and she said, i'm so sorry, never do it again, make sure you don't. so i resent enormously when he will diminish the humanity of these people trying to make the best of the situation. >> would you say that they are brainwashed? >> no. >> i have kim jong il say, only in the west can brainwashing be regarded as a bad thing because they are so filthy and dirty in the west. but they are not brainwashed because the stories don't add up and they don't make sense. you can convince them that they have more food on the plate than last year. so they are building a better tomorrow but we are poor. so there is an increasing idea that everything is not what it's cracked up to be. [inaudible question] >> that is like a penalty felony. you don't communicate with the world at all, but that is falling away because you have reception on the border. so people will be calling and talking to their family members area but they pride themselves. if it's not korean, we don't need to know it. >> one of the great things about the regime is increasingly when you get caught with a crime, you can bribe your way out of it. so if you get caught with a cell phone coming you can tell that person that i will let you use it for half the time and the person will be more than happy to look the other way. that is the wonderful thing is the cynicism that is taking hold over their. >> how big is this outside of the core family? remark i think 20 to 30%. >> you have people that live with modern amenities. and you can see this black void of north korea versus la salle and that is the level that we are talking about and you're going to have family members staying behind. [inaudible question] >> please go ahead. [inaudible question] [inaudible question] >> there is a headline article in the daily mail, and it was he has a miniskirted robot army and many are watching in these parades and this person has no feelings of their own and have been completely deprogram by the state. they giggle and tell jokes and they want to do well in school. they love their mom. and that makes it seem like it is effective but thankfully it is not as effective as it could be. >> okay. that's all the time we have. thank you all so much. [applause] >> we will be decamping after this for some drinks. >> there are very few books left. if you want to grab it, please do. >> thank you for coming. >> let's hear one more time for michael malice and cole stryker. botanica is between mulberry and here if you'd like to celebrate your freedom there. but think again about coming and thank you so much for coming. >> now, booktv on c-span2. forty-eight hours of nonfiction authors and book every weekend. here are some programs look out for. we are live in california for our monthly viewer call-in program, "in depth", and we have luis rodriguez is our featured guest. and how the country was found in his book, uncle sam can't count. and we visit utah to interview several of the cities authors and tour the literary sites. watch for this and many more this weekend on booktv on c-span2. for the full schedules, visit us at booktv.org. >> let's go. [cheers] [applause] >> welcome to ogden, utah, on booktv. located in northern utah. ogden is the first settlement in what is now a utah. nicknamed the junction city, the leader became the junction location for the union pacific and central pacific railroads. they are now considered one of the top 10 cities in the country to raise a family by forbes magazine. with the help of our comcast cable partners, for the next hour we will learn the history of the city from local authors. >> today when people think of utah, they think of two things. they think of the republican party as one of the strongest states in the country both in terms of the presidential election and the election. we were interested in whether or not we had a leftist radical movement that had existed. >> one of the big misconceptions or that it's only a child to motion and that it's something that we did over by going to summer camp or college. but in reality it's an adult condition as well as this and it's always play develops. but unfortunately we have had to silence us because we worry that it makes is immature. the more we began to investigate a topic am i realize it is quite a prominent theme in american history. >> we begin our special look with author val holley with the infamous 25th street. >> is actually not that unusual. similar streets have popped up, whether oman, texas, larimer street in denver. but what makes august 25 street is the fact that it arose in the middle of a mormon settlement. and you had this struggling to retain control of the city. and on the other hand you have the railroad which is the economic lifeblood which swelled the ranks of the liberal party. and so the railroad was also leveling the playing field. so you have that irony. and i think in that that the guilty pleasures or along this we're going to be just a little bit more taboo than they might have been in other cities. and initially after the railroad came, a number of hotels spring up here at the ogden depot. and initially the railroads and the city council did not want to serve alcohol and they said it would moralize the railroad workers. and that did not last too long. the city needed the money. so when the railroad came, they licensed porcelains here at the railroad. after that boos began to flow like the ogden river. at the same time three blocks east of here were 25th street intersects with the main street, there was another hotel called the white house. it was run by an itinerary merchant and he was a very important one he arrived but he became the governor of utah. so with the hotels and restaurants here three blocks east of here, the three blocks between them began to ln slowly with boarding houses and rooming houses and saloons and bordellos and even some opium dens. it happened that people who came through here or constantinople passengers interested in past times that were quite different than those that the mormon culture was accustomed to. from 1935 to 1949. and it was during these years that the wild reputation reached its highest point. they believed that licenses and these were the best way to regulate this establishment. they also believe that 25th street allowed ordinary people to enjoy the same kind of recreation as members of private clubs. so you get more of that during his time than any other time in history. the matter a lot of notorious people. the most famous would have to be rose davie and her husband bill. she ran the rose room in the second-floor of the building on the corner here. it is the hottest place in ogden. and he had his own gambling joint which was on the opposite side of the street. the second store where the pizza parlor is. and for a year and she ran as a normal rooming house when she leased the building. and then the mayor came back into office at the beginning of 1948. there's no evidence for this, but i think