Note: This post was previously listed under our "News from the Grey Box" blog series ​

A book review and commentary by Ray Smock
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I have written before about my great appreciation of and admiration for C-SPAN, the Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network created by Brian Lamb with the financial backing of the cable television industry.  I like the people who run C-SPAN and I applaud C-SPAN’s mission.  I made my first appearance on C-SPAN 30 years ago and this book review is not without a strong dose of bias in favor of C-SPAN, the book in question, and the interviewer Brian Lamb.

C-SPAN has become an important part of American political culture since it first began broadcasting the floor sessions of the U.S. House of Representatives in 1979, expanding to two stations in 1986 with coverage of the Senate, and eventually adding C-SPAN 3, the American History TV channel, as well as C-SPAN radio.  In 1979 only 3.5 million homes were wired for cable TV. Today C-SPAN reaches more than 100 million homes.
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Today all the interviews and events that C-SPAN has broadcast since 1987 are digitized an available online at the C-SPAN Video Library which includes both audio and video streaming.  This amounts to more than 203,000 hours of broadcasting.  This includes the entire collection almost 1,400 interviews conducted by Brian Lamb on his long running programs Booknotes and Q &A.