We talked with Lord Conrad Black, author of the new book Flight of the Eagle, a tour of American history from 1754 to 1992. Black identifies nine different phases that America has gone through, and how these phases have developed America into the great nation it is today.

Roger Kimball is publisher, editor and brilliant taskmaster for the magazine, New Criterion. He is also the publisher of Encounter Books, known for scholarly but eminently readable contributions to the literature of modern conservatism. He is a most compelling speaker and conversationalist. Here he is in a 2013 discussion.

With no holds barred, Elliott Abrams examines what he designates as the “Citizen of the World Foreign Policy” of President Obama with, inevitably, some special focus on Syria. Abrams, formerly on the Middle East beat for the State Department and the National Security Council, is now a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

In today’s episode, Victor Davis Hanson joins us once again. The Middle East is seething with trouble, discord, danger and the inhumane murder of civilians in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt.  So what else is new? Perhaps the inadequate and conflicted  responses of the major governments looking on. Or, is it perhaps time for them to go “neo-isolationist?” We discuss this with Victor who, in our judgement, is the wisest and most strongly spoken of the “realpolitikers.”

Joseph Epstein sees through all of our foibles, affectations, eccentricities and higher-level stupidities including his own (though he is very light on the last!). Here he is in a rambling 2013 conversation which, like all his contributions to this most basic human art form, delights, illuminates and provokes. Simple impression: If Dr. Samuel Johnson were with us today, this is probably what he would sound like.

We talked once again with Stanley Kurtz, at the time a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Institute and recent author of Spreading the Wealth: How Obama is Robbing the Suburbs to Pay for the Cities. We talk with Kurtz about his book, President Obama’s attempts at “regionalism,” and even reminisce about our mutual run-in with the Obama campaign back in 2008.

David Satter is one of the most prolific and analytically acute observers of contemporary Russia. His years in Moscow began while it was still the capital of the Soviet Union. And in his 3 major books he has chronicled its develolution into a dangerous “kleptocracy.” In this conversation, he provides a masterly overview of that history and ends with some important recommendations about re-setting the US-Russia “reset.”

David Gelernter is apparently one of the few conservatives now to be found on the faculty of Yale University. He and Milt (another Yale faculty veteran) discuss his new book, America-Lite, which analyzes the rise of the ideological left on the American campus and traces what Gelernter views as its malign influence upon American culture and politics.

Much was made of the concept of American Exceptionalism during the last presidential campaign. Is it something you believe to be fact? Charles Murray, the eminent social and political scientist from the American Enterprise Institute and author of the new book of the same name, says it is real – and that has nothing to do with emotional attachments to the United States or any patriotic statements. It’s something that even foreigners have conceded, going all the way back to the founding.

We’re joined today by Jayson Lusk, a professor of agricultural economics at Oklahoma State University and author of the new book The Food Police: A Well-Fed Manifesto About the Politics of Your Plate.

In his book, Lusk looks at the emerging industry of “experts” that are hell-bent on telling you what to eat and when to eat it. Some of the topics we cover include the banning of certain types of food, eating organic, and genetically modified-foods. Enjoy!