Transcripts For CSPAN2 In Depth In Depth Highlights 20240713

The entire black community was burned to the ground so the only what sparked that riot . A young black man who was accused of assaulting, a sexually assaulting a white woman in an elevator. He had been acquitted. But the White Community felt justice had not been served. And that most of the white people felt all the blocks should be taught a lesson. Although he had been in jail and was being accused of this crime. The white people said they would get him out of jail and commit the kind of harm to him that would teach all the black people in the community a lesson. So the black Community Felt he would be seized and lynched. Large numbers of black people went back to the courthouse, armed. They were about to take him and give him protection when they were assured nothing would happen to him. And that they should go back to that part of town. Which they were willing to do but as they retreated from the courthouse. Someone fire the gun and the rest is history. Good afternoon and welcome to in depth. Our guest is john hope franklin. Author and coauthor of 17 books. Well known for his book, from slavery to freedom. His most recent is his autobiography. Near to america. Here is the cover of it. We will begin taking your calls in just a few minutes. You can see the number on the screen. Here is a question of your mother, molly franklin. What did she do . My mother was a graduate of and she taught literary school. In the spring in oklahoma. And then in tulsa, sorry readers will where i was born. Shortly after i was born, i suppose within three years, she took charge of me and took me to school with her every day. Put me in the back of the room. Give me a pencil and paper and told me to be quiet. I was quiet. She thought i would just be scratching on the paper. And she was teaching the children and had the alphabet on the board. So i copied those things on the board. Things like that. I thought that was more interesting than anything i could do. When she was going around one day to see what the children were doing. She came back to see what i was doing and i have the alphabet and my letters and some simple sentences. She was astounded to learn i had taken in everything she was teaching. And im not certain when i learned to read and write but i guess it was at that time that i learned to read and write. From that point on, i was a student. How real was it to be an africanamerican in 1915 and have to parents that were College Graduates . I dont know, i suppose it was fairly rare. The africanamerican colleges and universities founded in the reconstruction were scattered throughout the southern states. And the last part, the last decade of the 19th century, statesupported schools, particularly after ferguson. The law that brought an end to whatever move was made in the direction of whites and blacks being together. Uson. 32of 3334this separated races entirely and completely. States began to establish schools, colleges for africanamericans in the last decade of the 19th century. And so, by that time, youve got state schools, and schools established by their religious denominations and and they are 39scattered throughout the south. Some of them are fairly good and others were borderline i think its fair to say. And many were inferior. But you didnt have large numbers of blacks going to colleges from secondary school. And it was rather remarkable. You had a very interesting point because it bears on what happened many decades later. And that is that more young black women were going to College Young black men. Then men could fend for themselves parents believed. But young black girls could not fend for themselves in a world that was primarily a white world where they could become exploited. Become victims of white activity or exploitation or whatever. Uch more care was taken educating the young black women. This is a trend that will continue for many decades to see. There was never a time as many black men were exposed to education in terms of Higher Education as young black women. Your grandparents were slaves . My grandparents were slaves. My grandfather and grandmother on my mother side were slaves. In tennessee. And my grandmother and my grandfather and my father side were slaves in mississippi. And they were transported to indian territory where my grandfather as a young man grew up. He married my grandmother. He became, after freedom, he became a rancher. The indian territory i got hooked on orchids. When i was at the university of hawaii. I came back i was living in brooklyn. And i came back. Bought a few orchids. I was headed north. There i in brooklyn. Thats when i really got started then. I had a good friend called [indiscernible] he taught me a he had a botanical collection of orchids at the brooklyn botanical garden. He taught me a great deal about growing orchids. He went to chicago from there and had a much larger greenhouse. And i grew up about 15 years. And then i came to in 1980 and built my first really substantial hobby greenhouse. And its sort of my dream greenhouse. Although sometimes i want a larger one. Anything larger than 17 feet wide and 24 feet long, you will become a slave to the orchids. Although i do grow and i have some some ferns and so forth. Down here. And banana trees. All kinds of things. Primarily orchids. These are all orchids, not blooming now but they are orchids. They are getting ready to bloom. I have orchids blooming all the time. These have been blooming for a year, nonstop. I dont know, its really remarkable. Even i a. M. Enjoying that long. This is not in our good. It blooms all the time and i enjoy it so much. Where do you acquire these orchids . Sometimes i brought some of these in from abroad. You can get a permit from the epartment of agriculture and get some from brazil and some from the far east. Southeast asia. Some from the caribbean. You know, all over. The good thing about coming into the green house every day, you see something today that you didnt see yesterday. I got this in bombay in 1976. It blooms every year. It will be blooming in february. Been taking care of that for 30 years. Yes. As a matter of fact, ive ive got offspring out of it too. It sends out little plants, break them off and put them in a pot. Thats how they start. Yeah, so the orchid i brought from bombay, india in 1976. This is which is getting ready to send out its new leaves. Its new shoots. This little fellow will grow up to be like these and then it will be blooming. He mayor of baltimore gave me this. When i was there a few months ago. Its not blooming now but it was full bloom then. This is the orchid named for me. Its called lily of Franklin John hope franklin. These are named for my wife. They were developed by a place in south carolina. Newberry, south carolina. They were friendly and very fond of my wife. When she passed away, they wanted to do something in her memory. And they did that. Do think its an important thing for a historian to have a hobby like this . I think its important for any person to have a hobby. Orchid growing is always challenging. You learn a lot. If a person didnt have a scientific botanical background, its always fascinating. Im enthralled by the orchids. Ive always been interested in growing things. My mother was a gardener. She likes to grow things and i follow her around when i was a little boy. So this is a continuation of that. Writer who had the greatest impact was free to kayak. Did you know him . Oh yeah, sure. Very well. I first met him in 1946 i think. I knew him until he died. Why was that book so important . It was not simply the road to it was the other books he wrote. Constitution of liberty. Law and legislation. It was because it helped me organize my thoughts about the way in which society should be organized about what was special about free society. What were the essential prerequisites of a free society. I was generally sympathetic to those ideas but was a very but hayek was a very deep thinker. If you read him, you cant read him without thinking. And you cant think without having your basic ideas honored. When did he die . Im not sure of the exact date. Must have been 1015 years ago. Something like that. He was born and i think 1986 and he lived too, i think the age of 90. Who in your lifetime have you most disagreed with when it came to economic theory and this whole subject matter you write about . Thats a hard question, obviously the marks and the socialists. But to pick out a single name, would be i should mention, the people that influenced me of the equally greater influence was arthur burns. Who was chair of the Federal Reserve system. He was my teacher when i was a graduate at rutgers university. He was my mentor through much