C-SPAN Bookshelf

As we begin the 2024 presidential campaign, we hear the word "inflation" in almost every candidate's speech. One issue that is always mentioned is the price of food. Benjamin Lorr spent several years travelling the United States and the world to investigate how the food supply chain works. His book is titled "The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket." He writes that: "Most people shop for groceries with clueless abandon."    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Historian and Politico contributing writer Joshua Zeitz, author of "Lincoln's God," talks about the impact of faith on America's 16th president. Zeitz contends that as a young man, Abraham Lincoln was skeptical of organized religion but later, as president, came to embrace the power of evangelical Protestantism, both personally and politically.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

USC public policy professor Elizabeth Currid-Halkett argued that rural & urban America have more in common than what Americans have been led to believe. She was interviewed by former Senator Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On January 6, 1970, TWA flight 741 from Israel to New York was hijacked and flown to the Jordanian desert. Historian Martha Hodes, at the time 12 years old, was on that plane along with her sister Catherine, who was 13. A group called the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine was behind the hijacking. For years, Martha Hodes, who teaches 19th Century history at New York University, only had fuzzy memories of those 6 days and nights in the desert as a hostage. In the past couple of years, Prof. Hodes decided to try to piece together her experience. The result is her book titled "My Hijacking: A Personal History of Forgetting and Remembering."     Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Guardian newspaper editorial writer and former China correspondent Tania Branigan, author of "Red Memory," talks about China's Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), during which millions of Chinese were killed and tens of millions were persecuted by the Chinese government for being enemies of the state. In the book, Ms. Branigan profiles several people who were targeted during this period and discusses the lasting impact of the Cultural Revolution in China today.    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Author and illustrator Jerry Craft discusses attempts to remove his graphic novels from school libraries. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

C.W. Goodyear was born in New Orleans. He's a graduate of Yale University and now lives in the Washington, DC area. He's also a first time biographer, having just published a book about James Garfield titled "President Garfield: From Radical to Unifier." Garfield, America's 20th president, took office on March 4, 1881. His time as president lasted only 200 days. Garfield was assassinated by Charles Guiteau in a Washington, DC train station at the corner of 6th and Pennsylvania Avenue on July 2, 1881. Mr. Goodyear has written a full life biography of James Garfield, from the years he grew up in Ohio through his generalship in the Civil War and his 17 years in the U.S. House of Representatives.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This July 4th weekend, University of Michigan musicology and American culture professor Mark Clague discusses his book, "O Say Can You Hear?," about the history and cultural impact of the Star-Spangled Banner. He talks about how the 1814 poem written by Francis Scott Key became the U.S. national anthem, its widespread use today at sporting events, and renditions of the song performed by Jimi Hendrix, Whitney Houston, Roseanne Barr, and others.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Business journalist Jason Del Rey looks at the rise of Amazon and Walmart and their economic impact on the U.S. and the world. He's interviewed by Insider chief tech correspondent Eugene Kim. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Former president Theodore Roosevelt died on January 6, 1919. He was 60 years old. Author William Hazelgrove, in his new book about Roosevelt, chose to focus mostly on the last two years of TR's life. It's titled "The Last Charge of the Rough Rider," and it's the focus of this week's podcast. Mr. Hazelgrove takes us through TR's feud with President Woodrow Wilson over wanting to create another Rough Rider soldier regiment to fight in Europe. Wilson turned him down in spite of the fact that both the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives had approved Roosevelt's request.     Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices