Added 6.5.18. Was the U.S. Civil War really inevitable, or was the firing of the first shots of battle in Charleston in 1861 more contingent – upon a series of events and circumstances that might very well have played out differently? Milt in this 2011 conversation digs deeper into the roots of that epic conflict, with two distinguished guests. One is Adam Goodheart, lecturer in history and American Studies, and Director of the C.V. Starr Center For The Study of the American Experience, at Washington College in Maryland. He is also author of the bestseller, “1861: The Civil War Awakening.” Also joining in is Bruce Levine, then professor of history and African-American studies at University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. Among his published books was, “Half Slave, Half Free: The Roots Of The Civil War.”

Added 5.29.18. Milt talks in 2010 with noted scholar Richard Rhodes, who had just authored his fourth major book on nuclear weapons. It was titled, “The Twilight Of The Bombs: Recent Challenges, New Dangers, And The Prospects For A World Without Nuclear Weapons.” Rhodes won the Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction for his 1986 book, “The Making of the Bomb.” It covered the discovery of nuclear fission in the 1930s, the Manhattan Project, and the U.S. bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II.

Added 5.22.18. From not-so-distant decades when aldermen and committeemen had the Real Juice, to the present day where power is more concentrated in the Mayor’s Office, novelist Mark M. Quinn in this 2009 conversation with Milt explores the fascinating and dismaying ins and outs of Chicago political corruption. It’s a somewhat fluid and nuanced thing, and will likely remain so. Quinn had just authored a roman-a-clef titled, “The Chairman – A Novel Of Big City Politics.”

Added 5.15.18. Milt in 1982 goes mano a mano with Pulitzer Prize-winning Chicago newspaper columnist Mike Royko, in this rare and revealing interview. The author of penetrating current-events, cultural and political essays – in the Chicago Daily News and later the Sun-Times and Tribune – under Milt’s questioning delves into his remarkable rib-cooking prowess, the politics of Chicago snow, the growing fiscal and political weakness of large U.S. cites, and of course, Chicago politics, its Machine and mayors. Royko also discusses how he does what he does; proffers an argument for greater handgun control laws; and argues for getting out the vote – over boycotts and protests.

Added 5.15.18. In this brief historical excerpt shortly following the 1973 publication of a young, Cambridge-educated Arianna Huffington’s critique of Western feminism, “The Female Woman,” Milt opens the disquisition with an admittedly chauvinist question: “What’s a nice Greek girl like you doing taking on the women’s liberation movement?” Arianna explains that although there has been no shortage of male chauvinist pigs to which she has been exposed in her homeland, and while she fully supports equal opportunity and equal pay, she was “repelled” by modern Western feminism for denigrating traditional female values and roles. Then she faces callers to the show.