John D. French, "Lula and His Politics of Cunning: From Metalworker to President of Brazil" (UNC Press, 2020)
Known around the world simply as Lula, Luis Inácio Lula da Silva was born in 1945 to illiterate parents who migrated to industrializing São Paulo. He learned to read at ten years of age, left school a...
30 Nov 20211h 30min
Peter Cole, "Ben Fletcher: The Life and Times of a Black Wobbly" (PM Press, 2021)
In the early twentieth century, when many US unions disgracefully excluded black and Asian workers, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) warmly welcomed people of color, in keeping with their emp...
30 Nov 20211h 31min
Hadassah Lieberman, "Hadassah: An American Story" (Brandeis UP, 2021)
Born in Prague to Holocaust survivors, Hadassah Lieberman and her family immigrated in 1949 to the United States. She went on to earn a BA from Boston University in government and dramatics and an MA ...
29 Nov 202156min
Charlie Louth on Rainer Maria Rilke
Charlie Louth’s illuminating recent book, Rilke: The Life of the Work (Oxford University Press, 2021) examines why Rilke’s poems have exercised such preternatural attraction for now several generation...
19 Nov 20211h 1min
Brandy Schillace, "Mr. Humble and Dr. Butcher: A Monkey's Head, the Pope's Neuroscientist, and the Quest to Transplant the Soul" (Simon and Schuster, 2021)
Today I talked to Brandy Schillace about her book Mr. Humble and Dr. Butcher: A Monkey's Head, the Pope's Neuroscientist, and the Quest to Transplant the Soul (Simon and Schuster, 2021). In the early ...
19 Nov 202157min
Vladimir Alexandrov, "To Break Russia's Chains: Boris Savinkov and His Wars Against the Tsar and the Bolsheviks" (Pegasus, 2021)
The latest book by Vladimir Alexandrov is a brilliant examination of the enigmatic Russian revolutionary, Boris Savinkov. Although now largely forgotten outside Russia, Boris Savinkov was famous, and ...
19 Nov 202158min
Ruth Gamble, "The Third Karmapa Rangjung Dorje: Master of Mahamudra" (Shambala, 2020)
A scholarly yet accessible biography of the Third Karmapa Rangjung Dorje, one of the great historical figures of Tibetan Buddhism. Known for his mastery of teachings across sectarian lines, his treat...
18 Nov 202156min
David Barak-Gorodetsky, "Judah Magnes: The Prophetic Politics of a Religious Binationalist" (U Nebraska Press, 2021)
In this episode, I interview David Barak-Gorodetzky about his new book, Judah Magnes: The Prophetic Politics of a Religious Binationalist (U Nebraska Press, 2021). This comprehensive intellectual biog...
18 Nov 202139min
