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4281-1
Neil Sheehan
A Bright Shining Lie (Part 2)
Neil Sheehan gave five 30-minute interviews about his book, “A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam.” The second interview was titled "America in Vietnam."
1988-10-18T00:00:00
0394484479
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/4281-1
167784-1
Peter Bergen
Holy War, Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden
On September 11, 2001, the world in which we live was changed forever. The twin towers of the World Trade Center came crashing down, one side of the Pentagon burst into flame, and more than six thousand men, women, and children lost their lives in the most deadly terrorist attack on American soil. As shocking as it was...
2001-12-16T00:00:00
0743205022
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/167784-1
16032-1
Daniel Yergin
The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power
Daniel Yergin discussed his book, "The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power," published by Touchstone Books. Mr. Yergin spoke about the history of the oil industry and its influence on world politics and economy. His research for the book included over sixty interviews with leading figures in the oil industry...
1991-01-27T00:00:00
1439110123
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/16032-1
106581-1
Linda Simon
Genuine Reality: A Life of William James
This first full biography of William James in nearly a generation brings us the man alive in all his complexity. Intellectual rebel, romantic pragmatist, aristocratic pluralist, James was both a towering figure of the nineteenth century and a springboard into the twentieth. Constitutionally opposed to the rigidity and ...
1998-06-07T00:00:00
0151930988
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/106581-1
17114-1
Leonard Goldenson
Beating the Odds
Mr. Goldenson discussed his book, Beating the Odds: The Stars, Struggles, and Egos that Transformed Network Television. He said the book is meant to be an instructive history, mainly for ABC's affiliates, of the steps that were taken to build ABC Inc. The information comes from his personal memories as well as over 110...
1991-03-17T00:00:00
0684190559
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/17114-1
170335-1
Daniel Stashower
The Boy Genius and the Mogul: The Untold Story of Television
The world remembers Edison, Ford, and the Wright Brothers. But what about Philo T. Farnsworth, the inventor of television, an innovation that did as much as any other to shape the twentieth century? That question lies at the heart of The Boy Genius and the Mogul , Daniel Stashower's captivating chronicle of television'...
2002-07-21T00:00:00
0767907590
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/170335-1
107473-1
Roy Reed
Faubus: The Life and Times of An American Prodigal
This is the first full-length treatment of the life of Orval E. Faubus, thirty-sixth governor of the state of Arkansas, known most infamously from America's civil rights era as the governor who pitted his state against the dictates and forces of the federal government during the Little Rock Central High School desegreg...
1998-08-09T00:00:00
1557284571
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/107473-1
63787-1
Gertrude Himmelfarb
The De-Moralization of Society: From Victorian Virtues to Modern Values
Professor Himmelfarb discussed her book The De-Moralization of Society: From Victorian Virtues to Modern Values, published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. The book concerns the development of modern values from the Victorian virtues, and the differences between modern values and Victorian virtues. She lists four Victorian vir...
1995-04-02T00:00:00
0679764909
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/63787-1
11662-1
James Abourezk
Advise & Dissent: Memoirs of South Dakota & the US Senate
Senator James Abourezk discussed his book “Advise and Dissent: Memoirs of South Dakota and the U.S. Senate.” Senator Abourezk, who is Arab-American, wrote his memoirs in part to present a role model to young Arab-Americans. He explained the Arab-American Anti- Discrimination Committee, of which he is the founder and ch...
1990-03-25T00:00:00
1556520662
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/11662-1
49975-1
Joseph Ellis
Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy of John Adams
Mr. Ellis discussed the research behind his book, Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy of John Adams, published by W.W. Norton and Company. Joseph Ellis describes President John Adams as the most under appreciated man in American history. He spoke on his revelations about the nature of the nation's second presiden...
1993-09-05T00:00:00
0393311333
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/49975-1
123098-1
Roger Mudd
Great Minds of History
American Heritage: Great Minds of History illuminates the historians responsible for some of our era's most acclaimed and successful books. Through interviews conducted by The History Channel's Roger Mudd, readers are treated to five absorbing conversations rich in fresh anecdotes and insights that, together, touch upo...
1999-06-06T00:00:00
0471327158
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/123098-1
70322-1
Fox Butterfield
All God's Children: The Bosket Family and the American Tradition of Violence
Mr. Butterfield talked about his recent book, All God's Children: The Bosket Family and the American Tradition of Violence, published by Alfred A Knopf. It focuses on Willie Bosket, who was convicted of murdering several people on a New York subway when he was fifteen years old. Mr. Butterfield examined the Bosket fami...
