Roundup

Noam Chomsky: Philosophies of Language & Politics [video 1 hour 5 minutes 7 seconds]

World-renowned intellectual Noam Chomsky has been pushing change in language, politics and culture for decades. The controversial expert on modern language explains why "the smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum."

Tracing Michelle Obama's Ancestry [audio 4 minutes 41 seconds]

The New York Times — with the help of a genealogist — has traced the family tree of first lady Michelle Obama back to a slave girl named Melvinia, who was impregnated by an unknown white man shortly before the Civil War. Rachel Swarns, a Washington correspondent for The Times,, traces Obama's roots into the present.

Presidential Historian: Nobel Boosts Obama's Status [audio 3 minutes 59 seconds]

President Obama has won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize for international diplomacy efforts. Steve Inskeep talks with writer and presidential historian Robert Dallek for his analysis of the announcement.

Bethany Cobb: In Galileo's Footsteps [video 1 hour 2 minutes 28 seconds]

Learn about the great astronomy pioneer Edwin Hubble and how his use of a 100-inch telescope at the Mount Wilson Observatory in California not only resolved the "Great Debate" over the scale of the universe but also provided radical evidence that the universe is expanding.

Craig Schuftan: Hey! Nietzsche! Leave Them Kids Alone [video 55 minutes 55 seconds]

Who knew Lord Byron had something in common with My Chemical Romance? Armed with an encyclopaedic knowledge of pop culture, Craig Schuftan traces the history of romanticism in rock and roll, drawing comparisons between 19th century poetic giants and the heroes of indie, glam and emo music. In this talk with Zan Rowe, Schuftan explores the links between music, philosophy and literature and why nobody wants to own up to being emo.

Ferguson: An Evolutionary Approach to Financial History [video 49 minutes 57 seconds]

Professor Niall Ferguson offers an evolutionary approach to financial history. He questions the impeding of 'natural selection' by keeping the financial dinosaurs alive through the life support of monetary injections: "without creative destruction, our economic system cannot be a healthy one." The view that financial history could be 'evolutionary' in fact pre-dates Darwin, born 200 years ago this year, but the view has been pushed into the hinterlands of contemporary thin

Nat Turner: Freedom Fighter or Terrorist? [video 46 minutes 39 seconds]

What are the distinctions between a freedom fighter and a terrorist? The debate over the meaning of Nat Turner's slave rebellion has been at the heart of race relations in the United States for the past 178 years. Charles Burnett, MacArthur Award-winning American filmmaker, Frank Christopher, award-winning producer, director, writer and editor, and Kenneth S. Greenberg, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Suffolk University and Distinguished Professor of History, screen thei

Two Strands of Liberty in the Western Canon [video 1 hour 9 minutes 17 seconds]

The Chautauqua Institution explores the strands of liberty in Western literature and canon. From ancient Greece to the Enlightenment, Hunter Ripley Rawlings III explores the prescriptive believes on freedom, independence and liberty. Hunter Ripley Rawlings III is best known for serving as the 10th president of Cornell University from 1995 until 2003. Currently, he serves a professor of classical history in Cornell's Department of History and Department of Classics.

The Supergirls: The History of Comic Book Heroines [video 33 minutes 48 seconds]

Mike Madrid, a San Francisco-based refugee from the world of advertising, is a lifelong fan of comic books and popular culture. His goal is to inform and entertain readers with a new look at modern-day icons. He's popular culture editor for Exterminating Angel Press and the creator of www.heaven4heroes.com, where comic book fantasies come to life. Madrid explores the change of heroines in comic books from the 1930's to the present.

