Manufacturers what their rights are. I can assure you, there is nobody there is nobody in the family doesnt know how to spend 20. We led the petition and i was the chairman of it, still am. Overtime, pretty soon, 20022014, hopefully this will be my last year. It was the largest antidumping petition ever brought against the country of china and i think still is. It absolutely split the industry in two. A lot of companies, we cant do anything with this but now they have a way that they can join us and we can ask a government to investigate i they going to join us . They already started importing a lot from overseas, or were they not going to join us . What are you going to tell your employees . The retailers became very upset. We were boycotted and we still are in some regards. Some had turned back but they refuse to buy products because we believe in the antidumping petition. As i told someone not long ago, people would look at you, dealers, with total disdain and i would come back to the factory and the people wanted to hug you. I never had that kind of juxtaposed reaction. It was chased that is what we did. We took the money we received and we bought more machinery. There is no machine in the worlds that we dont zone. We will spend any amount of money to stay competitive and efficient. We have to. We dont want a handout. We want to earn our way. But we invest in equipment. Here is the real secret to what we did. We organized the people who work for us and we said we are here for you. We are not going to abandon you. This is the way we are going to have to do it and when i Start Talking to them i start the same way, i will give you the good news and then i will give you the bad news. But the one thing i will never do is why to you. I will tell you the truth. And we need your help. And the attitude in the whole organization changed. Americans are very efficient workers but they need leadership. And somebody has got to get in and say follow me. A lady named helen came out and she was a spokesman and she said to us, john, we have something to tell you. And i said what is it. And she said we see you and we see that you are time and we want you to know. Tell us what you want us to do and we will give you everything that you ask for. Now, when you have that kind of spirit in an organization, it is amazing what you can accomplish. And so i hugged all the women. [laughter] and i shook all the mens hands and i said you guys get your butts back on the job. [laughter] but it was ours people. They were our people. They still are our people and we communicate with those people and we constantly tell them what we have to do and we ended up with our five great roles of global competition and we follow those rules religiously. We communicate with our people and we constantly tell them what we expect of them. I will finish by telling you one of the stories that i tell and you must drummer that i had a soninlaw. So im not against the nba. [laughter] but the story that i tell is how we going to get this done. I say that we need more football coaches and maybe a few less nba people. [laughter] and people understand it. If you become the football coach at somewhere like the university of virginia or alabama or ls you or whatever the best college team is, you are expected to win. And the story that i tell is also true with High School Football as well. But certainly to a college and nfl coaches as well. If you are in the locker room getting ready to play this with whoever and you get your team ready to go out on the field and the sport writers and the pundits in las vegas has said this, when you go out and play the game and you lose by 10 points, the nba will say that we covered the spread. [laughter] and so tell me how many football coaches are going to keep their jobs only losing by 10 points. [laughter] so you guys, we have to start thinking about this as winners. America has to turn around and take this competition. I had a captain when i was a lieutenant and he said its time to take names and kick butt. And its time that we do that. And that is exactly what we intend to do. And still, a lot of retailers have gone by and we have to make our way every day. We have a wonderful retailer here and if you go over there, you will see all about it. [applause] and they have a made in america gallery. A lot of them are important. We are still fighting this battle and it has been a long time in doing this. But i think were beginning to get some traction and thats the beautiful part about this book because it tells you the story of what happened and i am not opposed to globalization. But i just do want a level Playing Field and i want americans to turn around and go to work. [applause] [applause] [applause] thank you john and thank you bat. We will walk around on the outside of the isles and collect questions in the baskets. Dont be shy, go ahead and pass them around. We will be beside you shortly. While they are walking around, i was tart up with new questions. When you hear the story. Well, there is the next test for sure. Theres the hair standing up on the back of my knack and its also really good. Doesnt make the laugh or cry, doesnt make me think of something i hadnt seen before. This story had it all because it had this great main character. And i told him about this a year ago and i said two things. Dont die and dont close your factory. [laughter] and he has done really good. And thats all i ask. And this was a great story because i was able to try to talk about what had happened all those people and to tell the story that i thought had been missed by the National Media about what had happened in the small towns all over the state. Because its not like they cover the wto. I think a lot of the