Roundup

The Forgotten Paper: America's 1st African-American daily newspaper [audio 8min]

In researching his New Orleans neighborhood, Times Picayune columnist Lolis Eric Elie stumbled across the story of the nation's first African-American daily newspaper, The New Orleans Tribune. Elie's new film shows how the paper thrived during Reconstruction and played a large role in legal challenges to segregation, culminating in Plessy v. Ferguson.

Rude awakening: The Holocaust & Israeli pornography [audio 10min]

For a few years in the early 1960s, small, pornographic books called Stalags were a runaway success in Israel. The books were set in Nazi prisoner-of-war camps and featured a complicated mix of violence, sex and revenge fantasy. And according to Ari Libsker’s new documentary, Stalag, they shaped, and even perverted, a generation’s feelings about the Holocaust.

Chuck Berry in perspective: A rock history [audio 7min]

Rock historian Ed Ward looks at Rock and Roll Hall-of-Famer Chuck Berry and the career that made him a star. Berry's entire record output from the 1950s was recently released on a four-disc set from Hip-O-Select titled Johnny B. Goode: His Complete '50s Chess Recordings.

The My Lai tapes - Part one [audio 23min]

Robert Hodierne, an American military journalist, pieces together the horror and barbarism that swept through the village of My Lai 40 years ago. He reconstructs the events that led up to that day with exclusive archive recordings from the US Army's own investigation into the massacre. He also speaks to surviving victims and to some of the perpetrators of that historic day.

The My Lai tapes - Part two [audio 23min]

In 1969, almost a year after the atrocities in My Lai, the US Army were so concerned about the rumours of a cover-up of the massacre, that an internal inquiry was ordered. It became known as 'The Peers Inquiry'. Robert Hodierne, an American military journalist, looks at the investigation in detail. In this programme you can hear for the first time, the actual recorded testimonies of soldiers, senior officers, chaplains and journalists. The tape recordings from the Peers Inquiry were tracked down

The etiquette of mourning in Victorian times [audio 11min]

In the Victorian era, a woman was expected to wear mourning clothes for two and a half years after the death of her husband. He, meanwhile, had to wear a black ribbon round his hat for just three months. Mourning became a huge industry in the age of Queen Victoria with vast emporiums opening up around the country to supply appropriate clothes and accessories - vital at a time when you could easily become a social outcast by wearing the wrong thing. Lesley Hilton went to meet Mairead Mahon, an hi

Looking at the life of American civil rights activist Diane Nash [audio 9min]

This year Liverpool, England, is celebrating being European Capital of Culture. BBC Radio 4's "Woman's Hour" programme is marking the occasion with a series of features discovering some the treasures in the city's Museums and Galleries which have a particular significance for women, starting at one of Liverpool's newest museums--the International Slavery Museum. Today's treasure is--unusually--not a physical object. Louise Adamson met up with Vikky Evans-Hubbard, who's a Demonstrator (

Kitty O'Shea: The most hated women in Irish history? [audio 7min]

Katie O'Shea has long been vilified as the most hated woman in Ireland. Even her name was changed to vilify her--she was dubbed Kitty O'Shea,"Kitty" being a Victorian slang word for maid or prostitute. James Joyce called her 'that bitch, that English whore'. Her crime was to have an affair with the leader of Ireland's Home Rule movement, Charles Stewart Parnell. He was cited as co-respondent in her divorce case and his reputation was ruined. Parnell came closer than any other leader to securing

Global superclass exerts power greater than any nation state [audio 13min @ 15:00]

The global superclass is made up of 6,000-7,000 people whose influence is so great that it dwarfs the power of nation states. Sociologist Laurie Taylor is joined by David Rothkopf, the author of a new book called Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making (Little, Brown), and Saskia Sassen, Centennial Professor in the Department of Sociology at the London School of Economics, to discuss who the members of this superclass are, how they affect our lives, and whether or

Eric Muller on 'The Hunt for Japanese American Disloyalty in World War II' [audio 30min]

Eric Muller talks on Seattle Public Radio about his 2007 book, American Inquisition: The Hunt for Japanese American Disloyalty in World War II, a follow-up to his 2001 book, Free to Die for Their Country: The Story of the Japanese American Draft Resisters in World War II. He discusses the program undertaken by the United States against the Japanese Americans, as a "enemy race," during World World II, whether they were Japanese citizens or American citizens. His analysis i