Steve Hildebrand: Obama and the LGBT Community [video 1 hour 9 minutes 4 seconds]

Steve Hildebrand served as Barack Obama's Deputy National Campaign Manager during the historic 2008 presidential campaign. His work with Obama began in September 2006, long before Sen. Obama made a decision to seek the presidency. Hildebrand was at the forefront of all strategic decisions and helped craft the overall campaign from the beginning until Obama's victory on Nov. 4, 2008. Hildebrand details the work the LGBT community with the Clinton's and Obama, as well as the continued

"Eight Years in Afghanistan, the 'Graveyard of Empires'" [video 6 min 54 sec]

"How Obama Compares To Other Wartime Presidents" [audio 4 min 36 sec]

As President Obama weighs his military options in Afghanistan, how does his relationship to the military and his leadership style compare to other wartime presidents? Richard Kohn, a military historian at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, says President Obama's frequency of contacts with Gen. Stanley McChrystal are typical.

"Afghanistan Policymakers Look To Vietnam's Lessons" [audio 5 min 9 sec]

Steve Inskeep talks to author Gordon Goldstein about why the White House and the Pentagon are reading his book about Vietnam, Lessons in Disaster, to inform the policy toward Afghanistan.

"Segment 2: 'Biography in Sound: Meet Ernest Hemingway.' 1954." [audio 53 min 35 sec]

Herbert Marshall, Laurence Olivier, Mickey Spillane, Charles Cooper, Marlon Brando, and Al Capp all contribute to this Dec. 19, 1954 documentary on the life of Ernest Hemingway, part of an NBC radio series, "Biography in Sound." Various segments of the series are now widely available on the WWW, as well as in the National Archives and the Library of Congress.

"Segment 1 and 3: 'The Resistance of the Maya.' 1981." [audio 23 min 51 sec and 13 min 56 sec[

Here is another contribution -- slightly edited for length by us -- from the Pacifica Radio Archives' From the Vault program, a re-broadcast of a 1981 documentary titled The Resistance of the Maya: "This program examines the history of the 500 year resistance of the Maya against foreign rule, starting with the arrival of the Spanish, up to the current threat against the Lacandon-Maya, the last of the traditional Mayans. Independent radio producer John Walsh does an outstanding job surveyin

" Body Politics: A History of Health Care " [audio 54 min 51 sec]

FightTBIn 1912 Teddy Roosevelt was the first presidential candidate to run on a platform of national health care reform. He advocated a system based on the German model…and was soundly defeated. This episode of BackStory looks at the origins of our current health care debate. How did we end up with a system so different from other industrialized countries? Brian talks to Jacob Hacker, author of the "public option" plan, about why lobbyists hold so much sway when it comes to health ca

Conference opinions: The Foreign Fighter Problem [videos]

From the conference report: FPRI’s Program on National Security held a conference on the foreign fighter problem, July 14-15, 2009, at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Michael Horowitz, Michael P. Noonan, Mackubin Thomas Owens, Harvey Sicherman, and Stephanie Kaplan served as panel moderators. Nearly 100 individuals from academia, government, NGOs, the media, the military, and the public attended, and

Truthout in Buenos Aires talking about the war crimes trial of Gen. Rovere. [audio]

In collaboration with Truthout.org, we talk with Truthout reporter Sam Ferguson in Buenos Aires about the war crimes trial of Gen. Rovere. Rovere was a high-ranking military leader during the 1970’s, and was indicted, then pardoned in the 1980’s. In 2007 the pardon was revoked, and he is on trial for the “disappearing” of hundreds of citizens of Argentina. Sam expands on the text report to give context on the legal and political issues, and we compare this effort at accountability with poten

The Moderometer, Charting Obama's Zig-Zag, September 3 to 27

By Gil Troy Mr. Troy is Professor of History at McGill University in Montreal and a Visiting Scholar at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, DC. His latest book is: Leading from the Center: Why Moderates Make the Best Presidents (Basic Books).

Delayed Justice A Salve For Mississippi's Wounds? [audo 7 minutes 34 seconds]

The ghosts of Mississippi die hard. Forty-five years ago, two young black men disappeared on the outskirts of Homochitto National Park. The bodies of Charles Moore and Henry Dee finally turned up, brutally mangled, in a tributary of the Mississippi River. At the same time, the FBI sent agents flooding into the state — but not for this case. They were focused on the murders of three civil rights workers, an incident that would inspire the movie Mississippi B