History Author Show
351 episodes - English - Latest episode: 2 months ago - ★★★★★ - 89 ratingsWe’ve all been transported into the past by a special book, place or person. On the History Author Show, host Dean Karayanis and a team of correspondents bring you the people who build the time machines.
Homepage Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Episodes
Jim Leeke – Howell’s Storm: New York City’s Official Rainmaker and the 1950 Drought
April 22, 2019 04:01 - 52 minutes - 121 MBApril 22, 2019 - We welcome a familiar face back into our time machine, and travel back to a parched New York City, suffering from a drought that began in a sweltering 1949, and stretched into 1950 with no end in sight. Desperate for rain, Mayor William O’Dwyer hired Dr. Wallace E. Howell, a handsome, 35-year-old meteorologist out of Harvard who approached weather modification as a cool-headed scientist, not a Music Man-style huckster. We meet this headline-making man with his head literally...
Lynda Cohen Loigman – The Wartime Sisters: A Novel
April 08, 2019 04:01 - 1 hour - 155 MBApril 8, 2019 - Our time machine welcomes aboard book lovers live at the Meet the Author Series presented by Mayda Bosco at the Closter Public Library in New Jersey. Together, we travel back to the Brooklyn and Massachusetts of the pre- and post-World War 2 era, for a tale of sibling strife that's as old as Cain and Abel. This is the engaging, absorbing story of two very different sisters, Ruth and Millie Kaplan. Raised in Brooklyn, each carries a hope chest full of hurt and secrets from thei...
Martin Fletcher – Promised Land: A Novel of Israel
March 25, 2019 04:01 - 53 minutes - 49.1 MBMarch 25, 2019 - In this episode, our time machine travels back to post-World War 2 Israel. When we arrive, we'll follow its return to statehood -- beset by enemies on three sides and their back against the sea on the fourth -- through the eyes of two fictional brothers and the woman they love. Our guide on this journey is Martin Fletcher who brings us Promised Land: A Novel of Israel. In it, we meet characters shaped in very different ways by the darkness of the Holocaust. Peter protects Is...
Joan E. Cashin – War Stuff: The Struggle for Human and Environmental Resources in the American Civil War
March 11, 2019 04:01 - 59 minutes - 136 MBMarch 11, 2019 - Our time machine travels back to the American Civil War for a look at the toll paid by civilians and the countryside trampled under the boots, hooves and wagon wheels of rampaging armies. We're all familiar with the devastation wrought on soldiers, but after a century-and-a-half, those sacrifices have become romanticized -- and battlefields once soaked with blood and littered with corpses, are now pristine national parks. Here to catalog the loss of ordinary citizens who did...
Tom Clavin – Wild Bill: The True Story of the American Frontier’s First Gunfighter
February 25, 2019 05:01 - 54 minutes - 124 MBFebruary 25, 2019 - We welcome a familiar face back into the passenger seat of our time machine. It's Tom Clavin, who we last chatted with about the book, Valley Forge, he co-authored with Bob Drury. Tom returns solo with the definitive true story of James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok. A soldier in the Civil War, spy for the Union, scout, lawman, gunfighter, gambler, showman, actor, and romantic, he crossed paths with General Custer, befriended the boy who grew up into Buffalo Bill Cody, and lo...
Neal Bascomb – The Escape Artists: A Band of Daredevil Pilots and the Greatest Prison Break of the Great War
February 11, 2019 05:01 - 52 minutes - 48.3 MBFebruary 11, 2019 - We welcome one of our favorite authors back into our time machine. It's Neal Bascomb. We last caught up with him in Nazi-occupied Norway for the bone-chilling tale of The Winter Fortress: The Epic Mission to Sabotage Hitler's Atomic Bomb. Neal's latest book is The Escape Artists: A Band of Daredevil Pilots and the Greatest Prison Break of the Great War. It's the tale of Allied airmen set out to defeat Kaiser Wilhelm's dreaded prisoner of war camp, Holzminden, and outwit i...
Mark Braude – The Invisible Emperor: Napoleon on Elba from Exile to Escape
January 28, 2019 05:01 - 1 hour - 146 MBJanuary 28, 2019 - Mark Braude, who we chatted with previously about his book: Making Monte Carlo: A History of Speculation and Spectacle, brings us the tale of a legendary military leader who's almost too big for the word legend. Napoleon Bonaparte of France. We meet the titan of France not at the peak of his power, but at his low-point: Cast out, kicked off the throne, and walking among the citizens of a tiny island as one of them. The book is The Invisible Emperor: Napoleon on Elba from E...
Jim Jordan – The Slave-Trader’s Letter-Book
January 14, 2019 05:01 - 1 hour - 63.9 MBJanuary 24, 2019 - Our time machine transports us back to the Savannah, Georgia, of 1858, where we'll meet Charles Lamar. Ignoring the law of the United States, Lamar organizes the transportation of hundreds of Africans aboard the yacht Wanderer. This criminal act strikes a hammer blow on the fault lines of America society, marking the first importation of human beings as slaves in four decades. Piecing together the true story with a treasure trove of newly discovered documents is Jim Jordan ...
Stacy Horn – Damnation Island: Poor, Sick, Mad, and Criminal in 19th-Century New York
December 31, 2018 05:01 - 1 hour - 151 MBDecember 31, 2018 - Our time machine travels back to a two-mile sliver of land in New York City's East River. Since 1971, it has been known as Roosevelt Island. But the Victorians knew it as Blackwell's Island, a dreaded name synonymous with illness, insanity, poverty, prisons and purgatory. You could suffer there for a variety of crimes, or for things as simple as being a woman walking alone late at night, an immigrant who didn't speak English, or someone too poor to make bail. Charles Dick...
Winston Groom – The Allies: Roosevelt, Stalin, Churchill and the Unlikely Alliance That Won World War II
December 17, 2018 13:09 - 55 minutes - 127 MBDecember 17, 2018 -Our time machine welcomes aboard Winston Groom, acclaimed author of Forrest Gump, for a seat at the conference table with the Big Three. The book is The Allies: Roosevelt, Stalin, Churchill and the Unlikely Alliance That Won World War II. It's a fresh look at the interactions between these very different men as they navigated the fight against Hitler and the inevitable stresses of a culture clash between democracy, empire, and dictatorship. Winston Groom is a master storyt...
Nicholas Hirshon – We Want Fish Sticks
December 10, 2018 20:06 - 1 hour - 171 MBDecember 3, 2018 - In this episode, our time machine turns Zamboni and hits the ice for the greatest fanned shot in sports marketing history, when the New York Islanders -- a decade removed from their four-in-a-row Stanley Cup dynasty of the early '80s -- chose a new mascot that resembled nothing so much as frozen food pitchman The Gorton's Fisherman. Joining us to do color commentary is our friend Nicholas Hirshon who brings us We Want Fish Sticks: The Bizarre and Infamous Rebranding of the...
Christopher Bonanos – Flash: The Making of Weegee the Famous
November 19, 2018 05:01 - 54 minutes - 125 MBNovember 19, 2018 - Our time machine hauls out the big, bulky Speed Graphic camera and watches the ultimate watcher of watchers in 1930s, '40s and '50s New York City: Arthur Fellig. Helping haul the tripod around to various crime scenes and disasters is Christopher Bonanos who brings us Flash: The Making of Weegee the Famous. Even if you don’t know the name, you've seen his gritty images from the 1930s through '50s. It's an incredible body of work produced by a photographer who hammed up cla...
Patrick Gregory – An American on the Western Front
November 05, 2018 05:01 - 1 hour - 147 MBNovember 5, 2018 - Our time machine soars over the Great War's trenches -- and gets down and dirty on ground level -- through the eyes of a pilot in the very early days of U.S. air power. Our guide on this journey is Patrick Gregory, co-author of An American on the Western Front: The First World War Letters of Arthur Clifford Kimber 1917-18. Written along with his mother-in-law, Elizabeth Nurser (Kimber's niece), Patrick Gregory has produced a true labor of love, bringing to life the only Gr...
Bob Drury and Tom Clavin – Valley Forge
October 22, 2018 04:01 - 1 hour - 167 MBOctober 22, 2018 - Our time machine travels back to "the times that try men’s souls," when Thomas Payne wrote that phrase to embody the struggles of Gen. George Washington's beaten-but-not-broken army and the precarious cause of American independence. In their new book, Valley Forge, #1 New York Times best-selling team Bob Drury and Tom Clavin provide a fresh look at the winter of 1777. In it, they introduce us to a very human George Washington who's beset on all sides by an almost comical a...
