you all so much for your patience. we are delighted to be gathered here today. i don't want to slow us down, but i do want to make sure you know a little bit about where you are today. can i just get a sense of how many of you are at the historical society for the first time? welcome to the institution has been around for a long time, 154 here's comin, and we are a histl society that prides herself on being very accessible to people. we have an extraordinary research library that is open to one and all. periods behind the wall of history. it is an exhibition about the prospect parprospect park and iy downstairs, so there's a lot going on and you should come back and explore and perhaps most importantly for those of you that are interested in public programs such as this one i want to make sure that you pick up this brochure on your way back. it is chalk full of incredibly interesting programs and a whole series about women's suffrage coming up soon. take a look. don't miss any of the great programs coming up. and if you are not on the list, please join us and then you will get a notice of everything that is happening. having said that, the mai main events but as a conversation between two spectacular great thinkers and scholars welcome, to both of you. we are very privileged to be focusing on windows new book tonight. let me introduce them. they are going to speak together for about 40 minutes or so and then take questions from all of you. they also kindly agreed to sign books after they talk, so their books are available in our shop if you have not had a chance to pick them up i would encourage you to do so. rick perlstein is the author of the invisible bridge full of nixon and the rise of ronald reagan as well as barry goldwater and beyond making of the american consensus which was the winner of the 2001 "los angeles times" book award for history to. currently the national correspondent of the washington spectator and correspondent for the voice and online columnist for the new republic, the nation and rolling stone. his journalism has appeared in "newsweek" and many other publications. welcome. [applause] and linda gordon who is no stranger to this institution has very kindly a few years ago offered up her words of wisdom to an event that happened in support of the library when we were privileged to have her talk about dorothea lange. she is an extraordinary scholar and the winner of two bancroft prizes and the "los angeles times" book prize. she is the author of numerous books including the one that we are going to focus on for the second coming of the kkk and also dorothea lange a life beyond women and pounded, the model property of women, politics in america and she is co-author of a book that i grew up understanding as a very essential text. the professor of new york university, she's written many other books and i gather it's going back and forth between new york and wisconsin. welcome to you both and thanks for being with us tonight. [applause] >> it is a pleasure for me to be here. i'm one of those people for whom this is the first visit to the brooklyn historical society. if someone told me i would be hosting a conversation with linda gordon at the university of michigan i would have fallen off of a chair in shock. let's dive in. this is a wonderful book and i highly recommend anyone interested in american history and right-wing movements and social movements and feminism to buy it. one of the things that makes it an outstanding purchase is linda has done some further research and the pictures are spectacul spectacular. you can see on the cover you have the klansmen marching arm in arm down pennsylvania avenue. how many people know the rally? probably thousands and thousan thousands. there's a stunning image of kind of a county fair spiel of which everybody is a klansmen and we will talk later about the 30 or 40 at a church altar which kind of brings up how i want to introduce the subject of the book which is the second coming of the ku klux klan. the first was named the invisible empire. the most famous representation in popular culture was of course gone with the wind in which they were referred to as a political organization. no one knew who they were. if you saw a klansmen you new to shutter and run. that isn't this clan so maybe we can talk about the relationship of the first and second clan and how they differ and default. >> before i answer i just want to say first of all, i have been in my research the most lively. [inaudible] it was nonviolent and its basic strategy was electoral, i can talk about that, and finally perhaps the most important thing to do. not to punish the individuals but intimidate the whole population. the second clan understanding you wouldn't get a lot of traction by concentrating because very few lived in the north states and they expanded their list for catholics and jews and immigrants. in the ways of immigration very few of them were protestant and when they said catholics also the included the russian and the orthodox but they didn't register that they were different. but it was an equal opportunity bias. >> i would add one more thing i don't know if you would characterize it this way quite organizationally, but it was you might call it a profit business. this is one of thos the reasonsu tell the story of this one guy that kind of field and brought in these agents who used the most investigative marketing techniques that included broadening the markets for who you should be hating. i have a book that was about how much of the right-wing politics devolved into a money hustle even before the internet we were getting terrifying hair on the letters saying -- hair on fire letters to. we know how it works for the internet that was not all that difficult for the clan. and since iin a sense it was lid scheme. if a recruiter could keep 40% of the initiation fee, the initiation fee is $10 but that was over $100 today. it was not cheap and it matters the very low