>> good evening welcome to politics and prose i am part of the events team here. each year we host close to 1000 and authors here at the union market. if you like a full list of upcoming events please go to our website and you can pick up a copy of the events calendar. i do have a few short housekeeping items. first, please silence your cell phone so we have no buzzing or ringing during the event if it's time - - after the presentation and q&a please come up to the microphone there is we are recording the event through audio also make sure your question is in fact a question. [laughter] if you have a dissertation we do have a self-publishing arm. [laughter] we will have the signing at the front of the table after the event. if you don't have a copy we are plenty available for sale at the register at the front of the store. finally come at the end of the event please fold up your chair and put it to the side on one of the shelves that is a great help to your staffers here. today i am excited to welcome adam to the store to talk about his book revels in the wild west and those that during the golden age and the gilded age that were largely forgotten and having rise in 1890 working in factories since 11 she astonished american society to marry of blue blooded new york millionaire. together they joined the socialist party and worked with figures such as eugene and w e-b devoid. and was spanish civil war and abolitionism to keep an eye on contemporary life even as he dives deep into the past. without ever dissolving and to examine how historical figures responded to challenges that in some ways resemble our own and with those figures like stokes is not only reminds us of political responsibility as citizens but also to widen the political imagination. once again shed not only with showing his historian but the mastery as a narrative writer in this account of his life and work giving up the tail over time please join me to welcome adam. [applause] >> actually that music was supposed to be playing as you come in. [laughter] but i better stop it now because we have to get on with the rest of the show. anyway, it's great to be back here at politics and prose a wonderful store and if i lived in washington i would be here literally all the time. it is a pleasure to see so many of you here about a book that is not the latest side story from the trump white house and the origins of the coronavirus but something else entirely. it is a remarkable woman and her very unusual marriage which shed some light on our country about a century and a quarter ago and by reflection of the country today. so let me tell the stories of those people in this marriage to let me start with her. the woman was born in russia in 1879. . . . . adam: roses father who was a cobbler, lived above his shop on the main square of the town. he and her mother separated very soon after her birth. when she was born, the russian empire was under the rule of alexander the second, he was the good guys are great many freed the servers and he also eased a few of the very harsh restriction on russia's jews. he was by no means a believer in the rights when he was shall we say, a little bit less anti-semitic and many other members of the dynasty. however, the lives of rose and her family and millions of other people were offended by something that happened two years after she was born in 1881. hundreds of miles away in st. petersburg, the empire's capital. alexander the second was assassinated. and as soon as he was dead, his successor in post, very harsh new restrictions on the jews of russia and encouraged essentially quietly but unofficially yes, a series of wrongs over the next 25 years. hundreds of people were killed, often jewish homes and shops were burned. they were leaving their owners homeless and this of course was what stirred the enormous exodus of millions of jews from the russian empire going first to western europe and then for most of them, unto the united states. among them was rose, three years old then and her divorced mother. they stayed first for seven years in london living in great poverty in the city's east end and it was there the rose and the only schooling that she ever received. less than two years. but it was enough for her to learn to read and write english, she spoke yiddish home and to acquire a great love for english poetry. then in 1890, when she was 11 years old, she and her mother came to the united states exhibiting millions of other immigrants, like this one on a ship and they immediately settled in cleveland, ohio. they are at the age of 11, rose had to go to work right away in a factory making cigars. this photograph is from a few years later. that is her in the middle of the back row age 16 in 1896. she worked as a cigar maker for a dozen years and by the end of that time, she was the sole support of herself, her mother and six younger siblings who had been abandoned by the stepfather. and for this work, and george not only days but often evenings as well. she earned $8 week, the equivalent of about $240 a week today. in working in cigar factories was not easy. the oil and the tobacco leaves, seeped into your clothes and into your skin and into the wood surface you are working on. it was in hospital to get rid of the smell. in order to not have heat dry out of the tobacco leaves, so they cannot be rolled around the cigar, the air had to be kept very humid in these factories so the windows