David Pietrusza – TR’s Last War: Theodore Roosevelt, the Great War, and a Journey of Triumph and Tragedy
October 08, 2018 04:01 - 1 hour - 80.3 MBOctober 8, 2018 - Our time machine travels back to America's experience in the Great War through the eyes of former president and hero of the Spanish-American War Theodore Roosevelt, whose four sons suited up to fight over there. Leading us through basic training is David Pietrusza, author of TR's Last War: Theodore Roosevelt, The Great War, and a Journey of Triumph and Tragedy. In David Pietrusza's book, we get a fleshed-out picture of the former Rough Rider -- older, suffering in the after...
Jenni L. Walsh – Side by Side: A Novel of Bonnie and Clyde
September 24, 2018 04:01 - 52 minutes - 120 MBSeptember 24, 2018 - Our time machine welcomes aboard infamous bank robbing-legends Bonnie and Clyde, as they tear a gash across 1930s America at the height of the Great Depression. Returning to ride shotgun with us on this crime spree is Jenni L. Walsh, who we chatted with about her debut novel, the stand-alone origin story Becoming Bonnie. Jenni's sophomore book isn't a sequel, but the edge-of-your-seat crime spree work of fiction Side by Side: A Novel of Bonnie and Clyde. In it, we meet a...
Dow Phumiruk – Counting on Katherine: How Katherine Johnson Saved Apollo 13
September 10, 2018 04:01 - 44 minutes - 101 MBSeptember 10, 2018 - Our time machine rockets to the moon -- and misses -- aboard the ill-fated Apollo 13. Saving the day is the African-American woman whose mathematical know-how guided the trio of Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise safely back home. As a child, Katherine Johnson loved math, and triumphed with her family's support to learn despite segregated schools of the day. Bringing an out-of-this-word story to life for readers 5 to 9 years of age, is Dow Phumiruk, whose vivid ill...
Theodore P. Savas – The War Outside My Window: The Civil War Diary of LeRoy Wiley Gresham, 1860-1865
August 27, 2018 04:01 - 1 hour - 143 MBAugust 27, 2018 - Our time machine whirls us back to the Civil War sickbed of 12-year-old LeRoy Wiley Gresham. This young voice of the Old South in Macon, Georgia -- rendered an invalid after a mysterious accident, and ignorant of the tuberculosis marching him towards an early grave -- left us the only diary of a male, teenage non-combatant. Savas Beatie LLC, "Publisher of Historical Titles of Distinction," brings us this poignant, insightful and witty diary for the very first time, edited b...
Fiona Davis – The Masterpiece: A Novel
August 13, 2018 04:01 - 48 minutes - 111 MBAugust 13, 2018 - We welcome Fiona Davis back into our time machine, where she'll be painting a fresh story of art, mystery, intrigue, lies and love. The book is . If you enjoyed Fiona Davis's previous works -- The Dollhouse, about the famed Barbizon Hotel for Women, and The Address, which stars the legendary Dakota apartment complex -- you'll want to hop a train for The Masterpiece: A Novel. It's set in the Grand Central Depot of its 1920's heyday and the 1970s, In those dark days, wrecking...
Richard Pyves – Courage, Sacrifice and Betrayal: The Story of the Victoria Rifles of Canada, 60th Battalion, in the First World War
July 30, 2018 04:01 - 58 minutes - 133 MBJuly 30, 2018 - Our time machine travels back to the Western Front of the Great War, and enlists with the 60th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, which captured the villages of Vimy and Petit Vimy, in the pivotal battle for Vimy Ridge. Author Rick Pyves contacted 2,500 living relatives of the soldiers through Ancestry, uncovering 86 personal recollections and letters as well as over 200 photos for Courage, Sacrifice and Betrayal - The Story of the Victoria Rifles of Canada, 60th ...
Helen Rappaport – The Race to Save the Romanovs
July 16, 2018 12:39 - 1 hour - 138 MBJuly 16, 2018 - In this episode, we witnesses a pivotal moment in world history and the evolution of European monarchies: The massacre of the Romanov family, ending the family's 400-year reign at Czar Nicholas II. Our guide on this journey is Helen Rappaport who brings us The Race to Save the Romanovs: The Truth Behind the Secret Plans to Rescue the Russian Imperial Family. Amidst the carnage of the Great War and Russian Revolution, myths and out-right lies about the family have clouded the ...
