History Author Show

September 5, 2016 - This week, our time machine turns team bus, as we head back not so far into history, to the late '80s and early '90s, when your humble host was on the football field -- at least at pregame and halftime -- for the Cresskill High School marching band, and as a member of Rutgers University's Marching Scarlet Knights: The Pride of New Jersey.

Rutgers won the very first football game in 1869, but as you know from my chat with John J. Miller, author of The Big Scrum: How Teddy Roosevelt Saved Football -- that game much more closely resembled rugby, with no quarterback or receivers, so therefore no passing. How did we get from that first game to the kickoff of the 2016 regular season, the Sunday after we're uploading this episode?

Well, meet Coaches Hal Mumme and Mike Leach, whose innovations transformed the aerial attack from an intermittent feature of football games, to its primary focus. Our guest is New York Times best-selling author and Pulitzer Prize finalist S.C. Gwynne, author of, The Perfect Pass: American Genius and the Reinvention of Football. You may have caught his previous book, Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion, and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson, or read Empire of the Summer Moon, which recounts the rise and fall of the Comanche.

You can find him online at SCGwynne.com, or by following @SCGwynne on Twitter.

August 29, 2016 - In this episode, our time machine sets sail in the aftermath of World War Two, on a mission to feed the hungry that endures to this day, through Heifer International -- those folks who help you give the gift of livestock. It's a storybook for kids called The Seagoing Cowboy, and it tells the story of the ships that once carried weapons and soldiers, turning to humanitarian cargo: Livestock, farmers, teachers and others, who answered the call to rebuild the devastation.

Our guest is author Peggy Reiff Miller, the granddaughter of one such cowboy, 7,000 men from the ages of 16 to 72 who pitched in under the auspices of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. The Seagoing Cowboy is illustrated by Claire Ewart, and available exclusively through Brethren Press.

You can join the effort to carry on the cowboy's work, at Heifer International by visiting Heifer.org, and learn more about this story, at SeagoingCowboys.com.

Aug 22, 2016 - For this episode, our time machine takes us back to the aftermath of the First World War, where we'll visit a defeated member of the Central Powers that targets ethnic minorities for wholesale slaughter. It's not Nazi Germany, but Ottoman Turkey -- in the final chapter of their genocide against Greeks, Armenians and other Christians, that the nation denies to this day.

Our guest, Lou Ureneck, is a professor at Boston University, and author of Smyrna, September 1922 - The American Mission to Rescue Victims of the 20th Century's First Genocide. His book was published in hardcover as The Great Fire, a fitting title since the term Holocaust itself comes from the Greek words for "whole" and "burned." The cosmopolitan, diverse city of Smyrna is long gone, and Turkey's Izmir built on its ashes. This is the story of how two men -- a low-level YMCA minister and a U.S. Navy officer, bucked the American government and a tide of indifference or outright hatred, to save over a million ethnic Greeks from certain death.

You can learn more about this tale of cruelty and heroism, by visiting SmyrnaFire.com, Facebook.com/LouUreneckAuthor, or following at @LouisUreneck on Twitter. On a personal note, both James and Argyro Karayanis, Dean's grandparents, hailed from this area of Asia Minor, and had their families wiped out by the Islamic Turks, who saw the native inhabitants of Anatolia and others like the Pontian Greeks and Assyrians, as infidels to be treated like -- as Mr. Ureneck describes it -- African-Americans in the Jim Crow South.

Visit the Greek Genocide Resource Center at Greek-Genocide.net for more on this atrocity, and check out the St. Photios Greek Orthodox Shrine in St. Augustine, Florida, founded by Greeks who migrated from Ottoman-occupied Greece in 1768 and founded the New World's first Orthodox Christian settlement: New Smyrna.

We leaned heavily on the genealogy work of Catherine Karayanis in this episode, to piece together the Karayanis Family Tree -- considered an impossible task for most who assume everything as "burned by the Turks." Hellenic listeners in particular may want to check out what's possible thanks to modern DNA technology and resources like Ancestry.com.

And, as a thank you for listening, Cathy and Dean share a favorite recipe from their book, Regional Greek Cooking. It's "Soutsoukakia Smyrnaki," or little sausages (more like meatballs) in the style of Smyrna. The city may be gone, but the history lives on in kitchens and homes all across the globe -- and with the quarter of modern Greeks who chase their roots to "The Catastrophy."

August 15, 2016 - This week, we follow the journey of the men and women who -- in the aftermath of World War Two in Europe -- dedicated themselves to visiting justice upon Hitler's Henchmen. Veteran author and foreign correspondent Andrew Nagorski brings us these stories in The Nazi Hunters, stripping away the myths and caricatures of popular fiction. The book is also an implicit call to action, breathing life into the phrase "Never Again," as the last cogs of the National Socialist Party's bloody legacy, rust away.

You can read his latest articles at AndrewNagorski.com, and check out his previous books. Those include the companion to today's title, Hitlerland: American Eyewitnesses to the Nazi Rise to Power. You can also follow our guest on Twitter @AndrewNagorski, or like his Facebook page.

We also mention the documentary film, Hitler's Children, which you can check for a look into the legacy of those descended from the Third Reich's war criminals.

