History Author Show

March 30, 2016 - It’s Classical Wisdom Wednesday, presented by Classical Wisdom Weekly — bringing ancient wisdom to modern minds, every Wednesday morning before your first cup of coffee. Do we have any say in our lives? Or are we all just going along with fate? This has been bothering philosophers for millennia, and nobody explained the conundrum better than our old friend Aristotle. Your guide th...

March 28, 2016 - Step through the Guardian of Forever and back in time to colonial North America, in the heat of King William's War. Our guide on this journey is Jay Atkinson, called "the bard of New England toughness" by Men’s Health magazine for his approach to writing and his topics. He shares the story of another tough New Englander in his new book, Massacre on the Merrimack: Hannah Duston's C...

March 25, 2016 – It’s History in Five Friday, presented by Simon & Schuster — kicking off your modern weekend, with people from the past.  Today, we offer bring you some new discoveries on one of history's greatest authors: William Shakespeare. Yes, that Shakespeare. As incredible as it may seem, we're still learning about the man who brought us Hamlet, Macbeth, The Tempest and so many other immor...

March 23, 2016 - It’s Classical Wisdom Wednesday, presented by Classical Wisdom Weekly — bringing ancient wisdom to modern minds, every Wednesday morning before your first cup of coffee. While most modern politicians are guaranteed gainful employment after they’ve been ousted from office, politicians in the ancient world were not so lucky. A statesman who got on the wrong side of the voting citize...

March 21, 2016 - Today, we time-travel back to the times after the times that tried men's souls. The date is October 19, 1781, and a combined French and rebel force defeats the Redcoats at the Battle of Yorktown, Virginia. But contrary to two centuries of grade school and academic histories, the war for independence didn't end with the surrender of General Cornwallis's sword. The fighting dragged...

March 18, 2016 - Today on History in Five Friday, presented by Simon & Schuster, we’re going to hear from writer/journalist Walter Isaacson. He's president and CEO of the Aspen Institute, and author of The Innovators: How a Group of Inventors, Hackers, Geniuses and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution. He also brought us the acclaimed biography: Steve Jobs. You can like his Facebook page, or follo...

March 16, 2016 - It’s Classical Wisdom Wednesday, presented by Classical Wisdom Weekly — bringing ancient wisdom to modern minds, every Wednesday morning before your first cup of coffee. Let’s talk about Sparta. While that ancient civilization might be remembered for their fearsome soldiers, it was the Spartan women who kept things running while the men were away at war. These fearsome ladies migh...

March 14, 2016 - Today, our time machine touches down on one of America's darkest days: The capture of Washington, DC, and the burning of the White House, Capitol Building and a other public buildings. The man who lit the match? British Major General Robert Ross. A horseman, prankster, loving husband and daring commander who served under Wellington, Ross has fallen into obscurity over the two cent...

March 11, 2016 - Today’s history author, Jan Jarboe Russell, revisits the dark period of World War Two when President Franklin Roosevelt signed the infamous Executive order 9066. You may recall that we interviewed Kermit Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt's great-great-grandson and a distant cousin to Franklin, about his novel Allegiance, covering the fight over these deportations at the Supreme Court....

March 9, 2016 - It’s Classical Wisdom Wednesday, presented by Classical Wisdom Weekly — bringing ancient wisdom to modern minds, every Wednesday morning before your first cup of coffee. Today we are talking about the unlucky number seven. You read that right. When it comes to the ancient play Seven Against Thebes, the number seven is anything but lucky. Imagine seven warriors standing guard at sev...

March 7, 2016 - Today, we're climbing into the Wayback Machine and setting the dial for the early 1700's, when temperatures ran high in politics, the press, and from a smallpox epidemic burning through Boston. Leading us on this journey is Stephen Coss: author, ad guy, and "close personal friend of Ben Franklin." Everything, Stephen says, that Franklin really needed to know, he learned in 1721 (an...

March 4, 2016 - Nicholas Griffin shares the story of how a little white ball impacted the way we live on this big, blue marble. His book is titled, Ping-Pong Diplomacy: The Secret History Behind the Game That Changed the World. Just how did the United States and communist China go from the icy pictures of Cold War adversaries, to Nixon's visit and a relationship that shocked the USSR? Well, believ...

March 2, 2016 - It’s Classical Wisdom Wednesday, presented by Classical Wisdom Weekly — bringing ancient wisdom to modern minds, every Wednesday morning before your first cup of coffee. This week, we discuss Diogenes of Sinope.  He is often considered one of the more eccentric, or at the very least untraditional, of the ancient Greek philosophers. He is credited as being one of the founders of cyn...

