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Table of Contents |
Rodger Schlickeisen
In many ecosystems, the wolf is a keystone species. Remove the keystone and the system is imbalanced and endanger. For Rodger Schlickeisen, this is imporatnat and this is personal.
President & CEO, Defenders of Wildlife since 1991, Mr. Schlickeisen has spurred tremendous growth for Defenders, one of the United States’ most prominent conservation advocacy organizations. Mr. Schlickeisen is also President of Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund, a political non-profit working to elect pro-conservation national leaders. Earlier, he was CEO of a leading consulting firm specializing in advancing the work of progressive advocacy organizations. He served in the Carter White House in the Office of Management & Budget and was Chief of Staff for U.S. Sentator Max Baucus. He is on the advisory committees of the Earth Communications Organization and the Environmental Media Association. His opinion pieces and articles are widely published. [August 5—August 19] |
Millicent Monks
Millicent Monks spent much of her childhood in her room, alone, hiding from her mother.
Mental illness is blind to great wealth, Ms. Monks demonstrates in Songs of Three Islands. The great-granddaughter of Thomas Carnegie (Andrew’s brother and business partner), Ms. Monks, unflinchingly relates the multi-generational impact of her great-grandmother’s, mother’s, daughter’s and granddaughters’ mental illnesses. She strives to help others to cope with mental illness, especially mothers. Her “islands”, both physical and metaphorical, stretch from the early, matriarchal Carnegie estate on Georgia’s Cumberland Island, through Ms. Monks’ adult life on an island in Maine, to her guiding metaphor and final destination, a patriarchal island far to the North. {July22 —August 5] |
Charles Raison & Stuart Kauffman
Charles Raison is a psychiatrist who is researching the efficacy of meditation as a tool for coping with stress. Stuart Kauffman is a theoretical biologist who has attacked the roots of reductionist science, and offered plausible alternatives. Together they explore what science is telling us ... about us, and perhaps where we're headed next. We're evolving into our futures and have great difficulty in knowing what that means, but the effort is still worthy of our time. [June 20—July 22] |
James Mann
As the United States militarizes more and more of its foreign policy, the role of soldiers becomes more important: on the often amorphous battlefields, in alien communities and, after their soldiering is done, on the streets of America. Throughout its history, the nation has typically abandoned its soldiers after they return home, though they are frequently damaged -- physically and psychically.
Historian Edward Lengel writes about wars and warriors. In To Conquer Hell: The Meuse-Argonne, 1918, he honors the bloodiest battle in American history. (If remembered at all, it’s for Carey Grant’s movie portrayal of Sergeant Alvin C. York, Dr. Lengel’s cousin.) Other military history books Dr. Lengel has written include General George Washington: A Military Life. Dr. Lengel, in conjunction with the Papers of George Washington documentary editing project, received the National Humanities Medal. He makes frequent appearances on television documentaries and was a finalist for the George Washington Book Prize. [May 18—June 20] |
James Carse
If Jesus actually said "You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free," he was wrong says James Carse. "Truth" is closed and dogmatic; our commitment should be to truthfulness, a constant striving to explore and learn. Dr. Carse is a religious scholar, author and artist. The Religious Case Against Belief continues his long-time public engagement with pressing current issues, as he did for many years on CBS-TV in New York City. His widely admired book, Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility has been continuously in print since first published in 1968 and has become a best-seller over that period. His other books include The Silence of God, Breakfast at the Victory and The Gospel of the Beloved Disciple. Emeritus Professor of the History and Philosophy of Religion, Dr. Carse directed New York University’s Religious Studies Program for 30 years. He lives in New York City and Massachusetts’ Berkshires. [April 27—May 118] |
Edward Lengel
As the United States militarizes more and more of its foreign policy, the role of soldiers becomes more important: on the often amorphous battlefields, in alien communities and, after their soldiering is done, on the streets of America. Throughout its history, the nation has typically abandoned its soldiers after they return home, though they are frequently damaged -- physically and psychically. Historian Edward Lengel writes about wars and warriors. In To Conquer Hell: The Meuse-Argonne, 1918, he honors the bloodiest battle in American history. (If remembered at all, it’s for Carey Grant’s movie portrayal of Sergeant Alvin C. York, Dr. Lengel’s cousin.) Other military history books Dr. Lengel has written include General George Washington: A Military Life. Dr. Lengel, in conjunction with the Papers of George Washington documentary editing project, received the National Humanities Medal. He makes frequent appearances on television documentaries and was a finalist for the George Washington Book Prize. [April 7—April 27] |
Garry Wills
While far from inevitable, the conflict between reason and religion was built into American politics by an accident of the historical timing of its political creation. The nation's founding thinking, principles and documents are rooted firmly in the English Enlightenment. Yet at roughly the turn of each century since that founding, the nation has swung into periods of anti-scientific, fundamentalist fervor. Garry Wills says that the latest manifestation of this habitual oscillation was the political ascendancy of George W. Bush and the Republican Right. [March 23—April 7] |
Christopher Dickey
Making people feel safe is not the same as making the people truly safe. Illusions and delusions are no substitute for actual security. When the threat to our well-being comes from terrorist, Christopher Dickey says the work of the New York Police Department provides important lessons for all of us. [March 7—March 23] |
Anthony Lewis
A major challenge to the framers of the American constitution was the question of how to get the people to truly act as the nation's ultimate sovereigns ... a challenge which continues to haunt us. "They have to know what's going on; they have to be free to criticize their leaders," says Anthony Lewis. "That's the First Amendment." At a time when corporations have subsumed many of the rights of natural people, the question of the exercise of sovereignty is more vital than ever. [February 19—March 7] |
Ray Anderson
Industrialist Ray Anderson has convincingly demonstrated that genuinely green businesses can be genuinely profitable. Despite claims by vested economic interests that environmental and economic well-being inevitably conflict, the facts clearly demonstrate that sustainable future growth in the econo-sphere rest firmly on compatibility with nature, rather than conflict. Mr. Anderson presents the what and the how in Confessions of a Radical Industrialist. [February 3—February19] |
Paul Hawkin
Environmental leaders all over the world cite Paul Hawken as their inspiration. The clarity of his vision and his manifest compassion are a valuable resource as we work to create human solutions for the problems we've created. If the question is "what's going to happen to the earth and to us?" the answer is "it depends on what you do."
Pioneering environmentalist, entrepreneur, journalist and author, Paul Hawken is one of the world’s foremost environmental leaders, having spent his life putting his commitment to justice into action. Starting his activism in Selma, AL, when he was 19 years old, he has founded multiple businesses including Smith & Hawken and now heads the Natural Capital Institute. He is an widely sought speaker internationally, has contributed to and appeared in countless media outlets, has written international classics include The Ecology of Commerce, Natural Capitalism (with Amory Lovins and Hunter Lovins), Blessed Unrest and Growing a Business, which Mr. Hawken also took to television. He lives in the San Francisco Bay area. [January 12— February 3] |
Frederick Ferré
As we are rapidly learning, humans are deeply connected to the context in which live. We are deeply embedded within nature and ignore that at our peril. Frederick Ferré, building on the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead argues that we simply cannot separate ourselves from our surroundings, that the universe in all its parts is fully alive. [January 3— January12] |
| 2009 | 2009 |
Thomas Frank
A nation without a government is a perverse idea. It also happened to be the goal of the last Republican administration. At best, the United States will require decades to undo the damage done; at worst, we'll never recover. [ December 22 — January3] |
Russell Shorto
René Descartes' work has had a profound impact on western thinking. Through diligent research, Russell Shorto has provided an important update on the man and his ideas. Emotions replace God in uniting mind and body. [ December 7 — December 22] |
Paul Ekman
Collaborations between western scientist and Buddhist scholars are yielding fruitful results, particularly on such subjects as the nature of consciousness and the role and control of emotions. [ November 22 — December 7] |
Daniel Levitin
Music speaks to us all, perhaps more compellingly and convincingly than normal speech. Daniel Levitin argues that many of the mysteries which have challenged humans for millenia have been satisfactorily addressed. The final frontier, he says, may be the human brain or, more generally, intelligence of all sorts. [ November 7 — November 22] |
Carolyn Jessop
Religious scholar James Carse would say that the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints (FLDS) is not a religion but a "belief system." Carolyn Jessop says that the FLDS is a cult and a criminal organization.
A former member of the radical polygamist FLDS cult, Ms. Jessop, working with the Utah attorney general on church abuses, was crucial to the arrest, conviction and sentencing of FLDS leader, Warren Jeffs. Ms. Jessop’s memoir Escape traces her life, born into the sixth generation of polygamists and forced at 18 to become the 4th wife of a 50 year old man who fathered her 8 children in 15 years. She is the first woman to be given full custody of her children in a contested suit involving the closed world of the FLDS, Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, an off-shoot of the Mormon church. Ms. Jessop now actively campaigns in defense of women and children still trapped in polygamy nationwide, including boys ejected from polygamist cults totally unprepared for the larger world, and for active enforcement of anti-polygamy laws. [ October 25— November 2] |
Susan Faludi
The events of September 11, 2001, have been shamelessly exploited in America by politicians, religious fundamentalists, xenophobes and mass media. Susan Faludi presents a compelling case that much of the success enjoyed by these groups is based on errant myths about helpless women and killer/protector men. The consequences of misunderstanding ourselves have been tragic for America and for the world.
A journalist and cultural observer, Susan Faludi is the author of The Terror Dream, an analysis of the roots of and antidotes for fear and fantasy in post-9/11 America. Ms. Faludi won the Pulitzer Prize for her Wall Street Journal reporting showing the human cost of high finance. Both her Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women, which won the National Book Critics circle Award for Nonfiction, and Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man were best-sellers. Other publications for which Ms. Faludi has written include The New Yorker and The Nation magazines, The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. [ October 16— October 25] |
Lawrence Hill
Slavery continues to haunt America. A small, sad minority of its citizens cannot accept an African American as President; the notion of a Black person in that position drives them to mouth-frothing excesses. Lawrence Hill's parents left America because of its racism. He has written a novel which encapsulates the humanity of the slave experience, and its absence. Mr. Hill’s novel Someone Knows My Name (published in non-U.S. markets as The Book of Negroes) won the international competition for the prestigious 2008 Commonwealth Writer’s Prize. An African-Canadian author whose parents came from the U.S.A., Mr. Hill’s non-fiction includes Black Berry, Sweet Juice, a memoir of his black father and white mother, and The Deserter’s Tale focused on an Iraq War soldier. Mr. Hill is a reporter for The Globe and Mail in Toronto and Parliamentary correspondent for The Winnipeg Free Press, his film, Seeking Salvation: A History of the Black Church in Canada won the United States’ “Wilber Award” for best national television documentary. [ October 9— October 16] |
Jeffrey Toobin
The ersatz "personhood" claimed by corporations accounts for many of the social, political and environmental challenges facing America. The U. S. Supreme Court has been central to sustaining that fiction. Quoting former justice Robert Jackson, Jeffrey Toobin says that the Court is final because it is infallible, but infallible because it is final. Actually, it is neither. Despite the selective readings of "strict constructionists" and "original intent-ist", the Court changes with time and with the will of its sovereign, the People.
