Podcast Leonard Lopate At Large On WBAI Radio In New York

For more than a century, Dr. J. Marion Sims was hailed as the “father of modern gynecology.” He founded a hospital in New York City and had a profitable career treating gentry and royalty in Europe, becoming one of the world’s first celebrity surgeons. Statues were built in his honor, but he wasn’t the hero he had made himself appear to be.Sims’s g…

The Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA) is one of the most cherished and reviled laws ever passed. It mandates protection and preservation of all the nation’s species and biodiversity, whatever the cost. It has been a lightning rod for controversy and conflicts between industry/business and environmentalists.Lowell E. Baier’s intellectual curiosit…

In these stories of struggle and hope, as one volunteer said, “you see the American story.” For some families, minor mistakes create catastrophes—food stamps cut off, educational opportunities missed, benefits lost. Other families, with the help of volunteers and social supports, escape these traps and take steps toward reaching their dreams. Engag…

DAVID SCHENCK is the former Director of the Ethics Program, Medical University of South Carolina, and was on the faculty of the Center for Biomedical Ethics and Society, Vanderbilt University Medical Center.A leader on ethics in healthcare and a long-time hospice volunteer, David Schenck is familiar with feeling overwhelmed and helpless while tryin…

A “problem of twelve” arises when a small number of institutions acquire the means to exert outsized influence over the politics and economy of a nation.According to Harvard law professor John Coates, the Big Four index funds of Vanguard, State Street, Fidelity, and BlackRock control more than twenty percent of the votes of S&P 500 companies—a conc…

Award-winning journalist and Regular Contributor Bob Hennelly has a passion for uncovering the News behind the News. Born in Paterson, New Jersey, he has always had a keen interest in the roles of immigration, local politics, business, labor unions, real estate ownership, and environmental protection in the evolution of the United States.For more t…

As we celebrate 50 years in Hip Hop, ILLMATIC CONSEQUENCES combines social science and hip-hop studies to address disinformation and propaganda that distorted political discourse after the 2020 election. In this text, scholars and activists come together to clap back on the lies that animated attacks at local school boards and the January 6, 2021, …

In this powerful and deeply felt memoir of translation, storytelling, and borders, Alejandra Oliva, a Mexican-American translator and immigrant justice activist, offers a powerful chronical of her experience interpreting at the US-Mexico border.Having worked with asylum seekers since 2016, she knows all too well the gravity of taking someone's trau…

More than twenty years ago, 9/11 and the war in Afghanistan set into motion a hugely consequential shift in America’s foreign policy: a perpetual state of war that is almost entirely invisible to the American public. War Made Invisible, by the journalist and political analyst Norman Solomon, exposes how this happened, and what its consequences are,…

Tenants in rent-stabilized apartments will see rent increases in the coming year lower than worst-case scenarios, following a Rent Guidelines Board preliminary this past Spring.Join us when Altagracia Pierre-Outerbridge, founder and owner of New York city-based law firm Outerbridge Law P.C. who’s practice is focused on landlord-tenant litigation an…

With Homelessness in NYC being such a pervasive issue today's guest, former Commissioner of Mental Health Dr. Robert Okin covers the two years he spent on the street meeting and photographing homeless individuals with mental illness to find answers to many questions such as: How do they end up on the street? How do they survive the stress and priva…

Christopher Miller, the Ukraine correspondent for the Financial Times and the foremost journalist covering the country, was there on the ground when the first Russian missiles struck and troops stormed over the border. But the seeds of Russia's war against Ukraine and the West were sown more than a decade earlier.The War Came To Us is the definitiv…

The 1968 presidential race was a contentious battle between vice president Hubert Humphrey, Republican Richard Nixon, and former Alabama governor George Wallace. The United States was reeling from the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy and was bitterly divided on the Vietnam War and domestic issues, including civil rig…

The Story of Russia is a peek into the thousand years of Russia’s history, concerned as much with the ideas that have shaped how Russians think about their past as it is with the events and personalities comprising it. No other country has reimagined its own story so often, in a perpetual effort to stay in step with the shifts of ruling ideologies.…

In 1967, David Rothenberg produced a play called Fortune and Men’s Eyes that revealed the horrors of life in prison. This inspired him to establish The Fortune Society (Fortune). In its 50 years, Fortune has become one of the leading reentry service organizations in the country, serving nearly 7,000 formerly incarcerated individuals per year, provi…

Sean A. Mirski a lawyer and U.S. foreign policy scholar who has worked on national security issues across multiple U.S. presidential administrations ask, What did it take for the United States to become a global superpower? He suggest the answer lies in a missing chapter of American foreign policy with stark lessons for todayIn We May Dominate the …

