Best Joseph Miranda Podcasts (2025)

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Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, "Lin-Manuel Miranda: The Education of an Artist" (Simon and Schuster, 2025) 59:59

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20h ago59:59

59:59

Hello, this is Eric LeMay, a host on the New Books Network. Today, I speak with Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, author of the new artist’s biography Lin-Manuel Miranda: The Education of an Artist (Simon & Schuster, 2025). The book was recently named one of NPR’s Books We Loved for 2025. Pollack-Pelzner is a cultural historian, theater critic, and teacher a…

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Douglas Morris, "Legal Sabotage: Ernst Fraenkel in Hitler's Germany" (Cambridge UP, 2020) 1:03:35

3d ago1:03:35

1:03:35

During the mid-1930s, Germans opposed to Adolf Hitler had only a limited range of options available to them for resisting the Nazi regime. One of the most creative and successful challengers in this effort was Ernst Fraenkel, who as an attorney sought to use the law as a means of opposing Nazi oppression. In Legal Sabotage: Ernst Fraenkel in Hitler…

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Marcus Willaschek, "Kant: A Revolution in Thinking" (Harvard UP, 2025) 1:05:04

4d ago1:05:04

1:05:04

Immanuel Kant is undoubtedly the most important philosopher of the modern era. His Critique of Pure Reason, “categorical imperative,” and conception of perpetual peace in the global order decisively influenced both intellectual history and twentieth-century politics, shaping everything from the German Constitution to the United Nations Charter. Ren…

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Amy Bowers Cordalis, "The Water Remembers: My Indigenous Family's Fight to Save a River and a Way of Life" (Little Brown, 2024) 1:02:51

5d ago1:02:51

1:02:51

For the members of a Northern California tribe, salmon are the lifeblood of the people—a vital source of food, income, and cultural identity. When a catastrophic fish kill devastates the river, Amy Bowers Cordalis is propelled into action, reigniting her family’s 170-year battle against the U.S. government. In a moving and engrossing blend of memoi…

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Michael Braddick, "Christopher Hill: The Life of a Radical Historian" (Verso Books, 2025) 53:52

6d ago53:52

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Christopher Hill was one of the leading historians of his generation. His work across more than 15 books and dozens of articles fundamentally rewrote the way we understand the English Revolution and the development of the modern British state. While his career brought many of the trappings of establishment respectability – he was both a Fellow of t…

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Jane Eisner, "Carole King: She Made the Earth Move" (Yale UP, 2025) 42:26

4d ago42:26

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Jane Eisner is a widely published journalist who held leadership positions at the Philadelphia Inquirer and The Forward. She is the author of Taking Back the Vote. Eisner lives in New York City. In our wonderful interview we discuss her new book, Carole King: She Made the Earth, (Yale UP, 2025), and her thoughts on what made Carole King the start t…

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The Case for the Fighting Irish — 2025 CFB Playoff (ep. 168) 1:04:15

5d ago1:04:15

1:04:15

Ralph and Nathan Miranda review the 2025-26 College Football Playoff selections and the controversial decision to leave out Notre Dame (00:59) before discussing some recent NFL news (50:13).By Ralph and Joseph Miranda

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Kwame Nkrumah and Pan-Africanism’s High Tide: A Conversation with Howard W. French 48:17

5d ago48:17

48:17

The Second Emancipation: Nkrumah, Pan-Africanism, and Global Blackness at High Tide (Liveright, 2025), the second work in a trilogy from best-selling author Howard W. French about Africa's pivotal role in shaping world history, underscores Adam Hochschild's contention that French is a "modern-day Copernicus." The title--referring to a brief period …

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Joseph Torigian, "The Party’s Interests Come First: The Life of Xi Zhongxun, Father of Xi Jinping" (Stanford UP, 2025) 47:22

10d ago47:22

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Xi Zhongxun’s career spanned the entirety of China’s modern history. Born just two years after the 1911revolution that overthrew the Qing Dynasty, Xi was an early member of the Chinese Communist Party, tookpart in the Second World War, became an early leader of the PRC, was purged, survived the CulturalRevolution, was rehabilitated, and helped jump…

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Michael Staunton, "Thomas Becket and His World" (Reaktion Books, 2025) 1:11:37

17d ago1:11:37

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Thomas Becket and His World (Reaktion Books, 2025) explores the turbulent life and violent death of Thomas Becket, one of the most controversial figures of the Middle Ages. From a London merchant’s son to royal chancellor and archbishop of Canterbury, Becket’s murder in Canterbury Cathedral on 29 December 1170 elevated him to England’s most celebra…

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Henry Rausch, "Submerged: Life on a Fast Attack Submarine in the Last Days of the Cold War" (Independently Published, 2024) 56:44

21d ago56:44

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In Submerged: Life on a Fast Attack Submarine in the Last Days of the Cold War (Independently Published, 2024), the author graduates from an elite university and enters the submarine service in the mid-1980s when rhetoric between the US and USSR threatens to turn the Cold War hot. He encounters an unforgiving world where submarines hunt each other …

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Adam Silverstein, "Haman" (Princeton UP, 2025) 37:32

22d ago37:32

37:32

Haman, infamous as the antagonist in the book of Esther, appears as a villainous figure in virtually all varieties of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In this “biography” of Haman (Princeton UP, 2025), Dr. Adam Silverstein traces the evolution of this villainous character from the ancient Near East to modern times, drawing on sources in a variety …

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Ali Anooshahr, "Slavery in the Early Mughal World: The Life and Thoughts of Jawhar Aftabachi (1520s–1580s)" (Oxford UP, 2025) 54:05

23d ago54:05

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Jawhar Aftabachi was enslaved as a child by the Ottomans in the Black Sea region in the early sixteenth century. He was then sold to the Ottoman admiral Selman Reis, who took him with his fleet to Egypt and Yemen during his wars with the Portuguese; carried, after the admiral's death, by the admiral's nephew Mustafa Bayram to Gujarat on the western…

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Brooke Barbier, "King Hancock: The Radical Influence of a Moderate Founding Father" (Harvard UP, 2023) 49:32

26d ago49:32

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King Hancock: The Radical Influence of a Moderate Founding Father (Harvard UP, 2023) is a rollicking portrait of the paradoxical patriot, whose measured pragmatism helped make American independence a reality. Americans are surprisingly more familiar with his famous signature than with the man himself. In this spirited account of John Hancock's life…

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Dennis Deletant, "In Search of Romania" (Hurst, 2022) 53:25

27d ago53:25

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The imposition of Communist ideology was a misfortune for millions in Eastern Europe, but never for Dennis Deletant. Instead, it drew him to Romania. The renowned historian’s association with the country and its people dates back to 1965, when he first visited. Since then, Romania has made Dennis appreciate the value of shrewd dissimulation, in the…

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Sarah Ruden, "Vergil: The Poet's Life" (Yale UP, 2023) 1:05:35

1M ago1:05:35

1:05:35

The Aeneid stands as a towering work of Classical Roman literature and a gripping dramatization of the best and worst of human nature. In the process of creating this epic poem, Vergil (70–19 BCE) became a living legend. But the real Vergil is a shadowy figure; we know that he was born into a modest rural family, that he led a private and solitary …

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Chris Yogerst, "The Warner Brothers" (UP of Kentucky, 2023) 1:07:36

29d ago1:07:36

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One of the oldest and most recognizable studios in Hollywood, Warner Bros. is considered a juggernaut of the entertainment industry. Since its formation in the early twentieth century, the studio has been a constant presence in cinema history, responsible for the creation of acclaimed films, blockbuster brands, and iconic superstars. In The Warner …

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Jonathan Eig, "King: A Life" (FSG, 2023) 39:22

30d ago39:22

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Vividly written and exhaustively researched, Jonathan Eig's King: A Life (FSG, 2023) is the first major biography in decades of the civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr.--and the first to include recently declassified FBI files. In this revelatory new portrait of the preacher and activist who shook the world, the bestselling biographer gives us …

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Christina Cecelia Davidson, "Dominican Crossroads: H.C.C. Astwood and the Moral Politics of Race-Making in the Age of Emancipation" (Duke UP, 2024) 40:44

1M ago40:44

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H. C. C. Astwood: minister and missionary, diplomat and politician, enigma in the annals of US history. In Dominican Crossroads: H.C.C. Astwood and the Moral Politics of Race-Making in the Age of Emancipation (Duke UP, 2024), Christina Cecelia Davidson explores Astwood’s extraordinary and complicated life and career. Born in 1844 in the British Car…

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Treena Orchard, "Sticky, Sexy, Sad: Swipe Culture and the Darker Side of Dating Apps" (Aevo, U Toronto Press, 2024) 40:57

1M ago40:57

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In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with Treena Orchard about her memoir, Sticky, Sexy, Sad: Swipe Culture and the Darker Side of Dating Apps (Aevo, U Toronto Press, 2024). Jane Goodall meets Carrie Bradshaw in Sticky, Sexy, Sad – an insightful, empowering memoir by an anthropologist who lays her own life bare as she explores the cultur…

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Emma Heaney, "This Watery Place: Four Essays on Gestation" (Pluto Press UK, 2025) 1:15:49

1M ago1:15:49

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What does it feel like to experience your body cleaving into two while public discussion of reproductive healthcare centers around the viability line: the fantasized moment when a fetus could feasibly be extracted from a uterus? What happens to the psychology of parents who spend years scrolling through photographs of children crushed in war while …

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Julie Dobrow, "Love and Loss After Wounded Knee: A Biography of an Extraordinary Interracial Marriage" (NYU Press, 2025) 44:30

1M ago44:30

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Like any set of star-crossed lovers, Elaine and Charles came from different worlds. Elaine, an acclaimed childhood poet from a remote corner of the Massachusetts Berkshires, traveled to the Dakota Territories to teach Native American students, undaunted by society’s admonitions. Charles, a Dakota Sioux from Minnesota, educated at Dartmouth and Bost…

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David Chanoff, "Anthony Benezet: Quaker, Abolitionist, Anti-Racist" (U Georgia Press, 2025) 46:50

1M ago46:50

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Wilberforce, Clarkson, Wesley. Britain’s great abolitionist activist Granville Sharp. Each of these consequential figures of the eighteenth-century Atlantic world were galvanized by the moral power of a modest Quaker teacher who never ventured more than a few miles from his home in Philadelphia: Anthony Benezet. While Benezet was buried in an unmar…

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Simon Appleford, "Drawing Liberalism: Herblock's Political Cartoons in Postwar America" (U Virginia Press, 2023) 56:44

1M ago56:44

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Drawing Liberalism: Herblock's Political Cartoons in Postwar America (U Virginia Press, 2023) is the first book-length critical examination of the political and social impact of the political cartoonist Herbert Block--popularly known as Herblock. Working for the Washington Post, Herblock played a central role in shaping, propagandizing, and defendi…

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Dustin Condren, "An Imaginary Cinema: Sergei Eisenstein and the Unrealized Film" (Cornell UP, 2024) 1:07:57

1M ago1:07:57

1:07:57

An Imaginary Cinema: Sergei Eisenstein and the Unrealized Film (Cornell UP, 2024) explores the unfinished cinematic projects developed and abandoned by Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein between 1927 and 1937. Centred on seven major film concepts, the book examines what it means for a work of art—particularly a film—to remain unfinished or unrealis…

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Philip Nash, "Clare Boothe Luce: American Renaissance Woman" (Routledge, 2022) 1:04:56

1M ago1:04:56

1:04:56

Philip Nash's book Clare Boothe Luce: American Renaissance Woman (Routledge, 2022) is a concise and highly readable political biography that examines the life of one of the most accomplished American women of the 20th century. Wife and mother, author, editor, playwright, political activist, war journalist, Congresswoman, ambassador, pundit, and fem…

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Lester D. Friedman, "Citizen Spielberg" (U of Illinois Press, 2022) 48:48

1M ago48:48

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Steven Spielberg's extraordinary career redefined Hollywood, but his achievement goes far beyond shattered box office records. Rejecting the view of Spielberg as a Barnumesque purveyor of spectacle, Lester D. Friedman presents the filmmaker as a major artist who pairs an ongoing willingness to challenge himself with a widely recognized technical ma…

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Christina Lane, "Phantom Lady: Hollywood Producer Joan Harrison, the Forgotten Woman Behind Hitchcock" (Chicago Review Press, 2020) 1:01:36

1M ago1:01:36

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A platinum beauty with an ugly secret; a tall, dark, and handsome husband with murder in his eyes; starkly lit interiors that may or may not include the silhouette of a rotund British gentleman…. This may sound like a catalog of images from the films of Alfred Hitchcock, but it is just as much an encapsulation of the works of Joan Harrison, a studi…

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Aaron Magid, "The Most American King: Abdullah of Jordan" (Universal Publishers, 2025) 52:47

1M ago52:47

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The Most American King: Abdullah of Jordan (Universal Publishers, 2025) is the first comprehensive biography on Jordan’s King Abdullah. Drawing on interviews with over 100 individuals, including Abdullah's classmates, former Jordanian ministers, and CIA directors, The Most American King offers a thorough account of this key Arab leader. Aaron Magid…

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Meg Groff, "Not If I Can Help It" (Rivertown Books, 2025) 38:15

1M ago38:15

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Meg Groff's memoir Not If I Can Help It (Rivertown Books, 2025) recounts some of the most harrowing, infuriating, yet inspiring stories from Groff’s work as a Legal Aid attorney representing women and children whose only resource is the sheer courage they exhibit every day. Groff dedicated forty years of her life to fighting for justice for victims…

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Judith L. Pearson, "Radical Sisters: Shirley Temple Black, Rose Kushner, Evelyn Lauder, and the Dawn of the Breast Cancer Movement" (Mayo Clinic Press, 2025) 1:01:56

2M ago1:01:56

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There was a time when women's health was marginalized. There was a time when breast cancer wasn't discussed. There was a time when October wasn't pink. But three women--Shirley Temple Black, Rose Kushner, and Evelyn Lauder--refused to be silenced. Their courage ignited a movement that forever changed the way society addresses breast cancer. When th…

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Al Posamentier, "Math Makers: The Lives and Works of 50 Famous Mathematicians" (Prometheus, 2020) 56:37

2M ago56:37

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Today I talked to Alfred S. Posamentier, a co-author (with Christian Spreitzer) of Math Makers: The Lives and Works of 50 Famous Mathematicians (Prometheus, 2020). This charming book is more than just mathematics, because mathematicians are not just makers of mathematics. They are human beings whose life stories are often not just entertaining, but…

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Martha Biondi, "We Are Internationalists: Prexy Nesbitt and the Fight for African Liberation" (U California Press, 2025) 42:29

2M ago42:29

42:29

Explores forgotten solidarity with African liberation struggles through the life of Black Chicagoan Prexy Nesbitt. For many civil rights activists, the Vietnam War brought the dangers of US imperialism and the global nature of antiracist struggle into sharp relief. Martha Biondi tells the story of one such group of activists who built an internatio…

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David T. Beito, "FDR: A New Political Life" (Open Universe, 2025) 32:24

2M ago32:24

32:24

David Beito's new book brings to bear the latest historical scholarship to shed light on the life and achievements of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Professor Beito traces the irresistible political rise of Roosevelt, a scion of inherited wealth who never posed as a man of the people but was always perceived as a genial aristocrat. As well as eyebrow-r…

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House of Diggs: The Rise and Fall of America’s Most Consequential Black Congressman, Charles C. Diggs Jr. 55:13

2M ago55:13

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At the height of the civil rights movement, Charles C. Diggs Jr. (1922–1998) was the consummate power broker. In a political career spanning 1951 to 1980, Diggs, Michigan’s first Black member of Congress, was the only federal official to attend the trial of Emmett Till’s killers, worked behind the scenes with Martin Luther King Jr., and founded the…

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Mark L. Clifford, "The Troublemaker: How Jimmy Lai Became a Billionaire, Hong Kong's Greatest Dissident, and China's Most Feared Critic" (Free Press, 2024) 1:29:57

2M ago1:29:57

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The extraordinary life story of the billionaire businessman Jimmy Lai, a leading Hong Kong democracy activist fighting for freedom of speech who became China’s most famous political prisoner. Jimmy Lai escaped mainland China when he was twelve years old, at the height of a famine that killed tens of millions. In Hong Kong, he hustled and often slep…

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Elizabeth R. Hyman, "The Girl Bandits of the Warsaw Ghetto: The True Story of Five Courageous Young Women Who Sparked an Uprising" (Harper, 2025) 40:58

2M ago40:58

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The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising is one of the most storied events of the Holocaust, yet previous accounts of have almost entirely focused on its male participants. In The Girl Bandits of the Warsaw Ghetto: The True Story of Five Courageous Young Women Who Sparked an Uprising (Harper, 2025), Holocaust historian Elizabeth Hyman introduces five young, cour…

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State of the NFL (ep. 167) 9:46

2M ago9:46

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Ralph Miranda addresses the current state of the NFL, touching on lack of fundamentals (1:45), officiating and rule changes (3:01), and gambling concerns (6:52).By Ralph and Joseph Miranda

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College Football is Broken (ep. 166) 15:02

2M ago15:02

15:02

Ralph Miranda explains why college football is broken with transfer portal free agency (1:08), rise of NIL money (3:52), and a flawed coaching situation (8:33).By Ralph and Joseph Miranda

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Rob Wells, "The Insider: How the Kiplinger Newsletter Bridged Washington and Wall Street" (U Massachusetts Press, 2022) 23:27

2M ago23:27

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When Willard M. Kiplinger launched the groundbreaking Kiplinger Washington Letter in 1923, he left the sidelines of traditional journalism to strike out on his own. With a specialized knowledge of finance and close connections to top Washington officials, Kiplinger was uniquely positioned to tell deeper truths about the intersections between govern…

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Stop Hating on Notre Dame (ep. 165) 10:20

2M ago10:20

10:20

Ralph Miranda defends Notre Dame's right to be in the 2025 College Football Playoff by first previewing their remaining schedule, addressing demands for the Irish to join a conference, and comparing schedules of other top teams.By Ralph and Joseph Miranda

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Brian Baker, "The Road" (Akashic Books, 2025) 34:07

2M ago34:07

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The Road (Akashic Books, 2025) is an illuminating selection of photographs spanning iconic punk rock guitarist Brian Baker’s many years of global touring with Bad Religion, Dag Nasty, and other bands. The images are intelligent and arresting, reflecting time spent both inside and outside the bubble of backstages and tour buses. While touring is eas…

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World Series Game 3 - Dodgers top Blue Jays in 18 innings (ep. 164) 7:29

2M ago7:29

7:29

Ralph Miranda highlights some stand-out performers and broken records in the Dodgers' 6-5 victory over the Blue Jays in a thrilling, 18-inning game 3 of the 2025 World Series.By Ralph and Joseph Miranda

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Diane Ravitch, "An Education: How I Changed My Mind About Schools and Almost Everything Else" (Columbia UP, 2025) 1:02:58

2M ago1:02:58

1:02:58

For many years, Diane Ravitch was among the country’s leading conservative thinkers on education. The cure for what ailed the school system was clear, she believed: high-stakes standardized testing, national standards, accountability, competition, charters, and vouchers. Then Ravitch saw what happened when these ideas were put into practice and rec…

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Patrick Parr, "Malcolm Before X" (U Massachusetts Press, 2024) 26:16

2M ago26:16

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Drawing upon interviews, correspondence, and nearly 2000 pages of never-before-used prison records, Malcolm Before X is the definitive examination of the prison years of civil rights icon Malcolm X. The book was a Kirkus Nonfiction Book of the Year for 2024, a Spectator best book of the year, and a finalist for the 2025 ASALH book prize. In Februar…

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Sarah Smarsh, "Bone of the Bone: Essays on America from a Daughter of the Working Class" (Scribner, 2024) 1:04:56

2M ago1:04:56

1:04:56

National Book Award finalist Sarah Smarsh speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her career writing memoir, essays, and journalism centered on the experience of the rural working class in the US. Her essay in The Common’s fall 2014 issue, “Death of the Farm Family,” became part of her 2018 book Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being B…

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Ashley D. Farmer, "Queen Mother: Black Nationalism, Reparations, and the Untold Story of Audley Moore" (Pantheon, 2025) 25:50

2M ago25:50

25:50

In the world of Black radical politics, the name Audley Moore commands unquestioned respect. Across the nine decades of her life, Queen Mother Moore distinguished herself as a leading progenitor of Black Nationalism, the founder of the modern reparations movement, and, from her Philadelphia and Harlem homes, a mentor to some of America's most influ…

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Abhimanyu Kumar and Aletta André, "The House of Awadh: A Hidden Tragedy" (HarperCollins India, 2025) 45:42

2M ago45:42

45:42

Begum Wilayat Mahal, the self-proclaimed heir to the House of Awadh, has fascinated journalists and writers for decades. She claimed she was Indian royalty, descended from the kings of Awadh, a kingdom annexed by the British in 1856. She spent a decade in the waiting room of the New Delhi train station, receiving journalists intrigued by the image …

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Carl Rollyson, "The Making of Sylvia Plath (UP Mississippi, 2024) 55:03

2M ago55:03

55:03

Since her death, Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) has become an endless source of fascination for a wide audience ranging from readers of The Bell Jar, her semiautobiographical novel, to her groundbreaking poetry as exemplified by Ariel. Beyond her writing, however, interest in Plath has also been fueled in part by the tragic nature of her death. As a resu…

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Maurice Samuels, "Alfred Dreyfus: The Man at the Center of the Affair" (Yale UP, 2024) 39:17

2M ago39:17

39:17

On January 5, 1895, Captain Alfred Dreyfus’s cries of innocence were drowned out by a mob shouting “Death to Judas!” In Alfred Dreyfus: The Man at the Center of the Affair (Yale UP, 2024), Maurice Samuels gives readers new insight into Dreyfus himself—the man at the center of the affair. He tells the story of Dreyfus’s early life in Paris, his prom…