Wall Street Journal reporters Cameron McWhirter and Zusha Elinson discuss the history of the AR-15 and how the weapon has influenced American gun culture. They were interviewed by author and journalist Paul Barrett. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Historian Andrew Roberts calls this week's guest Kenneth Rendell the "manuscript whisperer." Rendell's new book is about his travelling the world during his career buying and selling significant historical letters and documents, from the Renaissance to the present day. The title of his book is "Safeguarding History: Trailblazing Adventures Inside the Worlds of Collecting and Forging History." One of the stories he tells is about his role in determining whether the Hitler diaries, published in 19...
Kevin McCarthy earned a place in the history books this week as the first Speaker of the House to be voted out of office. Just 9 months into his term, Speaker McCarthy was challenged by a "motion to vacate" offered by Florida Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz. McCarthy lost by 6 votes; with all Democrats voting against him. Kevin McCarthy, a California republican, was the 55th Speaker of the House. Second in line to the presidency, the Speaker is the political and parliamentary leader of the Hou...
Economist Melissa Kearney argues that the decline in two-parent married households is a driving factor in many of America's economic issues. She was interviewed by American Enterprise Institute's Center on Opportunity and Social Mobility director Scott Winship. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Our guest this week is Pultizer-Prize-winning Yale Professor David Blight. He expounds on the life of Frederick Douglas when he learned to read and write, and his relationship with President Abraham Lincoln. Born into slavery in Maryland, Frederick Douglass went on to become a writer, orator, statesman, and key leader in the abolitionist movement. After his escape to freedom as an adult, Douglass in 1845 wrote the first of his three autobiographies, titled The Narrative of the Life of Frederick ...
"America is deeply divided. Our politics is broken, marked by anger, contempt and distrust. We must acknowledge that reality but not lose historical perspective. It’s bad now, but it’s been worse before—and not only during the Civil War." These are the words of Fox News contributor Karl Rove, a longtime political consultant and former senior adviser to President George W. Bush. He wrote them under the headline: "America Is Often a Nation Divided," in a recent Saturday edition of the Wall Street ...
In a dip into the Q&A archives, an interview from 2017 with former federal prosecutor and George Washington University Law School professor Randall Eliason. He talked about the ongoing trial of Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and other prominent political corruption cases that came before. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
New York Times reporter Adam Nagourney looked at the successes and failures of the last four decades of "the paper of record," The New York Times. He was interviewed by Columbia Journalism Review contributor Jon Allsop. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle discusses digital libraries, legal disputes over electronic book lending, and copyright laws. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Our guest this week is author, historian, and magazine editor Lanny Jones. He is the author of "William Clark and the Shaping of the West. His latest work is Celebrity Nation. Shortly after the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, President Thomas Jefferson commissioned Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to explore and map the newly acquired territory and to seek a water route to the Pacific Ocean. Lewis and Clark's two-year Tour of Discovery ended in September 1806 as the explorers returned to St. Louis wi...
Author Charlotte Gray, our guest this week, is a Canadian born in Great Britain who now lives in a suburb of Ottawa. Her book "Passionate Mothers, Powerful Sons" is about Jennie Jerome Churchill and Sara Delano Roosevelt. The former Jennie Jerome was born in the United States and was the mother of Winston Churchill. Sara Delano married James Roosevelt and became the mother of FDR in 1882. Charlotte Gray writes that one of the reasons to write about these two women is that: "Their reputations, so...
Meg Kissinger spoke about her family's struggle with mental illness and her coverage of mental health care in America as a journalist. She was interviewed by Mindsite News founding editor Rob Waters. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Colleen Sheehan, Arizona State University Professor, discusses the early life and times of the Federalist's three authors. She explains how their lives challenged their writing and thinking. Plus their lasting legacy today. In September 1787, the newly drafted Constitution of the United States was sent to the states for ratification. Responding to initial public criticism of the document, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay - under the collective pseudonym "Publius" - wrote a series ...
Erec Smith, our guest this week, is an associate professor of rhetoric at York College of Pennsylvania. He is also the co-founder of Free Black Thought, a website that "seeks to represent the rich diversity of black thought beyond the relatively narrow spectrum of views promoted by mainstream outlets..." In a Newsweek article, Prof. Smith wrote: "We hear endlessly about systemic racism, white supremacy, the black/white income gap, and police brutality. So powerful an ideology has this narrative ...
