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Ep. 184 Dr. Marty Makary, "Blind Spots" Sep 17, 2024

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Dr. Marty Makary is a Johns Hopkins School of Medicine professor. He has published more than 300 scientific research articles. His book is called "Blind Spots: When Medicine Gets It Wrong, and What It Means for Our Health." In his preface, Dr. Makary says he realizes that much of what the public is told about health is medical dogma, an idea or practice given incontrovertible authority because someone decreed it to be true based on a gut feeling. He writes: "This book may change your life, it did mine."

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Ep. 183 Ken Khachigian, "Behind Closed Doors" Sep 10, 2024

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The book is called "Behind Closed Doors: In the Room with Reagan & Nixon." It's the title of a memoir by a man who worked closely with both. Ken Khachigian, the author, was a speechwriter and a confidant to former Presidents Nixon and Reagan back in the 1960s, 70s and 80s. Near the end of his book, Khachigian, a lawyer based in California, writes: "I spent a decade and a half in close, confidential contact with these two Presidents." In 1990, when Presidents Reagan and Nixon were together, chatting about history, Khachigian kept notes of their conversation, which he reveals in his memoir.

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Ep. 182: David Roll, "Ascent to Power" – Part 2 Sep 03, 2024

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This is the second in a 2-part series with David Roll, a Washington-based attorney, who has written books on Harry Hopkins, George Marshall, and Louis Johnson. Now comes his fourth book, "Ascent to Power," which focuses on Franklin Roosevelt's final days through the sudden transition to the presidency of Harry Truman. Spanning the years 1944-1948, David Roll's newest book looks at the struggles of a relatively unknown Missouri senator, Harry Truman, who had served the U.S. as vice president for only 82 days before FDR's death on April 12, 1945.

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Ep. 181 David Roll, "Ascent to Power" – Part 1 Aug 27, 2024

Show notes

David Roll, a Washington-based attorney, has written books on Harry Hopkins, George Marshall, and Louis Johnson. Now comes his fourth book, "Ascent to Power," which focuses on Franklin Roosevelt's final days through the sudden transition to the presidency of Harry Truman. Spanning the years 1944-1948, David Roll's newest book looks at the struggles of a relatively unknown Missouri senator, Harry Truman, who had served the U.S. as vice president for only 82 days before FDR's death on April 12, 1945. This is the first of a 2-part interview with David Roll. Part two will be posted next week.

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Ep. 180 Tevi Troy, "The Power and the Money" Aug 20, 2024

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Presidential historian Tevi Troy has called his latest book "The Power and the Money: The Epic Clashes Between Commanders in Chief and Titans of Industry." Mr. Troy has spent most of his professional life in and around Washington-based government and politics. He is currently a senior fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center. In the introduction to the book, he writes: "For current and future CEOs, this book can be a guide for how to engage with an increasingly powerful and involved federal government, especially in our era in which both Democrats and Republicans target corporations in their rhetoric and, often, in their policy prescriptions."

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Ep. 179 Maureen Callahan, "Ask Not" Aug 13, 2024

Show notes

Maureen Callahan's book "Ask Not: The Kennedy's and the Women They Destroyed" has been near the top of the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list since its publication in early July. In a review of the Callahan book by Nina Burleigh in the Washington Post, Burleigh writes: "She identifies the wellspring of misogyny in Irish Catholic patriarch Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. in Boston during the Gilded Age, and traces it anecdote by anecdote down through JFK, RFK and Teddy, and the litter of boomer generation men — boys hatched by three Kennedy wives Callahan depicts as humiliated breeders and political props, driven to madness and alcoholism."

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Ep. 178 Richard Brookhiser, "Glorious Lessons" Aug 06, 2024

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Richard Brookhiser has written and edited for National Review magazine for over 50 years. He has also written books about George Washington, James Madison, John Marshall, Alexander Hamilton, and "gentleman revolutionary" Gouverneur Morris. Now comes his latest, "Glorious Lessons: John Trumbull, Painter of the American Revolution." Trumbull, who lived between 1756 and 1843, was most famous for his 4 very large paintings about the Revolutionary War on the walls of the rotunda in the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, DC.

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Ep. 177 Former Washington Post Reporter & Professor Leon Dash Jul 30, 2024

Show notes

Leon Dash spent over 30 years with the Washington Post from 1966 to 1998. In 1995 series on poverty and survival in urban America. Leon Dash spent 4 years following the life of Rosa Lee Cunningham and her 8 children and 5 grandchildren. He appeared on C-SPAN's Booknotes program in November 1996 to discuss his published book, which focused on the underclass in the United States. In the last 26 years, Leon Dash has been a professor of journalism and African American studies at the University of Illinois. We asked him for an update on his original story.

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Ep. 176 Ronald Feinman, "Assassinations, Threats, and the American Presidency" Jul 23, 2024

Show notes

This Booknotes+ podcast is a repeat of a Q&A program from November 4, 2015. The featured guest, Ronald Feinman, is the author of the book "Assassinations, Threats, and the American Presidency," in which he examines attempts on the lives of presidents and presidential candidates throughout history.

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Ep. 175 Nigel West, "Operation Garbo" Jul 16, 2024

Show notes

Rupert William Simon Allason was a Conservative member of the British House of Commons from 1987 and 1997. However, he's best known around the world as Nigel West, military historian and journalist specializing in security and intelligence matters. During the recent commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landings, Nigel West's name surfaced in relation to his 1985 book on Agent Garbo, the personal story of who, some say, was the most successful double agent of World War II. The agent's real name was Juan Pujol.

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