Rick Perlstein is a historian who thinks the real story of the sixties is the rise of the modern conservative movement.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
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Do you need an advanced degree in math or physics to make discoveries about the cosmos? Science writer Margaret Wertheim says thousands of amateur scientists have proposed their own theories about the universe.
Before she was became "The French Chef," Julia Child worked in espionage for the O.S.S. during World War II. That's where she met her husband Paul. Biographer Jennet Conant tells the story of Julia's career in espionage, and of how the couple navigated the McCarthy investigations.
Author and playwright Michael Frayn talks with Steve Paulson about his play “Copenhagen” and the dramatic meeting between physicists Neils Bohr and Werner Heisenberg in 1941. At issue is the degree to which Heisenberg was spying for the Nazis and his role in the development of a German atom bomb.
Economist Juliet Schor co-founded The Center for a New American Dream. Among her many proposals to fix the economy: create more jobs by adopting a 30-hour work week and 3-day weekend.
Harriet Tubman will soon be gracing our twenty dollar bill. Most of us know only one image of her. It's an iconic image taken later in her life in which her hair's covered in a dark cloth and she has a stern expression. But there are other images of Harriet Tubman as well, including a wood cut of her carrying a musket.
Law professor Nicholas Johnson says the image of Harriet Tubman carrying a rifle doesn’t fit with how most Americans view abolitionists and civil rights leaders. After all, weren’t they supposed to be peaceful? But as Johnson tells Steve Paulson, there's a rich tradition of Black Americans owning guns for self-defense.
Got World Cup fever? Here's Roger Kittleson on how Brazilian politics, culture and passion is wrapped up in soccer.
John Elder Robison, whose younger brother is the writer Augusten Burroughs, did not get his diagnosis of Asperger's until he was in his 40s.
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