Books including her most recent, a biography of James Madison. It just was from a different angle and it just seemed to me inappropriate and confusing to put out a book setting forth my ideas. It was such a hot topic for president bush, so i started writing a Childrens Book and that was an amazing and gratifying thing to do. I love those books till today. Host you are a history buff. Is that fair to say . Guest yes i am. Host you in your book, telling the truth which came out in the late 90s you wrote is sometimes said that a negative slant to what we are teaching now is overreaction to the two positive slant of the past and it is true that in the past we sometimes present a laboratory in our schools. Guest we did theres no question about it but i do think the reaction to that has been extreme. Sometimes i think our young people, our children dont learn about the greatness of this country, dont learn about what makes us exceptional. Host the beginning of telling the truth you are chairman of the National Endowment for the humanities. Guest yes, so i have gone very great siege of moral relativism. Host what was the moral relativism . Guest basically relativism, theres nothing like right, theres nothing wrong, theres nothing true, theres nothing false, theres just a narrative so that was the point of the title of my book that there is truth and we are obliged to get as close to it as we can get. Host here is the opening to telling the truth. As one witness reported and seen recalls the daily George Orwells 1984 when citizens are required to rise and pictures of a man known only as goldstein the great enemy of the state and i was goldstein. One of the enemies whose very name evokes tears from the assembly. What happened and where were you . Guest i dont remember that the scene was any the scene was anything particular but i did as a conservative chairman of an agency that is closely connected to the academic leader find that my name is used in that way and every member also that im an m did it. Actually i felt quite cool. I had children and grandchildren and i had no idea. It was a sort of outrage and it sort of amazing to think an outrage that i believe there was such a thing as truth and whether i believe there was such a thing as right or wrong. Im not sure how that has all played out over the years. Im not so closely connected to it now as i was then but i found it outrageous. Host what in your view was not being taught in college in classes that were taught when you were in school . Guest well the good side of the story. As im free to admit and i freely admit ill make up the good side of the story growing up and it was when i went to college and afterwards and i began to understand that this country is made many mistakes, that we have not been always perfect but what i think we dont tell her children is that we have come closer to perfection than any other nation on the face of the earth, that we have saved more peoples lives than any other nation, that we have been a voice for good and it felt to me as though that was entirely being left out of the narrative. Host when did you start reading and when did you start writing . Guest well i suppose just before i got into school as a 5yearold, writing. I do remember learning to love to write while i was still in grade school but he didnt start writing books until i got a job as a ph. D. I have a ph. D. In english and that was when the glut started. I think it was 1970 that i got my ph. D. And i think there were 30,000 ph. D. S and maybe five jobs. Im exaggerating. It was very difficult and those were the days when it was a great disadvantage to be female. I remember interviewing at one English Department, actually it was at George Mason University and the chairman of English Department asked me, he said. Cheney are you married or are you really interested in a job . That might have actually been illegal then but there was no observer to take people to account for such amazing statements and questions. Host and your husband was a congressman at that point . Guest either a congressman or aid. I think he was an aide to Donald Rumsfeld at that point. Host in there one on two chief of staff so you stayed here in washington. Guest writing until president ford lost the election in 1976 and then we went back home. Host what was your goal after you got your ph. D. In english . Guest to teach, to teach 19th century literature. I love the romantic period. Host in blue skies no fences you talk about discovering at your local library in casper ulysses. Guest yes indeed. What a shocking thing. I was making my way through the fiction section in the library being very very systematic and starting at the as and it didnt take me long to get to the j. s and there was james ulysses. Wow ive never heard of a book like that. I dont think my parents would have picked it up and read it from beginning to end. Host what was so shocking to you . Guest the words. We didnt use those words in polite company. Now i think we unfortunately overuse those words but it was the vocabulary. Host in your view is ulysses a masterpiece . Guest no, i dont think so. I dont regard it as a great classic rate i have my own favorites. Host such as . Guest i think jane austen is a classic, great poetry john keetons poetry is a great classic. 20th century writers are fine but i still think to get yourself declared a classic you have to hang around for a while to see if the work indoors. Host from your newest book James Madison of bestseller you write its a promising time to clear way misconceptions about madison. Brush off cobwebs that have accumulated around his achievements, take a deeper understanding of the man who did more than any other to establish the nation we know. Guest i think its true. Host what are the misconceptions . Guest the misconception was that he was shy and sickly. Those words appear time and again when people write about madison and it seems to me that you couldnt be fundamental fully shy and accomplish what he did in the public arena nor could you be sickly. Sickly implies you are never well and as i began to look at his career there were indeed times when he was sick, times when he was out of action for three or four days but the rest of the time he was taking these amazing trips, thousand mile trips across the country with jefferson and monroe as well. The energy that it took just to travel from his home in montpellier to philadelphia for the congress and then he was the main impetus behind the constitution. He spoke at that convention almost more than anyone else. I think Gouverneur Morris spoke more times than he at the Constitutional Convention and he kept going. The federalist papers papers and the bill of rights he wrote 22 federalist papers and 40 days. He would say to college audiences you could do that. I could write 20 essays and 40 days. They wouldnt stand the test of time. They wouldnt be brilliant but he was brilliant and i like to think his energy and his brilliance of, i think he was rest reticent but brilliant energy. Host where was he born . Guest well he was born in virginia. I believe it was in the westmoreland county, not where he grew up which was in orange county. His father, all of his ancestors came from england and they came to virginia and they were essentially farmers. Thats what they call themselves even though we like not to say plantations. They didnt think that grandly. His father was a farmer and his mother was a perfectly nice person but it was his grandmother really who influenced his life i think as much as any. Host how so . Guest he or dash sheet ordered a spectator for him. I do think he was a book loving boy from the beginning but one of the things she ordered for him was the spec tater and you really cant see the influence and the spectator in his life. There is a lot of wisdom there. I think it also opened his eyes to urban life and if you are living on a virginia plantation on a farm you have no idea what cities are like create you have no idea what the theater is like or bookstores or coffee shops and i think very young boy and a young man living in virginia that would have been an amazing world that was opening up. Host how did he become James Madison . Guest well through a lot of hard work. His father decided it was just too much scandal going on at william and mary. People were drinking and playing cards and living riotously and he wanted james to go somewhere else. Princeton was the choice. Its also true that they felt princeton was a healthier climate, really about whether, not just about the world climate. It was also cheaper. James madison, a client was very tight with the dollar. He went to princeton and finished and i think it was two and a half years because he was able to skip his freshman year, his latin and greek were so proficient. But then the effort in trying to do the last two years and one year led to a collapse of some kind and its my belief that it was one of the first manifestations of his epilepsy. Host wended that epilepsy show itself . Wonder that manifest in his life . Guest well there is evidence not absolutely conclusive that he had seizures as a very young child. Little kids often had seizures and they are called Febrile Seizures and they go way off in but theres also a pattern where a young child might have seizures and then as in madisons case had seizures again as an adult and so there was a for telling of epilepsy in some sense. I am sure doctors right now are very nervous that im connecting these two but his grandmother sending off medicine for epilepsy. One of the things i did that was so enjoyable was read 18 century medical books but to figure out what were the things on the list and what was his grandmother frances trying to do . Host did it manifested itself at all during his presidency . Guest i dont have any evidence of that. There are indications for example. Well, wait a minute. There is an instance when he and dolly are traveling to philadelphia from washington but i cant remember now if it was when he was secretary he was secretary of state or president but its very clear that something happened. They are going along in a carriage and suddenly this thing happens and later dolly rights i could not to him as i used to do. Though, help him in some situation that she is accustomed to. He did right in his life he called them a tax that they became less frequent as he grew older. Host how did James Madison get involved in the American Revolution . What was his role . Guest well he was caught up as College Students have been forever in the politics of the time and people at princeton were demonstrating against the british. But when he tried to enlist he was practicing to be part of the virginia militia. I think he had one of these seizures. He talks about a thing that happened to him in training that convinced him he could not be a soldier. And that would be unlikely at all. He did not become a soldier. He was really not involved in part of the american story until the revolution began and he got involved with politics. Host what was his relationship with George Washington fna . Guest it was good enough in the beginning that he wrote washingtons inaugural address. Washington had tried somebody else but it just hadnt worked. This is familiar ground to any politician. Sometimes a speechwriter just doesnt get it right in washington knew that so he called on madison to come and write the address and then when washington was elected he called on madison again and again. He said look, i just imagine this conversation, i need to thank everybody for the nitro so would you write that for me some medicine did and then madison also wrote the response back to washington so i like to think he is talking to himself early. I like to think of it as his voice echoing off all of the walls in the early days. Later in washington they certainly were in opposition. Host why . Guest well is such a long story but its basically Alexander Hamilton who came