1996-03-31T00:00:00
0380728621
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/70322-1
18201-1
Robert Kaiser
Why Gorbachev Happened: His Triumphs & His Failure
Robert Kaiser, deputy managing editor of the Washington Post, discussed his book, "Why Gorbachev Happened: His Triumphs and His Failure." Formerly a world correspondent for the Post, Mr. Kaiser wrote on Soviet President Gorbachev's rise to power and the successes and failures of President Gorbachev's policies in the So...
1991-06-02T00:00:00
0671736922
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/18201-1
76471-1
Robert Bork
Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline
Judge Bork talked about his book, Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline, published by Reganbooks. The book criticizes liberalism for leading society away from constraints for the individual without acknowledging that there must be some limits on behaviour. These limits have been set in the ...
1996-12-04T00:00:00
0060987197
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/76471-1
74535-1
David Friedman
Hidden Order: The Economics of Everyday Life
Mr. Friedman talked about his recent book, Hidden Order: The Economics of Everyday Life, published by Harper Business. It elaborates on the fundamental notion that economics is about behavior and choice, not money. He talked about how economists have developed ways to predict behavior based on the idea that people will...
1996-10-20T00:00:00
0887308856
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/74535-1
62813-1
Marvin Olasky
The Tragedy of American Compassion
Marvin Olasky discussed his book, "The Tragedy of American Compassion," published by Regnery Publishing of Washington, D.C. The book describes how Americans successfully fought poverty before the government became involved in the 1930s and then further involved in the 1960s. He argues that while the system is generous ...
1995-01-22T00:00:00
089526725X
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/62813-1
173040-1
Peter Krass
Carnegie
—from the publisher's website One of the major figures in American history, Andrew Carnegie was a ruthless businessman who made his fortune in the steel industry and ultimately gave most of it away. He used his wealth to ascend the world’s political stage, influencing the presidencies of Grover Cleveland, William McKin...
2002-11-24T00:00:00
0471386308
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/173040-1
160240-1
Murray Sperber
Beer and Circus: Big-Time College Sports
Murray Sperber turns common perceptions about big-time college athletics inside out. He shows, for instance, that contrary to popular belief the money coming in to universities from sports programs never makes it to academic departments and rarely even covers the expense of maintaining athletic programs. The bigger and...
2000-11-26T00:00:00
0805038647
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/160240-1
61121-1
Doris Kearns Goodwin
No Ordinary Time
Ms. Goodwin talked about her recently published book, No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, the Home Front in World War II, published by Simon and Schuster, which focuses on the White House scene during Franklin Roosevelt's term, including the intimate circle of friends surrounding President and Mrs. Roosev...
1995-01-01T00:00:00
0684804484
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/61121-1
165909-1
Michael Eric Dyson
Holler If You Hear Me: Searching for Tupac Shakur
Acclaimed for his writings on Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr., as well as his passionate defense of black youth culture, Michael Eric Dyson has emerged as the leading African American intellectual of his generation. Now Dyson turns his attention to one of the most enigmatic figures of the past decade: the slain h...
2001-11-04T00:00:00
046501755X
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/165909-1
87803-1
Frank McCourt
Angela's Ashes
" When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood." So begins the lum...
1997-08-31T00:00:00
0684874350
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/87803-1
15457-1
John Wallach
Arafat: In the Eyes of the Beholder
The husband-and-wife team, Janet and John Wallach, discussed their book about the controversial leader of the Palestine Liberation Movement (PLO), Yasser Arafat. Entitled, "Arafat: In the Eyes of the Beholder," the work details the life and political struggles of this important political leader. The Wallachs were able ...
1990-12-23T00:00:00
155972403X
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/15457-1
64314-1
John Niven
Salmon P. Chase: A Biography
John Niven discussed his book, "Salmon P. Chase: A Biography," published by Oxford University Press. The book focuses on the life of Salmon P. Chase, 1808-1873, who served as Secretary of the Treasury during the Civil War and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court from 1864 until his death, the critical period of Reconstru...
1995-05-28T00:00:00
0195046536
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/64314-1
117773-1
Michael Ignatieff
Isaiah Berlin: A Life
Russian by birth, Jewish by descent, English by choice, Isaiah Berlin (1909-97) knit together three identities into a cosmopolitan sensibility that informed his contributions as one of the 20th century's most influential and important intellectuals. Based on his experiences as a child during the Russian Revolution and ...
1999-01-24T00:00:00
0805055207
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/117773-1
115429-1
Shelby Steele
A Dream Deferred: The Second Betrayal of Black Freedom in America
Shelby Steele's first book, The Content of Our Character , sparked outrage over its indictment of liberal American policies and attitudes towards race. A Dream Deferred expands Steele's critique, comparing government interventions (like affirmative action) to the most damaging practices of slavery and segregation, Sovi...