Attorney and reporter Jeffrey Toobin is author of The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court. This book is Mr. Toobin's in-depth report on the current Supreme Court and how it came to be as it is. He is also author of best sellers Too Close to Call, A Vast Conspiracy and The Run of His Life. He is a CNN senior legal analyst. Before becoming a New Yorker magazine staff writer in 1993, he served as an assistant U.S. attorney in Brooklyn and as an associate counsel in the office of independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh investigating the Reagan Administration Iran-Contra scandal. Mr. Toobin graduated from Harvard Law School magna cum laude and lives in New York City with his family. [ October 2 — October 9] |
Marvin Krislov
Despite plentiful evidence to the contrary, colleges are not trade schools. Universities and colleges exist to prepare their students for life and for living in a complex, changing world. In democracies, advanced education should also contribute to the quality of debate and the soundness of decisions. The quality and tenor of current debates in America about health care, energy policy, foreign policy and the environment suggest that our colleges and universities need to recalibrate their vision.
Marvin Krislov is the 14th President of Oberlin College. Inaugurated in 2007, President Krislov was previously vice president and general counsel for the University of Michigan, where he devised the legal strategy with which the University successfully defended its affirmative action policies before the U.S. Supreme Court. At Oberlin, he carries on the teaching he has done since 1991, having previously worked for the U.S. Departments of Labor and Justice, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in D.C., and the Office of the Counsel to U.S. President Clinton. With undergraduate and law degrees from Yale, President Krislov earned his master’s in history from Oxford University’s Magdalen College as a Rhodes Scholar. [September 24 — October 2] |
John Dean
After 8 years under the leadership of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, the Republican Party left America in a mess. Former Republican insider John Dean says that Americans were suckered. It will take many years and trillions of dollars to dig the nation from under this Republican led debacle. [ September 16 — September 23] |
Robert A.G. Monks
Contrary to what is specified by the United States Constitution, the government now effectively has four branches, of which the most powerful is the one composed of large corporations. Health care reform, energy policy, environmental regulation are all hostage to this "branch". The result, says Robert Monks, is that we have effectively privatized essential governmental functions. Sovereignty has been transferred from we, the people to they, the corporation.
Robert A.G. Monks is a venture capitalist, shareholder activist, lawyer, and author most recently of Corpocracy: How CEOs and the Business Roundtable Hijacked the World's Greatest Wealth Machine -- And How to Get It Back. He’s founded a number of investment funds and asset management companies, started Institutional Shareholder Services, the environmental research company Trucost, and The Corporate Library. He’s served on the board of a dozen publicly-held companies; headed Boston Trust; and held several influential government positions in the Reagan Administration. In addition to Corpocracy, Mr. Monks also wrote The Emperor’s Nightingale, Reel and Rout, coauthored Watching the Watchers and Power and Accountability with Nell Minow. [September 9 — September 16] |
Bill McKibben
Accelerating economic growth is simply not sustainable on our planet, says Bill McKibben. Closely related to this constraint is the continuing growth of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Human-caused climate change is assured; the challenge facing us is what we will do to mitigate the damage.
In Mr. McKibben's 1989 book, The End of Nature, this widely acclaimed writer and environmentalist catapulted global warming into mainstream consciousness. Between then and Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future, he has become one of the world’s most respected voices championing a livable future on earth. He has written a series of influential books, is an adjunct professor, appears in all kinds of publications, is regularly in the mass media representing solutions and responsibilities to environmental crises, organizes grassroots efforts urging political action on global climate change and draws attention to its crisis proportions at the website: 350.org. [August 31—September 9] |
Andrew Solomon
It is eminently reasonable to find the current economic and political environment depressing. But take great care that "depressing" does not become "depression". Depression is the most common disabling disease in the developed world. Once one falls into that black hole, finding the way back out is extraordinarily difficult ... and painful. Andrew Solomon has lived in deep, clinical depession and has written brilliantly about his experiences and the state of medical, psychiatric, psychological and pharmaceutical knowledge.
Writer/reporter Andrew Solomon's best-seller, The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression, won the National Book Award in 2001. Educated at Yale and Cambridge Universities, Mr. Solomon writes regularly for The New York Times Magazine as well as The New Yorker and ArtForm. He is author of The Irony Tower: Soviet Artists in a Time of Glasnost and a novel which was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times First Fiction Award. [August 24—August 31] |
Frederick Ferré
Does human life have meaning? does any life? Though battered and bruised and much abused, philosophy still counts says philosopher Frederick Ferré. Reaching beyond the failures of materialism, logic and deistic complacencey, Dr. Ferré says that philosophy can provide genuine help in living a life. [August 17—August 24] |
Michelle Goldberg
In many parts of the world, the notion that basic human rights actually apply to women is an alien idea. Michelle Goldberg says that issues of war and peace, of poverty and development and of globalization and the environment are closely linked to the roles women choose and are allowed to play. Investigative journalist Michelle Goldberg is the author of The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power and the Future of the World. Her prior book, Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism, was a New York Times bestseller and a finalist for the New York Public Library’s Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism. A former senior writer at Salon.com, among the many who have published her work are The New Republic, The Nation, Glamour and Rolling Stone magazines in the U.S. and The Guardian in the U.K. Ms. Goldberg has taught at New York University’s graduate school of journalism, she earned her graduate degree at the University of California - Berkeley. [August 10—August 17] |
Alexandra Fuller
Over her lifetime, Alexandra Fuller has watched Zimbabwe destroying itself. Now she lives with her family in Wyoming and is watching, and fighting, what she characterizes as "a war on the environment, a war on ourselves." Alexandra Fuller won the international Ulysses Prize for literary reportage in 2005. Ms. Fuller’s book The Legend of Colton H. Bryant takes place in the gas and oil fields of Wyoming, USA, where she lives. Born in the U.K., she grew up in Africa in the midst of Rhodesia/Zimbabwe’s civil war, then in Malawi and Zambia. She explores those years and their aftermath in her best-seller Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight and Scribbling the Cat. In addition to writing books, Ms. Fuller is published widely in newspapers including The New York Times and magazines including The New Yorker and National Geographic. [August 3—August 10] |
Alan Alda
In his half century as an actor, Alan Alda has enriched the roles he's played and the audiences which have relished them. He has learned that being absolutely present in each moment is essential for an actor. It's also good advice for living a life. "I found that there's not much point in how much meaning my life has if I don't notice it," he says. Actor, director, screenwriter, activist and author, Alan Alda has won 6 Emmy’s, 6 Golden Globes, nominations for both an Academy Award and a Grammy. His early fame came as “Hawkeye” Pierce, the character he created over the 11 years M*A*S*H was a smash-hit television series. In addition to writing and directing a number of those episodes, he’s also written and directed many feature films and appeared regularly on Broadway. During 11 years as host of PBS’s Scientific American Frontiers, he engaged his own active curiosity about science. A devoted family man and son of a famous actor, Mr. Alda revisits it all in his best-selling books, Never Have Your Dog Stuffed and Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself. [July 27—August 3] |
Edward Lengel
117,465 Americans died in World War One. The United Kingdom lost almost a million men, more than two percent of the U.K.'s population. France lost more than four percent. Historian Edward Lengel says that American losses would have been many fewer had American generals bothered to learn from the miserable experience of their allies. Arrogance is expensive, though rarely so for the arrogant. In To Conquer Hell: The Meuse-Argonne, 1918, Dr. Lengel honors the bloodiest battle in American history. If remembered at all, it’s for Carey Grant’s movie portrayal of Sergeant Alvin C. York, Dr. Lengel’s cousin. Other military history books Dr. Lengel has written include General George Washington: A Military Life. Dr. Lengel, in conjunction with the Papers of George Washington documentary editing project, received the National Humanities Medal. He makes frequent appearances on television documentaries and was a finalist for the George Washington Book Prize. [July 20— July 27] |
Elizabeth Strout
You are what you eat, and that applies to the many things we ingest in addition to food. The stories, ideas and imaginings we imbibe contribute mightily to who we are and what we become. Novelist Elizabeth Strout won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for Olive Kitteridge, a novel composed of a series of short stories, Ms. Strout is also author of the national bestseller Abide with Me and of Amy and Isabelle. Both won major prizes. A finalist for both the PEN/Faulkner Award and England’s Orange Prize, Ms. Strout’s short stories have been published in magazines from The New Yorker to O: The Oprah Magazine, and elsewhere. She grew up in Maine, is currently is on the MFA faculty of Queens University in Charlotte, NC, and lives with her family in New York City. [July 13— July 20] |
Jonathan Mahler
Consequences of the ill-conceived, Bush-inspired "Global War on Terror" still plague American policy. The objections and legal challenges to the Bush administration's detention policy were well represented in the case of Salim Hamdan versus Donald Rumsfeld. Mr. Hamdan is now back in Yemen, but the Constitutional issues and the broader saga continue. Jonathan Mahler is a journalist and the author of The Challenge: Hamdan v. Rumsfeld and the Fight over Presidential Power. In it, Mr. Mahler captures the drama that culminated in this crucial test of presidential power and the rule of law. He also wrote the highly regarded Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx is Burning, in which baseball brings 1977 New York City into sharp focus. He is a writer for The New York Times Magazine and lives in Brooklyn. [July 6— July 13] |
Rodger Schlickeisen
Wolves don't kill people. The amount of livestock wolves kill is miniscule and ranchers are compensated. So why do Sarah Palin and other assorted macho-types insist on expending major resources to slaughter them? Perhaps they never outgrew their childish fairy tale fears of Little Red Riding Hood says Rodger Schlickeisen. Rodger Schlickeisen is President & CEO, Defenders of Wildlife, one of the United States’ most prominent conservation advocacy organizations. Mr. Schlickeisen’s leadership since 1991 has resulted in the organization growing to over a million members. Formerly, he was CEO of a leading consulting firm specializing in advancing the world of progressive advocacy organizations. He served in the Carter White House in the Office of Management & Budget, was Chief of Staff for U.S. Sentator Max Baucus. Mr. Schlickeisen is also President of Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund, a political non-profit working to elect pro-conservation national leaders. He serves on the advisory committees of the Earth Communications Organization and the Environmental Media Association. He has earned degrees from the University of Washington, Harvard Business School and a doctorate from George Washington University. His opinion pieces and articles are widely published. [June 29— July 6] |
Malcolm Gladwell
This week we reach into our archives to review an idea with renewed currency: the tipping point. In his book by that title, Malcolm Gladwell looks at the elements of significant, unexpected changes. American politics may have reached one of those flexion points. Author of The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, Mr. Gladwell is a staff reporter for The New Yorker magazine. He is a former business and science writer at the Washington Post, and a Canadian by birth. His more recent books include Blink and Outlier. [June 22— June 29] |
Tim Weiner
Any nation engaged beyond its borders needs to know what's going on out there and to how to influence those whats. Diplomacy and good intelligence are the sine qua nons of such engagement. Tim Weiner says that the Central Intelligence Agency has consistently failed to deliver that intelligence since its founding after the Second World War.