that she thought that maybe a bordello would stand a chance. so she decided to start importing women in their as prostitutes. the first came into the public consciousness in 1948 and it was holding its annual party in three strippers were hired as the grand finale and they were passing around matchbooks with the logo on them. and the crowd became the lone reliever they started throwing bottles. this is the first time they had ever heard of it. a few days after that they rated it is dangerous as the center of the distribution of your products. we are here in front of the london ice cream parlor and this one was called davenport saloon. and she owned them at one point and she was famous for keeping her office here. so the thing that is most visually interesting nowadays this passageway 3 so the thing that is most visually interesting nowadays this passageway that you see between him. this supposedly was built with the buildings owner so gentlemen could discreetly go hear from 25th street into the center of the block, which was their tenderloin district. and this passageway leads to what was called electric alley. it was in the center of the block and built in 1893. they hired a local construction firm to build a grand parlor house for her right where this parking lot is. it was called number 10 electric alley. he came to the interior from grand avenue. on both sides was flanked by areas that were built for prostitutes. so from 1893 to about 1912, it was the place to go for prostitution. and i like to say that she was the most famous or successful madam in utah history. the reason i say that she was the most accessible as one salt lake in 1909 decided to create this, they recruited one not from salt lake but from another place to run it. but they were only there for three years. her career lasted a quarter of a century from 1889 through 1914. >> here we are 25th three in front of what used to be the club. this is a very important building for the heritage of 25th street. and it was a place of lodging for african-americans who worked at needed a place to stay and it was convenient. so for years and years was a place not only where they could sleep but where they could get food and licensed alcohol or they could play cards. it is just a great convenience for them. the owner during world war ii, he married a beautiful young woman who had come from utah named annabel. she is one that became associated and that's what people really remember. and it featured live jazz. there is a saxophonist who still is living there. he is now in his 90s. and he got here in 1945. they teamed up to create a jazz club that later became just a sensation. people loved to go. had the beneficial effect that it hadn't been before. if lurch for about a century. when railroad passenger service started to decline, especially in the 1950s as they were building the interstate highway system so people could travel more easily forgo by airlines, which was faster than train. then the railroad passenger service started dying out and buy the late 60s it was pretty much all gone. twenty-fifth street today looks a lot better than it did in the 1970s. and the buildings, if you see pictures from the 1970s, they look just terrible. and many of them had been abandoned for years. but that is why they are still here in plain sight. they weren't desirable and so no one wanted to be on 25th street to make way for a fancy new building. the street was put onto the national register of his workplaces is the national register of historic places. and so now you have a viable and vibrant streets where people come for street festivals and festivals all the time in good weather. there is just a lot to do and a lot of good reasons to come here. >> this weekend, booktv is in utah with the help of our local cable partner, comcast. next we sit down with susan matt. her book is "homesickness: an american history." homesickness was considered a legit illness that soldiers could be discharged for. ♪ ♪ >> one of the big misconceptions is that it's only a child's emotions and it's something that we get over by going to summer camp or college. but in reality it is an adult condition as well as a child's condition that has plagued adults. but unfortunately we have had to silence this because we worry that it makes us look immature. so one early influence when i came here and started thinking about it was just discovering the name of this mountain right there. shortly after i arrived, someone told me it was named by a homesick scottish immigrant. and i thought, that is not part of any narrative i've ever heard that people were actually thinking of places they left behind. and i got me thinking that maybe my experience was one that we shared across the centuries. i moved out here with my husband and we were both eager to come last. and then i realized how much i missed my family in the midwest. and i wondered if i was strange in a way because i had heard that for generations americans moved west. suddenly i found it so difficult. and i wondered if i was an anomaly. so then i began to invest the topic and i realized it was a prominent name in american history. i found that any archive i went to in the united states, i could find people reflecting on their homesickness and talking about how painful it was to leave home and family and possibly have no chance in going back and how they struggled with that emotionally. one thing that struck me was in the 19th century americans were public about their homesickness. they made the most popular song in america "home sweet home." and that one would bring americans to tears because everyone seemed to be moving in the early 19th century. ♪ ♪ >> it was a commonly stressed a motion. it has only developed in the course of the 20th century. and in fact it was so acceptable to be homesick that the military made accommodations for it and all sorts of institutions recognize that it was a problem. during the civil war people who were acutely homesick for called nostalgic. he used to mean a strong longing for home and people thought you could die of it. so over 5000 older is of the union army were diagnosed as being acutely nostalgic. and that is how serious it was taken. >> so here is a soldier fighting. oh how i wish that i could be with you in our sweet children. i can hardly sleep and i thought her of our sweet ones. in these expressions were absolutely typical of civil war soldiers. i read hundreds of journals and they all said the same thing. unfortunately dos and never made it home, he was killed in battle the following year. the most common sicknesses or fever, dysentery, heart palpitations and all of these with these well-known relations of the conditions. and people could actually die of the condition as a result. both armies were known to discharge the soldiers and so you might did for love home due to recover and there were also interesting regulations because they worried that it would make