Transcripts For CSPAN Books 20240706 : vimarsana.com

With these other television providers, give you a giving you a front row seat to democracy. Good evening and welcome to live at the library and the preview of the new library of congress in cspan series books that shaped america. Im was cspans book tv. About 150 years ago when i was young, my parents were a little worried that my brother and i werent reading enough. So they consulted miriam stauffer, she was the principal at our grade school in fort wayne, indiana. Good evening, and welcome to live at the library, and a preview of the new library of congress cspan series, books that shaped america. My name is peter, and i am with cspans book tv. About 150 years ago, when i who catalogs the unknown. Zora neal hurston, who helped define the harlem renaissance and to vocalize the fears that many were feeling during that time. Then to Milton Friedman who defined the Economic System that drives us. These are just some of the authors and books we will be exploring in our 10 week series beginning september 18. Books are meant to engage, enlighten, enrage and energize us. That is what we are hoping to do with the books that shaped america series. The 10 books we have chosen represent different eras, topics, and view whites. They are derived from a larger list of 100 books created by the library of congress. If you like the sublist cspan has chosen, thank the library of congress for their 100 books that shaped america. If you dont like our editorial choices, blame cspan and share your own list with us. There are a couple ways of doing that. The website is at cspan. Org booksthats hapedamerica. You can see a complete review of the entire series there. If you are in the audience and you hear some books you agree with or dont agree with, go downstairs. We have a video kiosk set up where you can record your own thoughts about books that shaped america. I mentioned three of my literary heroes, my parents and the estimable ms. Stover. Now i get to introduce two more. They will talk about books that shaped america, perhaps share some of their own choices as well. One of my favorite moments at the National Book festival every year is when i get to sit down with the librarian of congress herself to talk books. We forget the cameras are there. I think she does too and we just start riffing about current and favorite books and to the consternation of many, we forget what time it is and we always go over our allotted time. Carla hayden is only the 14th librarian of congress in our 247 year history. The first and only woman. She has been in that position since 2016. I will tell you that her mother colleen is a big cspan watcher and she is watching tonight. Shes a big reader. She will be watching tonight, so play nice. Joining dr. Haydens Doug Brinkley. You may be familiar with his president ial biographies, his books on Hurricane Katrina or the space race, and many other topics. But i want to mention his 1993 magic us book. That book led directly to the cspan bus which were 25 years plus traveled the country educating students in schools, thousands, on civic education. One more reminder this evening, as with many cspan programs, this will be interactive. You will have the chance to question dr. Hayden and brinkley by the notecards that will be passed out and you can submit those if you have questions for them this evening. Now, here is librarian of Congress Carla Hayden and president ial biographer Doug Brinkley talking about books that shaped america. [applause] thank you, peter. It is a joy at the National Book festival to talk about books and they do have to give us the hook, you are right. And i was so glad you also mentioned that cspan selected the 10 books. They did, so dont write the library of congress. The idea that cspan, working with the library of congress, has started that started working looking at books that mattered. My book would have been henry david thes walden because there is an environmental component. I think we have a good list of really interesting variety that covers the span of American History. So with this partnership and peter mentioned it, i have to ask you, what books shaped you as a historian . One that really moved me was John Steinbecks grapes of wrath where he called route 66 the road of flight. I remember reading that book when i was young and his description of the okies migrating to california after the dustbowl ravaged the great plains and while some people enjoyed going down route 66, these people were packed in a vehicle. He would describe the migrant camps and after i read that grapes of wrath, it stays with me. I have reread it and i tended to like the novels more than history books, but usually u. S. Writers. I went through a steinbeck phase where i read all of his and also Langston Hughes, who i love so much. I wonder as i wander and some of his autobiographical books i got to early. I have the collected Langston Hughes above my bed, a multiple volume of all his papers and those are really interesting. Those are two of obvious many that stick out. I would go through phases where i would read all of one author. If i read one book and i liked it, i would go. David mccullough and i had talked about this, he loved novels as a form of thinking on American History. I grew up in ohio. If i like to think about ohio and a book i would like, it tends to be wines bird, ohio, not necessarily a biography