Ep. 246 Constitutional Scholar Akhil Reed Amar on America’s Equality Story
Yale constitutional law professor Akhil Reed Amar's second book in a trilogy is titled "Born Equal: Remaking America's Constitution, 1840-1920." In Professor Amar's introduction, he writes: "Millions of Americans can recite by heart Lincoln's opening line at Gettysburg. But how many of us understand it?" "This sentence," Professor Amar continues, "sits at the very center of this book." Akhil Amar, born in 1958 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, was raised in California. After law school at Yale, he clerked for Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, and became a junior professor back at his alma mater at age 26.
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Ep. 245 Kenneth Feinberg, "What is Life Worth?"
Kenneth Feinberg is a Washington-based attorney who served as a special master of the US government's 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund. Mr. Feinberg worked for 33 months, pro bono, deciding who should be compensated as a result of the deaths and injuries from 9/11. Kenneth Feinberg, who today is 79, was interviewed on C-SPAN's Q&A program about his book, "What is Life Worth: The Unprecedented Effort to Compensate the Victims of 9-11." Here is an encore presentation of that July 1, 2005, interview.
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Ep. 244 William Galston, "Anger, Fear, Domination"
William Arthur Galston has been a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution since 2006 and a columnist for the Wall Street Journal for the past 12 years. In the first paragraph of his latest 161-page book, he tells us what the book is about: "This book advances this proposition that what I call the dark passions - anger, hatred, humiliation, resentment, fear, and the drive for domination - fuels today's attacks on liberal democracy." Galston also says, "persuasive public speech is the main way demagogues mobilize these passions to pursue power." The name of the book is "Anger, Fear, Domination."
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Ep. 243 Peter Henriques Explores George Washington’s Character and Presidency
Retired George Mason University history professor, Peter Henriques, starts off his author's note writing: "If anyone had told me in the summer of 2023 that I would be writing one more book on George Washington, I would have expressed extreme skepticism." In Episode 6 of this Booknotes+ podcast series in 2021, Professor Henriques told us the same thing. But at 88 years old, he's back with another book on our first president, titled "George Washington: His Quest for Honor and Fame." In the afterward of the book, Peter Henriques puts a special emphasis on George Washington and slavery.
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Ep. 242 Geri Spieler on Housewife Assassin: The True Story Behind a Suburban Double Life
In September 1975, 17 days apart, two women, one in Sacramento and the other in San Francisco, attempted to assassinate President Gerald Ford. The first attempt on September the 5th came from Annette Squeaky Fromm. The Charles Manson follower spent over 30 years in prison, is out on parole, and is 76 years old. The other attempt came on the non-entrance side of St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco on September the 24th, 1975. The shooter, Sara Jane Moore, served 32 years in prison and died almost 50 years to the day on September the 24th, 2025. Author Jerry Spieler wrote the book "Housewife Assassin" in 2009. She talked to and exchanged letters with Sara Jane Moore on several occasions. Here's her up-to-date story about the woman who tried to kill President Ford.
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Taking the concept from Brian Lamb's long running Booknotes TV program, the podcast offers listeners more books and authors. Booknotes+ features a mix of new interviews with authors and historians, along with some old favorites from the archives. The platform may be different, but the goal is the same – give listeners the opportunity to learn something new.
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