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To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Philosopher Lars Svendsen talks about how fashion--the search for the new, for the sake of novelty--was born during the early renaissance, with the rise of Modern individuality. He says fashion shapes not just the clothes we wear, but almost every part of our lives.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Not all architecture in the Arab world glitters like a golden dome. Some are being shelled to dust by war. Such is the horrifying story of Homs, Syria.  Once a cosmopolitan and tolerant city of more than one million, Homs has hosted clashes between rebel groups and President Bashar Assad’s forces since 2011. Those clashes have mortared and shelled the city into an oblivion. Thousands of residents have been killed. Most of the remaining have fled. But not all.

Marwa al-Sabouni and her family have stayed. Marwa al-Sabouni has her PhD. in Islamic architecture and wrote a compelling memoir about architecture and destruction in Homs called “The Battle for Home.”

Marwa al-Sabouni spoke with Anne Strainchamps via Skype from her apartment in Homs, Syria.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Poet Anna Rabinowitz found a shoe box full of old letters and photos of family and friends killed in the Holocaust.  She wrote the poem "Darkling" to feature their voices.   We also hear excerpts from the opera "Darkling."

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Former Vice President Al Gore helped bring global warming into public consciousness. Despite the dire projections of rising temperatures, he says he's still an optimist.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Screenwriter and novelist Andrew Davies talks about why Jane Austen is hot again, what he had to do to the “Bridget Jones’s Diary” script, and how he felt when someone else adapted and filmed one of his novels

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Fairy tales are part of all our lives, whether it's Snow White or Cinderella of Little Red Riding Hood.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Writer and critic Alberto Manguel has assembled a personal library of some thirty thousand volumes which he houses in an old converted stone barn in a village in France.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

In the fourth episode of the story of Dan Pierotti's death, friends and family stay with Dan's body in the days before the funeral. Dan's wife Judy talks about her experience of the funeral and burial.

"Then it's final," Judy says. "There's no coming back from any of it. But just the first shovel full of dirt that hits that coffin... that's very hard to hear, very hard to experience."

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