of my life and had an enormous influence on me. And of course my teachers in chicago. Frank knight. Those people had a great influence on me. In your book, the two lucky people. Your autobiography. You mention the whole discussion for the nobel prize that you won. It took a number of years for you to get it. What impact did that have on you . It really didnt. I cant say it did. What about once you got it . The impact was not on me. But on the publicity and on the letters and talk and requests you get. I dont think you have much impact on the as a person. But it did alter my opportunities and made me much more visible and available. For the last two hours, your husband has all the. Say. He usually does. I heard it all. I never like to talk very much. He does the talking. Why is that . I dont know. Its in my genes. And i had an equal role in writing it. But i never thought id go out to speak about it and i refuse to be on the Television Program. I was very careful i did a lot of the planning. Nothing was done in advance. Then i got out of the way. Do you have any reason why you dont like to speak . No. I dont really like to compete. He speaks well. Hes done it all his life so why should i compete with him . I asked him why it has worked. Thats one of the reasons. Weve never competed with one another. What about economics in your life . I was trained fine. 28when we got married, my idea of being married, at least at the very beginning was very different than what people these days feel about getting married. What was it . I did not attempt to have a career to equal my husbands. And where did your family come from . My family came from what was russia when we were there. Its now its not russia anymore. Its the ukraine i guess. I never really kept much track of what happened because i was an infant when i left and i really have no ties to that part of the world. Where did you grow up . In portland, oregon. How did your parents get there . Under what circumstance . I guess the main reason was our relatives were there. My father came to the United States twice. The second time, he earned enough money to send for the rest of us. You went to the college for a couple years. Why did you transfer . Primarily because my brother was really responsible for my 07 complete education. He wanted me to go with him to chicago when he first went to their on a very modest fall every modest salary. My mother thought i was too young and she wouldnt let me leave. And i graduated from high school. My brother persuaded her that i was old enough and that he was going to be there. So i went to chicago. Do you remember the first time you met this man . Yes i do. University in the first graduate course. Professor you heard this story so many times probably. He arranged the class alphabetically so he could identify people. His name began with f and mine with d. So we sat next to each other. His was graduate school. In the 30s, very few women went into graduate school. You told me briefly that you completed the work for your doctorate but didnt get your phd. Thats right. Why not . Why not. I worked on it for one year after we were married but during that year i also had a job. So i didnt get a great deal done. After that we moved around from one place to another. One year in wisconsin, one year in and washington and one year in new york. I forget what the sequence was. We decided we wanted to have a family and that took a long time. How many kids . Only two but we lost the first one. You had three. First one was lost at delivery. So that took one year of my life. Then i went back to washington and went to work again and quit with the hopes that would help to produce a child. Where are your two children today . Our daughter has been in california. Both are in california at last. Ever since she went to berkeley. She decided then she was never going to leave california and she never has. Then she went to Berkeley Law School and got her degree there and started practicing in san francisco. As a matter of fact. We were not here yet. And she stayed here. Your son david, weve had on book notes. He was in the chicago for about 56 years. We are going to the phones shortly and our guests here on booktv are doctor Milton Friedman and rose friedman. Also here on the cover of free to choose which i guess is your most successful. Yes. What do you remember about working together on this book . It was very easy. As milton has a very said. We had the Television Program notes. And the book was written from that. So we each started with one chapter and added for the next person to the chapter. So we went back and forth that way. So in the end, we really dont know who wrote which words. Which is true about all the books weve written. That was probably finished in the shortest time because we had a deadline for it. We wanted out to be available for the Television Program, when it was shown. And so we started in march 1979 and we got it to the publisher by labor day. And they got us published by january which is when the tv program started. When youre working on these projects, what does she do that you dont what does key do that you dont . We both type. We both use the computer now. We talked about aging. Both of you 80 years old. Are you surprised how well you do. For those that cant see these two people, they move a well move around like nobody else. Many say we are bouncing around. I dont think we bounce around. I dont have the energy i used to have. Getting old is no fun. Is there any advice for people if they knew they would live to 88. If you knew you would live this long, would you have done anything differently . I think live more extravagantly. We were always saving up pennies. My brother used to say we were always saving pennies for a rainy day that never came. He would say youre saving your pennies for a rainy day and living in a perpetual drizzle. Did you agree in the beginning . We learned from the same teachers. Our home, he grew up very much in the same kind of home. And there was no reason, one should go one way and the other should go the other way. Go ahead please. New orleans, you are next. Hello. Hello doctor friedman. Which doctor friedman . Either of them. Ive a question ive been wanting to ask someone knowledgeable about this situation for a long time. It seems to me with all this push for a minimum wage that thats going to automatically lead to galloping inflation. I havent heard anyone comment on this. Its just my own idea. What do you think . Lets ask rose friedman. The question is whether or not the minimum wage will lead to galloping inflation if you raise it. I dont think it will lead to inflation but a lot of unemployment. Why . Because people for hiring these people dont feel they can pay them more. Therefore, they would reduce their employees. At this time in washington, there is a sense that theyre a sense that they are going to pass an increase. Why are the republicans going to go along with this . Theyre going along with everything these days. Because its superficially politically profitable. The problem with these things, is that on the surface things look very good. After all, whats wrong with raising minimum wage. Its nice for people to have a higher minimum wage. The problem is the indirect effects which are unseen. The unseen more than counterbalance the good. If you raise the price, you will buy less of it. Whether its sugar, automobiles, whatever. The higher the price, the less people will buy. If wages are higher, people will buy less wages. Now how will that lead to inflation . There is truth to what this gentleman is saying. An element of truth. If you raise in which to much and cause massive unemployment, heyll be great pressure to do something about that unemployment. What would that pressure lead to . It would lead to inflation as a way of really reducing the real value of that minimum wage. Prices have been going up. You havent had much inflation but youve had 35 percent over the last few years. So, 6. 15, two years from now is probably about the same level of real minimum wage of 5. 15. This week in place, in place of a live callin program, weve opened up archives to present highlights from our monthly program, in depth. Next, heres a look at studs terkel that appeared in april 2001 to discuss his work and take calls from viewers. Your books are about people. How many have you interviewed over the years . Oh god. Thousands. 