income people were not in the clan. you could then turn around and recruit someone else into this could keep going until there's no one left to recruit and that is the problem with pyramid schemes. ultimately this was the undoing of the clan because there was so much money flowing and i can give examples if you want. the corruption became too much to ignore any one of them became disillusioned and also it is not just the initiation fee let me mention two other forms of income. i made it difficult for a woman to take the sheets and so it herself and normally people would have to pay for it, the second, people started manufacturing all sorts of things. you could get a clan pocketknife and there were just these marketing things completely unaccountable. >> you can wear a red make america great again tap. you have a passage if it was ever flexible there's got broadening the ability to respond to local conditions in oregon the clan efforts were almost exclusively some catholics even joined and members of the klansmen even though elsewhere we learned that they believed there were 100 bishops in america that were going to be 100 dictators in the states that didn't keep them from getting that membership money and just a drizzle this diversity but it doesn't underline you don't characterize it as an ideology that how you kind of character guys what people see and think that it's better to describe so what was the structured feeling and what do they believe? >> what we think about how to respond to this for a moment. first of all, these are the days before people paid to go to lectures. their job in a way was to wrap up the anger but it rested on fear and that is an important thing to register to. i know that it will be hard for you to believe, but the idea was that america was destined by god to be a nation of protestants and there were people that were trying to invoke that to the true cause to the country. let me give one example of that. they've come from southern europe and eastern europe they didn't come because they were poor persecuted. they came because the pope ordered them to. they would function like moles and a spy story and remain incognito until the pope gave a sign that they were going to take over the government. , you know, i think when i call it a structure of feeling which is not my own phrase that comes frobut itcomes from an interestg british critic. a motion can be constructed just like knowledge. you can get this intense anti-catholicism in places where there are not any catholics. it's probably quite obviously relevant to the stuff we are seeing today. >> let's establish the product political context of the united states coming out of world war i it's not like the clan for the only racist bigots out there. it was the mainstream kind of elite. >> i think it is quite possible that the majority agreed with the clans basic ideology. they may not have accepted the stories about what the pope was doing but these are the days they had quote us and i can tell you. if you are interested later you also have professors in the schema for his work for the scholarly tomes about eugenics. what it was about was a letter in which older people in the world are placed on several sevl rungs of the superior ones to the most inferior ones. i want to be clear that they were very common and then another thing that happened right after world war i was a fear about communists in this started well before the russian revolution and they had become known as several hundred were deported were charged with sedition so that wasn't particularly racialized but you had a feeling being promoted that there were these people in the united states who wish people things for the united states and it was important to take strong action against them. >> if you read even across the political spectrum the supreme court's stuff which was the famous case in which oliver wendell holmes was a famous progressive and wrote the opinion of if it's okay for the states to protect the nation for which they would die its okay for the state or actually it is a blessing if it is necessary for the states to protect the nation by preventing them from reading and of course if you study the fact of the case, the woman was sterilized, her little daughter was actually quite intelligent and it's quite a fascinating case but it shows that it wasn't like the clan over here and mainstream america over here to view argue that it was not necessarily this organization. there is lots in the book strikingly a lot of it is in the south. to talk about how politically successful the clan was in electoral politics and how that worked and what they accomplished. >> it is important that they were not 100% nonviolent. in fact, the leaders walked very delicate slippery line about this because the big public statements were absolutely law-abiding. they knew that they could attract people with a promise of being able to participate in vigilantism, so in fact at some point they are dishonest about this but they are right to follow this strategy because they won so much. there were 11 governors, 45 members of congress, thousands of state, county and municipal officers and i want you to understand these are not covert klansmen, these are publicly clans people. however, there were massive victories at the national level. the first one happened right here in new york in 1924 at the democratic convention which was held in madison square garden. the candidate going into the convention was the governor of new york, al smith. this is the longest political convention on record at 2 to 103 ballots that became known as the klansmen because the supporters of the clan basically vetoed the nomination of alan smith. and then the democratic party lost the election. there were quite a lot of strengths and during the convention they claimed that it was 50 feet high. it could be seen if you want from madison square garden to the river. incidentally they are burning crosses but they started to use my folks. a far more important thing that happened is the act of 1924. some of you may not be familiar, but it set up folders for different groups of people that were allowed to come. they were very small quote us and another words this law enacted the hierarchies of the races, and i want to point out something else that's important to keep in mind. it was the wall of immigration until 1965. 