Foreign policy analyst Robert Kagan tells Steve Paulson that Europeans and Americans have very different ideas about the value of military power. He says the Europeans’ reservations about invading Iraq are entirely legitimate.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
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.
Afghan-American author Nadia Hashimi talks about her book, “The Pearl That Broke Its Shell,” as well as the Afghan custom of Bacha Posh – in which a girl is allowed to dress as a boy.
Julia Alvarez tells Anne Strainchamps that she raises coffee on a small farm in the Dominican Republic and explains how it influences her writing.
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.
When Stephen Wolfram was 17, he dropped out of college. By the time he was 21, he had a Ph.D. in physics and was one of the first recipients of a MacArthur Genius Award. Today, he is the CEO of Wolfram Research and owner of one of the largest individual datasets in the world.
Katha Pollitt is a celebrated feminist writer and columnist for The Nation magazine. Her new book is "Learning to Drive."
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