story just got mixed and there is a slow change that happened over the last 15 years and, you know, it was just the kind of book that allows us to think. How did you decide you can trust that what youre story. Who say that i trust them . [laughter] women are persistent. And sometimes you just have to give up and given. But ive read a lot of things but shes read the floor. I love the way that she touches people. And this is a people business and we are a people country. And i know it shows my age and youre not supposed to do this, but i really love the people that work for me. I really do. And i feel responsibility for them. So when she connected with that, she connected with me. You have a favorite story. Let me think about that. Im trying to find one that i can tell. [laughter] the first time i found out that i had only talked to his on, doug, and he said hello. I showed up in my jeans and my hiking shoes and i could see the look on his face and he was saying why did the newspapers and these send these darn hippies down here to interview us. And so he was going to give me all of 10 minutes. I had done my homework and i have done the story and he was game to talk about somebody and talk to someone who is genuinely curious about what he had done. I will tell you that when the Furniture Company close, they talked about the picture and someone was mailing in the last mail and they said this last one in the furniture often in virginia. And i wanted to say, wait a minute. You got your subject to tell you some hard things so how do you wrestle as a writer with having to Say Something hard that is the truth. Its not easy to sleep. I call my friends like mary bishop and i talk about some of the issues. I always come back to is it fair and is it true. And sometimes when you cant sleep at night, that is a good thing. You really should be wrestling with these issues. I dont want to hurt anyones feelings. I know parts of the book have hurt some feelings and that is hard for me. But i think not to put something in this would be hard for others. So its the constant weighing of is it is fair or is it is true. What is the gutsiest risk they took in writing the book . Chapter four. And i knew that it would hurt some people who had nothing to do with what went on years ago. If you could live any portion of your life over again, what portion would it be and why reign. Well, there are a lot of things that i would do differently. I really didnt apply myself. I found women and alcohol and the thing that cured me more than anything else was the United States army and its its a great experience. I spent three years in germany during the cold war and we were right on the border and when i looked across that border, we saw people in east germany. And it dawned upon me and we saw several people that tried to get across the border and we could do nothing until they got across and some of them were actually killed. And so it was i realize that i grew up in a free country and i grew up in a wealthy family and i was given all of this. And i said that i missed my shot at college. Yes, i graduated, but i certainly could have done better and i said im going to start applying myself and that is the whole reason im not over there and im over here, just because i was bored in america, and i never forgot that. [applause] what did you learn from reading that book . I learned a lot of things about my ancestors that i didnt know. [laughter] somebody asked me one time and they said what do you think about what your ancestors did and obviously he wasnt going to condone it. [laughter] what story have you heard since the book was published . Well, theres a lot. A lot of stories. Someone started a factory man Discussion Group on facebook and he has been a great participant in. The first question is someone that was in my neighborhood, she posted where are you from. Hello, welcome, everyone. Where are you from. So i thought it was going to say much about that. But they started doing direct things of what had happened and this morning i woke up and there was a question about naming the businesses that you miss. Because there are a handful of businesses. This morning there are 120 businesses listed. Not just like the name of the business but a story. So its been really cool to be people coming together around this book and its real memories and some of it is anger and that is the wonder because they no longer have this mutual place and this has become part of telling the story about what has happened to them. John, what advice would you give to yourself . Well, look, that is one thing that i will not tolerate it if you work for me you dont do this but ones. I gave you one shot and then i really get upset. So i really truly despise it. So if you say that you cant do something and i say i cant something, it means you can quit trying and then you can quit thinking. I dont mind people saying that i will follow. But its like, okay, lets work on it together. We dont always succeed the first time. Saying that were all going to do that. And so again i come back to this and we have to get out of this nonsense. We can do it if we really want to do it. A question from the audience. Clearly you to have tremendous rapport. How did you all create back . 