40 years. the kind of defined his career from that window. so then we have a state like indiana where they said i am the wall and it was an enormous political machine which told me the home state in oregon was a state of shock a lot of us and a very interesting campaign against something that we usually think of it now has something to the right kind of likesbikes, which is private sc. what was their beef with private school and how did that play out? >> the one piece of legislation at the state level but they introduced everywhere they possibly could was to ban private schools, but what they really meant was to ban catholic schools. this is interesting. it kind of twists things around because they did become supporters of more tax money going to education and they even proposed that there should be a federal department of education although on the other hand, they were very staunch of teaching the bible in the schools that it was the protestant bible, so the claims were completely phony. oregon is the only state the past the bill as an amendment to the state constitution. and this is a place i don't remember the figures but both catholics and jews were under 1%. we are talking about a fraction of 1%. it was overturned by the court that it is a sign of the strength. in fact, it's probably one because there were not enough catholics which there would have been if they introduced it into a new jersey or mean or other places. >> this is the case where the role of the democrats democratics institutions are so important in rolling over the right-wing demagoguery and the supreme court said no way this is unconstitutional, so they tried to get around it in various ways, but the impetus was there. >> the ban on catholic schools didn't rule that way on any grounds of religious freedom. those of you that are the lawyers they understand that it was on the grounds that it was a taking of property that therefore it was unconstitutional to take the property away from them. >> you talk about how they are each embedded in history and you cite racism, temperance, populism but i'm saving the best for last and biggest christian evangelism. at the book is the second coming so it almost is like a christian reference to the title, very clever. do you want to do a little reading for me? >> they went first to the masons but then the ministers next promising to help them increase church attendance. an estimated 40,000 ministers joined. i might add they didn't have to pay an initiation fee or jews. the congregation served as .. >> >> as the model klan city so much that people began to call it klanaheim. and then to become vulnerable to retaliation officials sometimes would ask friendly police to investigate allegations that you should investigate the sister because she married a reformed jew who was associated to work at a negro school. and with those negro association. >> candid is very interesting and we will talk about those later but with those liberal cosmopolitan are baffled by the attraction of evangelicals for donald trump right now but with that even angeles of in america if it shows that the moral questions follow the teachings of christ with the radical sectarian and troublous movement but there is a lot of that and also a history of that ethnic imperialism. and basically to fuse with betty norman size of the klan was made possible because of the evangelical revival. talking about white evangelicals. than those fundamentalist were a little more standoffish to believe in the literal word of christ and never made much headway like the episcopalians but all klan meetings began with a prayer and to there were a lot of ministers to published work about the klan thought. and i can get into this later but those evangelicals have those services that they participate think there may have been a connection between that because of those chapter meetings are like the script going on for pages and pages like the crazy words the all-star with the letter k they get to dress up cent you get to dress up and be part of the club's one of the successes clearly it is a great thing to do in a small town. >> also the klan managed to benefit from lack of secrecy but also secrecy because the republicans members but the oath to swear to become a client's person that you would not reveal any of this arcane abracadabra stuff it was terrifying if you were, revealing the secrets. and added to that notion. >> like elijah and the reason that was part of the culture then but then there was a chapter called kkk feminist. explain what you mean by that. >> actually this is the chapter that i may get the most criticism because i know many people that believe you cannot call yourself a feminist of your also a racist and all of the other bad things ben the fact is that there were people and groups within the women's clan that advocated a serious women's rights reforms and to take seriously domestic violence of wife beating to go along with that to equalize those standards that was just about every state. that adultery on a woman was grounds for a divorce and an equal inheritance. so there were very concrete things. that not all feminism is wonderful. but there is a remarkable story that the klan group chose the joan of arc. [laughter] the fact they identify with the woman who obviously is not a whole body clear rate -- clearly as how they want to be perceived. >> in when you were writing about a second way feminism of. ended that would be a profound contemporary residents? but in some ways i feel like an impostor because i am not an expert i have