the director of navy history and heritage command and curator for the navy, he is responsible for the museum, art, and artifact collections, 150 million pages of archives, and for collecting and interpreting u.s. naval history throughout the world. a graduate of the u.s. naval academy, his 37 year career focused on intelligent. professor richard strainer comes from washington college where he is a professor of history and co-author of 10 books and numerous articles. his new book how america can spend his way back to greatness comes out at the end of the month. john maxwell hamilton comes from louisiana state university and he is a senior scholar at the woodrow wilson center for international scholars. his career has taken him through journalism before academia. the book he is working on now focuses on propaganda in world war i to set the stage, we will start with you. 100 years ago a german u-boat sank the luxury liner lusitania as it steamed toward port, killing nearly 120
that s it, we re out of time. thank you so much. [applause] robert rydell, author of buffalo bill in bologna talks about the spread in american culture throughout europe that began with buffalo bill s wild west show. the premise of the book is back in the 19th century after the civil war, american culture was being dramatically recast, reformulated and reconstruct good along with the nation at delft. but my co-author, rob kruse at the university of amsterdam and i thought to its lawyer was how american mass culture both took warm in the united states, how it was exported to europe and how it became a way by which many, many europeans got to know the united states in united states in america. some elected transmission, the rights of american mass culture, and the reception of american mass culture in europe between the end of the civil war than 1820s. well, it starts at the end of the civil war and begins at the question of how bob asher at civil words you reconstruct them
author of big, hot, cheap and right, and what america can learn from the strange genius of texas. [inaudible conversations] good morning. i m glen, the directer of the school of journalism at the university of texas at austin. i welcome you. there s two superb authors here to morning to talk about the state of the union where we went wrong. we have 45 minutes, but could spend 45 hours on this. we better get rolling. i ll introduce the writers, ask questions, and i turn it over to you. i want to remind you when the session ends, two authors go to the signing tents, and there s a place to buy copies of the books and take them to the tent and have them signed. follow us out when we leave. to the left, george packer, staff writer for the new yorker magazine, author of asass sin s gate, named one of the ten best books of the year by the new york times, written two novels and two nonfiction books, a play off broadway, and lives this brooklyn, new york, the new book called # th
[applause] thank you. i am going to sit rapid and go to the podium. i have had a few health problems. just as soon not test myself. thank you for coming tonight. in thinking about the problem of liberalism, i have to start with a simple problem. most people including most people who think they have studied the subject have a very weak idea of the history of liberalism weather on the left or the right. there is an idea that you started with progressivism, you moved on i and teasing you start with progressivism, proceeded to the new deal and went on to the great society and it is a continuous flow. the trouble is is simply not true. most progressives could not become new dealers. very few republican progressives, remember progressivism was a bipartisan movement, the republican and democratic party. very few republican progressives became new dealers and not surprisingly enough, among the democratic progressives, the group most likely to become new dealers were social work
how did we end up where we are? and it led me back to world war i. and the figure of woodrow wilson who i think is a very dark figure in american history. i just finished teaching a course in a prison, it s in new jersey, they segregate the prisons by gang affiliations, so these were all bloods. and i taught them leon litwhack s two great, great works. did you know leon? amazing, after the storm, the aftermath of slavery and then his great book on jim crow a troubling time but i remember reading in that book that even someone as brilliant debois voted for wilson in the belief that this was the practical thing to do. and you know the first thing wilson did or one of the first things he did when he took office was resegregate government offices. and of course it was a decision hat debois deeply regretted, walking out. and i turn to a lot of writers of the period, you know, the three who come away with the most integrity of sort of intellectuals are randolph bourn, jane ad