Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book TV 20130309

The mass incarceration of poor people of color in the United States is tantamount to a new castelike system, one that shuttles our young people from decrepit, underfunded schools to brand new hightech prisons. It is a system that blocks poor people, overwhelmingly poor people of color, into a permanent second class status nearly as effectively as earlier systems of racial and social control once did. It is, in my view, the moral equivalent of jim crow. Get ready, booktvs first Online Book Club meets at the end of the month. Watch video of Michelle Alexander at booktv. Org and read the new jim crow. And then on tuesday, march 26th at 9 p. M. Eastern, join us live online at twitter and facebook with your questions and comments on the new jim crow. And now, karen elliot house provides an inside look at the history, culture and politics of saudi arabia which shes covered for 30 years. This is about an hour. Thank you very much, dr. Wilburn. Its a real pleasure to be here. I appreciate im honored by being invited to deliver this lecture. Dr. Wilburn graciously said my latest book. Ive got to confess, its my only book. [laughter] but i spent 30 years, as he said, going to saudi arabia mostly as a reporter or Foreign Editor talking to saudi officials about oil, iraq iran, arab israeli, so geopolitical issues. And when i retired from the journal in 2006, the one thing i was really interested in doing with my newfound time was trying to understand Saudi Society. How did saudis look at each other, what was the society like, how did they look at their rulers, how did they look at us. And as i speak about saudi arabia, everyone constantly asks me why did you do that, why did you spend five years month after month going there dressed in my long, black clothes . My editor asked me that, actually, when i turned in the manuscript. She said, you know, why did you do this . And i said because its interesting, and she said paris is interesting. [laughter] so why did you do this . You know, make me understand. That was her only editing point on the book. So i will try to make you understand why i found it both fascinating and important. Saudi arabia is probably the strangest country you will never see. It is so different from our own. A woman there never reaches the age of maturity. She is always under the control of some man. She cannot go to her sons school, she cannot even see her son graduate. She, obviously, doesnt drive. We all know that. She doesnt appear many in public without being covered. And, you know, in the worst situations she is simply chattel for a man to do as he wishes with. Thats not the norm, i hasten to add, but it does happen. Its a very religiouslydominated society in which men obey allah and women obey men. And allah is distant and men are at hand. It is probably less strange to me than it is to most visitors because of my own background. Like matthew here whos from a little up to a little town in alabama, im from a little town in texas. 900 people with four churches, one blinking stoplight and no Movie Theaters. So religion was what people did. Everyone went to church. And my father was far more conservative than the average person in the town. We were not permitted the to wear pants, shorts, no alcohol, no dancing, no Musical Instruments in our church of christ. So in lots of ways i was quite at home in saudi arabia. [laughter] i devoted my time to trying to figure this country out precisely because i think it is the one arab country that is truly strategic not only because it is the Worlds Largest exporter of oil which sustains the western way of life, but because saudi arabia, i am convinced, will be critical in the ultimate resolution of what is the proper islam which is going on now between the radical jihadists, if you will, and the more modernizing muslims. And that very battle also goes on inside saudi arabia. To try to understand the society, i knew that its like someone coming here to write a book about america. You wouldnt be able to go to washington and and claim to understand america. So i had to be confident that i could get outside of riyadh, their washington, and jeta, their new york. And i was permitted to over those five years. I went all over the country, and i saw all kinds of people, a lot of the royal family but also very poor people, men, women, young people, old people. And it was an advantage, frankly, to be a woman because you could talk to both men and women. A western woman in saudi arabia is basically an honorary man. So men are, most men are prepared to talk to you, even some of the senior religious officials who, of course, believe it is wrong to be in the presence of a woman whos not your relative. In the beginning i had a one month, oneentry cease ya. Then i got a three month visa, and then i was given a fiveyear multiple entry visa. And at that point i came and went as i chose. I did not have to deal with a government minder. I would use a cell phone and a hired car from the hotel and call friends and get them to pass me to other people. So my goal was not to prescribe what saudi arabia ought to be like, but to try to understand and describe, um, what it was like. So i want to talk today, first, about some ox vegases about saudi observations about Saudi Society and then, second, what those observations might portend about its stability