Best Band Biography Podcasts (2025)

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James Campion, "Revolution: Prince, the Band, the Era" (Backbeat Books, 2025) 1:00:38

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6d ago1:00:38

1:00:38

Revolution: Prince, the Band, the Era (Backbeat Books, 2025) is a detailed exploration into the era of Prince's most prolific and groundbreaking music made with considerable inspiration and performed by a unique cadre of musicians he gathered and relentlessly drove to be the sonic, visual, and ideological reflection of his evolving vision. Although…

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Robert Waxler and David Beckman, "You Say, I Say: Staying Alive with Literature, Language, and Friendship" (Rivertown Books, 2025) 49:53

38m ago49:53

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In a world increasingly dominated by visual and electronic noise, Robert Waxler and David Beckman's You Say, I Say: Staying Alive with Literature, Language, and Friendship (Rivertown Books, 2025) captures the enduring power of literature-not to resolve the great questions of human existence, but to help us explore those questions in ways that are e…

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Stefanie Mercado Altman, Claire Altman, and Stan Altman, "Twice Blessed: A Story of Unconditional Love" (Fordham UP, 2025) 52:56

2d ago52:56

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Twice Blessed (Fordham University Press, 2025) is a memoir that explores the depths of love, resilience, and the true meaning of family. Stefanie Mercado Altman, Claire Altman, and Stan Altman share an intimate and inspiring story about the bonds that define us, from adoption to caregiving and beyond. When Stefanie was adopted by Claire and Stan, …

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Shulamit Reinharz, "Hiding in Holland: A Resistance Memoir" (Amsterdam Publishers, 2024) 1:00:29

3d ago1:00:29

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Born in Amsterdam in 1946, Professor Shulamit Reinharz grew up amid the lingering shadows of wartime trauma, an experience that shaped her later academic path and her role in the creation of the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute. With Hiding in Holland: A Resistance Memoir (Amsterdam Publishers, 2024), she has crafted a unique form of Holocaust memoir, d…

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I Have Avenged America: Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Haiti’s Fight for Freedom 56:17

6d ago56:17

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“My name has become a horror to all those who want slavery,” declared Jean‑Jacques Dessalines as he announced the independence of Haiti, the most radical nation‑state during the Age of Revolution and the first country ever to permanently outlaw slavery. Enslaved for the first thirty years of his life, Dessalines (c. 1758–1806) joined the revolution…

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Ahead of the publication of his Prince biography, in part 2 of this exclusive interview, former editor of Smash Hits and Q magazine John McKie talks to Sam about the mythology of the artist, his recordings ... 35:25

8d ago35:25

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INTRO 2mins - Prince's working methods, a remarkable ability to complete songs...but also dip into his vault of recordings 4mins - Was Sign O The Times the last time that Prince didn't second guess himself artistically? 6mins - Prince's talent for mentoring musicians and artists across the board vs Madonna and MJ working with established producers …

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Steven J. Zipperstein, "Philip Roth: Stung by Life" (Yale UP, 2025) 1:00:38

7d ago1:00:38

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In his literary biography, Philip Roth: Stung by Life (Yale UP, 2025), Steven J. Zipperstein captures the complex life and astonishing work of Philip Roth (1933–2018), one of America’s most celebrated writers. Born in Newark, New Jersey—where his short stories and books were often set—Roth wrote with ambition and awareness of what was required to p…

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Hadi Abdullah, "Critical Conditions: My Diary of the Syrian Revolution" (Doppelhouse Press, 2025) 1:02:52

7d ago1:02:52

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Hadi Abdullah's Critical Conditions: My Diary of the Syrian Revolution (DoppelHouse Press, 2025), translated by Alessandro Columbu, is no ordinary diary. It’s a testimony written in the heat of events (demonstrations in Daraa and Homs, the bombardments of Aleppo, sieges, and funerals). Through Hadi’s words, we glimpse the Syrian revolution not thro…

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TM 969 Music Returns, Billy Sheehan Interview, Maiden & More 35:41

10d ago35:41

35:41

Talking Metal Episode 969 This episode features music from Child’s Play, The Fell, and Iron Maiden. The Fell track was approved by their publicist, Chip. The Child’s Play song was cleared by John Allen of the band. The Iron Maiden song is licensed legally (see info below). FOR IRON MAIDEN SONG: 🎵 Music licensed from Lickd. The biggest mainstream an…

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“Plato and the Tyrant” with author James Romm 58:06