700 phone calls. [laughter] and we have had some really hard days. Ive been madder at him than anyone in my life and he said that at the beginning. This isnt going to be like Lyndon Johnson doesnt talk to robert caro. We are always going to talk and i thought, wow, thats a pretty cool thing to say. And this is a smart group. So you dont have to go to the pr person to get through to it. And i can get to them anytime i want to. And you can even get to the city manager anymore. You have to go through all these Different Levels and its really rare that you have that kind of access to somebody. And the other thing that he did that i think is really unusual is that he volunteered names and telephone numbers and secretaries names of people that he knew would say bad things about him and they said some really bad things about him. [laughter] and i thought, what is his motivation for that matter and i really think they only asked to read one chapter and i come back and i was going to be going through North Carolina and he said had i want to know, would you read your awardwinning chapter and i was in south carolina, on my way back to virginia and i call my husband and said they want to read the first quote in chapter one. Anton says, well, i dont know. And one condition is you cant say anything until im done and he was very good and he had eight couple of corrections that they were pretty minor. So i appreciate that he values freedom of the press. Let me answer the one thing about men that you call [bleep] well, first of all she is not the first one that has that that. But when she had this, she asked me to come to the party and at the end they asked me to say a few remarks. But the last thing i said was there are people in this room that before this book was written that knew that i was a [bleep] and i said the only thing that has changed is now when they read the book, everyone thinks so. [laughter] john, who would you like to play you in the movie . [laughter] the person that could probably pay me the best is dead. And that is george scott. [laughter] i mean, my Favorite Movie ever was that. I love that. But hes not here. I was just going to say when tom hanks tweeted his love for factory man week before last, i called and said, do you know who he is and hes read, listen, i may be a dinosaur, but even i know who tom hanks is. Another question from the audience. John, how are you preparing for the Stephen Cobert show . [laughter] that guy is quick and it depends on the question he asked. It really does. If you read the book, this guy can get somewhat risque and so i can hold my own with that. [laughter] and so he put in the book that he has two great loves, furniture and sex and i said welcome you got it all wrong and they said what you mean and i said they should have said that smack and then furniture. So he calls me and it was this also from passionate, she goes to california and when i said he wants you to come on, he didnt know who he was, but hes a very quick ready and he went and was watching it and so the other night he says shes on tv, turn it on. So i watched and then right afterwards he calls and says, what if did you think and i said i thought she was great and he said she was terrible. And i said she was scared to death. And i can tell you one thing, i am not scared to go on there now. So look out, this is your warning, its going to be dead. [laughter] if you take on the whole country of china, the embed Stephen Cobert [inaudible] [applause] this is right in the midst of it and it was people were totally upset and everything. So i went up to one of our coalition members. He did join our coalition in the lobby was full and i said can i see soandso and they said let me see if we can get him. All at once the lobby became totally quiet and there were like 40 people there. And i look over and here are the largest chinese exporters to this country. And they are all about five to and they were going. And everyone in the lobby just stopped talking and i got desperately quiet and so i look and i walked right over to them and i leaned down and i meant the same level and they all look at me like that and everyone is waiting and we were that far from each other and i said boo. [laughter] so out came the camera is and i said guess who i had my picture taken with. [laughter] this is very sweet. It says not a question but more of a declaration of gratitude. Thank you to john and beth for having the courage stickier ideals and to put the existence of others before your own and to recognize whom to thank and for whom we should be grateful. You are truly the original american hero. [applause] and so for the final question tonight, we will end with both of you. Where do you think americas Furniture Industry will be in five years . I do know better, but id love for you to your. [laughter] what he would say is that you dont have to drag us back. And i know hes struggling to keep that factory going and he will tell you that he has a 111 million dollar. If the network. And he would also say if he keeps that factory going 20 more years. But he has to be efficient and he has to have the right tools and he is not making money hand over fist because a lot of this is a labor of love and responsibility so in terms of everyone off theres not really any other companies to compare them to end North Carolina. What we do is bust of poultry most of upholstery is made in the United States. And that drives the market. It drives the chinese crazy. We are used to it because we grew up with it. And they can make over that. If you ask me what is going to happen. And so stickley is out of new york. We are the only ones that are quite expensive and my point of it is that we are the only ones left and i carried 125 factories that i know that have close and we are the only ones left, we are here. And so for five years ago they said john, what were going to do. Youre not going to make it. And dont misunderstand me, its not over what. And so you talk about figures and all this, talking about it with business and i could just see the eyes glass over and they are saying this guy doesnt know what hes talking about. Until i read about Abraham Lincoln was great on telling the story because