or vulnerability and then, lastly, about scenarios that u. S. Policymakers which may someday include some of you in the audience might facement face. Saudi society, this probably should not have surprised me, but it did, um, it is much more diverse than we in the west think. There are people who live quite western lives inside their homes, and there are, obviously, people who seek to live a seventh century life. It is also much more divided than i realized and much more dependent on government, because most people work for the government. Um, the divisions are quite deep, so its not, in my view, really a country as much as it is a collection of tribes with a flag. And it is divided by region, by religious sect. The majority are sunni, but there are shia, sufis. Divided by gender, and people have a deep distrust of each other, so they dont really mix much outside of their family. So im going to show you my rergs of how i think version of how i think the society functions. This is a saudi, this little figure here who is inside a family, who is inside a tribe which is inside a country ruled by the religious establishment, and all of that is ruled by the royal family. And so its a quite constricted, if you will, society. The religious establishment legitimizes the rule of the el saud by giving them the Good Housekeeping prize for religiosity, otherwise theyd be just another tribe. But 250 years ago one of the el sauds met up with a wahab, and he wanted to conquer arabia for the one true god feeling that the area had strayed from the teaching of the prophet. And mohamed saud wanted to conquer it for himself. So together they did conquer arabia because it was of more productive to fight in the name of god than in the name of the el saud. And so that symbiotic relationship has existed ever since. Um, people live literally behind walls, so most peoples homes are surrounded by walls 10 or 12 feet high, and they live inside even higher walls figuratively. They are bound, if you will, by like a mummy in the bindings of tradition and religion so that theres a rigidity that keeps people from having much independence or individualism. But the internet and social media and satellite tv are penetrating those walls now in a big way. So that young people, 60 of the population of saudi arabia is under 20 years of age, so those young people have grown up without knowing an impoverished saudi arabia, only knowing a, if you will, a declining one. The development was dope in the 70s development was done in the 70s and 80s, and as the population has exploded, many of the services have actually deteriorated. So young people do not have a lot of gratitude to the royal family for what they did for them. They say why havent you done, why havent you done more. They are harding through these they are hearing through these media other versions of islam besides the wahabi version. So they are also learning to question as well as communicate which is a very new thing in saudi arabia. The country exists basically on three pillars of stability, and in my view all of those are cracking. Religion is, obviously, one of them. And in a Secular Society like our own, its almost impossible to imagine the omni presence of religion in sabia. Saudi arabia. Every University Like this, every shopping mall, ever airport has rows of prayer rugs with the direction of mecca properly pointed so that people pray in the break at the proper times during the day. They leave class, shopping malls close. Everyone goes to pray. And i went one day, one weekend which there would be thursday and friday with a saudi family. The participants had been educated in the the parents had been educated in the u. S. , and they took me on a picnic out in the december earth. Desert. And at the end of the evening, the family was praying the final prayer of the day, and i was sitting on a rug. And at the end of that, their 6yearold l son came to me, and he said i need to teach you something. And i said, sure. And he said do you know what to say when the angel of death comes . And he could tell i did not. [laughter] so he proceeded, and he said, he said who is your god . And you say allah. And then he says who is your prophet . And you say mohamed. What is your faith . And you say islam. What are your works . And you say i heard and i believed. And muslims apparently believe that this grave interview occurs immediately after youre buried. And if you have been a good muslim and properly answer these questions, youre born aloft and shown a window on heaven and then put back in your grave to await judgment day. And if you have not been a good muslim and cannot properly answer these questions, you are pulverized and put back together and pulverized and put back together for eternity until the judgment day. So this little boy who had learned this in school, not from his parents actually, wanted to save me that dreadful fate. I also lived to try to understand the very conservative religious mentality with a woman who, very conservative woman. She would have made my father look liberal. And she had translated for me at several dinners with an imams mother and sisters and wife. So i asked her if i could live with her for a week, and she said, yes. So behind the walls she opened the gate, and as we walked in she said thats where she lives, meaning the first wife with. And we went upstairs where this lady named lulu lived. And