11d ago58:06

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In 388 BCE, Plato, at the age of about forty and in the midst of writing The Republic, visited for the first time the then-Greek city state of Syracuse, on the eastern shores of Sicily. Syracuse was ruled by a tyrant, Dionysius, who on death was followed by his son, also a tyrant. Over the course of his three separate visits to Syracuse over the ye…

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Former editor of Smash Hits and Q magazine John McKie conducted over 200 interviews to create a biography of Prince. He talks to Sam Bleazard about his extensive new book, but also the recent IMAX release ... 32:11

14d ago32:11

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INTRO 2mins - Just back from seeing the concert movie from 1987 in London, lovingly restored on IMAX screens 3mins - "For me Sign O The Times is the high watermark..." 5mins - Living out a dream at Smash Hits & Q Magazine, as editor...after starting out in music writing and journalism. 7mins - How the book came to be written...John reflects on Prin…

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William Kelleher Storey, "The Colonialist: The Vision of Cecil Rhodes" (Oxford UP, 2025) 1:04:41

18d ago1:04:41

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Cecil John Rhodes became one of the most influential people in the history of the British Empire. He made a fortune in South Africa by leading the world's most important diamond mining company, De Beers, as well as a gold-mining concern called Consolidated Gold Fields. While he was a busy entrepreneur, he was also a member of the Cape Colony's legi…

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Edward Stanley et. al., "A North American Tour Journal 1824-1825: The Making of a Prime Minister" (Sutton Publishing, 2025) 39:42

18d ago39:42

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A North American Tour Journal 1824-1825: The Making of a Prime Minister (Sutton Publishing, 2025) follows Edward Stanley's 1824-25 journey through North America, a formative tour that profoundly shaped his political ideals. In July 1824, Edward Geoffrey Smith Stanley arrived in New York City at the end of a month-long voyage from Liverpool. The you…

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Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson, "Claire McCardell: The Designer Who Set Women Free" (Simon & Schuster, 2025) 37:26

21d ago37:26

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Claire McCardell forever changed fashion—and most importantly, the lives of women. She shattered cultural norms around women’s clothes, and today much of what we wear traces back to her ingenious, rebellious mind. McCardell invented ballet flats and mix-and-match separates, and she introduced wrap dresses, hoodies, leggings, denim, and more into wo…

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Susana M. Morris, "Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler" (Amistad Press, 2025) 54:42

22d ago54:42

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A magnificent cultural biography, Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler (Amistad, 2025) charts the life of one of our greatest writers, situating her alongside the key historical and social moments that shaped her work. As the first Black woman to consistently write and publish in the field of science fiction, Octavia Butler w…

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TM 968 Sept 1st - a day late 11:09

23d ago11:09

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Mark Strigls says "hi" with a quick check in. Coming soon: the return of Mark Strigl's Patreon. Follow Mark Strigl on YT - www, youtube.com/talkingmetal. X is strigl. Email me if you want a Talking Metal t-shirt. striglmark@gmail See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-m…

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Tracy Slater, "Together in Manzanar: The True Story of a Japanese Jewish Family in an American Concentration Camp" (Chicago Review Press, 2025) 42:03

29d ago42:03

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On Feb. 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced Executive Order 9066, which authorized the confinement of tens of thousands of Japanese and Japanese-Americans living in the Western U.S., sending them to cramped, hastily-constructed camps like Manzanar and Amache. One such Japanese-American was Karl Yoneda, a well-known labor activist–an…

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Micaela Sahhar, "Find Me at the Jaffa Gate: An Encyclopaedia of a Palestinian Family" (Newsouth, 2025) 1:02:42

1M ago1:02:42

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"If we were different people, to write down these words might be to leave them behind us. But words are our artifacts, and I am seeding a trail for the journey, home." What does the daughter of a Nakba survivor inherit? It is not property or tangible heirlooms, nor the streets and neighbourhoods of a father’s childhood and the deep roots of family …

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Tom Arnold-Forster, "Walter Lippmann: An Intellectual Biography" (Princeton UP, 2025) 42:50

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From the years before World War I until the late 1960s, the journalist and political theorist Walter Lippmann was one of the most influential writers in the United States of America. His words and ideas had a powerful impact on American liberalism and his writings on the media are still taught today. Lippmann is now the subject of Tom Arnold-Forste…

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EP 215 JOHN DICKSON - 40TH ANNIVERSARY OF STEAMBOAT MUSICFEST 43:37

30d ago43:37

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This coming January, more precisely, January 5th – 10th, 2026, the 40th Steamboat MusicFest will take place. MusicFest has been described as “The Superbowl of Texas Music”, and anyone who’s ever been would say that’s an accurate statement. In this episode Carly and Pete were able to visit with the founder and creator of this incredible event, Mr. J…

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LaShawn Harris, "Tell Her Story: Eleanor Bumpurs & the Police Killing That Galvanized New York City" (Beacon, 2025) 1:08:03

1M ago1:08:03

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On October 29, 1984, 66-year-old beloved Black disabled grandmother Eleanor Bumpurs was murdered in her own home. A public housing tenant 4 months behind on rent, Ms. Bumpurs was facing eviction when white NYPD officer Stephen Sullivan shot her twice with a 12-gauge shotgun. LaShawn Harris, 10 years old at the time, felt the aftershocks of the trag…

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Brendan Simms, "Hitler: A Global Biography" (Basic Books, 2019) 29:13

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Every generation returns to the titanic heroes and villains of the 20th century. And every generation produces a new set of biographies--often immense--in an effort to understand the role of that eras main figures. In the past three years, three important new books have reassessed Hitler's life, beliefs and actions. Two of the authors, Volker Ulric…

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Bill Dedman and Paul Clark Newell, Jr., "Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune" (Ballantine, 2013) 57:03

1M ago57:03

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Bill Dedman, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter and New York Times #1 bestselling author of Empty Mansions, shares the extraordinary story of a reclusive copper heiress, the battle over her fortune, and the HBO series adaptation now in development. As an investigative journalist, Bill Dedman has built his career writing stories that chan…

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Gill Plain, "Agatha Christie: A Very Short Introduction" (Oxford UP, 2025) 57:58

1M ago57:58

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Agatha Christie is a global bestseller. Her work has been translated into over 100 languages and adapted for stage and screen. Christie's writing life ran from 1920 to the 1970s, and she didn't just write puzzles, she wrote plays, supernatural stories, thrillers, satires, and domestic noir. She also commented obliquely but perceptively on the socia…

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Alexander Kimel and Martin Kimel, "The Pessimists Son: A Holocaust Memoir of Hope" (Cherry Orchard Books, 2025) 1:14:23

1M ago1:14:23

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The Pessimists Son: A Holocaust Memoir of Hope (Cherry Orchard Books, 2025) is a personal depiction of life in Poland set against the Nazi and Soviet takeovers of Europe and their cataclysmic aftermaths. It is the compelling memoir of Alexander Kimel, taking him from a shtetl to a Nazi ghetto to liberation and the parallel Holocaust story of his be…

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Stacia Kalinoski, Racing Uphill: Confronting a Life with Epilepsy (U of Minnesota Press, 2025) 31:01

1M ago31:01

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The book, Racing Uphill: Confronting a Life with Epilepsy (U of Minnesota Press, 2025), is a memoir and an educational resource, which tells the story of an Emmy Award-winning TV news Journalist, Stacia Kalinoski. The author's aim is beyond giving an account of her experience of epilepsy, her goal is to sensitize readers and inspire epileptic patie…

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Mark Braude, "The Invisible Emperor: Napoleon on Elba from Empire to Exile" (Penguin Press, 2018) 1:02:08

1M ago1:02:08

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I must’ve been a kid when I first heard the palindrome “Able I was ere I saw Elba”. Napoleon didn’t mean a lot to me at the time. “Elba” meant even less. Decades later, I had learned a little more about Napoleon and his time there, but not that all that much it turns out. And then came Mark Braude’s The Invisible Emperor: Napoleon on Elba from Empi…

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Harriet Jacobs, "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl" (Norton, 2025) 1:12:40

1M ago1:12:40

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Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is the stirring autobiography of Harriet Jacobs, a mother and fugitive, detailing her harrowing escape from enslavement, seven years hiding in an attic crawl space, and the racism she faced in freedom. Forgotten for decades after its original, 19th century publication, Jacobs’ story was so harrowing and so brav…

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Inna Faliks, "Weight in the Fingertips: A Musical Odyssey from Soviet Ukraine to the World Stage" (Backbeat Books, 2023) 45:38

1M ago45:38

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Adventurous and passionate” (The New Yorker) Ukrainian-born pianist Inna Faliks has established herself as one of the most communicative, and poetic artists of her generation. She has made a name for herself through commanding performances of standard piano repertoire, as well genre-bending, interdisciplinary projects, and inquisitive work with con…

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W. Henry Sledge, "The Old Breed... The Complete Story Revealed" (Knox Press, 2025) 1:02:20