1998-12-06T00:00:00
0060931043
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/115429-1
157386-1
James Bradley
Flags of Our Fathers
In this unforgettable chronicle of perhaps the most famous moment in American military history, James Bradley has captured the glory, the triumph, the heartbreak, and the legacy of the six men who raised the flag at Iwo Jima. Here is the true story behind the immortal photograph that has come to symbolize the courage a...
2000-07-09T00:00:00
0553111337
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/157386-1
113124-1
Eric Foner
The Story of American Freedom
A masterful history of the United States, focused on its animating impulse-freedom-and the continuing struggle to achieve it. Freedom: a promised land, a battleground, America's cultural bond and fault line. The Declaration of Independence lists liberty among mankind's inalienable rights; the Constitution was framed to...
1998-11-15T00:00:00
0393046656
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/113124-1
174980-1
Robert Kagan
Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order
—from the publisher's website From a leading scholar of our country’s foreign policy, the brilliant essay about America and the world that has caused a storm in international circles now expanded into book form. European leaders, increasingly disturbed by U.S. policy and actions abroad, feel they are headed for what th...
2003-02-16T00:00:00
1400040930
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/174980-1
183682-1
Peter Charles Hoffer
Past Imperfect
—from the publisher's website Woodrow Wilson, a practicing academic historian before he took to politics, defined the importance of history: "A nation which does not know what it was yesterday, does not know what it is today." He, like many men of his generation, wanted to impose a version of America's founding identit...
2004-11-21T00:00:00
1586482440
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/183682-1
43516-1
Howard Kurtz
Media Circus: The Trouble with America's Newspapers
Howard Kurtz, author of "Media Circus: The Trouble with America's Newspapers," published by Time Books, discussed the book's criticism of the American newspaper industry. He talked about his career in journalism and media criticism, including the changes that have occurred in the newspaper industry during the rise of t...
1993-06-20T00:00:00
0812963563
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/43516-1
56384-1
Mark Neely
The Last Best Hope of Earth
Professor Neely spoke about his biography "The Last Best Hope of Earth: Abraham Lincoln and the Promise of America," published by Harvard University Press. The title is taken from Lincoln's second Message to Congress dated December 1, 1862. This portrait of the life of Abraham Lincoln focuses particularly on the moral ...
1994-06-12T00:00:00
0674511255
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/56384-1
153957-1
Tom Wheeler
Leadership Lessons from the Civil War
Business veteran Wheeler profiles nine specific leadership lessons and illustrates them with in-depth stories of battlefield decisions and their results. —from the publisher's website
1999-12-26T00:00:00
0385495188
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/153957-1
24282-1
Francis Fukuyama
The End of History and the Last Man
Mr. Fukuyama discussed his book, The End of History and the Last Man, in which he contends that the shaping forces of history tend toward liberal democracy, a system in which both free elections and constitutional rights are guaranteed. He also explores the implications of this form of government and questions whether ...
1992-02-09T00:00:00
0029109752
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/24282-1
24604-1
Richard Nixon
Seize the Moment, Part 1
Former President Richard Nixon discussed his book "Seize the Moment: America's Challenge in a One-Superpower World," published by Simon and Schuster. In his book, he assesses the challenges and opportunities facing the United States since the breakup of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. Mr. Nixon also share...
1992-02-23T00:00:00
0671743430
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/24604-1
22765-1
Suzanne Garment
Scandal: The Culture of Mistrust in American Politics
Ms. Garment, author of Scandal: The Culture of Mistrust in American Politics, discussed the way political scandals have reshaped U.S. history and influenced the way Americans vote and think about public policy. Her book cites over eighty cases of misconduct occurring within both political parties. She examines what she...
1991-11-17T00:00:00
0385425112
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/22765-1
40556-1
Charles Adams
For Good & Evil
Charles Adams discussed the research behind his book, “For Good and Evil: The Impact of Taxes on the Course of Civilization,” published by Madison Books. The book examines the role of taxation in several historical events, including the fall of Rome, the American Revolution and the signing of the Magna Carta. Mr. Adams...
1993-05-09T00:00:00
1568332351
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/40556-1
93523-1
Anita Hill
Speaking Truth to Power
After her astonishing testimony in the Clarence Thomas hearings, Anita Hill ceased to be a private citizen and became a public figure at the white-hot center of an intense national debate on how men and women relate to each other in the workplace. That debate led to groundbreaking court decisions and major shifts in co...
1997-01-23T00:00:00
0385476256
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/93523-1
98565-1
William Gildea
Where the Game Matters Most
In Indiana, high school basketball is more than a game, it's a religion. Fifteen of the sixteen largest high school gymnasiums in the United States are located in Indiana, and each winter basketball fever grips the state as impassioned fans from hamlets to cities celebrate the sport. High school basketball known in Ind...
1998-02-22T00:00:00
0316519677
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/98565-1
168338-1
Sandra Day O’Connor
Lazy B: Growing Up On a Cattle Ranch in the American Southwest
What was it in Sandra Day O'Connor's background and early life that helped make her the woman she is today-the first female justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, and one of the most powerful women in America? In this beautiful, illuminating, and unusual book, Sandra Day O'Connor, with her brother, Alan, tells the story of...
2002-01-27T00:00:00
0375507248
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/168338-1
4283-1
Neil Sheehan
A Bright Shining Lie (Part 4)
Neil Sheehan gave five 30-minute interviews about his book, “A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam.” The fourth interview was titled "The Story of John Paul Vann."
1988-10-20T00:00:00
0394484479
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/4283-1
31627-1
Neil Postman
Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology
Neil Postman, author of Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology published by Alfred A. Knopf Publishers, spoke on the theme of his book which noted the dependence of Americans on technological advances for their own security. He said Americans have come to expect technological innovations to solve the larger...
1992-08-30T00:00:00
0679745408
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/31627-1
74506-1
Louise Barnett
Touched by Fire
Ms. Barnett talked about her book, Touched by Fire: The Life, Death, and Mythic Afterlife of George Armstrong Custer, published by Henry Holt and Company. She talked about the military and private life of General Custer and examined issues of class, race and gender. She depicts a man who never adjusted to life after hi...
1996-10-13T00:00:00
080505359X
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/74506-1
89104-1
John Toland
Captured By History
In Captured By History, Toland offers new insights into the major events that shaped this tumultuous century, taking readers once again on an incredible historical and personal journey. —from the publisher's website
1997-09-14T00:00:00
0312154909
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/89104-1
71257-1
Michael Sandel
Democracy's Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy
Professor Sandel talked about his recent book, Democracy's Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy, published by Harvard University Press. The book is about America's past and present political arguments. It also examines citizens' frustration with government and the unraveling of the moral fabric of commu...
1996-05-19T00:00:00
0674197453
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/71257-1
65105-1
Hanan Ashrawi
This Side of Peace: A Personal Account
Ms. Ashrawi talked about her memoir, “This Side of Peace: A Personal Account,” published by Simon and Schuster. The book talks about her life growing up as a Christian Arab woman in a Muslim-dominated section of the world and how she dealt with her differences in becoming an Arab leader. It focuses on her personal part...
1995-06-04T00:00:00
0684802945
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/65105-1
31211-1
Martin Anderson
Impostors in the Temple
Mr. Anderson, author of the book “Impostors in the Temple: American Intellectuals Are Destroying Our Universities and Cheating Our Students of Their Future,” published by Simon and Schuster, criticized the intellectual elite of American colleges and universities for failing the nation's students in higher education thr...
1992-08-16T00:00:00
0671709151
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/31211-1
7047-1
Zbigniew Brzezinski
The Grand Failure
Zbigniew Brzezinski, former National Security Adviser to President Carter and author of The Grand Failure, argues that due to massive economic, social, and moral failure the communist system has collapsed. The world is currently witnessing a disintegration of communism. Brzezinski asserts that this is a major historica...
1989-04-02T00:00:00
0684190346
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/7047-1
177962-1
Robert Darnton
George Washington’s False Teeth
—from the publisher's website An Unconventional Guide to the Eighteenth Century A master historian's excavations into the past unearth a world that is unexpected and compelling. The most famous character in eighteenth-century Paris, apart from the public hangman, was "Le Grand Thomas," a tooth puller who operated on th...
2003-08-31T00:00:00
0393057607
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/177962-1
122691-1
Jean Strouse
Morgan: American Financier
A century ago, J. Pierpont Morgan bestrode the financial world like a colossus. The organizing force behind General Electric, U.S. Steel, and vast railroad empires, he served for decades as America's unofficial central banker: a few months after he died in 1913, the Federal Reserve replaced the private system he had de...
1999-05-23T00:00:00
0375501665
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/122691-1
153154-1
Fred Maroon
The Nixon Years, 1969-1974, White House to Watergate
Published on the 25th anniversary of Nixon's resignation, this intimate and dramatic view of the presidency features 134 pictures by a prize-winning photographer who covered Washington for nearly 50 years. —from the publisher's website
1999-11-14T00:00:00
0789206102
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/153154-1
181736-1
Charles Ogletree
All Deliberate Speed
—from the publisher's website On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the doctrine of "separate but equal" was unconstitutional. Charles J. Ogletree, Jr., was not even two at the time, and his family, farm workers in southern California, had scant knowledge of how keenly the ruling would affect them. ...
2004-05-09T00:00:00
0393058972
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/181736-1
57267-1
Stephen Ambrose
D-Day: June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II
They wanted to be throwing baseballs, not hand grenades, shooting .22s at rabbits, not M-1s at other men. But when the test came, when freedom had to be fought for or abandoned, they fought. They were soldiers of democracy. They were the men of D-Day. When Hitler declared war on the United States, he bet that the young...
1994-06-05T00:00:00
068480137X
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/57267-1
181339-1
David Cay Johnston
Perfectly Legal
—from the publisher's website One of the country's top investigative reporters reveals how the richest people within the top 1 percent of the country has rigged the tax code and other laws in its favor. Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter David Cay Johnston has been breaking pieces of this story on the front ...
2004-04-18T00:00:00
1591840198
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/181339-1
160555-1
Kurt Eichenwald
The Informant: A True Story. Part 1
From an award-winning New York Times investigative reporter comes an outrageous story of greed, corruption, and conspiracy—which left the FBI and Justice Department counting on the cooperation of one man . . . It was one of the FBI's biggest secrets: a senior executive with America's most politically powerful corporati...
2001-02-04T00:00:00
0767903269
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/160555-1
102566-1
Molly Ivins
You Got to Dance with Them What Brung You
It's been five years since Molly Ivins's last book, which is probably too long a time in the opinion of her many fans. But the intervening years have given the bestselling author and syndicated columnist some of the best raw material a political writer could ask for. The Republicans staged a revolution, Clinton was ree...
1998-04-26T00:00:00
0679754873
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/102566-1
77953-1
Henry Grunwald
One Man's America: A Journalist's Search for the Heart of His Country
Mr. Grunwald talked about his new book, One Man's America: A Journalist's Search for the Heart of His Country, published by Doubleday. The book is a memoir about his life, from its beginnings in Austria in the 1930s to his retirement as editor of Time in 1987. He also talked about some of the famous media and political...
1997-02-02T00:00:00
0385493576
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/77953-1
175993-1
Anne Applebaum
Gulag: A History
—from the publisher's website The Gulag - the vast array of Soviet concentration camp —was a system of repression and punishment whose rationalized evil and institutionalized inhumanity were rivaled only by the Holocaust. The Gulag entered the world’s historical consciousness in 1972, with the publication of Alexander ...
2003-05-25T00:00:00
1400034094
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/175993-1
17362-1
Dayton Duncan
Grass Roots
Mr. Duncan talked about the importance of the New Hampshire primary as an accurate predictor of who will win the presidential election. He said it is "the closest thing we've got to amniocentesis." Since 1952, when New Hampshire's primary was changed, and became the first primary in each election cycle, no candidate fr...
1991-03-31T00:00:00
0140103694
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/17362-1
151781-1
Richard Cohen
Rostenkowski: The Pursuit of Power and the End of the Old Politics
Until the 1994 election when Republicans took control of the United States Congress, Democrats had enjoyed immense legislative power for forty years. Most of them practiced old-school politics. Critics charged that they exploited corrupt powers of incumbency, but these Democrats also served their constituents in a time...
1999-09-19T00:00:00
1566633109
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/151781-1
72333-1
Glenn Simpson
Dirty Little Secrets: The Persistence of Corruption in American Politics
Mr. Simpson talked about the book he co-authored by Larry Sabato, Dirty Little Secrets: The Persistance of Corruption in American Politics, published by Times Books. In the book the authors analyzed why they believe Americans are cynical about the political system. Simpson described various forms of corruption in Congr...
1996-06-30T00:00:00
0812924991
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/72333-1
58251-1
Lani Guinier
The Tyranny of the Majority
Professor Guinier spoke about her new book The Tyranny of the Majority in which she outlines her views on race relations in the U.S. She was nominated to the post of Civil Rights attorney for the Justice Department. However, her nomination was withdrawn due to a "reaction" over her early writings on civil rights repres...
1994-06-26T00:00:00
0029131693
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/58251-1
95192-1
Susan Butler
East to the Dawn: The Life of Amelia Earhart
Amelia Earhart's legacy has loomed large since her Lockheed Electra disappeared in 1938 and she has since emerged as one of the true heroines of the twentieth century. Now, Susan Butler offers the most comprehensive account to date of Earhart's remarkable life. From her childhood and her family's great financial hardsh...
