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We talk with Heather McGhee about her important new book, The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone And How We Can Prosper Together. It’s about how the politics of racial division keeps working class people of all races from having what they deserve.
But first, we talk with Michelle Commander of the Schomburg Center about the anthology she’s co-edited: UNSUNG: Unheralded Narratives of American Slavery & Abolition.
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We spend the hour talking with Tamara Payne about her late father Les Payne’s acclaimed biography of Malcolm X, The Dead Are Arising. It just won the National Book Award.
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We talk with Jess Walter about his novel The Cold Millions. It’s about the first Gilded Age with striking parallels to the Gilded Age 2.0 we’re living in right now.
Then, we revisit our 2015 interview with Lara Vapnek about her biography of one of the historical characters who appears in Walter’s novel: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. It’s called Rebel Girl.
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We talk with Les Leopold about his Uncle Walter’s remarkable diary of life as Jew in Nazi Germany, Defiant German—Defiant Jew: A Holocaust Memoir from Inside the Third Reich. Les Leopold had the diary translated and has added much context and commentary to the book.
Then, we talk with acclaimed crime novelist Anthony Horowitz about his newest murder mystery confection, Moonflower Murders. It’s the second in the Susan Ryeland series, following Magpie Murders.
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We talk with translator Stephen Snyder about his translation of Yoko Ozawa’s acclaimed novel The Memory Police. It’s an allegory for our age.
Then we hear from Marian Lindberg about her book, Scandal On Plum Island: A Commander Becomes The Accused. It tells the neglected story of Major Benjamin Koehler, a distinguished Army officer who was blind-sided by charges of homoerotic behavior in 1914.
We also preview our post-Election Day interview with legal scholar Lawrence Douglas, author of Will He Go? Trump and the Looming Election Meltdown in 2020. (Listen to the full interview here.)
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We spend the hour talking with political historian Thomas Frank about his ground-breaking book about Populism and anti-Populism, The People, No: A Brief History of Anti-Populism.
It’s about the long history of elite distrust of pro-democracy working class/farmer political activism in the U.S. As Frank explains:
The People, No is the story of how much of our modern world we owe to our home-grown democratic movements for reform. It is also a cautionary note for our time, a warning against the pundits who tell us to fear the plain people, to keep to the path of centrist complacency, to let the experts handle our lives and our future.
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We talk with historian Douglas Boin about his fascinating biography, Alaric The Goth: An Outsider’s History of the Fall of Rome. It’s a cautionary tale about how xenophobia and anti-immigrant bigotry led to the Sack of Rome and the fall of the Roman Empire.
Then we hear from Jim Walsh of Food and Water Watch about legislation proposed by AOC to ban fracking.
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With Trump’s paramilitary goon squads assaulting peaceful protestors in American cities, things are looking pretty grim for democracy in America.
But Joe McCarthy biographer Larry Tye is optimistic. He says: “The lesson of Joe McCarthy and our other demagogues is that they fell even faster than they rose — once America saw through them and reclaimed its better self.“
We talk with Larry Tye about his acclaimed new book, Demagogue: The Life and Long Shadow of Senator Joe McCarthy.
Then, a novel that asks the question: how do we balance the risks of political protest with the consequences, especially when those protests turn violent? Ellen Meeropol tells us about her new novel, Her Sister’s Tattoo.
It’s about two sisters whose lives are marked by the choices they make during an antiwar demonstration in 1968. Meeropol uses history to explore the personal dimension of activism —and the thorny intersection of sibling loyalty and political beliefs.
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Today, we hear two stories about Appalachia, a region that’s long been subject to exploitation and prejudice.
First, we talk with Emma Copley Eisenberg about her book The Third Rainbow Girl: The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia. It’s about the killing of two young women in West Virginia in 1980, how cultural bigotry against the region kept the murders from being solved — and the trauma inflicted on the community as a result.
Then, we re-air our 2004 interview with Diane Gilliam Fisher about her wonderful poetry volume Kettle Bottom. It’s about the West Virginia Mine Wars of the 1920s. Continue reading
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We talk with historian David Silverman about his book This Land Is Their Land: The Wampanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony, and the Troubled History of Thanksgiving.
Then, we continue our Thanksgiving week tradition of hearing Native American storyteller and ethnohistorian Marge Bruchac talk about Thanksgiving from the Native point of view — and her re-telling of the Story of Corn.
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We talk with Christina Proenza-Coles about her groundbreaking new history, American Founders: How People of African Descent Established Freedom in the New World.
Then, we talk with Jamaican-English author Sara Collins about her breakout debut novel, The Confessions of Frannie Langton. It’s an historical thriller about a former slave who is accused of murdering her employer and his wife in Georgian London.
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Francesca talks with Glenn Silber about the acclaimed documentary he co-directed, The War At Home. It’s about the anti-war movement in Madison, Wisconsin from 1963 to 1972. First released in 1979, it’s been digitally re-mastered and re-released last year.
The War At Home chronicles the anti-war protest movement through the lens of its history in Madison, Wisconsin, with a powerful combination of rare archival footage and interviews with student leaders. Film critic Roger Ebert called it “one of the twenty greatest political films of all time.”
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Paul Kaplan talks about his biography, Lillian Wald: America’s Social and Healthcare Reformer. Wald was one of the most influential but least known people of the early 20th century. She founded the Visiting Nurse Service, but realized that to really tackle poverty, the conditions immigrants and their kids lived in needed to change. In treating the whole person, Wald changed the whole notion of social service for the poor.
Then, health and science journalist Susan Bohan talks about her book, Twenty Years of Life: Why the Poor Die Earlier and How to Challenge Inequity. It’s about how your zip code determines your health.
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Native American writer and critic David Treuer talks about his latest book, The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present. It’s a sweeping history of the resilience of Native America in the face of oppression and injustice. (Riverhead Books, January 2019.)
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Today, we feature two books aimed at children and teens. We talk with Lawrence Goldstone about his book, Unpunished Murder: Massacre at Colfax and the Quest for Justice. It’s about a massacre of African Americans that occurred almost 150 years ago and the Supreme Court verdict that overturned their convictions. The case centered around an interpretation of the 14th Amendment — an amendment that is under attack today by our president and his Republican allies.
Then, we talk with children’s book author Susan Wood about her picture book biography, Elizabeth Warren: Nevertheless, She Persisted. It is charmingly illustrated by Sarah Green. Continue reading