Brandon L. Garrett, “Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong” (Harvard UP, 2011)
Wrongful conviction is, both morally and practically, the worst mistake that society can inflict on an individual. From Franz Kafka to Errol Morris, from Arthur Koestler to Harper Lee, Western culture...
25 Mar 20111h 15min
Teresa Gowan, “Hobos, Hustlers and Backsliders-Homeless in San Francisco” (University of Minnesota Press, 2010)
Why do people become homeless? Is it because some people have made bad decisions in their lives or can’t hold onto a stable job? Or is homelessness the result of a depilating mental illness or chemica...
25 Mar 20111h 8min
Robert Goldberg, “Tabloid Medicine: How the Internet is Being Used to Hijack Medical Science for Fear and Profit” (Simon & Schuster, 2010)
This week New Books in Public Policy interviews Bob Goldberg about his new book Tabloid Medicine: How the Internet Is Being Used to Hijack Medical Science for Fear and Profit (Simon & Schuster, 2010)....
18 Mar 201140min
Beth Bailey, “America’s Army: Making the All-Volunteer Force” (Harvard UP, 2009)
The United States Army is a product of our society and its values (for better and for worse), but it also makes claims to shape our society – and of course to defend it. What is the relationship betwe...
18 Mar 20111h 7min
James Fleming, “Fixing the Sky: The Checkered History of Weather and Climate Control” (Columbia UP, 2010)
In the summer of 2008 the Chinese were worried about rain. They were set to host the Summer Olympics that year, and they wanted clear skies. Surely clear skies, they must have thought, would show the ...
20 Okt 20101h 2min
Nick Reding, “Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town” (Bloomsbury, 2009)
In 1980 I left Kansas to go to college in Iowa. A lot of things caught my attention about Iowa, for example, that the people really are very nice. I also noticed that there were a lot of drugs. One of...
14 Aug 20091h 8min
Colin Gordon, “Mapping Decline: St. Louis and the Fate of the American City” (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008)
This week we have Professor Colin Gordon of the University of Iowa on the show talking about his new book Mapping Decline: St. Louis and the Fate of the American City (University of Pennsylvania Press...
9 Mai 20081h 9min
