who exactly were they speaking for? .. roosevelt did not want to antagonize the japanese. as roosevelt discovered, roosevelt was one of the strong advocates of annexation of the philippines. in 1898-1899 it seemed like a really good idea. what he did not appreciate was the american people were -- i might even say are -- essentially anti imperialists at heart. americans never, not from 1899 until 1946, never sufficiently garrisoned the philippines against potential attack. japan was the expansionist country in that part of the world so roosevelt by 1905 was describing the philippines, his term was our heel of achilles. it is all that gives us concern interrelationships with japan. it was an american colony but it was indefensible if the japanese made a concerted attack and the philippines which is why roosevelt had to deal very gently with the japanese and i'm not sure if there was another agreement. i don't know of a secret creek you might be talking about. >> i am curious about the current state of this country, manufacturing, outsourcing, robotics, and the american dream. weather young people going to do if they can't go to work, the deficit. what is your prognosis for the future? >> on or respond to that question in two way is. first are will say i describe this period of american industrialization we pursue emergence of modern capitalism. at described it began with the war. the period i talk about clothes as the war but that war becomes a regular feature of american life through the 20th-century and i would say -- you are free to disagree but i would say that america's economy, modern economy has never demonstrated an ability to thrive in the absence of high military spending. look at times when the united states was not spending a lot on the military, between world war 1 and world war ii and ten years and that is the great depression which is not a good indicator. in 1945 spending on the military has been consistently quite high. those american leaders responsible for the transition from world war ii to the piece that was supposed to follow gravely concerned. they knew perfectly well that it was the federal spending during wartime that pooled the country out of the depression and ask themselves what happens when we pull the plug on the federal spending. are we going to go back into a depression. they were seriously concerned and one of the measures they took to try to insure that not happen was embraced for the first time in a consistent serious way by the american government free trade because they hearkened back to the 1890s when there was a belief in foreign markets. lee atkinson in 1944, secretary of state for economic affairs. he went before congress and said we can't figure out to run the congress without access to foreign markets. this was primarily behind american decision in favor of free trade. hi am calling the modern golden age of the united states. the two decades from 1945 to 1965. i called as the golden age for two reason. one is for people of my generation -- i was born in 1953. folks who were running the country these days, these are the years of our childhood and there is this recurrent tendency of humans to look back to a golden age and if you quiz people, the golden age usually corresponds roughly with their childhood. when life was simpler. of course was life was simpler. you were 8 years old. if we could just get back to the way the country was in 1950 or 1960 them all would be well so part of it is this individual nostalgia. part of a also is the historically anomalous position of the united states during this period because in a fundamental way the united states was the only victor of world war ii. it was the only country that came out with a stronger economy than when it went in. america's principal industrial competitors were either gravely weakened like britain or absolutely demolished like germany and japan. so it was easy for the united states to embrace free trade. level the playing field. already leveled the capacity of our competitors and so for 20 years until the german and japanese economy in particular got back on their feet personal free trade worked to our benefit. and big companies like general motors could agree to big deals with the united autoworkers knowing there was no competition. if you were buying a car and the united states in 1955 was going to be a detroit built, are. so there was this period -- it was a golden age of the american political economy and it was a time when somebody could graduate high-school and go to work in a steel mill in pittsburgh with no more education than high school have a solid blue-collar middle-class existence because americans were competing only with themselves. and there is this belief that if somehow we could get back to that time whether you are supporter of organized labor or one breadwinner, whatever you are thinking of is not going to happen because it was this moment of historical anomaly. it wasn't by virtue or particular productive nest of the american economy. it was because the rest of the world was flat on its back and rest of the world was eventually going to come up. we point out organized labor. there were two decades in american history where industrial unions were strong and those of the two decades in this period. before the second world war industrial unions had a difficult time. they were engaged in strikes. had to deal with unfriendly courts. they could not make much of a dent. then there was the period from 45 to 65 because there was this unspoken bargain between big unions and big corporations because they could get good deals and corporations have capacity for their consumers because they had no choice but once consumers could start buying nissans and leos there was a police and the industrial unions, the deal breaks down so when americans complain about globalization it is partly globalization but partly the fact that the world of today is not a world of 1950 and it couldn't be, now it gets destroyed by world war ii. and now you want to have world war iii and do all over again. no one is recommending that. >> woodrow wilson's war that they're referring to is world war ii. and the faces of the book, had not woodrow wilson engineered congress to declare war on germany in 1917 the balance of power would have been what remained in europe and there wouldn't have been the rise of hitler in world war ii. to get your opinion and that. >> that is an interesting countercheck to will. i find counterfactual history to be interesting and instructive but for no more than six months or a year beyond when you diverge from what actually happened. because