when her husband came up, as he did every 24 hours, i had to go and hide in my room because, obviously, he was not supposed to encounter a he knew i was there, but to encounter a woman who was not a relative. She had a tv, but they got only the religious channel which does not allow any women on, because the saudi state tv now does have women with their heads covered but their faces uncovered. And she regarded that as totally unproper. And im convinced that she allowed me to do this because she wanted to convert me. And she spent a lot of time. Actually, the first thing she made me do, he took out the family computer and dialed up a youtube video, six episodes, six 10minute episodes by a fundamentalist teacher in texas. She had dope her homework she had done her homework. [laughter] a fundamentalist teacher in texas who had converted to islam. When that didnt work, she called her brother over. I read the quran three times during this fiveyear period because it was great fun to discuss religion with people. But all of this new information that young people and old people if they choose have access to is eroding the credibility of the religious establishment which increasingly is seen by really religious people like her as doing the will of King Abdullah rather than the will of allah. And they point to things like mixing is wrong, and yet the king has built a big, new university called the King Abdullah university of science and technology which not only mixes saudi men and women, but mixes them with infidel men and women from all over the world. And when one of the 20 senior religious scholars was asked about the appropriateness of this on tv, he said its wrong, and the king fired him. Because the king appointments these 20 people. Appointments these 20 appoints these 20 people. And not surprising any many of the other senior [inaudible] began to discover that the prophet had had his hair washed by women and other things that made okay. So people see this, if you will, double standard. And it has undermined the credibility of the religious establishment, obviously, with the deeply religious but also with those who dont mind the mixing at all but just think its, if the king can get the religious to approve this, why cant he make them approve more things like women driving or or whatever . The second pillar of stability in the kingdom is, obviously, the oil wealth that buys throos acquiescence at least acquiescence b if not loyalty anymore for the government and royal family. 90 of the treasury in saudi arabia comes from oil wealth. Its a country that does not tax people because theres a saying there, you know, that here we have no taxation without representation and there its no representation without taxation. And the royal family doesnt tax, therefore, you dont get the representation. But oil wealth, obviously, funds the jobs of saudis, and most all saudis work for the government. 90 of the workers in the private sector are foreigners. So there are 19 roughly million saudis and 89 million foreigners in the kingdom. Because energy is subsidized and cheap, people waste it. And it has now become, again, a subject in the saudi press and discussed among saudis that whats going to happen if we continue to use more, and we have less to export, and its exports of oil that fund our lifestyle. Now, it is possible that the government will find a way to tell people were going to cut the subsidies, but in this arab, postarab spring environment theyre not inclined to take this things from people. And the country has 500 billion in foreign reserves, so its hardly broke. But there are saudi Financial Institutions who estimate that the Government Spending will exceed government revenues by 2014 because after the arab spring when King Abdullah came home from back surgery, he passed out 130 billion to the society on top of 180 billion annual budget. So more money for student stipends, more money to the religious establishment, more money to everyone and created a minimum wage for the first time for saudis. Obviously, not for foreigners. And lastly, is the royal family itself, the third pillar of stability which i think is weakening. The biggest interim issue in the internal issue in the kingdom, i think, is the aged and infirm leadership. This latest saudi state was declared in 1932 by abdullah saud, and when he died in 1953, the crown has passed from one of his first, to his eldest son and then from brother to half brother to half brother. So King Abdullah is the fifth of those boys. And the old man had 44 sons by 22 wives, and 36 of them live today adulthood. But they are all now rather elderly. The king is 90, and he has already outlived, in only seven years, two of his brothers as crown prince. Hes on his third crown prince. So its very reminiscence of the Old Soviet Union in the 90s when brezhnev, halfdead brezhnev died and was replaced by elderly andropov who died quickly and was remaced by elderly children yen coe who died quickly and was finally replaced by gorbachev, but by then it was too late to save the system. So as Ronald Reagan said at that time when there were basically three soviet leaders in a little over three years time, they keep dying on me. [laughter] and thats, thats what i think president obama and future american president s are going to be dealing with certainly here in the next four years. They have no ability to agree yet on the son of