Terry Gross

The band R.E.M. has released its first album in four years, Accelerate. Critics have been describing the disc as a "comeback," saying it's the band's best album in ages. Michael Stipe, Peter Buck and Mike Mills join Terry Gross for a conversation.

As chief of high-value targeting for the Pentagon, Marc Garlasco helped plan the targets of laser-guided bombs during the invasion of Iraq. Now a senior analyst with Human Rights Watch, Garlasco visits war zones where he assesses the damage being done to civilians by bombs and lobbies for greater deliberation in the use of air power.

Julie Andrews has spent her life in the public eye, but she's never had much to say about her life before stardom — until now. The Sound of Music star joins Terry Gross to discuss her new memoir.

Taylor Branch spent nearly 24 years researching and writing a three-volume biography of Martin Luther King Jr. He joins Fresh Air to disccuss the struggles and triumphs of the last three years of King's life.

Martin Luther King Jr. was in Memphis in 1968 rallying for fair treatment and pay of African-American sanitation workers when he was assassinated. American history professor Michael Honey joins Fresh Air to discuss his book on the labor campaign King was leading at the time of his death.

Perplexed by the U.S. economy? You're not alone. Law professor Michael Greenberger joins Fresh Air to explain the sub-prime mortgage crisis, credit defaults, the shaky future of other types of loans and what we can expect from the U.S. financial markets.

In 2005, The New York Times revealed that the National Security Agency had performed wiretaps and other surveillance without court orders. It was a story the Bush administration hoped to keep under wraps, says reporter Eric Lichtblau. Lichtblau's new book is Bush's Law.

Author Steve Coll details the complicated family history of Osama bin Laden, one of 54 children born to Mohamed bin Laden. The elder bin Laden transformed himself from an illiterate bricklayer into an immensely wealthy and powerful businessman.

The Rev. James H. Cone founded black liberation theology, which has roots in 1960s civil-rights activism. In an interview with Terry Gross, he explains the movement — and comments on controversial sermons by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama's longtime minister and a black liberation theology proponent.

Theologian Dwight Hopkins provides a historical perspective on black liberation theology. Hopkins is an ordained Baptist minister and a professor of theology at the University of Chicago Divinity School.