45 years, five days a week. And it was eclectic. All sorts of peoples. Writers, actors, authors. Neighborhood activists. There are tapes and ive given them to the Chicago Historical society. They call me, god forgive me, a distinguished fellow. Id say 900010,000 tapes, including people in books aside from radio broadcasts. And tony parkers book about you, you are quoted as saying [indiscernible]. Einstein is celebrated, thats true. Theres no meaning to the word, celebrity. No point in interviewing them. O the ordinary people are capable of extraordinary things i found out. Whether you question world war ii or their daily work, matter of race, aging. In a sense, voice to the voiceless. My motto was a contemporary charles dickens. And henry was a prototype of mccarver. Mayhew a guy like me. This guy tapped into the voices of people who were the the chimney sweep, the seamstress, the chambermaid. He was astonished at what he found out. Hes a sort of my guide in a way. When alex wrote roots, the first thing he wants to do was visit the land of his forbearers in west africa and speak to all of the historians. God help us, the computer. So, what ive been doing is ancient except that i have a tape recorder. One guy with a tape recorder was richard dixon. I described nixon myself as hat is, i take, therefore i am. In any event, thats what i do. I give voice i suppose, to the voiceless. Where do you write . I write and i dont write. I improvise. At my house with a typewriter. Electric typewriter which is a tremendous advance for me. Most of my letters are written long hand. You mentioned computer to me, thats what you said . Im sort of a i believe in the refrigerator because where else can i freeze my martini glass. I was saved by technology. I had a quadruple bypass about four years ago. Were it not for that, id be dead and here i a. M. Condemning technology. I have a hearing aid. This is state of the art its called. Doesnt do any good. Im a bionic man thats not quite formed yet. Its an experiment. We are flying without a net. How did somebody born lewitt get the name studs . [indiscernible] i loved back in the 30s, about a chicago guy. And his life was wasted and i was taken with that trilogy of books but it got me in trouble once. When i did working, there was a fireman in the book. And he told me soprano language in a very colorful idiom. And so, this is a letter i got from a librarian in georgia. The life of a librarian is not too exciting but when he wrote the book working, one of the people that worked for me was a spy. That is the cia had no dirty books. And looked for dirty words. He said two me once, ms. Cooper, a request has come for a book. I think i said to the subscriber, we dont carry pornographic literature. She said i believe its called working studs by studs terkel. Thats when i knew i had a bestseller. Born in new york. Lent us money to rent a rooming house. So the rooming house and the hotel were my universities. I went to the university of chicago. The bleak years of my life. Why didnt you like law school . I wasnt cut out. Partnership and preparation drove me crazy. The wpa writers project had a civic servant for a time in the i became an actor by accident. A chicago gangster in radio soap operas. They were all the same. 40guiding light was about all the same script. And i always got a job but, many jobs, lousy tenure. As a result of which, one thing led to another and i became a disc jockey before that word was used. I love the jazz and i was eclectic. Id play classical jazz, a takeoff on operas. [indiscernible]. Mixed things up, west end blues. Louis armstrong. It was that kind of program. One thing led to another. Finally i wound up on this Radio Station interviewing people. Pure accidental. Called one day and said you should do this more often. I says, what . Interview people. Some of my interviews appeared in a magazine of the station. It was like eavesdropping on a conversation, contrary to what i hear otherwise. My publisher, the new press called me one day and said i had an idea for a book thats how it began. What was studs place . Studs place was how can i describe it . , it was a Radio Program about a neighborhood restaurant run by me, myself. Studs. Whos and a waitress, wonderful actress played the waitress named beverly. And he was a singer by the way. Chuck played the piano. Bluesy kind of guy. Without realizing it, the full aspects of American Life in these people. People thought there was a studs place. 20 years after it struck, they would say to me, where is the place . I said here. And that was it. It ran for a short time and then i got in trouble because mccarthy days came along and i have a big mouth. Antijim crow, i found all of these petitions in one day they come to me and say, you are valuable property. I like that phrase. I say, but theyre in trouble. You signed all of those petitions. Thats when i get smart and say, suppose communist come out against cancer. Must we automatically came out come out for cancer . And the first guy said thats not very funny. Finally they said, you were duped, you are a fool. To this day, people say studs you are heroic. I dont know what they were talking about. I was scared. But my ego was at stake. My vanity was at stake. So its really my vanity that did it and i lost the job and was out for a while. I got onto the station as a result. Guy that used to play my jackson records. I was a white this jockey. So, she says i must be the host of her program on cbs radio. She insisted. One guy, he said youve got to sign this. I said i dont sign those things. 05and the blessed is that what shed say, she knew about me and my big mouth. She said you should have been a preacher because you have such a big mouth. Anyways, she says to him, if you fire studs because he will find that, tell to find another you know what happened . He disappeared. Vanished. The show went on. Nobody said no back in those days. How old are you . I was born the year the titanic sank so may 16 i will be 88. So thats it. Youve got the story of my life. You were 45 when this book came out, giants of jazz. That was early. 1957. About that. Its for young people. From king oliver to john coltrane. Written for young people. So Billie Holiday is in it and the duke of course. Then 1965 or so i got that phone call from andre shifrin and that is something else. Let me go back to the jazz book. You say jazz is the music of multitudes, so few famous, so many nameless. For more than 70 years, these musicians have been playing and singing jazz. Millions have been hearing it. It could only have happened here in the u. S. Jazz, remember, he saw the series of ken burns. It is an expression. Connected with spiritual with work songs. Code songs from slavery days on. It was improvisation. Using whatever means you can. Whether you had slaves or free. Blues is an aspect of jazz. And i love blues. I love people think of muddy waters. Blues, all the things i wanted to be but never got around to being. Woke up this morning and blues was around my bed. Ate my breakfast. Blues is in my bread. Blues is a feeling. Knocking at the gate. Blues is a woman in a poor mans mind. These are the definitions. And came out in 1967. That was a big one. Random house then and that he was bought by a billionaire. He was forced out. [indiscernible] it was during the time of the civil rights movement, antiwar movement. Time of the cybernetics revolution. He published a book about a chinese village. What happened was in the chinese village, because of the revolution. Women unbound their feet. I said are you out of your mind . Got some sort of acclaim from readers. Then they said how about a book about the depression. The Great American depression. So i did that book. Thats how it began. Our guest is studs terkel will join us for the next two hours and 20 minutes. Our phone lines are open. The number is 2027370002 you talk about this book hard times and in the book, you write about an invisible scar during the depression. What are you talking about . And visible scars, depression survivors having certain quirks. Like gathering things. I collect things wherever i go. Eric burton was there and he speaks street talk as the kids did in the 60s. And we are going downstairs to eat. I interviewed him. Theyve got the lights going and the tv set going. He says what are you doing . Im of a different generation. So my note gather things. And visible scar. Cant stand sardines. These are quirks. But mostly insecurity. But the big scar is one of keeping quiet. Im not telling that kid what its like. The only time kids are told, youve never had it so good. 33wanting to work and not instead of what was it like, the humiliation. Wanting to work and not finding a job. To be on release, which is the equivalent of welfare. You were a teenager during the great depression. The crash officially began in of 1929. But in that october day in 1929, i was in 1929, i was 17 years old. Is will get a lick in here before we get questioned, we worshiped the free market. It was our new religion. And it was, too much of big government. Too much government. That fills the hides of the dads and granddaddys. I was talking to a guy who was the Adam Greenspan of his day. He was a senior partner at goldman sachs. Advisor to truman and to kennedy. I said what happened . He said i dont know. You dont know . Guys jumped out of windows. They were waiting for some kind of announcement. I said an announcement from who, god . He said a new deal. The purpose of all these books is to recall history from the bottom up. Because we are suffering i think from a national alzheimers disease. Let alone what happened 50 years ago. In a sense, thats the reason we are doing this stuff. A look at highlights from our Interview Program in depth continues with the late journalist and authors Christopher Hitchens who appeared in 2007. In this portion of the program, we visit his apartment in washington d. C. Where he talked about his writing and habits. This building, this apartment which wraps exactly how it is a gentlemens Apartment Building in washington. And this apartment which wraps around the whole of the top floor. [indiscernible] the greatest distinction was that it was used by Clint Eastwood to fill one of his less good movies. The president ial motorcade goes up and we often hear it. Came back and decided, all of these walls were covered with knockoff paintings with the treasures of the national gallery. 17i was really hoping that the that the Clint Eastwood character carried. I was really hoping the producer would let me keep them but he had to take them away. On the other side and then down connecticut avenue straight to the dupont circle, book stores, cafes, restaurants. What what youre seeing is a confluence of washington, dc, thats connecticut avenue, this i northsouth artery that runs in effect from the white house up to maryland, crosses massachusetts avenue and dupont circle, and this is columbia road curving around to adams morgan district. Theres the russian trade mission. Im told there is still an apartment in the building run by the National Security agency to monitor the goingson there from the days of the old soviet union. You probably cant see it behind me but on the horizon this russian compound and theres domes in the woods are the naval observatory building on the ground of which of course lives the vice president. Then you see the british embassy, the extreme west end of massachusetts avenue, embassy row. So its a sort of good reminder of the small size and centrality of the district of columbia. Then there in the middle, on his horse, is general mcclellan. President lincolns worst general. The man from whom he one point asked to borrow the army since the general appeared to have no use for it and probably was a defeatist. He ran against lincoln later as a pro slavery democrat. On his horsees he is still pointing south, a little reminder of our history. Typical writing day for me depending on how atypical the previous day was. I tend to work late at night and if its been successful i may not have gone to bed until 3 00. So the next writing dale will probably not start until, say, noon, but if you absolutely had to average a day it would be like this. Get up, try to inhale some coffee, forcing myself to eat oatmeal for cholesterol purposes. Before lunchtime i wouldnt get much done except answering emails, and fending off whatever had accumulated. The world of tell telegrams in anger. Just coping with that and then having lunch, reading by my this. The essential that for being other good writer is being a good reader. Keep testing yourself against other writer who are better than you. That qualifies one as a writer, running the risk of having to say i dont know why i bother. Certain authors of whom one should have all their books, even of you can get borrow them from the library. I have in this apartment every single word George Orwell ever wrote. Including his expenses reports to the bbc. The lot. Everything every been published by him. Most of marshall prst. Not james joyce, not all of pg woodhouse. Some books of his are not worth keeping but the cream of woodhouse. Karl marx, leon trotsky. A bit eclectic as you see. Salman rushdie. Ian mcewen. I have all of what that if writtenment i like to think that i have a life rather than a job or career. And its all to do with reading and writing if the only choosingses was ever good at, and public speaking, which thats how i make my living but its also what i am, who i am, what i love, and fortunately that because its nothing else i could do. Not as if could have been a doctor or lawyer and hose which is, this chose me. This is your recent book, god is not great, house religion poise sons everything put you look your body of work, religion or atheism kind of permeates. There was the my review 0 mother teresa, misspent life. In a way my both Thomas Jefferson is a lot to do with the origins of our First Amendment and the virginia statute of religious freedom and another recent little book of mine beaut thomas payne and his rights of man. Has to discores on his other great work, the age of reason. Think he for him it was most important of all for people to be free, they be free of superstition first. Liberate their minds from what william gray called the mine forged man, what we rivet on simpleses, particularly serve our belief in the supernatural. Host was tom mice man an athiest. Guest no. Neither was mr. Jefferson he may may have privately been an athiest. They had the view might over been a creator. In the universe seems to testify for some type of order, rhythm, routine, this is before einstein and darwyn and as far as you could look. Whether this god took no interest in human afared, didnt intervene in politic order wars. At the view that god has a plan for you and you must climb know his mind, nonsensical position jo who is mrs. Watt, jean watt. Guest mrs. Jeep watt was my nature and scripture teacher when i was eight until i was 12. As a little boy at boarding school in devine shire. One of those lucky ones who was sent off to boarding school at the aim of eight. Made a man of me, and she was a fine old lady, a widow, very little Cultural Education but could take us on nature walks. Used to be able to tree, shrub, flower, plant. Then she would teach us scripture, as literal truth. We would have to go through the bible. Its couple pulsery still compulsory in england to have religious instruction. Then she tried to fuse the two roles and overstepped her marks and discussing vegetation, she pointed out it was largely green, and we had noticed, and she said this is an excellent proof of the glory of god because he could have made the vegetation original or red or something that would clash with our eyes and green is the most restful color of off eyes and how decent for god to make the trees and grass that way. I sat there in my little corduroy shorts and thought thats absolute nonsense. I dont know anything. Dont know gut chlorophyll or evidence lying or dna, nobody knew anything but a double helix then. I know in my water, i know thats not true. If anything its the other way around. This id adapted to the vegetation. So that was my first moment of thinking, im not sure i trust what the authorities are telling me about religion. Of course i thought i was the only one, as all of us do. But you find as you get older many people have the same experience. A perfect sunday morning conversation. Host were you raise held in the church. Guest not very rigorously. English education requires you go to divine service. Host your parents. Guest no. My father was a refugee somewhat from a very, very strict baptist family, with a very tyrannical patriarch cal father of his ohm who i remember quite well. My paternal grandfather, brutal calvinist, and my mother was from a jewish family originally from what is now a. M. Poland but when they left would have been germany, and didnt want to be affirmatively jewish. Wanted to pass as english, and succeeded in doing so. So nothing was inflicted on me at home. Host when did you become a u. S. Citizen. Guest on my birthday and mr. Jeffersons birthday. Host why . Guest why that day or why host why did you back u. S. Citizen. Guest i applied shortly after the attack on the United States in september of 2001. No, not shortly after. Not very long after. I made up my mind to do so anyway then. That and the arguments that came out of that and the clashes, especially the with sudden European Forces made me realize i had fully come to identify with the country i lived in, with my country of adoption. And as a gesture of solidarity because i thought i was cheating on my dues i ought to take out the papers of citizenship. Host do you miss england. No well, you have to in a way. Its only five hours away by plane. Im going there tomorrow. Actually children there a lot of my best friends are there even if im going somewhere else i would stop there ive never row regretted leaving. I had a very strong impulse to live and emigrate the out and did it as soon as i could. Host youre well known as a smoker. Is a five hour flight a long time. Guest no i can go for much longer than that without smoking. Its a stupid habit and i wish i gave inup. I dont need it. Doesnt bother me now. Used to be able to smoke on cspan, unbelievably. Doesnt bert me now ill be here three hours without a drag . A. No if you want to give me a glass of sherry because we must be getting on towards lunchtime, that would be great. Host other one of your books, why arewell matter. Why does he matter and who was he. Guest George Orwell was an englishman born in 1983, a book came out for what would have been his centennial. Made pete the second half of the 20th century, died in january 1950 after completing his best known book, 1984. What else was he . He was born into the up are middle class but not with any money or capital. Father has been in the opium business between british india, british china, an imperial drug dealer. Orwell briefly worked for the empire as a Prime Minister in burma before finding imperialism disgraceful and then identified with the victims of the british system. Came for a while a tramp, an odd job, low page, menial worker low wage menial worker. When fascism came he went to spain and volunteered to fight in defense of the national republic. Got in with a leftist militia opposed to communist party. He wrote a book called homage to catalonia. About the spanish civil war. The reason i sea he is important and matters is that of all to writer offed the 20 until centuriening the big three issues of that century were fascism, communism and imperialism, orwell would the only one vandalize all three of them contributely, my view, with no more resources than the person of average integrity and legal peck to all honest. Intellectual honest. He never had books were banned or suppressed or articles went unpublished. So he is my exemplary case of how much a single individual with a bit of nerve and a bit of literary ability can do in a vert short live. 46. Host if he were alive today who would be he writ for. I have played that game and you knock people do because of his reputation for integrity and pressens, people want to invoke him. He would be more than 100 now. The game stops before that. Host want so toe show you other book outside have written. A long short war, the postponed liberation of iraq, rather short book, about iraq. Guest a pamphlet really should be called. Host the trial of Henry Kissinger. Do team still want to talk but Henry Kissinger. Guest they do and should. He still around. Still his advice is sometimes sought, were given to understand by the administration, which if true in the case of iraq might explain how badly things are going and remember, paul bremer, the catastrophic first pro counsel of post liberation iraq was a kissinger associate and kissinger wrote saying he would be very careful with iraq because a majority country and thats the most he knew but this rather important state. Host well, speaking guest goes on, the malign inference of Henry Kissinger can still be felled all over the place. Host speaking of iraq the cspan booktv bus travels the country, and it goes book fairs and book stores and we ask people if they have a question for our guest. One gentleman that we spoke to had a question for you about iraq. This is from garden city, idaho, outside of bit of see. My we for mr. Hitchens is you were a strong supporter of the iraq war when it began and actually before hand. Could you maybe tell me how you feel and if you regret at all the role you played in getting the support for both president bush and tony blair to do this war. Guest i regret more not having argued very and more forcefully in 1991 when we view was rather different that Saddam Hussein should have been removed earlier than he was. If we are to have an inquest on the war, which i think we should agree distheir he full accounting of what went wrong and how statecraft failed us, then the inquest cannot begin with george bushs intervention in 2003. At the minimum must begin with the does leave Saddam Hussein in power in 1991. The socalled realist decision, kissingers friends, general scowcroft, and other faction around the president himself, george bush senior and others. That where things within critically wrong. Could have terrified the iraqi people of the degeneration of their society which we now see the consequences. Another topic you have covered in your books their clintons and this is the same book that came out with title no one left to lie to, the values the worth family in paper back and hardback no one left to lie to, the triangulations of William Jefferson clinton. Guest the pink one is later and expanded edition. Theres an extra chapter in there one on the politics of the first lady which is i would she is on the cover and one i havent been able to finnish time of the first onewasnt sure could i First Responder inbut the very important and never asked and never discussed question whether or not the women who reported being raped by mr. Clinton were telling the truth. The only book you can read that discusses this question is by me and ive talked to three women who dont know each others existence, and i would say i was as sure as can be theyre telling the truth. So thats the difference. Thats why shy get the pink one if you are strolling past a book store. This is booktv on cspan2. Television for serious readers. This week were showing you some authors who appeared on our regular callin program, in depth, the late author Toni Morrison was oarages 2001. We one the few novelists to appear ton at the program shelf discusses her work, readings from already Pulitzer Prize winning book beloved and describes want it was like to win the nobel prize in literature. Guest for me just seems enormously a long, long time, from me grandfather being born. He was five years old when emancipation proclamation was declared. He was born in 1860. And he was crying. He was frightened because he kept hearing the adults say, its coming, its coming. He thought it was monster. So he crawled under the bed and they had to pull him out and explain to him. And im very keenly aware of the really lifethreatening circumstances under which they lived. The difficulties my parents had as a young couple and a kind of miraculous thing i suppose in my generation. Just knew i really wanted to go to college. My mother was not interested in my getting married. She didnt think that was necessarily the ultimate goal of a womans life. Rather she thought it shouldnt come too soon. She and the father were very supportive and told me, listen, we dont have enough for you to get a full college education. We do have enough for one year. And i said thats all i want, just one year. So that is how i went off. Convinced i could survive financially for one year. And in 1949. 50. And of course i was able to work and do the rest myself, but thats how iffy it was in those days about getting a college education. Host not just for africanamericaned but for women. Guest women in general, oh, yeah. Host how did you finance the rest of your education . Guest i had temporary jobs while i was in washington at Howard University where i was an undergraduate, and actually my mother got a job, she was so happy i was here, i guess, in college, so she took a job at night as a woman in the ladys room, collects the tips and she made 15 a week, five dollars a night, and she sent it to me. Host in ohio. Guest uhhuh. Host how did khloe warford you birth name, become tony more Toni Morrison. Guest a little lunacy and some vanity. My name is which hloe i love the name. Children couldnt pronounce it. Some adults refused to pronounce it. And they called me which hilo or klo or other things that were not chloe. In my family because my sister and i were so close in age, they call always together think called is lois and chloe so i didnt really have a separate syllable for myself. At any trait to make a long story short, when i get away to howard, i used the name toni, a short formed of the saints name, anthony. So there i was toni with wofford and then my he can husbands name, morrison. Host you married and became a mother. Were you writing at this point in your life. I think i was but i wasnt certainly didnt call myself a writer. Was a teacher and i was interested in the work of some local people here in washington, some were faculty members, some were artists, and they had a group of writers at that day formed. I was invited to attend, and i brought with me some short of frail little thing is work on as a very young person, and one of them was a little story that i had to write fresh because they wouldnt let me come over and over again if i didnt bring anything new. So i wrote a story, and brought it to that meeting, and used it much later as the heart of the first novel i wrote. Host it was called . Guest the bluest eye. Host id like to show it to the audience, and as i do would you explain how this poock actually made it to this book made it to print. From that beginning. Guest well, i wrote the story for the club. I remember my baby, my oldest son, was hanging on my shoulder, pulling at my earrings whale i was writing and i remember him spitting up on the manuscript, some orange juice, and i always tell the story, must be important because i didnt wipe it off right away. I wrote around it and then stopped. Then went to the meeting, had a good time, heard some serious criticism of it, some delight, and that was it. And then later on, several years later, when i was in another place, not teaching anymore put working at a publishing house, i began to work it up, and then i sent it around to i think 12 or 14 publishers before somebody was interested enough to take it. Host who said yes. Guest um, holt. Ellen. Who was at horl, ryan hart and winston do you. Host do you remember the letter or phone call. Guest a phone call. So many phone calls i would like to take this book but i dont think they will. Ill try. Thats what i remember and then suddenly im sitting out my desk, and random house, and i got a phone call that said, they said yes. I remember that. Host from simply a point of view of your artistry, if one were to read this book and your latest most recent novel, paradise, what would you find different about your style, about your approach to words and to literature . Guest i think the most for me to the striking thing this personality who wrote the bluest eye, that voice, that quality, is exists in paradise also. Thats very important to me, and odd to have a style immediately, not to have to develop one. I had to learn how to write better. How to seduce a reader faster, how to challenge a reader, how to enup the world. How to manipulate. What imam pleased bit and didnt know it until i wrote the second book, was i really truly do have a recognizable style. Took one page out of any of those books and read it, i think i would know it was me. Host tell the store of the beloved . Beloved is a story based on a historical figure of black woman who killed her children, or tried to, when she was a fugitive and didnt want to return to slavery. Beloved is about her life as imagined by me, significantly altered by the return of what she believed to be the daughter she killed,. Host you pick up when the fugitive slave act is about to be enforce erred with the picking occupy of group of people by the sheriff. Guest the sheriff turned . The sheriff turned, then said to the others you bet gore on. Look like your business is over. Mine is starting now. School teacher, beat his hat against his thigh and spit before leaving the wood shed. Have no few with him. They didnt look at the woman in the pepper plants with the flower in her hat. And they didnt look at the seven or so faces that had edged closer in spite of the touches warning. Enough, the sheriff. Enough bigger eyes for now. Little nigder boy others, little negger girl eyes, staring between the wet fingers that held her face, so her head wouldnt fall off. Little gger baby eyes, crinkling up to cry in the arms of the old, nigger wholes own eyes were nothing but slivers looking down at his feet. But the worst ones were those of the nigger woman who looked like she didnt have any, since the whites in them had disappeared, and since they was as black as her skin shift looked blind. They unhitched the School Teachers hours, the borrowed mule that was to carry the fugitive woman back to where the belonged and tied it to the fence. Then with the sun straight up over their head theyd trotted off. Leading the sheriffs behind among the damned bunch of coons theyd ever seen. All testimony to the results of a little socalled freedom imposed on people who needed every care and indulgence in the world to keep them from the cannibal life they preferred. You chose an interesting one. My efforts to think the way committed slaveholders think. The naturalness of their contempt, the effortlessness of their belief in their superiority to these people, coming in the book at a moment after the reader has been in the lives of these people who they are cart gorize evidence as nigder woman, nigger man, nigger baby and because these characters were so intimately portrayed issue was hoping, the section i read, comes with a chill, not just because of the events of the slaughter but the way in which at this point they are looked at. Host how do you get inside the psyches of this people. Guest its difficult but iat why can their methods that main actors and actresses use when they youve a vague character or you try to make it specific, fully realized and you want to be na that persons head if youre on stage, to wear the clothes, wear the shoes, behave the way that person would, so you have to enter or project and know where they part their hair and what kind of soap they would wear and what food they dont like, whether or not it appears in the book. You try to imagine all of those things. And that works for me. Host cull at the me the story of men and how you found out you won the nobel prize. Guest oh. I was stepping out of the shower, i think. Phone rang. Friend of mine was on the phone. A woman who was very instrumental in bringing me to prince tan, ruth simmons is her name. She said, you won. And i said, won what . And she said, the nobel prize for literature. And i thought, instantly, that she couldnt know anything that i didnt know about something as important as that. And i said, who told you that . And she said she just heard it on television. So then i knew it wasnt true because why would the today show know something. So i told her to slope on it a little bit and call me back later. I really just dismissed it. It was so remote and never crossed my mind. It was not anything that i ever thought about. So her telling me that seemed odd and also i had seen the media rush over to all sorts of people with cameras and journalists, reading to record their words, on having received not only that prize but other prizes, only to be told, that person didnt win. Happened a couple of times in my presence so i was totally unimpressed with what he had to say. Then the phone started ringing. Constantly. And then i got dressed and i went to work. I went to my class. And the campus was full of reporters and telephone calls and big fat cable lines, and i thought, well, i guess its true. But it was out there. It wasnt really in my head. And also i had not heard from the swedish academy. They didnt say i had won. So all these people may be misled so i asked them when the finally called about 12 00 or 1 00 that afternoon, i asked them to send me a fax. Host i want to see it in writing. Were either of your parentstle alive. Guest my mother was. Host that had to be something almost unexplainable to share with your mother. Guest it was wonderful. So pleasured she was still alive. She didnt fully understand the level of the prize. She enough it was important. She got to enjoy. Host did she go to swedeen with you. Guest no. She would too sick. Host how died you used opportunity. Guest to deliver the acceptance speech ask the kind of lecture they want win towards do, very much like the scientific ones give scientific papers, i thought i would try very hard to give a speech that did enact what the subject was, which was the value of narrative, that it is the major form in which we acquire knowledge. We set it up as a narrative. There are other forms, symbolical and musical but narrative is the major way in which we absorb knowledge and remain intelligent. And the stories we tell, the invention of them, is a learning process and an intellectual process. I wanted to say how value literature was bunt didnt want to just say that. I wanted to theatricalize it so i made up a story, once upon a time, and i used an old story that every culture has about the blind woman or man, who is presented with a bird and asked to say whether the bird is living or dead. And the old person says, i dont know. The young Person Holding the bird, but its in your hand. And its a pregnant but i wanted to use the situation of that encountern between the old, the wise, the blind and the young and give the young agency to really talk back to the old person and say, what are you, tricking us and have the two hoff them debate, argue and come to the third place. Host what was look like standing in front hover the academy and all the people in the room accepting the prize. Guest well, i was the only woman. I toll them they have to give me more time. Give women more time if theyre going to give that prize out to women because not only do you have to write a speech thats worthy, you have to find something to wear. The men just come and talk, they just host rent a tux. Guest rent a tux. And if you are like me and not interested in clothes, it took forever. I was felt very representational. I felled knee mail. I felt american. I felt female. I felt american, i felt writerly. I felt like an ohioan. I took all these responsibilities of representation on. And i felt like the first black woman dish felt all of that. Which was really serious but at the same time kind of protection so i wouldnt have to shoulder it all as me. I could sort of redistribute myself out there a little bit. And for me, living in the moment, happens after the moment. If only upon reflection, much later that i knew what i felt and what i felt was so happy, unabashedly thrilled, joyous, delight, no false modesty. I didnt sort of say, ah chicagos. I enjoyed it. The ah shuckses. The most Glorious Party with the most generous people. In the world. So it was as good as it gets. Youre watching booktv on cspan2. In place of our regular live callin program we are showing you highlights of previous authors who happened on in depth. We conclude today with the late novelist and historian, shelby foote who invited husband to him no memphis, tennessee, in september of 2001. Cspan our guest is novelis and historian, shelby foote. When tooid move in the house and how much of your sill war wright were counsel here. Guest all three volumes written in memphis. We lift on a bluff overlooking the river from the first volume and then moved tout what was then the eastern city limits and wrote the second part and then modified moved back other into the milled ol memphis. How long have you lived here . Guest since of 66. Cspan how much of the house plays in how you write and how you think. Guest very much. So if never been able to write away from home. My desk where is i do my work. And i dont write while im traveling or anything else. I have great admiration for writers lie dl lawrence and john quiets who can write anytime. If take off two days, take mist four days to get back to work and i have to be at my own desk. Where are weyunder your house. Guest this asitting room adjoining my work room here, the bedroom is beyond it. Cspan most of us got to know you in 1990 when ken burns did the a civil war epic of 11 episodedy. Were the interview done. Guest done on this couch here sitting right near this room. What impact did that whole series have on your life . Guest a tremendous empack. I had nothing realized the enormous power of television until that time. Not only to sell books but to people think you have been in their homes. They will call you up, call you by your first name, say very nice to have you in their house last week. Its kind of strange and somewhat startling. Cspan we are going to chat and then phone callses. For someone who might be happening on the program in never soon you before, how much in your life have you written. Guest no mean how long have if no, how many word, how many books. Guest the civil war is a million and a half words, and the rest of my writing is about that same amount so ive written something over two million words. Cspan how many books total. Guest i think theres six novels and the three volumes in the civil war and then recently some things ive been doing for the modern library, like long essay on chekov and crane, favorites favorites of mind mine. How long youve i lived sneer i lived in mississippi until i moved here, skin for school and armishing was always in greenville. What impact did mississippi have on you. Guest gravity great impact. Everybody thinks they had the worst or best possible childhood. Was raid any a town in the mississippi delta and it was a population of 15,000. Which meant that every child in that town, between the ages of, say, 13 and 17, was in that school you lived the rest of your lives with people you hap been to could with during an impressionable period of your life and i got to know every type of person could be, and a town that size onorunder best friend can be the son over to president of the bank and the other best friend could be the son of a almost anything, and it gets you to know all these sort of like the army. Get to know all kinds of people and know them well. Cspan you can get on the bridge and drive to arkansas, how far are we from mississippi. Guest mississippi is about 14 miles south of here. Memphis is the capital of the mississippi delta. Cspan i found something on the web i want to share with you. This is from i wont give the students name because it might be embarrassing but a student i believe from austin pea y state university. Have you heart about this. Guest no. Cspan she wrote an introduction a biography about you. The last line of toning is a foote is a tremendous writer who served in the civil war and his writings come from his personal experience. Guest im glad she got that impression. Thats the impression i want. Im in that book, youll see, i hope, and thats the way i think history should be written, as if you were living in that time. Totally unfair to look its from 150 years later and pass judgment on what those people did without knowing what their values were and what the laws. Its what causes an awful lot of misunderstanding trying to apply a different set of standards to a different nation really. Cspan you have how many books do you think in this house . A bunch back there. Guest books this way, that we, this way. Id be guessing i said 8,000 book. Cspan whet an the shelf that a pfaff rid. Guest i have a particular reason for having a favorite. Theyre al my favorited but up on the next to top shelf there theres a leather bound, the new york edition of henry james. It belonged to walker percy on the right over there, on the third shelf from the top is a limited edition of shakespeare. That was my favorite possession, and the james was perhaps walkers favorite possession, and 20 years ago we got to talking, and we agreed that whichever one of us died first, he would leave walker would leave me the james or i would leave him the shakespeare, and he lost the contest. And i won it. Thats walkers james. On his death bed he told his wife to make sure i got it. Cspan how many years ago did he die . He died in 1990. That shakespeare,ow read all that. Guest many times, yes you cant read too much shakespeare. Cspan why. Guest because of the beauty of the language and the skill with which he handles it he in the language itself. We get to talking about art and writing, shakespeare is outside any calculations and music its mozart and you put those two off to. Thes and then talk about various other people but they are from the moon. Cspan we religion go in the next room and hear what is this . Guest im sorry. Cspan that room. Thesey i do my work. Thats my work room. Always has been ever since we moved. In i had the desk built in, the bookshelves are built in. Cspan since 1967. Guest yeah, 66. Cspan lets go ahead on in see what we can find. When you were writing did you sleep in his room. Seldom. Sometimes when i was very anxious to get to it or get up in a hurry issue was working i would sleep in her. Cspan on this bed is your life behind me,. Guest sir strange to see it laid out like that. Never seen it that way before. I get the impression i managed to swallow a cannonball. Very strange to see it all together there. What the first one, the merchant of bristol. Guest the first thing i ever published. A friend on mine at the newspaper in greenville was ran a type machine and he did. That i bought the paper and he put it together and its signed and numbered. There were 260 copies, and i charged a dollar and a half a piece for them and the whole town was furious i could put such a high price on such junky little thing. Its worth a good deal of money now. Host tournament was your first novel guest first follow. When did you star and finish. Guest the first two years a chapel hill i decided i had enough college it and was time to come home because i newell the war was coming. This is like 38 or 9 and i came home and while was joined the Mississippi National guard and while i was waiting to be mobilized i wrote tournament, and i sent tote will percys publisher and they head it and wrote to me and shade hey liked it very much but didnt think it would sell and i would best to write in the next novel and theyd be happy to see that. Tholing to this would give me a bad name with book sellers so i put it away in a