Well, thank you very much. First of all, the apologies. A slightly weird to be writing a book called the menu United States during its time when given that reason struggles and washington is seems more disunited and it has been prolonged a long time. Icons, a very short trip of music at the end. I just hope that there will be no telephones during his presentation. Otherwise i will feel like it was altered the had to answer actually addressing a huge political concept. So lets hope that does not happen. What i want to try and do tonight is to tell you a bit more of the background of this book which is a big sort of plum pudding of an affair. Once i tell you how it all come into being, plums from the putting. The background, quite a complex story. You might be able to tell english. I fell in love with this country quite literally when i first arrived here in 1962. Hitchhiking. I basically met at a science fair in london, the delegates, and met a young canadian women, 16. We met at the hospital. And i had taken a year off between highschool going to oxford. I would visitor. So i worked, you know, oddly enough in north london. Oftentimes. To earn enough money to go and see her. I arrived in montreal in the early 1952. And then after a little while there was this huge continent beyond. So my parents dismayed when they learned about it, hitchhiking to vancouver. Not a very long time, people were very nice. Some dispatch. And then i decided to go and have a look at america. Been fascinated by any english child, the cisco kid and champion and all of those kinds of programs. So i entered the United States. The time of blame in washington state. The first time i remember seeing , the incident as its i looked bewildered. Stopped and picked me up. So would you like to come to seattle. That was the beginning of a series of unbelievable things which i visited every single state in the union, well, at least a lie, everyone in the continental u. S. I traveled i think it was about 38,000 miles. And everyone, without exception was kind inhospitable and generous. I mean, i remember one occasion to south of san francisco. I was trying to get a ride. Good southdown to los angeles, could not get a ride. All night, left standing there. About five in the morning, police car stopped and said, was i having trouble. No problem. Dont worry. Alicante. He invited me to the squad car and took me out to the police station. The Staff Sergeant and took my fingerprints. Why not read these charming little metal bracelets. He didnt. And then he took me on his family. Had a shower, breakfast. He took me in his squad car to a truck stop and ordered in a team with a driver to take me down. And then probably the same day the next guy was a chap who worked for Nbc Television in burbank. The film industry. It took me to see the filming of to me john frank and hammer, the director. I got to meet lancaster. And in the next day i had coffee with johnny carson. Unbelievable really. It just went on and on, this kind. I entered with 200 american dollar bills. And then a nice letter i had 182 of them left. So the entire trip that cost 18. The following year and went back that was more drilling. Was not at oxford. I was quite a complete quite a keen climber. And much the same thing happened hitchhiking. They picked me up for a different series of reasons. I had a union katzenbach of my website. This was the year i doubt the audience will remember this, the scandal. People would decrease to a halt when a summer union jacket and say, did i know Christine Keeler personally. And i ever met mandy. And then we had the great train robbery. Of course there was robert trade. Of course i knew nothing of this. Also, on the poignant side of things, the opening of a lock on the st. Lawrence seaway. Pushed toward. And so you can imagine quite a few months later he was assassinated. Poignant. So my love affair with this country is based on solid foundation. But then i did not come back for quite a while. I went off and became head geologists when i graduated, i practiced geology. And a series of reasons which are not relevant, sadly, i ended up not as a geologist but as a journalist. Enjoins the guardian i was in ireland for three years. The difficult beginning, the troubles. And i think essentially, i revised the reward. The paper then sent me to washington. I came back professionally to the United States. Of course in 1972 this story, i was mostly back in washington at this time. The committee. And then within the white house tonight, however, was occasionally at least in the lab to god look. And sometimes that someone backed by backfired the dates that general ford pardoned Richard Nixon. In washington. Idaho covering evil can evil intent to jump over the canyon. And when i found in to the foreign desk with the story they said, well, scandalous not in washington. The business web. Have the decency to kill himself which would have been on the front page. Now youre buried on page 13. He should have been covering Richard Nixon the that was it. So my fascination had now moved from adulation to professional fascination. Addis i now read a book about america. And so i had this idea. Much as you here in chicago, the sympathize group. I was persuaded the essence of america is liquidity lane not on the east coast of the west coast , but in the midwest. So i took six months off and drove up and down and up and down 35 which goes down to the middle of the country to laredo and texas. I wrote a book which was called american crisis, published in the bicentennial era, 1976. And well, i had already written a book and Northern Ireland a to done relatively well. The dow was infected with this american hubris of youth thinking of this is going to be a success. When i get the root of the statement in 1977 it showed the book has sold precisely 12 copies. So it was not a commercial triumph by any manner of means. Few years deal i spoke with an author who wrote a cheering letter said that he initially thought it not a bad book and had bought a copy recently thereby bringing my total sales up to 13. [laughter] so not exactly a moneymaker. Anyway, then i sort of getting back into journalism, realizing this was not the way that i was going to and living. I went off to various places. India for three years. Back in london briefly. And i was sent up for a long stand, 12, 13 years to china. And then 1997 and went to hong kong, converted to chinese rules. Then had one of those, was i going to go visit london and establish myself there, or go to the art. And that decided it was not a foot of the coin. It was a deliberate thought, that i would actually get to new york for all sorts of reasons. In my career might take off a little bit more enthusiastically so i settled down in new york. After a few years, realizing that was not paying taxes in america and using the old mantra no taxation without representation, i thought that i should get our try and get american citizenship. So i applied for small for a green card which it did not kid. And you have to wait five years once you get a green card. Applying for citizenship. And i finally did that in 27 2011. I was called to my interview there. There are things, into a bride in english. Want to make sure you complete. But they turned general knowledge questions about america, the first of which i managed to screw up rarely did he simply wanted to know. And without thinking had plated of america the beautiful and the Immigration Officer said it will she was not what it is which is the star spangled banner, but im afraid thats one wrong. Youve only got nine more chances. A distinct possibility vimy denied permission. And then was one man. Complicated story helicon about. They have not talked to people to take the oath on the after deck of the u. S. S. Constitution which is this wonderful sailing vessel, the oldest commission water should actually in the world. Nelsons victory. But this one does. So the of was performed on Independence Day 2011 during a hot day. It was just magical an incredibly moving paid have to say. Ive never seen an immigration ceremony, all people who suddenly were free to do with their waste. And they can vote. They had no fear of arrest. All of it. It was wonderful. The judges on the end was as remarkable woman who has now become a great personal friend. I have lunch with her. She is called marion bolar. She was the judge at the moment in charge of the boston america to the Boston Marathon bombing case. When that yemen will cut she was there by his bedside in system essentially, your way, do you know where you are, what is your name, where you live . Is to amend here is the prosecuting attorney. There any great deal of trouble. But shes a very interesting and wonderful one. Toby one of the eastern very things she said is, you would be surprised how many immigrants as wherein, about 100 per year. Four and a half years that she appeared before for a half years later appeared to me in court in trouble. Why . They give you this trouble. I got my Voter Registration card. Then i got my passport. Travel over. I gather then about a week. No one to say, very moved, but when i returned back and and my passport to the Immigration Office with a small, welcome home. It was a great feeling to feel i was part of this extraordinary country. Become so fond of it. And that they get that moment and decided that i would like to have another go of writing a book. The first attempted fail so dramatically. I could write another book. The lesson i learned a simply that it should not be in any way should perform like a book published in 1976. But then came the vision of what should i write about. This huge country cannot beloved complexities. The first, and i put all of these ideas and you have to write a proposal. As it turns out. One of want to write it in this way. The first was simply that i should write something to this country until the story in some detail why had fallen in love with the story in such a dramatic way. I knew that was not a very good idea at all. Some detrimental. And then because i love real rate twains i realize that it is possible to cross the entire United States on class three frame rail lines. Go all the way from east board in maine to a little town in far northern california. And then i got a readymade title for the book which was 545 to paradise. The reason for that was back in the i think it was the late 70s and early 80s, i had been looking up i think it was at the time, paris texas. I was looking up where paris texas was in the atlas. I noticed a column 18 it turn out, all called paradise. I thought it was pretty fascinating. Eighteen cities called paradise. Why were they called paradise . Or they still paribas . So i rang and editor in london at a time when english magazines and newspaper editors spend money like drunken sailors. I said, cannot possibly gun visit. No, no problem at all. So the kind that you would never get today. I said well, the first one was out of florida which was a retirement community. Moran gave way. And then well, one hopes. And then there was paradise pennsylvania which was just down the road from intercourse pennsylvania which excessively bloody. It was paradise arkansas and paradise montana. All had been ruled in one aspect, except one which was in her northwestern kansas. And therefore knew the Geographical Center of the continental u. S. So i went there. What turned out to be routine, i went to the post office. The postmaster and a said, im writing a piece about all the towns called paradise. She said to wallow, here in this old town of about two under and 50 people you have to stay with the patriarchs. In the village there called john and mary angel. So i stayed with the ages of paradise. Mary angel rising to the occasion went to the bottom of the guard and baked me a cherry pie. Quite honestly if anything appeals to my love for this country this eating cherry pie in paradise and as it happened there was a Union Pacific train which would leave in the morning from paris and then come back at about 40 in the afternoon. The house twice had been shopping in the market would get back to the farms in time to cook dinner for their husbands, people who worked on the farm. I was trained 545. Title to the book was trained 545 the paradise. Well, that did not wash. He said, no, that