[June 15— June 22] |
Mary Ann Mason
Today the majority of college graduates are women. Women receive roughly the same number of PhDs as men. Yet they are still thinly represented in the top echelons of business, academia, government or most professions. Mary Ann Mason says that the problem is the rules for the fast track, who gets onto the track and who gets bumped. The game has to change and, perhaps, what winning means. This isn't just about women; it's about families and about what we esteem.
[June 8— June 15] |
| Kevin Phillips Money, Empire and Collapse When everything else fails, try looking at the facts, the evidence. For four decades Kevin Phillips has been looking at the facts of American democracy. He has repeatedly warned that the United States is following the path of failed empires and that wreckage of the economy and democracy will inevitably follow. The current economic decline puts us, sadly, right on course. The semi-good news? Finance, as a sector of the American economy, is much smaller than it was a year ago. Kevin Phillips is a political & economic analyst, and author. Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism joins Mr. Phillips’ other bestsellers: American Theocracy, American Dynasty, The Politics of Rich and Poor, Wealth and Democracy, and The Cousins Wars. A former Republican strategist, he first became known for The Emerging Republican Majority in the late ‘60s, and has subsequently written more than a dozen highly regarded books. Mr. Phillips writes for the Los Angeles Times, Harper’s Magazine and Time. [June 1 — June 8] |
Tony Horwitz
Americans still think of the country as a young one; but European exploration and settlement began more than half a millennium ago. The real history of the country is much more complex and much richer than the standard Anglo-centric model. In A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World , reporter and non-fiction author Tony Horwitz revisits the two-century blank spot in American history between 1492 and 1607. Mr. Horwitz's other best sellers include Confederates in the Attic, Baghdad Without a Map, and Blue Latitudes. He started as a reporter in Indiana, then worked for a decade in Australia, Europe, Africa and the Middle East. As a foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, he reported on wars and conflicts as a foreign correspondent before returning to the U.S. where he won the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting and worked as a staff reporter for The New Yorker. Now a full-time author, he, his wife Geraldine Brooks, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and their son live on Martha’s Vineyard. [May 25 — June 1] |
Leonard Shlain
We were deeply saddened to learn on Monday that Leonard Shlain is dying. His bold imagination, commitment to science and to people and his skills as a communicator helped us experience the world in rich, new ways. The point of life is to live it and Dr. Shlain has done it very well. With a keen interest in biological and cultural evolution, Dr. Shlain builds in Sex, Time and Power: How Women’s Sexuality Shaped Human Evolution on ideas he first presented in The Alphabet and the Goddess. He wrote and lectured widely and was also the chief of laparoscopic surgery at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco. [May 18 — May 25] |
Annette Gordon-Reed
Americans have long resisted coming to terms with the chattel slavery which is central to our history. The necessary empathy comes when we stop seeing people as objects or categories and begin to engage them as humans, as individuals, in the stories of their lives. Annette Gordon-Reed has diligently, resourcefully researched many such stories, particularly ones that orbit the life of our third president, Thomas Jefferson. Ms. Gordon-Reed is professor of law at New York Law School and of history at Rutgers University. She is the author of The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family,which won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for history. She has also written Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy, edited Race on Trial: Law and Justice in American History, and coauthored with Vernon Jordan Vernon Can Read! A Memoir. A graduate of Dartmouth College and Harvard Law School, she and her family live in New York City. [May 11— May 18] |
Stuart Kauffman
Charles Darwin addressed the origin of species and the descent of man. He did not tangle with the origin of life. Stuart Kauffman thinks that agency is a key to understanding life and, perhaps, consciousness. [May 4 — May 11] |
Millicent Monks
Millicent Monks spent much of her childhood in her room, alone, hiding from her mother.
Mental illness is blind to great wealth, Ms. Monks demonstrates in Songs of Three Islands. The great-granddaughter of Thomas Carnegie (Andrew’s brother and business partner), Ms. Monks, unflinchingly relates the multi-generational impact of her great-grandmother’s, mother’s, daughter’s and granddaughters’ mental illnesses. She strives to help others to cope with mental illness, especially mothers. Her “islands”, both physical and metaphorical, stretch from the early, matriarchal Carnegie estate on Georgia’s Cumberland Island, through Ms. Monks’ adult life on an island in Maine, to her guiding metaphor and final destination, a patriarchal island far to the North. [April 27 — May 4] |
Paul Hawken
Economic fundamentalists are killing our world, says Paul Hawken. Unfortunately they have help from other sorts of fundamentalists. The good news is that thousands of organizations around the world are diligently working to prevent our collective suicide.
Pioneering environmentalist, entrepreneur, journalist and author, Mr. Hawken is one of the world’s foremost environmental leaders, having spent his life putting his commitment to justice into action. Starting his activism in Selma, AL, when he was 19 years old, he has founded multiple businesses including Smith & Hawken and now heads the Natural Capital Institute. He is an widely sought speaker internationally, has contributed to and appeared in countless media outlets, has written international classics include The Ecology of Commerce, Natural Capitalism (with Amory Lovins), and Growing a Business, which Mr. Hawken also took to television. He calls California home. [April 20— April 27] |
James Mann
Conventional wisdom is frequently conventional, and seldom wise. For instance, take that well-known dove and friend of the Russians, Ronald Reagan. James Mann has done what a reporter is supposed to do. He has examined the facts and the evidence and then made sense of them. The results have violated a lot of "conventional wisdom" and may change how you see America's recent history.
Prior to devoting full time to books, Mr. Mann was an award-winning Washington reporter, columnist, and foreign correspondent for 20 years at the Los Angeles TImes. The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan: A History of the End of the Cold War further enhances the Mr. Mann’s keen observations in his bestseller Rise of the Vulcans, bringing to clearer focus the individuals and influence of American conservatives and neoconservatives from the Nixon Administration forward. His several books on China include the best-seller, The China Fantasy. He is author in residence at the prestigious Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and lives near Washington, D.C. [April 13 —April 20] |
Thomas Cahill
If one takes too narrow a view of history, one is likely to miss the major shifts which occur over decades, or centuries ... sometimes millennia. Monotheism is one example, says Thomas Cahill.
An historian and writer Mr. Cahill has extended his “hinges of history” series with Mysteries of the Middle Ages, which explores what he sees as the early stirrings of the “modern.” His earlier explorations include How the Irish saved Civilization, The Gifts of the Jews, Desire of the Everlasting Hills and Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea. Once prominent in the business of publishing, Mr. Cahill now devotes full time to his writing, dividing his time between Europe and New York City. [April 6— April 13] |
Ambassador Martin Indyk
For literally thousands of years, the people of the Middle East has experienced the alien views of foreigners and the oppression of conquerers. The optimistic, can-do naiveté of Americans has been different, if no more welcome.
Former United States Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk is now Director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at The Brookings Institution. Ambassador Indyk’s carefully documented book Innocent Abroad: An Intimate Acount of American Peace Diplomacy in the Middle East details and critiques the broad sweep of U.S. policy in the Middle East he helped develop and implement. Ambassador Indyk was born in England and educated in Australia before making the United States his home in the early 1980s. Twice the U.S. Ambassador to Israel under President Bill Clinton, he also served in that capacity for the first six months of the Bush administration, as well as in a number of other high level roles over many years, making him one of the United States’ top diplomats. [March 30 —April 6] |
Edward Lengel
Believing themselves superior to the French and British soldiers, senior American officers sending (not leading) their troops into their early battles of the First World War caused thousands of unnecessary American casualties. They believed that American spirit was a fit substitute for artillery, machine guns and the protection of trenches. It wasn't.
Historian Edward Lengel is the author of To Conquer Hell: The Meuse-Argonne, 1918. In it, he honors the bloodiest battle in American history. (If remembered at all, it’s for Carey Grant’s movie portrayal of Sergeant Alvin C. York, Dr. Lengel’s cousin.) Other military history books Dr. Lengel has written include General George Washington: A Military Life. Dr. Lengel, in conjunction with the Papers of George Washington documentary editing project, received the National Humanities Medal. He makes frequent appearances on television documentaries and was a finalist for the George Washington Book Prize. Dr. Lengel teaches at the University of Virginia. [March 23— March 30] |
Joy Berry & Rafe Esquith
Fewer than three-quarters of students graduate from high school. Indeed, it is very likely that the number is fewer than two out of three. That is a prescription for economic and political decline, or worse. One of the keys to a successful education system is the creation of a "culture of learning" say Joy Berry and Rafe Esquith.
Joy Berry spent decades as a master teacher at the elementary school level, then was a principal at some of the toughest schools in New York City before moving to Atlanta in the late '70s, where she continued her career in education. Subsequently, one Georgia Governor appointed Ms. Berry to create the state's Human Relations Commission, then another appointed her to serve as a member of the State of Georgia School Board and a third Governor re-appointed her to that position. Her national standing as a State School Board Member was further enhanced by her leadership role in mandating and overseeing a complete update of Georgia's public school curriculum. Ms. Berry's many honors include being named Educator of the Year by the Georgia P.T.A. [March 16 —March 23] |
Garry Wills
Fortunately, says Garry Wills, the ideas underlying the founding of the United States were based in the enlightenment. However, there have been three outbreaks of evangelical opposition to science, reason and the enlightenment over the course of the nation's history. Curiously these happened at the beginnings of the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries.
Garry Wills is a scholar, historian, classicist and author. Professor Wills’ many bestselling books include What Jesus Meant, What Paul Meant and What the Gospels Meant. His Lincoln at Gettysburg won the Pulitzer Prize, his two dozen other books are also widely read and admired. As one of nation’s leading public intellectuals, he appears often in leading periodicals. Professor Wills took his doctorate in the classics after studying for the priesthood, a tradition with which he continues to identify and to critique. Many years a teacher of ancient and New Testament Greek at Johns Hopkins University, Dr. Wills is now professor of history emeritus at Northwestern University. [March 9— March 16] |
Christopher Dickey
How can we make major urban areas "secure"? Christopher Dickey says a good, well-led police force working closely with all parts of the community. His "Exhibit A" is New York City.
