About me. Its about the movement of young people coming together. To watch this program and other episodes, visit our website at booktv. Org. Click on the indepth tab at the top of the page. Joining us is pulitzer prizewinning author and historian rich atkinson. Here is his latest book the lfbritish are coming, the war for america, 1775 to 1777. Mister atkinson, your wellknown foryour world , you wrote back 200 years. I did. I spent 15 years looking at the american role in the liberation of europe and world war ii and when i finished third volume having gone through north africa and western europe beginning in normandy thinking about what to do next the obvious thing was due for that campaign whative done for western europe. I just didnt have a heart for it in part because i would have had to start the war over again at pearl harbor even earlier. Ive been thinking for a long time about what was i want to do as a historian and a narrative writer and ive always had a fascination since i
Online booktv. Orc. Joining us now, author, here is the willful america, 1775 1777. You are very well known for your trilogy. With that i spent 15 years looking at the american role in the ration and when i finished the third volume, i went through north africa and western europe in normandy, thinking about what to do, that campaign in the mediterranean into europe from i just didnt have the heart for it. Ive been thinking for a long time about what it is i really wanted to do and as a narrative writer, the boys had a fascination since i was a kid. So im one third of the way in from what i hoped would be another trilogy. This one is a history of the revolution from both the american side and the british side. Why do you say its more important now than ever . When we look at the resolution, we are trying to figure out who we are, who we come from. We are trying to understand if anybody can themselves. What are they dying for . What is that all about . It seems to me that this day, in a
Continues. Host according to gallup, more americans than ever before say immigration is the top issue facing this country and we will spend a gross the rest of this program talking about that topic. We are joined by Washington Post immigration reporter were rhea. Ic eddie Maria Sacchetti federal Detention Center for immigrant families and children. Why were you there and what did you see . Guest immigration and Customs Enforcement runs family detention. A lot of what viewers cr Border Patrol jails. You see little girls sleeping on the ground. They have recently crossed the border, jails where nobody is supposed to spend more than a few days. The family Detention Centers are hold very few people right now. They could hold more and the Trump Administration wants to expand them. They opened their doors to the media, they have never had this many cameras before and they let us take our own photos. They want to show people how they want to expand family detention and how comprehensive they
Stand out. Where were you when . I had an awful lot of great brakes related to apollo 11. It was the day i got the assignment to do the landing phase. One of the responsibilities of the lead flight director is to identify which flight director is going to cover which phase of the mission. Im moving in their, we would have been flight directors on gemini and are actually coming back together again. You had probably the three most experienced people at the consult and it was a question of who was going to get to do what. Had been to the moon a couple of times. I had the lunar module experience. So you had no particular driver that says this person ought to be doing this phase of the mission. The division chief at the time had been really on top of us to nail down who is going to do what, until finally after the apollo 9 mission we all managed to get together and charles had to make the calls. I called him and said cliff, weve got to make a decision on which flight directors going to cove
As long as theyre interested in it. And then they go out and they find they do research. And they find the resources to tell them the story but also try to figure out the significance of their topics in history. So theyre going into archives. Into museums. Into libraries. And theyre sifting through primary sources, secondary sources, and then theyre thinking critically about that and why their topic was important in history as related to an annual theme. And this year is theme is triumph of tragedy in history. And they present their findings in different formats. Of course one of the categories you see right behind me thats the exhibit category. And then theres also paper category. And theres dramatic performance. Documentary. Or website. So history day gives kids an opportunity to be creative in the way in which they present their information. So for performance category, like any other student at any other category, they first have to do the research. Good, Solid Research is the prim