were nailed shut in the summertime so that the priest would not blow the humanity out. very fine tobacco dust filled the air and filled the lungs of people working in these places. cigar workers and the second highest rate of tuberculosis of any occupation in the united states. only stone cutters at worse. and rose would have lung problems for the rest of her life. when she was 21 years old, something happened that changed the course of her life. she saw a copy of a yiddish newspaper published in new york, munitions jewish daily news. the paper ran one page in english and invited contributions from readers around the country. it was a near paper was trying to go national so and send everybody, wherever you are, sinister stories and writings letters and tell us what is going on in your life. rose began writing to the paper. they gave her a call and an advice column under the heading of just between ourselves girls. she was amazed when she received a check in the mail for $2. and to learn that you can actually get paid to write. she wrote under the pen name of zelda and she was even more amazed and delighted when after two years of doing this, living in cleveland, the newspaper invited her to new york to work in its office and write for the english page of the paper full-time and double the salary she was earning as a cigar worker. so she arrived in new york in 19 oh 31903 buried at the age of 23 no mention of the city looked to somebody than seeing it for the first time. on elevated tracks above the streets, there were steam powered trains like this one crumbling along trolleys, propelled by underground cables in the streets themselves belowground, thousands of people were working in building the subway system which had not opened it. and on the streets even a few of the new horseless carriages. and of course, skyscrapers and modules unlike anything that she had ever seen before. in new york by the way that time is a city that would've terrified donald trump because it was a city of immigrants. more than half of the men in manhattan over 21 years old were foreign-born. new york would soon be the largest city in the world though it was already the largest jewish city in the world. and this is a picture of the lower east side where rose lived and worked. most of the people that she wrote about for the newspaper were shop assistants, street peddlers, on the lower east side she gathered her stories and then when she got to the office and she would write off reams and reams of copies every day. but one day in the summer of 1903, the editor gave her a different assignment. it was to go and interview somebody who worked in a settlement house. you settlement house where i think. these were places that were established in neighborhoods, usually the poorest neighborhoods of every major city throughout the northeast and they offered nutrition for children, they offered things like baths and showers, not just for kids before adults because for millions of people living in tenements and new york university's, their work bids and showers there. they offered the literacy classes and classes in many other things as well. although, settlement houses served a population was almost entirely immigrant and very poor. volunteers and staff settlement houses tended to be well-to-do college graduates. eleanor roosevelt for example at this time worked in a settlement house on the lower east side in new york. the settlement house wordpress mean to do to do. read the university settlement on the lower east side not very far from the newspaper's office. and here's a man she was asked to interview. once you're working there. james graham phelps stokes and as you can tell from the name, or different background anglo stuyvesant bronson and his friends calling, grandma. and he and rose fell in love. he came from the most different kind of background imaginable. here it for example is his parents summer home. [laughter]. the house in western massachusetts time it was built in the 18 '90s it was for time the largest private home in the united states. 100 grams and legend has it that one of graham's brothers, he was in the class of 1896, yelp, sent a telegram to his mother saying sick he was bring some and 96 follows home for the weekend. it is mother and the telegram, get the got dropped from the telegram. and his mother replied, many guests are already here, have room for only 50. [laughter]. and not in the summer later, they have the family lived in new york, in this dimension at madison avenue and 37th street, and as part of the mortgaged library today. parents parents, each of them came from a family with a substantial portion we take the mind. part of the dodging writing empire, new york city real estate especially luxury apartment buildings on the upper east side in a cluster of gold and silver mines in nevada and railroad ran to them. the family was also very active philanthropic link. and i think a few other members of the family served on the board of the washington institution. another philanthropic adventures as well. here's a picture of graham's parents and the nine children and some of the spouses and offspring of those children. in terms of the country at the time, and immensely respectable family. the boys were expected to play prominent roles in life and they did. one of them became a distinguished architect and one became an editorial writer new york times, one became what today would be called