one of these brothers. Because the 36 branches each fear that if my son gets it, your son, your whole branch of is disend franchised disenfranchised because well pass it down in our branch because theres not i moon, it was easy to pass it from brother to brother, but how do you decide if youre going to pass it from cousin to cousin . Which cousin when there are hundreds of them . The king tried to get around that by having an Allegiance Council with one person from every branch of the family that would decide, but when his first crown prince died, that group apparently met, and one of the brothers said i should be the next crown prince, and the king said, no, im picking another brother. And that was the end of one man, one vote within the royal family. They never, they never had the vote. There was an expression and a decision. So young saudis do worry just normal, ordinary saudis about what will happen. Will these cousins, if you will, quarrel with each other when the time comes . Because there are three basic units in the kingdom; a defense ministry, a National Guard and a huge interior operation that watches people and guards the oil facilities. So a lot of saudis fear that somehow each of these is run by a prince, three cousins, that they will perhaps fight with each other which has happened in the past among the royal family. Its what brought down the second saudi state in the late 1880s. So if youre just a normal saudi, you talk about what is my plan b. And most people dont know what their plan b is. So theres a lot of nervousness, a lot of frustration. And because this is a country that has no experience whatsoever with selfgovernance or even individual responsibility or civil society, they dont most of them, a few talk about democracy, but most of of them simply want what they describe as justice and what hay say they mean they say they mean by that is a government that is more transparent, more accountable, more rule of law. Where there are clear rules, and they are enforced equally, not are not enforced which is often the case, but are enforced based on who you are. I think this brings me to the what could happen. Obviously, one scenario is a continuation of the status quo which i tend to think is the most likely, certainly in the short run, because the family i think, a, cant bring itself to agree on a younger leader yet and, b, even though many of them say there has to be change, they dont agree on what that change is. So, um, the status quo is the easiest thing. And the risk of of that, obviously, is further economic stagnation and stultify case and more unemployment. Unemployment among young saudi men 2024 is roughly 40 . And 40 of people live saudis, not foreigners, saudis live on less than a thousand dollars a month. So theyre not all rich. And, indeed, that wealth disparity is a source of anger among a lot of saudis. Another option is that the society, there is some younger prince who tries to open up a bit and revive the economy. The risk of that is it produces a backlash among the conservatives who dont want more change and openness and opportunity for women which they see as the road to ruin if youre like my friend lulu. And if you got a religious backlash, you could obviously have the, quote, modernizers, and that does not mean westernizers. Mod orizers. Modernizers react to that backlash. The third is getting a leader who decides that the way to control this is to revert to the excessive religiosity of the 80s and 90s after the attack on the mecca mosque in 1979. The saudi king, basically, turned the country over to the religious fundamentalists, and 20 years of that bred the terrorists that produced 9 11. So saudis understand that. But, and say that it couldnt happen again, but its hard to entirely rule out. The fourth option is, obviously, some kind of chaos that leads to collapse sparked by something, you know, in tunisia the young man burning himself to death. Saudis are very passive, but they also, young people at least, increasingly question why cant we have more, why do we, why does the royal family take more than their share . So it may be as the royal family likes to say and as many in the u. S. Government believe that the status quo will hold, that there have always been predictions about trouble with the royal family, and they always come through. I personally think it could be different this time simply because of the, um, external pressure in the region against the status quo. And because of the internal information and youth frustration and, lastly, because of the royal family is in this very difficult transition period. But i will close with my metaphor for the society which was, which i used in the book of a 747 flying with the cockpit full of geriatric princes, first class full of princes who would be king and and take over the cockpit, an economy full of frustrated young people, some islamic fundamentalists who want to turn the plane around and go back to the past and some islamic terrorists who want to shoot the pilot and hijack the plane. And it continues to fly on losing its oil wealth altitude and that there may be somebody on the plane who could land it, but they are, seem unlikely to get an opportunity. And with that id like to take your questions. [applause] there will be a speaker, a microphone on either aisle, so if youll just raise your hand, because of cnn we want to be sure you have the