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 2.27.19. The sun: it is the constant in the life of the earth and its current inhabitants, but it is not all that trustworthy or stable. It has made great trouble for us in the past, and could make even more trouble in the not-distant future. At least, so posits science writer Lawrence E. Joseph in his book, “Solar Cataclysm: How The Sun Shapes The Past, And What We Can Do To Save Our Future.” Milt discusses with Jospeh the book, plus how our future may conceivably be threatened by the brilliant burning orb above.

Added 2.21.19. Milt in this 2011 conversation with rancher, author, historian and Hoover Institution scholar Victor Davis Hanson, applies a historical filter to present-day controversies over U.S. engagement in the Middle East, and our domestic rhetoric of redistribution, among other things. Hanson had just authored a historical novel titled, “The End of Sparta.”

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.