Gregory Crouch – The Bonanza King: John Mackay and the Battle over the Greatest Riches in the American West
July 02, 2018 04:01 - 56 minutes - 129 MBJuly 2, 2018 - Our time machine strikes gold in Nevada’s Comstock Lode — a world-record vein so immensely valuable that it changed the destiny of the United States as the Civil War loomed. Our guide on this journey is Gregory Crouch who brings us: The Bonanza King: John Mackay and the Battle over the Greatest Riches in the American West. It's the history-making, rags-to-riches story of an Irish immigrant who made his fortune, won the love of his adopted country -- and then fell from the nati...
Amber Brock – Lady Be Good: A Novel
June 18, 2018 04:01 - 51 minutes - 118 MBJune 18, 2018 - Our time machine travels back to the days of poodle skirts, I Like Ike and I Love Lucy. Once there, we'll meet Kitty Tessler -- a saucy, scheming socialite out to settle scores with snobs. Our guide on this whirlwind tour of Manhattan, Miami, and parts of Havana brewing with an anti-Batista revolution, is Amber Brock, author of Lady Be Good: A Novel. Amber Brock teaches British literature at an all-girls' school in Atlanta, and Publishers Weekly described her debut novel, 20...
Sarah Fraser – The Prince Who Would Be King: The Life and Death of Henry Stuart
June 05, 2018 16:26 - 47 minutes - 110 MBJune 4, 2018 - Our time machine travels back to the Tudor and Stuart period of the British monarchy, to meet a prince on track to be the great King Henry the IX, had his life not been cut short. Our guide on this royal journey is Sarah Fraser, author of The Prince Who Would Be King: The Life and Death of Henry Stuart. Henry Stuart’s life -- subject of the BBC 2 documentary The Best King We Never Had -- is the last great forgotten Jacobean tale, lost in the turmoil of the Thirty Years’ War and...
Anne Serling – As I Knew Him: My Dad, Rod Serling
May 21, 2018 04:01 - 46 minutes - 106 MBMay 21, 2018 - In this episode, our time machine welcomes aboard the daughter of an American national treasure: Rod Serling. Best known for his ominous exposition in TV's groundbreaking anthology, The Twilight Zone, Serling also produced landmark screenplays such as Planet of the Apes, Seven Days in May, Playhouse 90's The Velvet Alley, and Requiem for a Heavyweight. He was a World War Two veteran, jokester, animal-lover, social commentator, prolific writer and -- unfortunately -- a heavy sm...
John Sedgwick – Blood Moon: An American Epic of War and Splendor in the Cherokee Nation
May 07, 2018 04:01 - 1 hour - 157 MBMay 7, 2018 - Our time machine travels back to meet rival Cherokee chiefs in the decades leading up to and through the American Civil War, when the supporters of John Ross and The Ridge engaged in a blood feud that led to war, the infamous Trail of Tears, and the devastation of a once-proud nation encompassing what today is several southern states. Our guide on this journey is John Sedgwick who brings us Blood Moon: An American Epic of War and Splendor in the Cherokee Nation. John Sedgwick i...
John U. Bacon – The Great Halifax Explosion: A World War I Story
April 23, 2018 04:01 - 1 hour - 148 MBApril 23, 2018 - Our time machine travels back 100 years, to witness the split-second explosion that blew a chunk of Halifax, Nova Scotia off the map. On December 6, 1917, this key city in supplying the Allies in the Great War, suffered the largest man-made explosion prior to the bombs that ended World War Two -- something that caught the attention of physicist Robert Oppenheimer, the "father of the atomic bomb." On the shore in Canada to witness the collision in the harbor is John U. Bacon,...
Sheila Myers – The Night is Done: A Durant Family Saga
April 09, 2018 04:01 - 46 minutes - 106 MBApril 9, 2018 - Our time machine travels back to 1931 to conclude the Durant Family Trilogy. Moving on from the Gilded Age, we'll catch up with William and Ella, the adult children of Union Pacific Railroad tycoon Dr. Thomas C. Durant, in the final years of their complicated lives. Our guest, Sheila Myers, first introduced us to the family in her novel, Imaginary Brightness, as they had their comfortable lives in London shattered by an economic panic. Book 2, Castles in the Air, saw the Will...