then it becomes degrading. you have no way of knowing what would have happened. a haven't heard of this argument in detail but one supposes then that if germany wins world war i without american intervention that there is no rise of hitler and nazi party -- maybe. . if hitler had been run over by an austrian streetcar things would have been different too. i don't know what to make of that. >> the secret understanding was america looking the other way when japan invaded korea, 1904 -- i am sorry? i don't know anything like that. >> the american secretary of war. >> there's a book written about that when this information was declassified. case of japan as westernized. that was a passive fire. you can invade korea. we will look the other way. >> to some extent that might well be true. roosevelt did consider japan at least until 1904 to be a force for progress and good in east asia but there was also a coldly pragmatic calculation. if japan is going to invade korea what is the united states going to do about it. most americans had no idea where career was and the thought that americans should go into battle for korea would have boggled anybody's mind. if this had been presented as a work ahead of time to conquer the philippines it would have gotten absolutely nowhere. the only way americans could accept this projection of american power beyond american shores, first time with the barbary wars in the nineteenth century. first time americans projected power beyond american shores is 1898 and partly because we could afford to and partly because it was only 90 miles from florida. of someone said we need to protect american power 9,000 miles across the -- everyone would serve said you needed have your head examine. even william mckinley had to get on a map to figure out whether the philippines were. remember when you heard of the invasion of grenada in 1983 and the first thing of the newscasters had to figure out was where in the world is. this was the reaction of americans to the news that, or do we have won the first battle of the war because everyone was looking towards cuba. the philippines are way over there. the basic american attitude toward east asia from 1895 -- the first sign a japanese war. when they take over china and win this is a surprise to a lot of people because it is really big. japan is a country we need to pay attention to. nothing more than a very briefly 89 b-1899 the state department issued the opened door note and this is simply a statement of america's hope that the imperial powers not carve up china to the exclusion of the united states and roosevelt's decision to try to mediate an end to the japanese war before the japanese that too strong, that was the basic and idea but that was as far as the united states would go. americans when deegan paid to garrison their own colony in the philippines which is what the united states gave it up. >> thank you so much. you describe work as fueling the american economy. and during the last few years with iraq and afghanistan we do not have work fuelling the american economy. it seems to me there are a few things going on here which indicates a paradigm shift. one, americans don't have skin in the game emotionally, and there is a lot of outsourcing of what would have in the past fuelled the american economy. could you speak to this paradigm shift and how you see it playing out? >> when the federal government spends money on anything there are cost and benefits. one united states spent a lot of money to fight world war ii i described this as a stimulus to the american economy but of course it was a bar when against american's future. and essentially it was we will pack the future generations to restore economic health today. i put it this way. the economic effect is as are described. when the united states fight the war in afghanistan and iraq it does the same thing. it borrows money to fuel this. there is an economic stimulus that comes from spending on the war in iraq and afghanistan. it is not as direct as was in the 1940's because much of it is spent in other countries and doesn't find its way back to the united states but there's another element probably more central and that is when the united states barrault's money today instead of borrowing money from future american generations the bar as money from foreign countries. if you are simply barring from future generations it is a debt we owe ourselves. one generation owes another but it gives no foreign country any particular leverage. or to put it another way by and large the interests of the creditors and debtors a line if there all-american. but if the creditors of the bank of japan and the bank of china and other sovereign will funds that it is unclear that the interests of the creditors a line that the interest with the debtor. when the united states ran these huge deficits during 1942--41-42-45, it was some concern to the financial reminded but it came at a moment when the united states was the world's largest creditor. everybody owed the united states money. when you are a creditor you have a freedom of action you don't have when you are a debtor. united states now is far and away largest debtor in world history which seriously constraints america's freedom of action because of the chinese decide they no longer want to hold american dollars, interest rates are going to skyrocket, the dollar will get weaker and people will have to figure out what we are going to do. the chinese are already making noises in that direction. they have so many dollars they won't oo for night but every time they talk about diversifying american money markets get very nervous as well they might. the biggest difference is in america's financial position with the rest of the world. when you know the rest of the world money you have to pay attention to what the rest of the world things. if you just so the money to yourselves you just go about your own business largely ignored what the rest of the world thinks. >> another factor in the wars of the late nineteenth century that the united states had an inferiority complex. many americans that there were still regarded by the europeans as a frontier country at the edges of civilization? >> very interesting question. manifestation of an interior accomplice. i'm going to answer yes and as a way of illustrating this i am going to remind you of something i said in the introduction. i said in -- i live in texas. one of the things i observed about texas, texas is a lot like the rest of the united states only more so and in one respect i am thinking of in particular. there is a lot of swagger in texas