Roundup

Cronkite calls 1956 Hungary Uprising "Huge 'October Surprise'" [audio 13min]

This is a story for those of you who may believe life was easier in the more simple days of the Cold War, when the issues seemed less complicated and the choices more clear-cut -- such a time, perhaps, as November 1956. If so, I caution you to be careful what you wish for. It was not a simple time. In the final days of an American presidential election, two wars flared suddenly in Hungary and Egypt. Before events played out, the polarities of the Cold War would be scrambled as the United States

1956 Hungary Uprising influences Hungarian politics today [audio 30min]

James Maw visits Budapest to see how the Hungarian Uprising is remembered. 50 years on, today's political demonstrators continue to draw on the symbolism of 1956. Maw is an author, journalist and travel writer whose published novels include Year of the Jaguar and Nothing but Trouble (Sceptre).

1941 German attack on Moscow was WWII's turning point [video 93min]

Moscow 1941: A City and Its People at War is Rodric Braithwaite's social history of Germany's 1941 attack on Russia. The author, a former British ambassador in Moscow, describes the attack as the turning point of World War II and uses interviews and diaries to describe the personal reactions of several people affected by the invasion. Almost one million Russians died by the end of the year. Braithwaite was British ambassador to Moscow from 1988 to 1992. He is also the author of Across

Vulcanization was greatest industrial secret of 19th century [video 57min]

Noble Obsession: Charles Goodyear, Thomas Hancock, and the Race to Unlock the Greatest Industrial Secret of the Nineteenth Century is the biography of American inventor and entrepreneur Charles Goodyear. Author Charles Slack describes Goodyear's development of vulcanization -- the technique used to transform rubber into a useable product. Also detailed are the inventor's susequent personal and financial struggles to win a patent for his innovative manufacturing process. The patent conflic

1956 Hungary Uprising recalled by eyewitnesses [audio 45min]

Charles Wheeler presents a documentary about the Hungary Uprising in October 1956 -- a story told through the voices and memories of those who witnessed it.

Dalrymple finds lessons in last Mughal and clash of civilisations [audio 9min]

East and west face each other across a divide that some call a religious war. Suicide jihadis take what they see as defensive action and innocent people are killed. But this is 1857. William Dalrymple on lessons from the Raj for the neo-cons. ~Audio generated by ReadSpeaker automatic speech.

Emma Lazarus, poet of the huddled masses [audio 11min]

In her poem"The New Colossus," Emma Lazarus created what stood for years as an American credo. You know the words:"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free..." The words of the poem were engraved on a bronze plaque hung in the Statue of Liberty museum 20 years after her death. To many, the verse expressed the governing U.S. attitude toward immigrants: Welcome. But today, a new debate over immigration is dominating the political debate. So it's a good time to ta

The Needham Question: Did China lay the foundations of modern science? [audio 45min]

What do these things have in common? Fireworks, wood-block printing, canal lock-gates, kites, the wheelbarrow, chain suspension bridges and the magnetic compass. The answer is that they were all invented in China, a country that, right through the Middle Ages, maintained a cultural and technological sophistication that made foreign dignitaries flock to its imperial courts for trade and favour. But then, around 1700, the flow of ingenuity began to dry up and even reverse as Europe bore the fruits

Theory about Agatha Christie's most personal mystery [audio 4min]

Dr. Andrew Norman's new biography of whodunnit writer Agatha Christie offers a theory that may explain a mystery in Christie's own life. In 1926 she disappeared for 11 days before she was discovered at a hotel in Harrogate, England. Norman tells Andrea Seabrook Christie had experienced a"fugue state." His biography is Agatha Christie: The Finished Portrait (Tempus Publishing).