at yelp university. he later dean of the national cathedral here in washington. grandson became an episcopal bishop and the girls were expected to marry well and they did. one married nobleman in your and another one with a secretary of state. but he took a quite different path in life. he went to medical school after he graduated from college at columbia university and then he worked as a medical student on a horse-drawn ambulance in new york. for the first time, came into contact with a very different side of the city of where he had grown up. and this was the new york of the tenements and he was shocked at what he saw. tiny apartments, where immigrants were living packed six and seven and eight people to a room. tenements were often the only toilets were outdoor outhouses like these and of course famously the tennis new york city also double as sweatshops in the garment industry. graham was outraged by what he saw that's when he became part of the settlement house movement and actually went to live in the settlement on the lower east side. of course rose met him there for the first time. they courted secretly for two years. over the strenuous but well concealed opposition of the family but then finally the news leaked out. probably because newspaper reporter had bribed to telegraph operator to tip them off. in a came over the wires. and it was front page news. this headline, jg phelps stokes ran on page one on the new york times it was reported wet that they were going to wed and his all over the world, europe and australia and received immense attention. it was the lead story at page one of the new york evening world. as you can see, engaged to marry poor jewish girl. protracted people's interest was does not just imagine someone extremely reached and someone extremely poor but a jew and gentile. very unusual at the time. but the class and an ethnic difference. in were still interested in such together yesterday. that's what makes us so fascinated with friends harriet and megan merkel. the same newspapers immediately sign rose to write a series of six articles: the genius of the ghetto. and they were married on july 18th, 19 oh five and rose's 26th birthday. gresham was seven years older. and the press remained fascinated by this couple and they lived in a blaze of publicity for the next 20 years and i think the core of the public's fascination was that they seem to be the cinderella story. prince charming rescued four virtuous cinderella from a humble heart and brought her to limit his counsel. and i think what fascinates us all and has for so many centuries about versions of this cinderella story is we are curious about the possibility for transformation. will prince charming somehow be softness five is divided and will see the transformed and thrive in the castle in a way that she cannot before. and i think this is what curiosity about this is what caused people to follow it so closely for so many years exactly what happened to this couple. here's a picture of rose taken the year after they married. however, this is not like the cinderella script. because graham stokes had to some degree and left the castle and rose had no desire to live in one. and even though they often stated in one or another of his parents homes, and always made her uncomfortable. she and graham were acutely conscious that they lived in the country with enormous disparities of wealth and some people flipped as graham's family did that others were desperately poor and often worked in dangerous conditions as well like the child cope miners in west virginia. in 19 oh six, the year after they married, rose and graham both joined the group that they thought had the best solution to these problems, to the injustices of the time, the socialist party. and at that time the parties later as it was for many years was eugene, a noble man charismatic much beloved five times a candidate for president. he had begun life as a railway worker and the become head of the railway workers union. and when he campaign for president in 1908, he traveled around the country in a special train called the red special. [laughter]. that flew red flags was draped with red bunting and engineers of passing locomotives on the next track always recognized him but he came along and gave long to tone the muscles when they saw this. when he came to new york, graham stokes is on the platform with him because graham was running from the lower east side and rose campaign for both of them. in the graham north eugene won their elections. but people remained fascinated by this couple. everyone still saw it a cinderella story. the marriage inspired two novels. it was one of them salomé the tenant it was turned into a solid film. unfortunately the film was lost as many films of that era did not survive but we still have promotional photos from it the actors playing rose and graham. here's one of them. what they are saying to each other in the film, your guess is as good as mine. this was time when they were not even involved in these movements, became acutely conscious of some of the injustices of american life. one episode, dramatized the terrible labor conditions in bold clothing workers. workers worked in the pringle shirtwaist company in new york city just off of washington square, there was a terrible fire turnovers on an upper floor were trapped and unable to get out and end it was an inadequate fire escape that collapsed under the