program_id large_stringlengths 6 8 | guest large_stringlengths 7 29 | title large_stringlengths 6 80 | description large_stringlengths 98 4.17k ⌀ | air_date timestamp[us]date 1988-10-17 00:00:00 2004-12-05 00:00:00 | book_isbn large_stringlengths 9 13 ⌀ | url large_stringlengths 41 43 |
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68637-1 | Michael Kinsley | Big Babies | Mr. Kinsley discussed about his book, "Big Babies," published by William Morrow and Company. It is a compilation of 113 different articles written for various periodicals over the years about how citizens espouse a kind of pseudo-populism which always faults politicians for usually giving them exactly what they want. He also talked about his years at New Republic and on CNN "Crossfire." | 1996-01-21T00:00:00 | 0688124526 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/68637-1 |
31491-1 | Mickey Kaus | The End of Equality | Mr. Kaus discussed his book, "The End of Equality," published by Basic Books. He discussed about social and economic equality and how they play into the liberal and conservative philosophies. Mr. Kaus explained that economic equality is not possible in a working capitalistic system and social equality should be our goal in America. | 1992-08-23T00:00:00 | 0465098290 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/31491-1 |
23974-1 | Frederick Downs | No Longer Enemies; Not Yet Friends | Mr. Downs, author of No Longer Enemies, Not Yet Friends: An American Soldier Returns to Vietnam and director of the prosthetic and sensory aids service for the Veterans' Administration talked about his experiences during the Vietnam War and his subsequent return to that country, between 1987 and 1989, as part of the Vessey Mission on Humanitarian aid. He said, "I really hated the Vietnamese until 1987 when General Vessey chose me to be a member of his humanitarian team." Mr. Downs lost his left arm in battle in Vietnam and was decorated with the Purple Heart four times. He has written other books about his experiences during the war and in hospitals after his injury. | 1992-01-26T00:00:00 | 0393030474 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/23974-1 |
172089-1 | Linda Greenlaw | The Lobster Chronicles: Life On a Very Small Island | —from the publisher's website After seventeen years at sea, Greenlaw decided it was time to take a break from being a swordboat captain, the career that would later earn her a prominent role in Sebastian Junger's The Perfect Storm and a portrayal in the subsequent film. She felt she needed to return home -- to a tiny island seven miles off the Maine coast with a population of 70 year-round residents, 30 of whom are her relatives. She would pursue a simpler life; move back in with her parents and get to know them again; become a professional lobsterman; and find a guy, build a house, have kids, and settle down. But all doesn't go quite as planned. The lobsters resolutely refuse to crawl out from under their rocks and into the traps she and her sternman (AKA, her father) have painstakingly set. Her fellow Islanders, an extraordinary collection of characters, draw her into their bizarre Island intrigues. Eligible bachelors prove even more elusive than the lobsters. And as mainlanders increasingly fish waters that are supposed to be reserved for Islanders, she realizes that the Island might be heading for a "gear war," a series of attacks and retaliations that have been known to escalate from sabotage of equipment to extreme violence. Then, just when she thinks things couldn't get too much worse, something happens that forces her to reevaluate everything she thought she knew about life, luck, and lobsters. Greenlaw employs throughout her talent for fascinating nautical description and her eye for the dramas of small-town life as she tells a story that is both hilarious and moving. She also offers her take on everything from retrieving engines that have actually gone overboard, to the best way to cook and serve a lobster. The Lobster Chronicles is a must-read for everyone who loves boats and the ocean (and lobsters), everyone who has ever reached a crossroads in life, and everyone who has wondered what it would be like to live on a very small island. A celebration of family and community, this is a book that proves once again that fishermen are still the best story-tellers around. | 2002-10-13T00:00:00 | 0786866772 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/172089-1 |
64642-1 | Robert McNamara | In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam | Mr. Robert McNamara discussed his book, "In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam," published by Times Books. The book deals with his life and career as a public servant, focusing on his role as the secretary of defense from 1961 to 1968 during the Johnson and Kennedy administrations. According to Mr. McNamara, U.S. policy was based on a "domino" theory in which the loss of Vietnam would initiate a collapse of nations, which could include the United States. In the book, he identified eleven reasons for the outcome in Vietnam and six stages at which the U. S. withdrawal was possible. Mr. McNamara chronicled the measures enacted by government leaders and why he believes, in retrospect, that their decisions were wrong. According to Mr. McNamara, he viewed the Vietnam War as a "failure" as early as 1966, and that he started the Pentagon Papers to leave a record of the "mistakes" leading to the war. He also discussed his reasons for writing the book. During the interview, Mr. McNamara responded to an audio tape of a caller whose brother died in the Vietnam War and who described the pain the book and the memories associated with it caused her. He said he understood her position and hoped that "she would find some healing if she read the book." | 1995-04-23T00:00:00 | 0812925238 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/64642-1 |
122263-1 | Booknotes 10th Anniversary | Booknotes 10th Anniversary | With over 500 interviews archived, Booknotes now has two books. Our newest, Booknotes: Life Stories , and Booknotes: America's Finest Authors on Reading, Writing and the Power of Ideas. | 1999-04-04T00:00:00 | 0812930819 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/122263-1 |