1M ago1:02:20

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Because events like D-Day and the Battle of Okinawa took place an entire lifetime ago, it is rare to find any new accounts and memories from veterans. Thankfully, forty years after the publication of Eugene Sledge’s famous memoir With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa comes The Old Breed… The Complete Story Revealed (Knox Press, 2025) by Eugene’…

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Edward Berenson, "Perfect Communities: Levitt, Levittown, and the Dream of White Suburbia" (Yale UP, 2025) 1:03:08

1M ago1:03:08

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The rise and fall of William J. Levitt, the man who made the suburban house a mass commodity. Two material artifacts defined the middle-class American lifestyle in the mid-twentieth century: the automobile, which brought gas stations, highways, commercial strips, and sprawl; and the single-family suburban home, the repository of many families’ long…

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Raffale Bedarida, "Corrado Cagli: Transatlantic Bridges (1938-1947" (Centro Primo Levi, 2023) 1:52:42

1M ago1:52:42

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As a Jewish and openly gay artist, Cagli became the target of virulent attacks, especially after Italy promulgated its racial laws in 1938. In response to these hostile conditions, Cagli chose to leave his homeland and seek refuge in the United States. In America, he became an influential figure within the New York émigré artistic scene. He found c…

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Edward Luce, "Zbig: The Life of Zbigniew Brzezinski, America's Great Power Prophet" (Simon and Schuster, 2025) 43:25

2M ago43:25

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Zbigniew Brzezinski was a key architect of the Soviet Union’s demise, which ended the Cold War. A child of Warsaw—the heart of central Europe’s bloodlands—Brzezinski turned his fierce resentment at his homeland’s razing by Nazi Germany and the Red Army into a lifelong quest for liberty. Born the year that Joseph Stalin consolidated power, and dying…

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Alan M. Wald, "Bohemian Bolsheviks: Dispatches from the Culture and History of the Left" (Brill, 2025) 1:40:37

2M ago1:40:37

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For several decades now, Alan Wald has been thoroughly documenting the history of the literature and cultural output of the American left. While his numerous books and essays cover a lot of territory, much of his work is united by an interest in commitment, particularly when it comes to radical politics. What does it mean to commit ones life to a r…

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Grace C. Huang, "Chiang Kai-Shek's Politics of Shame: Leadership, Legacy, and National Identity in China" (Harvard UP, 2021) 47:09

2M ago47:09

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Once a powerful figure who reversed the disintegration of China and steered the country to Allied victory in World War II, Chiang Kai-shek fled into exile following his 1949 defeat in the Chinese civil war. As attention pivoted to Mao Zedong’s communist experiment, Chiang was relegated to the dustbin of history. In Chiang Kai-shek’s Politics of Sha…

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Teacher by Teacher: The People Who Change Our Lives 51:08

2M ago51:08

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Teacher By Teacher traces the journey of the tenth U.S. Secretary of Education and is a deeply personal love letter to all the teachers in our lives. The story of John B. King Jr.’s inspiring path to President Obama’s Cabinet begins the day that his mother died. He insisted on going to school that day, knowing he would find comfort in his classroom…

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Melody Glenn, "Mother of Methadone: A Doctor's Quest, a Forgotten History, and a Modern-Day Crisis" (Beacon Press, 2025) 43:35

2M ago43:35

43:35

Dr. Melody Glenn was a burned-out emergency physician who had grown to resent the large population of opioid dependent patients passing through her ER. While working at a methadone clinic, she realized how effective harm reduction treatments could be and set out to discover why they weren’t used more broadly. That’s when she found Dr. Marie Nyswand…

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Robert Morstein-Marx, "Julius Caesar and the Roman People" (Cambridge UP, 2021) 1:27:12

2M ago1:27:12

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Julius Caesar was no aspiring autocrat seeking to realize the imperial future but an unusually successful republican leader who was measured against the Republic's traditions and its greatest heroes of the past. Catastrophe befell Rome not because Caesar (or anyone else) turned against the Republic, its norms, and institutions, but because Caesar's…

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Mark Vernon, "Awake!: William Blake and the Power of the Imagination" (Hurst & Co., 2025) 46:04

2M ago46:04

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In the 200 years since Blake's death, the visionary artist, poet and writer has become a household name, often beloved. Yet many struggle to comprehend his kaleidoscopic ideas; how they speak to human longings and the challenges of living in anxious times. Philosopher and psychotherapist Mark Vernon provides a fresh route into Blake, taking him at …

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Glenn Richardson, "WOLSEY" (Routledge, 2020) 44:15