soldiers passout weep uncontrollably. so today we would say their depression is exacerbated by the condition. in that mind and body distinction really believe that the psychological condition can have these physical consequences. and so we need an a military and we see decreasing sympathy for the condition where people will still occasionally get diagnosed but there's a lot more inpatients and more of a sense that these people are big babies. one doctor called them america's bravest menaces because they were wasting a generation of homesick sissies and they would be unable to find a communist. so they certainly drove these efforts and so did the rise of corporate capitalism. companies would need to deploy them across the world. some people joked that ibm stood for i have been moved. what was the government or a private company. you were supposed to be footloose and fancy free and go where you're needed. and it generated a lot of emotion because workers are constantly going home and that is not going to be a particularly effective fighting force. in the military i ain't bad populations on the move, you see this as a recurrent problem and one that some are loathe to admit. it's a sign of weakness to say you want to be where your mother is where your husband as where your children are. so i think people are resistant to it because it seems like a childish emotion. i thought originally my story was going to be people have learned to repress this emotion over time. but what i found is that people have learned to repress the public expressions of this overtime but whether in the food they were eating for the sports teams they were rooting for from afar or the television programs they are watching from their old homelands, they were still a part of this. and so there was a real effort to maintain a connection to home so that even while we celebrate this as rugged individualists who can move on and never looked at. we don't fill that. we are much more part of the rhetoric than one might think. >> from our recent trip to ogden, utah, a look at wisebird bookery. she discusses the challenges of being in the book is missed. >> when i moved here in 1997, i decided one day i was going to be here. i approached the owner of the store and asked if she would be willing to let us move into the bookstore. we were in the coffee business at the time and we own a very successful coffee shop. but we decided that we would like to come here. at that time she was kind of resistance to the whole idea. so we approached it several years later and in 2005 she agreed to let us put a little coffee shop inside the bookstore. which gave us that foot in the door. so we learned a lot about the bookstore business at that time. in 2008 we bought the whole thing and everything. so was just a series of event that occurred that were very fortunate for us. the store was wall-to-wall floor-to-ceiling aisles of books. everywhere you looked there were shelves of looks. so obviously it's a very different today and different things that happened with the economy and people didn't have quite as much money to spend on books. so we had to seriously think about how we would go forward. the bookstore has been here since 1978 and was started by two delightful ladies that were schoolteachers in the community. and we really felt that it had been such an important part of the history of this area that we really did not want to close our doors. we struggled with this for some time. and we finally looked at each other and said what is it that we know best. and we know the coffee business. what is it that we want to do? we want to preserve the bookstore at all costs. so we decided that we would rearrange things a little bit, making things more of a community gathering place and coffee and books is the perfect combination for them. so that is what we have done. over the last several years we have brought it to what you see here today. there a lot of people that want left the way it was. we have this wonderful secret place with their spiderwebs and dusty bookshelves and so on and so forth. it wouldn't be great if we could all exist with that dream? but it's just not happening anymore. so today we still have a lot of people walk through the doors, just like yesterday. i had a couple come in and move to california and they walked back in here is that people stop and they look around and they say where are all the books. and between you and i they haven't been coming in here buying books. so little bookstores don't exist unless we do something a little bit more appealing to the community. the so this is the notion that we found and it's working with us quite well. and i had the impression that most people were like myself are you that they would come in and they would look and browse the shelves. then they would leave or buy a book and leave. and people would come in with the intention of purchasing a book in the first place. what we're finding now with the big chains, and i totally understand people come in and they will look for a book that takes their imagination and then they will say that i can get this for $10 less on amazon and they will turn around and walk away. and that was hurtful to me that people would be a part of this business in that way. but you can understand that. it was a surprise to me that people would use this and then turn around and say that i can get it cheaper from a big operation. it's not going to put anything back into our local community. were very involved in buying this for us. the money goes back into our community. where as a lot of people are not aware of the fact that when you purchase a book online or a big chain store, that money leaves the state. and we do try to educate people from that point of view as well. i think basically we have been involved in our community and we donate to a lot of local charities and local school groups of people have realized that we are here to day and it is just a wonderful place to come. >> now from our trip to ogden, learn about the socialist movement with john stillito. >> today people primarily think of two things, politically speaking they think of the republican party as one of the strongest republican states in the country both in terms of the presidential election and local offices. when we first started doing research, we were interested if that has been the case and what we discovered is that no, utah has not always been the best in the way that it is today and at one time it was very competitive for us particularly, we were interested in whether or not a socialist leftist radical movement had visited and we discovered that it had. and that opened up some insights into utah's history and it went all the way back to them in 1847 and they brought with them a kind of utopian socialism and they called it the united order. and it was very much a concept of everybody putting into the community with the community needed and taking from them what each