…the more it will go on changing. That is the one great truth that stands out when historians examine one another on their respective fields. Here from a 2005 conversation we bring together an historian of Russia, another who specializes in Tudor England, and a third who specializes in Catholicism in 19th century France. Great stories abound and the tale goes on, as yesterday continues to shape today.

Bart Ehrman, former fundamentalist pastor who became an agnostic student of the origins and evolution of Christianity, joins us in a 2008 discussion of the most pressing issue in modern, post-Holocaust theology: How can a just God countenance the suffering and early death of the innocent?  Of the many scholars of religion we have talked with, he is simply the most illuminating and moving on this central dilemma of “theodicy.”

Thus from the beginnings of World War II to Blair’s entry of the UK into Iraq. One of the great generation of post-war British historians, Cannadine in this 2003 conversation combines wonderful stories in high narrative style with a rich theory of the changing nature of British politics and culture. The show includes some wonderful sound clips of Churchill at the top of his form as war leader.

Is euthanasia the shape of things to come? The basic question of the emergent field of bioethics is discussed here in its many varieties – and varying verities – by three concerned and sophisticated scholars: Dr. Leon Kass, who served as the head of the bioethics commission for the second President Bush, plus John Tilner and Nigel Cameron.

According to Margaret Thatcher, talking on our radio program some years ago, the crucial occasion was the meeting between Gorbachev and Reagan in the mid 1980s in a haunted house in Iceland. The meeting seemed to be a failure – floundering over the issue of the “Star Wars” program – but it led to a halving of the nuclear arsenals of both nations within a year. A fly on the wall at the original meeting was Ken Adelman, then the Director of the Office of Arms Control and Disarmament. Here is our recent discussion with him as based upon his new book in which he reveals the almost surreal story of that weekend  in Reykyavic.