Robin Lindley

Robin Lindley is a Seattle-based writer and attorney. He is features editor for the History News Network (hnn.us), and his work also has appeared in Writer’s Chronicle, Crosscut, Documentary, NW Lawyer, Real Change, Huffington Post, Bill Moyers.com, Salon.com, and more. He has a special interest in the history of human rights and medicine. He can be reached by email: robinlindley@gmail.com.

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  Apr 16, 2021
  

  Law, Politics, Public Health and Deadly Epidemics: A Conversation with John Fabian Witt on “American Contagions”

  by Robin Lindley

  Legal historian John Fabian Witt studies the evolution of public health regulation in the US, and says recent Supreme Court decisions to empower religious exceptions to COVID precautions are an unprecedented rejection of public health as duty of the state. He discusses this and more with HNN. 

  

• 
  Mar 26, 2021
  

  Inequality, Labor Unrest, and Police Brutality in Early 20th Century Spokane, Washington: Jess Walter on His New Historical Novel "The Cold Millions"

  by Robin Lindley

  "Growing up, the fairness and egalitarianism of labor was as close as my family had to a religion. I saw this early period of labor as a kind of origin story."

  

• 
  Mar 5, 2021
  

  Legendary Director Agnieszka Holland and Screenwriter Andrea Chapula on the Ukrainian Famine and Their Film "Mr. Jones"

  by Robin Lindley

  An interview with the team behind "Mr. Jones," the cinematic telling of Welsh journalist Gareth Jones's revelations of the Ukrainian famine of 1932-33. Agnieszka Holland and Andrea Chalupa discuss bringing history to the screen in a climate of denial. 

  

• 
  Feb 12, 2021
  

  Understanding John F. Kennedy: A Conversation with Acclaimed Historian and JFK Biographer Professor Fredrik Logevall

  by Robin Lindley

  Robin Lindley interviews Fredrik Logevall about the research and writing of the first volume of his praised biography of John F. Kennedy. 

  

• 
  Feb 6, 2021
  

  The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.— A Conversation with Professor Peniel E. Joseph

  by Robin Lindley

  "One of the fascinating things about King’s life is when he evolves and speaks truth to power. He's still talking about nonviolence, but he's speaking in bold radical terms about the need to end militarism and materialism and racism."

  

• 
  Nov 15, 2020
  

  How John Hersey Exposed the Human Face of Nuclear War: Lesley Blume on Her New Book "Fallout: The Hiroshima Cover-Up and The Reporter Who Revealed It to The World"

  by Robin Lindley

  HNN interviews Lesley M.M. Blume about her new book on John Hersey and the government's effort to control the public perceptions of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 

  

• 
  Oct 21, 2020
  

  Bergen-Belsen Through the Eyes of a Teenaged Inmate: A Conversation with Bernice Lerner

  by Robin Lindley

  Robin Lindley interviews Dr. Bernice Lerner, whose book "All the Horrors of War" connects the stories of Dr. Glyn Hughes, the British military doctor tasked with the health of liberated prisoners at Bergen-Belsen, and her own mother, who was among the liberated survivors.

  

• 
  Sep 26, 2020
  

  Inspiration from the Banks of the Indus River: A Conversation with Nibir K. Ghosh

  by Robin Lindley

  Indian professor of literature and public intellectual Nibir Ghosh discusses his recent book examining the ability of writing to cross borders and speak to universal issues of human dignity, a call to "heed the voices of philosophers, poet-prophets, writers and intellectuals who have warned us time and again to bring in a revolutionary change in our attitude and approach to halt our onerous march toward doom."

  

• 
  Sep 13, 2020
  

  A Conversation with Seattle Author Dr. Lawrence Matsuda on His Debut Historical Novel "My Name is Not Viola"

  by Robin Lindley

  Dr. Lawrence Matsuda's debut historical novel traces the history of Japanese Americans in they years before, during and after World War II and examines the effects of discrimination and internment.