weight of everybody on it in a stairwell which could've allowed them to escape from his morning factory was locked to keep out union organizers. in 46 people burned to death and were left out the windows to the death to scapegoat claims. almost all of them work women in half of them were teenagers and almost all were immigrants, jewish and italian. hundred and 20000 marched in a morning procession through new york city more than 300,000 people like the sidewalks. this was something that seemed to crystallize the awareness of people have the began to have that time, the enormous disparities of wealth. rose continued her journalism now issues of labor and social justice was what she was writing about it also women's rights. she got very involved in one case that had echoes of some of the kind of battles that are still going in the me to era today. one case that drew her attention was one by the name of sarah it was an immigrant from russia worked as a nurse in manhattan for a doctor who was home and office were in the same building and the doctor had given her room to live in there. and one night when she was asleep, he piped chloroform under her door and went choose unconscious, he raped her. in a couple of weeks later, she like she was pregnant shotgun shot and killed doctor and surrendered to the police. rose went to the prison where she was being held interviewed her and hit it and told her story in the press of much greater length than anybody else had an rose announced that she would pay sarah's legal expenses and what she was released from prison would give her and the baby place to stay. the trial was delayed until sarah gave birth in prison and she was found not guilty in part because another woman could come forward who was assaulted by the same doctor printed starting a few years after rosen graham were married, for a decade or so the united states was invoked by strikes with hundreds of thousands of workers walking out of year. i was in a time when labor unions had almost none of the rights that they later acquired. strikes were often suppressed by police and these are chicago cubs putting on us drank it worker and with paddy wagon and sometimes by militia. national guard troops and these are striking workers in massachusetts facing state motion and the strike was organized by the industrial workers of the world. we heard the music before. one big strike of garment workers was new york city, probably close enough to read the signs that the strikers are holding up their the remarkable thing to be is that there are signs in english russian - and italian. rose was heavily involved in this strike. speaking to groups of strikers often many times each day. and in that garment worker strike which began in 19 oh nine, she really came under her own as an organizer and as an immensely popular speaker and she soon became recognized as one of the great radical people over time. and now the cascade of newspaper stories that continued, were more about her and they were about them as a couple. and they are signs that he was not completely happy about this read the most interesting strike that most often folded happened in 1912. the strength of hotel and restaurant leaders in new york city also organized by the wobblies. in a wobbly organized was walk into one restaurant or hotel dining room after another. the waldorf astoria, the luncheon club of the new york and stock exchange and usually just as lunch or dinner was about to be served, the organizer would blow a whistle and all of the waitress walked out. rose was on the strike committee and she addressed many rallies striking waiters helped handle publicity for the strike. and wrote about the miserable conditions which many of the workers worked. and in her papers, there are many very heartfelt letters of thanks from the waiters who took part in the strike. no one in the buildings involved in the strike was hotel new york, ansonia and if any of you are near peers, and recognize if didn't feel that from bradley between 73rd and 74th street as an apartment house today. and at the time claimed to be the largest hotel the world. that was true. although a difficult thing to know. it had a number of dining rooms and restaurants there was a famous gathering place for musicians, show business people and mobsters. and his owner was graham's uncle. william earl dodge stokes oracle will as he was called in the family. a passionate hatred of labor unions, immigrants and much more. and he was absolutely furious rose was encouraging his own workers to go on strike against him and he exploded at her anger and he later comes back into the story. you will see. the meter to another aspect of roses and graham's lives. one of the things that made them so fascinating for me to write about was there friends. anyone worked with what to me for some of the most interesting people in the united states in that era. here are some of them. there's rose with eugene debs on the left and behind them is max eastman editor of the magazine of the masses. but in many ways with the best magazine in the united states at that time and in some ways, precursor to the new york pretty and another friend, was mabel's life of the wealthy parents, famous holding salons and a reduced cost of the great questions of the date work debated and she sometimes asked graham stokes to moderate one of these discussions. there were also friends what big bill haywood, the leading