microphone in your hand when you start speaking and have it close, and were going to start with a student question. If you want to give a speech, maybe see me afterwards, well have you do that. [laughter] the lecture next year. But if you have a question, this is a good time for it. Hi, ms. House, thank you so much for today. My name is erin. Im a firstyear student in the grad school. You deliberately, intentionally went to saudi arabia to immerse yourself in the culture, something that not many of us will have an opportunity to do. My question for you is, what, if anything, is saudi arabia doing in the realm of Public Diplomacy to help westerners better understand them . Thats a good question; what, if anything, is saudi arabia doing in the realm of publicity proposal si. I think they are giving a few tourist visas, but not much. And i dont know, though it may exist, some kinds of student exchanges. I know the u. S. Brings saudi students here on these state department tours, and i met a young man there who actually had been very conservative who confessed to beating up his brother in the 80s for listening to music, and he came on a he was of a sharia law graduate, and he came on a legal tour of the u. S. , and it completely changed his mind. He said it was the first time i ever knew that a woman could have her head uncovered and not be a whore. I mean, they have so many misconceptions of us just as we do of them. My first dipper with that imam dinner with that imams family was or very, very tense. He had his mother, his wife and his six sisters, and, you know, they basically asked me do you ever see your mother. They had this idea that, you know, american women are Walking Around if not half dressed, in an office, you know, doing no telling what and paying no attention to their parents or children and, you know, were a familyoriented society. You know, over time i think they got past that, but im a big fan of exchanges in both directions. But i, i do not know how much their, what theyre doing to encourage people. I dont think they are doing a lot to encourage the average person to visit saudi arabia. Yes, sir. Now, from my impression the brand of islam practiced in saudi arabia is more conservative, actually, than that in a lot of in the rest of the muslim world. However, in a lot of ways they seem friendlier to the west, and maybe it has to do with the sale of oil and just the continued necessity of that to continue their revenue stream. Now, you spoke that saudi arabia basically started as a fusion between the saud family wanting to conquer arabia. The peninsula and the religious element, the wahhabiism also wanting the same thing but for different reasons. My question is does religion basically continue to be used by the modern saudi royal family to, and other elites, to continue to control the population in sort of a disingenuous way, or are they actually religious . Well that, obviously, depends on the individual saudi. But theres no question that religion is used to control the society. The official position and what is preached repeatedly by the religious establishment and it is the only organization in the country. Theres 70,000 mosques, and there are no other organizations. And the view of these religious people is that you must not cause chaos. So you must, if you want to challenge something, you must do it privately. Theres a whole islamic debate about whats the proper way to confront your leader. But in saudi arabia the fundamental view of the religious is you do not confront them publicly. So when usama bin laden said im a, you know, my islamic view, they hasten to point out hes not a religious scholar. But when he challenged the royal family in the 90s, he, his view was its okay to call, to call them out on not being properly religious. But its not the common view. So religion does put a, something of a straitjacket over people. The imam i mentioned whose wife and family i spent a lot of time with and with him, you know, he was very critical. But i, when i asked him is it okay to confront your rulers, even he said no. Because the big fear is of chaos, of causing a lack of harmony in the community of believers. The uma, as they call it, the community of believers and keeping harmony there is very important. So if theres not real harmony, at least theres pretend harmony. You dont publicly which is the reason why, you know, people can do all kinds of things in their homes from Drinking Alcohol to, you know, having dinner with women theyre not married to or other gatherings is that if its in private, it does not kiss result the harmony of disrupt the harmony of the community. If you do things in public that, if you will, flout the norm, thats whats bad. Yes, maam. I was wondering if [inaudible] i was just wondering about banking. You know, how wells fargo or b of a, how do they get their, the dicsome i mean, is it a regular bank that they all go to in saudi arabia, or do they have a lot of american banksesome. They have a lot of banks. Theres a dutch bank, a british bank, a french bank, a lot of saudi banks. Obviously, for the saudi spanks there is the saudi banks there is the need to purport to be sharia correct. So not to earn interest. And they have various ways, and the banks have sharia experts who tell them how to, how to do this, and its another thing the very religious find very inappropriate, that, um, youre not supposed to