History

New York Times reporter Dexter Filkins recently accompanied the Marines of Bravo Company of the 1st Battalion, 8th Marines for eight days in November as they took over Fallujah.

A new documentary from filmmakers Calvin Skaggs and David Van Taylor describes the emergence of evangelical Christianity as a powerful political force. With God on Our Side: George W. Bush and the Rise of the Religious Right is being broadcast on the Sundance Channel. Van Taylor and Skaggs run the documentary company Lumiere Productions.

James Bennet is the former Jerusalem Bureau chief for The New York Times. He recently returned to the Middle East to cover the death of Arafat and the jockeying for power among the Palestinian factions.

Mark Bowden's article about the 25th anniversary of the Iranian Hostage crisis will be featured in the December issue The Atlantic Monthly. On Nov. 4, 1979 a group of Iranian students stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and took hostage the entire American diplomatic team — which resulted in a 15-month international crisis that still has reverberations today. Bowden interviewed the former hostage-takers for his article.

Rushing was a press officer stationed at Centcom (United States Central command) presenting the American military point of view on the war to the world press. He was featured in the documentary Control Room which was filmed inside the Arab network Al Jazeera. Rushing decided to leave the military after the Pentagon ordered him to stop commenting on the documentary.

Chicago is considered to be a Democratic city, yet The Chicago Tribune is endorsing President Bush. The paper received thousands of letters and e-mails in response. From the Tribune we speak with editorial page editor Bruce Dold, and letters editor Dodie Hofstetter.

The new documentary Tarnation chronicles writer and director Jonathan Caouette's turbulent childhood with a mentally ill mother. He made the film on his home computer for just a few hundred dollars. Critic David Edelstein has a review.

Michael Moore's controversial film Fahrenheit 9/11 won best picture at Cannes and broke box office records for a documentary. It's now out on DVD and video. Moore's other films include Roger & Me and Bowling for Columbine. He's also authored Stupid White Men and Will They Ever Trust Us Again?

He's run for president three times, twice as a Republican and most recently, in 2000, as the Reform Party candidate. His new book is called How the Right Went Wrong: How Neoconservatives Subverted the Reagan Revolution and Hijacked the Bush Presidency.

His new book The Plot Against America imagines a world in which Franklin D. Roosevelt loses the presidency to America's biggest hero and celebrity, Charles Lindbergh. Lindbergh then forms alliances with Germany and Japan.

We broadcast excerpts from a recent panel presented by The New Yorker magazine. On the panel were network news anchors Peter Jennings, Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather. They discuss the presidential campaign and network news. The panel was moderated by Ken Auletta, a contributor to The New Yorker who writes the Annals of Communications column for the magazine.

Bonanno and his friend Andy Bichlbaum decided to go around the world posing as World Trade Organization representatives giving bogus talks to groups of experts. They fooled many. At their last fake WTO gathering, they rolled the camera, and made The Yes Men a documentary film that has received critical acclaim.

Rock critic Ken Tucker reviews End of the Century, a new documentary film about the Ramones. All members except the drummer have passed away; Johnny Ramone, the lead guitarist, died Sept. 15, 2004.

Clarke, a former member of the National Security Council says the Bush administration missed opportunities to avert the Sept. 11 crisis. His controversial book, Against All Enemies: America's War on Terror, is now out in paperback.

Anderson writes the Letters from Baghdad column for The New Yorker magazine. His new book is The Fall of Baghdad. Anderson's conversations with people in Iraq, including an artist, a driver and a plastic surgeon, as well as his travels around the country, formed the basis of his new book.

Spiegelman won a Pulitzer prize for his two-part graphic novels about his father in Nazi Germany and the holocaust Maus: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds and Maus: A Survivor's Tale: Here My Troubles Began. His new graphic nonfiction novel is about his family's experience on Sept. 11, In the Shadow of No Towers.

Christopher Dickey is Paris bureau chief and Middle East regional editor for Newsweek.. His new novel, The Sleeper, is a thriller about a former terrorist living the United States who hunts down his former al Qaeda comrades after Sept. 11.

Hersh's reporting in The New Yorker broke the story of prisoner abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. His new book is Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib. He won a Pulitzer prize 35 years ago when he first reported the story of the massacre at My Lai in Vietnam.

We discuss the plans for rebuilding at ground zero in Lower Manhattan, and the debates surrounding those plans. Goldberger says idealism met cynicism at ground zero, and so far they have battled to a draw. His new book is Up from Zero: Politics, Architecture, and the Rebuilding of New York.

Ross McElwee has made a career out of filming his life. He's made seven feature-length documentaries, including Sherman's March, Time Indefinite, Something to Do with the Wall and Six O'Clock News. His latest film is Bright Leaves about his family's connection to the tobacco industry. His great-grandfather created the brand of tobacco known as Bull Durham. McElwee is a visiting lecturer at Harvard University's Department of Visual and Environmental Studies.