to the government and took washington in a direction that neither medicine nor jefferson thought was appropriate. Hamilton was a Big Government man and jefferson and madison were concerned at that point about the Central Government becoming over powerful. Host relationship with Tom Jefferson . As though they were best friends. Its one of the great friendships in American History. Jefferson was very exasperating. He was always interfering just getting things lined up and jefferson will be off in paris fooling around with madisons friends and madison was very forbearing. Merrill peterson was a wonderful historian once wrote of the two the account talents. Jefferson was the streamer and madison was the guy who was attached to the earth and understand the practicalities and the politics of the situation. So it was a very beneficial friendship or both. Host what i learned from our first first lady series that we did hear on cspan last year was that Dolley Madison had a role in washington and in politics beyond just James Madisons lifetime. What did you discover . Guest one of the interesting things about many of the virginia founders is they ended up for and jefferson had to have a lottery for monticello at the end of his life. He couldnt pay his debts. The same is true of madison in part because of dollys son. She brought this onto their marriage and john todd was his name. At one point he was taking stuff out of montpellier and selling it on the street corner. I actually have a friend in maryland on the Eastern Shore they said to me when he found out i was working on the book he said i have to madison letters. When people say that to you your little skeptical but he does. They are short but they are very important to winding up stories that we dont know the end of and it occurred to me if somebody tells you they have a madison letter he should pay attention. Because of John Payne Todd all of that stuff was out there and many of it still hasnt been looked at by scholars. In any case there was great Financial Stress at the end of the marriage and dolly as the weather was poor. There is one manuscript i remember reading the shows are depending on a loan of 75 cents. 75 cents was more than now but not that much more. She started wearing the same clothing all the time. She wore a black dress and a white turbine a lot. Thats what she has on, there is one photo of her and she has that outfit on that people didnt care. They cared and help her but her poverty didnt mean that she wasnt thoroughly entertaining and fun to be around. So she was quite a citizen of washington and i have bred her funeral was the largest up to that time in the city. Host lynne cheney this book was published James Madison a life reconsidered in may of 2014. When did you start your research and when did you start working on this book . Guest at least five years before. These big looks take that much time and the luxury to have that much time to work on them. Host where did you start . Guest i research and write the same time. So you start and you write a preface and you write a chapter and you keep going and you realize the first was all wrong so you go back and rewrite and then you get yourself to burrowing into the stories orb rolling into these situations like madisons epilepsy so it takes a very long time. Host where did you do the research . Guest i did most of it at home. I do have to work from real books sometimes. There are many books that are important that havent been digitized so i usually end up with a big pile of looks on the floor of my study but there is just an amazing amount of information on line. All of madisons papers are on line. The university of virginia has a Digital Program that is just amazing. Jefferson is on line, hamilton is on line, washington, madison, monroe, not but i just cant begin to tell you how rich this resource is in their many others as well. People upload google a lot. Theres something called archives. Org that does a lot. You find the most obscure things that happened that have been digitized. Host good afternoon welcome to booktvs in depth program. One author and his her body of work in this month its author lynne cheney. She is the author of 13 books, beginning in 1979 a novel came out executive privilege and another novel sisters, tyrannical machines report on educational practices gone wrong published in 1990, telling the truth wire culture in our country have stopped making sense came out in 1996. Into the hill, power and personality in the house of representatives on Nonfiction Book written with her husband came out also in 1996 and then as second lady several Childrens Books including our 50 states, a is for abigail in 2006. Her memoir i guess you could call it, blue skies, no fences a memoir of childhood and family in 2007, we the people the server competition and 2008 and finally James Madison a life reconsidered in 201430 goodbye to dial in and talk to our guests this month talking about history and education all sorts of issues 202 7488400. 202 7482001 for those in the mountain and pacific timezones. If you cant get there on the phone lines there are several ways to get through including if you want to send a text message you can send a text message only dont call this number to send a text 2024656842. We have also got social media ways of getting a hold, facebook. Com booktv, booktv is our twitter handle and finally you can send an email to booktv at cspan. Org. There are a lot of ways to reach you today mrs. Cheney. I want to go back to James Madison and this is what you have written. Scraping his quill across the page madison recorded what seemed to him the essence quote the strongest and sound mind often possesses the weakest and most sickly bodies. The knife cuts sheath as the french expressive. Guest he found this in john locke when he was reading and i think for him it was a comfort. Epilepsy was so such a misunderstood ailment and they 1919th century. It was thought to be the result of demonic pos