individual needed. so there was that rat heritage. and what we discovered is there were political movements in utah so much around the country and many of the people involved are mormons, many of the people involved were not mormons. there was a type of ground. after a while the mormon church and its desire to become more mainstream begins to oppose this tradition. but there are elements of it in the late 19 entry when we began our research. during that time the proponents were very name and complicated. and on the one hand the majority are under the pressure of the federal government to do what they need to do to become a state. and then we find evidence of radical political moves, emphasizing the question of free silver. the populist party is partly because utah goes 80% for the democratic candidate in 1896. even over the last 40 years it is not 80% of any presidential candidate. so you have a candidate for statehood as long as those asking similar questions to what is being asked around the country for the great gap between the very poor and the very wealthy and how you bring about a just and equitable society. in the meantime you have the same forces and others. and then the socialist party developed in utah as well. so for the next 20 years it was very active in terms of these activities. and we would like to day that it creates an oppositional culture that is political and electoral and so the socialist party places deep roots here in those first two decades of the 20th century. >> what happened is one of the socialist party begins to gain ground in utah, it is at the same time that the mormon church is trying to become more mainstream than american in their nature. so many leaders of the church don't appreciate it. but the irony is that our research, what we have discovered is that it's a lot like the socialist party elsewhere in terms of the ideology and composition with one exception. some 40% of the socialist party in utah are many who are active and faithful members of the church. and we would like to tell the story when we found people with names like this. and we knew that there was an element in the socialist party. a story that had never been told and we believe that if we follow that it would help us to understand the various kind of tendencies that utah had exhibited in a crucial. matter of time. so took place at both levels. generally in the politics of the time and within the socialist movement of. there were a number of socialists who did not believe that one could be a mormon and also a choice. they believed in the or not is that the mormon commitment to capitalism and the business that is evidenced in that would trump any kind of communitarian heritage. there were other socialist but realize that because they were so dominating that it made sense that a certain percentage of any movement would be mormon. but it also gave them a certain validity that they might not have gained in any other way. so it was an uneasy relationship in many ways. and for those that believed, we have discovered one person who said it this way. mormonism is my religious faith and socialism is my political fate. and we saw no contradiction between those two elements. many couldn't believe that that could happen. but it did. and it happened more often than not. i think i mentioned wayne jennings bryant running as the democratic candidate. and there is a political machine there, the second generation of mormon leaders moving into the republican party were the first generation had been democrats. the because of the nature and their attempt to deny this, the role is really minor in many ways, although the attention of the country is focused on these interesting questions. and so as that continues they become a kind of a dave republican and this is in part because of the mormon church is committed to regular republican and that will continue until we have some exceptions with the election of franklin roosevelt in 1932. and so then the politics are very balanced in 1932 to 1952. after that with the exception of johnson in 1964, it's been overwhelmingly republic. not as republican as it is today to that same degree. and the shifting from democrat to republican in back with cause i national trends more than anything else. both in terms of the time when utah was a competitive state with the senate and the congress and it was part of a national pattern. after the politics of the united states began more conservative, the politics of utah became more conservative as well. very competitive until the 1970s and that is part of it. what is also part of it is that theirs is the emergence of some people in national government that gave the sense that mormonism has finally been accepted and was really part of the american mainstream. and many mormons sought to maintain that. so there's a lot of factors going on some involving personalities. and people often ask why is utah such a strong republican state today and i think it is a common action of a couple of things. i think it's politics in the last 40 years have tended to be more conservative than the country although they have moved in a conservative direction. and i bet the influence of the church particularly on social and moral issues has been pronounced. and that has moved the state toward a more conservative position and it was a galvanizing event as well in the 1980s. so i think it's a convergence of forces in the age of reagan than it was before. and so i think that is a good question for the history and also for the future. so i think it is clearly something that is happening around us. and many times you have written a book on this and i say yes and it must be very good and it must be very long. but i say no, it actually a strong radical tradition. many of the families of the people involved are unaware that their ancestors were involved in this area and when we tell the story between 1900 and 1923, him 100 individuals were elected to office everywhere from the city level to this day legislature saying we will overthrow the capitalist system and that comes as a surprise. the evil were elected, they didn't overthrow the system. they couldn't. and really in many ways they became what we call respected informers that wanted to prove that in office, they could be just as dependable and honest or maybe more honest as good politicians from the democratic party. but there is a legacy there that have ups and downs and that includes declining in the 20s and we emerge a bit in the 1930s and it is mankind consumed by the new deal and reemerges again in the 1960s and certainly a political left in that. matter of time. and so i don't know what the future hold. but the existence of this tradition makes it more possible for people to say that i believe. the preconceptions don't always match the reality of what happens in the past. >> while visiting with the help of comcast, booktv takes a look at the special collections, home of the pie in her journals. >> we are actually responsible for documenting the history in davis county. and so we have over 350 manuscript collections and about 175 different photograph lection. and with the manuscript, it can range from corporate archives two-family record and some of my most favorite things are the family records because not only do you get the correspondence between the family members but a lot of times especially in the early 1800s, people kept diaries, that's something that a lot of people don't do anymore. so they are written daily accounts that have been to these local families. it's what we are going to look at today is a series of diaries from 1884 through 1964 that were kept by this doctor. he was one of the first doctors born in idaho. he went to medical school out in philadelphia and came back in 1894 and decided he wanted to marry a mira. she said that she wouldn't marry him until he had a practice established. so he moved and bought a house and started his medical practice and they were married shortly after that. this journal is from 1918, which is a very interesting year in local and national news. are my favorites is here where she writes, busy with housework all morning. this afternoon went to a meeting to prepare christmas boxes. but with the family this afternoon. and the doctor has treated over 100 cases of influenza and he has made calls for the last two days. they shut down any services, no church services or school. even one of the soldiers were coming home. they weren't going to allow their family members to go downtown to greet them. the day went downtown as well because they said they had been away at work. so from 1942, she is talking about the tuberculosis outbreak that happened. this is november 2. i attended medical ancillary and small attendance. they give a splendid talk on conditions regarding the number of tuberculosis cases in the hospital. also stressing the dangers of it spreading through the influx of hundreds of people. many having aches in our schools are in danger. also public places are crowded and i did some shopping. so it's very interesting to read through them as you get not only the daily occurrences that happened. so-and-so was one or grandma came to visit today or i wash laundry and take bread, but they also talk about one of these local and national events that happen as well. we talked about operating and of course there wasn't actually a hospital there for the public. so most of those operations happen on the kitchen table in the people's homes. so if you had appendicitis, you would be on the table and they would operate you there. this is 1951. and we are going to skip to january's ex-, 1954, the date that she passes. mother called me at 2:00 a.m. she had severe pain and hurt chest and left arm. i gave her demerol, but while she was relieved of some pain, she did not rest. i remained awake and gave her sedation. at 630 the doctor came over and give her more demerol in the vein. she sat for about two hours and then felt better. and we took her to the hospital at 10:00 a.m. and the cardiologist then took her and ran her through some tests and she was returned to the room and was fairly comfortable. but suddenly she expired a few minutes later. doctor was just outside in the hall. she did not realize that death was so near. the doctor actually ended up practicing for a total of 71 years. so he would have practiced lightly after she passed away. he had a lot of problems with his eyesight. and so for me, having these journals really gives the ones here during the early 19 hundreds. it goes far beyond the gloss over history of ogden. you get down to some of the nitty-gritty things where he talks about people being confined or being committed to an insane asylum and events happening. she went to every art opening, every social ball. she was there and she wrote about them. >> learn about the league of utah writers from booktv's recent trip to ogden, utah, with the help of comcast. >> i used to live an hour from where we are now. and we sort of arrived with the ogden valley news and i put an ad in there just after we arrived in utah and i'm going to start with this group and i invited the local artists to come the first meeting and i was surprised that there were almost 20 people there and sort of dwindled little bit is one of the things that i really feels strongly about is that if you want to be a writer you need to write. i found out that a lot of people want to be writers go to meetings but they never actually get to the writing part. and so i strongly believe that people should belong to writing groups and i've talked about the critique groups that i have been a part of. we meet every second week in the next week it really encourages you to actually write. and that is how you talk about that. so the first woman was a young adult author living there. we decided that eden was a perfect place to have a writers conference and we thought we would go about and have a conference in the valley and it was very inspiring as a writer. we invited agents from new york and california and authors from all over the country came that we could only fit it out and it was such a wonderful experience that the little group i had, we all got together and we do this conference. and every offer that came through was a part of this. and then would they choose this with the stories. and i told the writers, you know, we have to practice what you preach. so if you want people coming to the conference to write stories, you also have to have the experience of this as well. and we were saying oh, no, there are many historical novels and all different genres and some have never written this story. and so this was about a month before that conference and i would just like so much to be excited as we each managed right one of these stories. and these stories were so wonderful. i was just absolutely amazed. and so the stories were so amazing. i thought, i have to put this together in a book. i just have to do it. and that is when i did this little book as you can see. and if you look at the book i managed to give some money when i went into this and all of this together as part of the local publisher and we put together and that's what i love. to have all the local authors to the stories were. >> up next, eric sweden talks about his book. .. ahead move towards being a bad communist. there was a lot of opposition to him. elements of society who were fled and were exiled. the united states was concerned about a communist country that close to its borders so they sponsored a brigade to be trained under cia guidance to prepare to invade cuba and right after the john kennedy administration took office they had this plan from the eisenhower administration and launch that invasion making changes to the plan which led to a debacle called the bay of pigs which was a disaster on pretty much every level and one consequence is that nikita krushchev, the leader of the soviet union needed to help cuba preserve its independence of this is when he hatched the plan to smuggle in troops and weapons to defend cuba. this is a plan he put together and lungees in the middle of 1962 and often people just think he was planning on putting nuclear-tipped missiles on the island but there was more than that. he was putting 50,000 troops on the island, the air force unit, submarines and the goal was to truly be able to defend cuba from an american invasion and it is not like the americans weren't thinking of it. kennedy did not want to do an invasion but the military did. kennedy learned a lot of lessons from the bay of pigs. he learned how to have better decisionmaking and information flow within the white house and the cuban missile crisis did happen and in october of 1962 he was able to handle the situation much better. that is the bay of pigs, fortunate for the united states because it helped focus kennedy and his aides on how to make better decisions. his argument was we cannot allow the satellite country of the soviet union, the communist country to exist within our sphere of influence which is the new world and this is something they should take care of. throughout the entire cuban missile crisis the advice from most of the military brass was bombed and invade. they saw this as an opportunity to justify taking out castro once and for all. only later in the 1990s with the release of new documents that we have come to realize that the soviet union put a lot more on the island than we realized. not only were they putting on strategic missiles which were designed to hit cities in the united states, they had put about 100 tactical nukes on the island which were intended to be used in batch or. if that were used you could see escalation and the whole thing becoming a nightmare. the military had no idea of this tactical nukes existed. not only did kennedy want to d escalate the situation ignoring the fact that one of our airplanes was shot down over cuba and the pilot killed but nikita krushchev started to the escalate immediately. my book, what i'd do is try to return contingency to history. contingency is the fact that at this moment in history all options are available to decisionmakers and the future is not known so often as historians will use 2020 hindsight and condemn people for their decisions without remembering the contingency exists. i wrote a book, history book from an alternate time line. the first is actual history leading up to the crisis, right up to the crisis and i have one event different and that is take a photograph and fly one week later. what happened in the united states emphasizes not just to quarantine the island but the united states decides to invade. the invasion force is rapidly put together its landing, the soviet commander on the ground, tactical nukes, the american invasion force, the americans withdraw, they are in shock, the military is in shock because they didn't know tactical nukes were on that island. for the united states using a tactical nukes was breaching the barrier between conventional warfare and nuclear warfare and what they did is, they are not sure what is on the island, they don't trust their intelligence so the united states uses hydrogen bombs and destroys queue but just to make sure they have got anything possible. once they have done that there is one plane, a light bombers that survives because it is stationed at a plantation air strip, it has its own hydrogen bomb. it follows its last mission and the soviet plane flies to new orleans and dropped the bomb on it. there was an infantry division that had been moved to new orleans and was preparing to invade and occupy cuba and now the united states is in shock because a major city got destroyed, khrushchev is in shock because he lost complete control of events. at that point khrushchev makes a critical decision and that is the united states had overwhelming strategic superiority to the soviet union and khrushchev knew this and so he knew that if it came to bombers flying and missiles flying the soviet union, the only way they but going to get any damage on the united states is to strike first so he chooses to strike first and once he chooses to strike the united states strike back. i need to explain something that is not understood about this period and that is john kennedy in 1960 in the presidential campaign argued the eisenhower administration had allowed a missile gap to emerge and the soviets had more intercontinental ballistic missiles than we did and the soviets were ahead of us in deploying strategic weapons. once he got into office he found out the truth which was the exact opposite. they actually admitted it. the united states had about 200 intercontinental ballistic missiles which could hit the soviet union. the soviets had 26 that could hit the united states. united states had almost 1500 strategic bombers. the soviet union had not quite 100. the soviet union have a lot more short range from weapons as it we so in my scenario in this general nuclear exchange shorter-range weapons obliterate europe. it is caught in a crossfire. the united states is hit by several dozen weapons but 10% of the population is killed and that is horrific but is survival. the soviet union is had by so many weapons that about two thirds of the population is killed and the soviet union is obliterated. i think there are people who ask what if because they like to play parlor games. which is okay, that is fun but it is not a historians to this serious historical inquiry. i'm interested in serious historical inquiry asking what if where the term used in the history class is counterfactual questions and counterfactual questions asked in a narrow enough scope can't illustrate the consequences of the past so much more effectively and it can help us live in the right lessons from historical events. i am not one that would overdo the lessons that history teaches us but on the other hand when you look at foreign affairs, military affairs, diplomatic affairs, economic affairs, at history is our experience, our guide. sometimes we get the wrong lessons. >> for more information on booktv's recent visit to ogden, utah and many other cities visited by our local content vehicles go to c-span.org/localcontent. >> there's more disconnection in people's lives, more families broken that shouldn't be broken and i'm not talking about the worst means, they cannot hold because of the stress of life. living in that world, that working class up and down world can put a lot of strain on people and now is so easy to get drugs and it was happening four years ago but not today. i was contributing to the american story. lot of people were willing to admit. >> former gang member and community activist and political candidate and carl sandburg literary award winner louis rodriguez will take your questions in depth for a 3 hour starting at noon eastern on c-span2's