An award--winning Newsweek reporter, Mr. Dickey is their Paris Bureau Chief and Middle East Regional Editor. Previously, he was Cairo Bureau Chief and Central America Bureau Chief for the Washington Post. Mr. Dickey, author of Securing the City: Inside America’s Best Counterterror Force -- the NYPD, also writes the weekly “Shadowland” column on counterterrorism, espionage and the Middle East for Newsweek online. His five other books include Summer of Deliverance. He lives in Paris and New York. [March 3 —March 9] |
Anthony Lewis
In a republic, the people are sovereign. To exercise that sovereignty, the people have to know what's going on and be free to criticize their leaders. "That's the First Amendment," says Anthony Lewis.
Twice the Pulitzer Prize has been awarded to Mr. Lewis over his long and distinguished journalistic career. Author of Freedom for the Thought That We Hate: A Biography of the First Amendment, his Gideon’s Trumpet has been in print for over 40 years. Mr. Lewis was columnist for The New York Times op-ed page from 1969 through 2001 and for many years the paper’s London correspondent. He has also been a lecturer at Harvard’s Law School, a visiting professor at the Universities of California, Illinois, Oregon, and Arizona, and since 1983, the James Madison Visiting Professor at Columbia University. He and his wife, Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court, live in Cambridge. [February 23 — March 3] |
Carolyn Jessop "Money laundering ... child abuse ... worse than the Taliban ... priesthood prostitutes ... ." [February 16 —February 23] |
Edward Larson
Charles Darwin was born February 12, 1809, 200 years ago this week. 150 years ago, he published On the Origin of Species, a work which continues to have a dramatic effect on science. To celebrate Darwin's birth, next week we'll be sharing Edward Larson's insights into Darwin, evolution, religion and the politics which continue to enshroud them.
Pulitzer Prize winning author, historian of science and lawyer, Dr. Larson won the Pulitzer for Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate over Science and Religion. Among his growing number of books, he has contributed Evolution: The Remarkable History of a Scientific Theory to the prestigious Modern Library series, written with the curious lay person in mind. His latest book is A Magnificent Catastrophe about the American Presidential election of 1800 between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Dr. Larson's articles have appeared in dozens of journals, including The Atlantic Monthly, Nature and Scientific American. He is both Professor of History and of Law at the University of Georgia and teaches at Pepperdine University in California. [February 9 — February 16] |
Geraldine Brooks
Geraldine Brooks credits her years as a reporter for making her a better and more honest novelist. She insists that there is an absolute and necessary line between truth and fiction.
Journalist and prize winning author Geraldine Brooks is a multi-faceted writer. Her novels include People of the Book which brings fiction and fact together in novel form, as she did in Year of Wonders and her Pulitzer Prize winner, March. Her non-fiction includes Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women and Foreign Correspondence. Ms. Brooks was The Wall Street Journal correspondent in Bosnia, Somalia and the Middle East. A native of Australia and married to author Tony Horwitz, she and her family live on Martha’s Vineyard after a number of years in rural Virginia. [February 2 — February 9] |
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
During the 1950s, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas and her family were the first outsiders to live among the Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert. These people were probably living much as our ancestors had 1500 centuries ago. That these people were well integrated into the desert ecology, though instructive, is not particularly surprising. What is unexpected is that they did not attempt to control their environment with magic or prayer, they sought only to control the one thing over which they had substantive influence, themselves. [January 26 — February 2] |
Peter Galbraith
Former Ambassador Peter Galbraith is unequivocal: George W. Bush lost Iraq. Rather than take a strategic view based on a realistic assessment of the threats and opportunities facing America, the Bush administration has substituted ideology, wishes and optimism. Mr. Galbraith's fear is that the alleged successes of "the surge" along with the fictionalizing of history will be used to assign blame to the incoming administration for "losing Iraq." [January 19 — January 26] |
Russell Shorto
Three and a half centuries after his death, René Descartes remains one of the most influential and radical thinkers in Western history. His view of the world and the values implied by that view continue to influence how we experience the world we inhabit today. Cartesian "dualism" was always mediated by a third element, initially God and then, in his later life, by passions ... what we now call emotions. [January 12 — January 19] |
Alan Wallace
Some years ago Alan Wallace told us "If we’re not on the brink of a revolution -- or ... a genuine renaissance... then I think we’ll simply be following a path that seems, that has the outer appearance, of humanity being set on its own suicide." He also reminded us, paraphrasing A. Einstein, that "the mind that creates a problem, is not the mind to solve the problem." With all the challenges facing us today, he argues that we already have the resources to discover and create new worlds. [January 5 — January 12] |
| 2008 | 2008 |
Frank Delaney
It is easy for Americans to feel benighted: eight years of arrogant incompetence in the White House, an economy in free fall, joblessness accelerating, foreclosures rising along with the tides, an illusory healthcare system, bottomless debt ... . Reviewing the centuries long occupation, colonization and oppression of Ireland by the English adds perspective to our sense of doom. And hope.
For humans, it is stories which create reality. And the Irish, says Frank Delaney, have for centuries been master storytellers. [December 29 — January 5] |
James Carse
Saying that "belief" and "religion" are separable would surprise many people. Religious scholar James Carse goes further, much further. He argues that they are basically antithetical. [December 22 — December 29] |
Sy Montgomery
The gift of giving is often lost this time of year. Here's a refresher course: how could a very large hog, AKA Christopher Hogwood, give "great souls" the opportunity to connect? Find out next week from Sy Montgomery. [December 16 — December 22] |
Daniel Levitin
During the last century, we have learned much about the universe we inhabit. Neuroscientist Daniel Levitin argues that the next major frontier may be the human mind. His view of the mind focuses on the role of music and some of his conclusion may be quite startling including the notion that music may be at the root of consciousness. [December 8 — December 16] |
Harold Holzer
History tends to regard President-elect Abraham Lincoln as being strangely passive as the nation split apart during the four months between his election and his inauguration. Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer argues that Lincoln achieved a great deal during those four months, both by what he did and did not do. As Americans face another presidential transition in the face of a now global crisis with a weak and ineffective sitting President, Lincoln's example provides important and relevant insights. [November 30 — December 8 ] |
Lawrence Hill
The first "back to Africa" movement occurred shortly after America's succcessful revolt against British colonial government. Despite British promises, African refugees, almost all former slaves, were ill-served and ill-treated in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Offered the chance to return to Africa, most did. Incredibly some of those former slaves were returning to their birthplace. In a remarkable summary using fiction, Lawrence Hill has dramatically recreated the terror, trauma and heroism of the early African experience of America and the Atlantic slave trade.
The experiences of African-Canadians feature broadly in Lawrence Hill’s non-fiction as well as his fiction. His latest novel, Someone Knows My Name (published in Canada as The Book of Negroes) won the prestigous Commonwealth Award. The son of former Americans, Mr. Hill also has a film to his credit, Seeking Salvation: A History of the Black Church in Canada. He lives in Ontario, Canada with his family. [November 23 — November 30 ] |
Tony Hillerman
Tony Hillerman was born in 1925. He served his country in World War II with valor and at great personal cost. After teaching journalism at the University of New Mexico, he turned to writing novels. His fame and fortune came principally from his mystery novels about Navajo tribal policemen Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee. In addition to being jolly good reads, his stories introduced millions of people to the cultures of southwestern Native Americans. Reaching the end of these novels, one was left satisfied-though-craving-more and with a sense of knowing a little more about the richness of the worlds we inhabit. In a different vein, his Fly on the Wall is a cautionary view of reporters and reporting, of the dangers of reporters getting too close to their sources and subjects. Mr. Hillerman died last month at the age of 83. We will miss him and treasure the stories. Past president of the Mystery Writers of America, Mr. Hillerman has received its Edgar and Grand Master Awards. The Wailing Wind is Mr. Hillerman's 18th Joe Leaphorn/Jim Chee mystery. He is a former journalist and English professor who also writes non-fiction. His honors include The Center for the American Indian Ambassador Award, the Silver Spur Award for the best novel set in the West and the Navajo Tribe's Special Friend Award. Mr. Hillerman called his memoir Seldom Disappointed. [November 16 — November 23 ] |
Doris Kearns Goodwin
One hundred and forty-eight (seven score and eight) years ago, another man was elected to fill the office of President of the United States. Abraham Lincoln could look forward to taking office on March 4, 1861. The nation was deeply divided. The continued existence of the American experiment in democratic govenment was gravely threatened. Doris Kearns Goodwin tells the story of how Lincoln's character and political skills enabled him to save the nation from its lesser instincts.
Narrative historian Doris Kearns Goodwin won of the Pulitzer Prize in history for No Ordinary Time focused on Franklin Delano Roosevelt during Word War II. Ms. Goodwin adds the remarkable Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln to her bestseller Wait Till Next Year, The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys and Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream. She has for many years brought her historical perspective and analyses to television audiences and now serves as an NBC-TV news analyst. In addition, she lectures around the world. [November 9 — November 16 ] |
Jeffrey Toobin
We are not final because we are infallible; we are infallible because we are final.
Those are the words that Jeffrey Toobin uses to summarize the role of the Supreme Court in American society. "Someone in America has to have the last word, and, in our society, in our government, it's the Supreme Court," Mr. Toobin says. Unelected, appointed for life, removable only by impeachment, these nine individuals routinely make decisions with profound implications for Americans' rights and responsibilities as citizens. Frequently those decisions are rendered based on a one vote majority.
Jeffery Toobin is an attorney, author and reporter. The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court is Mr. Toobin's in-depth report on the current Supreme Court and how it came to be as it is. He is also author of best sellers Too Close to Call, A Vast Conspiracy and The Run of His Life. He is a CNN senior legal analyst and before becoming a New Yorker magazine staff writer in 1993, he served as an assistant U.S. attorney in Brooklyn and as an associate counsel in the office of independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh investigating the Reagan Administration Iran-Contra scandal. Mr. Toobin graduated from Harvard Law School magna cum laude and lives in New York City with his family. [November 2 — November 9 ] |
John Dean
That's how Robert A.G. Monks defines "corpocracy." This corporatization of politics is one of many problems underlying the global economic maelstrom. Fortunately, says Mr. Monks, in the United States laws and institutions are already in place to correct some of the most egregious failings of this corporatist system. All that is required is an administration willing to enforce existing rules. John Dean is an attorney, author and key witness during the "Watergate" scandal. Mr. Dean's Broken Government: How Republican Rule Destroyed the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Branches, Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush, and Conservatives Without Conscience, form a trilogy based on 40 years inside his "former tribe", the Republican Party. Once White House legal counsel to President Richard Nixon, Mr. Dean’s Blind Ambition, published in 1976, was followed by a number of other books. He had also served as chief minority counsel for the House Judiciary Committee and an associate deputy attorney general in the U.S. Department of Justice. Following a successful career as a corporate attorney, he is now a columnist for Findlaw.com and with his wife, Maureen, lives in California. [October 26 — November 2 ] |
Robert Monks
That's how Robert A.G. Monks defines "corpocracy." This corporatization of politics is one of many problems underlying the global economic maelstrom. Fortunately, says Mr. Monks, in the United States laws and institutions are already in place to correct some of the most egregious failings of this corporatist system. All that is required is an administration willing to enforce existing rules.
