If you really want to get a feel for Isaac Newton - perhaps history's greatest scientist - the best way is to see his original manuscripts at Cambridge University Library. But they're so valuable, it's hard to get permission to look at them. They did let Steve Paulson in, but only in the company of 4 archivists, plus Newton historian Sarah Dry.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
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Kurt Schwitters was a celebrated modern artist in Europe in the twenties and thirties but his career was cut short by the Nazis. Now, his tales have been translated and edited by Jack Zipes.
Hugh Masakela is a dreamer who longed for personal artistic expression and freedom for his people.
There was an unexpected consensus among the people in Madison, Wisconsin, when we asked them whether it's better to get or to give.
Ilan Stavans explains how speaking four languages give him a sense of self.
Jack Miles says maybe God became incarnate to repent for having thrown Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden, and that Christ initiated the Eucharist as a way for his followers to regain their immortality.
Steve Paulson talks with book critic James Wood about Dale Peck and the business of doing book reviews. James Wood is literary critic at The New Republic.
In this segment, NPR correspondent Howard Berkes, who is based in Salt Lake City, tells Jim Fleming what it’s like to ride a luge and a bobsled.
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