Mrs. Engels, First Lady of the Communist Revolution
Author Gavin McCrea knew he didn’t want his first book to be a highly researched historical novel — but then he read about Lizzie Burns. "Mrs. Engels" is the debut novel McCrea never anticipated: a...
View ArticleHow the West Was...Lost?
It’s said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions…But does that apply to the leaders of powerful countries? What if programs that were intended to help Americans — things like pensions,...
View ArticleLost and Found In Russia
Susan Richards looks at the transformation of Russia after the fall of communism. Lost and Found in Russia: Lives in the Post-Soviet Landscape reveals how the history of contemporary Russia is a...
View ArticleFormer Teen CIA Recruit on The Bay of Pigs
In the Spring of 1960, the CIA began a covert plan to overthrow the Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro. The idea was to invade Cuba in a coup d’etat. There were already counter-revolutionary forces in...
View ArticleRemembering US Foreign Policy and the Bay of Pigs
Fifty years ago this weekend, the Central Intelligence Agency launched a covert attack on Cuba in what became known as The Bay of Pigs. The three day assault, which was carried out under the auspices...
View ArticleCuba Appoints Non-Castro to Communist Party
Cuba made significant changes to its leadership on Tuesday, appointing someone other than a member of the Castro family to the second-highest position in the Communist Party. Raul Castro was named...
View ArticleEstimating Chinese Holdings of US Debt
China celebrates its 90th year of Communist rule today; but in the background, the nation is playing deeply capitalist games with international debts. China owns a large portion of US debt, but a...
View ArticleThe Secret History of FBI Counterintelligence
Since its founding, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has grappled with how to balance personal liberty and national security. The bureau grew exponentially in the years following World War I, as the...
View ArticleNewly Released Files Reveal Controversy Over Chaplin's Knighthood
Charlie Chaplin's contributions to the eighth art are indisputable. His most famous character, The Tramp, entertained millions and has influenced both "serious" actors and physical comedians for almost...
View Article40th Anniversary of Nixon's Visit to China
After 22 years of mutual isolation and hostility, it was the trip that transformed the world. From February 21-28, 1972, U.S. president Richard Nixon met with Chairman Mao Zedong and Premier Zhou...
View ArticleDeath of British Businessman in China Declared a Murder
A blockbuster scandal has surfaced in Beijing as the Communist Party attempts to pass the political torch to new leaders. The death of a British businessman in a Chongqing hotel room was declared a...
View ArticleFiguring Out What is Going on in China
China is having a difficult time keeping critical and controversial comments about the Chinese Communist party from circulating on the Internet. This time the source of the problem is the people of...
View ArticleSon of Bo Xilai Disappears from Harvard
The son of Bo Xilai, who attends Harvard University in Cambridge Massachusetts, has gone missing. This latest development comes after Xilai was ousted from the Communist Party's inner circle and his...
View ArticleSvetlana Alliluyeva's Graceful Defection from the Soviet Union
In this recording from April 26, 1967, Svetlana Alliluyeva, the daughter of Joseph Stalin, fields a variety of questions from the New York press after leaving her homeland. "I feel like Valentina...
View ArticleInspiration Strikes After Tragedy: Alfred Kazin on His New Yorker Trilogy
Starting Out in the Thirties (1965), the second installment of Kazin's New Yorker Trilogy, had just been published when he gave this brief talk on the genesis of his artistic motivation at a 1965 Books...
View ArticleBig Stars
Jack Black talks about his career in movies, music, and his latest role in the film "Bernie." Then Pulitzer Prize-winner Anne Applebaum gives a glimpse behind the iron curtain, and reveals how...
View ArticleLife Behind the Iron Curtain, 1944–56
Pulitzer Prize-winner Anne Applebaum discusses how Communism took over Eastern Europe after World War II and transformed the individuals who came under its sway. Her history Iron Curtain: The Crushing...
View ArticleA Son's Apology for the Communist Blacklists
William 'Willie' Wilkerson III, the son of Hollywood Reporter founder Billy Wilkerson took it upon himself to write an article apologizing for his father's role in the blacklists. Brooke talks to...