of Rutherford B Hayes even though im president ial historian because novelists can get into the tone and tenor of your time and bring you into feel what it was like and some of the books on our list, particularly zora neale hurston, is one that does that. It brings you there. You have written recently about rosa parks, the space race, the National Parks. I have to ask you, what is your process when you select those topics . When i was young, i got to know arthurs lessons are jr. The famous kennedy biographer of a thousand days. He once told me, i was worried that i liked president ial history, military history, but also music and pop culture and he said be a 20th century historian. There are 19thcentury british historians. There are 17thcentury italian historians. You can look at the entire 20th century and the great novelist thomas wolf said there are a billion forms of america, this country with all of these subcultures going around. I wanted to learn about those, but you want to do a book that somebody else hasnt done. When i did rosa parks, there wasnt a mature biography written on her and i approached mrs. Parks about it with her assistant, they were hoping it would be an africanamerican woman that would write the book and they told me that. But then soon after, they called and said, you are here, do you want to do it . And they brought me in totally. [laughter] so you have transformed. And then the National Parks, writing about Theodore Roosevelts outdoors and fdr, when i was young, my parents were teachers and we had a trailer Station Wagon and we went all over the United States to visit history sites and parks. It still stays with me. If i had a perfect job, it would be running something that takes care of historical sites. Im an American History preservationist at heart, hence our symbiotic friendship. I could see u. S. As a park ranger. [laughter] i can see it. One of the isolated parks like arches in utah or something and just watch the seasons for a while. Keep my eye on bang on the public lands. Lets look at the lists. This is cspans list. We keep emphasizing that. [laughter] and dont forget the video booth. It is here at the library of congress until november 20. If you have to pick 10 to start, this is the start of the conversation. You mentioned something when we were just coming on. You said number one, common sense by thomas payne, is still the bestselling book by an american author . It got published in january 17 76. It has the advantage of being around the longest. But it was talk forever. Its really a foundational document. When you talk about the declaration of independence, the bill of rights, the constitution. In many ways, you cant think of america without reading it. It was a 47 page pamphlet released right at the beginning of the American Revolution and it is electrifying to read now because he writes with such grace and he is a provocatuer and he has the ability to get your emotions to rise and what he was promoting was basically breaking away from Great Britain. That we needed to create the United States and the monarchies were a thing of the past and the United States, the creation of the u. S. Was possible and we would become a citadel of democracy. Thats one book that if you are going to pick one of the two of that period, thomas payne had come over to america from england right before the battles of lexington and concord. Ben franklin had kind of recruited him. In many ways he was a bomb throwing pamphleteer. You couldnt go into a tavern or a Business Establishment in 1776 in the new United States without thomas payne coming to peoples lips at least once it was identified that he was the writer behind it. So he went viral . He went viral. Ok. And the great eric phone or wrote a book about Thomas Paynes america which i read when i was young and just loved it. He is unendurable figure if you care about freedom and justice and democratic equality and why potentially our system of government should be the envy of the world. Then you get to the federalist papers by alexander hamilton, James Madison, and john j. Talk about a group. They were ratified. They wanted to ratify the constitution after it was drafted. You had to sell it to the american people. The lead author was alexander hamilton. If you go through when it came out, it became known as the federalist. It becomes an the 20th century, the federalist papers. The point that they were really trying to make clear, about the department, if you read it today, it is in all of the arguments that we are dealing with. What would a Judicial Department be like. How can you create such an entity . Lawyers quoted all the time. He was the main writer. Alexander hamilton wrote the most, followed by James Madison and john jay did like five of them, but you will have people all the time quoting from the federalist papers trying to say, here is what the founders thought. It can be misused. People were trying to say, these are the original intents of the founders. It depends how you read the federalist papers in todays 21stcentury legal system and how you are going to interpret. Each one is a little different than the others. Would it be helpful for people to get into it now . I use that word foundational document and theres no way you can understand the United States without the federalist papers period. Because thomas payne you could have maybe done Something Like the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin may have served a per this. With the federalist papers, it truly is founding documents. Its fundamental to read those and understand it. Unfortunately, we have downgraded teaching of civics in high schools, teaching of government. For any teacher to try to get students to way into the federalist papers and the vision of hamilton, madison, and jay is a gold standard. And the library of congress as Thomas Jeffersons copy. I think that is gold. With his annotations. Annotated copy. And he put the whole thing about food who did number two or number 70. It became a little bit like robbie robertson, the band, people used to say, who sang which vocal . Who wrote that . They werent trying to boast of authorship, they were trying to put together a collection of essays. They were united in purpose. Did that ever get solved . There will be some people that debate who wrote, did somebody else write a chunk of one . But we pretty much know. Ok, we will look that up. [laughter] speaking of thomas jefferson, the next book, the history of the expedition under the command of lewis and Clark Meriwether Lewis and jon clark. Thomas jefferson commissioned this. The book you dont want on your top 10, jefferson wrote a terrible book called notes on virginia that is really a racist, bigoted tract jefferson wrote. You have to deal with jeffersons slavery in that aspect. Lewis and clark sows shows the side of jefferson which is brighter, his thoughts on western expansion. While other politicians of the era, early 1800s, saw the Mississippi River as the end of the United States, jefferson was unique in thinking going all the way to the pacific. He commissioned Meriwether Lewis and clark, william clark. We know in recent years, some people say pittsburgh was where they convened, but basically theyre going up the missouri river, across the Continental Divide to astoria, oregon and they keep this minute, brilliant, detailed journal because Meriwether Lewis was a naturalist par exelons. Documenting and interacting with Indigenous People that nobody knew lived there. Sacagawea becomes a big part of that story. The tragedy is that they were kind of dispatched. They had to come back until jefferson, the Rocky Mountain region is too rigorous, theres no way we are going to be able to go quickly and use the pacific as a gateway to china. Meriwether lewis who wrote the best parts, in my opinion clark people will write in and defend clarks writing but he was depressed after it. Military exploration expedition, highly successful. He committed suicide, lewis, he was depressed after it and he felt he had been a failure because there was no shortcut to china. There was no big economic it was a wilderness out there. Depression, he started doing opiates and drinking. Took his own life. William clark goes on and lives a robust life out of st. Louis. He gets more involved with Indian Affairs and his history, when you get into post lewis and clark expedition, he was born on a lot of historical issues i was wondering about the Indigenous People that they encounter. They convinced a leader to company to washington dc to be here. Jefferson, he gets forgotten and this is a book that could have been it could have been deep like journals. Jefferson said what how we got out there . Becky is he bought the louisiana territory. Jefferson had sent out james monroe, the future president and robert livingston, the great new york city real state business entrepreneur to buy just new orleans from napoleon bonaparte. He had setbacks in haiti and he ended up concerned about the both of the british power. To the surprise of his diplomats , monroe and livingston, he offered them the whole louisiana territory to the United States. Partially because jefferson was a frontal file, everything about france and the french people loved them. Napoleon decided he would rather have that western louisiana territory being in american hands than british or spanish. Overnight, jefferson doubles the size of our country. Lewis and clark, going out to see what is going on but also you have pike and pike went up the mississippi were overall the way looking for the headwaters of the mississippi. He he misdiagnosed it, it is actually itasca where it starts. He was in illinois, wisconsin, britain was in canada and we were effectively in war with britain. That exploded with the war of 1812. The fight went about the headwaters of the Arkansas River and the red river, port santa fe and the spanish authorities confiscated his diaries and journals and put him in jail. Pike. Jefferson was threatening war if they did not release the journals. They get published a decade before lewis and clark settle on western exploration. He misdiagnosed beyond something besides headwaters in the mississippi, he said modernday nebraska is essentially a great desert where nothing will ever grow. It is the breadbasket of america i think we will get some comments about that. Pikes peak and colorado is named after him, from the journal, seeing that mountain, the First American to document seeing that. He went on to serve pike as a Brigadier General in the war of 1812. He was killed at the battle of york. York is modernday toronto. He is buried there in canada and there is a movement to exhume him and bring his body to colorado to be on top of pikes peak. More things will be named after pike than anybody else. Really . He was the first new wave hero after