a girl from austria. i said like, they restrooms-- a feminist issue again but the restrooms are looking so old like 150 years old. it was a huge very expensive complex. i was surprised, the lady next to me said, be glad at least they have a women's restroom. i said, what do you mean? she said i am at the all-new woman in the whole institute so they don't have a restroom for women. i used the men's restroom. i was like, okay. >> out of bounds here. thank you for sharing that. >> thank you for writing this book. i really feel, thank you. i am always thinking behind my mind there should be such a book i was thinking of writing one myself. i am a physicist and i know i can do if. >> thank you. .. those areas that we men congregate in, it is usually those areas of science that are not particularly hiring, don't pay that well. i don't know what came first, the chicken or the egg, was it feminized work and in bad paying or that some mize work but in computer science, there is its speed, it pays well, there are lots of resources pumped into it. i do think women will have to negative computer science but right now lots of men have flocked and they are getting first serving and i do think that women are going to come but it's going to take some time. >> i.t. that will conclude the questions. i want to remind all of you are invited to the reception at the feminist press in room -- >> 5406 paris the meckler julie will sign copies of her book. >> [inaudible] >> julie is a history professor at new york. she is the author women and the historical enterprise in america gender and race and politics of memory 18821945. for more information, visit baruch.cuny.edu. coming up next, book tv presents "after words," an hourlong program where we invite guest hosts to interview authors. this week former education secretary bill bennett discusses his new book, "a century turns new hope new fever." the book provides a historical look at it was politics and culture at the end of the 20th century and the start of a new millennium. the nationally syndicated radio talk-show host begins with a 1980 presidential election and takes the reader through 20 years of memorable defense and cultural changes. concluding with the election of barack obama. he discusses the turn-of-the-century with aspen institute president walter isaacson. >> host: hello. it's my pleasure to be here with bill bennett, an old friend, somebody who has written now one-third in a trilogy of history books. there were too great volumes you did on american history that ended in 1989, and now you're doing a slightly similar volume to continue to the president. is that how you see it, part of a trilogy? >> guest: it is part of which religion. the book is "a century turns," but is a third in the series, america's last best hope. the reason i was a little reluctant, you know you've written history books, this history is pretty close so i was worried about perspective, of its activity, but because america's last best hope are in the schools available when public schools, teachers like to believe they are going to get up to the present. i say that because usually they don't make it but they like to believe they are doing to get their students at the present. so they ask me. >> host: "america's last best hope" in some ways tried to in your mind right to the way we teach history a little bit from i think he felt it was what you might call leftist or biased or a bias that didn't really glorified the triumph of american exceptional listen; is that about right? >> guest: i would say this; the biggest problems i have with history books out there or not a local social studies books is the reporting and they put kids to sleep and this is very odd because as you know, books about history, american histories, historical figures sell very well. you've written a bunch of them. your fragment book is very good. david mccaul of's books always so, books of hamilton. so why we tell students with this stuff? this is our worst subject but we saw our major argument was they are boarding. but his sometimes usually to the left. >> host: give me some examples that you felt was wrong in the way that we have an american history. >> guest: i can't remember the book with the most famous example is when i was the secretary of education and that was in new orleans actually, it was in school we can across a sentence in the book that they reducing and talked about the puritans as englishmen who took longer trips in search of new places to live. they didn't want to put their religion part in because it would violate the first amendment. but other books, howard zinn wrote an enormously successful book and it's got great scholarship, but the people's history, the american republic is a book that means left and it's pretty explicit about it and says this is his perspective and point of view. you would be pretty depressed about america of the was the only book you read. >> host: you got your doctorate from the university of texas, philosophy actually. nowadays, texas is engaged in a bit of a struggle over new textbooks for history and how to teach six in history better. what do you think of the school board i guess it is the state school board trying to dictate new types of standards for our savitt status? >> guest: the debate is fine. it is larger than texas because texas sells so many textbooks. what happens echoes around the country. many of the debates are worthwhile. some of the stuff is silly. when you should do is teach the truth what happened, talk about the people who matter to american history and know you shouldn't be called the liberty bell or the alamo and when there are too important sides of the store you should tell you should tell the to important sides of the store. there is a kind of reductionism i find in a lot of the journalistic accounts of the debates that make them seem very simple-minded. i always before i enter into the debates particularly this one try to find out from the people what they actually said, and it's usually different from what's reported. this may come to a shock to people you would know this business but i think the states are fine. the education of our children. plato said the most important question is who gets to teach the children and what are we teaching. so have added. >> host: to me it's not only find its glorious when people are arguing how come woodrow wilson gets more than ronald reagan for example who was a better president. and arguing over what will wilson versus ronald reagan who shaped the republic more is great whichever side to come down on. >> guest: these are great debates. and now everyone in folks the founders of course, the left in folks founders. i just would like people to read the founders. all of the syndications read the federalist papers, they are worth reading. >> host: speak of invoking the founders they are invoked by those on religious sites of the argument. how do you see that debate? people are invoking the founders are saying we are a christian nation. that is in the texas and she was well. >> i don't think there is any question the people wrote these documents were riding out of the judeo-christian tradition. and if you read the federalist papers this is where all the references are. it's pretty hard to understand a phrase like we hold these truths to be self evident and all men are created equal in doubt by their creator. and certain inalienable rights. the key is i think to understand that although most of these men came from a certain perspective and religious background and the orientation, we established the first really sensible way of dealing with these issues and a large and open society, think of washington's letter in this country we shall all sit and none will be afraid. >> host: in fact even the sentence in the declaration of independence you cited there is a wonderful scene of the three great drafters of the declaration, franklin, adams and jefferson and jefferson's first draft said they are endowed with inalienable rights and it was adams and doud by the creator with certain inalienable rights, and then jefferson had held we hold these sacred and franklin held self-evident so they are doing a careful balance their 3g bostick balance where they make reference to a creator but not necessarily to a christian god or any particular god. >> guest:. but when i was reviewing the textbooks for preparation and to try to explain any reference to god, to christianity, the history of judeo-christian. i like the as they remember the great professor in princeton lawyer law background of american constitutional law. there's a great sentence in there he says religious liberties are the legacy of a animosity. these things were fought out in churches. >> host: the puritans became such great travelers fighting out in the trenches of the whole notion. >> guest: this is a great topic for the debate, a great topic for discussion in the classroom as well as before the supreme court the vibrancy and you know i am partial to america. the idea of american exceptional listened is that we have pretty much we have had our struggles but we have pretty much worked this out as well as in the country has. >> host: the way we worked out it seems is the founders gave to america one of the greatest gift that was on usual especially for the well-traveled puritan founders which was a good natured religious tolerance that even if you were the constantinople you would get to preach in philadelphia and in some ways these debates seemed to downplay this notion of tolerance and instead try to push a more religious view of america's founding or am i incorrect? >> guest: i don't see it. i hear the charge but i will see it. i spend a lot of time in the home-schooled community and in with a conservative community. i hear the claims of bigotry. i saw more bigotry myself when i was at harvard than i saw when i was in texas. i saw more intolerance toward southern christian young people than i saw people in the south being intolerant of people who had no faith or of your faith. it is more complicated now and i don't know if you want to get into this but it's more complicated now because of islam and because of 9/11 eight because frankly it is harder -- it is harder to support the notion of an islamic faith and islamic religion which will condemn these acts of violence when we see such few professions by islamic leaders and spokesmen on this issue. i still think it is the case americans are enormously tolerant but they are worried about this business and i think they are right to be worried about it. >> host: but the struggle we are engaged in the world today particularly mauney 11 opened our eyes to the struggle was against the fanaticism and jihadists some of intolerance of islam an in favor of the notion that all people should be tolerant of different views and that is the basic divide in the world today between those who believe and pluralistic societies and those who believe in imposing their own the mortalities. >> guest: sure but i don't know a lot of christians and they are the object of criticism here from both left who want to impose their religion in america. in the schools and elsewhere. i do know because we can go to the looming how were any number of great books and see this as part and parcel of wahhabi islam and the problem is it may not be the majority view of muslims but it seems to be the one with the energy and passion when someone in my church, and a catholic, shoots someone had an abortion clinic we condemn it and the church condemns it and the pope condemned it and that is absolutely right. what we have the same thing in a consistent way in islam? >> host: the struggle we are fighting terrorism and jihad, you in this new book talk about its starting with 9/11 and help bush gets involved in the struggle. do you think it became partisan after 9/11 or was there a period and which it was a community on that issue? >> guest: i don't think this question about it, the country was together. back to this earlier point there was a worry that americans would turn against muslims and that there would be terrible act of retribution. nothing like this happened or if they did they were very isolated. there is a restaurant not far from here from buy out in virginia run by a muslim and apparently two weeks after 9/11 this guy couldn't get anybody in. it was packed. people wanted to show their support, typical of americans. remember the president, president bush, went to the national cathedral and the mosque and some people criticize. but this is the american response to embrace rather than condemn. there was unity but then it broke apart largely because iraq, and that was the cause of the crisis and the disagreement. but i also think the closure on that we are getting now is encouraging some people and maybe for getting what they said earlier but there does seem to be a consensus that we have worked through and people because things may be working out, still fingers crossed, it's not being done but that is what it was. >> host: you have to deal with iraq in this book and to do it very well. how do you think history is going to look back on the decision to react to the 9/11 attacks by in defeating iraq? >> guest: great question. 