View ArticleA Catalyst in the Hollywood Blacklist
The Hollywood Reporter celebrated its 65th anniversary by publishing a feature story on its founder Billy Wilkerson's role in launching the Hollywood blacklists. Brooke talks to Hollywood Reporter...
View ArticleJames Fallows on China's Business Environment
James Fallows, national correspondent for The Atlantic, and author of China Airborne, talks about the idea that some Chinese business people and intellectuals, including some with strong U.S. ties,...
View ArticleHarrison Salisbury, The Reporter as Witness to the Truth
In this March 1, 1988 talk, Harrison Salisbury, a giant of 20th century journalism, explains that a newsperson’s obligation is to report an event “to convey the essence of what happened and why it’s...
View ArticleCold War Corn Diplomacy, from "Green Acres"
Cold War Corn Diplomacy, from "Green Acres"
View ArticleChicago Symphony Plans to Broadcast Concerts in China
Chicago’s WFMT-FM is reportedly on the verge of a deal to broadcast Chicago Symphony Orchestra concerts in China, joining a group of three other major American orchestras that recently began airing...
View ArticleWhy the Opening Between Cuba and the U.S.?
Why are Cuba and the U.S. restoring diplomatic relations? Journalist Ann Louise Bardach says Cuba desperately needs to open up its economy now that its patron, Venezuela, can no longer play the role of...
View ArticleBaseball Diplomacy
Rumors are flying that we'll see a Major League baseball game in Havana next year. But that doesn't account for the thorny problem of Cuban defectors now playing in America, or the crumbling...
View ArticleLife as a Cuban Tour Guide
Tour guides get paid more than surgeons in Cuba. Why? Tips from foreigners, especially Americans. Rosa Ricardo describes her life as a tour guide.
View ArticleChuck Norris Karate Chops Through the Iron Curtain
Director Ilinca Calugareanu talks about her new film, “Chuck Norris vs. Communism” which looks at how Hollywood action movies offered Romanians living behind the Iron Curtain a glimpse into Western...
View ArticleFor Cuba's Political Dissidents, Baseball is No Bridge to Diplomacy
President Obama wrapped up his trip to Cuba by taking in an exhibition game between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Cuban national team in a dolled up stadium in Havana.It was a bonding moment over baseball...
View ArticleLenin's Family History According to the Soviet Union
A Bedtime Story from Radio Moscow, might be the more apt title of this 1963 program, rather than "Lenin's Family." Never broadcast on WNYC (it was labeled "Prop" for Propaganda and relegated to the...
View ArticleI Am Twenty: Soviet New Wave Filmmaking in the Khrushchev Thaw
The film I Am Twenty (Mne dvadtsat' let), directed by Marlen Khutsiev, follows Sergei, a young man recently returned home from serving in the military. He reconnects with his friends only to find that...
View ArticleVietnam’s new economy and old culture drawing back children of U.S. immigrants
Watch Video | Listen to the AudioJUDY WOODRUFF: We return now to Vietnam.Relations between the United States and its former enemy have warmed since the end of the war more than 40 years ago. Now some...
View ArticleGloria Estefan's Journey to Broadway, Artist Issa Ibrahim on 20 Years at a...
Artist Issa Ibrahim details the 20 years he spent at Creedmoor Psychiatric Hospital and the long, painful road to rehabilitation in The Hospital Always Wins. Journalist Gail Pellett talks about her...
View ArticleA Canadian Journalist Clashed with Politics and Suspicion at Radio Beijing in...
Journalist Gail Pellett was hired by Radio Beijing in 1980 as a “foreign expert” for her experience in American-Canadian broadcast journalism. In her memoir Forbidden Fruit - 1980, the writer, director...
View ArticleRussia's Shift from Gorbachev's Freedom to Putin's Authoritarianism
Arkady Ostrovsky, Russia and East European editor for The Economist, examines the struggle between Russian reformers and nationalists and gives an inside look at Valdimir Putin's 16-year reign in The...