mix. It goes on, youre not supposed to earn interest, its going on. Youre not supposed to have infidels in the country, but the relishes establishment approved the presence of u. S. Troops in 1990 when it was necessary. Youre not supposed to have Movie Theaters, but on the kings New University Campus theres a mossing and a Movie Theater side by side. Theres also one at aramco, the oil company. But the religious are not permitted inside the aramco compound. Which is, obviously, acceptable because its aramco that funds not only the religious, but the entire country. And this is the thing that really eats at deeply religious people who would like to have a genuine islam back to the seventh century where we dont do these things, where the Prophet Muhammad ate out of a communal plate. We should be doing this. So its a, um, thedivide in the country, i think, does get bigger as King Abdullah has tried to do a few things; giving scholarships to nearly 140,000 saudis to study abroad including women, putting 30 women in this 150person [inaudible] which has no power other than the power of debate, but that is, again, for the really conservative a totally inappropriate thing, of to have women and even though theyre separated and covered, its not proper. So, in their minds. So as he does these things, their opposition grows. And as their opposition grows, you know, the modern is tried. So it is a tugofwar, and there is a, the fifth cay live after the death of muhammad, leader of the faithful, set up the califf in damascus, and he lasted for 20 years when the first four or, all but one, had been killed by somebody rather quickly. So he was asked how did you last so long, and he said concern b and this is whats perhapsed by the royal family now i hold a hair between me and my people. When they pull, i yield. When they yield, i pull. And that is exactly what happens in saudi arabia. When the pressure builds, the king passes out money or sends students abroad. If the pressure builds in the other direction, our people arent pulling, these things can roll back as they did in the, in the 80s. So, for instance, and then ill stop on this, but the king, they had elections for municipal governments in 2005, again, as part of the wash away the 9 11 stain in the rest of the world. And women, of course, were not permitted to vote, but there was supposed to be another election in 2009, and they were told they might be able to. When 2009 came, there was no election for anybody. And then in 2011 came after the arab spring, suddenly there was an election. For men, not women. But there was a need to be seen to give something, and so what had been promised but not given was then given. So thats largely how things work. As saudis say, some of them say two steps forward, one step back. Some say two steps backward and one step forward. But whichever view you take, its a small margin for maneuver. Yes, sir. Hi. Thank you very much, and my name is [inaudible] and im [inaudible] and i have a chance to went to saudi once. Uhhuh. And i [inaudible] and also people over there. And they are talking about restoration that you mentioned like the youth, theyre talking about the lot of, i mean, like a people surrounding the king uhhuh. Lots of programs of people surrounding the king and never, never talk about right. Its always someone elses fault. And any kingdom or any kind of a structure that country, you know, theyre taboo to talk about the king. But many cases people indirectly complain to the king instead of saying he is bad, but hes [inaudible] so from your observation, how would you think like, you know, king can be finish. [inaudible] of such kind of complaint or can be complained for the future . Im sorry, whats the question . Is question is, you know, king can be like a cushion to release the frustration, or king can be a target for the future. Uhhuh. So is he an absorber of frustration or a target for that frustration . I think youre right that whoever the king is people, even complainers, the worst that anybody will say at least to me about King Abdullah is hes surrounded by bad people who dont tell him whats going on, and hes an old man, and he he doesnt know, and they never criticize him directly or almost never. So the king, obviously, is somebody that is all powerful if he chooses to be, because whenever this king makes up his mind to do something, he does it like the university, or he there was a woman who was forcibly divorced from her husband by her brothers who insisted, the father had never given permission. Once the father died, they wanted the sr. The sister to divorce. She refused, once she was divorced, she refused to go home with her brothers, and she obviously couldnt go home with her husband, so she insisted on staying in jail which she did for four years. And the case got a lot of publicity and eventually the king involved himself to get a new judicial decision which allowed the couple to remarry. So he, he is very much above the fray. As for becoming a target, i think its likely to stay that way, that the royal family may be a target, if you will, of complaint. But there will probably continue to be, the people will continue to give the king personally a pass and expect him to get involved and absorb things. And the royal family clearly can read the press. Theres been a very big case of a religious man who beat his 5yearold to death, and i saw just before coming