Q&A

Data journalist Elliott Morris, a U.S. correspondent for The Economist, discusses the history of public opinion polling in the United States going back to the 19th century and the development and use of polling since then. He also talks about the accuracy of polls today and the often criticized predictions made by forecasters during the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Medical historian Lindsey Fitzharris, author of "The Facemaker," talks about the life and career of Dr. Harold Gillies, a New Zealand plastic surgeon who reconstructed the faces of thousands of injured soldiers during and after World War One. The techniques developed by Dr. Gillies, many of which are still used today, revolutionized the field of reconstructive surgery. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Season Two begins with a sampling of calls about Watergate between President Richard Nixon and his administration from April 1973 while the investigation intensified. Conversations include John Ehrlichman, Assistant Attorney General Henry Peterson, FBI Director L. Patrick Gray, Henry Kissinger, and White House Counsel John Dean. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At least 6 U.S. Presidents recorded conversations while in office. Hear those conversations on this C-SPAN podcast. Season 2 focuses on President Richard Nixon's secretly-recorded private telephone conversations. Through eight episodes, hear Richard Nixon talk with key aides about Watergate strategy, potential Supreme Court Nominees, and hear his reaction to the leaked publication of the Pentagon Papers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

University of Michigan musicology and American culture professor Mark Clague discusses his book, "O Say Can You Hear?," about the history and cultural impact of the Star-Spangled Banner, written by Francis Scott Key in 1814. He talks about how it became the U.S. national anthem, its widespread use today at sporting events, and renditions of the song performed by Jimi Hendrix, Whitney Houston, Roseanne Barr, and others. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Former Baltimore Sun reporter John Bainbridge, Jr., author of “Gun Barons,” talks about the inventors who started Colt, Smith & Wesson, Winchester, and Remington, and the role their firearms played in U.S. westward expansion and the Civil War. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week we look at two space-related stories in the news recently: the release of an image of Sagittarius A star, a supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, and the progress made by NASA's Perseverance Rover in its search for life on Mars. We are joined by two guests, Barnard College astrophysicist and author Janna Levin and University of Southampton geochemistry professor Jessica Whiteside. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Iraq War veteran and National Book Award winning-author Phil Klay discusses his book of essays, titled "Uncertain Ground," about the impact of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq on American society and the chasm between the less than one percent of citizens who serve in the military and the rest of the nation. He also talks about the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, the mass shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde, and other topics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're taking a break for Memorial Day, and thought we'd use this opportunity to share an episode of our Booknotes+ podcast, where you'll meet Dr. Mark Vonnegut, who reflects on 40 years as a pediatrician in his book, "The Heart of Caring." In the dedication of his book, "The Heart of Caring," Dr. Mark Vonnegut tells his patients, teachers, and parents everywhere, "Thank you for letting me have such a good time when I go to work." Dr. Vonnegut is a pediatrician who graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1979. This was after he had been diagnosed, at age 25, with severe schizophrenia. He's had four psychotic breakdowns in his life, but has managed to successfully practice pediatrics for close to forty years. Mark Vonnegut, in his newest book, writes about patients, parents, insurance companies, and his late father, the novelist Kurt Vonnegut. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1997, sovereignty over Hong Kong was passed from the United Kingdom to the People's Republic of China. Large demonstrations opposing China's authority began in the early 2000s in the port city, culminating with the 2019 protests and subsequent crackdowns by the Chinese government that made headlines around the world. Louisa Lim, author of "Indelible City," who grew up in Hong Kong and covered Hong Kong and China as a reporter for the BBC and NPR, talks about the history of British rule in Hong Kong and the relationship between Hong Kong and China since the 1997 handover. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Amy Gajda, professor of law at Tulane University in New Orleans and author of “Seek and Hide,” discusses the historic struggle in the United States between an individual’s right to privacy and the public’s right to know newsworthy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Darlene Superville, White House reporter for the Associated Press and co-author of "Jill," talks about the life and career of First Lady Jill Biden. Ms. Superville discusses Jill Biden's involvement in Joe Biden's political career, her role as a teacher, and the causes – including working with military families – that she took up in the Obama and Biden administrations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Archivist of the United States David Ferriero is retiring this spring after nearly 13 years in office. Appointed by President Barack Obama and confirmed in 2009, he is the 10th archivist to oversee the National Archives as well as the nation's now 15 presidential libraries. During his tenure, Mr. Ferriero presided over a digital transformation of how archival material is collected and preserved. And it was under his leadership that the Archives debuted "Remembering Vietnam," its first-ever exhibit on that divisive conflict. Mr. Ferriero, a veteran of that war, served as a U.S. Navy hospital corpsman. He talks about his accomplishments and challenges at the Archives and the work that remains for his successor. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Author & journalist Matthew Continetti talks about the history of the American right-wing since the early 20th century. He says that a populist strain challenged mainstream conservatism several times over that period, ultimately triumphing with the election of Donald Trump in 2016. Mr. Continetti is also a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and founding editor at the Washington Free Beacon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

During discussions over the reunification of Germany in 1990, U.S. Secretary of State James Baker told Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would not expand eastward. "Not one inch," Baker assured Gorbachev. In the lead-up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin used those words to suggest that the U.S. and NATO were not interested in peace and could not be trusted. Mary Sarotte, professor of history at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and author of "Not One Inch," talks about the 1990 comment and the impact that NATO expansion since then has had on U.S.-Russia relations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

April 15th, 2022, marks the 75th anniversary of the day that Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball. Since 2004, April 15th has been known in the baseball world as "Jackie Robinson Day," in honor of the Brooklyn Dodgers player. We talked with Kostya Kennedy, former senior writer for Sports Illustrated, about Jackie Robinson's life and career. In his new book "True," Mr. Kennedy writes about four significant years in Robinson's life: 1946, when he started in the minor leagues; 1949, when he was named National League MVP; 1956, his final year playing baseball; and 1972, the year of his untimely death. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In his will, Benjamin Franklin left 1000 pounds sterling each to the cities of Boston and Philadelphia. The money was to be loaned out, in small increments and at low-interest rates, to tradesmen who wanted to start their own businesses. Franklin estimated that even with a small rate of return, the trust fund would grow over the years and both cities would end up with large windfalls by the end of the twentieth century. University of Pittsburgh professor Michael Meyer, author of "Benjamin Franklin's Last Bet," discusses Franklin's micro-lending scheme and assesses its legacy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is confirmed by the Senate, we will have the most diverse Supreme Court in U.S. history. University of Tennessee law professor Benjamin Barton, author of "The Credentialed Court," argues that while this is true on the surface, a closer look suggests that there is a "radical similarity" among the justices – especially when considering their educational and career paths after graduating high school. He has spent the past 12 years studying the backgrounds of Supreme Court justices throughout history and says that the justices today come from more elite circles and have much narrower experiences than their predecessors did, leading to a kind of group-think that is often overlooked when examining the court. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The title of the book "The Year That Broke America" refers to the year 2000, when an immigration crisis captured the headlines, Donald Trump ran for president, and Al Qaeda operatives arrived in the U.S. to learn to fly. Author Andrew Rice, a contributing editor at New York magazine, discusses the events of that year, which started with the fear of a global computer meltdown and ended with a fight over one of the closest presidential elections in U.S. history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Law professor Renee Knake Jefferson, co-author of “Shortlisted” discusses the nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court and talks about some of the women who were considered for the court in the past, but were passed over. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speechwriter and consultant Dana Rubin discusses her Speaking While Female Speech Bank, an online archive of speeches made by women throughout history that she says have been unjustly overlooked or forgotten. She talks about the archive and speeches by Queen Elizabeth II, Barbara Jordan, Phyllis Schlafly and others. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hundreds of thousands of children and teenagers were active participants in the Civil Rights Movement. They took part in boycotts, strikes, marches, and demonstrations and faced many of the same risks as their adult counterparts. Professor of history emeritus V. P. Franklin, author of "The Young Crusaders," joins us to talk about the stories of these sometimes overlooked contributors to social justice in the United States. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On almost all presidential rankings lists, you will find Warren Harding's name at or near the bottom. On C-SPAN's 2021 survey of presidential historians, he was 37 out of 44. Historian Ryan Walters argues that while Harding had his faults, his accomplishments – including bringing the country back to normalcy after WWI and setting out an economic plan that led to the Roaring Twenties – are often overlooked when assessing his presidency. In his book "The Jazz Age President," Mr. Walters lays out his case for why President Harding should rank higher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Since the summer of 2020, roughly 214 public monuments have been taken down across the United States, either through official processes or by force. Erin Thompson, professor of art crime at the City University of New York and the author of "Smashing Statues," talks about the history of American monuments, the motivations for putting them up, and the current debates over which ones should be taken down. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hoover Institution senior fellow Amy Zegart talked about the espionage threats facing the United States from China, Russia, Iran and North Korea and assessed whether our intelligence agencies are prepared to deal with them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The last slave ship carrying captives from Africa to America arrived in Alabama in 1860, more than fifty years after the transatlantic slave trade was outlawed in the United States. The 110 slaves aboard the ship were brought to U.S. shores as the result of a bet made by a wealthy Alabama slaveholder who bragged that he could circumvent the prohibition. To cover his tracks he burned and scuttled the ship, named Clotilda, in a swamp just north of Mobile, where it remained until it was discovered by reporter Ben Raines in 2019. Mr. Raines tells the story of Clotilda and its descendants in his book "The Last Slave Ship." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Robert Sutton, the former Chief Historian of the National Park Service, tells the story of a secret military intelligence facility near Washington, DC, where 3,000 high-value Nazis were interrogated by U.S. servicemen during World War Two. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

2022 is a big year for space science. NASA has two major missions underway. The first – DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) – will test the agency's ability to defend Earth against asteroids. The second – the James Webb Space Telescope (the successor to Hubble) – will be used to study the origins of the universe and search for possible life in the universe beyond Earth. We talked about these missions with Nancy Chabot, Planetary Chief Scientist at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory and Coordination Lead on the DART mission, and Meredith MacGregor, assistant professor of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Can human genes be patented and owned? That's the question behind Jorge Contreras' book "The Genome Defense." The author and professor of law at the University of Utah tells the story of the 2013 Supreme Court case Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics. The longshot case, brought by the ACLU, challenged the right to patent human genes, a practice that had been used by biotech companies for decades. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Calls between President Lyndon Johnson & members of Congress & the administration on the establishment of The Warren Commission which would look into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. This program begins with background information from Max Holland author of "The Kennedy Assassination Tapes: The White House Conversations of Lyndon Johnson Regarding the Assassination, the Warren Commission & the Aftermath" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Marc Selverstone, Chair of the Presidential Recordings Program at the Miller Center of the University of Virginia explains the background of the LBJ tapes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Joshua Prager talks about the complicated life and times of Norma McCorvey - aka “Jane Roe” - and the 1971 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court case over the right to have an abortion that bears her name. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jim Byron started working at the Nixon Foundation in 2007 as a marketing intern. He was 14-years-old. This past November, at age 28, he was appointed president and CEO of the foundation. Mr. Byron joined us to talk about the Nixon Foundation and its role in operating the Nixon Library & Museum site in Yorba Linda, California. He also talks about his goals for the foundation, including getting more young people interested in the life and career of President Nixon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Journalist J.B. MacKinnon discussed what would happen to the economy and the environment if the world cut consumption by twenty-five percent. He argued that we are currently using up the world's resources at a rate that is unsustainable and questioned what it would take to get people - especially consumer-driven Americans - to buy fewer things. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A conversation with Former Representative Steve Israel (D-NY) who opened a book store in Oyster Bay, New York. Plus, a look at current non-fiction books featured on C-SPAN's BookTV for the week of November 28, 2021. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mayukh Sen, a James Beard Award-winning writer and adjunct professor of food journalism at New York University, discusses his book "Taste Makers," in which he profiles seven immigrant women who transformed American cuisine during the second half of the 20th century. Two of the women profiled are Elena Zelayeta a blind chef and bestselling cookbook author from Mexico, and Chao Yang Buwei, who was a physician in China before becoming an influential writer on Chinese cooking in the United States. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which states that "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws," is one of the most adjudicated amendments. The 1868 adoption of it has led to numerous Supreme Court cases and interpretations. Professors Randy Barnett (Georgetown University Law Center) and Evan Bernick (Northern Illinois University College of Law) argue in their book "The Original Meaning of the 14th Amendment" that the amendment, which gave the federal judiciary and Congress new powers over the states, has been misinterpreted by conservative and liberal judges alike. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Filmmakers Beth Levison and Jerry Risius discuss their documentary “Storm Lake,” about the Storm Lake Times, a small-town family-run newspaper in Iowa, and its efforts to stay afloat amidst shrinking ad revenues and the coronavirus pandemic. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Howard Husock, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and author of "The Poor Side of Town," takes a critical look at the more than 100-year effort by the federal government, private developers, and others to create low-cost housing in the United States. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Retired California superior court judge LaDoris Cordell, author of "Her Honor," takes a critical look at our legal system and offers suggestions on how to improve it. She talks about the importance of judicial independence, mandatory minimum sentencing, racial bias in jury selections, police reform, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Opportunity Zones were created under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, signed into law by President Trump in December 2017. Originally the brainchild of Napster co-founder Sean Parker and supported by both Republicans and Democrats, the idea was to attract investment to poor communities across the U.S. by offering tax breaks for investors. Brookings Institution senior fellow and former Wall Street Journal economics editor and columnist David Wessel author of "Only the Rich Can Play," talks about the creation of Opportunity Zones and discusses the impact they have had. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Paris was overtaken by the Nazis on June 14, 1940, and brutally occupied for more than four years. Thousands of Parisians died as a result. Martin Dugard, co-author with Bill O'Reilly of the bestselling "Killing" series and author of the new book "Taking Paris," talks about Paris during the time of the German occupation and the liberation of the city by the U.S. and French forces in August 1944. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Peter Canellos, Politico editor-at-large and the author of The Great Dissenter, talked about the life, career, and legacy of Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan of Kentucky. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lawrence Wright, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "The Looming Tower" and New Yorker staff writer, discusses his latest book "The Plague Year: America in the Time of COVID." He talks about the origins of COVID-19, the response to the outbreak by the Chinese government, and the handling of the pandemic by the Trump administration and CDC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Wall Street Journal columnist and Manhattan Institute senior fellow Jason Riley talks about the life and influence of economist Thomas Sowell ("SOUL"), now 91, whose writings on economics, race, culture, education and politics have inspired conservatives and libertarians for a half-century. Mr. Riley is the author of the biography "Maverick" and is also the host of a documentary on Mr. Sowell that came out in January 2021. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jessica DuLong, the former chief engineer on NYC fireboat John J. Harvey, talks about the rescue of nearly 500,000 people, by boat, off the island of Manhattan following the 9/11 attacks. It was the largest maritime evacuation in history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Three House lawmakers - Reps. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), Jason Crow (D-CO), and Tom Malinowski (D-NJ) - recount their first-hand experiences on January 6, when a mob stormed the U.S. Capitol trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Brown University professor Megan Kate Nelson teaches a class about guerilla warfare, which is largely characterized by its tactics, including ambushes and surprise raids on unsuspecting troops and towns. She talks about the guerrilla soldiers fighting on both the Union and Confederate sides during the Civil War. These small bands of men on horseback were nimble and difficult to capture, especially Confederate guerrillas who often did not wear uniforms and blended back into the population after an attack. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Breitbart editor-in-chief Alex Marlow argues that the mainstream media has destroyed its credibility. He's interviewed by Reason Magazine editor at large Matt Welch. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Historian Harlow Unger chats with Brian Lamb about the work and legacy of Thomas Paine. Mr. Paine's political writings inspired American revolutionaries, but his later writings on religion made him a pariah. Harlow Unger's book, "Thomas Paine and the Clarion Call for American Independence," is the latest of 27 he has written, including many on the Founding Fathers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices