C-SPAN Bookshelf

Reporter Aaron Davis argued the Trump administration has politicized the Justice Department. This was part of Maryland's 2026 Gaithersburg Book Festival.

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Claudia Rowe is the author of "Wards of the State: The Long Shadow of American Foster Care." Rowe has been writing about the hallways and courtrooms, where kids and government clash, for 30 years. "Every person in this book," according to Claudia Rowe, "agreed to talk to me for one of two reasons, or both: They wanted to be seen, to be understood. And they wanted to change foster care." Rowe points out that about 400,000 kids in the United States today are growing up with the state government as their legal guardian. Every year, on turning 18, about 20,000 age out, many...

As the nation celebrates the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, former U.S. ambassador David McKean and former State Department historian M. Todd Bennett, co-authors of "The Flag Was Still There," look back at the 1776 founding and the four previous semi-centennial celebrations of America in 1826, 1876, 1926, and 1976.

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Historians Danielle Allen and Walter Isaacson join David M. Rubenstein at the U.S. Capitol to discuss the Declaration of Independence and how America celebrates its founding.

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Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Jon Meacham told America's complicated story through the words of those who have shaped our national debates from 1619 into the early 21st century. To read highlights from those accounts, he was joined by Academy Award actor Ellen Burstyn and Stephen Lang, best known for his roles in the movie Gettysburg and the Avatar series. The Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College in New York hosted this event.

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Richard Brookhiser is an American journalist, biographer, historian, and senior editor at National Review. He has appeared on C-SPAN for many years as the author of biographies of America's founders. His latest book features a Frenchman and is titled "The Hero Returns." His focus is on Lafayette (LAH-fee-et) and the legacy of revolution. Mr. Brookhiser's particular attention is on 1824, the year the former Revolutionary War hero returned to the United States for a tour of all 24 states at the invitation of President James Monroe. The retired general was celebrated in each of those states during his visit.

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New York Times White House Correspondents Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan discuss their just-published bestseller about the first year of the second Trump administration. They discuss his inner circle, decision-making process on some of the major issues, and what they found inside the Oval Office and the Situation Room.

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Mollie Hemingway, editor-in-chief of The Federalist and author of "Alito," discusses the life, career, and legal opinions of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, who joined the Court in 2006. She talks about Justice Alito's role in overturning Roe v. Wade, the flag controversy involving his wife Martha-Ann, and the backlash that he and other justices on the Court have received in response to their legal decisions.

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Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin joins David M. Rubenstein to discuss her acclaimed biographies of Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt, as well as the life and legacy of her late husband, Richard Goodwin, who served as a speechwriter for Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.

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Atlantic Staff Writer Megan Garber argued that screens and social media have changed how we relate to each other. Politics and Prose in Washington, D.C., hosted this event.

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In July of this year, 2026, the new, multi-million-dollar Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library opens to the public in Medora (muh-"DOOR"-uh), North Dakota, population 121. The senior historian for the T.R. Library is a man named Michael Patrick Cullinane, a professor of history at Dickinson State University in North Dakota, 36 miles from Medora. To coincide with the opening of T.R.'s Library, Professor Cullinane has written a book titled "Theodore Roosevelt and the Tennis Cabinet." He credits Mrs. Roosevelt with building a tennis court right outside the president's West Wing office. Cullinane says: "The convenient location robbed Roosevelt...

As the Supreme Court's term winds down, with some notable cases still to be decided, we take a behind the scenes look at the Supreme Court and how it operates with SCOTUSblog editor Sarah Isgur (IHS-ger). Her new book on the topic is titled "Last Branch Standing." In part two of our discussion, we talk to Sarah Isgur about the power of Chief Justice John Roberts, the personalities and influence of the other justices, and her relationship with Justice Elena Kagan, who was dean of Harvard Law School when Isgur was a student and chapter president of the Federalist Societ...

Journalist Kara Swisher joins David M. Rubenstein to discuss the future of artificial intelligence and technology, human longevity, and her interviewing style.

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The Hoover Institution's Eyck Freymann argues that the United States can deter a war with China by strengthening its defense of Taiwan. He spoke at the Hoover Institution in Washington, DC.

