William Arthur Galston has been a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution since 2006 and a columnist for the Wall Street Journal for the past 12 years. In the first paragraph of his latest 161-page book, he tells us what the book is about: "This book advances this proposition that what I call the dark passions - anger, hatred, humiliation, resentment, fear, and the drive for domination - fuels today's attacks on liberal democracy." Galston also says, "persuasive public speech is the main way demagogues mobilize these passions to pursue power." The name of the book is "Anger, Fear, Domination."

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

White House Historical Association president Stewart McLaurin, author of "The People's House Miscellany," talks about the history of the White House and White House-related trivia. He also discusses the changes that presidents and first ladies have made to the White House's interior and exterior going back to President Thomas Jefferson.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week on After Words — Pulitzer Prize–winning New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd discusses her new book, Notorious, with CNN Chief Political Analyst David Axelrod. In the book, Dowd profiles some of the most talked-about figures from Hollywood, Silicon Valley, and American culture. Their conversation was recorded at the 2025 Printers Row Lit Fest in Chicago.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Author David Grann joins David M. Rubenstein to discuss his books including "Killers of the Flower Moon" and "The Wager" and visits the vault of the Folger Shakespeare Library.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Retired George Mason University history professor, Peter Henriques, starts off his author's note writing: "If anyone had told me in the summer of 2023 that I would be writing one more book on George Washington, I would have expressed extreme skepticism." In Episode 6 of this Booknotes+ podcast series in 2021, Professor Henriques told us the same thing. But at 88 years old, he's back with another book on our first president, titled "George Washington: His Quest for Honor and Fame." In the afterward of the book, Peter Henriques puts a special emphasis on George Washington and slavery.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Journalist Boyce Upholt talks about the history and geography of the Mississippi River and human attempts to control it going back to the Founding Era. He discusses how government-built levees, dikes, and dams have transformed the landscape and ecosystem along the 2,340-mile-long Mississippi and the impact that commerce, floods, and pollution have had on the population along its banks.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Pulitzer Prize winner Stacy Schiff joins David M. Rubenstein to discuss her biographies of Cleopatra, Benjamin Franklin and Samuel Adams before visiting the vault of the National Archives to view the Treaty of Paris and other priceless documents.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Eric Trump, executive vice president of the Trump Organization, talked about growing up as a Trump and his family's involvement in business and politics. This event was held at the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In September 1975, 17 days apart, two women, one in Sacramento and the other in San Francisco, attempted to assassinate President Gerald Ford. The first attempt on September the 5th came from Annette Squeaky Fromm. The Charles Manson follower spent over 30 years in prison, is out on parole, and is 76 years old. The other attempt came on the non-entrance side of St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco on September the 24th, 1975. The shooter, Sara Jane Moore, served 32 years in prison and died almost 50 years to the day on September the 24th, 2025. Author Jerry Spieler wrote the book "Housewife Assassin" in 2009. She talked to and exchanged letters with Sara Jane Moore on several occasions. Here's her up-to-date story about the woman who tried to kill President Ford.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In his memoir, "Who Knew," media mogul Barry Diller talks about his career in television and Hollywood, and about his personal life and longtime relationship with fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg. Mr. Diller has been an executive at ABC and head of Paramount Pictures and 20th Century Fox (where he created the Fox television network). While at ABC in the mid-1970s, Mr. Diller was responsible for creating the Movie of the Week and the television miniseries, including "Roots."

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices