History Author Show

November 14, 2016 - This week, our time machine may sound like it's taking a sideways journey into the fictional world of Harper Lee's iconic book, To Kill a Mockingbird. We touch down in 1930's Alabama, and find a small town rocked when a black man is charged with raping a white woman. Only one local lawyer dares to defend the accused. That man was Foster Beck, and his son, Joseph Madison Beck, joins us to tell this eerily familiar tale.

Mr. Beck's book is My Father & Atticus Finch: A Lawyer's Fight for Justice in 1930s Alabama. Like his father, Joseph Madison Beck practices law. He also teaches at Emory Law School, and has lectured at universities throughout the United States and abroad. As you'll read, the evidence against Charles White is thin, but can even Foster Beck's heroic defense and an open-minded judge save him from a death sentence?

Brighten your day.

November 7, 2016 - This week, we bring you our first book in a graphic format, and our first guest time-traveling with us from France. Marcelino Truong is author and illustrator of Such a Lovely Little War: Saigon 1961-63. This graphic memoir shows us America's early involvement in the Vietnam War, through the eyes of young Marcelino, the son of a Vietnamese diplomat and his French-born wife -- whose bipolar disorder adds another dimension of conflict to the family’s life.

You can learn about our guest and enjoy more of his work at MarcelinoTruong.com. Note that his website is in French, but, his illustrations speak to everyone regardless of language.

October 31, 2016 - This week, is Halloween, so we're piling into the Munsters Car, cranking up the Dark Shadows music, and talking about two books that would fit neatly Morticia Addams' nightstand. Our guest is genealogist and author Kathleen Shanahan Maca, who brings us Galveston's Broadway Cemeteries, and Ghosts of Galveston.

One of the oldest cities in Texas, Galveston has suffered many tragedies -- hurricanes, yellow fever, fires, and a major Civil War Battle -- and those who didn't survive, started to fill its cemetery, starting in 1839. It's also why people have a lot of fun with ghost stories, and use people's fascination with things that go bump in the night, to preserve their very real history.

You can visit this week's guest at KathleenMaca.com, follow her @AuthorMaca on Twitter, and like her at Facebook.com/AuthorKathleenShanahanMaca -- which you'll certainly want to do if you enjoy old photographs of this great old Texas town on the Gulf Coast.

October 24, 2016 - This week, with an eye on the upcoming U.S. presidential election, our time machine visits the childhood of the 43 bouncing baby boys who've served in the Oval Office -- which, yes, means changing Grover Cleveland's diaper on two, non-consecutive occasions.

Dr. Harold I. Gullan brings us, Cradles of Power: The Mothers and Fathers of the American Presidents. There have been so many great authors writing about first ladies, including Feather S. Foster, who you heard chat with us about her book, Mary Lincoln's Flannel Pajamas: And Other Stories from the First Ladies' Closet. Yet you'll search in vain to find a book about the mothers and fathers of our presidents. This week's guest, fills that space on our bookshelves.

Hal Gullan earned a master's degree in education from St. Joseph's University and a Ph.D. in history from Temple University. He has previously touched on the subject of molding young minds into leaders in his books, First Fathers: The Men Who Inspired Our Presidents, as well as, Faith of Our Mothers. And, with an eye on Election Day 2016, you might also want to check out his title, The Upset That Wasn't: Harry S. Truman and the Crucial Election of 1948.

October 17, 2016 - This week, our time machine travels back to 1965, where we'll meet Jonathan Daniels -- a white seminary student who answered Rev. Martin Luther King Jr’s call to help with voter registration in Loundes County, Alabama. After the voting rights marches, Daniels remained to assist civil rights workers -- and gave his life saving black teenager Ruby Sales from a shotgun blast. Today, you can find Dr. Sales at The Spirit House, still working for the cause of civil rights.

Rich Wallace and Sandra Neil Wallace -- like Jonathan Daniels -- live in New Hampshire, where they discovered this local hero's sacrifice through his letters, papers, taped interviews, and stunning photographs -- many, never before shared with the public. The result is the book, Blood Brother: Jonathan Daniels and His Sacrifice for Civil Rights.

You've seen Sandra Neil Wallace's work as a news anchor and ESPN sportscaster. Rich Wallace has written over three dozen novels for children and teens, and co-wrote titles such as Babe Conquers the World with Sandra. The Young Adult Library Services Association named his novel Wrestling Sturbridge, one of the 100 Best of the Best for the Twenty-First Century.

You can find our guests at SandraNeilWallace.com and RichWallaceBooks.com, and on Twitter at SandraNWallace and RWallaceBooks.