'A Voyage Long and Strange' to America's past [audio 9min]

In his new book, A Voyage Long and Strange, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Tony Horwitz chronicles the exploration of America that occurred before Jamestown. Horowitz started tracing the steps of the French and Spanish explorers, discovering that some of the early adventurers made it much farther inland that most Americans realize. In the 1540s, Coronado and his horseman galloped all the way to central Kansas — almost the exact geographic center of the continent. Once there, sa

America's first slaves: Whites [audio 9min]

The slavery of Europeans was a prelude to the mass slavery of Africans in the Americas. Radio host Farai Chideya talks with Michael Walsh, co-author of White Cargo--a new book about the harsh and surprising reality of white indentured servitude in colonial America.

Culture and globalization [audio 9min @ 19:24]

A new collection of essays entitled Cultural Politics in a Global Age: Uncertainty, Solidarity, and Innovation (Oneworld Publications) raises questions about globalisation and cultural identity. Henrietta L. Moore, Professor of Social Anthropology at the London School of Economics and co-editor the book with David Held, talks about the resilience of such identity in the face of external threats, about the relative success of campaigns against globalisation, and about the manner in which t

SS officers realise they are WW2's 'baddies' [video 3min]

Comedy clip from BBC Two television series That Mitchell and Webb Look, now seen on BBC America.

Win Scutt on 'This Week in Archaeology' [audio 15min @ 1:50]

Archaeologist Win Scutt discusses research on what Neanderthal people ate; DNA analyses revealing that the early human (Homo sapiens) population of Africa was split into two for many thousands of years; archaeologists uncovering in Eastern Turkey a temple with huge carved stone pillars, built before farming replaced hunting, and 7,000 years older than Stonehenge; Egyptian archaeologists planning to excavate the tomb of Cleopatra and Mark Antony; and the identification of descendants of Canada's

The "Frenchman's Map" of Williamsburg [audio 13min]

Architectural researcher Ed Chappell talks about a 1782 map of Williamsburg that locates every house at that date. Known as the Frenchman's Map, it was drawn to scale by a French military officer. The map became the bible of the restoration of the Wythe House, which it marks as General Headquarters, according to Alan Simpson, author of The Mysteries of the "Frenchman's Map" of Williamsburg, Virginia. Simpson mostly solved the mysteries.

Post-WW2 Jewish rage against English fascists [audio 45min]

Oral historian Alan Dein uncovers a little known story of postwar conflict. For four years after 1945, London and England's Southeast counties witnessed vicious confrontations between the remnants of Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists and Jewish ex-servicemen organized in the 43 Group. Operating beyond the law, the 43 Group were fueled by rage, guilt at the fate of Europe's Jews, and British policy in Palestine. Their goal was to drive fascism from the streets and silence its message fore

Thomas Jefferson panel from 2008 Virginia Festival of the Book [video 63min]

From the 2008 Virginia Festival of the Book, in Charlottesville, Va., a panel discussion on Thomas Jefferson features Jon Kukla on "Mr. Jefferson's Women,", Jeremy Bailey on "Thomas Jefferson and Executive Power" and Alan Pell Crawford on "Twilight at Monticello: The Final Years of Thomas Jefferson.". Kukla has been the historical research and publishing director at the Library of Virginia, director of the Historical New Orleans Collection, and director of the Patri

Win Scutt on 'This Week in Archaeology' [audio 15min @2:30]

Archaeologist Win Scutt discusses a Roman altar unearthed in Manchester, England; the publishing of the excavation of a Anglo-Saxon cemetery in Yorkshire, England; a different kind of Anglo-Saxon cemetery discovered in Oxford, England; a huge Viking hoard found in Sweden; and the excavation of a South African concentration camp run by the British during the Boer War. Scutt's "This Week in the World of Archaeology" news feature is part of BBC Radio 5 Live's popular "Up All Night&qu

New Orleans museum to reclaim artifacts [audio 4min]

After Hurricane Katrina, the Louisiana State Museum in New Orleans' French Quarter evacuated 200,000 artifacts to Baton Rouge, where they've sat in storage ever since. Now the artifacts are all coming home.