64,000-dollar question. ryan crocker, who is a hour ambassador, said the other day a lot of criticisms about going in there whether we should have gone in there. how we went in there. he said we can discuss and debate that but what matters most of all is how we left it and what we left. i think that will probably be the determinant of how we see what we did. and if indeed a democracy is established there, one that can sustain itself, i think it will be a double plus, double thumbs-up. that will be the result. you know, joe biden the other day, not my team, not my party but july and the other day said it looks very good, it looks promising and we can take some private as long is it is inclusive of a larger group i think i could agree with that. remember, too, and i try to point this out in the book, that there was a lot of unity in the decision. there was an awful lot of support as candidate obama kept reminding hillary clinton she was for this, john kerry was for this kochi rockefeller was for this, some people operate in of the same assumptions and what they thought were the facts on the ground all very much took the same position. few exceptions. >> host: one problem i have looking back at american history and we are doing now is not with our struggle against the jihadists jihadism and the struggles of afghanistan. it is getting too close to the nation building and occupying other territories can be problematic and i say that with reference to american history because it is in our dna, if our forgotten amendments in some ways which is we don't like ordering troops in our homes by foreign governments. that notion that we are not quick to help ourselves in the world by getting too much involved in occupations overseas. do you worry about that? >> guest: i do worry about it and i was i think a fair minded in the book. i hope i am even handed. i was a little more wary about the second inaugural of george w. bush, when he talked about this nation building and that our task is democracy everywhere. when i fought in fact the priority should stay where it was which is this global war against the islamist terror, let's take care of that first the task isn't necessarily to established democracies in the countries but to make sure they get tax again. and yet there is that worry. at the same time i think it is in our dna and it is in our national interest because democracies tend not to declare war against others, they tend not to do that to other free countries but again i think how this comes out in the end will determine we shall see. >> host: your book is sort of book ended i should say with the bush administration, george bush the elder and younger. and in my mind, they had the most divergent philosophies of foreign policy. george bush elder being very much the realist who after you object iraq from kuwait during that war sees no reason to try to nation building iraq, no reason to go to baghdad and a very, very carefully choreographed the end of the cold war. i think you quote him as saying to his press secretary there will be no dancing on the berlin wall and other words we are not going to be triumphant and so the rate. we are going to be careful, cautious and realistic. the younger george bush seems to be much more of an idealist, come somebody who wants to promote democracy and the tension between realism and idealism both of which your honor will strands of american foreign policy seems i noticed in this book this contrast between the two george bush's. >> guest: certainly different styles and approaches. i had the opportunity as i sit in the book to be in the oval office with both of them. i worked for the first president bush as a drug czar but visited as a journalist radio talk-show host with the other president bush. they are stylistic differences and of course there was a very different reaction to what happened in iraq than what happened in the first gulf war. he had more difficult issues to deal with, w, than hw. there was an to salute the democracy in the middle east if this holds. i.t. gets great. i remember during the purple from campaign it was hard not to get excited about that. the other thing is quite apart from our dna there was the "washington post" and "new york times" the other day the interview somebody living under a tarp in haiti at the said what's the solution and he said the solution is the united states to take over. thank you. in a lot of ways people know that that if you are in desperate circumstances what is the one country you would like to deliver you that you know likely doesn't have any ulterior purpose to help you is most likely the united states. >> host: speaking of the elder george bush, a chill you bush -- h. w. bush, he was in my mind one of the best and underrated foreign policy presidents we have with it was how she handled cautiously and successfully the demise of the soviet union, the end of the cold war, the fall on the berlin wall or likewise how he handled the middle east, the persian gulf and kuwait. tell me a little bit about george h. w. bush the person and his philosophy of foreign policy. >> guest: the person first, a guy i believe if people saw him in private as i did often would have thought much better of him. this guy got dana carvey, you know the guy on saturday night live to imitate him in public but in private he was naturally eloquent. i told the story in portland oregon we were out there to dedicated police memorial and we were going to job. he used to jog with me and very generously he would slow down. >> host: i've read particular in a hotel room and he wants to go jogging with you and with all due respect, built i didn't think of you as the type of jogger -- >> guest: you know why climate mountains in colorado. no, he slowed down and we ran in houston and when we finished the press corps said howard is the drug war going and he saw that i was out of breath. he took the first question until i got my breath. that is a good president. but back to portland. we were going to do this for ron and the was a demonstration outside somebody was burning the flag and he said that's the one thing that makes my blood boil i cannot bear that. i guess there's a constitutional protection for this. but he said i just can't bear it and i thought if people could hear that they would see this isn't a tongue tied got a lot of the media accused is about. the nicest most generous boss i think i ever had, you didn't have the distance with him. with ronald reagan who my revered and i served both ronald reagan there was nancy, the inner circle and the world. >> host: maybe because it covered both of them