It’s one of the iconic photographs of American history: A Black teenager, a policeman and his lunging German Shepherd. Birmingham, Alabama, May of 1963. In May of 2020, as reporter Paul Kix stared at a different photo–that of a Minneapolis police officer suffocating George Floyd–he kept returning to the other photo taken half a century earlier, hau…

Join us today when award-winning journalist and Regular Contributor Bob Hennelly shares his passion for bringing real news. Born in Paterson, New Jersey, he has always had a keen interest in the roles of immigration, local politics, business, labor unions, real estate ownership, and environmental protection in the evolution of the United States.For…

According to renowned advocate for children’s welfare and juvenile justice Jane M. Spinak, at the turn of the twentieth century, American social reformers created the first juvenile court. They imagined a therapeutic court where informality, specially trained public servants, and a kindly, all-knowing judge would assist children and families. But t…

According to award-winning journalist Jeff Goodell, the world is waking up to a new reality: wildfires are now seasonal in California, the Northeast is getting less and less snow each winter, and the ice sheets in the Arctic and Antarctica are melting fast. Heat is the first order threat that drives all other impacts of the climate crisis. And as t…

Writer, educator, filmmaker, and scholar from Chicago - Dr. Rob Eschmann writes on educational inequality, community violence, racism, social media, and youth wellbeing.His research seeks to uncover individual, group, and intuitional-level barriers to racial and economic equity, and he pays special attention to the heroic efforts everyday people ma…

Today on Leonard Lopate at Large gardening expert Pete Muroski, founder of Native Landscapes in Pawling, NY returns to share tips and take calls.Pete is a talented landscape designer with a particular affinity toward using material that is indigenous to the specific environment.Join us when Pete touches on current weather patterns, proper pruning t…

Symbols of Freedom is the surprising story of how enslaved people and their allies drew inspiration from the language and symbols of American freedom. Interpreting patriotic words, phrases, and iconography literally, they embraced a revolutionary nationalism that not only justified but generated open opposition. Mindful and proud that theirs was a …

At the height of the John Birch Society’s activity in the 1960s, critics dismissed its members as a paranoid fringe. “Birchers” believed that a vast communist conspiracy existed in America and posed an existential threat to Christianity, capitalism, and freedom. But as historian Matthew Dallek reveals, the Birch Society’s extremism remade American …

Gender Without Identity offers an innovative and at times unsettling theory of gender formation.Rooted in the metapsychology of Jean Laplanche and in conversation with bold work in queer and trans studies, Avgi Saketopoulou and Ann Pellegrini jettison “core gender identity” to propose, instead, that gender is something all subjects acquire -- and t…

New York Times bestselling author Jeffrey Toobin traces the dramatic history and profound legacy of Timothy McVeigh, who once declared, “I believe there is an army out there, ready to rise up, even though I never found it.” But that doesn’t mean his army wasn’t there.With news-breaking reportage, Toobin details how McVeigh’s principles and tactics …

Through decades of direct experience of the People's Republic combined with extraordinary access to hundreds of hitherto unseen documents in communist party archives, the author of The People's Trilogy offers a riveting account of China's rise from the disaster of the Cultural Revolution. Join us when Frank Dikötter takes us inside the country's un…

According to David Neiwert, from right-wing compounds in the Pacific Northwest in the 1970s, to the shocking January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, America has seen the culmination of a long-building war on democracy being waged by a fundamentally violent and antidemocratic far-right movement that unironically calls itself the "Patriot" …

In 1913, an unlikely friendship blossomed between Henry Ford and famed naturalist John Burroughs. When their mutual interest in Ralph Waldo Emerson led them to set out in one of Ford’s Model Ts to explore the Transcendentalist’s New England, the trip would prove to be the first of many excursions that would take Ford and Burroughs, together with an…

New York Times bestselling historian Craig Nelson reveals how FDR confronted an American public disinterested in going to war in Europe, skillfully won their support, and pushed government and American industry to build the greatest war machine in history, “the arsenal of democracy” that won World War II.Join us when Craig Nelson traces how Frankli…

According to Professor Jean Pfaelzer, the very first colonizers who crossed the border of the Golden State were and still are powered by slavery—a piece of American history that many still try to bury.Though unyielding research and vivid interviews, Pfaelzer exposes how California gorged on slavery; its appetite for unfree bodies and unpaid labor p…

The world needs a UN 3.0. The extent and severity of global crises are such that business as usual provides no solution. Roland Rich’s Leviathan describes the necessary next version of the United Nations. It is a confident, The result will allow the UN to tackle the climate crisis, broaden the protection of democracy and human rights, govern global…

The documentary, Elemental: ReimagineWildfire takes viewers on a journey with the top experts from across the nation to better understand wildfire. The film starts with the harrowing escape from Paradise, California as the town ignited from wind-driven embers and burned within a few hours of the fire's start and then continues to recent record shat…