Georgetown University law professor Cliff Sloan, author of "The Court at War," talks about the civil rights and civil liberties cases taken up by the U.S. Supreme Court during World War Two and the influence that FDR had on the justices, the vast majority of whom he appointed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Journalist Loren Grush detailed the history & experiences of the six women selected in 1978 to become America's first female astronauts. She was interviewed by former NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tampa Bay Times book critic Colette Bancroft previews some of the most anticipated non-fiction books being released this fall. About Books also reported on the latest publishing industry news. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Englishman Thomas Paine arrived in America in 1774 as the conflict between the colonies and Great Britain peaked. Up to that point, the colonies were said to have considered negotiation rather than separating from Britain. This week, University of Maryland history professor Richard Bell joins BTSA to discuss Paine's arguments, his life, and what led him to publish Common Sense. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Lindsay Chervinsky is a presidential historian who has written what she says is the first book on the presidential cabinet. It's called "The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution." It was on November 26, 1791, that President George Washington convened his cabinet department secretaries: Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, Henry Knox, and Edmund Randolph. It was the first cabinet meeting ever held. Among other things, we asked Lindsay Chervinsky why Washington w...
Historian Richard Striner talks about his book "Ike in Love and War," about the personal life and career of Dwight D. Eisenhower, covering everything from his upbringing and military service to his two-terms as president of the United States. Mr. Striner also talks about the three women Eisenhower fell in love with over his lifetime: Gladys Harding, Mamie Doud (later Mamie Eisenhower), and Kay Summersby, a Brit who served as Eisenhower's driver during World War Two. Learn more about your ad choi...
Chalkbeat editor Cara Fitzpatrick looked at the school choice movement and the future of education in America. She was interviewed by Washington Post education reporter Moriah Balingit. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
It has been 32 months since the attack on the U.S. Capitol that disrupted a joint session of the U.S. Congress in the process of completing the presidential election result. More than 1,100 defendants have been charged in nearly all 50 states and the District of Columbia. More than 110 individuals have been found guilty of felonies. Kyle Cheney of Politico has spent a lot of time during these past months covering the trial in the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia. We asked him to g...
Presidential historian and author Richard Norton Smith discusses his biography of President Gerald Ford titled "An Ordinary Man." He talks about Ford's personal life, anti-establishment politics, and post-presidential years. He also talks about the efforts made by President Ford to heal the country following the Watergate scandal and his controversial decision to pardon Richard Nixon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
The title of Dartmouth history professor Matthew Delmont's latest book is "Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad." Prof. Delmont, our guest this week, writes in his introduction that: "Nearly everything about the war – the start and end dates, geography, vital military roles, home front, and international implications – looks different form the African American perspective." He points out that ultimately, over one million Black men and women ...
YouTuber Max Miller discussed his cookbook which explores history through recipes. About Books also reported on the latest publishing industry news and current non-fiction books. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapman University professor Luke Nichter is the author of the book "The Year That Broke Politics: Collusion and Chaos in the Presidential Election of 1968." Professor Nichter is also the creator of nixontapes.org, the "only website dedicated solely to the scholarly production and dissemination of digitized Nixon tape audio and transcripts." Nichter's book focuses on the 1968 presidential race and the contentious battle between Vice President Hubert Humphrey, Richard Nixon, and George Wallace. L...
San Diego State University psychology professor Jean Twenge discusses her book "Generations," about the differences between the six generations – The Silents, Baby Boomers, Gen. X, Millennials, Gen. Y and "The Polars" – currently living in the United States. She argues that technological advances shape generations more than anything else and talks about the impact this will have on the country in the future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Craig Nelson, in his book "V Is For Victory," reports on the number of casualties from World War II. He writes that, according to the U.S. Department of Defense, the military casualties were 1,870,000 (405,000 killed and 673,115 wounded). Then, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were over 8.9 million American war industry worker casualties (75,400 dead and over 8.8 million wounded) between 1942 and 1945. Author Craig Nelson, our guest this week, further says: "Across history, the...
Our guest is Shahan Mufti's, who's new book, American Caliph, recounts an event that's been lost to history-- the March 9th, 1977 Hanafi Muslim siege in Washington, D.C. That day, three buildings in Washington, D.C. were seized by 12 Hanafi Movement gunmen and were held for two days. The group took 149 hostages, killed a young radio reporter named Maurice Williams, and shot then-councilman and future Washington D.C. mayor Marion Barry. Mr. Mufti describes the background of the group's leader, Ha...
New York Times books reporter Elizabeth Harris discusses the review website Goodreads and how the platform can help and hurt sales, especially for lesser-known authors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
