Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchLerone Martin, "Young King: The Making of Martin Luther King Jr." (Amistad, 2026)
Episode 1980
We know who Martin Luther King Jr. became, but who was he at the beginning of his life? How did his youth inform his outlook and activism?
Before Mar…
5 months, 3 weeks ago
Benjamin Y. Fong and Paul Prescod, "Rustin's Challenge" (2026)
Episode 311
There was no more trenchant and substantive critic of the Left from the Left in the 1960s and 1970s than Bayard Rustin. Some liberals and leftists to…
5 months, 3 weeks ago
Nicholas Thompson, "The Running Ground: A Father, a Son, and the Simplest of Sports" (Random House, 2025)
Episode 1979
In this episode, Nicholas Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic, and University of Puerto Rico professors Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera and Maritza Stanchich, discuss…
5 months, 3 weeks ago
Nicholas Tochka, "The Musical Lives of Charles Manson: The Beatles, the Beach Boys, and the Invention of the Sixties" (Bloomsbury, 2026)
Episode 1977
Nicholas Tochka analyzes the role of rock music in the life of Charles Manson, the Family, and the August 1969 Tate-LaBianca killings, which also giv…
5 months, 3 weeks ago
Roger Frie, "Edge of Catastrophe: Erich Fromm, Fascism and the Holocaust" (Oxford UP, 2024)
Episode 1976
Erich Fromm, the prominent twentieth-century public intellectual and psychoanalyst, was recognized for his courageous stand against fascism, racism, …
5 months, 3 weeks ago
Dylan Baun, "Beirut Radical: A Global Microhistory from the Sixties to the Lebanese Civil War" (I.B. Tauris, 2026)
Episode 1974
Imad Yusuf Nuwayhid was born in 1944 in the Lebanese village of Ras al-Matn. He came of age in the 1960s, splitting time between Beirut and Europe. A…
5 months, 3 weeks ago
Paola De Santo, "The Ambassador and the Courtesan: Political Bodies in Renaissance Italy" (U Delaware Press, 2026)
Episode 1975
Paola de Santo joins Jana Byars to talk about her new book, The Ambassador and the Courtesan: Political Bodies in Renaissance Italy (U Delaware Press…
5 months, 3 weeks ago
Mary Lisa Gavenas, "Selling Opportunity: The Story of Mary Kay" (Penguin, 2026)
Episode 1972
As detailed in Selling Opportunity: The Story of Mary Kay (Penguin, 2026) by Mary Lisa Gavenas, as the only woman in Forbes’ Greatest Business Storie…
6 months ago
William R. Brody, "Uncommon Sense: Rethinking Ordinary Problems in Extraordinary Ways" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2026)
Episode 1973
Today I’m speaking with William R. Brody about his book, Uncommon Sense: Rethinking Ordinary Problems in Extraordinary Ways (Johns Hopkins Universit…
6 months ago
Douglas Waller, "The Determined Spy: The Turbulent Life and Times of CIA Pioneer Frank Wisner" (Penguin, 2026)
Episode 338
Frank Wisner was one of the most powerful men in 1950s Washington, though few knew it. Reporting directly to senior U.S. officials--his work largely …
6 months ago