Anthropologist Scott Atran has spent a decade interviewing jailed suicide bombers and jihadist military leaders. He says religious terrorists are motivated by the many of the same human values celebrated in every culture: brotherhood, loyalty, and the dream of a better world.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Provocative scholar and literary critic Stanley Fish tells Steve Paulson that he admires the bluntness and strength of conviction shown in the writing of John Milton.
Writer Terry Tempest Williams recommends the novel "Tracks" by Louise Erdrich. Erdrich, one of the great writers of the Native American Renaissance, is a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians.
Suze Rotolo was Bob Dylan's inseparable companion in the early 60s'. She's now written a memoir called "A Freewheelin' Time."
A growing number of secular scientists and philosophers are rejecting the term "atheist" in favor of a definition that acknowledges the wonder and mystery of the world around us.
Whose America is it? Writer Thomas King has strong feelings about that. He says Native Americans have been many things to white people. Slaves, stereotypes, savages. And always inconvenient.
Yann Martel's novel "Life of Pi" is an adventure story and also a meditation on religious faith. He says a good religion is like a good story.
Thomas Hine is the author of “I Want THAT: How We All Became Shoppers.” He tells Anne Strainchamps how our culture grooms men and women to behave differently as shoppers and exploits the traits of both sexes.
Pages