October 10, 2016 - This week, our time machine returns to the days of the Revolutionary War, and views it through the eyes of Isabel and Curzon, two of the African-American children held in slavery. Laurie Halse Anderson's trilogy, The Seeds of America, includes the books Chains, Forge, and the just-released blistering conclusion, Ashes.

Laura Halse Anderson is a New York Times-bestselling author who has earned numerous American Library Association and state awards. Not only did she talk about her own writing, but she shared her passion for inspiring young people to love history, and gave advice on how they can get their work published.

Chains was a National Book Award finalists, and also made the Carnegie Medal Shortlist in the U.K. You can enjoy her blogging at MadWomanInTheForest.com, and link up with her on Twitter, Facebook, etc. If you enjoy The Seeds of America Trilogy, you may check out our previous interview with Chris Stevenson on his book, The Drum of Destiny, which views the revolution through an orphaned indentured servant, who dreams of joining the Patriot Army.

October 3, 2016 - This week, our time machine has a familiar face in the passenger seat. It's Paul Kahan, who joined us previously to discuss The Bank War: Andrew Jackson, Nicholas Biddle, and the Fight for American Finance. You can catch that interview at History Author.com or wherever you're listening now, and you enjoy the video we produced illustrating the political and journalistic changes occurring at the time of the Bank War.

Paul joins us again to discuss his latest work, Amiable Scoundrel: Simon Cameron, Lincoln's Scandalous Secretary of War. From abject poverty to undisputed political boss of Pennsylvania -- no easy feat in the notoriously fractious Keystone State -- Simon Cameron served as senator, and ultimately Abraham Lincoln's Secretary of War as the nation tore itself apart over slavery, at the outset of the Civil War.

You can visit this week's guest at PaulKahan.com, or follow him on Twitter @Paul_Kahan, and check out his subject at the The John Harris – Simon Cameron Mansion in Harrisburg, PA.

September 26, 2016 - This week, our time machine spins us back to Boer War in the twilight of the 19th Century, when the republics that preceded today's South Africa fought the British Empire over gold and diamonds. While there, we'll see a familiar face from World War Two forty years later. The name Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill invokes the balding, cigar-chomping, British bulldog who stared down Hitler across the English Channel. So it's easy to forget that he was a soldier once, and young.

Distinguished author Candice Millard introduces us to this Churchill as he puts his foot on the first rung of the ladder to greatness in Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, a Daring Escape, and the Making of Winston Churchill. Her previous books are best-sellers The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey, and Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President, covering the man the President James A. Garfield National Historic Site described in our very first episode as, "The greatest president we never had."

Visit CandiceMillard.com and follow this week's guest @Candice_Millard on Twitter.

If you're fascinated by Churchill, catch our interview with Jonathan Sandys, Churchill's great-grandson and the host of Churchill Chat. His book is God & Churchill: How the Great Leader's Sense of Divine Destiny Changed His Troubled World and Offers Hope for Ours. You can also listen to our discussion with Simon Read, author of Winston Churchill Reporting: Adventures of a Young War Correspondent.

September 19, 2016 - This week, our time machine makes a return visit to 1870s, to check back in on Union Pacific Railroad tycoon Dr. Thomas C. Durant, and his children, William and Ella. We first met the Durants when we chatted about Sheila Myers' novel, Imaginary Brightness, as they had their comfortable lives in London shattered by a Gilded Age economic panic.

Book 2, Castles in the Air, finds William Durant as the uneasy head of the diminished family fortune. As he struggles to restore it in New York's Adirondack Mountains, Ella flees to London to pursue her life as a writer -- and to be pursued by a mysterious French count (or at least he says he's a count).

If you'd like to meet the Durants, you can pick up Castles in the Air for 2.99¢ on Kindle.

You can follow Sheila Myers on Twitter @SheilaMMyers, or visit her at WWDurantStory.com.

September 12, 2016 - It's important to actually walk the earth where a given historical event occurred. This week, we'll do just that at the Paoli Battlefield Historical Park & Paoli Memorial Grounds, just under an hour west of Philadelphia. Our guide is Jim Christ, vice president of the Paoli Battlefield Preservation Fund.

The Battle of Paoli, also called "The Paoli Massacre," unfolded at midnight on September 20 to 21, 1777. After General George Washington's defeat at Brandywine on September 11th, his forces retreated toward Philadelphia to regroup, and he ordered General Anthony Wayne to harass the British. But the attempt failed, and the result was the 9th deadliest battle in the American Revolutionary War.

You can surf this unique historic destination on the web at PBPFinc.org, or by following @PaoliBattle on Twitter. You can also like the Paoli Battlefield Historical Park's page on Facebook.