the American Revolution because of his exploits in western expansion. I have to ask you, where are the journals . The library of congress. [laughter] i really did not know that1 i really did not know that. My mom is watching they are worth looking at, the pipe journals, they are published. One of the things that i talk about a lot leads to literacy and the fourth book, the narrative of the life of frederick. The, an american slave by frederick douglas. His 1945 memoir, the reason why i know that one so well is the chapter on learning to read. It is unbelievable. How important the narrative of frederick. Was was, everybody must read that. That is was essential reading. That is quintessential reading. He was born into slavery. He had a vivid description of the horror of enslavement and beatings of black americans and he was lucky that he got to your time, baltimore, where he didnt learning to read and write. Start learning to read and write. The power structure that slave owners were trying to prevent slaves from learning how to read and write. He became a burly intellectual, not only gave the best lectures of his era, but some of the wellmeaning abolitionists like garrison and wendell phillips, they used two want to kind of prop him up as an antislavery voice, once the narrative came out, he was on his own, he was selling out houses and with a book published he went to ireland and england and he became a global sensation. Of course, verdict list had such a rich history Frederick Douglass had such a rich history. America is catching up to his legacy in d. C. , you have his home in anacostia run by the National Park service. A really great site to to work. Scholars have kicked in, may i other separate and authoritatively about douglas and they find interesting his relationship to lincoln. That narrative reads so powerfully today but it gets you into the belly of the beast of slavery. Harriet Tubman Harriet beecher stowes book uncle toms cabinet was important but it does not read the same way that douglasnarrative does. The description of what it was like being enslaved. Getting to be free. To be emancipated. It is a remarkable book. It is his quote that it is used quite often after he describes the fact that he knew that this reading and what is in these books has to be imported because he was forbidden. Important because he was forbidden. He was told not to read and once you learn to read you will be forever free. Books are the windows to the world. Library of congress, we are at the center of it, in washington, baltimore areas, it is elevating Frederick Douglass in new york and New York Historical society. A statue in front. He is one of the true sustainable heroes in americas past. Another book has been published about further douglas frederick. List because he was the most photographed american ever. It is so fascinating not only was he photographed, he became a huge celebrity. Abraham lincoln was excited to be with verdict on the. To be with verdict Frederick Douglass. He was center stage. He met john brown of kansas and the most famous, john harper ferry, trying to seize the federal arsenal and handout guns. Enslaved people could revolt. Douglas begged off of that. There was a bridge too far for him. People who loved frederick, the intellectual crowd. Well, we are physically next door to the Supreme Court. Right here at the library of congress. The next book, the common law by Oliver Wendell holmes junior, towards property, contracts, crimes. And homes that see the life of the above have and says that the life of the law is experience. Why is this on this list . I was surprised that he was on the list. Not that he is a giant and i will mention why. I have never read common law. That is such a part of our law and he has boiling down thoughts about our legal institution. That book is distilled lectures and thinking down into a potent little longer form essay. You can read it pretty quickly. He was an extraordinary figure. Mainly, people do not realize because they were roosevelt put him in the Supreme Court. He lived to be like 93 years old. He was the oldest Supreme Court justice. When you hear murmurs today people who sit down, he was 90 at the Supreme Court. People or in off of him because he had been a soldier, he had served in the battlefield in the civil war for the union army. He had actually got wounded many times and he was in places like antietam and the wilderness. Battle after battle. If you were to say circa 1910 to get to talk to him, it was about the civil war and service. He had a handlebar mustache. He was the ultimate boston brahman. Always a guy on Great Britain an eye on Great Britain. It comes to the conclusion that the constitution is a living document and that is why the common law matters. It has to be changed to make the means for different generations. Who cannot claim something about about an amendment and interpret it with the founders because he says the point of law is that human civilization gets better. You do not cling to something, it is elastic. Each generation has to upgrade the constitution with amendments and the like. It is a loved jurist. Anyone who goes to law school will learn stories and dissents. Mainly, holmes is a legal giant. I have to say it sounds like this is a book that we might need to revisit today. I think it matters. Look, the joy of the spent picking these books is that knowing i was going to be here i read