[applause] >> his raining and i thought booklovers are going to want to stay in the henry. but, here you are. thank you, and good morning welcome to the 2017 national book festival. i am carla and i am honored to sam the 14th librarian of congress. as you can see, pretty excited to open this event. our 17th consecutive celebration of books and reading. it is wonderful to see a full house in our largest presentation space. not only will we have a full house at the convention center, but we also have millions of people joining us live on facebook. so thank you wherever you are for joining us. [applause] we have a fantastic linus of mainstage authors this year. what better way to kick off the festival than with one of our nation's most beloved historians, mr. david mccullough. [applause] mr. mccullers here for his sixth national book festival appearance and we hope you'll continue to make this a habit. he will be followed by diana. [applause] she is the author of the wildly successful outlander series and she is here for her fourth festival. next is jd vance. [applause] his hillbilly elegy has struck a cord in the national conversation about poverty in america. thomas friedman barely needs an introduction. [applause] is an internationally recognized writer of the middle east on affairs and the environment. in michael lewis' famous for his books about finance that he is equally famous about his books about as diverse as adoption in baseball. the screen adaptations of the blindsided medical have been enormously popular. and condoleezza rice. [applause] was secretary of state for the united states she is now on the faculty of stanford university traveling from california to be with us today. finally, mr. david . the fact for record-setting a time at the festival his thrillers and books. people have been read by millions. i'm pleased to turn this over to the person who helped make this festival possible and is our cochair, mr. david rubenstein. [applause] a true believer in the power of literacy and reading and what it can do for all of us. it would not have been possible to have this event without you, thank you. [applause] please welcome to the stage mr. david mccullough and mr. david rubenstein. [applause] [applause] [applause] >> welcome. how many people here were the first one at the book festival? how many have been to everyone how many is this the first time? how many people like the price of admission? [applause] so we're honored to have david let me give you a brief background. david is a native of pittsburgh. [applause] grope one of four boys and a family where his father had a small electrical supply company, not quite general electric but very impressive. david went to yell where he did well and graduated in 1955. then went to new york, did not go back to pittsburgh despite his parents wishing him to do so and enjoined "sports illustrated". then he came to work out washington at usia. while there he had interested in something and then he wrote his first book which was a bestseller. that was his first book. the book will talk about today, the american spirit his written 11 books and he's working on his 12th book. every one of his books still in print which is very unusual. as first book is almost 50 years old. [applause] so, he has won the pulitzer prize twice for his books on harry truman and john adams. he's won the national book price twice and have been given the presidential medal of freedom by president clinton. he was asked to speak to a joint session of con congress was given every honor. he has also been given 55 honorary degrees which must be a record. he has five children, 19 grandchildren and the love of his life is here his wife of 63 years. [applause] did you ever think right up in pittsburgh that you become the most famous chronicler of american history. >> of course. >> i never imagine such a thing. >> what was your ambition is a child? >> i wanted to get good grades in school but not spend too much of my time worrying about that and then i got interested in girls and that took a lot of my thought and preparations once i got to college i knew i either wanted to be an artist or writer, or an architect for an actor. but i couldn't make up my mind so when i finish college i thought i'll go to new york and see what happens. so i went there and a lot happened. >> did your family say go there come back to pittsburgh. >> my father would call me and say well now it's time for you to come back to pittsburgh and get a real job. he never understood, but i would go back all the time and i'm grateful i grope when i did at that time in that city. it was a lesson in history itself, it was a simulation for the arts of the literature the principle of our school was a founder of the first pbs station in america carolyn patterson and the first radio station in america and i was invited to do a voiceover for it when i was still in high school. >> so, you want to "sports illustrated". that's not american history but what did you work on their. >> i worked in the circulation and promotion department. we have these tests mailings they call the other they would write for five different letters to people asking them to take an interest in this new magazine. and i asked if i could contribute a competitor in the test and i was told yes but you have to do it on your own time. so i was a trainee. so i wrote the letter and submitted it and they decided to use it and it won the test. from that time on i was looking good. the thing about "sports illustrated" is it was brand-new and nobody really knew where it was going or how to make it go and it was an exciting time. the holy spirit of the city was amazing. i went to work for $5000 per year. they gave me an extra $10 a week because i was married. so the stereotype of women