Mark Kurlansky tells Steve Paulson that salt made food a tradable commodity and that it inspired revolutions from India to France. Because people have to have salt, governments want to control and tax it.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Writer and naturalist Peter Matthiessen talks with Steve Paulson about tigers and cranes.
Today, thanks to Black History Month, legendary jazz saxophonist and composer Charlie "Bird" Parker is on our minds.
Ricardo Lagos, economist and former President of Chile, wants the world to know that democracy thrived in his country for more than a hundred years before Augusto Pinochet overthrew the government. In this NEW and UNCUT interview with Jim Fleming, he says it's also thriving now that Pinochet is gone.
David Harrison travels to some of the most remote places in the world, documenting endangered languages. He tells us about the language warriors: the last speakers of ancestral languages. Many of them are trying to preserve and revive their native tongues.
Liz Mermin tells Anne Strainchamps that her film, "The Beauty Academy of Kabul", chronicles the efforts of some Afghan women to maintain a little independence and earn a little money.
Lauded novelist and shortstory writer Karen Russell has tackled a new genre, the novella. In this EXTENDED interview, she talks about "Sleep Donation."
Writer and teacher Parker Palmer talks with Anne Strainchamps about his experience with clinical depression and attending to people on their deathbeds.
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