it and i have been into history for a long time, had a feeling if i had gone to law school i would have encountered it in a more direct and important weight. It opened my mind because a lot of the things that you hear on tv all the time like the First Amendment and when you are lucky if you cannot scream fire in a Movie Theater and what are the limits of the First Amendment . And the gun debate in the country today . That period or how is that supposed to defend semi automatic weapons being sold willynilly at flea markets . The point is that the thinking is we need to constantly update our thinking to fit. In the end, the law is not punitive, the law moves and the point of our constitution, the genius of the experiment of the constitution is indeed in its ability to be meaningful to the generation that is alive at the time. We know why this book was selected. That answers that question. Also, i think there was a movie . Certain one of those classic movie things . They might have said yankee . I have not seen that. I have to tell you why. It is by Oliver Wendell holmes in boston and he said at the end of his life and he is in a chair like this and he says there is a young law clerk, he had no children and everything. He wanted to leave his resources , like 200,000 to the u. S. Government and he is like do not do that. The government . He said im going to do it. He leans back very dramatically and closes his eyes. And my books to the library of congress. I woke up and i like what . The library of congress has his collection. Right down the hall. Oliver Wendell Holmes collection. That is one of the great collections in u. S. History. Keeping the homes essays. Great correspondent to people. Less overriding books. Other justices write books. Homes was distilling a judicial philosophy that he has imparted on our country and it is alive today. The next book, so many of us had to read it. The adventures of huckleberry finn. By mark twain. And the controversy about it too. I think that it will always, it was born in controversy and it will stay in controversy forever. And was born in controversy less about the racial dynamics which i will mention in a moment. But that he had young huck and jim playing dirty pranks and being a little bit immoral or being teenagers and getting into trouble. For people who want to have more rectitude in a book you were not finding it in twines and mark twains huckleberry finn. There is a connotation on race and in twains my set of that era that it was showing huck and jim coming from different kinds of oppression. Hucks was a mean father and jims being enslaved. They form a friendship into dynamic duo as they go down the mississippi. Why it is controversial today though, is because the nword is used in it quite a bit. Some people want to abandon it because of the use of that. Ban it because of the use of that. It cannot be a classic because of that. Mark twain was willing to do dialect and anytime a white author starts dealing with dialects of any culture it gets very tricky and sensitive. Particularly now. Artist hemingway said all American Literature emanates from the adventures of huckleberry finn. It continues to live on and be discussed and debated. Mark twain as one of our writers. Because of his body of work. This was the one that has lasted the test of time and it is read and taught, but less so now. Because of that. What is interesting, i am skipping over to number eight, our eyes were watching god. It was also criticized for using dialect. Alice walker, the great rider basically resurrected her and her reputation. On that, kirstens interesting american figure. She was born in the south. Came north, educated elsewhere and started doing ethnography and anthropological studies. She wrote really well and had a very good listening ear. Before long she started in the late 1920s she was collecting folk stories or folktales. You can capture black culture in the south. A lot of the times, what was going on in a black community and she took on issues of racism in the south and the research. She did not evolve from a full collector. Her first book, i think it is called men, and mules. It was folk compendiums. By the time that she writes her novel, it really is an important book. Because on dialect, it is tricky. Without her helping her reputation after walker wrote the color purple which had great acclaim. People did not like the way that you are trying to capture the way that black people speak and it. It is a feminist manifesto if you read the book. It is about women and men and how black women have to develop a fierce independent spirit separate from men. She writes that her character in the book was married three different times and had an abusive husband. In many ways it is fascinating as a corporate document and womens Liberation Book in its own right. She died broke, had no money in florida. Nobody knew. She said i will die broke. Yet her papers are invaluable. And she has been embraced in florida wholeheartedly is one of the Great American writers. People will make the assumption that a black woman riding about writing about state in the south. She was not a liberal. She was an fdr person, she would vote republican. Believed in a lot of selfreliance. And libertarian style going on with her to. You do not want to put these people in little boxes. She is a full intellectual of break merit. The distrust of fdr and truman, she was vocal about