was not just in salaries but expressed in other ways too. i found how many wonderful women there were working there and later when i came to washington i found some of the best people i work for were women. when kennedy ran i thought this was exciting and he was gonna make a difference and give us a chance to take part. when he gave his inaugural address and said do not ask what your country can do for you but you can do for your country. i took that to heart. i quit my job. i knew no one in the kennedy crowd. no one in the government. i came down went door-to-door looking for a place in the federal government for my training and education would be a propria. i wound up in luck would have it, and that's a big factor not just in our lives but in history is not sufficiently paid attention to. hours on u.s. -- it was an exciting time. it stayed an exciting time for the three years until the president was killed. during that time i was in the library of congress doing research for articles we were to include in a magazine i was editing. and i was on this big table in the library photographs taken at johnstone right after the disastrous flood of 1889. i heard about the flood all my life but i knew nothing about it. i saw the devastating destruction and i couldn't believe my eyes. i thought, what happened. i took the book out of the library which was okay but the author didn't understand the geography of western pennsylvania. so i took another book out. was a pot boiler written at the time the wall i was in college i had the good fortune to cross paths with wilder, the great playwright and novelist. he was asked, why do you rate the place you do, the subjects you choose he said, i imagine a story that i would like to be able to read and if i find nobody is written it so i can see it on stage her reading in the book, i write it so i can read it in a book or see performed on stage. i thought, why don't you try to write the book that you wish you could read about it as soon as i started working at the book at the library of congress i knew this is what i wanted to do. >> so did you quit your job at usaa? >> when kennedy was killed access to come back to new york to work at the american history magazine which was published with hardcovers and no advertising. bruce was the editor. i worked there for six years and i wrote the jonestown flood at night and weekends for three years. after i had written the book that i got the idea for the next one i thought, i have to quit and see if i can do a full time. because i was very to a very brave, wonderful woman. [applause] she said, if that's what you want to do, will do it. we had no outside income. we had an advance on the new book. after my book was published several publishers came to me. one wanted me to do chicago fire and one wanted me to do the san francisco earthquake. i was hardly 30 years old and i sorry to be in typecast as bad news and i didn't like that. i wanted a symbol of positive affirmation. it took me a while to come up with the idea. i get my ideas from all over the place. i was having lunch with two friends, one was a science writer and the other an engineer. they started talking about all the builders of the brooklyn bridge didn't know they were in for. and i thought, there's my subject i came out of that lunch and went straight to the new york public library and up the stairs marble stairs to the old card catalog and i pulled out the juror there were over 50 cards on the subject of the brooklyn bridge but not one describing the book of the kind i intended to write. was on the basis of that idea and the willingness of my publisher to go behind me and give me an advance that i was able to stop working full-time. i've never change publishers. he published all my books and i figured if i was loyal and faithful to them they would be to me and they have been. >> one wife and one publisher you might describe your style of writing. it's unique in the sense that your wife is involved in the process of helping you with the writing. how do you do that? >> i've been confessing to this truth more lately than before, but i don't consider myself a historian. have no degree in history know phd, i majored in english i only took the history courses that were required. and i've always believed one entrée for the ear as well as the eyes. when you hear what you have written you hear words that you're using too often. your sentence structures become repetitious and you hear what is boring. i had two or three wonderful writers help me along the way. paul morgan, wonderful writer and charles -- is a brilliant man and writer and naturalist. they help me a great deal to understand that you have to cut back. you have to write and rewrite. all the best of them have been that way. my wife reads everything that i write to me out loud. she sometimes reads a chapter three or four times. when we're working on my book about roosevelt, man tell the story? where at the next to the last chapter and she said there something wrong with that sentence. i said read it again. she read it again. i said there's nothing wrong with that sentence and she said yes there is. and i read it aloud to her and i said see said no there's something wrong with that sentence. and i said just keep going place she kept going and i didn't do anything about that sentence. the book went to the publisher the publisher published it and it came back and had wonderful reviews including find review in the new york review of books. up until he was about ten the review he said sometimes however he doesn't write very well consider this sentence. [laughter] >> some historians do a lot of research and then they write, you perhaps do something different you research and write why do you do it that way? >> i never undertake a bright a book about a subject i know much about. the research in the process then would not be an adventure. and to me each subject i undertake is a new experience. i'm working on a detective case, i don't know much about the research from the last half of the book and i don't want to know that yet. i want to be involved with people involved in the story. i want to know them and inside their time people say to me you're working on a new book and i said yes but i really sam working in a book. you have to get in that time and understand those human beings. history is not about statistics and memorizing dates. it's about people. about human beings in the course of human events and we have to put ourselves in the shoes of those people i know what the life was like in the hardship and adversities was like. i was spoiled brats we're that we have so much that we owed to them that we don't bother to know who they are. it's not right. [applause] >> so, i do the research as i go along. as you learn more than you have different questions. you have sk questions all the time. why did this happen where was he, who was seek what were they worried about any have to keep learning more from the original sources, letters, diaries, on published memoirs and that's where the gold is, so much is right here in the library of congress. when i was working on the right brothers book all the letters they wrote to each other and their father are all here in the library of congress. you read those letters, these two young fellows who grew up in a house with no running water, no indoor plumbing no central heat, no telephone and you could put ten of them in this room tiny little house but it was full of books and their father insisted that they all read and they read about their level. those letters they wrote expressed what he drummed into them, learn how to use the english language. their vocabulary is breathtaking and they never finished high school. when i see the writing that's produced by college students and learn the nearly half of all the law schools in our country are requiring incoming freshman for all college graduates to take a basic writing course because they can't write a respectable presentable letter or report or proposal the work that they are going to have to be doing. we have to knuckle down and get back to learning how to write and read with concentration and understanding and teaching history. were raising several generations of young americans and i know this because i lecture and teach universities all over the country. were raising young people who are illiterate. it's not their faults i think some of the brightest people i've ever met other students i've been involved with we have to simulate curiosity and ask questions. thank you have to have the answer. i don't have all the answers. i hope i never reach the point where think i have them all. in curiosity, one of the great writers have said curiosity is what separates us from the cabbages. >> when you are writing, do type, teases type or. >> are you ready? >> i'm proud to say i work on a manual typewriter. >> the weather breaks where do you get the parts? >> it's never broken. i brought it secondhand, i've always had that time his life with the typewriter on the job so, we're living in new york and i went to the typewriter shop about a secondhand typewriter that was then 25 years old. i paid $75 for it. i've written everything i've ever written, every speech, article, book on that typewriter for over 50 years and there is nothing wrong with it. there never has been. by no means to the notion entry into the minds of the manufacturers of that machine, it's fantastic. why this typewriter? why not a word processor, it goes too fast. i i don't think all that fast. and if you hit the wrong button you can eliminate months of work. i have a friend is a very good book writer lost 5000 words because he hit the wrong button. also i love to take the paper out of the typewriter after i finish a chapter, put it on the clipboard and find a comfortable place to take an outdoor chair and let that deter me show him how it should be done with the machine that's all eliminated. with this, you can see the process. the only other avid devoted typewriter man i know is tom hanks. he writes everything on the typewriter and he has what must be the world's greatest typewriter collection. more than what's at the smithsonian. he understands perfectly why work on a typewriter. i urge others to do it. i urge others to remember how much work goes into writing a book. >> how many words to do a day before he say that that? >> in the old days i would do four pages a day when i was growing. now i try to do two pages a day. in two pages at day is ten pages a week or more. by the end of the month you have a chapter. are the beginnings of a chapter. i'm often asked how much of my time i spent writing and how much of my time i spend doing research and it's perfectly good question. nobody has ever asked me how much of your time spent thinking. class a lot. it may if you're looking in the window where work you might think that the guys asleep. [laughter] but i am thinking deeply. [laughter] >> one of my roles at the smithsonian, whenever you do retire into give us, can you give us that typewriter? >> i am not sure, i have to talk to the boss. >> let's talk about this book. your written templates before. this is your 11th book. we will talk shortly about the 12 books. it will be on 2019. this book is a compilation of your speeches and commencement talks.you have given you have near a world record of honorary degrees. what you have left to say that you have not said before? do you get tired of saying the same thing to students? are they really listening to his commencement speech is? >> the setting of every