Leonard Lopate at Large on WBAI Radio in New York

In The Fed Unbound: Central Banking in a Time of Crisis, Lev Menand, a legal scholar and former Treasury official, assesses how and why the Fed has taken on more and more responsibilities to keep the economy out of recession, as it did during the 2008 crisis and again during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Join us when Menand argues that the Fed significantly exceeded the bounds of its legal authority—and, more broadly, that using the Fed as our primary instrument of economic policymaking skews our economy in favor of the rich, furthering our economic divide on this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large.

In his new book for Simon & Schuster, historian David Hackett Fischer argues that African history is American history. AFRICAN FOUNDERS draws on extensive research to show how enslaved Africans and their descendants enlarged American ideas of freedom in varying ways in different regions of the early United States.

At a time when many states have banned Critical Race Theory from curriculums. And – seemingly everywhere – the debate rages on as parents and politicians insist that CRT doesn’t belong in classrooms teaching American history. AFRICAN FOUNDERS emphasizing the fact that early Black Americans deserve to be recognized as founders of this nation.

Join us when, Hackett Fischer, whose 2005 book Washington’s Crossing won the Pulitzer Prize for History, reveals how much our country was shaped by these African influences in its early years, changing the landscape of American laws and ethics, and producing a new, distinctly American culture, on this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large.

According to Ran Abramitzky and Leah Boustan, immigration is one of the most fraught, and possibly most misunderstood topics in American social discourse—yet, in most cases, the things we believe about immigration are based largely on myth, not facts.

Join us when Ran Abramitzky and Leah Boustan examine their book Streets of Gold: America's Untold Story of Immigrant Success using powerful story-telling and unprecedented research employ big data and algorithms, provide a new take on American history with surprising results, especially how comparable the “golden era” of immigration is to today, and why many current policy proposals are so misguided on this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large.

The New Political Capitalism, How businesses and societies can thrive in a deeply politicized world, bridges the gap between the reality of the relationship between politics and business, and the lack of familiarity of the business community, even at the most senior levels, with political thinking. The book demonstrates how businesses that develop effective political antennae can enhance their performance in the emerging age of Political Capitalism. Join us when Dr. Joe Zammit-Lucia an adviser focused on business leadership in contemporary culture, author, public speaker, and commentator in the international press on the inter-relationship between business and politics his book on Leonard Lopate at Large.

Love them or hate them, guns are woven deeply into the American soul. Names like Colt, Smith & Wesson, Winchester, and Remington are legendary. Yet few people are aware of the roles these men played at a crucial time in United States history, from westward expansion in the 1840s, through the Civil War, and into the dawn of the Gilded Age. Through personal drive and fueled by bloodshed, they helped propel the young country into the forefront of the world's industrial powers. Join us on this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large when John Bainbridge examines his book Gun Barons: The Weapons That Transformed America and the Men Who Invented Them.

According to Ira Shapiro, the Founding Fathers gave the US Senate many functions, but one fundamental responsibility was to provide the check against a dangerous president who threatened our democracy. Two hundred and thirty years later, when Donald Trump, a potential authoritarian, finally reached the White House, the Senate should have served as both America’s first and last lines of defense.

Ira Shapiro the author of The Betrayal: How Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans Abandoned America, forty-five-year Washington career has focused on American politics and international trade. Shapiro has served twelve years in senior staff positions in the U.S. Senate.

Join us when Ira Shapiro examines the pivotal challenges the Senate underwent during the Trump administration, arguing that the body’s failure to provide leadership represented the most catastrophic failure of government in American history. As well as the Senate’s performance during President Biden’s first year in office, the 2022 Senate elections and beyond, on this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large.

Jennifer Raff celebrated anthropologist reports 20,000 years ago, people crossed a great land bridge from Siberia into Western Alaska and then dispersed southward into what is now called the Americas. Until we venture out to other worlds, this remains the last time our species has populated an entirely new place, and this event has been a subject of deep fascination and controversy. No written records—and scant archaeological evidence—exist to tell us what happened or how it took place.

Join us when Jennifer Raff examines her study if many different models which have been proposed to explain how the Americas were peopled and what happened in the thousands of years that followed on this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large

Author, illustrator, and historian Don Hollway introduces to two titans of the ancient world. At the Gates of Rome reveals the tale of Stilicho and Alaric and the series of hard-fought wars they waged. Stilicho bested his rival in battle but failed to capture the wily Alaric. Eventually, a truce was declared. Alaric and his men would serve honorably in the Roman army, but it was a tentative peace, ultimately undone by the corruption at the heart of Rome. Fatal betrayals finally drove the barbarian horde to bring down the world’s greatest civilization.

Join us when Don Hollway combines ancient chronicle accounts of Stilicho and Alaric into an unforgettable history of betrayal, politics, intrigue and war for the heart and soul of the Roman Empire, on this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large.

Inspired is a book about the science of creativity, distilling an explosion of exciting new research from across the world. Through narrative storytelling, Matt Richtel marries these findings with timeless insight from some of the world’s great creators as he deconstructs the authentic nature of creativity, its biological and evolutionary origins, its deep connection to religion and spirituality, the way it bubbles in each of us, urgent and essential, waiting to be tapped.

Join us when Matt Richtel examines the traits of successful creators, which conditions allows creativity to thrive, and how can we move past creative blocks on this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large on WBAI 99.5FM.

When Daniel Bergner’s younger brother was diagnosed as bipolar and put on a locked ward in the 1980s, psychiatry seemed to have achieved what JFK promised: a revolution of chemical solutions to treat mental illness. Yet as Bergner’s brother was deemed a dire risk for suicide and he and his family were told his disorder would be lifelong, he found himself taking heavy doses of medications with devastating side effects.

Now, in recounting his brother’s journey alongside the gripping, illuminating stories of Caroline, who is beset by the hallucinations of psychosis, and David, who is overtaken by depression, Bergner examines the evolution of how we treat our psyches.

Join us when Daniel Bergner reveals how the pharmaceutical industry has perpetuated our biological view of the mind and our drug-based assumptions about treatment—despite the shocking price paid by many patients and the problematic evidence of drug efficacy on this installment of Leonard Lopate of Large.