1997-12-14T00:00:00
0201311445
https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/95192-1
166960-1
Vernon Jordan
Vernon Can Read! A Memoir
From the very beginning, I felt the tug of my mother's hope. It could not have been missed. I moved forward, propelled by her deep ambition and love for me-- two things I never had a moment's doubt about and which moved me to accept her guidance and to want to vindicate her faith in me. It's an almost irresistible chal...
2001-12-23T00:00:00
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Jennet Conant
Tuxedo Park
In the fall of 1940, as German bombers flew over London and with America not yet at war, a small team of British scientists on orders from Winston Churchill carried out a daring trans-atlantic mission. The British unveiled their most valuable military secret in a clandestine meeting with American nuclear physicists at ...
2002-06-09T00:00:00
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Maureen Dowd
Bushworld: Enter at Your Own Risk
—from the publisher's website From Washington to Kennebunkport to Texas to old Europe and new Europe, during the past two decades Maureen Dowd has trained her binoculars on the Bush dynasty, putting them, as both 41 and 43 have complained to her, "on the couch." Here she wittily dissects the Oedipal loop-de-loop betwee...
2004-08-08T00:00:00
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Ken Auletta
Three Blind Mice: How the TV Networks Lost Their Way
Mr. Auletta talked about his book “Three Blind Mice: How the TV Networks Lost Their Way,” published by Knopf. His book looks at the effects of increased competition and advanced technology on U.S. network television. He explained how the television networks gained a monopoly over entertainment and news from the 1950s t...
1991-10-06T00:00:00
0307766330
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Leon Dash
Rosa Lee: A Mother and Her Family in Urban America
Mr. Dash talked about his new book, Rosa Lee: A Mother and Her Family in Urban America, published by Basic Books. It focuses on a single-parent family of eight children in public housing in Washington, DC over the past fifty years. He also talked about the problems of the African-American underclass and what can be don...
1996-11-10T00:00:00
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Marc Fisher
After the Wall: Germany, The Germans, and the Burdens of History
Marc Fisher discussed his book, After the Wall: Germany, the Germans and the Burdens of History, published by Simon and Schuster. The book examines the relationship between East and West Germany after the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989. Mr. Fisher, who served as the Washington Post's bureau chief in Bonn and Berlin fr...
1995-08-06T00:00:00
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Stephanie Gutmann
The Kinder, Gentler Military
Gutmann charges into the armed forces to observe "the new military, " showing why the complete integration of women into the military is physically and sociologically impossible and how the pursuit of this unrealistic ideal is demoralizing to soldiers of both sexes and a sure set-up for battlefield disaster. —from the ...
2000-05-14T00:00:00
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Peter Collier
The Roosevelts: An American Saga
Mr. Collier spoke about his new book The Roosevelts: An American Saga which highlights the life and times of Franklin D. and Eleanor Roosevelt. The discussion focused on the "loveless" family and the four children of the Roosevelts.
1994-08-07T00:00:00
0786107472
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Balint Vazsonyi
America’s 30 Years War: Who Is Winning
Is America on a slow-motion trip toward socialism even as much of the rest of the world moves away from it? Hungarian-born historian and world-renowned concert pianist Balint Vazsonyi knows first-hand what it means to live under an authoritarian regime and makes a powerful case that America is going down the same road....
1998-09-27T00:00:00
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David Savage
Turning Right
Mr. Savage, Supreme Court reporter for the Los Angeles Times, was interviewed about his book Turning Right: The Making of the Rehnquist Supreme Court, published by Wiley. Mr. Savage provides an analysis of the Court between 1986 and 1991 by examining the transition from liberal to conservative civil rights decisions du...
1992-06-28T00:00:00
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Robert Famighetti
World Almanac and Book of Facts 1999
The reference that millions of people turn to each year when they need quick, comprehensive, and authoritative information on a wealth of subjects, The World Almanac is now in its 131st year. Special features for 1999 include coverage of the 1998 Winter Olympics, complete election coverage, more of the "Countdown to th...
1999-02-28T00:00:00
0886878330
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Samantha Power
A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide
About this book: In 1993, as a 23-year-old correspondent covering the wars in the Balkans, I was initially comforted by the roar of NATO planes flying overhead. President Clinton and other western leaders had sent the planes to monitor the Bosnian war, which had killed almost 200,000 civilians. But it soon became clear...
2002-06-16T00:00:00
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Nguyen Cao Ky
Buddha’s Child: My Fight to Save Vietnam
Through America's bookstores run a river of books about Vietnam, everything from pulp-fiction heroes to historical revisionism to the mea culpa of aged war leaders. But there is precious little written by Vietnamese. Finally comes Nguyen Cao Ky, at 72 still trim and energetic, to fill that void, to explode America's ho...