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David J. Garrow is a prize-winning historian. Since graduating from Wesleyan University in 1975 and completing his law degree at Duke in 1981, he has spent most of his time writing about civil rights. His best selling and most praised book is titled "Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference," published in 1986. We last talked to David Garrow in May of 2017 about his book "Rising Star" – 1,472 pages about President Barack Obama. The book was limited to President Obama's life before his presidency.

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As the Supreme Court's term comes to an end, with decisions on birthright citizenship, transgender athletes, and gun rights still to be rendered, we take a behind the scenes look at the Supreme Court and how it operates with SCOTUSblog editor Sarah Isgur. Her new book on the topic is titled "Last Branch Standing." In part one of our discussion, we talk to Sarah Isgur about the current court, the cases it takes up, and the divisions she sees among the justices, based on their ideology and institutional outlook.       

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Bestselling Mary Todd Lincoln biographer Lois Romano joins David M. Rubenstein at Ford's Theatre to discuss Lincoln's early life, time in the White House and mental health.

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Aziz Abu Sarah, a Palestinian whose brother was killed by the IDF, and Maoz Inon, an Israeli whose parents were killed by Hamas on October 7, 2023, talked about their friendship and efforts to figand I Historic Synagogue in Washington, D.C.

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Dr. Lerone Bennett Jr. was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi, on October 17, 1928. He spent over 50 years with Johnson Publishing, ultimately became executive editor of its Ebony magazine. Bennett died at age 89 on February 14, 2018, in Chicago, his home base of many years.

Dr. Bennett's mother worked as a maid, his father a chauffeur. Their son graduated from Morehouse College in Atlanta. His Booknotes television appearance was on July 21, 2000. The book is titled "Forced Into Glory: Abraham Lincoln's White Dream." Bennett provided a different view of what is normally written about Mr. Lincoln. Lerone Bennett Jr. claimed that Lincoln was...

From June 11th to July 19th, the United States, Mexico, and Canada will be hosting the FIFA World Cup, the most popular sporting event in the world, with billions of viewers expected worldwide. To provide an overview and history of the World Cup we talk to Guardian (UK) soccer columnist Jonathan Wilson, author of "The Power and the Glory," which tells the history, politics, and corruption behind the tournament since its origins in 1930.

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Bestselling author David Baldacci joins David M. Rubenstein for a wide-ranging conversation about his journey from practicing law in Washington to becoming one of the world's most successful thriller writers. He discusses his approach to crafting suspenseful stories, seeing his novel Absolute Power adapted into a film by Clint Eastwood, and the evolving relationship between technology and publishing. Baldacci also explains his involvement in a lawsuit against major AI companies and shares his views on protecting authors' work in the age of artificial intelligence.

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Electronic Frontier Foundation Executive Director Cindy Cohn recalled her career fighting for digital privacy. Harvard Book Store hosted this event.

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Lois Romano, formerly of the Washington Post, re-examines the legacy of Mary Todd Lincoln. In the promotion of the book, Simon & Schuster, the publisher, claims that Mrs. Lincoln "was failed at nearly every turn in her widowhood by her family, by her government, by medical professionals ill-equipped to diagnose her mental illness, and finally failed by history." In her prologue, Lois Romano writes: "After Lincoln died in 1865, there was no one to protect Mary. Since leaving the White House, she had been adrift and virtually homeless, restlessly moving from hotel to hotel, from city to city."

Every week in the 1950s and 60s, 30 million Americans watched the congenial Bennett Cerf on Sunday nights on "What's My Line?" But he was much more than a game show panelist. In 1927, he co-founded the publishing giant Random House and brought to the public authors such as James Joyce, Ayn Rand, Truman Capote, Dr. Suess, and William Faulkner. Author Gayle Feldman spent 30 years researching and writing her book "Nothing Random."

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Bestselling author Ann Patchett joins David M. Rubenstein to discuss her novels, children's books, nonfiction work, and what it's like to own her own bookstore.

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Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) argued that elite universities in America have embraced a culture of antisemitism, leftist groupthink, and censorship. She spoke at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library & Museum in Yorba Linda, California.

