specific moment when you can capture that 360-degree angle and the are very heavily psychological. i really believed the psychology of the concerns. why is it that russell's doesn't know things about supporting this of? is it because the economic determinator? isn't [inaudible] and saw himself as an angel of mercy hijacked by the humanitarian argument and he could only know these things if he had made a very solid study of that entire background starting with childhood, what sort of man is he? >> host: so in a way it's novelistic in the sense of not inventing things as novelists have the ability to do but in terms of focusing so much on character and the development of characters and it's filled with all sorts of interesting characters of every time coming and you do have a wonderful way of figuring out what makes these people tick. i guess not even the downside -- what makes it different is the larger social forces do not come into play the way they might in a more academically oriented book. so there's room for every kind of history. reading it i kept thinking because it's not -- there's plenty of books on the civil war which are not scholarly tall and are just fantasy but this is the footnotes, the research you're familiar with the literature, etc., so the space early apparatus is there but the moment of the writing seems to moment of the writing seems to be more character based than other kinds of history. >> guest: i took the camera that is normally on high and moved down to street level very cautiously because there are many books out there -- >> host: there's no one way obviously. >> host: >> guest: and my whole attitude and i suppose coming from an entertainment family. >> host: there is a lot of entertainment. of course sometimes one might feel in a sense there are so many perspectives and also one of the points you make is there's a lot of misunderstanding. it's not like everyone is rationally assessing the situation as it develops to read a lot of people are confused and don't really know what's going on. a lot of people are either fame or misinterpreted the events or are prejudiced. there's a lot of confusion throughout this period, right? >> guest: there's 197 characters in the book actually 198 come and the eight is the reader because what they have is reader because what they have is the full knowledge and background knowledge and they will be able to make these judgments while the characters are reading while making misjudgments and i think it is a pleasing place to be when you know what they're thinking is so and so is making the decision to act. >> host: right. i think that is one of the yet killing things about the book is in a way the civil war makes it easier for you in the sense that everybody who reads this book is going to know how the civil war ended, you don't want to tell them that at the beginning so when people say the confederacy is definitely going to win, they know that person is making a mistake but it is what history is full of. but did you worry about it being very long? did your publishers say look -- it's obviously successful, but did your publishers say you better cut this down it's too long, too many quotations? >> guest: all of the above. absolutely. and in many ways it was an anticommercial decision, but i just felt that i couldn't, i literally couldn't say if any shorter, not artistically anyway. >> host: it doesn't seem long to me but i'm used to reading very long books. >> guest: it is long but in the kind of 19th century since i think it's modeled in the way of the 19th century. the 19th century. i actually the history books. i can't stand >> host: was all of the donald directly out of sources? you have conversations -- >> guest: it is a poor speech. >> host: >> guest: i hate that stuff, i can't bear it. and also somebody wrote a letter it was a dark and stormy night. >> host: you're first book as you mentioned a while ago was made into a movie, right? the duchess? >> guest: yes. >> host: i get the impression from reading some articles about you in the press you were not 100% happy with the end result of that or maybe it is just the film and the book are of different genres. how did you feel seeing your biography up on the screen? >> guest: on an emotional level it's terrific to have that accolade, and in a weird way you're not real until your book is in the form and you must be a good writer of the rice clearly you are a failure so just at the moment what paint the about the film which in many ways was peaceful and had a great marriage was that i felt fundamentally affected and it's a harsh thing to say but a man had directed the film and neither of them could imagine a world or a universe in which it woman was interesting for herself and because she was attractive to a man or because of how she met the man feels himself and what he achieved later but the boreman could genuinely be an agent of change. >> host: which is quite clear in your book. >> guest: i find that absolutely infuriating. >> host: you sold the rights, you know what is to sell the rights to the books. >> guest: i sold my rights. i must say i hope i don't offend anybody out there but i am not a big fan of history films, you know, i think -- there are a few know, i think -- there are a few good ones that take such liberties and when the students come into class what they've seen on the film and you have to disabuse them frequently of the misconceptions they've gotten from hollywood movies. >> guest: and it's awful. i wanted to make it as entertaining so it gives people that sensation they can get from a film. >> host: it seems probably more characters -- >> guest: it will be a mini series. it's been to be a tv miniseries and that will allow the story to breathe. >> host: is that b.c.? >> guest: bbc. >> guest: bbc. of course it takes many nights for these things to end up but the train has certainly left the station. >> host: that sounds interesting although i am also not a fan of history on tv but there are exceptions. >> guest: exactly. and sometimes the best is the good putative >> host: that is the attitude you have to have when you do that but still on the other hand, it will bring awareness of a neglected piece of history to a lot of people if it becomes to a lot of people if it becomes to be a series. >> guest: i hope so. there are questions relevant today for example what is the efficacy of an embargo? the forced recognition embargo. the forced recognition embargo. >> host: the north tried to blockade the south and the sort of embargoed themselves. >> guest: it did and neither of these things really worked on their own