Booknotes+ Podcast
1) Ep. 246 Constitutional Scholar Akhil Reed Amar on America’s Equality Story
Yale constitutional law professor Akhil Reed Amar's second book in a trilogy is titled "Born Equal: Remaking America's Constitution, 1840-1920." In Professor Amar's introduction, he writes: "Millions ...Show More
2) Ep. 245 Kenneth Feinberg, "What is Life Worth?"
Kenneth Feinberg is a Washington-based attorney who served as a special master of the US government's 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund. Mr. Feinberg worked for 33 months, pro bono, deciding who should b...Show More
3) Ep. 244 William Galston, "Anger, Fear, Domination"
William Arthur Galston has been a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution since 2006 and a columnist for the Wall Street Journal for the past 12 years. In the first paragraph of his latest 161-pa...Show More
4) Ep. 243 Peter Henriques, "George Washington"
Retired George Mason University history professor, Peter Henriques, starts off his author's note writing: "If anyone had told me in the summer of 2023 that I would be writing one more book on George W...Show More
5) Ep. 242 Geri Spieler on Housewife Assassin: The True Story Behind a Suburban Double Life
In September 1975, 17 days apart, two women, one in Sacramento and the other in San Francisco, attempted to assassinate President Gerald Ford. The first attempt on September the 5th came from Annette ...Show More
6) Ep. 241 Dan Wang on Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future
The book is called "Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future." Author Dan Wang (WONG) was born in China in 1992. His parents moved to Canada when he was seven. In 2014, he graduated from the Un...Show More
7) Ep. 240 Jonathan Mahler on The Gods of New York: NYC in the 1980s
The names are almost all known nationally: Ed Koch, Rudy Giuliani, David Dinkins, Al Sharpton, Larry Kramer, and Donald Trump. These are people who were first in the news in the 1980s. Their early pub...Show More
8) Ep. 239 Philip & William Taubman, "McNamara at War"
Philip Taubman and his brother William have written what the publisher Norton is calling "McNamara at War: A New History." It's a full life biography of former Secretary of Defense Robert Strange McNa...Show More
9) Ep. 238 Daniel Flynn, "The Man Who Invented Conservatism"
Daniel Flynn's book is titled, "The Man Who Invented Conservatism: The Unlikely Life of Frank S. Meyer." Mr. Flynn points out in his introduction that "Meyer travels from communist to conservative, pe...Show More
10) Ep. 237 Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Failure: Communism in the 20th Century
In our last podcast, Ed Luce of the Financial Times told us about his book, "Zbig," for Zbigniew Brzezinski (1928-2017) who he calls America's great power prophet. In this episode, we're going to feat...Show More