never previously written about anything i am no better informed than the "new york times" writer about the contemporary claman type of stuff. this comes by an accident with a larger book about social movements and i had the klan as a chapter for two reasons. of is the the largest social movement but i didn't want them to think of social movements are wonderful. and then you need to put this out to. said my editor and my agent so why did. >> they say waiting for the "new york times" magazine piece. with a history of the modern right in america. but really you can not understand what donald trump shows us you cannot understand the right in america without going back to the '20s. and to consider the role model. and was the model for what he wanted to accomplish in germany. and basically the performance of the demagoguery. i think he mentioned to swoop down from the sky and then the imperial wizard who says i have the biggest brain. [laughter] so how do you approach the subject as much as i understand of national review of barry goldwater and ronald reagan. and to answer that because there was a marked difference between the anti-catholicism and anti-semitism. and then they were fine. but that anti-semitism for them against racism of color then to the anti-catholicism. it is true that disappeared quickly because for example, many clans people in the '30's you may have heard that radio personality. well he is a catholic. and to go eagerly into supporting. but that anti-semitism and then it is fundamental. it is interesting in the 1920's and when the jews were in cahoots with african-americans. because in their view when they saw a civil-rights organization is developing they were putting them up to that. they just are not capable of this but and then to be represented. so it just says something about the way. >> and to have a direct threat of the schomburg society. again then in moscow. >> because those accusations are completely contradictory but there are a the predatory capitals. >> we will not get into that like the luminosities society. but i have learned from the right going on 20 years that the american reactionary thought and practice that they are fungible the names change but the structure is the same. the way they talk about the jews is the way mccarthy talks about the communist. like when renewed talk about the conference and a big national conference in 1977 that was feminist inspired to be in organizing opportunity that led to reagan and the journalists to cover the civil rights movement and wrote an article about the state meeting with a feminist clash who were the delegates so now they call them liberals and feminists and the bogeyman who was now arab to infiltrate the muslim brotherhood in the obama white house like a double in the shape of the women the structure is the net same and also of integrity as a subject against what you've exclude. but certainly with american history it takes that on. >> i agree with part of that but i will take issue with part of that coming out of what you just said, my sense of the clans people's feelings is that they had a tremendous discomfort with any diversity. they once did people to all be like. in the book and i actually call them a lasting for purity because the number of ways it was expressed and in that sense it is true to the hostility to the different groups to be fungible but really there is something different of people of color and anti-semitism because a communist could change people do that all the time. but did you could never do that. the major imperial wizard a deal could never be a good american precisely because he is a jew. event in fact, they do have a little bit of levity here this is one story i enjoy you know the story of jonah and though whale he was swallowed but kimmel whole. one of the clan ministers had a slightly different version the reason he came out whole was that said that jews are indigestible. [laughter] literally they meant that as a metaphor that they can never be assimilated. i see that as more characteristic of the attitudes of people of color >> something within that particular fraction of trump?. >> that is interesting. i haven't thought about that. certainly something i have noticed but we do have islamophobia at the same time. but we would have to look at that but what would happen to a the islamophobia of the muslim converts?. >> i could get into that. may be one hour over drinks but you can go over it with linda. so who wants to begin?. >> books are available for sale we're doing a signing after word we're also doing audio capture so please wait for the microphone i'm sure you can project loudly but we want to pick it up. >> is also the feed for the tv also. >>. >> thank you for good stuff. you talk about violence and nonviolence it doesn't have to be violent you are in a small community and they are afraid of you anyway. more recently in the media and the general public and the more severe race riots of the '20s they downplayed the number of african-americans because they said they got the message but on the other hand, they also downplayed the whites that were killed because they may have the impression that african-americans would fight back. >> that was more like the comments which i appreciate. we could take a few. there is a hand way back there. >> did world war to affect the kkk?. >> yes. definitely. has the real story about the genocide became clearer to the united states because the nazis were master you janice -- eugenicist killing disabled people to events in the race. so it was stigmatized and the core staff does not go away it just goes underground and we see that with these periods of a burst and it can subside. at various levels of this type of racism the difference between the quiet and though loud to say what is quiet in the center is allowed with the emotions. >> my own interpretation is the of legibility to think of that shadowy string we need to blame for all of our problems. in that