Yes, of course. The list is a long one that does not begin and end with Edmund Burke. Here is a discussion with a thoughtful and well-informed historian who has done a fine book about 14 American conservatives who help to define that political species.

In this 2000 program, Nathanial Philbrick, author of “In the Heart of the Sea,” recounts the true-life story that probably inspired Melville’s Moby Dick. The Essex, a whaleship out of Nantucket, was completely destroyed by the great sperm whale that it was pursuing  in the South Pacific about a thousand miles east of the Marquesas Islands.

Bellow died in 2005 and about a week later we commemorated his passing with an extended discussion of his art and his life. One of our guests, Richard Stern, was Bellow’s close friend and played a major role in bringing him to the University of Chicago. Both Stern and our other guest, Alexander Hemon, were important working novelists at the time of this deeply probing discussion.

You could of course answer Adam or Moses. But for Robert Pinsky, former poet laureate of the United States, it has to be David. So he attests – and reveals why – in this engrossing  conversation with Judaic historian Benjamin Sommer and the fascinated moderator of the program. The extra attraction: Some wonderful  poems about David read  here by Pinskey.

Here are brief clips for each of them as they appeared on our program back in the 80s. Their voices and styles were distinctive and if you are over 50 you should be able to identify all of them. For that matter, many of their films are still frequently on view.