Vergil, Plato, Augustine, Dante, Goethe, Austen, Melville – are theirs all “great books?” By common designation they are. What about  Dickens, James, Hemingway, Cocteau and Mickey Spillane? The later group may be more immediately enjoyable than the former.  But here are two professors of literature who joined us in 2005 with a great discussion of the great books concept and, at the same time, presented some exciting passages from some of the books they think to be truly great. And they can and do tell you why!!

By the year 2005 the Chicago Mafia had experienced – and performed – some 1,500 murders. A great investigation in that year disclosed much about who killed whom…and why and how.  Also illuminated in that investigation was how the Mafia was coordinated into the rule and function of a great American city. Here, in rich narrative detail, is the full story as reported by three of the city’s foremost crime experts.

So far, no far-flung empire has lasted more than 1,500 years (the Romans) unless you count the many dynasties of Egypt, the last of which was run by Alexandrian Greeks. The great questions addressed by “large-picture” historians are how empires rise and how and why they inevitably fall. Three such academic historians joined us in 2006 to discuss the Roman, Greek, Ottoman and Russian cases.

In one of his last appearances with us before his untimely demise, Carl Sagan pondered where, when and how mankind would go once it had shuffled off this earthly coil. Here is a brief and tantalizing excerpt.

We are astonished. The “we” is me and my guest, Charles Lipson, member of our old A-Team and one of the country’s five leading political scientists (by Rosenberg Ranking). Astonished by what? By the man who wasn’t there. Where? In Paris, of course.

Yet other things about the recent performance of our old colleague from the University of Chicago continue to astonish – among them his inability to call Islamic terrorism what it is. As usual with Charles the conversation wanders in many correlated directions including: the talent level of the President’s foreign policy advisors, the appalling consequences that followed from the stance announced way back in the Cairo speech and, probably essential for the rest of the century, the required policy for playing through the struggle with recidivist and homicidal Jihadism.