talk, everyone you meet is different. so you want to know something about the university where you are speaking or the college where you are speaking or if you are invited to speak let's say at the white house or the capital, you have to do the homework. >> see you do the research. >> i do a lot of research. i'm very conscientious of what i'm saying is going to go on the record at that university earth the -- >> let's talk about some of these speeches. this is a highly readable book i highly recommend it. let's talk about one of his first speeches. you are asked to give a speech to the joint session of congress. very few d citizens, private citizens are very rarely asked to do that could have that come about and what do you want to tell the members of congress? >> there was a gathering of historians and biographers that spoke at a conference here at the library of congress on the congress. after that was over, it was the bicentennial, 1989.i was asked to come and give a shorter version of the speech i gave at that gathering at the library of congress. >> the shorter version because members of congress do not like long speeches.[laughter] >> i imagine they were afraid that i would get right away with my excitement and go on forever. >> but it was a very high honor. and i work extremely hard on preparing this. >> one of the people he talked about there was john quincy adams. who had been a member of congress for 20 years after he left the presidency. why did you talk about him and what do you think is so appealing about him? >> john quincy adams had been a diplomat, several diplomatic post, very important diplomatic post. he had been a senator and president of the united states. and after he left the presidency, he was asked if you by any chance run for congress and he said certainly. so he went back and served in congress. until unhis death. and he died on the floor of the congress. died in what is now statuary hall. he died with a setting harnesses. he did not have to do that. he did not have to be a congressman as he was. but he had a mission. not only to represent as best he could, his constituency in massachusetts but to represent the country and more that really been the constituency. and, he was ardently against slavery. so he was battling slavery on the floor of the congress until the day that he fell down and died a few days later. talk about devotion, talk about integrity. talk about truth and honesty and loyalty. his father, john adams, was the only founding father president. one of the only presidents that was a founding father who never owned a slave. out of principle, and his wife at the goal was even adamant on the subject. the next president he never owned a slave was john quincy adams. so it ran in the family. as the dedication to public service ran in the family. he is also brilliant and everything, he spoke many languages. he was in many ways, i think that he may have had the highest iq, the most fertile versatile mind of anyone that was president. including among the founders. as chance would have it one term president's neck at the attention that the others do. >> let me ask you about another president they talked about. he spoke on the fourth of july and immigration and naturalization ceremony which is held every fourth of july in monticello. that is thomas jefferson's home. thomas jefferson give us the creed that all men are created equal. that he wrote in the preamble to the declaration of independence. how did you square that with the fact that he was a slave owner and how did you address the issue and heavy think he would d address that issue?the fact that he was a slave owner and all men were created equal. >> i don't, i can't. i don't understand it. nor do i understand the fact that he destroyed every letter he ever wrote to his wife and every letter she ever wrote to him. so we know nothing about it. we don't even know what she looked like. i can't understand that. i can't understand that he kept very close track of every sense, every dime, everything he ever sent -- spent on everything. but he never added it up. [laughter] >> that is probably why he was bankrupt at the end. >> from the time he was young and he just kept spending. i don't understand it. but i also don't understand where did the genius come from. the man was a genius. and if he did nothing but an architect, that alone would qualify him to be something we should all know about. and he served a brilliant service with this idea that all men are created equal. but he also said something i think is not been sufficiently played out and hasn't been given sufficient credit for. and that is his absolute belief in education. he said any nation that expects to be ignorant and free expects what never was and never can be, we have to be literate. we have to understand there is no easy answers and so forth. nobody has solutions to big problems. have to be worked out. i wish i had the chance to know him. >> speak about that if all the people you speak about, adams, truman, adams, jefferson, if you can have dinner with anyone president who is not a life, who would you like to have dinner with? >> john adams. >> john adams. >> because there's only questions i want to ask him. >> okay let's talk about john adams. he gave a speech at the university of massachusetts. we talk a lot about john adams. of the founding fathers, who would get the attention then george washington, why do you think so few people pay that much attention until your book cannot do anything there's still no monument of john adams in washington d.c.? >> yes there is. >> where? >> is on the mantelpiece in the white house. do you know about that? >> i don't. >> he was the first president to reside in the white house. in the first night he was alone abigail had not arrived