A 2005 Jihadist terror bombing killed 57 London commuters. The next day we talked with a dear London friend, the mystery novelist P.D. James who had a few years earlier been elevated to the peerage and thus was a member of the House of Lords. Lady James gave us a chilling account of what had just happened and a most insightful interpretation of this early chapter in the terrorist assault upon the West. Here is a crucial portion of that conversation.

Our guest in this deep-probing discussion is historian Scott Appleby of the University of Notre Dame. He was, together with Martin Marty, the founder and director of a great project on modern religious fundamentalism which involved the contributions of over a hundred scholars from around the world as they investigated  the origins and militant intentions and programs of Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism,  Buddhism and Sikhism.

Appleby is the Dean of the new School of Foreign Affairs at Notre Dame and one of the sharpest, wisest and valuably uninhibited analysts of the evil  that men do with religion as a primary political tool. Here he applies his analytic skill and wide knowledge to modern “Islamism” and helps to illuminate the origins and the long-lasting threat that the west (and the world!) must now confront.

Of the many programs we have done on evolutionary theory and research none was more sharply and effectively focused on the (failed) challenge to Darwinism posed by the “theory” of intelligent design. In this discussion from 2002 two great guests, Robert Richards and Robert Roose, review the general evolutionary view and take on the ultimate issue concerning the complexity of the human eye.

So said Wellington about the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo – and the same can be said and is said by our guest, John Ferling – about the outcome of our Revolutionary War. In this 2006 conversation the masterly historian reviews how lucky we were and how much our victory was a gift from the French, who finally provided the naval blockade which blocked the escape of the British from Yorktown. The broader lesson is how utterly contingent can be the turns of history. Ferling provides a wonderfully rich narrative backing for this view.

Talk-show host Michael Medved writes sharp and popular books advancing an optimistic view of the American prospect. Back in 2009 we discussed his then-just published work, “The 10 Big Lies About America.”