August 8, 2016 - This week, our time machine whisks us back to meet the great master, Michelangelo: Sculptor, painter, architect, poet, and engineer. He was also the original brooding artist, who for the first time connected the artist to the work, a link we consider essential today.

Our guide is Miles J. Unger, here to explore what the great artist is whispering to us across the centuries with his new book, Michelangelo: A Life in Six Masterpieces. The title calls this great master down from his Renaissance perch on the scaffold and brings him to a more human level, so we can better understand his genius through: the Pietà, the Last Judgment, the David, the Medici tombs, the story of Creation on the Sistine Chapel ceiling, and the soaring dome and vaults of St. Peter's Basilica.

Miles J. Unger currently writes for the Economist, and lived in Florence for five years, deepening his knowledge of Italian culture and language. He also served as Managing Editor of Art New England, and has published in numerous other places including the New York Times. You can learn more about him at Miles J. Unger.com -- that's Miles, the letter J, Unger Dot Com -- or by tossing a like to his Facebook.

August 5, 2016 – Today, we’re going to hear from author, journalist and producer Denise Kiernan. Her latest book is, The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II. Kiernan is the author of several history books, including Signing Their Lives Away: The Fame and Misfortune of the Men Who Signed the Declaration of Independence, and Signing Their Rights Away: The Fame and Misfortune of the Men Who Signed the United States Constitution.

You can follow today's History in 5 Friday author on Twitter @DeniseKiernan, and visit her online at DeniseKiernan.com, or GirlsofAtomicCity.com.

To meet the British counterparts to the Girls of Atomic City -- the code breaking WRENS who cracked the riddle of Hitler's Enigma machine -- visit Bletchley Park Trust online, and subscribe to the Bletchley Park Podcast on iTunes or Audioboom.

And remember to subscribe to the History Author Show on iTunes, like our iHeartRadio page, or make us appointment listening on your Android device, so you don’t miss an installment of History in Five Friday. It’s the perfect way to kick off your modern weekend… with people from the past.

August 3, 2016 - It’s Classical Wisdom Wednesday, presented by Classical Wisdom Weekly. For almost a year now, we've brought you ancient wisdom for modern minds, every Wednesday morning before your first cup of coffee. But today -- the History Author Show's 1st Anniversary, August 3, 2016 -- represents our last midweek installment.

While Van Bryan will lend his voice to future episodes, he's focusing on all the great new content at ClassicalWisdom.com. To keep up to date on the changes there, remember to sign up for their newsletter right here. (Which will also earn you some free gifts!) We want to thank Van for all his contributions, and for giving us the greatest gift of all: The gift of the great ancient thinkers.

Since you no doubt will be negative on losing this midweek dose of wisdom, we figured it was appropriate to make this swansong show about...hate. What is it? Who do we hate? And why? In a modern context, we assume hate to be similar to prejudice. We are all familiar with “hate crimes” and “hate speech”. Aristotle, however, takes something of a contrary view. Hate, he says, can sometimes be quite virtuous.

August 1, 2016 - In this episode, our time machine takes us out to the ballgame, where we'll root, root, root for the Brooklyn Dodgers. The year is 1947, and Dem Bums just signed Jackie Robinson, the first African-American player in Major League History.

Sitting next to us in the 50¢ grandstand seats, is Geoff Griffin, author of the children's book, Brooklyn Bat Boy: A Story of the 1947 Season that Changed Baseball Forever. In it, young readers will witness the challenges Robinson faced through the eyes of 12-year-old Bobby Kelly -- the bat boy in the title.

For more, visit BrooklynBatBoyDot.com, Facebook.com/BrooklynBatBoy, @BrooklynBatBoy on Twitter and Instagram.

July 29, 2016 - Today we’re going to hear from popular historian and frequent TV news guest, Doris Kearns Goodwin. Her latest book is, The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism. She previously touched on the extended Roosevelt family twenty years ago, writing No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front During World War II, for which she was awarded the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for History.

The New York Times, Washington Post, Economist, Time, USA Today, Christian Science Monitor, and others named The Bully Pulpit as One of the Best Books of the Year, and the Associated Press said it's "a tale so gripping that one questions the need for fiction when real life is so plump with drama and intrigue."

Remember to subscribe to the History Author Show on iTunes, like our iHeartRadio page, or make us appointment listening on your Android device, so you don’t miss an installment of History in Five Friday.   It’s the perfect way to kick off your modern weekend… with people from the past.

 

 

July 27, 2016 - It’s Classical Wisdom Wednesday, presented by Classical Wisdom Weekly- bringing ancient wisdom to modern minds, every Wednesday morning before your first cup of coffee.

The subject of death has been a source of fascination, and unease, for philosophers and religious seekers for centuries. How exactly should we feel about our deaths? Should it be a source of concern? Should we fear it?

If you were to ask the ancient Roman, Lucretius, his answer would probably be a resounding… “eh”.

Death, Lucretius says, does not concern us. Today we find out why.

Your guide through the classical landscape is Van Bryan, Associate Editor of Classical Wisdom Weekly. You can catch Classical Wisdom Wednesday every week before your first cup of coffee, right here on the History Author Show.