yet. and the next morning it happened to be his first night, he lewrote her a letter.in which he said, when he wrote in the letter, franklin roosevelt had carved into the wooden part of r.the mantelpiece in the eas room, the estate planning. when truman was in charge you major the quotation stayed there. when kennedy became president he had it carved into the marble. so it would stay forever. and what adams said in the literature abigail, may none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof. [applause] >> so -- >> and i think it is very important, very important to understand and think about he put honesty first. ahead of wisdom. honesty. [applause] >> in your pulitzer prize-winning book, on john adams. which also was made into an hbo series that won a lot of awards as well. he went through about a thousand letters between john adams and abigail adams. have you ever experienced anything like that between a husband and wife before? what was it that struck you so unusual about those letters? >> the quality of the use of the english language, the quality of the use of the mind. how w well read they both were. john adams advised his young son at the time about 10 years old, when they went off with his father to europe to serve as diplomat. he said, you will never be alone if you have a poet in your pocket. in other words, carry a book and that was part of the relationship and attitude toward life. they were incredible readers. and abigail was right there. and her letters are phenomenal. >> she was not college educated. >> no, she never went to college. never went to school. she was tutored at home as it were. but she never stopped reading. and she was brilliant and she was brave and patriotic and she put up with incredible difficulties running the family, running the household. trying to stay afloat on ashley when he was off serving overseas. and those children were raised by her in a way that they would never forget. then dinner party you are asking me, who would i have -- i would deftly want abigail adams there. and i would definitely want catherine wright. you cannot understand what they did and how they did if you do not understand the part played by catherine wright. she kept at them and made them toe the line and behave themselves in a way that we all need. >> you give a speech at dartmouth. there are two people featured not speech. one was teddy roosevelt who wrote the book, not about his presidency but about the time that he left new york and went west. why did you find that such an appealing part of his life? and what was the most important lesson you took away from that book week. >> theodore roosevelt is like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly. he was a child he was not expected to e live. he suffered terribly from seizures of asthma and which were life-threatening. he was afraid of everything. fearful of everything. and he outgrew it. and he outgrew it by facing adversity. he took hold of himself and he worked hard at it. all the way through college. then on into life. his father's death was a devastating experience for him. then his wife and his mother died on the same day. he was shattered then. and that is when he went west. and this idea of going west is so american, is a way of healing, a way of escaping, traditionally and in many historians have written quite profoundly about this. and he is the essence of that. but he never forgot who he was and where he was going back to. and that when he comes back he remarries and gets involved in politics in a serious way. >> he also spoke -- >> brilliant. >> he was a wonderful writer and an historian. if none of our great presidents has ever been one who had no interest in history. [applause] >> true. he wrote about 40 books. >> theodore roosevelt wrote many books including a very good book, on the naval war of 1812. which she started when he was still h in college. woodrow wilson of course was a professor in history. dwight eisenhower's crusade in europe is one of the best books about world war ii ever written. and he wrote every word of that himself. no ghostwriter. and of course kennedy wrote several works of history. he kept referring to history, citing history, bringing history into the dialogue of the presidency of the executive office again and again and again. >> also in the dartmouth speech you talk about harry truman. another pulitzer prize-winning book.why was harry truman so unpopular when he left the presidency, 15 percent popularity rating but now he is everyone's favorite president? what changed since he left presidency, other than your book? [laughter] >> well, it began before i wrote the e book believe me. i grew up in a very old-fashioned republican family. the night of the 48 election i was in hehigh school. i was very interested in politics and i tried to stay weak to hear who won. but as some of you may know, or remember, the final tally did not come in until about 2:00 a.m.. i just cannot stay up that late. my father was shaving the next morning and i went and innocent dad, who won? he said truman. like it was the end of the world. [laughter] 20 or 30 years later i was back home. and we are having a chat after dinner. andy started in on how the world was going to hell in the country was going to hell. he paused and said to bed old harry is it still in the white house.