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 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 2.13.19. 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.