Robert Monks is a venture capitalist, shareholder activist, lawyer, and author most recently of Corpocracy: How CEOs and the Business Roundtable Hijacked the World's Greatest Wealth Machine -- And How to Get It Back. He’s founded a number of investment funds and asset management companies, started Institutional Shareholder Services, the environmental research company Trucost, and The Corporate Library. He’s served on the board of a dozen publicly-held companies; headed Boston Trust; and held several influential government positions in the Reagan Administration. In addition to Corpocracy, Mr. Monks has also written The Emperor’s Nightingale, Reel and Rout, coauthored Watching the Watchers and Power and Accountability with Nell Minow. [October 19 — October 26] |
Kevin Phillips
In the Enlightenment tradition, Kevin Phillips has always chosen to base his analysis on evidence rather than magical thinking. Data and historical precedents inform his work. Familiarity with Mr. Phillips' work over the years has proven good preparation for understanding the current economic and political mess in which Americans now find ourselves. Financialization of the economy, conversion of capital markets from investment to speculation and the nominal free-market fundamentalism of recent administrations have combined in a witches' brew now toxifying our lives and affecting the global economy. This result was not only predictable, Mr. Phillips predicted it; and he was not alone*. [October 12 — October 19] |
Thomas Frank
When we elect to our government people who do not believe in government, small wonder that government stops working. Idealogues, who effectively believe in a night watchman state, think the government should serve only to protect us from thieves, murderers and foreigners. They believe that individual initiative and market forces take care of everything else and that undermining the government with incompetence, lies, theft and massive indebtedness is appropriate behavior ... until, of course, those market forces (crony capitalism, actually) drive the economy off a cliff. If this distopian view seems familiar, Thomas Frank says it's what Republican theorists publicly announced they intended and, in the administration of George W. Bush, are well on the road to achieving. We will be decades digging ourselves out.
Historian and political observer Thomas Frank is the author most recently of The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule. In it he documents decades of Republicans serving the interests of Big Business at the expense of the American people. Mr. Frank, a former Young Republican, also wrote What’s the Matter with Kansas? and One Market Under God, contrasting everyday cultural conservatives with predatory acts of free-market fundamentalists and right wingers committed to destroying government. He was founding editor of The Baffler, is a contributing editor at Harper’s magazine, received the Lannon Award and is a regular columnist for The Wall Street Journal. [October 5 — October 12] |
Susan Faludi Myths are the stories that help us organize and understand the worlds in which we live. In that sense, they are neither true nor false. Regardless of their veracity, they determine how we act. False myths lead to inappropriate and often dangerous actions. The intersection of a bad myth with a terrorist attack has had grave consequences for America.
Susan Faludi is a cultural observer and journalist. Author of The Terror Dream, an analysis of the roots of and antidotes for fear and fantasy in post-9/11 America, Ms. Faludi won the Pulitzer Prize for her Wall Street Journal reporting showing the human costs of high finance. Both her Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women, which won the National Book Critics circle Award for Nonfiction, and Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man were best-sellers. Other publications for which Ms. Faludi has written include The New Yorker and The Nation magazines, The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. [September 28 — October 5] |
Jonathan Mahler
What is habeas corpus and why does it matter? A U.S. Navy commander and a law professor challenged the President of the United States over this issue. And won.
Jonathan Mahler, journalist. Author of The Challenge: Hamdan v. Rumsfeld and the Fight over Presidential Power, Mr. Mahler captures the drama that culminated in this crucial test of presidential power and the rule of law. He also wrote the highly regarded Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx is Burning, in which baseball brings 1977 New York City into sharp focus. He is a writer for The New York Times Magazine and lives in Brooklyn. [September 21 — September 28 ] |
Edward J. Larson In the midst of a presidential election, we tend to focus only on the latest headline and the most recent attacks. That habit might work if, as was the case with America's "Founding Fathers", we don't expect the nation to last more than 50 years. Historical perspective helps us separate substance from fluff, chatter and punditry ... what truly matters from what does not. As Benjamin Franklin was leaving the Constitutional Convention, a woman asked "Well, Doctor, what have we got—a Republic or a Monarchy?" He responded: A Republic, if you can keep it. Can people govern themselves? That was a central issue in the American Presidential election of 1800 between founding "brothers" John Adams and Thomas Jefferson and it is an issue in the election of 2008. The High Federalist of 1800, lead by Alexander Hamilton, look very much like today's Republicans says historian and legal scholar Edward Larson.
Dr. Larson’s ongoing interest in America’s tension between science and religion continues in A Magnificent Catastrophe. He puts history to work examining the 1800 presidential election, showing striking similarities to the election of 2008. Thomas Jefferson, democracy, and science barely defeated the Federalists, elitists and state religion. Dr. Larson won the Pulitzer with Summer for the Gods about the Scopes trial; his Evolution is a Modern Library book. A professor of history and law at Pepperdine University, his articles have appeared in dozens of journals, including The Atlantic Monthly, Nature and Scientific American. [September 14 — September 21] |
Charles Raison & Stuart Kauffman
Biology, says Stuart Kauffman, is "not like physics ... because there isn't a deep theoretical biology and I say that (laughing) as a theoretical biologist." Rather than try to make biology more like physics, Dr. Kauffman looks the other way back, arguing that the dominant reductionist view of science is incomplete. It fails, among other things, to account for evolution. Psychiatrist Charles Raison uses the tools of reductionist science to study Tibetan Buddhist meditation techniques, trying to "cast some light into how people generate intense positive emotions," and to save lives. The two have much to say to one another and to learn.
Stuart Kauffman and Charles Raison both explore life. Dr. Kauffman, renowned for his studies in complexity, is founding Director of the Institute for Biocomplexity and Informatics at the University of Calgary, in Alberta, Canada, and an author whose books include Reinventing the Sacred and At Home in the Universe. Among Dr. Kauffman’s many accomplishments and awards, he was a founding faculty member of the Santa Fe Institute where he is an adjunct professor, and an early MacArthur Fellow.
Dr. Charles Raison served as Director of Emergency Services and Associate Director of Consultation Evaluation Services at UCLA. In 1999, he joined Emory University’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and is Director of the Behavioral Immunology Clinic. Lecturing internationally, he is also co-principle investigator both studying the immune system relative to depression and fatigue, and the effects of Buddhist compassion meditation. He’s deeply involved in Emory University and Holiness the Dalai Lama’s Science Education Project for Tibetan Buddhist Monks. [September 8 — September 14 ] |
Kevin Phillips As America faces another Presidential election, Kevin Phillips points to a set of deep and systemic problems facing the nation. America's "empire" is threated by the continuing influence of religious fundamentalists, by dependence on oil and by growing and unsustainable debt.
Kevin Phillips is a political and economic analyst. In American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century, Mr. Phillips articulates America's current volatile circumstances with devastating comparisons to prior economic empires. A former Republican strategist, Mr. Phillips first became known for The Emerging Republican Majority in the late '60s. He has subsequently written more than a dozen highly regarded books, including bestsellers American Dynasty, The Politics of Rich and Poor and Wealth and Democracy. He writes for the Los Angeles Times, Harper's Magazine and Time. [August 31 — September 8] |
Thomas Lux & Bruce McEver "Poetry became something that people weren't just quite smart enough to understand anymore and a critic had to stand between them, the reader, and the writer to explain to the poor dumb reader just how brilliant this writer was," says Thomas Lux. That condition turned generations away from poetry. According to Bruce McEver "Really great poetry is accessible." Bruce McEver is Chairman of Berkshire Capital Securities LLC, which he founded in 1983. He is a graduate of Georgia Institute of Technology with an MBA from Harvard Business School. His book of poetry, Full Horizon, joins poems he has published in Ploughshares, Westview, The Berkshire Review, The Cortland Review, The Connecticut River Review, The Chattahoochee Review and The Atlanta Review. He starting writing in workshops in New York City, has taken writing seminars at Sarah Lawrence College and a summer residency at Warren Wilson College. Thomas Lux, acclaimed poet and teacher of poetry, is director of Poetry at Tech, where he holds the Margaret and Henry Bourne Chair in Poetry at Georgia Tech and where he also is responsible for the McEver Chair in Poetry, which brings poets to campus and the larger community throughout the year. His latest book of poetry is God Particles. In addition to administering the Chair in Poetry which Mr. McEver has funded, he is one of Bruce McEver's teachers. [August 24 — August 31] |
Edward Lengel Weapons change; humans resist. "It’s a shame and ironic and tragic, the arrogance with which the American commanders in particular came into that war. You can draw modern parallels with this as well, that there was this unwillingness to listen, to learn, to find out what the Europeans had gone through, what the Europeans had suffered and what they had learned." Edward Lengel is talking about the First World War ("the war to end all wars"), but the lessons remain. In To Conquer Hell: The Meuse-Argonne, 1918, Dr. Lengel honors the bloodiest battle in American history, remembered if at all for Carey Grant’s movie portrayal of Sergeant Alvin C. York, Dr. Lengel’s cousin. Other military history books Dr. Lengel has written include General George Washington: A Military Life. Dr. Lengel, in conjunction with the Papers of George Washington documentary editing project, received the National Humanities Medal. He makes frequent appearances on television documentaries and was a finalist for the George Washington Book Prize. [August 17 — August 24] |
Anthony Lewis A core problem facing the framers of America's Constitution: "How can we get the citizens of the Republic ... to be the ultimate sovereigns of the country?" says Anthony Lewis. The answer? "They have to know what's going on, they have to be free to criticize their leaders; that's the First Amendment." The Pulitzer Prize has twice been awarded to Mr. Lewis over his long and distinguished journalistic career. Author of Freedom for the Thought That We Hate: A Biography of the First Amendment and Gideon’s Trumpet, in print for over 40 years, Mr. Lewis was columnist for the New York Times op-ed page from 1969 through 2001 and for many years the paper’s London correspondent. He has also been a lecturer at Harvard’s Law School, a visiting professor at the Universities of California, Illinois, Oregon, and Arizona, and since 1983, the James Madison Visiting Professor at Columbia University. He and his wife, Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court, live in Cambridge. [August 10 — August 17] |
Richard Ben Cramer Much of what we think we know about the Middle East is "just plain wrong" says Richard Ben Cramer. "We get a version of Middle East news that is so truncated and so comic book simple that it's very hard to engage people in any reality." We share his reality, next week. Having won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the Middle East in the 1979, Mr. Cramer returns to the subject in How Israel Lost. His writing has appeared in Time, Newsweek, The New York Times Magazine, Esquire and Rolling Stone. Mr. Cramer’s book, What It Takes: The Way to the White House is considered a classic of modern American politics, his Joe DiMaggio: The Hero’s Life was a bestseller. [August 3 — August 10] |
Tim Weiner A nation with pretensions of greatness needs an effective intelligence service. Tim Weiner says that the CIA has failed that assignment for more than half a century. Causes include an unwillingness to say "I don't know" to the President and a fundamental disregard for democracy. [July 27— August 3] |
Evan Levine Evan Levine is a practicing cardiologist and internist in New York City. Dr. Levine is affiliated with the Montefiore Medical Center where he is a clinical assistant professor of medicine. He was a summa cum laude graduate of a program associated with the City College of New York and Mount Sinai School of Medicine. He has offices in the Bronx and Yonkers. Dr. Levine is author of What Your Doctor Won’t (Or Can’t) Tell You: Doctors, hospitals, drugs, and insurance -- what you need to know to take charge of your own health care. [July 20 — July 27] |
Thomas Cahill Look too closely at the details and you'll lose the whole suggests Thomas Cahill. He believes that you can find modern western perspectives and behavior in innovative thinkers and actors of the Middle Ages, including Eleanor of Aquitaine, St. Francis, Giotto and Dante. Lest one think such things are long past, America still struggles with concepts embodied in Magna Carta, signed by King John in 1215. As William Faulkner said "The past isn't dead. It isn't even past." Furthering his “hinges of history” series, Thomas Cahill’s Mysteries of the Middle Ages explores what he sees as the early stirrings of the “modern.” His earlier explorations include How the Irsih saved Civilization, The Gifts of the Jews, Desire of the Everlasting Hills and Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea. Once prominent in the business of publishing, Mr. Cahill now devotes full time to his writing, dividing his time between Europe and New York City. [July 13 — July 20] |
Bill McKibben In Mr. McKibben's 1989 book, The End of Nature, this widely acclaimed writer and environmentalist raised global climate change in mainstream consciousness. Between then and Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future, he has become one of the world’s most respected voices championing a livable future on earth. He has written a series of influential books, is a scholar in residence at Middlebury College, appears in all kinds of publications, is regularly in the mass media representing solutions and responsibilities to environmental crises, organizes grassroots efforts urging political action on global climate change and draws attention to its crisis proportions at the website: 350.org. [July 6 — July 13] |
Alexandra Fuller "War on ourselves" and "war on our environment" is how Alexandra Fuller describes what's happening in Wyoming. The Legend of Colton H. Bryant is a gripping story about the new American West. The Economist calls it "a modern western" that "hangs so faultlessly on its high-altitude, big-sky, oil-drilling bones that it seems not so much to have been written as uncovered by the wind and weather of the American north-west." Alexandra Fuller won the international Ulysses Prize for literary reportage in 2005. Ms. Fuller’s book The Legend of Colton H. Bryant takes place in the gas and oil fields of Wyoming, USA, where she lives. Born in the U.K., she grew up in Africa in the midst of Rhodesia/Zimbabwe’s civil war, then in Malawi and Zambia. She explores those years and their aftermath in her best-seller Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight and Scribbling the Cat. In addition to writing books, Ms. Fuller is published widely in newspapers including The New York Times and magazines including The New Yorker and National Geographic. [June 29 — July 6] |
Danny Coulson Danny Coulson is a retired FBI agent, the Founder and first commander of the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team. A Texan, Mr. Coulson began his 31 year FBI career as an idealistic young lawyer in 1966. While serving in a wide variety of FBI field and administrative positions, he learned that when people die, there are No Heroes (the title of his book). His experience with domestic terrorist activities reached from black separatist murders in the 1960's through the Iran-Contra scandal to leading the arrest of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. [June 22 — June 29] |
Garry Wills America has "had three outbreaks of evangelical opposition to science and reason and enlightenment," says Garry Wills. Additionally "we've had enlightened religion that respects the laws of nature. ... Luckily that was ascendant at the time of the foundation of our government." America's constitutional foundation in enlightenment principles continues to generate controversy and political strife. Timing is very important.
[June 15 — June 22] |
Nick Bryant
[June 8— June 15] |
Kevin Phillips "The financial sector, without much attention, has taken over the economy while still pretending that there's another real economy and it (finance) is only minor," says Kevin Phillips. It matters, he continues, because that takeover is a prescription for disaster, a view he documents in Bad Money. Kevin Phillips is political & economic analyst, historian and author. Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism joins Mr. Phillips’ other bestsellers: American Theocracy, American Dynasty, The Politics of Rich and Poor, Wealth and Democracy and The Cousins Wars. A former Republican strategist, he first became known for The Emerging Republican Majority in the late ‘60s, and has subsequently written more than a dozen highly regarded books. Mr. Phillips writes for the Los Angeles Times, Harper’s Magazine and Time. Mr. Phillips told us that he had hoped to go back to writing about history, a subject in which he takes great pleasure, and avoid any kind of engagement with the current American political campaign. Alas, the crisis in which he sees America increasingly enmeshed compelled him to choose responsibility over enjoyment. [May 31 — June 8] |
John Hope Franklin
[May 19 — May 31] |
Stuart Kauffman "Agency comes with life, not with molecular reproduction," says Stuart Kauffman. "I'm convinced that a bacterium swimming up a glucose gradient is an agent. Are we stretching it? Sure, I don't want to attribute consciousness to the bacterium but I don't want to not either." Stretching is second nature to Dr. Kauffman. Now he's reaching for new descriptions of life, of science, and of God. The direction of evolution cannot be predicted, hence life's directions cannot be predicted. With agency comes the possibility of creativity and responsibility.
[May 11 — May 19] |
Paul Hawken A pioneering environmentalist, entrepreneur, journalist and author, Mr. Hawken is one of the world’s foremost environmental leaders, having spent his life putting his commitment to justice into action. Starting his activism in Selma, AL, when he was 19 years old, he has founded multiple businesses including Smith & Hawken and now heads the Natural Capital Institute. He is an widely sought speaker internationally, has contributed to and appeared in countless media outlets, has written international classics include The Ecology of Commerce, Natural Capitalism (with Amory Lovins and Hunter Lovins), and Growing a Business, which Mr. Hawken also took to television. His latest book is Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement is the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming. He calls California home. [May 4 — May 11] |
Sy Montgomery "There are so many great souls out there," say Sy Montgomery. "Thank God you understand what family really is," say her readers. Much of that family walks on four legs. Sy Montgomery is a naturalist, explorer and writer. The Good, Good Pig: The Extraordinary Life of Christopher Hogwood, a best-seller, focuses on the importance of family and home as Ms. Montgomery continues in her quest to give humans a better understanding of our deep connections to all life. Her books for adults include Journey of the Pink Dolphins, Spell of the Tiger and Search for the Golden Moon Bear; for children the award-winning The Snake Scientist, The Man-Eating Tigers of Sundarbans, The Tarantula Scientist and Encantado: Pink Dolphin of the Amazon. Also a newspaper columnist, documentary scriptwriter and radio commentator, she and her husband, writer Howard Mansfield, make their home in New Hampshire. [April 27 — May 4] |
Frederick Ferré
[April 20 — April 27] |
Haynes Johnson
[April 12 — April 20] |
Susan Jacoby
[April 6 — April 12] |
Cornel West
[March 29 — April 6] |
Thomas Laird
[March 22 — March 29] |
Neal Gabler
Mr. Gabler is a cultural observer with a commanding grasp of the heart and soul of America's entertainment culture. A widely respected biographer and essayist, he is author of Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination, Life: The Movie, An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood, and Winchell: Gossip, Power and the Culture of Celebrity. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Norman Lear Center for the Study of Entertainment & Society at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School of Communications. [March 15 — March 22] |
Gay Talese
[March 8 — March 15] |
E.L. Doctorow
Published in more than 30 languages, Mr. Doctorow’s fiction includes Ragtime, City of God and The Book of Daniel. The March brings Mr. Doctorow’s extraordinary novels to a full dozen. It won Mr. Doctorow a nomination for his second National Book Award and earned him also his third National Book Critics Circle award for fiction. A playwright and essayist as well as novelist, Mr. Doctorow’s other honors include the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Edith Wharton Citation for Fiction, the William Dean Howells Medal of the American Academy of Arts & Letters, and the presidentially conferred National Humanities Medal. [March 1 — March 8] |
Edward P. Jones
[February 23 — March 1] |
David McCullough Polling and focus groups won't lead to bravery. Only one-third of Americans actually supported the American revolt against British rule, according to David McCullough. The leaders of that revolution faced a fair chance of being executed for their efforts. Historian and journalist David McCullough is the author of the widely heralded bestseller, John Adams. Mr. McCullough won the Pulitzer Prize for his national bestseller, Truman. Twice Mr. McCullough has won the National Book Award and has five additional historical works to his credit. He makes his home in New England. [February 16 — February 23] |
Terry Parssinen Contrary to common belief, high ranking officials in the German government and military actively sought to prevent German armed invasions which lead to World War II and the Holocaust. How? By killing Adolf Hitler. With The Oster Conspiracy of 1938, historian Terry Parssinen both enriches our understanding of the never-ending need to resist tyranny and spotlights unsung heroes intent on overthrowing the Nazis and killing Hitler to avert World War Two. A European historian with degrees from Grinnell College and Brandeis University, Dr. Parssinen is Professor of History at the University of Tampa. He has written extensively about the international drug trade. [February 9 — February 16] |
Edward Larson Can people govern themselves? That was a central issue in the American Presidential election of 1800 between founding "brothers" John Adams and Thomas Jefferson and it is an issue in the election of 2008. The High Federalist of 1800, lead by Alexander Hamilton, look very much like today's Republicans says historian and legal scholar Edward Larson. Dr. Larson’s ongoing interest in America’s tension between science and religion continues in A Magnificent Catastrophe. He puts history to work examining the 1800 presidential election, showing striking similarities to the election of 2008. Thomas Jefferson, democracy, and science barely defeated the Federalists, elitists and state religion. Dr. Larson won the Pulitzer with Summer for the Gods about the Scopes trial; his Evolution is a Modern Library book. A professor of history and law at Pepperdine University, his articles have appeared in dozens of journals, including The Atlantic Monthly, Nature and Scientific American. [February 2 — February 9] |
Joseph Ellis The problem with challenging myths, says Joseph Ellis, is that the myths are undermined ... we're forced to grow up. George Washington is much more interesting, and important, that the childish myths surrounding him. Historian Joseph Ellis' book Founding Brothers won the Pulitzer Prize, his American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson won the National Book Award. With His Excellency: George Washington, Dr. Ellis continues to make early American history and the people who made it relevant to the present and future. With a Ph.D. from Yale, this former Virginian went to the College of William & Mary, has been on the faculty of Mt. Holyoke and a resident of Massachusetts for many years. [January 26 — February 2] |
Iman Beauty is much more than "skin deep." Beauty, or its appearance, is the focus of a multi-billion dollar industry. It affects our self-image, how others see and treat us and we them. Iman has been publicly immersed in the politics and economics of beauty for more than 30 years. Former supermodel Iman is now the CEO of IMAN Cosmetics, Fragrances & Skincare. Author of The Beauty of Color and I am Iman, her meteoric rise to the top echelon of the fashion world began in 1975 when she left university in Nairobi for New York City. There she began her remarkable 14 year modeling career. In 1994, she launched her business, the IMAN brand now sold around the world. Actively involved in Children's Defense Fund, For All Kids Foundation and Action Against Hunger, she has received numerous awards for her humanitarian work. Somalian by birth, Iman is the mother of two and married to musician David Bowie. [January 19 — January 26] |
David Nasaw At one time perhaps the richest man in the world, Andrew Carnegie owed his wealth and his presence in America to tariffs. In his biography of Carnergie, David Nasaw shows how America's "robber-barons" used tariffs, the Republican Party and the U.S. Government to enrich themselves ... and how Carnegie both succeeded and failed in applying his wealth to a variety of causes. Historian and biographer David Nasaw is a best-selling author of biographies. Professor Nasaw is also Distinguished Professor of History and Director for the Humanities at the City University of New York Graduate Center. His Andrew Carnegie joins The Chief, Professor Nasaw's best-selling biography of William Randolph Hearst, winner of the Bancroft Prize for History and more. Professor Nasaw writes for The New Yorker, The Nation, Condé Nast Traveler, the London Review of Books, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and others. [January 12 — January 19] |
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Money, Mellon and America It was said that three Presidents served under Andrew Mellon while he was Secretary of the Treasury. David Cannadine explores the energy and excess of captialism manifested in Mellon's life. Unbridled capitalism like unchecked power is dangerous and destructive, he concludes. Historian and biographer David Cannadine is author of Mellon, An American Life, the prize-winning Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy and many other acclaimed and important books. He has taught at Cambridge and Columbia universities and now is "The Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Professor of British History" at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London. Born in Birmingham, England, he was educated at Cambridge, Oxford and Princeton. [January 5— January 12] |
Tea and Empathy: the Art of Listening In much of the world at this time of year, there is abundant talk of "peace" and "goodwill." The talk is not always accompanied by action. Greg Mortenson found that when he asked women in remote parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan what they most wanted, and listened, they led him to act, to help educate young girls. Mr. Mortenson describes a Pakistan you won't be reading about or seeing on TV. His experiences with Sharia Law are equally unexpected. Greg Mortenson is an educator, nurse and humanitarian. The kindness of Pakistani villagers who cared for Mr. Mortenson after his failed 1993 attempt to summit K2 inspired him to create The Central Asia Institute. He now works with local people across Pakistan and Afghanistan, building almost 60 schools where girls as well as boys are educated. Mr. Mortenson’s book, Three Cups of Tea, tells his powerful story of building peace, one school at a time, in some of the most remote places on earth. When not in Central Asia, Mr. Mortenson and his family live in Montana. [December 29 — January 5] |
| 2007 | 2007 |
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Style and Substance
A certain madness seems to haunt the fashion trades. Francine du Plessix Gray achieved "sanity and balance" by virtue of the extended family, her tribe, which raised her. The contrast to her mother and step-father is striking. Writer Francine du Plessix Gray has been a regular contributor to The New Yorker for decades. Ms. Gray is author of many noteworthy books. In Them: A Memoir of Parents, she recalls her parents: mother, Tatiana Iacovleff du Plessix Liberman, fashion icon in New York in the 1950s (“Tatiana of Saks”) and muse to the Russian poet, Vladimir Mayakovsky; step-father, Alexander Liberman who presided over the Condé Nast publishing empire for 4 decades and was a well-known artist; and her blood father, Bertrand du Plessix, a French diplomat who died fighting for the Free French during the Second World War. Ms. Gray’s At Home with the Marquis De Sade, was on the Pulitzer Prize short-list. [December 22 — December 29] |
Promises of Freedom
Who owns the notion of "freedom"? In the British cultural tradition, was it John Stuart Mills or Thomas Jefferson? Simon Schama says that discovering where custody lies requires a detour from the traditional stories about the American Revolution. Simon Schama is an historian, author, critic and broadcaster. He is the bestselling, prizewinning author of Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution, Rembrandt’s Eyes, The Embarrassment of Riches, Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution and more. Dr. Simon Schama is University Professor of Art History and History at Columbia University. “A History of Britain,” his 15-part television series, was nominated for an Emmy and has two companion volumes; his BBC/PBS 8-part series, “The Power of Art,” is also accompanied by a book. Since 1994, he has provided art criticism and cultural essays for the New Yorker, and regularly contributes to New Republic, Guardian and the New York Review of Books. [December 15 — December 22] |
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The Stories of Existence
Women’s work in Africa includes preserving stories from cultures predating both Islam and Christianity. Aminatta Forna’s prize-winning books, grounded in her own European-African heritage, place her in the forefront of an ancient line of story-tellers illumining past, present and future. In the upper latitudes of the Northern hemisphere, spiritual celebrations timed to the winter solstice are prevelant. In lower latitudes, the timing and manifestations of celebrations is different. Aminatta Forna’s The Devil That Danced on the Water focused on her African-Scottish family, including her father’s execution for defending democracy as Sierra Leone’s Finance Minister in the 1970s. Now her Ancestor Stones resurrects ancient African culture and stories. A former BBC reporter, Ms. Forna is a full time writer, sharing her time between London and her native Sierra Leone, where she and her father's family have created a school and a cashew plantation. [December 8 — December 15] |
Corpocracy: Failures of Trust
Corporations now are so powerful they threaten democracy and capitalism itself, says Robert A.G. Monks, author of Corpocracy. A true capitalist-insider, Mr. Monks is the world’s leading “shareholder activist”. What to do? Enforce existing laws, he says. Here’s how.
[December 1— December 8] |
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Happiness — a Science of Mind
It's time for a new science of the mind, says Alan Wallace. That science, he says, will allow us to explore and build on our own internal resources and to create "genuine happiness." Alan Wallace is ascholar of science, Buddhist teacher and practitioner. With degrees in physics and the philosophy of science from Amherst College and a Ph.D. in religious studies from Stanford University, Dr. Wallace spent 14 years training as a Tibetan Buddhist monk. He was ordained by His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. Dr. Wallace's several influential books include Genuine Happiness: Meditation as the Path to Fulfillment. He founded and is President of the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies and is on the Board of Directors and Scientific Advisory Board of the Mind & Life Institute. [November 26— December 1] |
Myths, Lies & 9/11
For more than 6 years, American Media and American politicians have applied a myth to the events of 9/11 and their aftermath, says Susan Faludi. The myth is one of American invincibility, macho men, damsels in distress and redemption through violence. The archetypal hero is John Wayne in John Ford's archetypal movie The Searchers. Rather than face the truth, Americans have sought comfort in a corrupted myth. By avoiding and supressing the truth, we've taken actions based on false premises and lies. Susan Faludi is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and cultural observer. In her book The Terror Dream, Ms. Faludi analyzes the roots of and antidotes for fear and fantasy in post-9/11 America. Her 1990s books Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women, which won the National Book Critics circle Award for Nonfiction, and Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man were best-sellers. Formerly a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, other publications for which Ms. Faludi has written include The New Yorker and The Nation, The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. [November 18 — November 26] |
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Minds, Bodies and Stories
Stories are more powerful than we can possibly imagine, knitting our bodies to our cultures. We may be on the verge of a long-awaited story with which to stitch our communities back together in entirely new ways. Noted historian of science Anne Harrington…tells the story. Historian of science Anne Harrington is author of The Cure Within: A History of Mind-Body Medicine. Specializing in the history of psychiatry, neuroscience and other mind sciences, Dr. Harrington is Professor of the History of Science at Harvard, Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics, co-directs Harvard's "Mind, Brain, and Behavior Initiative” and was a consultant for the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Mind-Body Interactions. She serves on the Board of the Mind & Life Institute. [November 11 — November 17] |
Celebrity Dustups
Each of John Eidinow's three books are about "a knock-down, drag-out struggle between men of enormous, of supreme, talent," between a genius and someone considered quite normal. And then the surprises begin along with the search for elusive truths. John Eidinow is a journalist. He and David Edmonds have co-authored three books exploring the stories behind “celebrity dustups”: Rousseau's Dog (David Hume & Jean-Jacques Rousseau); Bobby Fischer Goes to War (chess-masters Fischer & Boris Spassky); and international best-seller Wittgenstein's Poker (Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper). Mr. Eidinow was and Mr. Edmonds is with the BBC, both have won many awards for their work. [November 3 — November 10] |
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Who's Running America America must confront the ideological hatred pouring out of the Middle East -- particularly Saudi Arabia and Wahabbism – if it is to win its war against terrorisms, says Daniel Silva. In The Messenger and this conversation, Mr. Silva makes the reality intriguingly clear, using fiction. Daniel Silva is international intrigue novelist. With The Messenger, Mr. Silva adds another best-seller to his long list of widely admired suspense novels. In it, he exposes the powerful connections between Saudi Arabia's rulers and the U.S. government; Israel, terror and puritanical fundamentalists; oil and money. Often favorably compared with John le Carré and Graham Green, Mr. Silva's carefully researched stories have been translated into more than two dozen languages and published around the world. Mr. Silva is a former reporter trained and experienced in international relations and is strongly connected to the power elite in Washington, D.C., where he lives. [October 27— November 3] |
A Very Different Country "They just need one more vote and then we have a very, very different country," says John Dean. He's talking about the United States Supreme Court which he views as the most endangered of the three branches of the U.S. Government. There are serious problems with the legislative and judicial branches as well. How did this come to pass? For starters, Americans don't like being taken for suckers, so they don't vote and don't participate in the electoral process; and "process," Mr. Dean says, is at the heart of the solution. Attorney and author, John Dean was a key “Watergate” witness. He is the author of Broken Government: How Republican Rule Destroyed the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Branches. That book joins Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush, and Conservatives Without Conscience to form a trilogy based on 40 years inside his “former tribe,” the Republican Party. Once White House legal counsel to President Richard Nixon, Mr. Dean wrote Blind Ambition in 1976. He had also served as chief minority counsel for the House Judiciary Committee and an associate deputy attorney general in the U.S. Department of Justice. Following a successful career as a corporate attorney, he is now a columnist for Findlaw.com and lives in California. [October 20 — October 27] |
Arianna Huffington
Fearlessness
[October 13 — October 20] |
Kevin BakerNYC
Good fiction often helps us better understand the context and complexity of history and of places. “That turbulent, bloody little patch of America“ is one way Kevin Baker characterizes New York City, one of “the most fought over place in the history of the United States.“ He brings to life The City and its history in this conversation and in his City of Fire trilogy, which concludes with Strivers Row — World War II Harlem from the perspective of a young Malcolm X.