booktv. >> just that the method of information dispersal at this moment in time is not as efficient as it could be considering you're talking a population that is carrying around a television station in their pocket at all times and that is one of the problems. what clued me on to how efficient it could be was a conversation that i had with an entrepreneur named gordon jones said he made an apps called guardian watch. was a former firefighter and guardian watched, take your phone in a time of emergency and you are able to make a picture of what you see, a central location and distributed across everybody who might be affected by that situation and it has a couple competitors right now. so compares that to the way we deal with emergency communication today which is a lot of people all of a sudden turning to one information source that is relying on whatever date it can get to relay information from a distance. fundamentally inefficient way to deal with giving everybody the information they need to make a decision in that moment and that is because we are communicating and in that situation in an analog format. a bunch of people are talking to a central emergency sort of regulator and they are speaking at the speed at which we speak and centralized sort of information distributor is speaking back at a slower rate and information we know now comes in a variety of forms, not just spoken words so you get much more information from a picture than you do from the oral instruction and we have the capacity now to collect visual information in times of emergency and also distributes visual information in times of emergency and cut out the middleman, the person, the central agency in charge of codify and all the incoming data and representing in a way that maybe helps the large number of people but given limitations of being texted, this is an example to me how we reached a new and critical point which is where we create much more information in all the two than we did previously and that changes the tools we have in decisionmaking the >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. >> here is a look at the best-selling nonfiction books according to wall street journal. at the top of the list is michael lewis's book on high-frequency trading flash boys. booktv hosted a viewer call in program with mr. lewis last month that can be viewed any time at booktv.org. in seconds the doctor's diet followed by cheri young's jesus calling for. paul stanley, co-founder and front man of the band kiss is fourth with his memoir face the music, a life exposed. the fifth book on the wall street journal bestseller list is strengthfind a 2.0 and in sixth, the women of duck commander. at number 7, mallory factor provides a history of the conservative movement in big tent. booktv covered mr. factor's talk from the heritage foundation in april. is available to watch any time at booktv.org. gabriel bernstein at self-help book miracles now followed by bill o'reilly and historian markman do god's account of the death of jesus of nazareth in killing jesus and wrapping up the list is thrive by the president and editor-in-chief of the huffington post media group arianna huffington. these are some of the current best-selling nonfiction books according to the wall street journal. >> "the people have spoken (and they are wrong" is david harsanyi's newest book. the case against democracy. what other people wrong about? >> they are wrong about everything at some point. that is the problem. more importantly what we are wrong about a week coerce others to act as certain way and have social norms that we do, democracy is part of the problem. >> host: in what way? >> guest: we are coercing people to change and undermining their freedom because it is tyranny of the majority. the larger government grows, the more it intrudes on everyday lives and our decisions the more democracy matters and the more we need to stop it and diffuse it and try to do away with it. >> host: i you talking specifically about campaigns? >> no. i am talking about growth of federal government mostly in trading on the rights of states. the philosophical problem as well as democracy but specifically in america we ought to remember our federalist routes which i talk about in the book and allow people to make decisions in their own communities rather than having someone from far away be able because of a good campaign. >> host: if not democracy than what? >> guest: the world is an imperfect place and humans are imperfect but we need a democracy to collect people to run things. what i don't think we need to do is have democracy decide what marriage looks like, what health care looks like, what our communities like. you have to look like that. and use democracy as much as possible. there's no perfect system. i think we do have a structure of the best system available but we are getting away from what makes the system great. >> host: how would we do that? >> let states make their own decisions. you don't have a huge project like obamacare and other things and i'm not just pointing the finger at democrats. republicans with no child left behind and other problems undermine education and other things and created this gigantic centralized democracy rather than local democracy. >> host: the quote from john adams in your book. >> there never was a democracy yet that -- >> guest: that is what we are doing in a way. i am more hopeful that we can turn it around because we are not really a democracy. we are a republican and you got to remember is that. there's a lot of truth in it. >> host: where do we go? >> guest: we will head in the wrong direction for a while. religious liberty, you have washington deciding what it means elsewhere by pressing governors and the centrally forcing people to participate in a wedding is. i am actually not for gay marriage, not getting out of the merged business completely because what relationship i have in my personal life is not the government's business if no one is being hurt. i am a libertarian. i believe that. democracy undermines that. >> host: we recently interviewed and author who said throw away the constitution. >> a terrible idea obviously. provocative idea. i don't know what you wants to replace it with. the constitution was written by men, didn't come down from mt. sinai. if you want to change it you can and there are ways to do that and has been done many times. i am not sure what he believes but the constitution generally speaking is a fine document to diffuse democracy to centralize government and get people to the most individual freedom possible. >> host: talking about diffuse. you still see a need for national elections, you still see a need? >> guest: i do. i do. i am not an anarchist, an important role in our lives. we are not educated on the topics we are voting on, so passionate about sometimes. 