that. She appreciated some things about the new deal. She did not find that to be a solution on dealing with Race Relations the federal government would allocate some money or do something. It seemed to her that in her book, her novel that was chosen, she does characters, fictional characters. On or representing booker t. Washington, up from slavery, some people have called it accommodating how to work with white america. And w ed the boys and the dubois. Either could have been picked as a top 10. She does very cleverly in that book and presents both sides of the black community, that she is writing about, they are arguing in black society about these issues which have the answer to do away with or if you do, a personal Tuskegee Institute like the old your own, get white people, we do not need to integrate, we have our own mores. Do you fight with the naacp and dissent . Go on . Dubois won that battle but booker t. Washington, do not underestimate the importance when he was leading the stage of tuskegee. Another woman that is on the list, willa . Im a midwesterner. I would think of you in baltimore . I live there, but illinois, springfield. And champaign, illinois. And farther south. Places like dew point, illinois . I heard a little bit. You know barda . People should go the linking president ial library in springfield. And visit president lincolns tomb. It is powerful. You can do a guided tour in springfield of the socalled racial unrest of 1908 which was in tulsa in 1921 recently, but springfield in 1908 was light a horrible racial incident there. And that was born the naacp. I have been involved for 30 years. That is with it. My time in the midwest, 1918, from the chapters. Shes from virginia, her family moved, this was a smart choice by cspan, because in my knowledge, she has a brilliantly written book. She has opined years and my antonia and the songs of the lark. Is a trilogy but you could have picked anyone of the three, i think cspan picked the right one. She is riding about growing up in the great plains. Writing about growing up in the great plains. Dealing with european immigration into the midwest. And what it was like for pioneer families out there and how they had to rely on each other and also, love stories where the guy that ends up leaving that she loves playing with when they were young, but later in life they were connecting, she is an incredible figure righting about red cloud nebraska. Some people will argue it is the best written novel in American History if you are looking at it from a pure literary stylistic dialogue part of you. She wrote and was living in Greenwich Village, new york. Thomas payne lived in Greenwich Village . That village has always been hot. It has always been not. As a kid i liked seeing all the plaques, of who lived where and you get a guide, they will show you where her house is or where o. Henry lived and bob dylan wrote. It is endless. After concord, massachusetts, the start of our American Literary intellectual life, which includes most in ponds. New york has been such a hub. And harlem, or the harlem renaissance, it was considered part of that. Those are two extraordinary literary places and harlem. You talk about timely, free to choose by milton and rose freeman. I am so glad that rose was in there too. Nobel metal prize, economist, associated with the Chicago School. If you could just let people know what the school is famous for . I was surprised, Milton Freeman and his wife are a part of this. I never thought of it as a great book. Thinking longer about this, i have known freeman as this mass conservative movement of today and his wife. They were a team. They are remarkable and that regard, the Chicago School had a limited time but it was about a did not believe in keynesian economics. This great gathering of debt or spend money later. It did not believe that a good currency would help the dollar prevail should be a lot of federal expenditure. It is about Less Government is more government. This is right when Ronald Reagan was getting elected and he was freeman and he would call for the department of energy and jimmy carter and created help in abolishing the food and Drug Administration and down government. He was very pure about that in the sense he was against the iraq war because it is money government getting us into something. He was a laissezfaire, laissezfaire capitalist. Brilliant economist. This book, for a tv show, they wrote them in chapters, 10 chapters that are very readable to the public. It goes down easy. My problem with friedman was that his economic books are quite complicated and they went over my head. That is the Chicago School. You have to study them. What this book, it is a distillation of that antifederal regulatory philosophy which continues to be very pervasive in our society. When i pulled back and took a look at it and made sense that Oliver Wendell holmes junior was picked and Milton Freeman, dealing with law and the other economics, they are kind of interesting partners in the sense that they look at the role of the American Government in different ways. And in terms of partners and the words of cesar chavez . Cesar chavez, the main thing to know about him is he was born in arizona. Some people make the mistake and think that he was laboratory labor. He was an american citizen and he was dramatized as the boy because his family during the Great Depression had the local banks ceased