The same place anyway. After words airs every saturday at 10 p. M. And again sunday at 9 p. M. Eastern. And you can watch all previous after words programs on our web site, booktv. Org. [inaudible conversations] good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to barnes noble upper west side. Tonight i have the distinct pleasure of introducing author sean wilentz, a George Henry Davis 1886 professor of American History at Princeton University and author of the vancroft prize winning the rise of american democracy, bob dylan in america and many other works. He brings us today his new book, the politicians and the egalitarians the Hidden History of american politics, in which he reminds us of the commanding role Party Politics has played in our struggle against economic be inequality. At nations founding, americans believed that wealth extremes would destroy their revolutionary experiment in republican government. That idea has since shaped National Political conflict. Mr. Wilentz transfo
Say. I go through this period when the words look like english. They seem to be english but they dont make sense. She walks over to window. It is snowing outside. Raises the window and takes what will be come one of the most poplar books and throws it in the alley. Then she calls her publisher and said she quits. She said writing a novel is like building a white house matchsticks. She lost the desire to do it. And someone who has been through it said that is not your book. For the last two years i have been lep helping you. This is a collaborative project and it doesnt belong to you. It belongs to us. She went out and picked up the manuscript. She was helping him. So that was the intent. The timing was perfect. Just turned in to kill a mockingbird when he called and said we got an assignment from the new yorker. How is it traumatizing the town . Great once are making up stories. Usually there was a crime associated. Here to adults with her helping him. She was coming off of her book wh
Right now you would have to go to some effort. With a backhand of habitable mild theory of, if youre there representing writer and you can make millions of dollars by just publishing an earlier work and i have read that it is my theory because its from later in life but that the tone of the writing. Which is lovely. Shes a great storyteller. I spoke with someone whos on the College Newspaper in alabama she said when i opened up to kill a mockingbird i can just hear now, its her authentic voice. So if you can bring out that book and later in life a return to literary stardom, ernest much money as the market will bear which is going to be quite a bit. That is good representation. Think of what a shot in the arm it is for literary, for readers, its the big book of the summer and will be on every beach in america. People will talk about it. Its an adult harry potter for once. Did you have any sense, when you were writing the book how long did you spend reporting and during your like works.
You think about that period, black communists, black pen africanist, naacp, the vibrance a black policy. Host but lets be honest. Hundreds of people were being enriched, no right to vote, the politics of protest organizations, voluntary associations were also necessitated by the reality of those times that you could not participate. You look at the tradition of Woodrow Wilson kicking a prominent black publisher out of his office in the white house or when Teddy Roosevelt invited booker t. Washington to simply have a meal he was roundly criticized. I can see, we had a spectrum in our committee from center to left, but it was all operating outside of what was then considered the political mainstream. Because you could not participate. Right. We were at the tail end, the complete dismantling. This was 1920 the last black delegate attended the Republican National convention and in the 1880s and 90s, so i also think and this is a healthy debate about the role of the president and Barack Oba
Im mark, president and im proud to be here with professor eddie. I am honored, as we say back home this is really great. We have some time to talk and you have written a new book and we sorely want to talk about, we also want to talk about how fascinating it is to viewers and certainly too many how you got from mississippi, a a Great Community down in the gulf coast, all the way to princeton university. Maybe we ought to start with you talking about yourself. Guest im a country boy who made it big, thats what i like to say. My dad was the second africanamerican postman hired at the post office. That was a big job. We were living in moss point at the time and he moved us from one side of time to the other side. Where the third africanamerican family that moved into the nice neighborhood on the hill. We went to a better school, much more disciplined. It didnt have as many distractions. We went to an integrated school because it was predominantly black. People worked in the shipyard, lisa