Cross-Examining History

Cross-Examining History is a podcast featuring interviews with the country’s leading historians conducted by nationally prominent interrogator Talmage Boston, author of Cross-Examining History: A Lawyer Gets Answers from the Experts About Our Presidents. He examines American history through the highly entertaining process of asking insightful questions that inspire his subjects to tell their best stories and provide their most important commentary about their best-selling books’ subjects.

The Zealot and the Emancipator: John Brown, Abraham Lincoln, and the Struggle for American Freedom

From the acclaimed historian and bestselling author: a page-turning account of the epic struggle over slavery as embodied by John Brown and Abraham Lincoln—two men moved to radically different acts to confront our nation’s gravest sin. […Learn More]

Path Lit by Lightning: The Life of Jim Thorpe

Jim Thorpe rose to world fame as a mythic talent who excelled at every sport. He won gold medals in the decathlon and pentathlon at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics, was an All-American football player at the Carlisle Indian School, the star of the first class of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and played major league baseball for John McGraw’s New York Giants. Even in a golden age of sports celebrities, he was one of a kind. […Learn More]

Lincoln and the Fight for Peace

A groundbreaking, revelatory history of Abraham Lincoln’s plan to secure a just and lasting peace after the Civil War—a vision that inspired future presidents as well as the world’s most famous peacemakers, including Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. It is a story of war and peace, race and reconciliation. […Learn More]

Wastelands: The True Story of Farm Country on Trial

The once idyllic coastal plain of North Carolina is home to a close-knit, rural community that for more than a generation has battled the polluting practices of large-scale farming taking place in its own backyard. After years of frustration and futility, an impassioned cadre of local residents, led by a team of intrepid and dedicated lawyers, filed a lawsuit against one of the world’s most powerful companies—and, miraculously, they won. […Learn More]

The Inevitability of Tragedy: Henry Kissinger and His World

A new portrait of Henry Kissinger focusing on the fundamental ideas underlying his policies: Realism, balance of power, and national interest.

Few public officials have provoked such intense controversy as Henry Kissinger. During his time in the Nixon and Ford administrations, he came to be admired and hated in equal measure. Notoriously, he believed that foreign affairs ought to be based primarily on the power relationships of a situation, not simply on ethics. […Learn More]

Mercury Rising: John Glenn, John Kennedy, and the New Battleground of the Cold War

A riveting history of the epic orbital flight that put America back into the space race.

If the United States couldn’t catch up to the Soviets in space, how could it compete with them on Earth? That was the question facing John F. Kennedy at the height of the Cold War―a perilous time when the Soviet Union built the wall in Berlin, tested nuclear bombs more destructive than any in history, and beat the United States to every major milestone in space. The race to the heavens seemed a race for survival―and America was losing. […Learn More]

The Presidents vs. the Press: The Endless Battle between the White House and the Media–from the Founding Fathers to Fake News

An award-winning presidential historian offers an authoritative account of American presidents’ attacks on our freedom of the press.

“The FAKE NEWS media,” Donald Trump has tweeted, “is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!” Has our free press ever faced as great a threat? Perhaps not—but the tension between presidents and journalists is as old as the republic itself. […Learn More]

American Moonshot: John F. Kennedy and the Great Space Race

As the fiftieth anniversary of the first lunar landing approaches, the award winning historian and perennial New York Times bestselling author takes a fresh look at the space program, President John F. Kennedy’s inspiring challenge, and America’s race to the moon.
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First: Sandra Day O’Connor

The intimate, inspiring, and authoritative biography of Sandra Day O’Connor, America’s first female Supreme Court justice, drawing on exclusive interviews and first-time access to Justice O’Connor’s archives. She was born in 1930 in El Paso and grew up on a cattle ranch in Arizona. At a time when women were expected to be homemakers, she set her sights on Stanford University. When she graduated near the top of her law school class in 1952, no firm would even interview her. […Learn More]

Eleanor

It has been a long time coming for a new biography of Eleanor Roosevelt—even as there have been some great ones, and Roosevelt herself was prolific—but one that can speak to new research and new perspectives is cause for delight. Roosevelt was dynamic, driven and creative, intelligent and empathic, funny and thoughtful. No less than remarkable was her ability to listen to voices of experience, of those in power and those without, and to transform and advocate to meet need as it was presented. Michealis reminds us how relevant and exciting she remains. […Learn More]