U.S. History

Garbage expert Benjamin Miller discusses the history of rubbish in New York. He’s the former director of policy planning for the New York City Department of Sanitation. He’s just written a book on the subject, entitled “Fat of the Land: Garbage in New York – The Last 200 Years.” (Four Walls Eight Windows) Miller says that the dumping of garbage has literally shaped New York City as it took over surrounding islands and bulked up Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan.

Historian Alexander Keyssar. In his new book “The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States” (Basic Books), he examines the checkered history of our country’s right to vote, and how this right was not for a time extended to certain groups of people, from propertyless white men, to women, immigrants, and African-Americans. Even now, he argues, that the wealthy and well-educated are for more likely to go to the polls than the poor and under educated. Keyssar is Professor of History and Public Policy at Duke University.

Curtis Gans an expert on voter turnout and participation, and the director of the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate, a non-partisan group which analyzes the habits of voters. Gans supports the electoral process. Akhil Amar is Southmayd Chair of Consitutional Law at Yale Law School. He would like to see the electoral college system abolished.

Professor Michael A. Bellesiles on the history of gun culture in America. His new book, “Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture” (Knopf) looks at our country’s obsession with guns. Historically, he says it began around the civil war. Before that, there was virtually no access to firearms. His research refutes the conventional lore that Colonial families were armed, and that the gun was the symbol of the frontier. Bellesiles is a Colonial historian at Emory University, and the Director of Emory’s Center for the Study of Violence.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews “American Moderns: Bohemian New York and the Creation of a New Century” by Christine Stansell.

Law Professor Alfred Brophy. In 1921, what many call the bloodiest race riot in US history took place in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Now 80 years later, a state commission has recommended reparations be made to the aged black survivors of the riots. Brophy, a professor at the Oklahoma City University Law School, researched the issue of reparations and the riot for the state commission.

Kinney Booker. He is one of the survivors of the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921. He provides a first person account of the riot.

Law Professor Alfred Brophy. In 1921, what many call the bloodiest race riot in US history took place in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Now 80 years later, a state commission has recommended reparations be made to the aged black survivors of the riots. Brophy, a professor at the Oklahoma City University Law School, researched the issue of reparations and the riot for the state commission.

Michael Eric Dyson Is the author of the new book "I May Not Get There With You: The True Martin Luther King, Jr." (The Free Press). In It, Dyson argues that Martin Luther King Jr, the human being, with flaws and gifts serves us better than the romanticized and Idealized King. Dyson is also the author of "Making Malcolm: The Myth and Meaning of Malcolm X," and other books. Dyson Is an ordained Baptist minister and a Professor at DePaul University.

Journalist Eileen Welsome talks about her book, The Plutonium Files: America’s Secret Medical Experiments in the Cold War (Dial Press). The Plutonium Files is about the thousands of secret, government sponsored radiation experiments conducted on unsuspecting Americans during the Cold War. Welsome won the Pulitzer Prize for her initial research and writing on these experiments. Her book includes new facts about the Manhattan Project, the scientists who conducted the research, and the experiments’ victims.

Historian Jon Wiener spent 14 years fighting to gain access to the FBI’s secret files on former Beatle John Lennon. Wiener’s Freedom of Information case went all the way to the Supreme Court before the FBI decided to settle. His new book “Gimme Some Truth” (University of California Press) outlines and reproduces the most important pages of the file, revealing that the Nixon administration plotted to deport Lennon in 1972 and silence him as a voice of the anti-war movement.

Book Critic Maureen Corrigan reviews The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction by historian Linda Gordon (Harvard Press).

Pulitzer-Prize winning writer Garry Wills. His new book is "A Necessary Evil: A History of American Distrust of Government" (Simon & Schuster). Wills is also the author of "Lincoln At Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America." And he's written other books on Nixon, Reagan and Kennedy, as well as a look at the relationship between politics and popular culture via celebrity, "John Wayne's America: the Politics of Celebrity."

Actor, director, writer Tim Robbins talks about his new film *The Cradle Will Rock*. It is the first film written and directed by Robbins since the Academy Award winning Dead Man Walking. The Cradle Will Rock is based on the events surrounding the production of a 1937 labor musical, directed by Orson Welles. The play was shut down by a government injunction for the cast's alleged left-wing politics. Robbins is known for his roles in such films as Shawshank Redemption, The Player, and Bull Durham.

Writer Edmund Morris. His biography of former president Ronald Reagan, "Dutch," (Random House) has garnered a lot of controversy. Morris uses a fictional narrator to tell much of the story, taking unprecedented artistic liberties. This is the first biography authorized by a sitting president, and it took Morris fourteen years to finally complete the work. Morris, a South African by birth, is the author of "The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt," which won the Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Award. He is currently at work on a second volume of the Roosevelt biography.

Actor Dan Hedaya. He's currently starring as President Nixon in the new comedy about Watergate, "Dick." His performance has been called "hilarious and sly." Though Hedaya stars in this film, he's best known for his supporting role in many other films and TV shows.

World War Two combat veteran Robert Kotlowitz has written about his experiences in "Before Their Time: A Memoir." 1997 Hard cover and just re-printed this year on Anchor Books. Kotlowitz was part of a platoon that was ordered to charge the German front, an order that killed all but 3 men. His previous books included: The Boardwalk, His Master's Voice, Sea Changes, and Somewhere Else. (THIS CONTINUES INTO THE SECOND HALF OF THE SHOW.)

Guest host Barbara Bogaev interviews two women who are part of the new American Experience documentary on PBS: "Fly Girls" During World War II, more than 1,000 women signed up and flew airplanes in the U.S. military effort. Their careers were cut short by politics. It would be 30 years before women soldiers could take to the skies again. The two women are Barbara London and Dora Strother.

Historian John Dower is the author of "Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II" (W.W. Norton) about the aftermath of the war on Japan, and the American military occupation. Dower says he wanted to capture a sense of what it meant to start over in a "ruined world" for people at all levels of society and how that time became a "touchstone for affirming a commitment to 'peace and democracy.'" Dower is the Elting E. Morrison Professor of History at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Terry Gross talks with writer Allen Barra ("Bear-ah"), the author of "Inventing Wyatt Earp: His Life and Many Legends" (Carroll & Graff Publishers). It tells the story of the famous sometime lawman and the shootout at the O.K. Corral at Tombstone, Arizona where Wyatt Earp was the only man left standing. Barra is a sports columnist for the Wall Street Journal.