[October 6 — October 13] |
Robin Meyers
Dignified Indignance Robin Meyers is a minister and peace activist. Author of Why the Christian Right is Wrong: A Minister's Manifesto for Taking Back Your Faith, Your Flag, Your Future, Rev. Dr. Meyers is a United Church of Christ minister in Oklahoma City. He writes a regular newspaper column and for The Christian Century and is a professor of rhetoric at Oklahoma City University. [September 29 — October 6] |
Claudine André
Sanctuary: a Love Story
There are five great ape species: bonobos, chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans and humans. Excluding the latter (arguably), all are threatened with extinction in the wild. With courage, tenacity and love, Claudine André has worked since 1994 in the Congo to save bonobos. Starting with orphaned baby bonobos (frequently their parents were victims of the bush-meat trade) Mme. André has built a community of 52 bonobos. Claudine André is the founder/president of Les Amis des Bonobos du Congo (The Friends of Bonobos in Congo). Bonobos -- one of humanity's closest living relative, once known as pygmy chimpanzees -- are indigenous only in the Congo. In the midst of Congo's devastating civil war in the early 1990s, Mme André began rescuing orphaned Bonobos and has now created Lola Ya Bonobo ("paradise of the bonobo" in Lingala,) a sanctuary for a growing number of orphaned and adult Bonobos just outside Kinshasa. [September 22 — September 29] |
Frank Partnoy
Fleeced Frank Partnoy is a lawyer, former investment banker and now teaches at the University of San Diego School of Law. Mr. Partnoy was a Wall Street trader at Morgan Stanley before writing his books, F.I.A.S.C.O. and Infectious Greed. In these books, Partnoy exposes the dark side of today's financial and political world. Shedding light on secret deals your broker and pension fund manager do not want you to know about, Mr. Partnoy explains profoundly disturbing financial practices which impact everyone in today's entire global economy. [September 15 — September 22] |
Peter Galbraith
Incompetents: Faith-Based Foreign Policy Peter Galbraith is a foreign policy expert and former U.S. Ambassador. The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War Without End is Mr. Galbraith's first-hand account of Bush Administration "arrogance and ignorance" in foreign policy, particularly in Iraq. A 23 year veteran of government service, Mr. Galbraith served as professional staff to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was the first U.S. Ambassador to Croatia and is currently the Senior Diplomatic Fellow at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. He contributes regularly to The New York Review of Books. [September 8 — September 15] |
Amory Lovins
Hyper Efficient Amory Lovins is co-founder and CEO (Research), Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI); Chairman of the Board of Hypercar, Inc., an ultra-light hybrid automobile. A pioneer known world-wide for his ideas about alternative resource production and use, Mr. Lovins' publications include Natural Capitalism, co-authored with Paul Hawken and L.Hunter Lovins. Mr. Lovins' work across public and private sectors promoting more effective uses of and innovations in resource generation and conservation has generated many major awards around the world. RMI celebrated its 25th anniversary in August. [September 1 — September 8] |
Lassi Heininen
Lost and Found
[August 25 — September 1] |
Doris Kearns Goodwin
The Sovereign People
Doris Kearns Goodwin is a narrative historian. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in history for No Ordinary Time focused on Franklin Delano Roosevelt during Word War II, Ms. Goodwin adds the remarkable Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln to her bestseller Wait Till Next Year, The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys and Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream. She has for many years brought her historical perspective and analyses to television audiences and now serves as an NBC-TV news analyst. In addition, she lectures around the world. [August 18— August 25] |
Alexandra Fuller
Lost and Found
[August 11 — August 18] |
Karin Ryan
Torture is Bad for People and Nations
[August 4 — August 11] |
Jonathan Rauch
Gay Marriage
[July 28 — August 4] |
Christine Loh
Changing China
Christine Loh is a Hong Kong activist. After a successful career in the private sector, Ms. Loh was active in Hong Kong politics, helping shape the public debate as power was transferred from Great Britain to China, and having been appointed, was then elected to Hong Kong’s Legislative Council. An advocate for democratic reform as well as an international voice for sustainable environmental policies, Ms. Loh left electoral politics to found and direct "Civic Exchange," an independent public policy think-tank. [July 21 — July 28] |
Kevin Phillips
American Trinity: Religion/Oil/Debt
Kevin Phillips is a political and economic analyst. In American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century, Mr. Phillips articulates America's current volatile circumstances with devastating comparisons to prior economic empires. A former Republican strategist, Mr. Phillips first became known for The Emerging Republican Majority in the late '60s. He has subsequently written more than a dozen highly regarded books, including bestsellers American Dynasty, The Politics of Rich and Poor and Wealth and Democracy. He writes for the Los Angeles Times, Harper's Magazine and Time. [July 14 — July 21] |
Nick Bryant
... BBC reporter & author. Author of The Bystander: John F. Kennedy and the Struggle for Black Equality, Mr. Bryant currently covers South Asia for the BBC. He holds a M.A. from Cambridge University and a Ph.D. from Oxford University. Mr. Bryant is based in New Delhi, India, and Sydney, Australia. [July 7 — July 14] |
Andrew Weil
. . . clinical professor of medicine and director of the Program in Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona. Healthy Aging: A Lifelong Guide to Your Physical and Spiritual Well-Being is Dr. Weil’s 11th book. Others having addressed subjects from The Healthy Kitchen (with Rosie Daley) to natural medicine, spontaneous healing and a revolutionary approach to the drug problem. He writes “Self Healing,” a monthly newsletter, makes his ideas available at www.drweil.com and supplements his ideas about aging at www.healthyaging.com. He graduated from Harvard Medical School. [June 30 — July 7] |
Paul Hawken
... pioneering environmentalist, entrepreneur, journalist and author, Mr. Hawken is one of the world’s foremost environmental leaders, having spent his life putting his commitment to justice into action. Starting his activism in Selma, AL, when he was 19 years old, he has founded multiple businesses including Smith&Hawken and now heads the Natural Capital Institute . He is an widely sought speaker internationally, has contributed to and appeared in countless media outlets, has written international classics include The Ecology of Commerce, Natural Capitalism (with Amory Lovins and Hunter Lovins), and Growing a Business, which Mr. Hawken also took to television. He calls California home. [June 23 — June 30] |
Leonard Susskind
. . . physicist. In The Cosmic Landscape: String Theory and the Illusion of Intelligent Design, Dr. Susskind offers non-specialists access to ideas he (and, independently, two others) discovered in 1969. Dr. Susskind's further contributions to theoretical physics span over 40 years, from quantum optics, elementary-particle physics, condensed-matter physics and cosmology to gravitation, from quark confinement to baryogenesis, and from the Principle of Black Hole Complementarity to the Holographic Principle. Before studying engineering at City College of New York and earning his PhD at Cornell, he was a plumber and steam fitter in his native South Bronx. Since 1978, he has been Professor of Physics at Stanford. [June 16 — June 23] |
Sy Montgomery
... naturalist, explorer and writer. The Good, Good Pig: The Extraordinary Life of Christopher Hogwood, a best-seller, focuses on the importance of family and home as Ms. Montgomery continues in her quest to give humans a better understanding of our deep connections to all life. Her books for adults include Journey of the Pink Dolphins, Spell of the Tiger and Search for the Golden Moon Bear; for children the award-winning The Snake Scientist, The Man-Eating Tigers of Sundarbans, The Tarantula Scientist and Encantado: Pink Dolphin of the Amazon. Also a newspaper columnist, documentary scriptwriter and radio commentator, she and her husband, writer Howard Mansfield, make their home in New Hampshire. [June 9 — June 16] |
Mia Bloom
. . . political scientist. As acts of terror grab headlines and influence domestic and foreign policy, worldwide, Dr. Bloom analyzes the current international environment, what can be learned from the past and actions that might have positive influence on the future in Dying to Kill: The Allure of Suicide Terror. She is assistant professor of political science at the University of Cincinnati, a consultant to the New Jersey Office of Counter-Terrorism, a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and has appeared on PBS, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and Fox News. [June 2 — June 9] |
John Hope Franklin
... distinguished historian. Among the United States' preeminent historians, Dr. Franklin is an American historian and scholar. Also a life-long activist, Dr. Franklin was awarded America's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, for his enduring commitment to civil rights. His autobiography, Mirror to America, written at age 90 combines his experience as an African-American with his professional assessment of America's 20th century fight for civil rights. Earning his PhD at Harvard in 1941, Dr. Franklin is now Duke University's James B. Duke Professor Emeritus of History. He served his profession as President of all three of its major historical associations, has countless awards from around the world and chaired the advisory board to President Clinton's Initiative on Race. [May 26 — June 2] |
Reza Aslan
. . . scholar of comparative religions and writer. Author of No god but God: The Origins, Evolution and Future of Islam, Reza Aslan has studied religions at Santa Clara and Harvard Universities and the University of California, Santa Barbara. Born in Iran and a thorough-going Californian, in addition to earning an MFA in fiction from the Writer's Workshop at the University of Iowa, he was visiting assistant professor of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies there. "USA Today," "U.S. News & World Report" and "The Chronicle of Higher Education" have all published profiles of him. [May 19 — May 26] |
Thomas Laird
... journalist. The Story of Tibet: Conversations with the Dalai Lama is the result of 60 hours of intense conversation between this veteran journalist and His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the spiritual and temporal leader of Tibet. The remarkable Mr. Laird was based in Katmandu for thirty years, was Nepal correspondent for Asiaweek for a decade and a regular contributor to Time and Newsweek. The author of three additional books, Mr. Laird's photography has appeared in two books and more than fifty magazines. He now divides his time between Kathmandu and New Orleans. [May 12 — May 19] |
Sandra Mackey
. . . Middle East observer, author, commentator. This widely respected journalist has covered the Middle East since the oil boom of the 1970s. Her books focus on the Arab world, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq (The Reckoning) and Saudi Arabia (The Saudis.) Ms. Mackey has written hundreds of articles for the "New York Times," "Los Angeles Times," "Wall Street Journal," "Chicago Tribune," "Christian Science Monitor," and "Washington Post," and she is a frequent commentator on the Middle East for CNN, "Nightline," "ABC Evening News with Peter Jennings," the BBC, CBS, NPR and Monitor Radio. [May 5 — May 12] |
