Leonard Lopate at Large on WBAI Radio in New York

New York Times bestselling author Jeffrey Toobin traces the dramatic history and profound legacy of Timothy McVeigh, who once declared, “I believe there is an army out there, ready to rise up, even though I never found it.” But that doesn’t mean his army wasn’t there.

With news-breaking reportage, Toobin details how McVeigh’s principles and tactics have flourished in the decades since his death in 2001, reaching an apotheosis on January 6 when hundreds of rioters stormed the Capitol. Based on nearly a million previously unreleased tapes, photographs, and documents, including detailed communications between McVeigh and his lawyers, as well as interviews with such key figures as Bill Clinton.

Join us when Jeffrey Toobin shares Homegrown which reveals how the story of Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing is not only a powerful retelling of one of the great outrages of our time, but a warning for our future, on this installment of Leonard Lopate of Large.

Through decades of direct experience of the People's Republic combined with extraordinary access to hundreds of hitherto unseen documents in communist party archives, the author of The People's Trilogy offers a riveting account of China's rise from the disaster of the Cultural Revolution. Join us when Frank Dikötter takes us inside the country's unprecedented four-decade economic transformation--from rural villages to industrial metropoles and elite party conclaves--that vaulted the nation from 126t ­largest economy in the world to second ­largest on this installment of Leonard Lopate a Large.

According to David Neiwert, from right-wing compounds in the Pacific Northwest in the 1970s, to the shocking January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, America has seen the culmination of a long-building war on democracy being waged by a fundamentally violent and antidemocratic far-right movement that unironically calls itself the "Patriot" movement.

Join us when award-winning journalist David Neiwert explores how the movement was built over decades, how it was set aflame by Donald Trump and his cohorts, and how it will continue to attack American democracy for the foreseeable future, on this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large.

In 1913, an unlikely friendship blossomed between Henry Ford and famed naturalist John Burroughs. When their mutual interest in Ralph Waldo Emerson led them to set out in one of Ford’s Model Ts to explore the Transcendentalist’s New England, the trip would prove to be the first of many excursions that would take Ford and Burroughs, together with an enthusiastic Thomas Edison, across America.

These travels profoundly influenced the way Ford, Edison, and Burroughs viewed the world, nudging their work in new directions through a transformative decade in American history. Join us when, Wes Davis re-creates these landmark adventures in American Journey on this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large.

New York Times bestselling historian Craig Nelson reveals how FDR confronted an American public disinterested in going to war in Europe, skillfully won their support, and pushed government and American industry to build the greatest war machine in history, “the arsenal of democracy” that won World War II.

Join us when Craig Nelson traces how Franklin D. Roosevelt steadily and sometimes secretively put America on a war footing by convincing America’s top industrialists such as Henry Ford Jr. to retool their factories, by diverting the country’s supplies of raw materials to the war effort, on this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large.

According to Professor Jean Pfaelzer, the very first colonizers who crossed the border of the Golden State were and still are powered by slavery—a piece of American history that many still try to bury.

Though unyielding research and vivid interviews, Pfaelzer exposes how California gorged on slavery; its appetite for unfree bodies and unpaid labor persists today in the global traffic in human beings who end up sold into the sex trade or trapped in sweatshops and remote marijuana grows.

Join us when public historian, commentator, and professor of American studies at the University of Delaware, Jean Pfaelzer shares how this once-shrouded history spans three centuries of diverse types of slavery and slave revolts on this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large.

The world needs a UN 3.0. The extent and severity of global crises are such that business as usual provides no solution. Roland Rich’s Leviathan describes the necessary next version of the United Nations. It is a confident, The result will allow the UN to tackle the climate crisis, broaden the protection of democracy and human rights, govern globalization, and be better prepared for the next pandemic.

Join us when Leviathan contains a vision but not a blueprint. Yet it does spell out how to achieve the first essential step – to clip the wings of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council.

The documentary, Elemental: ReimagineWildfire takes viewers on a journey with the top experts from across the nation to better understand wildfire. The film starts with the harrowing escape from Paradise, California as the town ignited from wind-driven embers and burned within a few hours of the fire's start and then continues to recent record shattering fires. “Elemental: Reimagine Wildfire” includes the voices of the top forest and climate experts, Indigenous prescribed firelighters, and fire survivors, and helps reimagine our relationship with fire as we prepare for an increasingly hotter, drier future.

Join us when Director, Co-Writer & Editor Trip Jennings and Executive produced by Ralph Bloemers discuss indigenous fire managers, top fire and climate scientists to explore how wildfire, healthy forests and communities can coexist on this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large.

According to the May Werthan Shayne Chair of Public Policy and Social Science at Vanderbilt University - Larry Bartels a seeming explosion of support for right-wing populist parties has triggered widespread fears that liberal democracy is facing its worst crisis since the 1930s. In his latest book Democracy Erodes from the Top - Bartels suggest that the real crisis stems not from an increasingly populist public but from political leaders who exploit or mismanage the chronic vulnerabilities of democracy.

Europe’s most sobering examples of democratic backsliding―in Hungary and Poland―occurred not because voters wanted authoritarianism but because conventional conservative parties, once elected, seized opportunities to entrench themselves in power.

Join us when author Larry M Bartels examines the inadequacy of conventional bottom-up interpretations of Europe’s political crisis, on this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large.

Atlases are being redrawn as islands are disappearing. What does an island see when the sea rises? Sea Change: An Atlas of Islands in a Rising Ocean weaves together essays, maps, art, and poetry to show us—and make us see—island nations in a warming world.

Low-lying islands are least responsible for global warming, but they are suffering the brunt of it. This transportive atlas reorients our vantage point to place islands at the center of the story, highlighting Indigenous and Black voices and the work of communities taking action for local and global climate justice. At once serious and playful, well-researched and lavishly designed, Sea Change is a stunning exploration of the climate and our world's coastlines. Full of immersive storytelling, scientific expertise, and rallying cries from island populations that shout with hope—"We are not drowning! We are fighting!"