Historian Michael Oren talks with Steve Paulson about how the Barbary Pirates brought the Marines to the shores of Tripoli and why they went into the Middle East six times during the 19th century.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Meir Shalev tells Jim Fleming that he thinks the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem reached at the conclusion of that war was a just one and that the parties should return to the 1948 agreement.
John McNally is the author of “The Book of Ralph: A Fiction.” McNally tells Steve Paulson about the real life kids who served as the models for his character Ralph, a trouble-maker.
Mukoma Wa Ngugi is a poet and English professor who writes crime novels set in his native Kenya. He says the crime genre lets him write truthfully about race, class and violence in cities like Nairobi.
Mark Dunn's book, “Ella Minnow Pea,” explores what happens when individual letters begin to be expunged from the language. It’s a technical tour de force since the author labors under the same restrictions as his characters.
There's a nagging question at major sporting events: Are the athletes cheating? Steroids, human growth hormones and blood doping techniques are extending the outer limits of performance, and athletes can use them if they want -- unless they're professionals or Olympic athletes. But is doping really a problem? Australian philosopher and bioethicist Julian Savulescu has a simple litmus test: What contribution is coming from the technology and what is coming from the athlete?
Mitch Horowitz tells Anne Strainchamps that belief in the occult is as old as the colonies and that spiritualism was America's first great religious export.
For Jeannette Walls, one of the things she struggled with most was keeping her past a secret from just about everyone.
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