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Danny Funt is the author of the book "Everybody Loses: The Tumultuous Rise of American Sports Gambling." In May 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the 1992 Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act in a 6-3 decision that legalized sports betting nationally by declaring the federal prohibition unconstitutional. According to Danny Funt, sports leagues oversight went from the position that "gambling carries a serious risk of addiction and a long history of corrupting athletes and referees, to gambling is a relatively harmless wholesale form of entertainment." Mr. Funt points out that in eight short years, sports gambling is now...

Former Republican Senator and Governor of Tennessee Lamar Alexander, author of "The Education of a Senator," talks about his personal life and nearly six-decade career in politics. As a public servant Sen. Alexander worked with ten presidents, from JFK to Trump.

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Journalist Kevin Hazzard talked about Phoenix Air, a private, air ambulance service that transports patients with highly infectious diseases when governments refuse to get involved. This event was hosted by Politics and Prose Bookstore in Washington, DC.

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Theo Baker will graduate from Stanford University on June 14th, 2026. About one month prior, his first book, "How to Rule the World: An Education in Power at Stanford University," is being published by Penguin Press. Praise for his book, gathered by Penguin Press, is plentiful. Author William D. Cohen writes: "[Theo Baker's] astounding reporting as a Stanford freshman led to the downfall of the university's president." Mr. Baker's parents are Susan Glasser of the New Yorker Magazine and Peter Baker of the New York Times.

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Adam Szetela, author of "That Book Is Dangerous!," discusses his investigation into the rise of self-censorship in the publishing industry, which he argues is being negatively transformed by social media and the culture wars in the United States. Mr. Szetela talks about the role played by the Big Five publishers, literary agents, sensitivity readers, and online pressure groups in the process.

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Bestselling Historian Candice Millard joins David M. Rubenstein at the U.S. Capitol to discuss her books about Theodore Roosevelt, James Garfield, and Winston Churchill.

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A journalist looked at modern Russia through the eyes and experiences of its women. The 2026 San Antonio Book Festival hosted this program.

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Harvey Mansfield arrived as an undergrad at Harvard in 1949, 77 years ago. He hardly left the university until he retired as research professor in 2023. Professor Mansfield, at age 94, is still writing. Encounter Books has just published a 136-page book by him titled "Where Harvard Went Wrong." Prof. Mansfield says he's one of the conservative faculty members of his university, one of three. His book contains speeches and essays, covering over 50 years, aimed at his students and colleagues. Mansfield's plea has always been that Harvard abandon, in his words, its "partisanship with the left and adopt instead a bipartisanship that welcomes...

From the Supreme Court of the United States, Justice Neil Gorsuch discusses his children's book, "Heroes of 1776," about the signers of the Declaration of Independence and other, lesser known, revolutionaries who put their life, liberty, and property on the line to gain independence from the British.

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Bestselling historian, podcaster, and newsletter author Heather Cox Richardson joins David M. Rubenstein to discuss democracy and her books on the Revolutionary War and Civil War.

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Physician and anthropologist Khameer Kidia argues that Western mental health care treats the symptoms instead of the causes of mental illness. Politics & Prose in Washington, D.C., hosts this event.

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During his almost 40-year career in publishing, Bruce Nichols served as publisher of both Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Little Brown & Company. His book is titled "The Emerson Circle: The Concord Radicals Who Reinvented the World." The focus of the book is on famous names, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Margaret Fuller, Louisa May Alcott and Henry David Thoreau. Author Nichols says "The Emerson Circle" is the story of this small group and the movements it inspired. He says it's not a comprehensive group biography. He suggests there are wonderful books about each member that go into far more...

This week on Q&A, it's a rare interview with one of America's leading historians. We tour the New York City office and home library of Pulitzer Prize-winning bestselling biographer Robert Caro, who is currently working on the final volume of his 5-volume biography of Lyndon Johnson. During the tour, Mr. Caro talks about his research and writing process on the LBJ series, and the impact of "The Power Broker," his bestselling 1974 biography of NYC Parks Commissioner Robert Moses.

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Bestselling author and historian Douglas Brinkley joins David M. Rubenstein in the Capitol's Kennedy Caucus Room to discuss America's 250th anniversary and his books about Walter Cronkite, the space race, Hurricane Katrina and D-Day.

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