up here somebody sent me a story, the assuming its true, a story that the royal family has intervened to keep that man in prison for now. And not let him get out after four months. Because, you know, they can hear when people are upset about things, and because the king is basically all powerful when he chooses to use it, um, they can do what they wish. But, again, tethered to the religious and the need to retain their approval from the religious establishment. Because when the First Brother succeeded in 1953 and he and his Second Brother basically quarreled for ten years because the new king bankrupt the country, and in the end the family decided we ought to get rid of him and take king fasil. And the religious establishment was, in essence, called in to bless that. So i think a lot of royals, you know, realize you need to always be able to be in the good graces of the religious establishment. You might need them one day against each other, not just to help you with the people. We have to go, but i thank you all very much. [applause] booktv is on facebook. Like us to interact with booktv guests and viewers. Watch videos and get uptodate information op events. On events. Facebook. Com book tv. Youre watching booktv on cspan2. Heres our prime time lineup for tonight. Starting at 7 p. M. Eastern, retired Major General john borling talks about his time as prisoner of war followed by bob woodward who presents his most book, the price of politics. At 9 p. M. Eastern, Maurice Greenberg discusses the rise and fall of an insurance company, then our weekly after words program. This week ken stern discusses the future of charities with ken berger, ceo of charity navigator. We conclude at 11 p. M. Eastern with sarah erdreich. Visit booktv. Org for more on this weekends television schedule. Original peoples, navy seals, the alamo, our environment and journalism, panels and discussions from this years tucson festival of books live this weekend on booktv starting today at noon eastern with author timothy egan on the photography of edward curtis. At 4 30, Katherine Bower on what animals can teach us about health and healing. And tomorrow starting at 1 p. M. Eastern, Rajiv Chandrasekaran on afghanistan. Panels and authors from the tucson festival of books, part of booktv live this weekend on cspan2. Up next, historian and author larry schweikart. The university of dayton history professor talks about americas wars, the Founding Fathers and key events in u. S. History. The New York Times bestselling author has written, cowritten or edited more than 20 books including a patriots history of the United States, seven events that made america america, and a patriots history of the mold earn world. Host author larry schweikart, why do you use the term a patriots history in a series of your books . Guest it was a direct play on howard zinns peoples history. If he can say this is a history for the people, this is a history of the patriots. Who doesnt want to be a patriot . Host who are the patriots . Guest patriots are those who love america even with her faults, want to see her improve but stand beside her. Im always asked, you know, whos a patriot, and its easier to give an explanation of who isnt. Someone says i love my wife. Well, youre not wearing a wedding ring. Last two or three times i heard you, you were running her down in public. Every time i see you on television, you criticize her, but you still love your wife . Oh, yeah. Shes getting beat up out in the parking lot. Well, she probably deserves it. Thats whos not a patriot. Host in your most recent book you write whether through its products, its democratic processes or its selfconfidence, america remains the worlds sole exceptional nation which is to say it alone has a selfwritten narrative that explains why the u. S. Should not just could influence others. Why is america exceptional . Guest we get into this in the introduction, dave doherty and i. There are four factors that we argue make america an exceptional nation. First is common law. And the germans started common law, but it kind of fell out in germany sometime around 1100 a. D. It was absorbed by the british who have a common law system, and we absorbed it from them. The british are rapidly losing their common law system through the e. U. That means we are pretty much the only nation on earth who follows common law. Everybody else follows french civil law. Common law is the notion that god plants the law in the hearts of the people, that they know whats right and wrong and that they elect leaders as the germans did to enforce the law that everybody else already knows is right. Civil law kind of stems from divine right of kings which says that god plants the law in the heart of the ruler, and he dispenses it as he sees fit. And thats really where most of these states are. See, in common law a christian, mostly protestant religious tradition, i dont think too many people would argue with that. Private Property Rights but with titles and deeds. And this is key, this is brought out in a book by Hernando Desoto called the mystery of capital in which he argues that one of the missing things in much of what i used to call a third world was they have property, but they dont have written titles and deeds to the property that allow them to most of all leverage that to build businesses. I mean, when you go to start a business, one of the first things they say