam war years and also offers astonishing glimpses of the man in the oval office, often at war with himself. Douglas, now a professor at rice university, is wellknown here at t