They gavel it is session saturday morning and ten eastern. Watch the debate live on cspan good evening. Every saturday night throughout the summer, book tv is putting on several hours of a wellknown author. Kind of hard twisted on binge watching. Tonight teacherg author is historian David Mccullough for it is author of a dozen books including bestselling histories, on the american revolutions, and the invention of mans spacefligh for some ofe Northwest Territory in the creation of the brooklyn bridge. Hes a two time winner about Pulitzer Prize and the National Book of board and his appearance he over 75 times. And coming up over the next several hours, we will show you some of those programs. S. First up in 1992, they appear on cspans program to talk about his biography of president harry truman. The book won thepr pulitzer prie biography would have changed the view on the truman presidency. Here is David Mccullough from 1992. You start out by saying im a as far back as nearly as he co
The facts are we have to fixette. There is an extra trest yell doing it to us i guess. Someone somewhere has to take responsibility for this. That was ross perot during the second of three president ial debates talking about one of his favorite issues the u. S. Debt. In that election, the texas businessman won 19 of the popular vote. He ran a second president ial campaign in 1996 and tonight he is our focus on the contenders. Gooned good night and thanks for being with us. Were doing this series as a way to look at American History through the lens of president ial candidates who failed in their quest for the white house but have an outside impact on American History. Ss perot is our final of 14 people that were proniling this series. Tonight joining us is Doug Brinkley. He is not politics as usual. He is less interested in money and politics than doing right for our country. I believe this comes out of his Naval Academy background. Looking for p. O. W. s and m. I. A. s during vietnam
Programs. In 1982 he appeared on book notes to talk about his biography of president truman it won the Pulitzer Prize for biography and to help change the view of the truman presidency. Here he is from 1992. Cspan you start off by saying as far back as he could remember truman held onto the mythical roman heroes. What is that all about . The mythical hero who left in time of war with the great general and was victorious and renounced all of his power and returned to the farm. Thats a theme the country was founded on. If you are at the capital with the great painting of George Washington turning over his powers as commanderinchief of the Continental Army to congress the symbols earth all throughout that painting because they believe this is what democracy entailed that any citizen should be called upon at any time to serve b ultheir country in any capacity and the power belong to the people and would bepo returned to those who held it. He like to say i never forget who i was, where i ca
I was about to say i would rather be assassinated on this spot and surrender. I love the fact that he says those words on the spot. Knowing full will that there is a plot to kill him at that moment. He means it and he pauses and it hits him. What is fantastic about that moment. I wont tell you how, we know he lives. Its one of my favorite parts of the books and those are the moments we love but when we were debating doing this book what was a very important to us is it silly for me to say wiese found the secret plot to kill Abraham Lincoln. What was far more interesting to josh and i. We plenty of stories we could of done. The reason we picked this one is because the context of when it was happening. You can see the civil war unfolding in front of us. You can see that there into. Whatever side youre on it you hate the other side. You think the their site is side is horrible and awful people. Thats exactly where we are right now. We want to get through anyone that reads it is not just a
Humanity can overcome the most accurate of weather predictions. [laughter] thank you to our new sponsor wells fargo specifically sponsoring the new history and biography on pavilion was 1h annual National Book festival all of us at the library of Congress Hope you enjoy it as much as we have planning and bringing it to you with so many great sponsors and partners but its also an important because building a key reading is essential not just to enriching our own lives but extending horizons of society to sustain that democracy and we are grateful to those 115 riders bringing us the creative spirit and collective in a national way here at the mall. At the 11th National Book festival not only a success but the unprecedented number of people participating with the work of over 100 volunteers giving of their time with more than 1000 it is a record in that respect as well as people like you who have been here. Also special recognition to the wonderful librarian the executive director Jennife