want to sound to people like trains, not america. Add to write another proposal. And this was even more juvenile. It was a series of books, very successful in britain, the anatomy of bread. I thought, might not i write the anatomy of america, this basic structure of grays anatomy, the television, but the book, which is, i think my published in 1886. So, yes, it was organized, brain, nervous system, cardiovascular system. I thought, this could work. The universitys, the creation system, the mayors, the highways, the arteries. The skeleton, all the bridge work in the skin. They did not like that. Have was really stumped until one day a couple of years ago i was just looking. Ive got to write a book about this country. The United States of america, the word united. How come american managed to keep itself with the exception, of course, the miserable years in the 1860s, keep its of united . No other and larger entity on the planet has managed to keep itself united in any to the coherent way. Russia as an example, the soviet union the dissolved into a dozen little. Canada, wonderful, though it is, there is a great disgruntled jump in the middle of it. Im afraid as i get closer to the border the audiences will get more restless. I think i will tell on that bit down. But i mean, where i come from, we have tried desperately ever since the end of the Second World War to unify. Not fully manifested. The dont use the euro. You try and plug in your shaver in stockholm video plug for the one you use in madrid. They speak different languages. They cleared each other. So that has not achieved unity, but this place, such a mongrel nation full of every color and creed and persuasion, race, linguistic background, all crammed into a country. Yet this jewish person in new york, patinas, a fisherman in oregon, they can all feel some sort of mystical feeling that they are all americans. How did this happen . Well, you know, it is possible to say that abstract things like language, common language toward giamatti ton chiller free of human rights has helped this unity, but my thoughts are that actually the physical agencies, the real things. It is easier enough if your of the same, region. B. A. In more or less the same manner. My wife is japanese. Very easy for japan to unite itself. America, much more difficult. I cannot put this idea that inventions in creations in a diaz, the physical union or actually but familiar in this country. In know, the people than i could think of, they helped weld this country into one nation and kept it. And this list and longer and longer. First of all, familiar people like jefferson and those 00 and so forth, but then a lot more very obscure people. And i mentioned it to my wife one day. She said, youre creating a list of the man who you had to United States. I said, my god, that is the title. Elected up on the amazon and of the various book catalogs i could find. No one is ever used the title. Such an obvious title it also is the title betty essentially gives me into a lot of trouble. I find a very good way of bringing yourself to enter for taking this of town a bigger to is to look and amazon one star reviews. One star reviews, when they say, this is the most boring book and never read in my life. There is 11 star review at the moment from a woman he says, i am an unabashed militant feminist and and so appalled by the fact is called the men who united the rates. So i get no one star of you without even being read. But her view is one that i anticipated. Why is it all made . The fact is, the reality is that in the physical United States of america it has been the business, almost entirely, man. Theres only one woman who appears in the story, and that is sacajawea analysts in kaj saga. Otherwise im afraid to say women play and sillery rules. In other an Important Role and other aspects of america, but not in the physical union of the nation. So it is in establishing this list, i think again about 100 people and it, which may be 75i had never heard of. I was convinced that it played an important part. In you come to the part, how do you organize it. And that, i once taught at the university of chicago for a semester, the university of california system created nonfiction writers. And analysts thought there were three key elements to the writing of a book, nonfiction. One is the idea. The idea, you have to have a terrific idea to write a book. The writing has to be good. It is not the second most important thing. The second most important thing is the structure of the book. You can might lyrically about a wonderful idea, but if the structures of the amount theyre going to lose the peoples attention. So how do you look at the versus a 100 people who played such an Important Role in the story of the netting of america, how you organize it in a way that will make it readable . Well, you can organize it alphabetically. But that would simply be an encyclopedic book that would not be an all interesting. You could organize them chronologically, but i would argue it just does not work. So i was puzzled and monday i was writing a letter to a friend of mine in shanghai. In china for quite a long while. As of their members that in nearly all eastern philosophe the systems there are what is called the classical element which underpins almost all aspects of life. Everywhere from india, once you give in to china, and china, korea, japan, nearly all of them have some variation, but essentially it is fine classical elements which underpin every aspect of their lives. In those five elements are would, if, water, fire, and metal. In that fund to get my work that i could corral of these people and their achievements into these headings of these five classical elements. And so i started, first of all, china. I thought, well, how about would be a rethink of lewis and clark, Thomas Jefferson sitting on the terrace in monticello. Heres a man possessed with trees. Your to monticello, so many of you have and you look at the gardens, theyre dominated by trees that he planted because he regarded them, he love sitting and and, to look at them, the simple majesty of the. So he im sure you know the story to me was si