their foreman property. Seized their farm and property. A friendly racist takeover of their family land and it them to become itinerants going all over california thinking produce picking produce and living in squalor and out of that experience he kept self educating himself and reading. He ended up encountering writings with a big chicago thinker about how to create worker and for people movements and how they kept empowerment of those without wealth. Fred ross learned and adopted caesars church, he would carry commute waivers on protests, the crucifixion of christ. Bring in more and more mexican americans and filipinos working with certain progressive bishops. Creating the United Farm Workers Union and we will get to interview dolores who was his partner. She is in her 90s in the Texas Tribune festival in a week. Im excited for that. Is Cesar Chavezs talent and dolores, the leadership of pointing out what steinbeck was pointing out the grapes of wrath. How horrible we treated humans as if they were just animals. No restrooms for pickers in the fields, beatings, Bobby Kennedy famously when he ran for president in 1968, he came out of delano in california to break the fast that chavez was doing. He was not eating protests. Kennedy was there to give him the communion wafer. Chavez in california, they do not have a date for him and all over the southwest, i live in austin, texas and our main thoroughfare is named after cesar chavez. There are statues everywhere. It is very important through chavez and dolores as figures to explain the latino and mexicanamerican story in our country. I can see why we needed to have if not that book, one that address that. Very timely. I understand that we had some time for a few questions. We have gathered them. Before we start i wanted to ask about chavez, we see an order orator by Martin Luther king . Martin luther king was a great orator, chavez was not that comfortable speaking. Chavez delivered speeches with a genuine authenticity and he had the aura about him that was remarkable. Charisma is a word we can use for him. His followers continue to grow and grow. What king and chavez shared which was a bit unusual was a firm love and devotion to nonviolence as written about by mohammed gandhi. Both are nonviolent gandhian figures and led the most successful protests of the 60s and 70s. Saying violence is never the answer. But will never resort to violence no matter what we will never resort to violence no matter what. You study nonviolent movements in america, from the letter of civil disobedience that the row boat from jail when he went and would not pay taxes to the mexicanamerican war. The civil disobedience found in dr. King and that also influenced chavez. It is all part and parcel of a cause of the social justice, but nonviolence in achieving it. Authenticity is what came through. Especially in that age. It was smart and handsome, people just gravitated towards him. Once Time Magazine put him on the cover, in the late 60s, chavez was able to convince people in maryland, virginia not to eat grapes from california. Not to eat produce from a grower that had horrific conditions that would not pay the United Farm Workers Union laborers a proper living wage or proper working conditions. From what i understand, globalism was part of this . This movement to keep things close in this country but then his philosophy was much more national . The mistake people make about cesar chavez is that he love the United States of america very much. He had served in the navy, he had not the greatest time in the navy, it was a Jim Crow Navy where he being a mexicanamerican and he got in his first bit of trouble when he came on a leave from the navy, he went to a Movie Theater and the mexicanamericans had to sit in a certain section and he was on a date with the regular place and they took him to a police station. He had a fire in his belly about what is right and wrong and a fierce understanding of grit. Anyone who cannot fast and not eat for days on a protest like he did and then lead these marches to protest where his feet were all blistered and bleeding and he had to soak them. Barack obama talked about the grassroots organizing side of barack obama, he adopted the chavez yes we can from cesar chavez. A direct link to obama, to chavez. We have questions for you. You can see them. What do we do about climate . My recent book is called a spring revolution. One of commit in kennedy that with the movement of the 60s and 70s but Rachel Carsons book silent spring came out in 1962 and that could have easily been on the top 10 list. Rachel carson looking at pesticides that were developed after world war two, they were applied by crop planes and spring all of these chemicals, she was arguing that people were getting sick from it. It was grading cancer and leukemia spikes. Creating cancer and leukemia spikes. She took activism and married it with Public Health in her book is the birth of Environmental Justice and she is looking at and by Mental Health issues and i write in my book about Climate Change that in 1958 we were clear about co2 emissions. Kennedy, there is a memo about the shocker a former nixon advisor who was considered a nixon house intellectual wrote a memo saying im studying and talking to the weather people and the science people and this is all accurate, the data we are gathering, we are in big trouble. He said goodbye miami, new york, what