2M ago44:15

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Through a thematic and broadly chronological approach, WOLSEY (Routledge, 2020) offers a fascinating insight into the life and legacy of a man who was responsible for building Henry VIII’s reputation as England’s most impressive king. The book reviews Thomas Wolsey’s record as the realm’s leading Churchman, Lord Chancellor and political patron and …

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Arianne Edmonds, "We Now Belong to Ourselves: J. L. Edmonds, the Black Press, and Black Citizenship in America" (Oxford UP, 2025) 49:46

2M ago49:46

49:46

At the turn of the twentieth century, the Black press provided a blueprint to help Black Americans transition from slavery and find opportunities to advance and define African American citizenship. Among the vanguard of the Black press was Jefferson Lewis Edmonds, founder and editor of The Liberator newspaper. His Los Angeles-based newspaper champi…

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Victoria de Grazia, "The Perfect Fascist: A Story of Love, Power, and Morality in Mussolini’s Italy" (Harvard UP, 2020) 1:04:20

2M ago1:04:20

1:04:20

In her new book, The Perfect Fascist: A Story of Love, Power, and Morality in Mussolini’s Italy (Belknap Press), Dr. Victoria de Grazia takes the story of Attilio Teruzzi and explores the social history of fascism. When Attilio Teruzzi, Mussolini’s handsome political enforcer, married a rising young American opera star, his good fortune seemed sett…

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TM 967 Keri Kelli (Night Ranger) with Greg Koch of Metal Warrior, plus Ozzy Osbourne 48:00

2M ago48:00

48:00

Emily and Mark Strigl talk about Ozzy and share a Talking Metal interview with him from 2007. The episode also feature an all-new interview with Keri Kelli of Night Ranger and Greg Koch. It was recorded a couple weeks ago. We talk about the Metal Warrior project and more. https://metalwarrior.com/ Coming soon: the return of Mark Strigl's Patreon. F…

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Marion Bower, "The Life and Work of Joan Riviere: Freud, Klein and Female Sexuality" (Routledge, 2018) 58:08

2M ago58:08

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Joan Riviere (1883-1962) is best known for her role in promoting the ideas of others. She came to prominence in the world of psychoanalysis as Freud’s favorite translator and Melanie Klein’s earliest and most loyal supporter. In her new book The Life and Work of Joan Riviere: Freud, Klein and Female Sexuality (Routledge, 2018), Marion Bower puts Jo…

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Julian Jackson, "De Gaulle" (Harvard UP, 2018) 1:11:02

2M ago1:11:02

1:11:02

Charles de Gaulle is one of the greatest figures of twentieth century history. If Sir Winston Churchill was (in the words of Harold Macmillan) the "greatest Englishman In history", then Charles de Gaulle was without a doubt, the greatest Frenchman since Napoleon Bonaparte. Why so? In the early summer of 1940, when France was overrun by German troop…

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Cynthia Blakeley, "The Innermost House: A Memoir" (Bright Leaf, 2024) 54:00

2M ago54:00

54:00

The Innermost House: A Memoir (Bright Leaf, 2024) is a stunning account of year-round life on the windswept shores of Cape Cod, threaded with meditations on memory, forgetting, and identity. About The Innermost House, Publishers Weekly writes, “Salt air and the limits of memory animate this heartrending debut. . . . Readers will be captivated.” She…

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M’hamed Oualdi, "A Slave between Empires: A Transimperial History of North Africa" (Columbia UP, 2020) 41:41

2M ago41:41

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In light of the profound physical and mental traumas of colonization endured by North Africans, historians of recent decades have primarily concentrated their studies of North Africa on colonial violence, domination, and shock. The choice is an understandable one. But in his new monograph, A Slave between Empires: A Transimperial History of North A…

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Frank L. Jones, "Sam Nunn: Statesman of the Nuclear Age" (UP Kansas, 2020) 1:03:46

2M ago1:03:46

1:03:46

In a 2012 opinion piece bemoaning the state of the US Senate, Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank cited a “leading theory: There are no giants in the chamber today.” Among the respected members who once walked the Senate floor, admired for their expertise and with a stature that went beyond party, Milbank counted Sam Nunn (D-GA). Nunn served in …

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David Engerman, "Apostles of Development: Six Economists and the World They Made" (Oxford UP and Penguin RandomHouse South Asia, 2025) 44:25

2M ago44:25

44:25

Apostles of Development: Six Economists and the World They Made (Oxford University Press and Penguin RandomHouse South Asia, 2025) by Dr. David Engerman recounts the work of six individuals, all former classmates at Cambridge University, who helped make international development--the effort to reduce poverty and inequality around the world--into a …