KPFA - Letters and Politics

A look at burning political issues and debates and their historical context within the US and worldwide, hosted by Mitch Jeserich. The post Letters and Politics – June 9, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Emily Hauser is a senior lecturer in classics and ancient history at the University of Exeter, UK. She is the author of three novels reimagining the women of Greek myth: For the Most Beautiful, For the Winner, and For the Immortal. She is also the author of How Women Became Poets, and most recently, of Penelope’s Bones: A New History of Homer’s World through the Women Written Out of It. The post Women in Ancient History appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Mark Blyth is a political economist and professor at Brown University. He is an expert on Global Finance & Banking and the author of several books including Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea, and his latest, Inflation: A Guide for Users and Losers, coauthored with Nicolò Fraccaroli. The post Global Finance Expert Mark Blyth on Inflation appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Mary Annette Pember is a citizen of the Red Cliff Band of Wisconsin Ojibwe. She is currently national correspondent for ICT News, formerly Indian Country Today. She is the recipient of several awards for her journalism and is the author of Medicine River: A Story of Survival and the Legacy of Indian Boarding Schools. The post A History of Indian Boarding Schools in America appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Clay Risen is a historian and a reporter and editor at The New York Times. He is the author of several books including The Crowded Hour, a New York Times Notable Book of 2019, and his latest, Red Scare: Blacklists, McCarthyism, and the Making of Modern America. The post The Witch Hunt Against the Left in the 1940s appeared first on KPFA.

A look at burning political issues and debates and their historical context within the US and worldwide, hosted by Mitch Jeserich. The post Letters and Politics – May 29, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Corinna Barrett Lain is the S. D. Roberts & Sandra Moore Professor of Law at the University of Richmond School of Law. She is the author of Secrets of the Killing State: The Untold Story of Lethal Injection. The post Lethal Injections & The Hidden Torture of Executions appeared first on KPFA.

A look at burning political issues and debates and their historical context within the US and worldwide, hosted by Mitch Jeserich. The post Letters and Politics – May 27, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.

A look at burning political issues and debates and their historical context within the US and worldwide, hosted by Mitch Jeserich. The post Letters and Politics – May 26, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.

A look at burning political issues and debates and their historical context within the US and worldwide, hosted by Mitch Jeserich. The post Letters and Politics – May 22, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.

Mitch Jeserich reads excerpts from the classic writings The Way of Chuang Tzu translated by Thomas Merton. Thomas Merton composed a series of his own versions of the classic sayings of Chuang Tzu, the most spiritual of Chinese philosophers. Chuang Tzu, who wrote in the fourth and third centuries B.C., is the chief authentic historical spokesperson for Taoism and its founder Lao Tzu (a legendary character known largely through Chuang Tzu’s writings). Indeed it was because of Chuang Tzu and the other Taoist sages that Indian Buddhism was transformed, in China, into the unique vehicle we now call by its Japanese name―Zen. Excerpts from THE WAY OF CHUANG TZU by Thomas Merton, copyright ©1965 by The Abbey of Gethsemani. Reproduced by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp. The post Exploring the Transformative Way of Chuang Tzu appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Laurence Rees is an award-winning English historian and documentary filmmaker. He has authored several books including The Holocaust: A New History, Hitler and Stalin, Auschwitz: A New History, and his latest, The Nazi Mind: Twelve Warnings from History. The post Understanding the Psychology of Nazis appeared first on KPFA.

Ariel Dorfman is a Chilean-American author, born in Argentina. He is a prominent human rights activist who worked as press and cultural advisor to Salvador Allende in the final months before the 1973 military coup, and later spent many years in exile. He is the Walter Hines Page Emeritus Professor of Literature at Duke University and the author of many books including his latest, Allegro: A Novel. The post Ariel Dorfman on the Role of Beauty During Times of Chaos appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Tiny (Lisa) Gray-Garcia aka “PovertySkola” is a formerly unhoused, incarcerated, revolutionary journalist, lecturer, poet, visionary, teacher and single mama of Tiburcio, daughter of a houseless, disabled mama Dee, and the co-founder of POOR Magazine/Prensa POBRE/PoorNewsNetwork. ​ The post UnTour Across Occupied Turtle Island: An Anti-Colonial Campaign appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Paul Cooper is a podcaster, a historian, and the author of Fall of Civilizations: Stories of Greatness and Decline. He writes, produces, and hosts the Fall of Civilizations podcast which explores the collapse of different societies through history. The post Fall Of Civilizations: A Conversation with Paul Cooper appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Natalie Lawrence, author of Enchanted Creatures: Our Monsters and Their Meaning. The post What Monsters Tell Us About Us appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Kelly Lytle Hernández is the Thomas E. Lifka Endowed Chair in History and the director of the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA. She is a 2019 MacArthur “Genius Grant” recipient and the author of the award-winning books Migra!, City of Inmates, and her latest, Bad Mexicans Race, Empire, and Revolution in the Borderlands winner of the 2023 Bancroft Prize in American History. The post The Mexican Revolution and The Migrants Who Sparked it appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Adam Shatz is the US editor of the London Review of Books and author of The Rebel’s Clinic: The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon. He is the host of the podcast Myself with Others. The post The Life & Works of Frantz Fanon appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: William Dalrymple is the author of The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire. The post The Corporate Origins of Colonialism: The East India Company appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: William Dalrymple is a historian, curator, broadcaster and critic. He is the author of The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World. The post How Ancient India Changed The World: From Buddhism to Math appeared first on KPFA.