Joseph J. Ellis: First Family: Abigail and John Adams

The New York Times recently wrote of the book and author: Although the gender politics of the day did not afford Abigail the opportunities enjoyed by later generations of women, she was John Adams’s closest adviser and sounding board before, during and after the Revolutionary War. During his long absences from home, Abigail managed the family farm, oversaw their finances and raised their children. Later, during his diplomatic postings in Paris and London and his tenure as president, she assumed a more public role, so much so that the historian Joseph J. Ellis writes in his new book that “they were effectively regarded as a political team” — or as one television dramatization of their lives more crudely put it, “America’s first power couple.” You can read that full NYT piece here. Joseph J. Ellis also wrote: Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation, His Excellency: George Washington, American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson, American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies in the Founding of the Republic, Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy of John Adams, After the Revolution: Profiles of Early American Culture. The author was a guest on the NPR program, Talk of the Nation in October, 2010. That show is embedded below.

Pauline Maier: Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788

In December, 2010, The Washington Post wrote this about the author and book:

Pauline Maier, the William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of American History at M.I.T. and one of the nation's foremost scholars of the American Revolution, explores how the process of ratification worked in each of the 13 states. In doing so, she transforms our understanding of what representative government itself means. Eschewing a traditional focus on great men and their political ideas, Maier investigates the complex route to ratification in each state. After receiving the Philadelphia Convention's proposal for a new Constitution, the Confederation Congress, in accordance with procedures described in the document itself, recommended that the people (meaning white, male property holders) in each of the 13 states hold elections for delegates to state ratifying conventions. (Always contrarian, Rhode Island held a referendum instead.) Again according to the document itself, it would take ratification by nine states for the Constitution to go into effect. Representatives ran on a platform of support for or opposition to the document. What was at stake was nothing less than this question: Did ordinary people believe that an entirely new system of government, never tried before in history, was the best means of ensuring the country's future - or was it a too-risky experiment that they dared not accept?

Read that WP article here. In 2004, the author was a guest on NPR's All Things Considered. See the webpage for that radio show here. The podcast is embedded below.

'Lion Of Liberty': Patrick Henry's Fiery Life from NPR Arts & Life by MICHAEL SCHAUB

It's unfair to reduce Henry's career to excerpts from two speeches, but it's also fitting that he's remembered chiefly for his words. Henry was a hardworking lawyer, a somewhat adequate military commander, and a popular, if inconsistent, politician. He wasn't the best farmer or the best businessman, but he was almost certainly the greatest orator in 18th century America. And he was, in a way, the Father of the Founding Fathers — as Harlow Giles Unger notes in his excellent new Lion of Liberty, Henry was the first of the American revolutionaries "to call for independence, for revolution against Britain, for a bill of rights, and for as much freedom as possible from government — American as well as British."

View the full NPR feature, including a free chapter of the book, here. See also: Lafayette, John Hancock: Merchant King & American Patriot, The Last Founding Father: James Monroe and a Nation's Call to Greatness

'Letters to My Torturer' from KQED's Forum Podcast

Iranian journalist Houshang Asadi spent six years in the notorious Moshtarek prison in Tehran after a government crackdown on opposition parties in the early 1980s. In his book, "Letters to my Torturer: Love, Revolution, and Imprisonment in Iran," Asadi confronts the man who inflicted various forms of torture and "intimate cruelty" on him.

Listen to the podcast here. Download the show here.