  

• 
  Sep 5, 2020
  

  Fabrication and Fraud in the Lost Cause: Historian Adam Domby Interviewed

  by Robin Lindley

  "I had two articles that I wanted to write. One was all about white supremacy and memory and the other was about lies and memory. And then I looked at those projects and it eventually dawned on me that this was actually the same project. The lies were part of the monuments and the white supremacy aspect was tied to the monuments and the Confederate fraud."

  

• 
  Aug 7, 2020
  

  The Apocalypse Factory: Steve Olson Discusses the Path of Plutonium From Hanford Nuclear Reservation to Nagasaki

  by Robin Lindley

  Author Steve Olson makes sense of the complexities of the nuclear age by telling the story of plutonium processing in Hanford, Washington, arguably the key site in the history of nuclear weapons.

  

• 
  Jun 5, 2020
  

  Love, Loss, and Leadership in a Time of Mass Death— An Interview with Erik Larson

  by Robin Lindley

  "Churchill also had an ability to express empathy, which was an important element in a time of war. It was not unusual to see him openly weeping at the scene of a bombing, something I can’t imagine our current president doing on any occasion, ever."

  

• 
  May 17, 2020
  

  Interview: Historian and Professor Nancy K. Bristow on the Forgotten Police Shooting of Black Students at Jackson State College

  by Robin Lindley

  "Fifty years is too long for these crimes to continue to happen, and to go unpunished by our justice system."

  

• 
  Apr 11, 2020
  

  A Conversation with Medical Historian Frank M. Snowden from Rome on COVID-19, the Situation in Italy, and the History of Epidemics

  by Robin Lindley

  Professor Frank Snowden’s sweeping chronicle of infectious disease epidemics over the past 700 years offers vivid descriptive accounts of diseases from bubonic plague, smallpox, and tuberculosis to malaria, polio, HIV/AIDS, SARS, Ebola, and more, and also details the transformation and evolution of societies ravaged by epidemics. 

  

• 
  Mar 27, 2020
  

  The Ruthless Litigant in Chief: James Zirin Paints a Portrait of Trump Through 3,500 Lawsuits

  by Robin Lindley

  American presidents before Donald Trump had some record of public achievement in politics, government or the military before they were elected. Donald Trump brought his astounding history of involvement in thousands of lawsuits to the nation’s highest office.

  

• 
  Mar 20, 2020
  

  An Interview with Mary V. Thompson on the Lives of the Enslaved Residents of Mount Vernon

  by Robin Lindley

  Mary V. Thompson brings to life a complicated history of enslaved people and their legendary owner.

  

• 
  Mar 4, 2020
  

  Interview: Acclaimed History Professor Gordon Chang on "Ghosts of Gold Mountain"

  by Robin Lindley

  Acclaimed expert in Chinese American history Professor Gordon H. Chang explores the forgotten yet momentous story of Chinese workers who built the transcontinental railroad.

  

• Dec 20, 2019
  

  Investigating Technology and the Remaking of America

  by Robin Lindley

  In her lively and extensively researched book The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America (Penguin Press, 2019), acclaimed History Professor Margaret O’Mara chronicles the story of the Valley from the wartime era of Vannevar Bush to Steve Jobs and Bill Gates to more recent innovators, such as Mark Zuckerberg, as she tackles the origins of emerging questions today about dark side of the technology. 

  

• Dec 20, 2019
  

  The Overlooked Aftermath of the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster

  by Robin Lindley

  A Conversation with Acclaimed History Professor Kate Brown on Her Groundbreaking Book Manual for Survival: A Chernobyl Guide to the Future

  

• Dec 20, 2019
  

  Historian Ian Reifowitz on How the Race-Baiting Invective of Rush Limbaugh on the Obama Presidency Led to Trump

  by Robin Lindley

  Reifowitz's latest book traces the election of Donald Trump and the recent rise in white supremacist activity to the incendiary language of racism that the right-wing relies on to win politically.