drawer. Came back from the war five years later, and i got it out, and revised it and sent it off and it was published by dall press. Cspan the main message. Guest the study of how each of us is alone in this world, and its the stud of a mans rise and fall without being able to answer the question. Chekov, he was not interested in the answers to questions, he was interested in stating the question well. I feel them same way about it. Cspan how long do you think you have been in your life. It is hard to say. I dont know how to put time. How do you mean . Cspan well you sea each man is alone. Do you feel alone . Guest i think each of us is alone. Being alone is something that you prize highly to be alone is a good thing. But you something else. We are alone in strange times. You are most alone during most alone perhaps during orgasm. This loneliness thing is a thing that can go on forever. Island of quiet in the middle of a racket and noise. Its very strength business when you start examining how each man is alone. Just a few months ago you hat a boyd with cancer. Guest right. Cspan colon cancer. What was that like. Guest you take medical things as they come. You leave it up to the doctors to do something about it. You do what the doctor says. I have had all kind of medical to goes since i turned 65. Lord, lord, i had one of the first balloon bypasses, heart things, and each one of those came along and you just take it as thats the hand you drew at that time and you leave it up to the doctor, and thank god ive had really doctors or i wouldnt be here. I wouldnt be here if they hadnt developed medicine as far as they have in the last 20 years. Youre going to be 358 in november. Guest right. What does it feel like to be at that time age. Guest i cant associate myself with anybody 85 years old. Amazes me in the first place. Cspan still write . Guest yes, of course. Ill stop when they lay me down. But nearly all my friends are dead. My closest friend, walker percy has been dead for 11 years, hard to believe. But thats the way it goes. You take it as it comes and you hope with some form of grace. Cspan your mid to gwen, how long. Guest be 45 years good september. What it that like. Guest i can imagine being married to anyone for 45 years. Its just amazing. Cspan one thing i want to you to talk but is what is over here on this shelf. Talk about time. I remember some things past that guest Marcel Proust and right here is proust is my favorite 20th century writer, my mother gave me this full volume for my 17th birthday and every time i feel ive earned the right to do it i quit everything and reread it. Ive done it in the back of this when i wrote each time that theres the ninth reading, 1993. I havent felt justified in taking off too much since 93. Cspan you have read this book, 3,000 pages. Guest yes. Cspan nine times. Guest right. Cspan why. Guest its a two reasons. One is pure enjoyment. One of the mosten transing writer and he can teach you sans. You can always learn. A writer can learn from proust we talk but shakespeare. That the grantmaster teacher. Cspan what is about the written word that is either attractive to people or separates it from television. Guest i really think that the written word is what defines us as superior creatures to all the other creatures on earth. Man is characterized by a number of things. One of. The is hes the only animal that knows he is going to die some day, and knowing that, he also has an obligation to make the most of whatever time he has and making the most is assisted by read, learn thought world, learning about the past and the present, and an ability to look to the future by reading. Cspan i want to tell our outens shelby foote will be with us 40 minutes and then well go to phones and you asking him any questions you might want to ask him, including all the writing he has done. What else are your favorite things in this room . Guest well, that is a very large question because i subpoenaed put my favorite things back here. Cspan well talk but that over there. We have the music over here. Guest that music over there and mostly over here, modern literature. Starts with dickens, conrad, jane austin. One the best faulkner collections. Cspan read it off. Guest oh, yeah, and over and over again. What i appreciate more about reading is rereading. Im a writer, its my craft and when you reread a book you enjoy seeing how he goes about getting where he is going because you know when hes going when you know whats coming. The skill with which he does that is instructive to a writer. Cspan when you read whats the circumstances. Guest its a funny thing. Ive talked to people about their reading. Do not see a scene when i read. I read words. And even punctuation. A lot of people tell me when they read its like can at movie. They see the characters charactt the author is saying theyre doing. I do that to some extent but mostly i look at the way he moves words around. Cspan i remember reading about you that back at the university of North Carolina chapel hillout got lost in the nine stories of stacks in the library. Guest i didnt get lost. I was very much happy to be there. I imtated a graduate student and get in the cubicle and id never seen anything like at that time before, nine stories of books. The university is a library if a group of buildings and i spent more time in library than i i did anywhere, it was the library. I was just fascinated with it. Not only was there all of shakes pierce there. There was all the booked about shakespeare. Cspan what kind of music sometime crazy about Classical Music in every since and also a big fan of the blues. Robert johnson especially but smith and a great many others. Cspan we talk many years ago when you listen to music you dont read . Guest no. I can listen to music while im going to sleep. But its a distracts. I cant put up with when im trying to read. Cant do both at once. So when you read you dont listen to music,. Guest thats right. Heat going through the process here. Follow me down novel written what year. Guest written in 1950. This came out in 49. 51, 52, 54, and that one is 75. These novembers about what. Guest the mississippi delta with the possible exception of shilo and one of the characters in there is from my home place. Cspan he next level the three volume set of the civil war. Guest right. Cspan all nonfiction. Guest right. Cspan i remember reading you said you read 350 books to get ready to write that. Guest i had about 300 books that i actually worked with right of my desk. I didnt much go to libraries and i did no go to original material in the department of archives. I wrote from the printed word. The civil war is so widely written about, that you dont need to go back to the only documents. Theyve all been gone over. These are just few of the over 200 authors who have appeared on depth in depth. You can watch the interviews on our website, claim on the in depth tab and search for the author you want to see. Television hays changed since cspan began 41 years ago. But on our mission continued. To provide an unfiltered view of government. Already this year we brought you primary election coverage, the president ial impeachment process and now the federal response to the coronavirus. You can watch all of cspans public affairsen online or the freed video app or be part of the conversation through our social media feed. Chance, created by private industry. Americas Cable Television company as the public service. And brought to you today by your television provider. Here some of the current best selling nonfiction books according to indy bound. Topping the his u. S. The splendid and the vial. Eric layersons study of prime Winston Churchills leadership during the london blitz. Followed by the memoir, unitem. After that is robert polkers Hidden Valley road, profile of the galvin family, 12 children,. The former sect of stayed madeline all brights memoir, and then wrapping up the look at the best selling nonfiction books is the account of growing up in he idaho mountains and formal education at the age of 17. The book has been on best eller lists for more than two years some authors have appeared on booktv and you can watch them afternoon at booktv. Org. The president from public affairs, available now in paper barbing and ebook. Presents biographies of every president , organized by their ranking by note it historians, from best to worst. And features perspectives interest the lives 0 our nations chief executives and leadership styles. Visit our website, cspan. Org the president s to learn more burt each president and historians and order your copy today. Former truck administration National Security advisor you can find more information on your program guide. Stomach i would like to start