people remember stories but they dont necessarily remember figures or whatever. Sometimes i think of something and i say, okay, i want you guys to think about this. Thats 12 men on this island and okay. And i said theres one woman and 12 men. And i have news for you guys, she doesnt have to be beautiful, i can guarantee you that someone will fall in love with aggro before this is over what. And so we intend to be that girl and thats how it comes about. [applause] thank you. Thank you both for being here tonight. Thank you all for coming. A tremendous thank you to the staff and volunteers of st. Johns, especially the the bookstore manager charles richards. [applause] and the special thanks to sam, and the audio team and the ladies in the kitchen who have put on a beautiful spread that i hope you all enjoy it. And thank you also to cspan for being here tonight. Finally, beth and john have agreed to stay and sign some books and you will be lining up down the hall toward the stairs. He is driving home 2. 5 hours, so its not keep them too late. So thank you all and good night. [applause] you are watching booktv on cspan2, 48 hours of nonfiction authors and books every weekend. Booktv is television for serious readers. Booktv asks what are you reading this summer . I am going back through some books that ive read before and it centers on our president and im looking forward to that. I got started reading a book on harry truman. Looking at the president and their leadership skills and how they solved problems. The reason im doing it is because our nation faces a variety of problems right now and what people are seeking to see is action based readership that is going to put some solutions on the table. Anything else you have on your plate . Yes, as i got into this, looking at great leaders and problemsolving abilities, it picked up something on Margaret Thatcher and im looking at reading some on her and then im also doing some genealogy and the little bit of research they are working through ancestry. Com and doing Additional Research to look at how some others solve problems. What are you reading this summer . Tell us whats on your reading list and send us a tweet on booktv. Posted to our Facebook Page or send us an email at booktv at cspan. Org. Serhii plokhy at Harvard University reports that the dissolution of the soviet union was based more on ukraine and russia on a continued unified state than on American Foreign policy initiatives. This hourlong program is next on booktv. Good morning. Good morning. Im joann myers. On behalf of the carnegie council, click to welcome our booktv and guests to this program. Serhii plokhy is the professor of the ukraine history and director at Harvard University. His book, the last empire the final days of the soveit union, will come as he writes, not only lift the curtain of time under dramatic events leading up to the collapse of the soviet union but it will provide a muchneeded situation for what is happening in the content of the ukraine today. And so it is a narrative that has had consequences with the perception of what we could accomplish. And this has led many analysts to use the current crisis. The story as told in the last empire presents a bold new interpretation of the final months. The soviet union disintegrated for a variety of reasons and placing the ukraine at the center of the, providing a historical background for what is happening now. As we continue on the eastern part of the ukraine with prorussian separatist destabilizing the region to integrate with the west, you may wonder why russian nationals use this as an intro part and find it difficult to adjust to the reality in independent ukraine. It will provide many of the muchneeded answers to understanding the historical roots of the crisis and why we have a struggle with the growing republic. Please join me in welcoming our guests a day. Thank you for joining us and let me just remind you to turn off cell phones and any other electronic devices. Thank you. [applause] thank you so much for this wonderful introduction. I want to just make everyone for coming on this early monday morning. The weather is wonderful and im so grateful you still decided to spend time talking about books with us. Thank you very much. And im very pleased to be here and i will try to do my best in terms of todays presentation and normally the second thing is that for the last five years all the lectures were for britain to use power plant. Thats the only thing i can promise you that i will try my best. Last week brought those very interesting news from the region and that word was a union. So in kazakhstan, they had three republics, finding the agreement of economic unions. So as far as i know, this is the First Time Since 1991 that they were union and not commonwealth and we use up lots of political vocabulary. And so in 1991 it was from kazakhstan but the word came that theres another entity of the soviet socialist republics and at that time the republic other together against the same person and at that time they decided that any kind of union is gone, it wasnt just a slavic republics of central asia republics that all of them. And so that turned out to be the launch of my book and the welcoming news from the author and i was looking for a publisher. And that is one of the events that no one could predict and that is interested and publishing and publishing this book. And so why i wrote this book, one of them is that i wasnt in the soviet union or the ukraine most of the events in my book take place here. The chronological sculptors from july 1991 that starts with president george bush and Mikhail Gorbachev and that goes all the way to december. And so i have written the beginning and then i