Esther Crain – The Gilded Age in New York, 1870-1910
March 26, 2018 04:01 - 57 minutes - 131 MBMarch 26, 2018 - It's a special episode, recorded live on the campus of New York University at the Joint Journalism and Communication History Conference, co-sponsored by the American Journalism Historians Association and the History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. The spot at No. 20 Bowery is in sight of the Cooper Union where Abraham Lincoln gave the 1860 speech that launched him into the presidency, and steps from 114 Bowery, where Steve Brod...
M. Evelina Galang – Lolas’ House: Filipino Women Living with War
March 12, 2018 04:01 - 56 minutes - 129 MBMarch 12, 2018 - Our time machine travels back to the Philippines during the Japanese occupation the Second World War. Once in the South Pacific, we'll bear solemn witness to crimes against women who have been denied the justice and compensation for the atrocities they suffered in the name of the emperor. Our guide on this journey is M. Evelina Galang who brings us Lolas' House: Filipino Women Living with War. The Imperial Japanese Army kidnapped over 1,000 Filipino women and girls, part of ...
Philip Jett – Death of an Heir
February 26, 2018 05:01 - 42 minutes - 97.8 MBFebruary 26, 2018 - Our time machine travels to 1960 and pulls over at a secluded bridge on a lonely Colorado road. We're there to witness a crime of greed and envy, when a bitter escaped convict with delusions of high IQ snatches the 44-year-old CEO of Coors as he makes his way to the family brewery. We follow this tale of true crime in the new book: The Death of an Heir: Adolph Coors III and the Murder That Rocked an American Brewing Dynasty. Sitting beside us in our squad car as the kidna...
Sandra Neil Wallace – Between the Lines: How Ernie Barnes Went from the Football Field to the Art Gallery
February 12, 2018 05:01 - 47 minutes - 110 MBFebruary 12, 2018 - For Black History Month, our time machine piles readers 4 to 8 years old into their car seats, and introduces them to a hero who overcame segregation and many other obstacles, to pursue his artistic dream -- and that's after being a star NFL player. Returning to the show is Sandra Neil Wallace, who last joined us with her husband and co-writer Rich Wallace to discuss their books Bound by Ice: A True North Pole Survival Story and Blood Brother: Jonathan Daniels and His Sac...
Laurie Gwen Shapiro – The Stowaway: A Young Man’s Extraordinary Adventure to Antarctica
January 29, 2018 05:01 - 55 minutes - 128 MBJanuary 29, 2018 - Our time machine heads south to the other land down under for a chilly Jazz Age adventure. Our guide on this journey is Laurie Gwen Shapiro who brings us the story of a scrappy Polish-American kid from Manhattan's Lower East Side, who explores the Roaring '20s final frontier. Her book is The Stowaway: A Young Man’s Extraordinary Adventure to Antarctica. It's the spectacular, true story of Billy Gawronski who snuck onto the flagship of famed explorer Richard E. Byrd, demandi...
Paula Tarnapol Whitacre – A Civil Life in an Uncivil Time
January 15, 2018 05:01 - 39 minutes - 91.5 MBJanuary 15, 2018 - Our time machine travels back to the Union-occupied city of Alexandria, Virginia, to get an abolitionist woman's perspective during America's Civil War. Our guide on this journey is Paula Tarnapol Whitaker, author of A Civil Life in an Uncivil Time: Julia Wilbur's Struggle for Purpose. Paula met up with us in Virginia at the Lyceum, Alexandria's History Museum, where we felt close to this woman ahead of her time. In the fall of 1862, with the Civil War raging, 47-year-old ...
Tom Grace – Undeniable: A Nolan Kilkenny Thriller
December 31, 2017 17:17 - 1 hour - 139 MBJanuary 1, 2018 - Happy New Year, history lovers! To kick off 2018, we welcome thriller author Tom Grace to discuss the sixth novel in his series featuring ex-Navy SEAL Nolan Kilkenny: Undeniable. Tom's novels feature cutting-edge technology, and we discuss how DNA science is solving historical mysteries. Did Adolf Hitler have a son? Was Warren G. Harding our first black president? What sinister uses will criminal minds cook up when editing DNA is as easy as editing a Word document? Ancestry...