According to the May Werthan Shayne Chair of Public Policy and Social Science at Vanderbilt University - Larry Bartels a seeming explosion of support for right-wing populist parties has triggered widespread fears that liberal democracy is facing its worst crisis since the 1930s. In his latest book Democracy Erodes from the Top - Bartels suggest tha…

Atlases are being redrawn as islands are disappearing. What does an island see when the sea rises? Sea Change: An Atlas of Islands in a Rising Ocean weaves together essays, maps, art, and poetry to show us—and make us see—island nations in a warming world.Low-lying islands are least responsible for global warming, but they are suffering the brunt o…

Have you ever wondered about the correct pronunciation of a word you use all the time. Are there words that you think you’re hearing people mispronounce or misuse all the time? In this installment of “Leonard Lopate at Large” on WBAI, Kathryn and Ross Petras, authors of their New York Times bestseller “You're Saying It Wrong: A Pronunciation Guide …

David Gessner the Bestselling author of thirteen books that blend a love of nature, humor, memoir, and environmentalism asks what kind of planet his daughter will inherit in this coast-to-coast guide to navigating climate crisis.The world is burning and the seas are rising. How do we navigate this new age of extremes? In A Traveler's Guide to the E…

In the Collaborator Ian Buruma gives an account of three near-mythic figures—a Dutch fixer, a Manchu princess, and Himmler’s masseur—who may have been con artists and collaborators under Japanese and German rule, or true heroes, or something in between. All three figures have been vilified and mythologized, out of a never-ending need, Ian Buruma ar…

Join us today when award-winning journalist and Regular Contributor Bob Hennelly shares his passion for bringing real news. Born in Paterson, New Jersey, he has always had a keen interest in the roles of immigration, local politics, business, labor unions, real estate ownership, and environmental protection in the evolution of the United States.For…

In The Watchdog, Steve Drummond draws the reader into the fast-paced story of how Harry Truman, still a newcomer to Washington politics, cobbled together a bipartisan team of men and women that took on powerful corporate entities and the Pentagon, placing Truman in the national spotlight and paving his path to the White House.Join us for the story …

If a scientist’s goal is to deliver content and expertise to the people who need it, then other stakeholder groups―the media, the government, industry―need to be considered as partners to collaborate with in order to solve problems. Written by established scientist Christopher Reddy, who has been on the front lines of several environmental crisis e…

Join us when government policy expert Don Kettl examines the hidden crisis brought on by the end of Title 42A professor emeritus and former dean in the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, shares his perspectivesand why isn’t more being done to help the people streaming across the border? The answers lie in the end of the public h…

Join us when government policy expert Donald Kettl examines the hidden crisis brought on by the end of Title 42A professor emeritus and former dean in the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, shares his perspectivesand why isn’t more being done to help the people streaming across the border? The answers lie in the end of the publi…

In Plunder, Brendan Ballou explains how private equity has reshaped American business by raising prices, reducing quality, cutting jobs, and shifting resources from productive to unproductive parts of the economy. Ballou vividly illustrates how many private equity firms buy up retailers, medical practices, prison services, nursing-home chains, and …

White Power and American Neoliberal Culture speaks to the urgency of the present moment by uncovering and examining the ideologies that led us here. This book argues that white extremist worldviews—and the violence they provoke—have converged with a radical economic and social agenda to shape daily life in the United States, especially by enshrinin…

Guthrie P. Ramsey, Jr., is an award-winning musicologist, music historian, composer, and pianist whose prescient theoretical and critical interventions have bridged Black cultural studies and musicology. Representing twenty-five years of commentary and scholarship, these essays document Ramsey’s search to understand America's Black musical past and…

As early as 1947, Black parents in rural South Carolina began seeking equal educational opportunities for their children. After two unsuccessful lawsuits, these families directly challenged legally mandated segregation in public schools with a third lawsuit in 1950, which was eventually decided in Brown v. Board of Education.Wanda Little Fenimore e…

Chemist, artist, and industrial hygienist, Monona Rossol was born into a theatrical family and worked as a professional entertainer from age 3 to 17. Currently, she is the president of Arts, Crafts and Theater Safety, Inc., a not-for-profit corporation dedicated to providing health and safety services to the arts.Monona is also is the Health and Sa…

When Investigative Journalist Bob Hennelly stops by the show, he unpacks a myriads of topics not mentioned in mainstream media. For example, despite decades of progress in worker safety since the creation of the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration in 1970, there's troubling evidence of deadly backsliding particularly for the natio…

Last week NYC tenants and landlords pleaded their case to the Rent Guidelines Board in a five-hour meeting — with one side asking for a rent freeze and the other for an increase at a scale the city has not seen in years. Tenant leaders testified that high rents and utility costs are already forcing New Yorkers out of their homes, and that any rent …