Added 4.25.19. In this 1986 episode, Milt and Rabbi Harold Kushner explore questions for The Ages stemming from Kushner’s then just-published book, “When All You’ve Ever Wanted Isn’t Enough: Living A Life That Matters.” It became a bestseller, and followed Kushner’s breakout 1981 bestseller, “When Bad Things Happen To Good People,” inspired partly by the death of Kushner’s son at 14 in 1977 from a progressive aging disease. Milt and Kushner probe how we can elevate virtue over despair, sidestep pursuit of false purposes, and be able approach the end of life with equanimity.

Added 4.18.19. Decorated Marine, Vietnam War rifle platoon leader, novelist, Yale grad and Rhodes Scholar Karl Marlantes discusses with Milt his non-fiction exploration, “What It’s Like To Go To War.” He begins by noting that “the overwhelming feeling of war is a combination of sadness at the deaths of friends and foes,” and of “exhilaration” about both survival the killing of one’s mortal enemies. It is, he says, quite a lot for a young man to experience, and then have to describe upon return home. Marlantes previously authored an acclaimed Vietnam novel, Matterhorn.

Added 4.11.19. Milt delves into sleep with two experts: James Herdegen and Kristen Knutson. At the time of the broadcast he was director of the Sleep Science Center at University of Illinois-Chicago, and she was a biomedical anthropologist and professor of medicine at University of Chicago. Together they explore the science of sleep, including questions such as: Do fish sleep? How is sleep measured? What are the causes and remedies of sleep disorders? And much more.

Added 4.2.19. Milt interview the father-daughter author team Marvin and Deborah Kalb on their then-new book, “Haunting Legacy: Vietnam And The American Presidency From Ford To Obama.” Together they unearth how, why and to what effect U.S. presidents in the years since the Vietnam War’s end, have  let our nation’s unsatisfying experience in that conflict shape subsequent military and foreign policy decision making. Deborah Kalb is a writer, editor, and author, and has written several books about politics and history for adults and children. Marvin Kalb was for three decades a noted correspondent for CBS and NBC television news, and later founded the Shorenstein Center of Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

Added 3.25.19. Milt and New Testament scholars Barbara E. Reid and Klyne Snodgrass explore – as Milt puts it – “the real man Jesus, as he is knowable” with a focus on the “actual facts of the earthly career of Jesus” and its connection to the Christian faith. The starting point is an encomium to Jesus from none other than Napoleon, for founding an empire based on love rather than force. At the time of the broadcast, each guest was a a professor of New Testament Studies; Reid at the Catholic Theological Union, and Snodgrass at North Park College.

Added 3.14.19. Schopenauer famously posited, “Clio, the muse of history, is as thoroughly infected with lies as a street whore with syphilis.” Cicero, by contrast, said, “the first law of writing history is truth.” Napoleon thought, “history is the invention of historians.” How history is constructed – and to what degree we can trust it, is the subject of this conversation between Milt and three historians. Sheila Fitzpatrick was then a professor of history at The University of Chicago, now at University of Sydney, and specializes in modern Russia. Among her books: “On Stalin’s Team: The Years of Living Dangerously In Soviet Politics.” Chris Boyer is a professor of history at the University of Illinois – Chicago and focused on Mexico and Latin America. He authored “Political Landscapes: Forests, Conservation, And Community In Mexico.” Edward Muir is a Northwestern University historian, expert in the Italian Renaissance. Among his books is “Mad Blood Stirring: Vendetta And Factions In Friuli During The Renaissance.”

Added 3.7.19. Renowned war historian Max Hastings, a former editor of the The Telegraph newspaper in the U.K., sits down with Milt to discuss his then-new account of World War II titled “Inferno: The World At War – 1939-1945.” It was time, Hastings tells Milt, to turn the focus away from generals, prime ministers and presidents, and examine the age-old question of “what was the war like” from the perspective of those far from the headlines. The focus turns to participants such as an American paratrooper, a French collaborator, a Polish Jew, and many others. Everyone’s story was different but most shared a variation of the phrase, “and then, all hell broke loose.” Exploring those stories and the war’s place in our minds and history is the focus of this lively conversation.

Added 2.27.19. The sun: it is the constant in the life of the earth and its current inhabitants, but it is not all that trustworthy or stable. It has made great trouble for us in the past, and could make even more trouble in the not-distant future. At least, so posits science writer Lawrence E. Joseph in his book, “Solar Cataclysm: How The Sun Shapes The Past, And What We Can Do To Save Our Future.” Milt discusses with Jospeh the book, plus how our future may conceivably be threatened by the brilliant burning orb above.

Added 2.21.19. Milt in this 2011 conversation with rancher, author, historian and Hoover Institution scholar Victor Davis Hanson, applies a historical filter to present-day controversies over U.S. engagement in the Middle East, and our domestic rhetoric of redistribution, among other things. Hanson had just authored a historical novel titled, “The End of Sparta.”

Added 2.13.19. When the Nazis purged non-Aryans from the ranks of cabaret performers, there were almost none left. That’s because, remarkably, most of them in the Weimar Republic, were Jewish. How was is that they were compelled to be there then? Love of the art and its cultural resonance is something deeply felt to Rebecca Joy Fletcher. She is an actress, playwright, ordained cantor, scholar, researcher, and performer of international Jewish cabaret shows popular in 1920s and 1930s Berlin, Paris, Warsaw, and Tel Aviv. Here she joins Milt to discuss what she does, why, and what she’s learned along the way.