View ArticleWhat's it Like to Visit North Korea as a Tourist?
Wendy Simmons, a photographer and founder/president of PR firm Vendeloo, details the 10 days she spent as a tourist in North Korea in My Holiday in North Korea: The Funniest Worst Place on Earth. She...
View ArticleThe American Who Spied for Stalin
Kati Marton, author and a former correspondent for ABC and NPR, discusses her latest book, True Believer: Stalin's Last American Spy, which tells the story of Noel Field, an American who spied for...
View ArticleThe Heyday of the American Communist Party
Director and producer Richard Wormser discusses his film “American Reds,” a documentary that tells the story of the American Communist Party between 1930 and 1960. During that period, more than one...
View ArticleReds
‘Reds,’ Warren Beatty’s improbable epic saga about the Leftist American journalist John Reed, was released 35 years ago, just as a generation of early 20th century activists was aging. Beatty’s film...
View ArticleUnder the Wall
In 1961, when the Berlin Wall was first constructed, it divided the city into the Allied-controlled West and Soviet-controlled East. With each passing day, East Berliners sensed their dwindling...
View ArticleThe Terminal Bar
TTBOOK producer Charles Monroe-Kane is a great storyteller who's led an adventurous life. Here's a wild story from his memoir "Lithium Jesus" about smuggling mob money when he lived in Prague in the...
View ArticleThe Birth of "McCarthyism"
Senator Joseph McCarthy rails against former president Harry Truman in this 1953 speech. Truman, McCarthy claims, has been popularizing "McCarthyism," a term coined by the Communist Party paper The...
View ArticleEleanor Roosevelt's Trip to Russia
"All I can do is tell you how it looked to me," the former First Lady tells her audience in this charmingly plain-spoken account of her 1957 visit to the Soviet Union. Neither a dupe nor a mindless...
View ArticleWorld reacts to death of communist leader Fidel Castro
Watch Video | Listen to the AudioRead the full transcript below.LISA DESJARDINS, PBS NEWSHOUR WEEKEND: Fidel Castro ruled the island of Cuba with an iron fist for almost half a century, handing power...
View ArticleHow Fidel Castro maintained a communist stronghold
Watch Video | Listen to the AudioRead the full transcript below.LISA DESJARDINS, PBS NEWSHOUR WEEKEND ANCHOR: For More on Fidel Castro’s foothold in history and what it means now, I’m joined here in...
View ArticleFidel Castro, who led Cuba for a half-century, dies at 90
Watch Video | Listen to the AudioRead the full transcript below.HARI SREENIVASAN, PBS NEWSHOUR WEEKEND: His communist revolution outlasted 10 American presidencies and withstood half a century of...
View ArticleHow Fidel Castro’s death marks a new era for Cuba
Watch Video | Listen to the AudioJOHN YANG: The last two years have seen a thaw in U.S.-Cuban relations. But could the death of Fidel Castro and the election of Donald Trump jeopardize the warming...
View ArticleCuban attitudes toward Castro range from devout to cynical
Watch Video | Listen to the AudioJUDY WOODRUFF: But first: In Cuba, a procession with Fidel Castro’s ashes is approaching the city of Santiago, where the dictator, who died last Friday, began his...
View ArticleNew museum pays homage to the best of communist-era kitsch
A gilded clock and plaster pig are among the items at the new Kitsch Museum in Bucharest, Romania. Photo by Daniel Mihailescu/AFP/Getty ImagesSay what you will about the garish porcelain and misguided...
View ArticleCarter national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski dies
WASHINGTON — Jimmy Carter had been impressed with the views of foreign policy expert Zbigniew Brzezinski well before he won the presidency in 1977. That he immediately liked the Polish-born academic...
View ArticleThe Messaging War on Single-Payer Healthcare
Recent polls show growing support for the idea of single-payer healthcare, or "Medicare for All," in which the federal government would pay for health insurance using taxpayer funds. Even Democratic...
View Article
More Pages to Explore .....