Edward E. Andrews, "Newport Gardner's Anthem: A Story of Slavery, Struggle, and Survival in Early America" (Cornell UP, 2025)
Newport Gardner's Anthem: A Story of Slavery, Struggle, and Survival in Early America (Cornell UP, 2025) explores the remarkable life of Occramer Marycoo, an enslaved African who went on to become one...
17 Aug 47min
Scott Peeples, "How Many Roads: A Life of Bob Dylan" (Reaktion, 2026)
Scott Peeple's How Many Roads: A Life of Bob Dylan (Reaktion, 2026) chronicles Bob Dylan’s rise from apprenticeships in Minneapolis cafés and Greenwich Village folk clubs to international stardom as a...
17 Aug 1h 3min
Shimon Redlich, "Bridge Builder: My Life Since the Holocaust" (Academic Studies Press, 2026)
How do you build bridges after living through one of history's greatest ruptures? In this episode, Rabbi Marc Katz sits down with historian Shimon Redlich to discuss his memoir Bridge Builder: My Life...
16 Aug 43min
Echoes of Incense on the Shikoku Pilgrimage with Don Weiss
Amy Chavez talks to Don Weiss, currently mid-way through the Shikoku Pilgrimage — Japan's 1,300 km Buddhist route that has been walked for almost as many years. Pilgrims share their journey with Kobo...
16 Aug 35min
Caroline Bicks, "Monsters in the Archives: My Year of Fear with Stephen King" (Hogarth, 2026)
After Caroline Bicks was named the University of Maineʼs inaugural Stephen E. King Chair in Literature, she became the first scholar to be granted extended access by King to his private archives, a t...
14 Aug 58min
Why the Roman Empire Fell: On Edward Gibbon with Hugh Liebert
250 years ago when the United States declared independence, Edward Gibbon across the ocean published the first volume of his magisterial series, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Immediately h...
13 Aug 56min
Paul French, "The Last Emperor of China: Twilight of the Forbidden City" (St. Martin's Press, 2026)
The life of Puyi, the last emperor of China, often feels like a spectacle—in no small part due to the 1987 Oscar-winning film The Last Emperor. Yet the true story being Puyi, as well as his wife, the ...
13 Aug 52min
Sima Qian–China’s Grand Historian
John Ross chats with repeat guest Tim McGirk about Sima Qian (c. 145–86 BC), the Father of Chinese History. He earned this accolade for his monumental work, the Shiji (usually translated as Records of...
12 Aug 31min