figure in the iww, a former minor, cowboy, saloon car dealer, charismatic order, famously using his fists and required them for being able to cite long passages of shakespeare my heart. and another one was the journalist john wright in many ways, the liveliest journalist of his generation, determined to be at the center of the action. whether that meant being in jail with strikers in new jersey are in the midst of revolution in mexico or russia. they also knew lincoln steffens, w ebt voice, the greatest black intellectual of his time, an extraordinary historian, mary harris jones, her mother jones famous labor organizer. sinclair, to whose novel the jungle, we owe our fruit food and drug laws. as he was writing that book, he sent it chapter by chapter two graham to get his comments. there also friends with margaret sanger, the woman in the middle of this picture, the birth control pioneer. birth control is something we take for granted today. but the brooklyn, clinic where she was photographed was done by the police and singer was sent to jail. rose was active in the campaign for birth control. when talking about such things publicly at the time was against the law. in another friend, frequently arrested and shown here in one of her bookshops was in the goldman, the anarchist. in all of these folks rose and grandpa knew and they work with them many of them were there houseguests on occasion and some of us were the recollections of rosen graham. the period of american life when all of these people were active was a remarkable time and it was a time and i am speaking of the years in the 1900 to 1914 or so. when many people believed that the world could be changed in the new and more just society was in some undefined way, just around the corner. but then something happened that shattered those dreams. the first world war. which not only killed some 9 million soldiers and untold millions of civilians, it is also sheltered the radical dream of working class is a different countries would never fight each other. so when the world began, the united states was not part of it read and americans and other radicals agitated very strongly for the u.s. to stay out of the war. rose emma goldman and many other friends to join called the women's peace party and took part in demonstrations like this one. then of course, in april of 1917, woodrow wilson will before congress and asked congress to declare war. and by the next year, large numbers of american troops were going to a friends eventually by the millions and by mid 1918, newark heavily involved in the fiercest fighting of the war. the coming of the work brought an upsurge of war fever and ferocious government propaganda here at home like this u.s. army recruiting poster. there was also a tremendous inouye about spice and not about just prop propaganda but most of the press, it tremendous push against radicals anybody questioned the work in any form. you cannot see the caption on this cartoon, i think because it's in very multi- but the top but is is now for around up. initials uncle sam rounding up the iww another radicals. many people in this country and not just those on the far left, felt very strongly that it was a huge mistake for the united states to enter the war. the government crackdown partially on descent of both agents of the justice department and the local police raided the offices of left-wing organizations all of the country. this is what the office of the wobblies, the iww in new york city looks like after. i'm sure rose was in this office many times in the first world war they created a rift between rose and graham stokes. she became friendly convinced that it was a terrible mistake in the united states go to work. he was so enthusiastic about the work that he enlisted in the military. anyone into the uniform, he was too old to get sent overseas but was in the new york national guard for several years and never got into combat and marching afraid like this one down fifth avenue. something else of divided rose and graham happened in the late 1917. the russian revolution. the second stage of the revolution. rose was in favor of this and graham stokes was strongly against it. she continued speaking out against american participation in the first world war. and now in favor of the russian revolution as well. in this drew the anger of many people including graham's uncle, angry hotel order. remember him. here is a report about him from the files of the bureau of investigation. the predecessor of the fbi. in essence the agent received word from wtd stokes at various times in the residence held meetings with socialists in iww and f8 search was made at the premises, some valuable information could be secured. a few days later, we know from the records of the bureau, he called the bureau, told them of rose and graham will be out of town and that was a good chance to search the house did the bureau of investigation kept a close eye on rose and agents followed her in governments and stenographers transcribed her speeches which turned out to be very useful for me and they kept close track of her. in 1918, she was arrested and put on trial for speaking against the mark. and she was that sentence that to ten years in prison under the espionage act. very stringent law that essentially criminalized all forms of dissent in this country. graham bell money, the appealed the case and the sentence was eventually overturned on appeal. she