[laughter] harry truman is a great american story. this wonderful gathering here is about the american story. if there ever was a story, so american, i do not know -- he is harry true man. from a place called independence. and he never went to college. he had to go on his own and he had all kinds of bad luck and defeat. but he never gave up. my favorite people are the people that do not give up. george washington in 1776 had every reason in the world to say that is enough, we cannot win this war, to hell with it. but he would not give up! and he knew how to convince others that we are not going to give up. the wright brothers never gave up. the building of the brooklyn bridge, they had many reasons to say to hell with this, this is more than can be achieved. but they did not give up. >> talked about never giving up, you give a speech at ohio university.about people who helped build the northwest territories. and you are now working on a book called the pioneers. i mentioned earlier will be on 2019. what was so special about the northwest territory and why did those people not give up? >> i was invited to speak of the ohio university at the 200th anniversary commencement. i felt, i have to learn something about ohio university. and i found out that the oldest building on campus was called cutler hall. and i thought, who is cutler? and it was the oldest, i was told it was the oldest university college building west of the allegheny mountains. cutler's name was -- a classic 18th-century doctor, medical doctor, lawyer and a minister. he was a minister of a small church in massachusetts. and a group of veterans, war veterans in massachusetts, revolutionary war veterans. had the idea that because they had been paid in worthless money all the time that they served, 8 and a half years in the revolution. one way to compensate that would be to buy land in this new northwest territory. and it -- by the british at the treaty in paris and that land was fertile in a way that nobody in new england even imagined. it belonged to the government and there it was. so, this man cutler, was picked by these officers from the war to go down to the capital, which was then in new york. to sell them on in the idea of creating a northwest territory ordinance whereby new states could be formed. cutler had never lobbied anything in any way in his life. the word lobbyist or lobbying had never entered the language just yet. he had never been to new york, never been out of new england. but off he went to new york to convince the continental congress, there was no constitution yet, to go ahead with this. this was the summer of 1787. and he put the ordinance there. he did it, one man! he did it and the ordinance stipulates three things of immense importance.one of the most important bills ever passed by our congress. even before we had a president. for one, they would be complete freedom of religion. absolute complete item of religion. number two, the government would be involved in education. there would be public education all the way through college. hence the beginning of the state diversity system for example. and third, and most important of all, there would be no slavery. what that meant was that this territory was as big as all of the colonies. there were slaves in every one of the 13 colonies. but it meant this new empire would be free to everyone. all you had to do was get across the ohio river. the northwest territory north and west of the ohio river. it now constitutes the states of ohio, indiana, benoit, michigan, .wisconsin. it is as big as all of france. no slavery. so half of the country would be no slavery. imagine what one vote of congress, one man put it through. and yet, i never knew anything about it. and most people know nothing about it. i go back again to wilder. wilder was once asked about how he got his ideas and so forth. i thought that our town was one of the greatest things that ever saw on stage. i still love to see it. i've always wanted to write a book about people that you never heard of. to see if i can get you into the tent as it were without relying on historic celebrities. so none of the characters, except one or two are people you have ever heard of. but all of their letters and diaries have survived and they are in the archives at marietta college in marietta ohio. and it's a coming into king tut's tomb or something. and all my goodness, what they talk about in what they reveal in the adversities that they faced.ey and they would not give up! >> so, as we wind down the time you have available, two final questions. for one, what is the great pleasure of your life today? when s.you effectively achieved exposing all of these things for americans so they know more about the history? what is it that is the greatest pleasure in your life other than your relationship with your wife and your children? what is the greatest professional pleasure of your life? >> being an yamerican. [applause] >> and when people talk about you, the legacy that you would like to have left behind. not that you are leaving anytime soon. but what ouwould you say is the legacy that you would be most proud of having achieved? >> he tried to do his best. >> you have done a terrific job. a final thing about library of congress. the library congress is a place he is in a lot of your research. how important is a library of congress to you? >> the library of congress is indispensable. for me professionally. but i also see it as a shrine, and acropolis devoted to the idea of education. and it is available to all! our whole public library system is something that is a miracle of american creation. [applause] the library of congress is the greatest library in the world. no question. [applause] and we did it, we did it! have you ever looking at american culture, youth may want to know that there are still more american libraries in this country than there are starbucks. [applause] >> thank you for the great conversation.>> thank you. thank you very, very much! thank you. [applause] >> david mccullough whose recent book is called the american spirit, who we are and what we stand for, 202 is the area code, 748-8200. that is an agent time

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