happens to seattle is unknown. This is the nixon era. We have had a lot of president s and we have all been having the awkward moments of Climate Change but here we are, talking to you when it has been the hardest summer on record hottest summer on record all across the United States and climate issues are going to be living with us as frontpage news. I am afraid for the rest of our lives. It is a longterm problem. This relates to several other questions, really pointing to something people want to hear you pick. If you want to pick a book from the 21stcentury to be on this list, what would you pick . Is there a book in recent history . What do you think will be a classic . What author in the last 30 years . You have to put them. I am a little bit amazed, it is impossible to boil things down to 10. There are hundreds and the whole point is this 10 leads to another 10. He used to have at least a grasp of what what the book was, three respect pretense of democracy. Whitmans gift was free verse, and using your own song, everyone in the audience, you are your own poet. You do not have to rhyme, rhyming is a disciplinary thing. You can write what you feel and express yourself. Whitmans poetry through leaves of grass and the blues and jazz music which leads to rock n roll, Duke Ellington and Charlie Parker and miles davis and what jazz and spontaneity and discipline of being a great jazz player and how you can be an individual in jazz but you are playing with the community of players to get a result. These are our great gifts. I would say that the writer who matters the most in recent times, american rider toni morrison. You cannot be alive and not read tar baby or beloved and one of her novels. I have been rereading a book by David Foster Wallace called infinite jest. He committed suicide but it is a powerful novel where he was looking at american Popular Culture and television. About black humor as it is called dark humor. A lot going on with David Foster Wallace. He comes to mind. The real masters of in American History, as a professional historian i would be sliding so many historians but a team of rivals, i think it is one of the great books in history. The way very few people, if you know the library of america, beautiful books that have a black cover and a pantheon of Great American books. I see doris not ordinary times about franklin and eleanor and her book on linkedin, team of rivals, being sustainable, history nerd and classics, the tradition of barbara tuchman, the youngest of august and all of that. We dealing with high praise when you are getting into tuchman. You know, as the president ial historian, there had to be a question for this. The big book this year is Martin Luther king biography, doing king in such a deeply readable but scholarly precision. You can build him up at the same time you are leveling him and turning him into a human, and i signified figure. Hard to beat. What past u. S. President was the most voracious reader . You have to say jefferson if it is the library of congress and he donated his library to the foundation, i would put jefferson high, Theodore Roosevelt would be up all night long, he had insomnia and he would just pour through books. He wrote mike 150,000 letters. Like 150,000 letters. He read the origin of species, right when his father was grading the American Museum of natural history. We take for granted what i revolution a revolution darwin was. Teddy roosevelt spoke multiple languages and could read books in french or german and jefferson, that classic line of john f. Kennedys was at a dinner party at the white house that there were never that many brilliant people along the dinner table except when jefferson dined alone. [laughter] those two in my mind are the ones. Sometimes, a rider can help a person along. Writer can help a person along. He was living an expresident s life without a lot going on with the vietnam war and civil rights and there is truman out in his home. A filmmaker name earl miller came right before he died and interviewed him. He became plain speaking. In that book, he can hear a storyteller, not a writer, but trumans sense of storytelling is amazing. Like bill clintons ability to tell stories, different from the rioting. Writing. Putting americana together. Truman read deeply into American History but he was not a literary type person. I think we have to thank you cspan for selecting the list. We cannot wait to hear what other people are going to say. I am sure that there are things being typed in right now. People are saying he did not mention this . You have an opportunity. Is a Desert Island disc where you pick your thing. For leaving the rest of the universe out. Everybody is not does not have that. Bristol is on the list. You do something wrong, but i congratulate cspan for doing this and getting us talking about books and partnering with the library of congress and hopefully there are more events to come and with a list of 10 rose to 100. We have a gigantic book club. We all do it together. Thank you thank you so much. [applause] [indiscernible] weeknights, cspans 10 part series, books that shaped america. Explain key pieces of literature that have profound impact on our country. Tonight, we will feature common sense, a 47 page tablet written by thomas payne, presented by a professor from the university of maryland. Watch the presentation of books that shaped america, on cspan, or go to cspan. Org