did not have to go to jail. but by this point, the mayor or the marriage was on the rocks. they remained together for seven more years but very and easily because they went radically different directions in politics. rose joined the communist party and went to russia in 1922, as an american delegate to a meeting of the communists international. by far too many people manage labor leader she thought that in soviet russia should have found paradise. and graham look for paradise in a different direction, returned to an early interest early in his life and religion particularly in bringing together the traditions of hinduism and christianity. they got divorced ver in 1925. this put them back in the front pages of one last time. and as soon as they were no longer a couple, the press completely lost interest in them. but heavily pretty, they saved all of her tenderness kept a diary, they wrote dueling and published memoirs pretty roses was published about 50 years later. let's mission the recollections of their lives with friends. some of this rich rich material to work from. i would urge all of you to save your letters, keep diaries, give historians something to work from. after their divorce, rose as a matter of principle refused alimony and she was reduced to poverty again. she remarried but to someone is poor she was. in recent came down with cancer and died at the age of 53 in 1933. graham also remarried but without a leap out of this class this time, and the done to the age of 889 in 1960. so that is their story. i wish i could say that they changed the world, they did not. perhaps through their eyes we can see world needed changing and so could use some changing today. i hope you get for getting to know them as much as i did. so we do not stop right there and if you've got questions or comments i would be glad to hear them. [applause]. and i think, come to the microphone if you want to ask something or did hear someone coming. can you make into the microphone here. guest: i thank you for coming. i was really interested as to the story telling approach you took to telling her story. made you want to take that type of approach rather than a general estate historian approach. adam: you mean write a sort of boring book the way that many mooring historians do. well, to me history is filled with people's stories are inherently much more human and much more interesting than professional historians often tell them. and i see no reason why you cannot apply the techniques of good narrative, or good storytelling to history, to biography, the way you would anything else. it is curious in storytelling in history, there is sort of a tradition of lively narrative writing about certain subjects. look at the massive floor through books about world war ii for instance. quite often, for some of the less familiar figures of our history with other parts of history, people are not accustomed to approaching them in a narrative way. why not. i believe that you can be true to the facts, be accurate is how have everything footnoted. and still tell a lively story. how did you find more interesting one more than this one of these people from extraordinarily different backgrounds who fell in love and thanks to the evidence that is there, letters and diaries, we can sort of see inside of that relationship. so i am amazes there are not more people who have written it before. there are a few but not very many. guest: thank you very much. guest: thank you so much, my question is, somebody like rose who was pretty much was in politics activism also supporting her husband, in pursuit of running for office, how come she herself never thought about running into running for a position and als. adam: actually both of them ran for office. but unsuccessfully. graham read once for the legislature in new york, and different time, they were living in connecticut and he ran for the school board position there. rose ran for president of manhattan and i think once to congress. this was on the socialist ticket and they got very few boats. so she did definitely take part in politics herself. and really, for the last decade of their marriage, she was a much more public firms in the public was. guest: i was wondering if rose and in a relationship with another. adam: not that i know of. i wish i could say anymore but his name does not show up in the papers. no a little bit about him but his name does not show up as a correspondent or in her papers. guest: you said that she knew him and they were involved in a movement. adam: it was later that that they knew him liking 198 or ten. but nothing i know of. guest: i was just wondering if you knew, you said that her husband as part of their wealth came from money, third workers were unionized and froze ever made any attempt to try to influence them private. adam: actually the question and not coal mining, but the golden silver mining and originally going back a generation, for mining. rose was never involved in the mine workers unions because all of that work that she did speaking to crackers and stuff was in or around new york city. not much mining there. so the answer is known that. what may not better story that were the case but no. guest: you talk about a cinderella story arose i was wondering what message or control the truth about rose you hope to have conveyed in your book. adam: in a way i would pay tribute to both of them for making leaps out of the world that they were