166176-1 | John Steele Gordon | The Business of America | Business history, like all human history, seethes with human passion, says John Steele Gordon, author of The Business of America . He proceeds to develop this theme with great flair and ingenuity. This book is a collection of the author's columns from American Heritage magazine. For a business writer, Gordon shows considerable charm. He is a leading business historian and can be heard regularly on Public Radio International. Each chapter focuses on a single asset of American business. He explains why the Atlantic cod is the most important fish in American history. Its firm, white, non-fatty flesh is relatively boneless and easily prepared by drying and salting. In a world without refrigeration, cod quickly became a staple of the western European diet and remained one for centuries. The Basques, who live in northern Spain and the southwest corner of France, would take their fishing fleet all the way across the Atlantic. In 1534, a French explorer noted the presence of 1,000 fishing boats in the mouth of the St. Lawrence River. The Basque fishermen were catching cod. The cod proved to be the basis for New England prosperity. A wooden sculpture of the cod adorns the walls of the Massachusetts Statehouse in Boston. Turning to another food, he says that Liederkranz is the late, great, American cheese. The mold ripened, aromatic, soft, desert cheese was created in 1850 by a New York delicatessen man. Gen. Charles de Gaulle of France once asked, "How can anyone govern a nation that makes 365 different kinds of cheese?" The United States only produced three uniquely American cheeses: Monterey Jack, Brick and Liederkranz, says the author. Today, alas, Liederkranz is no more. The company that made it was sold to General Foods, which stopped producing the cheese. "Hardly anyone even noticed. In France, it would have brought down the government," the author says with a touch of humor. Early in January 1942, shortly after the Pearl Harbor attack, President Franklin Roosevelt called in Donald Nelson to head the War Production Board. Rubber producing countries in the Far East had been captured by the Japanese, so synthetic rubber saved the day. Non-existent in 1939, the American synthetic rubber industry turned out 820,000 tons in 1945. The author says proudly: "In the midst of total war, the American economy produced both guns and butter." The super weapon that won the war was the American economy. The Business of America also traces the history of tobacco, the Singer sewing machine, the Gold Rush of the 1840s, the copper mines if Montana, the Cunard Steamship Line, and much else, with great historical accuracy and a dash of wit thrown in for good measure. —from the publisher's website | 2001-09-23T00:00:00 | 0802713831 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/166176-1 |
55934-1 | Booknotes Fifth Anniversary | Booknotes Fifth Anniversary Special | C-SPAN commemorated the first five years of its Sunday evening book program, Booknotes. Included were interviews with staff members involved with all aspects of the program including the host, Brian Lamb. Throughout the program, video clips from many past programs were shown, as was a parody of the program produced by a cable access channel. | 1994-04-10T00:00:00 | null | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/55934-1 |
166048-1 | James Bamford | Body of Secrets/The Wizards of Langley | Hidden behind tall earthen berms and thick forest trees halfway between Washington and Baltimore is a dark and mysterious place, virtually unknown to the outside world. Nicknamed Crypto City, it is protected from outsiders by a labyrinth of barbed wire fences, massive boulders placed close together, motion detectors, hydraulic anti-truck devices, and thick cement barriers. Should a threat be detected, commandos dressed in black paramilitary uniforms, wearing special headgear and brandishing an assortment of weapons including Colt 9mm submachine guns stand guard. They are known as the "Men-in-Black." Telephoto surveillance cameras peer down, armed police patrol the boundaries, and bright yellow signs warn against taking any photographs or making so much as a note or a simple sketch, under the penalties of the Internal Security Act. What lies beyond is a city unlike any other place on earth, one that contains what is probably the largest body of secrets ever created. It is the home of America's ultrasecret National Security Agency, responsible for eavesdropping on the world and breaking virtually impossible foreign code and cipher systems. In Body of Secrets, James Bamford explores the NSA's secret role in the major events of the Cold War, its current struggle to eavesdrop on ever advancing forms of communications, and how it is attempting to find new ways to break the code and cipher systems of the future. Finally, he takes the reader past the steel and cement no-mans-land for an inside glimpse of Crypto City. Made up more than sixty office buildings, warehouses, factories, laboratories, and living quarters, it is a place where tens of thousands of people work in absolute secrecy. Most will live and die never having told their spouses exactly what they do. The secret community is also home to the largest collection of hyper-powerful computers, advanced mathematicians and skilled language experts on the planet. Within the city, time is measured in femtoseconds—one million billionth of a second, and scientists work in secret to develop computers capable of performing more than one septillion (1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) operations every second. James Bamford first explored the secrets of NSA in his bestselling book, The Puzzle Palace . Now he brings the story up to the present, filling in the many blank holes along the way. —from the publisher's website Note: No book description is available for The Wizards of Langley | 2001-09-16T00:00:00 | 0385499086 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/166048-1 |
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