February 29, 2016 - Our time machine for this trip is tricked out like James Bond's Aston Martin, and we're speeding back to the height of the Cold War. Our driver on this journey is Paddy Hayes, who was kind enough to call into the show from Dublin, Ireland. His book is Queen of Spies: Daphne Park, Britain's Cold War Spy Master. Until this book, no biography has been written about Daphne Park's i...

February 26, 2016 - Today’s history author, Matthew Hart, brings us...gold.  No, he's not making us rich.  It's the title of his latest book: Gold: the Race for the World's Most Seductive Metal.  It follows in the footsteps of his previous book: Diamond - The History of a Cold-Blooded Love Affair. History in Five Friday. It's the perfect way to kick off your modern weekend...with people from the p...

February 24, 2016 - It’s Classical Wisdom Wednesday, presented by Classical Wisdom Weekly — bringing ancient wisdom to modern minds, every Wednesday morning before your first cup of coffee. When it comes to tragic love stories, there are none that compare to the tale of Pyramus and Thisbe. Well… that’s not entirely true. In fact, this ancient legend might have been the inspiration for one of the w...

February 22, 2016 - This week, we sling-shot around the sun at high warp, sending us tumbling back in time to the Summer of 1832 -- and America, at war. It's not a conflict over land or of arms, but over the fiscal system of the young republic. Our guide on this journey is Paul Kahan, and his book is The Bank War: Andrew Jackson, Nicholas Biddle, and the Fight for American Finance. The fight again...

February 19, 2016 - Today’s history author, Michael Shelden, is the author of Young Titan: The Making of Winston Churchill. You may recall hearing praise for Young Titan in our interview with Simon Read, author of Winston Churchill Reporting: Adventures of a Young War Correspondent. The Greatest Briton's early life is often overlooked, with people understandably focusing on the image of him as a h...

February 17, 2016 - It’s Classical Wisdom Wednesday, presented by Classical Wisdom Weekly — bringing ancient wisdom to modern minds, every Wednesday morning before your first cup of coffee. Today we are looking at gladiators, and while you might be familiar with TV shows like “Spartacus” or movies like “Gladiator”, you might be interested to know that Hollywood does not tell the whole story. Your...

February 15, 2016 - Today's destination is America in the 1870s, and our guest is Sheila Myers, author of the novel Ephemeral Summer, and associate professor at Cayuga Community College. Her latest novel is Imaginary Brightness: a Durant Family Saga. At the dawn of what Mark Twain would later dub the Gilded Age, the economy suffered a panic -- what we'd call a depression -- brought on, in part, by...

February 12, 2016 - Today’s author, John Taliaferro, pans the camera lens of history just to the side of two great American presidents to focus on a man who worked for both. The book is All the Great Prizes: The Life of John Hay, from Lincoln to Roosevelt. John Hay may not be a name that jumps out at people today, but he had a front-row seat with Abraham Lincoln in the early 1860s, and Theodore Ro...

February 10, 2016 - It’s Classical Wisdom Wednesday, presented by Classical Wisdom Weekly — bringing ancient wisdom to modern minds, every Wednesday morning before your first cup of coffee. How many ways can you say “I love you”? There are only so many ways. But did you know that in the classical world there were more than thirty ways to express your love for another? Today we are going to look at...

February 8, 2016 - Today, we're riding in Great White Coach with the father of our country. Our teamster is author Timothy Hall Breen, and his book is George Washington's Journey: The President Forges a New Nation. Aware of the fragile and fractured nature of the new republic after independence, Washington resolves -- in a day without maps or roads worthy of the name -- to take the federal governm...

February 5, 2016 - On this Friday before Super Bowl 50, we're going to focus on the name etched into the victory trophy: Lombardi. Best-selling author and historian David Maraniss shares five key facts about the NFL's greatest coach from his biography, When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi. If you'd like to hear more about the history of football this Super Bowl week, catch our inter...

February 3, 2016 - It’s Classical Wisdom Wednesday, presented by Classical Wisdom Weekly — bringing ancient wisdom to modern minds, every Wednesday morning before your first cup of coffee. Those of you who are familiar with ancient Greek mythology can probably name some of the Olympian deities. You might know Zeus, god of the heaven, or Poseidon, god of the seas. However, you might not know about...