became illegitimate because of the holocaust. another thing they're wedges right wing vigilantes' that was ugly and violence in the city and in boston of lot of that was catholic it was called about budget christian region that was supported by the catholic hierarchy but a lot of history is fleshed out for the first time because historians had the idea that america was a liberal nation for a long time. another question. >> reading about the new deal to get that done he had to deal with a double in the sense the southern democrats but i am wondering if the klan in the organized way lead to some of those programs not being equally shared?. >> it is a complicated question because they were extremely cost aisle to roosevelt they would call him rosenthal zero or rosenberg saying he was a jew at heart but there ideology was not against government programs such as public health or public schools. >> even a plan for national health care that the atf that foreigners were dirty we had to protect ourselves. >> rick would know more about this place seem to think of the anti-stay libertarianism coming from a more elite type of group. >> historians look tuesday it is complicated but they did claim to be the klan enforcement army which is the black collegian i discover that just reading old files from "the new york times" and humphrey bogart made a movie about them 1937 and also we're all lot more violent from the klan caslon does depict said end were hunting down union leaders and were powerful in detroit the police chief that we need more research on that clearly saw the new deal that was bringing infection to white christian america. >> it the sales pitch were there are elements like the promised land or a great destination? not beyond the hate and exclusion?. >> i don't know if you would call it that but the notion was is close to that that america is special in fact, america has its destiny but they have been called up to see that america can fulfill their destiny and have positioned themselves as the rescue workers of the downtrodden but this is another thing that is common that they took up the position that they are the victims of white protestants are the victims in the other people who'd tried to take away from them that they even use immigrants taking jobs in places where there were no immigrants. but it is close to that. >> but merging with that international baptism that was even before the bad guys. >> i want to think for a superb conversation. [applause] i have two questions that i think are connected in terms of history of ideas coming from the anthropology background but first could you comment on the extent of which you see the connection between the ideas of eugenicist like henry ford was promoting in the '20s or someone like arthur jensen who in the early '70s was able to publish work of the pseudoscience and the harvard educational review with the title of how much can we boost our academic achievements. and second the mainstream reception for charles murray book which is also a work of vulgar crackpot pseudoscience but treated as if it was legitimate. and also with those ideas going back to the extent from other anthropologist that were pushing back against it. it is frustrating that it is coming through again, . >> yes. like a bad penny that keeps coming back, yes. you make an eloquent statement. we shall overcome. >> you haven't said anything about the klan in the south end intimidation talking about the african-american people and specifically i am aware there was a big effort of the naacp of the 20's and '30's to get a federal law against lynching but it never succeeded in i am wondering if the klan oppose said or lobbied against it?. >> absolutely yes. franklin roosevelt would never put his support behind the anti-lynching bill. as someone said earlier he absolutely the eve neil he needed the votes of those seven democrats. plus he also had the luxury to you as eleanor roosevelt to somehow a peas the people who were more into racist. >> so yes violence in the south takes a look how big a part of the structure of the plan could become a and in oklahoma they had a rule if you were called to merger you automatically would cancel your membership so favored faster in the jury selection if you with a klansman you would say no. it was important to have them on the jury. we can talk about prohibition but discovered in 1922 there were not only intercepting his mail and monitoring his full calls but killed two of his allies showing that they were tortured but the koreans supporting the juries refused to convict the accused but that would reflect the nature of the day -- 90 the day but that was very familiar but the jury refused to convict. >>. >> during this period in the south the klan was continuing direct violence so i say relatively nonviolent digest mean that. civic there is is a number of articles being arrested at the ku klux klan raleigh. but what i worry is the interpretation you have those lives that are very respectful and as a respectful young businessman is this the era of maybe not honor but is it that bad? was there another organization that you were a part of? sleep on the alpha and go to the meetings?. >> i am glad the u.s. that. first of all, fraternal organizations is sorority organizations have large large memberships as a continuation of this pattern. furthermore the klan did some of the summer of the same things other fraternal ousted and political parties to organize leisure activities for members. you could spend your life in the klan community there were clubs, baseball teams. >> even a memorial day parade. >> it was constant. but the other part of this, not trying to let trump off button very good sociologists came very highly recommended to dig deeper into this, she did some work decades ago there were people live that she could interview many told her it was just another club. now i a grant you a lot of that is self excusing one-celled decades later but i have to believe