2002-07-14T00:00:00
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James Srodes
Franklin: The Essential Founding Father
In His Lifetime, Benjamin Franklin was celebrated all over the Western world. And with good reason, says award-winning biographer James Srodes in his riveting, comprehensively researched portrait of a man he calls "the essential Founding Father." Having plumbed archives and other sources neglected by previous biographe...
2002-05-19T00:00:00
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Amy Chua
World on Fire
—from the publisher's website Every few years, a book is published about America's role in the world and the changing contest of global affairs that gets everyone thinking in a new way. Amy Chua's WORLD ON FIRE will have exactly that kind of impact on the debate of how the world has changed in light of the events of la...
2003-02-09T00:00:00
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Robert Sobel
Coolidge: An America Enigma
In the first full-scale biography of Calvin Coolidge in a generation, Robert Sobel shatters the caricature of our thirtieth president as a silent, do-nothing leader. Sobel instead exposes the real Coolidge, whose legacy as the most Jeffersonian of all twentieth-century presidents still reverberates today. Sobel delves ...
1998-08-30T00:00:00
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Raymond Strother
Falling Up: How a Redneck Helped Invent Political Consulting
—from the publisher's website This brash and rollicking autobiography is a potent primer of the rough-and-tumble world of political consulting by one of its founding fathers and preeminent experts. Beneath the white-hot glare of the modern mediasphere where “ole pol,” shake-every-hand campaigns have given way to electr...
2003-06-01T00:00:00
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Yossi Melman
Every Spy a Prince
Mr. Melman and Mr. Raviv discussed their book, Every Spy a Prince: The Complete History of Israeli Intelligence. The book focused on the five branches of the Israeli intelligence community and the role of each branch. It also speculates on the future roles of the intelligence community in a potentially explosive area w...
1990-08-05T00:00:00
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Nell Irvin Painter
Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol
Nell Irvin Painter talked about her book "Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol," published by W.W. Norton. It chronicles the life of Sojourner Truth, a former slave, who became a spokeswoman and symbol for racial and gender equality.
1996-12-08T00:00:00
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Robert Skidelsky
John Maynard Keynes: Fighting for Freedom, 1937-1946
The first two volumes of Robert Skidelsky's definitive and consummate biography of John Maynard Keynes were hailed as publishing events on both sides of the Atlantic. Already published to acclaim in Britain, this third and final volume covers Keynes's later years from 1937 to his death in 1946. During this period, Keyn...
2002-04-28T00:00:00
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Christopher Matthews
Kennedy and Nixon: The Rivalry That Shaped Postwar America
Mr. Matthews discussed his book, Kennedy and Nixon: The Rivalry That Shaped Postwar America, published by Simon and Schuster. He described the casual friendship between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy which began when they were young members of Congress just after World War II. They admired each other and were casual...
1996-06-09T00:00:00
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Brian Duffy
The Fall of Pan Am 103: Inside the Lockerbie Investigation
The Fall of Pan Am 103: Inside the Lockerbie Investigation resulted from Duffy and Emerson's 15-month investigation into the December 21, 1988 airplane crash in Scotland. The explosion and crash killed 259 persons. The book describes the efforts of 10,000 law enforcement officials from the FBA, CIA, Scotland Yard, Scot...
1990-05-13T00:00:00
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Mario Cuomo
Why Lincoln Matters: Today More Than Ever
—from the publisher's website Abraham Lincoln, long the most resonant voice of American political values, was a founding member of the Republican Party. In today's charged political climate, he would be hard-pressed to recognize the issues in the contemporary GOP, argues Mario Cuomo, former governor of New York and a g...
2004-07-25T00:00:00
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Jay Parini
Robert Frost: A Life
Robert Frost, the farmer-poet of New England, actually spent his formative early years in San Francisco. His mother moved the family east after the death of her husband—a hard-living journalist from whom Robert took his willful perversity. He attended Dartmouth and Harvard, leaving both prematurely, and after putative ...
1999-09-12T00:00:00
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T.R. Reid
Confucius Lives Next Door
Those who've heard T. R. Reid's weekly commentary on National Public Radio or read his far-flung reporting in National Geographic or The Washington Post know him to be trenchant, funny, and cutting-edge, but also erudite and deeply grounded in whatever subject he's discussing. In Confucius Lives Next Door , he brings a...
1999-05-16T00:00:00
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Jack Matlock, Jr.
