Leonard Lopate at Large on WBAI Radio in New York

Former US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke was brilliant, utterly self-absorbed, and possessed of almost inhuman energy and appetites. From his days as a young adviser in Vietnam to his last efforts to end the war in Afghanistan, Holbrooke embodied the postwar American impulse to take the lead on the global stage. But his sharp elbows and tireless self-promotion ensured that he never received the promotion to the cabinet-level position he so desperately wanted. In this installment of “Leonard Lopate at Large” on WBAI, author George Packer discusses his latest book “Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century” about this important figure in 20th century politics.

In 1947, the Cold War came to Hollywood. Over nine tumultuous days in October, the House Un-American Activities Committee held a notorious round of hearings into alleged Communist subversion in the movie industry. The blowback was profound: the major studios pledged to never again employ a known Communist or unrepentant fellow traveler. The declaration marked the onset of the blacklist era, a time when political allegiances, real or suspected, determined employment opportunities in the entertainment industry. Hundreds of artists were shown the door―or had it shut in their faces. In his “Show Trial: Hollywood, HUAC, and the Birth of the Blacklist,” Thomas Doherty recounts one of the darkest chapters in the history of the American entertainment industry. In this installment of “Leonard Lopate at Large” on WBAI, Thomas Doherty talks about the book and the troubling events that it covers.

Was an advanced civilization lost to history in the global cataclysm that ended the last Ice Age? In his book “America Before: The Key to Earth's Lost Civilization,” Graham Hancock, the internationally bestselling author, draws on the latest archaeological and DNA evidence to bring his quest to a stunning conclusion. We’ve been taught that North and South America were empty of humans until around 13,000 years ago, but new discoveries have radically reshaped this long-established picture and we know now that the Americas were first peopled more than 130,000 years ago—many tens of thousands of years before human settlements became established elsewhere. In this installment of “Leonard Lopate at Large” on WBAI, Graham Hancock discusses what his has uncovered about this unknown history.

When something breaks around the house, there’s no one better to tell you what do and how to do it than Alvin and Lawrence Ubell. In this installment of “Leonard Lopate at Large” on WBAI, we open the phones so that Al and Larry Ubell can answer all your questions about fixing all the things that can break in your house or apartment. No problem is too big (or small) for these experts of fixing what’s broken in the home.

Robert Bahar and Almudena Carracedo’s documentary “The Silence of Others” asks the question—what if in the 1960s you were sadistically tortured for your political beliefs – and the man responsible (Antonio González Pacheco, aka “Billy the Kid”) became your neighbor? No one has been charged with the murder of hundreds of thousands of Spaniards during the Francisco Franco regime and the bloody civil war that preceded it, buried in more than 2000 mass graves. In this installment of “Leonard Lopate at Large” on WBAI, Robert Bahar discusses “The Silence of Others” and the disturbing events it covers.

Tracing the revolution in graphic design in the 1920s, the exhibition Jan Tschichold and the New Typography: Graphic Design Between the World Wars, on display at the Bard Graduate Center gallery until July 7, displays materials assembled by typographer and designer Jan Tschichold (1902–1974) in Weimar, Germany throughout his life. Tschichold’s 1928 book “Die Neue Typographie” was one of the key texts of modern design, partly due to its grasp of Constructivist ideas and new print technology, but also for its practical use as a design manual. His collection of design and art works by esteemed colleagues like Kurt Schwitters, El Lissitzky, László Moholy-Nagy, Herbert Bayer, Piet Zwart, and Ladislav Sutnar, purchased by Phillip Johnson and donated to the Museum of Modern Art, forms the foundation of the exhibition. In this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large, the show’s curator Paul Stirton, an associate professor of modern European design history at the Bard Graduate Center, joins critic and co-founder of the design criticism program at SVA Steven Heller for a discussion of the work that changed graphic design forever.

Artificial intelligence, big data, modern science, and the Internet are all revealing a fundamental truth—the world is vastly more complex and unpredictable than we've allowed ourselves to see. Through stories from history, business, and technology, philosopher and technologist David Weinberger’s book “Everyday Chaos: Technology, Complexity, and How We’re Thriving in a New World of Possibility” finds the unifying truths lying below the surface of the tools we take for granted and explores a future in which our best strategy often requires holding back from anticipating and instead creating as many possibilities as we can. Join us on “Leonard Lopate at Large” on WBAI for a conversation with David Weinberger about “Everyday Chaos” and what it means for our daily lives.

Frederic Martel’s best-selling book “In the Closet of the Vatican: Power, Homosexuality, Hypocrisy” exposes the vast array of controversial issues facing the Roman Catholic Church today. Based on four years’ of exhaustive research, including extensive interviews with those in power, “In the Closet of the Vatican” aims to uncover the secrets of a clerical culture of secrecy which starts in junior seminaries and continues right up to the Vatican. In this installment of “Leonard Lopate at Large” on WBAI, Frederic Martel discusses the work that went into writing the book and reveals what he found in his reporting.

“San Salvador has become one of the most violent cities in the world,” reports Daniel Castro in article for Harper’s Magazine entitled “The Truce: How the United States helped spoil a plan to end gang violence in El Salvador." His article continues, "despite the new malls, craft breweries, and recently renovated public spaces, the capital is a city of locked metal gates and private security guards toting shotguns on street corners.” In this installment of “Leonard Lopate at Large” on WBAI, Daniel Castro explains how the US government helped to spoil a peacemaking attempt between two of El Salvador’s most dangerous gangs.

We call it domestic violence. We call it private violence. Sometimes we call it intimate terrorism. But whatever we call it, we generally do not believe it has anything at all to do with us, despite the World Health Organization deeming it a “global epidemic.” In America, domestic violence accounts for 15 percent of all violent crime, and yet it remains locked in silence, even as its tendrils reach unseen into so many of our most pressing national issues, from our economy to our education system, from mass shootings to mass incarceration to #MeToo. We still have not taken the true measure of this problem. In her latest book “No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us,” journalist Rachel Louise Snyder gives context for what we don't know we're seeing. Join us for a conversation with Rachel Louise Snyder about this important issue in this installment of “Leonard Lopate at Large” on WBAI.