40% of people did know the difference between medicaid and medicare yet they are voting on health care policy when they vote for the president. if voters are problem politicians are problem. i don't know if there's a better system to keep centralized government in place. i don't think parliamentary systems work any better. i like the system we have but there are a lot of things we can do. >> host: name another example. >> guest: education policy i mentioned before. every president lately has come in one to national education policy, kids in mississippi have the same needs as kids in vermont but it is not the case and with any state and lived in colorado for many years. boulder is the most liberal city in america, colorado springs is one of the most conservative cities in america. people should be ample to leave in those communities and i believe in school choice as well and vouchers to be able to teach their kids whatever their values are. there should be people who live in their communities and teach their kids witchcraft or something so generally people will choose to do the right thing for their children without government but if you want to teach your kids creation you should be able to. >> host: when it comes to confucius get rid of the department of education, get rid of the energy department etc. etc.? >> guest: i live in a theater and local world and real world and the real world is not going to happen but it should. i don't see the need for a department of education. that is not going to happen, let's be honest. the best we can do is rely more on federalism for our everyday -- starting with obamacare which will never be repealed but that is reality. moving forward i think we should always be laboratories of democracy and they should stay. >> host: what about the direct election of the senate? >> guest: is not going to change. i think there would be far more if the state legislatures elected the senators you would have a lot more senators less concerned about national rather than their states which is what the founders had. we can't even pass the bill without changing the constitution in the future but i think the original way was far superior. >> host: you talk about bandwagon, the people have spoken. >> guest: let's talk about gay marriage. for many years there has been a debate, it was relatively unpopular in polls and direct elections and all of a sudden a president says he is for and there's a bandwagon effect where everyone says the president says it is okay it must be. so gather around the issue and change their mind. people are guilty of that in culture, music and everything. i don't know why they would be immune about political issues which as i said they know very little about in reality typically, most americans. people believe a lot of crazy things. americans believe in ufoss and astrology and all kinds of things that make me not want to trust them to make decisions for me. >> host: what does the constitution say about democracy? >> guest: democracy is not mentioned. the federalist papers talk about it. i hate to disagree with the founders. they have a rosy view of what democracy would be like. it is not mentioned in the constitution and no one thought democracy specifically centralized federal democracy would imagines that. >> host: is your view shared? >> guest: you would be surprised. i told my parents what book i was writing, we don't think of democracy as a process of ethics and morals but something very positive. meaning freedom and all these things but democracy within russia and elsewhere doesn't necessarily manifest in more liberty or individual liberty. so what was the original question? >> host: what does the constitution say about democracy? >> guest: the constitution says nothing. >> host: people across the political spectrum? >> guest: you would be surprised how many people think one person should be running something. an example here, a lot of people want people and the federal reserve to open up and participate, but imagine having everyone talking about the federal reserve when even the fed governor probably doesn't understand why things are happening. sometimes we have to say people know more about something and we have to allow them to run whatever institution we are talking about. >> host: what about religion? >> guest: >> host: we're talking with david harsanyi, his most recent book "the people have spoken (and they are wrong," the case against democracy. david harsanyi is also the author of the nanny state. thank you for your time. >> a quick peek at upcoming book fairs and festivals happening around the country. south carolina book festival takes place may 16th through the eighteenth at the columbia metropolitan convention center. congressman james cliburn will discuss his book less experiences. saturday may 17th is the gaithersburg book festival in maryland and you can watch several events from the festival live on c-span2. may 29th through 31st booktv will talk to what is and publishing executives at the publishing industry's annual trade show book expo america and also live from the chicago tribune on june 7th and eighth. check back for more information regarding booktv coverage. let us know about book fairs and festivals in your area and we will lead them to our list. e-mail us at booktv@c-span.org. >> coming up next on booktv we will show you a couple panels from the 2014 virginia festival of the book. up next we show you a panel on the vietnam war followed by discussion on world war ii and a presentation by dr. brolly on the current state of health care in the united states. first, jan herman, ira hunt and frank leith jones talk about the vietnam war. >> you see something good happening in the country there's the inference that the leader must be a good guy because good things are happening. a strong development. even if you have direct evidence of a leader that is not such a good guy. somali was shining his autocratic credentials and a variety of ways over a number of years prior to bill gates's statement, his security forces killed peaceful demonstrators in the street after rigged elections in 2005, manipulated famine relief in 2010, only willing party supported and deny it to the opposition in which he was caught and handed human rights laws but there is sort of this same sequence i described, a promise to investigate and the investigation was quietly canceled and never happened. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. up next from the 2014 virginia festival of the book. little known stories from world war ii. >> as i said the virginia foundation for the humanities produces the virginia festival of the book, and we encourage everyone to support the festival and obtain at the omni hotel, and the donation helps sustain the program and continues it all. most of the programs are free of charge and it does help with the continuance of this. you will all have an evaluation form. please fill that out after the session is over. it is helpful for future

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