Booknotes+

July 23rd of this year will mark the 55th anniversary of the Detroit Race Riot. Forty-three people died and more than 1000 were injured during that chaotic week in 1967. Our guest, Professor Clarence Lusane was there. His mother and sister were shot. We talked to him about that experience and about his academic career and activism, which has taken him around the world. Clarence Lusane is currently a professor of political science at Howard University in Washington, DC.    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"I knew Richard Nixon well." At age 81, Dwight Chapin has decided, for the first time, to write about his years in politics and the Nixon White House. His book is called "The President's Man: The Memoirs of Nixon's Trusted Aide." In the first chapter, he writes: "I started working for him as an organizational field man during his 1962 California gubernatorial campaign….I became an advance man at the beginning of the 1966 off-year election cycle and then his personal aide in 1967. In the White House, as his appointments secretary, I had the office next to his." Unfortunately for Chapin, as he explains later, his time working for Richard Nixon didn't end well.    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

British historian Andrew Roberts, in the introduction of his latest book called "The Last King of America," about King George III, says the following: "This portrait of a heartless, absolute sovereign is repeated almost every single day in America's print and online media. Even two centuries after his death, hardly a day passes in the United States without some reference to George III where he is still held up as an…archetypal bogeyman, attacked in the same measure by Democrats and Republicans alike." Andrew Roberts, who says the Revolutionary War-era English king was misunderstood, has also written major histories about Napoleon, Churchill, and World War Two.     Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In early 2001, Bethany McLean, at the time a reporter for Fortune magazine, asked the question in an article: "How does Enron make its money?" McLean's reporting, and the reporting of others, led to inquiries that were put to the Enron management. Within a few months, the company was bankrupt. Bethany McLean's subsequent book, "The Smartest Guys in the Room," became a bestseller and a successful documentary. In January 2022, she wrote about her reaction to the Theranos saga. In an essay about the trial of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, she wrote, "For those who believe she was guilty of a great crime, it's a disappointing verdict." She joined us to talk about it.    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On the dust jacket of Debby Applegate's book "Madam," it says "Simply put: Everybody came to Polly's." Polly being Polly Adler, the madam of some of the most popular brothels in New York City during the 1920s. It was a hangout for politicians, entertainers, writers, and members of the city's underworld. According to Debby Applegate, Polly's pals included FDR, Frank Sinatra, Desi Arnaz, and Duke Ellington, among many others. She joined us to talk about Polly Adler and the power Adler wielded in New York City during the Jazz Age.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In March of 2017, Lance Geiger, from the basement of his house in O'Fallon, Illinois, created a new business, a YouTube show that is now regularly seen by hundreds of thousands of people. Since that day in 2017, Geiger has been known as "The History Guy." He has produced hundreds of short documentaries on history. In his home studio, "The History Guy" is surrounded by artifacts, including military hats and ship models, and he's always dressed in his trademark dark suit, dark-rimmed glasses, and bow tie. Lance Geiger joined us to talk about the genesis of the "The History Guy" program, the work involved in putting out three episodes a week, and the success the show has attained over the past five years.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The first ever televised congressional hearing was on August 3, 1948. The first witness was a man who said he didn't want to be there. He had been subpoenaed to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC). His name was Whittaker Chambers, an American who had been a Communist spy for the Soviet Union in the 1930s. We spoke to DC-based attorney John Berresford, who has spent years studying Chambers and the story and trial of the man Chambers accused of also being a Communist spy, Alger Hiss. Mr. Berresford has presented the story of the Hiss-Chambers espionage case in a series of 38 lectures on YouTube.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"What's your question or comment for Rush?" That is how James Golden – aka Bo Snerdley – would greet callers to Rush Limbaugh's daily, 3-hour radio program. Mr. Golden has written a book about his time as call screener, official show observer, and producer of the most popular talk radio show in America during the past three decades. Rush Limbaugh died on February 17, 2021. In his book "Rush on the Radio," which Mr. Golden says is a tribute to his former boss and friend, he writes about his love of radio and how the Limbaugh program came together behind the scenes.    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Between 1915 and 1970, six million African Americans moved from the rural South to cities in the North in search of a better life. Author Isabel Wilkerson captured the history of that mass movement, known as the Great Migration, in her Pulitzer Prize-winning book "The Warmth of Other Suns." She sat down with us in 2010 to talk about the book and the approach she took to tell the story. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1787, between May and September, James Madison gave 167 speeches, made 72 motions, and served on four committees at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. Jay Cost writes that "most importantly, Madison authored the Virginia Plan, a bold call for a total redesign of the national government that set the agenda for the convention and established the foundation upon which the Constitution would be built." At that time, James Madison was 36 years old. Jay Cost, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and author of "James Madison: America's First Politician," joined us to talk about the influential Founding Father.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices