Aug 16 Watch 5:57 The origin of ‘white trash,’ and why class is still an issue in the U.S. By PBS News Hour In “White Trash,” Nancy Isenberg delves into the history of class in America, starting with British colonization. At that time, America was seen as a wasteland -- a place to discard the idle poor. The agrarian communities they subsequently formed… Continue watching
Aug 09 Watch 6:26 Bringing new life to ‘Patient H.M.,’ the man who couldn’t make memories By PBS News Hour His story is a staple in psychology classes, but his identity wasn’t known for years: Henry Molaison, the man who lost his ability to form new memories after a lobotomy. In “Patient H.M.: A Story of Memory, Madness, and Family… Continue watching
Aug 09 How a ‘custody war’ broke out over a famous patient’s damaged brain By Jeffrey Brown In the new book "Patient H.M.: A Story of Memory, Madness, and Family Secrets," Luke Dittrich tells the story of the man known to science for decades under that moniker. But Dittrich does something more, because the man who performed… Continue reading
Aug 05 Watch 6:50 When the victim becomes the criminal: a fresh look at the story of Patty Hearst By PBS News Hour In 1974, William Randolph Hearst’s granddaughter Patty was abducted from her California home by members of the radical Symbionese Liberation Army. After subsequent events suggested the teenager had joined the group, she was captured and sentenced -- but later pardoned. Continue watching
Aug 04 Svetlana Alexievich’s stories of life, longing and suffering under Soviet rule By Jeffrey Brown "Secondhand Time" is the first book by Alexievich to appear in English since she was awarded the Nobel and it continues her series of works exploring the long sweep of Soviet culture and politics. Continue reading
Aug 03 Watch 6:52 Imagining the Underground Railroad as an actual train system Colson Whitehead’s new novel considers a startling premise: what if slaves had fled southern plantations via an actual subterranean train? Jeffrey Brown sits down with the author at BookExpo America in Chicago to discuss the challenge of blending fantasy with… Continue watching
Jul 04 Watch 7:11 Writing is his redemption after spending his youth behind bars By PBS News Hour By the age of 19, Shaka Senghor was behind bars after his teen years as a drug dealer ended with a death on his hands. Senghor says his story is all too familiar for many young black men. The author… Continue watching
Jul 01 Watch 6:25 How sexual rivalry, fist fights and other shenanigans drove Ernest Hemingway By PBS News Hour A photo of Ernest Hemingway sitting with a mischievous-looking group in Pamplona inspired Leslie M. M. Blume’s new book, “Everybody Behaves Badly.” It was 1925, a year before Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises,” hit. The group was a volatile mix,… Continue watching
Jun 30 Watch 6:35 The unsung women heroes of America’s space program By PBS News Hour They were living, breathing, walking, talking calculators who were key to America’s early space program. And they were women — and largely forgotten. At the time, the supercomputers that NASA now uses to crunch its numbers didn’t exist. Nathalia Holt… Continue watching
Jun 29 Watch 7:25 Sebastian Junger’s ‘Tribe’ examines loyalty, belonging and the quest for meaning By PBS News Hour The NewsHour continues our series on great summer reads with the latest from Oscar-nominated documentarian and “Perfect Storm” author Sebastian Junger. It’s called "Tribe: On Homecoming And Belonging." It's a modern take on what we can learn from tribal societies… Continue watching