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To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Negroes and the Gun

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.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Kip Winger Goes Classical

In the mid-80's the metal band Winger topped the charts with hits like "Seventeen." Then Grunge came along and left bands like Winger in the dust.  Now, Kip Winger is back on top with a new CD that debuted at #1 on the music charts.  Only this time, he's rocking the classical charts. His new album is "Conversations with Nijinsky"-- orchestral compositions performed by the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra.   

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Matthew Remski on Yoga

To The Best Of Our Knowledge producer Veronica Rueckert talks to Matthew Remski about how he made the change from being a Canadian novelist to a Western yogi.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

John Elder Robison on "Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's"

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.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Jared Diamond on "The World Until Yesterday"

How do modern societies compare to hunter gatherer cultures? In "The World Until Yesterday," Jared Diamond, explores our radically different values - on everything from childrearing to what we think about strangers. Here's Steve's EXTENDED interview with Diamond. 

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Richard Rath on "How Early America Sounded"

In 1776 there were no radios or telephones or honking cars, but there were other sounds. The church bell, the town crier, and women beating their laundry all had distinct sounds.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Life on Mark Twain's Mississippi

If there’s one writer who’s identified with the Mississippi River, it’s Mark Twain. He grew up in Hannibal, Missouri — on the river’s edge — and as a young man, he worked as a steamboat pilot. And then he wrote the “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” the novel that turned the Mississippi into myth. But it also created one of the most enduring controversies in American literary history: how to depict race relations in America's past. In this interview, Andrew Levy says that "Huckleberry Finn" is actually anti-racist — and when it was first published, the big controversy was about Twain’s depiction of wild children.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Nita Sahai on How Life First Began

How did non-life become life? University of Wisconsin geochemist Nita Sahai talks with Anne Strainchamps about how life might have begun on Earth.

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