Ancient 'Olive Route' may be travelled in 21st century [audio 9min @1:23]

Carol Drinkwater talks about her new book The Olive Route: A Personal Journey to the Heart of the Mediterranean (Weidenfeld & Nicolson), which maps the route by which the olive became the cornerstone of the Mediterranean diet. Carol describes her cultural and historical adventure across the Eastern Mediterranean coast, where she gained access to diverse regions and communities. Starting her journey in Lebanon, looking for the world's oldest olive tree, Carol travelled for over eight month

19c mystery, murder and adventure in the Spice Islands [audio 1st 10min]

Comedienne, writer and psychologist Pamela Stephenson earlier this year sailed a yacht round the islands of Indonesia searching for traces of her great-great-grandfather, a British Master Mariner Samuel Stephenson -- known as Salty Sam. In 1821 he set off to Java (now in Indonesia) aboard his sailing ship the Rosalie. He somehow lost his ship and was killed either by pirates or by mutineers. A survivor told the tale, which made its way into some accounts in marine papers, but the details

Panamanians propose expanding antiquated Panama Canal [audio 3min]

"Marketplace" Host Lisa Napoli talks to journalist Lucy Conger about Panama's upcoming referendum on widening its famed canal to accommodate bigger cargo ships -- and how it could impact U.S. trade.

'Jonestown' is portrait of disturbed cult leader [audio 6min]

It has been almost 30 years since the mass suicide at Jonestown, Guyana, shocked the world. More than 900 people -- men, women and children alike -- followed the call of their religious leader and guru, the Rev. Jim Jones, and killed themselves by drinking Kool-Aid laced with cyanide at the cult's sprawling compound in Central America. The images of the piles of bodies rotting in the sun found at the compound were seared into the consciousness of a generation, and spawned the phrase"drank the Ko

'The Lost,' a Holocaust story [audio 6min]

In The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million, author Daniel Mendelsohn unearths and reconstructs the lives of six people in his family who died in the Holocaust. Maureen Corrigan has a book review.

Islam and extremism: 'Reformation' in the making? [audio 8min]

In the Muslim world, radicals, reformers, activists and academics are all struggling to reshape their religion. The debates often take place in cyberspace, or on Arabic-language satellite broadcasts. Other Muslims are trying to rescue their faith from extremism. Some scholars say it's an "Islamic Reformation," borrowing from a Christian era that lasted more than 100 years -- and was often violent and bloody. For centuries, distinguished scholars interpreted scripture and law for the Mu

In Carthage, tourists rub shoulders with today's Tunisians [audio 30min]

Chris Stewart, once drummer in the band Genesis, now a sheep farmer and best-selling author -- travels from his home in Andalucía along the length of the North Africa shore -- the forgotten coastline of the Maghreb, which has become the focus of European attention once again. Chris begins his travels, crossing the Straits of Gibraltar to Tangier to visit the Pillars of Hercules, pay tribute at the tomb of a great traveller, hear stories of fish that speak and meet people who risk their lives to

Hawkstone Park was Romatic refuge from Industrial Revolution [audio 11min]

As garden design grew ever more bold in the 18th and 19th centuries, the park at Hawkstone in Shropshire, built in the 1700s, served as a reminder of God's supreme power over man and nature. The follies of rock caverns and mountains covering 15 miles of rugged terrain in North Shropshire were built by the Methodist Richard Hill as a kind of temple to Nature and God. He opened the park to the public, and visitors came to Hawkstone to rediscover nature as society became more and more urbanised fol

Bill provides millions for Gullah community [audio 12min]

President Bush signs into law a bill that would provide $10 million in grant money over the next decade to support and preserve the rich history of the Gullah (or Geechee) culture. Farai Chideya talks with Democratic Congressman James Clyburn of South Carolina who led the bill and Emory Campbell, a longtime activist in the Gullah community.

Ambroise Vollard first spotted Cezanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Matisse, Picasso, others [audio 7min]

You expect a great institution like the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to put on an exhibition of masterpieces. And the Met's current offering -- Cezanne to Picasso -- is just such a show. It has works by Cezanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Matisse, Picasso and others. But the focus of the exhibition is not so much on masterpieces as it is on Ambroise Vollard, the Frenchman who first spotted these artists and sold their works, which became part of every important collection of modern art

Lodz Ghetto • Britain's earliest films • Crucifixion in Roman Britian • St Benet's Abbey, Norfolk [audio 30min]

Nick Baker and the "Making History" team examine listeners' historical queries and get to the bottom of historical mysteries, local legends, family curiosities and architectural oddities. 1) Henryk Ross was a photographer in Poland's Lodz Ghetto. He kept a clandestine diary of ghetto life in powerful and often brilliant images and, when the ghetto's liquidation began, he buried them. A survivor, he dug them up after the war, releasing many that were to become icons of the Holocaust’s a