boarding. program to do something as radical for someone in this class is to marry a factory worker but also a russian jewish immigrant was really quite extraordinary. that took a certain boldness. what i admire about roses is that she seemed to grow intellectually through most of her life. and i would say she shrank intellectually at the point that she became overly enamored with soviet union but up to the point, you can sort of see the record that she left, letters and diaries and so on essence of her world expanding. admire that in her ability to adjust from it did very different world than the one she grew up in to get along with graham's family. she actually became very close friends in the friendship continued after the divorce who share her politics. and she was at ease with people at every last occupational level. you can sense that in her tone of voice in the letter she writes. she had a wide network of friends pretty to navigate in a world that way especially in the highly stratified world in that time and of course we still do live in a very stratified society. takes a real human warmth and imagination and i think she had those qualities. guest: what extent do you think rose had an influence of graham and their life after marriage and during the socialist movement and running for office. adam: i wouldn't say she had an influence on him and in some ways i wish he had more influence on him there with peculiar things about this relationship is that even though they were extensively radical in their politics, appearing on the platforms in when married, i think they both went into it expecting a very traditional marriage. graham was seven years old and rose had only two years of schooling and it multiple graduate degrees and she very much looked up to him and admired his morning the books that had read in the writers that he knew and so forth. and i think it took her about ten or 12 years to realize that she was at least as smart as he was. so the bailiff with a very traditional expectations of marriage prescott frustrated with that. i think graham got frustrated that she was no more subservient wife that he expected. host: we have about two more questions pretty. guest: the democratic socialists running for the democratic nomination the multibillionaire, what can you say the story tells us about the current day in half and we take something out of it and bring it into now. adam: a lot of things have not changed. even though he calls himself a democratic socialists, and they socialist at the time would not use those words to describe them. he really advocates a sort of question european welfare state. more importantly the problems that the united states has been would seem so stark it to us when we look back at the pictures of this people and tenements and so forth, we still have with us today individuals that are different, it looks a little different but the income disparities, between the top 1 percent and the remainder of the population today, is greater than it was when rose and graham got married in 1905. the other disparities are enormous and learning. it is outrageous the tens of millions of people in this country do not have medical insurance. this is something taken for granite throughout western europe. many of the things like that we can point to them think illustrate that in different forms, the same sorts of things outraged people then, should outrageous today. guest: what would you say was the hardest part to start the writing process of this book. adam: getting that first word on the page. [laughter]. the first draft is always the hardest for me whether it's the first draft of a chapter will book or whatever, i find every possible excuse to find things that need fixing around the house. [laughter]. or find people to call. i've been out of touch with them for too long. every possible excuse. and i have learned that if year in this process, it actually once you get that first draft is done, becomes a lot easier especially when you're doing these recent heavy works of history with this just huge amounts of information, thousands of letters and enormous quantities of news newspaper stories and other material. if you have a first draft done i think this applies whether you are writing a book or a college paper or anything else. once you have the first draft done. then you discover tidbits of material, you'd know where you can stick them in. or you see where the blank spaces are and you know what you have to go and look for in the library. this was in a way, any sheer book for me to write and some of the others that i have done because it was so famous onto people. in the basic raw materials was their memoirs and their letters, their diary that rose kept, that was sort of the core. the feeling end of the material around the edges, what was happening in the country that time, was easy enough to do and very enjoyable to do. when you are dealing with sort of a larger stretch of history, more complicated step in the cast of characters many people in it, and becomes much harder. but it is never easy. [applause]. host: thank you so much, and will have a signing up at the front in a few minutes printed and hard copies and the book at the register. please follow future as you leave and thank you all for coming. [applause]. [background sounds]. host: as regular viewers of book tv no, all the major book festivals

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