there was some of that and something crucial to remember it is at that time it was respectable to be a member of the clan there would be very few locations in which membership would make you ostracized. >> even some of those members of the klan in the '20s surprise me. >> hugo black supreme court justice, truman, harding, mo st of them resigned going into national politics. >> that was the big issue in the confirmation. but is very interesting because one of the stories in the book is with your interpretation of what happened but it is quite possible that some people hold that in their own narrative that is shameful but with trump we don't need to verify if he was the active clansman generally he was a racist but he put marks next to the colored applicants and does justice department neil that so they settled. but busby had a very thorough examination and there was a klan parade with a lot of people arrested and everyone who was arrested where in the above klan robo. so maybe they were not particularly reliable but to with establishment through legal certainty but pray confidently fred trump was a member of ku klux klan and arrested with an altercation with the police during a parade in queens. >> hi. thinking of birth of a nation from 1915 and i am curious what effect they had to legitimize the second coming and also that 90 - - 19th century klan is part of the narrative. >> i missed the first part of what you said you're asking what the group had an impact?. >> with the film birth of a nation. >> that was used constantly appeared in 1915 before this happened but they organized in all kinds of cities and raise a lot of money from using that film. >> it was shown for a longtime reagan was born in 1911 he said my family was not racist but my father would not let me see birth of a nation. no one reason is because his father was a catholic not just because it was racist so that was a very big part of american culture. >>. >> i am very appreciative of your humor but want to tell you quickly something that happened here at the citadel with the tyler perry movie the only one i remember i do think it depends of the color of your skin if you are afraid of the klan because the white people in that audience when tyler went to the south for some reason as the character he becomes an to somebody had a knife cutting something may be willing and tyler got out of the car to ask him where he could go to the bathroom. and he said over there. he saw a it was klan members wearing a white and the audience went crazy in medea ran out and was so afraid he got into the car in the back seat and they pulled away. i think that reflected a lot of fear. we all laughed but there was a great deal of your but that is my question but with the whitman i am interested in the feminist kkk group for the women that supported trump and i don't know if i understand that well enough. what do you think?. >> a reinsurer i am not alone to say it was difficult for me to understand how many white women voted for trump. but one thing is clear just because gender equality doesn't mean that would be their highest priority. but i also think as an ordinary citizen that of a lot of that vote was more of expression of tremendous anchor the and a carefully thought out consistent position recently and was in a conversation about the alternate -- all right with these white nationalist but today the klan is only one small part of the movement but this person who interviewed a lot of people said a lot of them are just very confused and don't come up with a completely clear in ideological positions and this goes back to a the concept of the structure of feeling that part of community but you might know more about this than i do. >> but i think if you were to frame the structure of feelings of course there are a lot of different type of trump voters to tell lobeline to support them with the idea of restoring a stable and untrustworthy moral order that is which the nuclear family with conservative principles led is fundamentally about a movement of establishing hierarchy in order with the energies of the various class's then that can be very comforting to have a strong man promising to protect you. that is one story you could tell about the world and you can laughed but as scholars and as analysts and journalists and writers take the evidence as it comes you don't start with the theory then work back with the facts. i think history helps in journalism hopes but this is a moment of profound change and confusion that is when reaction thrives in does not go away. remember when obama was elected maybe we thought that bad stuff was behind us but the most recent article may be some white people thought that thank you. [laughter] the most recent article i published is about the week before donald trump gave the speech that he talked about how mexico since rapist people were celebrating the fact that south carolina voted to remove the confederate flag from the state house grounds and then to say i am the defender of jefferson davis. there is so much through the heart of this story they long for that consensus we do keep seeing that but i seek as long as we are america we will be struggling between progress and reaction. >> i will close by saying two things around this one of the things that characterizes this kind of movement that we now see all over the world is people have grievances but they blame the disadvantaged rather then the advantageadvantage d and that is fundamental that they don't go after the people who have that political power. but the other thing i want to say is a little bit true of the clan battle what true of trump but the angry rhetoric and racist rhetoric there is another agenda you may call it neil liberal because underneath the rhetoric is the regulation of everything that provides us with citizens for safety with deregulation of climate, a safety issues, a consumer protection, lost three. -- wall street so some supporters were people that benefited in that economic sense but it is really visible today and in my view is the only possible explanation why so few elected representatives have been able to step away from his agenda. >> the struggle continues banks to linda gordon. [applause] >> you are terrific. you are a professional. >> thanks again for being here and end your questions. >> we will do a book signing . [inaudible conversations] . >> your last couple of books about the royal family. why is that?. >> i was asked to do the queen but that took me a nanosecond because i realized in 2012 would be the diamond jubilee in that would be a big deal. celebrating 50 years on the throne and i was always fascinated about her i wrote a biography of diana princess of wales 1999. so i thought here is a very inseverable character so let's pull back the curtain to find out what she is really like. as i was working on that book i felt there is the obvious sequel of for air the oldest ever to the throng of british history who has waited longer than anybody else for the throne in british history. so i thought even after writing about diana and the queen and realize very quickly there was a huge amount i did not know about him and he is complicated and compelling and in many ways the opposite of his mother. he has had so much to do say it was like a campaigning to understand the influence from his childhood and his mentors and experiences over those 11 years he was married to diana in a letter that nancy reagan showed me he said he was a greek tragedy and it's like a wet down a dark passageway and i came away knowing he is flawed as a human being as we all or but has done so many admirable things people don't appreciate one of the most gratifying things is afterwards people will say i had no idea. i really admire him. on his sleeve made mistakes but like winston churchill's son or his daughter, the youngest daughter that i interviewed is really fond of prince charles and said i believe he will be in his shining hour on the throne. >> but he is a politician?. >> he isn't a politician but he it is a charitable or entrepreneur and over the years has been very outspoken and has tried to influence public policy. certainly trying to get politicians to persuade them of climate change and the environment and sustainability that is dear to know him but he has even helped former is trying to educate members of parliament on what kinds of things could be done to help the small farmer economically viable. >> host: as the head of state now with his reign be different than his mother's?. >> we will have to see but i do think he is a different person from his mother even though his image he is quite informal end constrained. i don't think what some will be predicted the activist king because by a very definition that means you take positions on issues of the day and if he were to do that he would alienate a portion of the population. so glading he will use his power that he has done very effectiveeffective ly and not too long ago he got the head of the chocolate manufacturers to come together for a meeting with an agreement to form cocoa more sustainably. i could see him doing something like that that is not controversial as the king. he will play within the lines. he now limits of the constitutional monarch and once he walks into buckingham palace that he has to take the advice of the people around him including the government. he has made a career by doing what he wanted to with his own initiative so he will have to change to have an attitude adjustment and i think he recognizes that. >> host: does he have to wait for his mother to pass?. >> yes. that is two different questions. because to become king he has to wait for his mother to die. she will not abdicate so there are two reasons. one is per of gold which puts the monarchy in jeopardy and the heather goes back to the coronation when she was appointed with the wailes and made a secret file -- a sacred vow to serve and tell her dad then she reaffirmed that speech from south africa to say i pledge i will serve you for the rest of my life than some years later she dead day their ration and said this is a job for life now the british have the 1937 regency act if the query is physically in canton -- incapacitated they can see prince charles as acting with all the powers of the monarch so that could happen if she is incapacitated by she will not abdicate. >> has he been trained well?. >> yes. he understands the constitutional pressures he has had a lot of freedom as prince of wales but particularly in the last 10 years people around the queen have been working with him through the various dirty -- the duties. there is a period of transition right now with the very vivid image on that on remembrance sunday where they honor the war dead and for the first time the queen will be the observer and not a participant he will play the reef as well as the mother's grief but she will watch from the balcony. that is symbolic but there have been others that he has been gradually taking on publicly. she is still inside the palace doing all the things she is called upon to do as head of state meeting with ambassadors meeting credentials meeting with the prime minister every week as long as she is mentally capable and physically able she will continue. but he will be much more of a public face. . . . . debate about heher majesty, but i think they are satisfied that the book was serious and that it was thorough and they like it, so when it came time to do this book about the prince of wales, i got the same level of cooperation. there was no quit probe for. to go to all the places that are significant and i had a whole range of my own and to those that went around the country and saw him doing lots of different things, so that is the same cooperation i like to have. >> host: the most recent book is prince charles paradox of an improbable life and she's also written on queen elizabeth 2. booktv has covered that if you go to