Reagan and Gorbachev: How the Cold War Ended
—from the publisher's website In Reagan and Gorbachev , Jack F. Matlock, Jr., gives an eyewitness account of how the Cold War ended, with humankind declared the winner. As Reagan’s principal adviser on Soviet and European affairs, and later as the U.S. ambassador to the U.S.S.R., Matlock lived history: He was the point...
2004-09-26T00:00:00
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Robert Timberg
The Nightingale's Song
Robert Timberg discussed his book, "The Nightingale's Song," published by Simon and Schuster. Timberg, also an Annapolis graduate and Vietnam veteran, researched the careers of Oliver North, Robert McFarlane, Admiral John Poindexter, Senator John McCain, and Navy Secretary James Webb. He spent seven years interviewing ...
1995-08-27T00:00:00
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Alma Guillermoprieto
Looking for History: Dispatches from Latin America
Since Alma Guillermoprieto became The New Yorker's Latin American correspondent a decade ago, she has emerged as the most informed and admired writer on her part of the world. In these superb pieces of reportage and analysis she anatomizes a region we are intimately linked with yet sadly ignorant of. She writes in dept...
2001-06-24T00:00:00
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Karen Armstrong
Islam: A Short History
No religion in the modern world is as feared and misunderstood as Islam. It haunts the popular Western imagination as an extreme faith that promotes authoritarian government, female oppression, civil war, and terrorism. Karen Armstrong's short history offers a vital corrective to this narrow view. The distillation of y...
2000-09-22T00:00:00
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Virginia Postrel
The Future and Its Enemies
Today we have greater wealth, health, opportunity, and choice than at any time in history—the fruits of human ingenuity, curiosity, and perseverance. Yet a chorus of intellectuals and politicians loudly laments our condition. Technology, they say, enslaves us. Economic change makes us insecure. Popular culture coarsens...
1999-02-14T00:00:00
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William Least Heat-Moon
River-Horse: A Voyage Across America
The acclaimed, best-selling author of Blue Highways and Prairyerth chronicles his one-of-a-kind journey through America's waterways from Atlantic to Pacific. Brimming with history, drama, hilarity, and wisdom, River Horse ranks among the greatest American travelogues. In 1995, Heat-Moon set out on his most ambitious tr...
2000-01-16T00:00:00
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Jon Meacham
Franklin & Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship
—from the publisher's website The most complete portrait ever drawn of the complex emotional connection between two of history’s towering leaders Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill were the greatest leaders of “the Greatest Generation.” In Franklin and Winston, Jon Meacham explores the fascinating relationship be...
2004-02-15T00:00:00
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Richard John Neuhaus
As I Lay Dying: Meditations Upon Returning
Several years ago, a ruptured tumor almost killed Richard John Neuhaus. During a series of complicated operations, weeks in critical condition, and months in slow recovery, he was brought face to face with his own mortality. As he lay dying and, as it turned out, recovering, he found that despite his faith he had been ...
2002-05-26T00:00:00
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Michael Elliott
The Day Before Yesterday
Mr. Elliott talked about his recent book, The Day Before Yesterday: Reconsidering America's Past, Rediscovering the Present, published by Simon and Schuster. It focuses on why many citizens believe the 1940s and 1950s were a unique golden age in U.S. history and how this makes their expectations too high for the presen...
1996-09-22T00:00:00
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David Burnham
A Law Unto Itself: Power, Politics and the IRS
Author David Burnham called the Internal Revenue Service "the single, most powerful instrument of social control in the United States." He examined the organization in his book A Law Unto Itself: Power, Politics, and the IRS. Burnham, a former journalist of the New York Times, compared the IRS to the New York Police De...
1990-02-11T00:00:00
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Elsa Walsh
Divided Lives: The Public and Private Struggles of Three Accomplished Women
Elsa Walsh discussed her book, "Divided Lives: The Public and Private Struggles of Three Accomplished Women," published Simon and Schuster in 1995. The three women mentioned are: Meredith Viera, who was a television journalist for CBS, Rachel Worby, who was a classical music conductor and first lady of West Virginia, a...
1995-09-17T00:00:00
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David Broder
The System: The American Way of Politics at the Breaking Point
Mr. Broder talks about the book he wrote with Haynes Johnson, The System: The American Way of Politics at the Breaking Point, published by Little, Brown and Company. The book examines in detail how "the system" of congressional partisanship prevented a reform of the U.S. health care system by the Clinton administration...
1996-05-05T00:00:00
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Christopher Wren
The End of the Line
Christopher Wren discussed his book, The End of the Line: The Failure of Communism in the Soviet Union and China. The book examines the similarities and differences in the two countries. M Wren argued that although the languages are different, the corruption, the mindless production of poor quality goods, the doctoring...
1990-08-26T00:00:00
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