U.S. History

Journalist Taylor Branch says most histories of the African American civil rights movement written by white people are missing heart and context. He seeks to avoid this pitfall in his new book, Parting the Waters. Branch joins Fresh Air to discuss the work of Martin Luther King, Jr. in black churches, and how John F. Kennedy and J. Edgar Hoover attempted to control him for their own ends.

Smith is host of a popular PBS television program and author of the best-sellers The Money Game, Supermoney and Paper Money. His new book, titled The Roaring 80s, looks at the previous decade, which he says has been characterized by easy debt, easy spending and an amiable hands-off attitude by Washington. Smith says a camparison with another era of high living - the roaring 20s - is unavoidable.

The fiction writer sought adventure, so he followed the Equator around the world. His new book describes the different cultures, colonial vestiges, and natural phenomena of his various stops -- many of which the locals described as the "middle of nowhere."

In the 60s, Goodwin was a speechwriter for Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, and later worked for presidential candidates Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy. He's written a book that looks back at that period. It's titled Remembering America.

Novellist Don DeLillo doesn't like talking about his novels; but he says there's much to discuss about his newest book Libra, based on the assassination of John F. Kennedy. DeLillo sought to fill in the gaps of that story, including what motivated gunman Lee Harvey Oswald.

Journalist Philip Langdon joins Fresh Air guest host Sedge Thomson to discuss the changing nature of home design throughout the United States -- which have reflects new ideas about work, family and community,

Astronaut Michael Collins. He controlled the Apollo 11 command module that circled the moon while Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on its' surface. Collins has written a history of the space program titled Liftoff.

Estelle Freedman co-author of Intimate Matters, A History of Sexuality in America. Among the principal observations Freedman makes in her book is that sexual puritanism was never as all-encompassing as most historians state when chronicling the mores of the 19th and early 20th Century. The book charts the liberalization of sex as value in itself, independent of reproduction. Freedman is a professor of history at Stanford University.

Television Critic David Bianculli reviews the CBS program "Try to Remember," a pilot for a new series hosted by Charles Kuralt. The program draws on archival footage and explores the events of one week, in this case August 10, 1969, the week of Hurricane Camille, Woodstock and a ticker tape parade for the Apollo 11 astronauts.

Columnist Christopher Matthews. His first book, Hardball: How Politics is Played, is a humorous, anecdotal account of the 24-hour struggle for power and position that politicians happily immerse themselves in. The book has been described as a modern version of The Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli. Matthews is a former speechwriter to President Jimmy Carter and senior aide and spokesman to former Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill.

Writer Geoffrey O'Brien. His new book, Dream Time: Chapters from the Sixties, is an exploration of the phenomena of the 60s, from strobe lights and miniskirts to Be-Ins and Transcendental Meditation. O'Brien attempts to capture the cultural, social and political ferment of the era, as opposed to an objective, historical accounting. O'Brien is also the author of Hard Boiled America," a survey of paperback crime fiction.

Film critic Stephen Schiff reviews "White Mischief." It's the true story of high life and murder in British Colonial Kenya. It stars Greta Scacchi, Charles Dance ("The Jewel and the Crown") and Joss Ackland.

Novelist, journalist and columnist Nicholas Von Hoffman. He's the author of 10 books, including Organized Crimes and Make-Believe Presidents. He's written for The Washington Post, The Chicago Daily News, and almost every major magazine. His latest work is titled Citizen Cohn, The Life and Times of Roy Cohn.

Paul Kennedy, professor of history at Yale University and author of the new book The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000. In it, Kennedy contends that all great powers have floundered over their inability to limit foreign commitments in the face of rising domestic obligations. The book has introduced the term "imperial overstretch" to the political vocabulary. (Interview by Faith Middleton)

Book Critic John Leonard reviews two new biographies of Roy Cohn, the counsel for the Senate committee conducting the McCarthy trials, and McCarthy's aide and confidante.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nick Kotz. His new book, Wild Blue Yonder: Money, Politics and the B-1 Bomber, is an in-depth examination of how cost over-runs, politics and s basic pork barrel mentality has compromised the making of the B-1 bomber. Kotz's study of military leadership won the National Magazine Award for Public Service. He also authored the highly acclaimed book, Let Them Eat Promises.

Military historian Clay Blair. His new book is titled The Forgotten War: America In Korea. As a reporter in the Fifties, Blair was the Washington correspondent for Time and Life magazines. He later wrote for The Saturday Evening Post. For the last 23 years, Blair has been writing military histories. In The Forgotten War, he tells how warfare changed during the Korean War, and how this war, a war that the United States didn't win, affected our military strategy.

Book critic John Leonard reviews The Year of the Barricades: A Journey Through 1968 by the English journalist and historian David Caute.

Vincent Harding. He was the first director of the Martin Luther King Center in Atlanta. He worked with Dr. King during the Civil Rights Movement and he's written a history of the struggle for civil rights titled There is a River.

Writer Richard Rhodes. His book, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, is a detailed account of the origins and early development of nuclear weapons. The book won the 1987 National Book Award for non-fiction, and the National Book Critics Circle Award.