KPFA - Letters and Politics
Letters & Politics seeks to explore the history behind today’s major global and national news stories. Hosted by Mitch Jeserich.
Episodes
July 31, 2025 • 38 mins
A look at burning political issues and debates and their historical context within the US and worldwide, hosted by Mitch Jeserich.
The post Letters and Politics – July 31, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.
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July 30, 2025 • 5 mins
Guest: Ann Schmiesing is professor of German and Scandinavian studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. She is the author of Disability, Deformity, and Disease in the Grimms’ Fairy Tales and most lately, The Brothers Grimm: A Biography.
The post The Story Behind the Grimm Brothers’ Tales appeared first on KPFA.
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July 29, 2025 • 59 mins
Guest: Emily Hauser is a senior lecturer in classics and ancient history at the University of Exeter, UK. She is the author of three novels reimagining the women of Greek myth: For the Most Beautiful, For the Winner, and For the Immortal. She is also the author of How Women Became Poets, and most recently, of Penelope’s Bones: A New History of Homer’s World through the Women Written Out of It.
The post Women in Ancient History: Pe...
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July 28, 2025 • 59 mins
Guest: Laura Spinney is a science journalist and the author of Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World and most recently, Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global.
The post The Origins of the Proto-Indo-Europeans appeared first on KPFA.
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July 24, 2025 • 59 mins
Guest: Laurence Rees is an award-winning English historian and documentary filmmaker. He has authored several books including The Holocaust: A New History, Hitler and Stalin, Auschwitz: A New History, and his latest, The Nazi Mind: Twelve Warnings from History.
The post Understanding the Psychology of Nazis appeared first on KPFA.
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July 23, 2025 • 59 mins
Guest: Andrew Hartman is professor of history at Illinois State University. He is the author of A War for the Soul of America: A History of the Culture Wars, Education and the Cold War: The Battle for the American School, and his latest, Karl Marx in America.
The post Karl Marx in America appeared first on KPFA.
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July 22, 2025 • 11 mins
Guest: Clay Risen is a historian and a reporter and editor at The New York Times. He is the author of several books including The Crowded Hour, a New York Times Notable Book of 2019, and his latest, Red Scare: Blacklists, McCarthyism, and the Making of Modern America.
The post Red Scare: The Early Years appeared first on KPFA.
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July 21, 2025 • 59 mins
Guest: Kelsy Burke is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She is the author of The Pornography Wars: The Past, Present, and Future of America’s Obscene Obsession.
The post The Pornography Wars appeared first on KPFA.
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July 17, 2025 • 1 min
Guest: Naomi Oreskes is professor of the history of science at Harvard University. Her books include, The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future, Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming, and her latest with historian of science and technology Erik Conway, The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free ...
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July 16, 2025 • 59 mins
Guest: George Monbiot is an author, journalist, and environmental campaigner. His books include Feral, Heat, Regenesis, and his latest, Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism co-authored with Peter Hutchison.
George Monbiot and Peter Hutchison also co-produced the film Invisible Doctrine.
The post George Monbiot on The Secret History of Neoliberalism appeared first on KPFA.
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July 15, 2025 • 6 mins
Guest: Michael Hudson is President of The Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends (ISLET) and a Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. He is the author of several books including Super-Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire, ...and forgive them their debts, and The Collapse of Antiquity.
The post The Fall of Roman Societies appeared first on KPFA.
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July 14, 2025 • 42 mins
Guest: Andrew Delbanco author of The War Before the War: Fugitive Slaves and the Struggle for America’s Soul from the Revolution to the Civil War.
The post The Fugitive Slave Act appeared first on KPFA.
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July 10, 2025 • 44 mins
Guest: Will Potter is an award-winning investigative journalist who focuses on social justice and environmental movements, and attacks on civil liberties post-9/11. He is the author of Green Is the New Red: An Insider’s Account of a Social Movement Under Siege and his latest, Little Red Barns: Hiding the Truth, from Farm to Fable.
The post The Power of Agricultural Industry appeared first on KPFA.
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July 9, 2025 • 59 mins
Guest: Laura Spinney is a science journalist and the author of Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World and most recently, Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global.
The post The Proto-Indo-Europeans appeared first on KPFA.
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July 8, 2025 • 59 mins
Guest: Yaacov Yadgar is the Stanley Lewis Professor of Israel Studies at the University of Oxford and the author of several books including Israel’s Jewish Identity Crisis: State and Politics in the Middle East, and his latest To Be a Jewish State: Zionism as the New Judaism.
The post What it Means for Israel To Be a Jewish State appeared first on KPFA.
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July 7, 2025 • 59 mins
Guest: Mary Beard is a renown classist and the author of the best-selling The Fires of Vesuvius, SPQR, and most lately, Emperor of Rome: Ruling the Ancient Roman World.
The post The Nature of Imperial Power with Mary Beard appeared first on KPFA.
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Host Mitch Jeserich brings live analysis about the voting procedures of the megabill in the House of Representatives while Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries delivers a marathonic speech that stalled the final vote for more than 8 hours claiming that allotting only one hour of debate on the content of a 900 pages bill was not enough. He decided to take his “sweet time” to compensate the lack of discussion on the bill.
Phot...
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July 2, 2025 • 12 mins
Guest: John Nichols is the national affairs correspondent for The Nation Magazine. He is the author of several books including his latest co-written with Senator Bernie Sanders “It’s OK to Be Angry About Capitalism.” His latest article in the Nation is: Thom Tillis Figured Out How to Tell the Truth in Trump’s GOP Cult: Quit.
Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
The post Analysis of the Latest Version of Trump’s Megabill appeared ...
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July 1, 2025 • 59 mins
I. A Perspective on Zohran Mamdani’s Campaign
Guest: India Walton is former Democratic candidate for mayor in Buffalo who won the Democratic primary 2021 but the party turned against her and helped re-elect the incumbent mayor through a write in campaign. She is now the senior strategist for the national activist group Roots Action in Buffalo.
II. Capitalism’s Critics
Guest: John Cassidy is a journalist at The New Yorker and a fr...
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I. The Big Beautiful Bill in the Senate
Host Mitch Jeserich gives his opinion of the so called “Big Beautiful Bill” currently in the Senate
II. Supreme Court’s Undoing Universal Injunctions
Guest: Erwin Chemerinsky is the dean of the law school at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of many books on constitutional law including his latest, No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United S...
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