came back and so for one semester on the 21st we decided there was no soviet union anymore. So when i came to the university of alberta we had a foreign crisis and at that time i was working and i thought, come on, i cant do that. And so coming from the soviet union i changed my view on that and so i decided, okay, i will teach more about the foreign crisis, but they knew nothing about economics and so lets teach about democracy in moscow. So what i know and my perspective is very different. This is about National Identity and who is interested in nation and the republic and so i prevailed by the time the course was disintegrated. Not exactly because of the drive for democracy. And so when i revisited literature on the soviet union it was three years ago and i still wasnt satisfied with that. There was little in terms of the perspective of the experience that i have and it was a very important part of the story and so that is why thought the only way to subtract those misinterpretations or omissions would be to ride a book. So id like to formulate the argument against the narratives of this. And that includes defending the soviet union and i would have some kind of mysterious problem. The people were planning the destruction of the soviet union and it turns out that is what happened and the administration of george bush was trying their best to keep gorbachev in place. All the way until late november of 1991, so it not exactly a conspiracy theory. On the american side there is the narrative that links together the end of the cold war and what i am trying to show is the participation of the soviet union. And a year and a half later they declared that the cold war was part of it. I thought my story was presented this way. So again, things didnt really work nicely in that context as well and then there was another one that i liked the most and i explained it to the best of my ability and i dont think that it explains everything and this is the narrative of the personal relationship between the hatred of one politician by another and it puts a lot of information into my book. But again, no matter how important relations were, by the time the soviet union fell apart, the battle of russia was already one. By the time of the ukrainian referendum that sealed the fate of the soviet union, by that time gorbachev didnt have money to pay his secretaries and assistants. And so the process started in the summer and oil, gas revenues, they became part of the republic and in case of this and they became the property of the Russian Federation. So im done with my favorite part of research, showing how everyone else is wrong. So now we have some kind of revision and alternative and what was this. Well, i think to put this into the context of the cold war i certainly put this of economic decline and all of those kinds of things with the thames and reforms that were very different all. But what i considered to be the most important part of the 20th century, the creation of nationals date, i have put the history of this into the contacts of the ottoman empire, the british empire, the french empire in the portuguese empire. More or less especially in the second half of the 20th century of one major issue in this citizenship of the people of the colonies. And there should be benefits for people as citizens to extend to them what is sometimes called the welfare state and that includes the conclusion to reach every metropolitan power and what they come to. So its too expensive in the 20th century. And russia is not different than with russia it was all done and they are sitting on the bench and he has an advisor at that time. And we dont have resources to keep this coming. If we dont do something drastic in terms of economic reform, the ranking in the popularity will be near what gorbachev is today. So they tried to sell lists and the explanation was we dont have resources to keep them but once russia has done this 20 or so now, the republic will come back. So there is a vision of this in the future of the republic is coming back in one way or another and not the way it was in the soviet times. And it took place in the form of 1991. Russia has benefited with any metropolitan power before this. And they take their resources and man are part of the Russian Federation and it immediately makes whatever informs was considering at the time and it makes it much easier and im trying to tell my story for the actions and experiences through four major figures whom i blamed for everything positive in everything negative and those people are president of the United States, mikael gorbachev, boris field and, and the speaker of the parliament and president of ukraine and im trying to also tell the story working from the republic with what is going on there. And the policy was to keep gorbachev going as long as possible and he would say why is their policy of that kind. Why is this also a the end of the soviet union. Well, first of all the soviet union emerges as a junior partner of the United States and so to lose a partner like that would mean a realignment of forces in the world. And so they are prepared to sign an agreement of nuclear arms that everyone is prepared to cut down the support for and they eventually are drawing support from their government in afghanistan. So that is one reason. Another reason is the nuclear arms change the way how the war is fought. Because of nuclear arms. So the main concern of bush and his administration at that time as part of this. And this includes the services as well. And this includes Nuclear Missiles buried so thinking about does, nuclear arms change the way how businesses are conducted. And to what you actually much more complicated than the narrative that we have