English journalist Jason Elliot tells Steve Paulson that Afghans are proud and pious people who still suffer from the aftermath of a decade of war.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
What made Lincoln a great president? Was he a closet racist? We hear short interviews with Lincoln historians Doris Kearns Goodwin, Orville Vernon Burton and John Stauffer.
Robert Wright tells Steve Paulson that the history of monotheism was shaped by the political events of the turbulent ancient Middle East and that Jesus was not a prophet of peace but a typical Jewish apocalyptic preacher obsessed with the approaching End Times.
Richard Goldstein, executive editor of the Village Voice, is appalled by the rampant chauvinism of popular culture.
Pearl S. Buck’s last novel, “ The Eternal Wonder” was discovered last year in a storage locker in Texas. Anne Strainchamps talked with her son and literary executor, Edgar Walsh, about his mother’s life and legacy and her difficult last years.
Rachel Cohen tells Steve Paulson that Ulysses S. Grant owed his publishing success to Mark Twain, and many other unlikely connection stories.
Historian Jeremy Black talks with Steve Paulson about James Bond as an agent of the British Empire. He says Bond’s adventures are often set in former British colonies.
Novelist Louis de Bernieres tells Jim Fleming about the climate of religious toleration that marked the Ottoman Empire.
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