and you can think of many times in the last 50 years where this embargoes as a tool. >> host: the american in bordeaux for 50 years seems to be in power down there. >> guest: it doesn't really work. the question is when should the country interfere in the affairs of another country. we have those questions right now and it was a question that was really on the mind of the british then. and sometimes there is no right answer. >> host: there is no answer that is true of every situation. getting down towards the end of our conversation, let me go back to your dfil in your previous life and ask what role do you think racism played in the british attitudes in one way or the other? did people talk about it during the civil war, their attitude toward slavery overlaid with racist assumptions about black people or how were black people portrayed in the press, did race come in as a factor, the racial attitudes in the debates over the american civil war? >> guest: they've begun to be raised any significant way. there was the society split in half over the question of race and what it meant, and once he gave it more of an american cast of with the race meant and the other side didn't so britain was sort of breaking up to the racial debate. before then we had very interesting accounts who in his autobiography noted when he went to london and was a guest that americans would refuse to shake his hands. >> host: right. douglas and others as you say found racism not nearly as pervasive in britain as they did in the united states including the northern united states. >> host: a fascinating figure who trained to become a doctor and left the north feeling and wrote about that in england where she became a friend of such and felt it around her neck in new york where she kicked off and that sort of thing but not in england. >> host: on the other hand i don't think he would say there was racism in england >> host: this is a different story in a way. at the same time as the american civil war may be more of a coincidence that these ants are taking place in jamaica which are reinforcing the kind of racist view that right after the american civil war ended they had what they called the day rebellion which is a sort of conflict between the former slaves and white planters and many in britain see this as a sign that they are inherently violent and kind of savage and actually leads to a greater repression in british policy towards the west indies so racial ideas are floating around but i think it's interesting in your book they don't seem to play major role in the way that people are thinking about of the american civil war. the british government isn't saying these blacks are out of control. nothing like that. >> guest: no, no, and in fact if the government level some of the greatest amount of correspondence between the british and the sea in washington and london is able to take the black sea men in the needy or other subjects caught up in the war. >> host: of course burton as you know in the previous warmest played the of war to a role in the revolution quite a few thousand slaves ran away to the british lines and left with the british and ended up canada or cno leone and then the war of 1812 the same thing happened so britain had proven receptive to the black presence in a way that was quite unusual compared to the united states. there was a great deal of hostility towards the free blacks throughout the united states which is one of the reasons why the whole battle of the reconstruction after the war become so volatile no one knows what is going to be quite the status of these former slaves. let me perhaps ask it is unfair after someone's published in 800 page but have you thought about another book or are you taking a little time off from a riding which would be fair enough? >> guest: i'm thinking. i would like the global aspects of the civil war. i think 100,000 words. >> host: so not just britain, but the whole global picture of the civil war. >> guest: just to bring it into focus, and it would be much more a day as it were academic. >> host: this would be cutting edge because this notion now of what they call globalizing american history or internationalizing american history is being done is now what many people are trying to do. of course it is easier said than done to know a lot of history of a lot of countries and you have to have some language skills, which many american historians i have to say don't have, we are pretty monod legal duty to -- monolingual. but it would be very interesting. >> guest: thank you. cresco i was wondering when i read your book if you could do the same book for france, you could do the same book for russia, and of course russia abolishes serfdom in 1861 and many other countries kept their eyes on the american civil war because it was such a pivotal event in the 19th century history. guest absolutely and look how they imitated the use of the they imitated the use of the railways as a tool of the war i think that they are profound of facts. >> host: you could end up writing a book -- with a ulysses s. grant tour of the world, this is a little later, after he leaves the presidency and embarks on this tour which takes him to tear up and then the middle east and asia and everywhere he is hailed as a hero. in other words, grant means something to people over the world because of the american civil war. before the war nobody heard of grant. so therefore, you've got a great subject. but anyway, we are not worrying about amanda's next book, we are talking about her current book, a world on fire. britain's crucial role in the american civil war. so just it's been a pleasure talking to you here and congratulations on the book. and you know, good luck with it and think you for writing it. >> guest: thank you for having me. in his book 1861 the civil war awakening, adam gooheart writes about what led to the war that began 150 years ago thiswr past april.war he was at the national constitution center in philadelphia for a little more philadelphur. [applause] >> thank you very much, steve. i'm a great lover of this wonderful institution, the national constitution center and i also wanted to remind you that we have an exhibit upstairs in posterity hauled between the signers hall and the main exhibit area on lincoln that i hope you will get to take a look at some time in the coming weeks. it is obligatory for a person sitting in this chair to praise the author and to praise his luck, and ethically i think anyone who agrees to perform my role as interlocutor has to genuinely believe that and the other occasions in which i have done this, i