10:00 AM Pacific Time: Monday - Thursday
Letters & Politics seeks to explore the history behind today’s major global and national news stories. Hosted by Mitch Jeserich.
With Nicholas Wapshott, author of Keynes Hayek: The Clash That Defined Modern Economics and Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher: A Political Marriage. A former senior editor at the LondonTimes and the New York Sun, he is now international editor at Newsweek. About the book: As the stock market crash of 1929 plunged the world into turmoil, two men … Continued
With Ernest Freeberg, Professor of History at the University of Tennessee and author of the book Democracy’s Prisoner: Eugene V. Debs, The Great War, and the Right to Dissent. About the book: In 1920, socialist leader Eugene V. Debs ran for president while serving a ten-year jail term for speaking against America’s role in World War … Continued
Dr. Candace Falk, director of the Emma Goldman Papers at UC Berkeley. Emma Goldman (1869–1940) stands as a major figure in the history of American radicalism and feminism. An influential and well-known anarchist of her day, Goldman was an early advocate of free speech, birth control, women’s equality and independence, and union organization. Her criticism of mandatory conscription … Continued
Rebecca Herzig is professor of women and gender studies at Bates College and the author of the book Plucked: A History of Hair Removal. About the book: From the clamshell razors and homemade lye depilatories used in colonial America to the diode lasers and prescription pharmaceuticals available today, Americans have used a staggering array of … Continued
Nomi Prins, journalist, and author of the book All the President’s Bankers: The Hidden Alliances that Drive American Power, a narrative about the relationships of presidents to key bankers over the past century and how they impacted domestic and foreign policy. About the book: Who rules America? All the Presidents’ Bankers is a groundbreaking narrative of how an … Continued
With Tamim Ansary, author of Games without Rules: The Often-Interrupted History of Afghanistan. About the book: The history of modern Afghanistan is an epic drama, a thriller, a tragedy, a surreal farce. Every forty years or so, over the last two centuries, some great global power has attempted to take control of Afghanistan, only to slink … Continued
A look at burning political issues and debates and their historical context within the US and worldwide, hosted by Mitch Jeserich.
Maria LaGanga, Seattle bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times, with responsibilities for the Pacific Northwest, Alaska and Hawaii. We’ll discuss her article This is climate change: Alaskan villagers struggle as island is chewed up by the sea. John Mutter, professor at Columbia University and author of the book The Disaster Profiteers: How Natural Disasters Make the Rich … Continued
The history and psychology of solitary confinement with forensic psychiatrist Terry Kupers, professor at the Wright Institute Graduate School of Psychology. Ishmael Reed, renowned literary figure, on his book The Complete Muhammad Ali. About the book: More than a biography and ‘bigger than boxing’, The Complete Muhammad Ali is a fascinating portrait of the twentieth … Continued
Mike Smith, foreign correspondent for AFP news agency and former Western Africa bureau chief, based in Nigeria. He has extensively covered the Boko Haram insurgency and is author of the book Boko Haram: Inside Nigeria’s Unholy War. And Niles Eldredge, a paleontologist formerly on the curatorial staff of the American Museum of Natural History. He developed the theory of … Continued