Orson Welles, Lionel Barrymore – A Christmas Carol
December 25, 2017 00:15 - 1 hour - 140 MBDecember 25, 2017 - This week, our time machine visits 1939, clicks on the radio, and listens to The Campbell Playhouse production of A Christmas Carol hosted by Orson Welles and staring Lionel Barrymore as Ebenezer Scrooge. When Charles Dickens published the story in 1843, he did so as what we'd call social commentary, reflecting the soul-searching of his fellow Britons about the true meaning of Christmas. Even 175 years later, we can see the importance of Dickens' central themes in our own...
Selene Castrovilla – Revolutionary Rogues: John André and Benedict Arnold
December 18, 2017 05:01 - 58 minutes - 134 MBDecember 18, 2017 - This week -- just in time to get stuffed into your young reader's stocking -- we travel back to a familiar location, at a pivotal moment in the American Revolution. The year is 1780, when one of the greatest heroes of the Continental Army -- General Benedict Arnold -- decides to betray the patriot cause by surrendering West Point to the British with the help of British spymaster Major John André. We talked about these infamous men when we interviewed Robert Norden, tavern...
Stephen Davis – All the Fighting They Want
December 11, 2017 05:01 - 56 minutes - 130 MBDecember 11, 2017 - This week, our time machine travels back to the American Civil War in All the Fighting They Want: The Atlanta Campaign from Peach Tree Creek to the City's Surrender, July 18-September 2, 1864. Our guide on this journey is Stephen Davis, a longtime Atlantan and Civil War enthusiast since the fourth grade. All the Fighting They Want serves as a companion to his previous paperback, A Long and Bloody Task: The Atlanta Campaign from Dalton through Kennesaw to the Chattahoochee,...
Doug Stanton – The Odyssey of Echo Company: The 1968 Tet Offensive and the Epic Battle to Survive the Vietnam War
December 04, 2017 05:01 - 59 minutes - 136 MBDecember 4, 2017 - This week, our time machine travels back 50 years to one of the Vietnam War's massive set pieces: The Tet Offensive. This series of simultaneous attacks by the communist North on 36 cities, aimed to weaken support both within the Vietnamese republic in the South and across the Pacific in the United States. Our guest, Doug Stanton, embeds his readers with 46 fresh, young American soldiers in Echo Company: An Army reconnaissance platoon of the 101st Airborne Division. Some o...
Robert W. Merry – President McKinley: Architect of the American Century
November 27, 2017 05:01 - 1 hour - 160 MBThe New York Sun - McKinley High: Cancel Culture Targets Assassinated President in Hawaii - Dean Karayanis November 27, 2017 - This week, our time machine visits the Gilded Age to witness William McKinley's rise to the White House. Little remembered or misremembered today, at the time of his assassination in 1901, the Civil War veteran was the most popular president since Abraham Lincoln, and nothing like the caricature portrayed by mid-20th Century authors. Robert W. M...
Rebecca Fraser – The Mayflower: The Families, the Voyage, and the Founding of America
November 20, 2017 05:01 - 58 minutes - 134 MBFeatured in the New York Sun - How Capitalism Paved the Way for the First Thanksgiving - Dean Karayanis November 20, 2017 - This week -- just in time for Thanksgiving in America -- we set sail with the intrepid Pilgrims on The Mayflower. Once aboard, we'll meet the Winslow family, and gain a perspective that links the broader experience -- from Native American contacts to intrigues back home in Europe. Tracing the voyage with us is reviewer and broadcaster Rebecca Frase...
Jennifer Kincheloe – The Woman in the Camphor Trunk
November 13, 2017 05:01 - 45 minutes - 42 MBNovember 13, 2017 - This week, we'll see a familiar face in the passenger seat of our time machine under a big cartwheel hat, as we travel back to 1908 Los Angeles. Our guest is Jennifer Kincheloe, here to chat about her second novel, The Woman in the Camphor Trunk -- An Anna Blanc Mystery. Since we last spoke, Jen has earned the Colorado Gold Award for Mystery, and spots as a finalist for the MacAvirty Sue Feder Historical Mystery Award, the Left Coast Crime "Lefty" Award for Best Historica...