and a lot of people didn't like president george w. bush. this is the way he carries and self. he swaggered like a texan. i will go ahead and use the term. in the texas national character, there is a combination of this swagger but also a clause that inferiority complex in that the rest of the country thinks that texans are bumpkins wore cowboy is or something. and texans can't help but be influenced by this. part of it is great pride in being texan but also this sneaking suspicion that the rest of the country or world is not as impressed. i would contend this is something going on in the nineteenth century. i carry it to american foreign policy almost until today in some regard and that is there is the strong currents of american exceptional is some. this is the best country on earth either because god made us so or we made it so ourselves for something but at the same time there is an certainly was at least until the first world war, the first world war is a breaking point in some of this because european civilization essentially self-destructive and after that it is hard for europeans to take on any kind of a superior attitude toward america. theodore roosevelt was an anglophile and a lot of people he hung up with had this notion--woodrow wilson was a great admirer of the british parliamentary system and couldn't make sense of the american presidential system despite defected he became one of the more effective american president. you're absolutely right. if the europeans are out collecting colonies almost as though americans can't decide for themselves whether we should or shouldn't. maybe that sounds too harsh. maybe we don't want colonies' today but what if they are handy in the future? if we don't act now there won't be any possibility for colonies in the future so it is a safe bet. one last thing. this has to do with countries get the foreign policy they can afford. to some extent foreign and military policy is the equivalent of an insurance policy. 100 years ago -- you may have heard of the series of terrorist attacks on wall street during the years right after world war i. there was a series of bombings after another. there was a huge scare. there was a thought that many of these terrorists especially russian and anarchist's, didn't occur to anybody to think the united states ought to invade russia. if 9/11 had occurred hundred years earlier it wouldn't have occurred to anybody to invade afghanistan. certainly not to invade iraq. by the beginning of the twenty-first century the united states was so well the it could afford to take out an insurance policy. if you can attack al qaeda in afghanistan it makes it less likely al qaeda can attack us in the united states. nobody bothered to count the cost. somebody in the bush white house or the pentagon said this war -- of we go to iraq it will cost $100 billion. it cost a lot more than $100 billion but nobody wanted to hear it. there was no consideration in congress about it. i will be so bold tonight as to say we are close to the end of america's war is. there are going to be any more american wars. i will back down a little bit. i am fairly confident there will be no more wars like the korean war or the vietnam war or the gulf war or the war in bosnia or the war in iraq or the war in afghanistan because those are wars that were not forced in any way upon the united states. we can argue about afghanistan but we could have just bombed the al qaeda camps and come home. we have come to the end of those wars. it started with the war of 1898 and we came to the end because we have run out of money. in the twentieth century americans could have guns and butter. we can't have that. we have a hard time just having butter. one last thing. some people say social security is not going to survive. social security will become bankrupt so don't count on social security. those people are wrong. social security is the last federal programs standing. social security will be there after the pentagon has been vacated and least out to somebody else. why do i know this? every year -- every 36 months i get, you get a statement from the social security administration and what does it say? it says you have an account balance. here is your account balance at your name is right next to that and you start to think there actually is money some place in washington with my name on it. if somebody takes that away, i am really going to feel hard put upon. i don't get a statement of account from the pentagon. i don't get a statement of account from the department of energy. you can cut the pentagon and i will not feel as though you took something that is owed me. dms with my social security, i will feel the pain. you know why it is that way? not that there really is an account with my name on it. franklin roosevelt in 1935 deliberately designed it that way. let's make it look like an insurance policy and he said, quote, no politician can ever take this away. and he was right and effective. [applause] >> h.w. brands is the author of several books including the age of gold and the first american:the life and times of benjamin franklin which was a finalist for the pulitzer prize in biography. he is a history professor at the university of texas. for more information visit his website, h.w. brands.com. booktv is on twitter. follow as for regular updates on our programming and news on nonfiction books and authors. twitter.com/booktv. here are the best-selling nonfiction titles from amazon.com as of january 13th, 2010. rebecca salute uncovers a line of cells that led to several medical advancements in the immortal life of henry and at lax. in battle hymn of the tiger mother, amy credits a chinese mother for the stereotypical success of asian children. this is number 2 on the list. cleopatra for the kendall is third. fourth on the list is the come back. how innovation will record the american dream by gary shapiro. cleopatra makes the list again at number 5 in hard cover. cindy lambert tells of her experience as a planned parenthood leader in unplanned at 6:00. racing in the rain is the no. 7 and michael lewis's the big short is 8. both of these titles are 40 kindle. at number 9 is the nl a handbook for writers of research papers. completing a list is the warmth of other sons by isabel wilkerson. >> we are at the national press club talking to christine miller about what inspired you to write about president wilson's life? >> i have been writing about women and politics for the past 25 years and these two women were instrumental in the success of the wilson administration completely in a different way. ellen wilson got