have done this. but this really is in a cage and in which i want to go a little little bit over the top because i do think adam is a very special historian and this is a very very special book. as steve described adam's career he really has been at a remarkably early age a very important public intellectual. speaking to a wide audience about a wide variety of subjects i think since he graduated from harvard, not that long ago. and now he has undertaken -- it is hard to believe and by the way i haven't really read the book in my hand because this is the publishers bound galley proof. >> that is what an author likes to see, really ragged copy. >> but it is dogeared, so i think i read it. [laughter] >> i hope you read it. >> but this is a very, very important book and it is a first book. he has done a lot of writing before at this time but this is the kind of book that you would expect from a scholar who had written five or six or seven such books. it really does give a remarkable picture of this first year leading up to and finally coming about in the civil war. adam has this style in which he makes a very important general points about the american nature -- meg nash in and about the coming of the civil war but he does it by telling absolutely compelling anecdotes about individuals many of whom you will be familiar with that many of whom you will be not until after you have read adam's look. so i must say buy this book. okay, down to business. adam has been a very busy man in the past couple of days with all sorts of public appearances. maybe some of you saw the interview with him in philadelphia inquirer. he was on fresh air with terry gross yesterday. he was on radio times this morning and as steve mentioned, yesterday was the 150th anniversary of the firing on fort sumter in the anniversary of the surrender at fort sumter. we will eventually get to those moments because i know adam wants to get to those moments that i want to begin sort of the beginning of adam's book by asking about december of 1860 -- 1816. at abraham lincoln has been elected president. i think it is fair to say that a few southern politicians are grumpy about this outcome. i would say a few south carolinians are more than grumpy about the outcome. they are enraged about the outcome. you introduced us to a relatively unknown, at least to me, an unheralded man, major robert anderson who is just been given command of fort moultrie. also in charleston harbor. i wonder if you could talk a little bit about those events in december of 1860 and in particular help us understand what is going on in anderson and's mind as he is given the command of what might be a hopeless task? >> one thing i do want to thank you rick for your introduction and also especially the part about being young. i've gotten a couple of -- and i sort of thought, only in the context of civil war historians to someone who is three years old get to be called the sort of kid all the time. anyway, i like it. but, anyhow, i am glad you brought up the character of robert anderson because he is one of my favorite characters in the book. and he is the first hero of the union cause. largely forgotten today i think the most people except for the real sort of civil war nuts. and he is fascinating to me because he is a very reluctant hero. a sort of an accidental hero, which to me is the most interesting kind. he is a seven or. he is from kentucky. he comes from a slaveholding background and in fact his wife was the daughter of a wealthy plant -- plantation and made money by selling off the slaves that she had inherited. and he is a career officer in the u.s. army who finds himself stationed at the sort of sleepy little post in charleston harbor. it is really a kind of cushy army post before the civil war where they send officers who were season to while away their time going to barbecues with charles doney and and very quickly however, he is at the center of a non-bolding national crisis. in fact it is already and folding when he arrives. the southern states began to secede off course in december of 1860 a month or so after lincoln's election as president, and this little island, fort sumter, the center of charleston harbor becomes an isolated union outpost. i think you wanted me to talk about before they get twos fort sumter however, so anderson is originally stationed with his men at a place called fort moultrie which is an old ford, ford that goes back to the american revolution. anderson's father was a soldier in the roof rove bush and awarded in stationed at this ford and the 1770s and 1780s during the revolution and he has got this little harrison there, literally 60 men 16 men and a brass band. that is the sort of military force that ends up being the bane of the confederacy, 60 guys in a brass band. and some workmen. and they quickly realize that they are at the center of this unfolding secession crisis. south carolina sort of the center of this secession fever and charleston is the center of that. and the southern militia begins encircling this little fort. anderson and his men realize that this sport is about as dispensable should it come to that as a public park, and they are looking out at these troops that are massing all around them. they feel as anderson writes in a letter, he feels like a sheep tied up, watching the butcher sharpen his knife. not a very pleasant image. and, so he does something buried old. he ignores his orders from the war department or more his lack of definitive orders, and under cover of darkness he and his men cross in their boats to fort sumter in the center of charleston harbor. and this is seen throughout the south as an act of war. it is interesting when we talk about the beginning of the civil war today the story tends to begin with this southern shot being fired at fort sumter. it is a very dramatic moment in a very important moment in american history but for many people in 1860, 1861, this conflict began more plan robert anderson and his men cross charleston harbor and raised their flags above fort sumter, the south carolina newspaper headline scream out major anderson has inaugurated and has inaugurated a war, civil war in our country. so that is where you start the book, this sort of night escape. we are right there at the fourth as the boats are slipping away from the beach and crossing over and and major anderson has the american flag tucked under his arm that he will raise on the new fort. >> thank you and it is just one example of adam's techniques. he takes a person who we don't know much about, who was not a conscious they row in this struggle, but committed s