Margaret E. Wagner – America and the Great War: A Library of Congress Illustrated History
November 06, 2017 05:01 - 1 hour - 71.4 MBNovember 6, 2017 - This week, our time machine travels back to a time when the United States fought its first major overseas conflict, joining a fight idealized as making the world safe for democracy. Our guide on this journey is Margaret E. Wagner, a senior writer/editor in the Library of Congress Publishing Office. She brings us America and the Great War: A Library of Congress Illustrated History. This book is almost an art history museum sitting on your coffee table, offering up over 250 ...
Rich & Sandra Neil Wallace – Bound by Ice: A True North Pole Survival Story
October 30, 2017 04:01 - 58 minutes - 134 MBOctober 30, 2017 - This week, our time machine bolts on its studded snow tires for a freezing journey to the North Pole -- a trip we'll make long before GPS, cell phones, or Gortex gloves -- with Gilded Age explorers aboard the schooner USS Jeannette. Returning to the show are husband-and-wife writing team Rich Wallace and Sandra Neil Wallace. They last joined us to discuss their book Blood Brother: Jonathan Daniels and His Sacrifice for Civil Rights. You can hear that chat in our archives a...
Fiona Davis – The Address: A Novel
October 23, 2017 04:01 - 46 minutes - 107 MBOctober 23, 2017 - This week, our time machine shuttles back and forth between the 1880s and the 1980s, with a story anchored at the ends of family trees and DNA strands. Our guide on this journey is Fiona Davis, author of The Address: A Novel. It builds a bridge between two women, united across a century by the legendary Dakota apartment building. Famous today as the home to celebrities and artists -- and infamous as the spot John Lennon met his doom -- it was originally a Guided Age an eni...
Malcolm Bell – The Attica Turkey Shoot
October 16, 2017 04:01 - 46 minutes - 106 MBOctober 16, 2017 - This week, our time machine travels back to a date of infamy: September 9, 1971, when inmates seized control of Attica Correctional Facility in Western New York State. A four-day standoff resulted, ending when police and corrections officers stormed Attica, leaving 29 inmates and 10 guards dead and dying. In the immediate aftermath, newspapers and television reported the state-sanctioned version of events: The prisoners had murdered the hostages. The medical examiner debun...
John McNarry – Commonwealth Air Training Plan Museum
October 09, 2017 04:01 - 53 minutes - 123 MBOctober 9, 2017 - This week, our time machine flies up to the Great White North -- the very heart of Canada -- for a road trip to Brandon, Manitoba's Commonwealth Air Training Plan Museum, a national historic site dedicated to the memory of the men who fought and died in the skies during the Second World War. It's the only museum of its kind in the world, marking where crews from Australia, New Zealand, England and Canada trained. Prime Minister Winston Churchill called Canada "the Great Dom...
Jim Leeke – From the Dugouts to the Trenches
October 02, 2017 04:01 - 51 minutes - 117 MBOctober 2, 2017 - Today, our time machine follows professional baseball players, onto the battlefields of Europe in World War One a century ago. We hear the story about how the game, players, fans and the War Department clash in From the Dugouts to the Trenches: Baseball During the Great War, by author Jim Leeke. Jim is a contributor to the Society for American Baseball Research Baseball Biography Project, as well as the writer or editor of several books on U.S. and military history. We chat...
Dina Gold – Stolen Legacy
September 25, 2017 04:01 - 48 minutes - 111 MBSeptember 25, 2017 - This week, our time machine follows one woman's modern quest to recover property stolen by Nazi Germany. It was only a single theft in the National Socialist State's vast, systematic plundering of Jewish wealth, but the Wolff family's story quickly becomes our story, and we find ourselves rooting for justice. Author Dina Gold's grandmother, Nellie Wolff, told her stories of the glamorous life she had led in pre-war Berlin, and how she dreamed of reclaiming the majestic b...
Bob Batchelor – Stan Lee: The Man behind Marvel
September 18, 2017 04:01 - 1 hour - 141 MBSeptember 18, 2017 - Hello, true believers! This week, we meet a national treasure who serves as a bridge from the Golden Age of comic books to today's blockbuster, multi-film CGI universes. It's the origin story of the man who -- along with talented co-creators like artists Jack Kirby and Joe Simon -- created such iconic characters as Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, the Incredible Hulk, and Iron Man. Filling in speech balloons is Bob Batchelor who brings us Stan Lee: The Man behind Marvel. ...