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To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Doug Gordon found Steve Nieve in Chicago and talked with him about his music and his collection of sounds.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Colson Whitehead’s novel The Underground Railroad just won the 2016 National Book Award.

Steve Paulson spoke with him about this powerful, sweeping epic.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Terry Tempest Williams reads from her book, "Red," and talks about the desert with Steve Paulson.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

What would a world without national borders look like? There's a good chance it'd look very similar to the one we have today. Parag Khanna is a global strategist who believes borders are becoming irrelevant in an increasingly connected world. More than national boundaries, he believes what matters are the connections between cities.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

In many cultures, people use pain as a means of coming closer to God.

Ariel Glucklich talks with Jim Fleming about the history and psychology behind the practices.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Samuel Clemens was an energetic and passionate man who traveled the world and created a new American idiom.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Toby Cecchini is part owner and bartender at Passerby, a bar in New York’s far West Chelsea neighborhood. He’s also the author of “Cosmopolitan: A Bartender’s Life.”

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

American Wendy Doniger holds two doctorates in Sanskrit and Indian studies from Harvard and Oxford. She’s the author of numerous books on Hinduism and has translated several Sanskrit texts. She’s widely considered one of the most important scholars on Indian religion in the world. So it might surprise you that there is one country in the world she can’t visit: India.

Doniger’s books have been targeted by Hindu Nationalists and by India’s ruling right-wing BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party). Her latest, “The Hindus: An Alternative History,” was the subject of a major lawsuit in India, and its publisher, Penguin Books India, not only pulled the book from circulation but destroyed all remaining copies. Since then, Doniger has received many death threats inside of India and no longer feels safe visiting there. But as she told Steve Paulson, her writing about Hinduism hasn’t changed in over 40 years. What has changed is India.

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