U.S. History

United States security has long been a primary issue for the conservative movement. But is an aggressive foreign policy actually counterproductive? Author J. Peter Scoblic says yes.

When the candidate was assassinated 40 years ago, Hamill was there: He was Kennedy's friend and had helped persuade him to run for president. A journalist and author, Hamill covered the story for The Village Voice.

Fresh Air TV critic David Bianculli reviews HBO's new series John Adams, produced by Tom Hanks.

Was America meant to be a Christian nation? Steven Waldman, founder of Beliefnet.com, debunks myths about religion in the lives the Founding Fathers, and in the early history of America in his new book, Founding Faith.

Historian Drew Gilpin Faust writes that Civil War deaths — both their number and their manner — transformed America. Her new book is This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War.

We continue our conversation about A Slave No More and the men whose stories it tells with three of John Washington's descendants: granddaughter Ruth Washington, great-granddaughter Barbara Anne Hinksman, and great-great-granddaughter Maureen Ramos.

In A Slave No More, historian David W. Blight showcases the emancipation narratives of two men, one from Alabama and one from Virginia. Manuscripts written by Wallace Turnage and John Washington, and genealogical information compiled by Blight, combine to tell the stories of their lives as slaves and their harrowing flights to freedom.

The three-day March on the Pentagon in October 1967 inspired Norman Mailer to write Armies of the Night and stirred many to action. While the march 40 years ago cannot be considered a turning point in the anti-war movement in the 1960s, it did serve to galvanize opposition to the Vietnam War.

In a new book about the constitutional separation of church and state, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Garry Wills insists that that separation was meant as "the great protector of religion, not its enemy." That, as Wills tells guest host Dave Davies, hasn't stopped fervent believers from challenging the concept.

Wills, a translator of St. Augustine and author of What Jesus Meant, is an emeritus professor of history at Northwestern University; the new book is titled Head and Heart: American Christianities.

Fresh Air's TV critic previews The War, the new documentary series about World War II from filmmaker Ken Burns (The Civil War). It premieres Sept. 23 on PBS.

Journalist and historian Burton Hersh has followed the Kennedy family for more than 35 years. His latest book is a study of the behind-the-scenes power struggles among the Kennedys and longtime FBI director J. Edgar Hoover.

Hersh writes that as attorney general, Robert F. Kennedy did his best to keep Hoover — technically his subordinate — on a short leash. But knowledge of Kennedy family secrets gave Hoover, always a master manipulator, the upper hand.

Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times correspondent Tim Weiner discusses his book Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA. Weiner did extensive archival research and conducted interviews with CIA insiders, including former chiefs Richard Helms and Stansfield Turner.

Writer and editor David Talbot founded the online journal Salon.com; he was editor-in-chief from 1995 to 2005, and still serves as board chairman of Salon Media Group. He's written a book about Robert and John F. Kennedy called Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years.

In Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America 1789-1989, historian Michael Beschloss takes a look at nine crucial moments when a president risked his political career for the good of the country, often by taking an unpopular or controversial stand.

Presidential historian Robert Dallek has written about LBJ, JFK, FDR and Ronald Reagan. Now, in his book Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power, he tackles two political titans he describes as "self-serving characters with grandiose dreams of recasting world affairs."

Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns has an upcoming PBS documentary series that tells the story of the World War II through the eyes of the soldiers who fought in it.

Simply called The War, the 14-hour, seven-part series begins airing in September.

Pulitzer Prize winning historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. has died at 89. We listen back to an interview recorded with him at the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis. Schlesinger was a special assistant in the White House to President Kennedy.

Rebroadcast from Oct. 16, 2002.

In his new book, Going Down Jericho Road, historian Michael Honey chronicles the campaign which the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was working on at the time of his death. Honey is a former civil liberties organizer and a professor of ethics, gender and labor studies and American history at the University of Washington, Tacoma.

Clint Eastwood has examined the Battle of Iwo Jima from two sides this year. His acclaimed film Flags of Our Fathers followed the stories of the American soldiers who raised the flag in one of World War II's most enduring images. His new movie, Letters from Iwo Jima, explores the perspective of the Japanese soldiers who fought it. The actor once best-known as a western and action star has directed a number of great films, including Unforgiven, Mystic River, and Million Dollar Baby.

Writer Stefan Kanfer. His new book is “Stardust Lost: The Triumph, Tragedy, and Mishugas of the Yiddish Theater in America.” It’s about the glory days of Yiddish theater in the late 19th and early 20th century. Kanfer was a writer and editor at Time magazine for 20 years and is the author of many books including biographies of Lucille Ball and Groucho Marx.