U.S. History

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.

Fresh Air's rock historian Ed Ward discusses the roots of his own musical tastes.

Journalist and media critic Todd Gitlin whose new book, The Sixties - Years of Hope, Days of Rage, is a social history of the culture and politics of that time from a writer who participated in the freedom and turmoil of the era.

Book Critic John Leonard reviews The Fords, by David Horowitz and Peter Collier, the biography of the family that built the automobile empire. The Fords follows Horowitz' and Collier's books on the Rockefellers and Kennedys.

Economist, writer and lecturer John Kenneth Galbraith. Galbraith, who served as an advisor to Presidents Roosevelt and Kennedy, is perhaps the most influential Keynesian economist. Under Roosevelt, he played a key role in formulating wartime economic policy. Under Kennedy, he helped formulate the liberal social policies that President Johnson pursued in the Great Society initiatives.

Archibald Cox, Watergate prosecutor who was fired under orders from President Richard Nixon when he asked for the release of secret White House tapes.

Author Toni Morrison, acclaimed for her honest depiction of black life in her books, Song of Solomon, Sula, and Tar Baby. Her first novel in seven years has just been published. It's titled Beloved.

Mary King served as the communications coordinator for SNCC during the Civil Rights Movement. Her new book, Freedom Song, talks about her experiences in that organization, including how its race and gender dynamics played out compared to other activist organizations.

Luis Valdez grew up in a migrant worker family; he later wrote plays about Mexican Americans and worked as a labor activist in the 1960s. His new movie, La Bamba, opens soon.

Writer James Miller talks about the history of the New Left and the work of the Students for a Democratic Society, who believed that college students and intellectuals were best equipped to lead democratic movements. In his new book, Democracy in the Streets, Miller outlines how their ideologies led to street protests.

Writer Roger Bruns discusses hobo culture with Fresh Air's Terry Gross, including migratory patterns, temporary encampments, and social stratification within various communities.

Documentary filmmaker Henry Hampton. He produced the television program "Eyes on the Prize," which documents the history of the civil rights movement -- including the impact press coverage had on the cause.