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PA BOOKS on PCN episodes

July 19, 2016 "The Second Day at Gettysburg" with David Shultz & Scott Mingus
Based upon a faulty early-morning reconnaissance, General Robert E. Lee decided to attack up the Emmitsburg Road in an effort to collapse the left flank of General George Meade's Army of the Potomac and decisively defeat it. The effort got underway when General James Longstreet's First Corps troops crushed General Sickles' Peach Orchard salient and turned north and east to drive deeply into the Union rear. A third Confederate division under Richard Anderson, part of A. P. Hill's Third Corps, joined in the attack, slamming one brigade after another into the overstretched Union line stitched northward along the Emmitsburg Road. The bloody fighting stair-stepped its way up Cemetery Ridge, tearing open a large gap in the center of the Federal line that threatened to split the Union army in two. The fate of the Battle of Gettysburg hung in the balance.

In addition to demonstrating how the fighting on the far Union left directly affected the combat to come in the center of General Meade's line, the authors also address some of the most commonly overlooked aspects of the fighting: what routes did some of the key units take to reach the front? What could the commanders actually see, and when could they see it? How did the fences, roads, farms, trees, ravines, creeks, and others obstacles directly affect tactical decisions, and ultimately the battle itself?

David L. Shultz is the author of numerous books, pamphlets, and articles concerning the Battle of Gettysburg. He is the recipient of numerous awards including special citations from the House of Representatives and Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for Meritorious Public Service for Battlefield Preservation.

Scott L. Mingus, Sr. is an author, tour guide, multiple award-winning miniature wargamer, patented scientist, and history buff based near York, Pennsylvania.
59 min
July 11, 2016 "Whisper Not" with Benny Golson
Jazz saxophonist Benny Golson learned his instrument and the vocabulary of jazz alongside John Coltrane while Golson was still in high school in Philadelphia. Quickly establishing himself as an iconic fixture on the jazz landscape, Golson performed with dozens of jazz greats, from Sonny Rollins, Coleman Hawkins, and Jimmy Heath to Dizzy Gillespie, Freddie Hubbard, and many others. An acclaimed composer, Golson also wrote music for Hollywood films and television and composed such memorable jazz standards as "Stablemates," "Killer Joe," and "Whisper Not." An eloquent account of Golson's exceptional life—presented episodically rather than chronologically—Whisper Not includes a dazzling collection of anecdotes, memories, experiences, and photographs that recount the successes, the inevitable failures, and the rewards of a life eternally dedicated to jazz.
Benny Golson is an NEA Jazz Master, composer, arranger, and saxophonist. After helping Art Blakey revamp his regime with the Jazz Messengers, he co-founded Jazztet with trumpeter Art Farmer. He has composed not only jazz standards, including "Killer Joe" and "Along Came Betty," but also music for films and television, including It Takes a Thief and M*A*S*H.
58 min
July 11, 2016 "Whisper Not" with Benny Golson
Jazz saxophonist Benny Golson learned his instrument and the vocabulary of jazz alongside John Coltrane while Golson was still in high school in Philadelphia. Quickly establishing himself as an iconic fixture on the jazz landscape, Golson performed with dozens of jazz greats, from Sonny Rollins, Coleman Hawkins, and Jimmy Heath to Dizzy Gillespie, Freddie Hubbard, and many others. An acclaimed composer, Golson also wrote music for Hollywood films and television and composed such memorable jazz standards as "Stablemates," "Killer Joe," and "Whisper Not." An eloquent account of Golson's exceptional life—presented episodically rather than chronologically—Whisper Not includes a dazzling collection of anecdotes, memories, experiences, and photographs that recount the successes, the inevitable failures, and the rewards of a life eternally dedicated to jazz.
Benny Golson is an NEA Jazz Master, composer, arranger, and saxophonist. After helping Art Blakey revamp his regime with the Jazz Messengers, he co-founded Jazztet with trumpeter Art Farmer. He has composed not only jazz standards, including "Killer Joe" and "Along Came Betty," but also music for films and television, including It Takes a Thief and M*A*S*H.
58 min
June 28, 2016 "The First Congress" with Fergus Bordewich
The First Congress tells the dramatic story of the two remarkable years when George Washington, James Madison, and their dedicated colleagues struggled to successfully create our government, an achievement that has lasted to the present day. The Constitution was a broad set of principles. It was left to the members of the First Congress and President George Washington to create the machinery that would make the government work. Fortunately, James Madison, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, and others less well known today, rose to the occasion. During two years of often fierce political struggle, they passed the first ten amendments to the Constitution; they resolved bitter regional rivalries to choose the site of the new national capital; they set in place the procedure for admitting new states to the union; and much more. But the First Congress also confronted some issues that remain to this day: the conflict between states' rights and the powers of national government; the proper balance between legislative and executive power; the respective roles of the federal and state judiciaries; and funding the central government. Other issues, such as slavery, would fester for decades before being resolved.

Fergus M. Bordewich is the author of several books, among them "Washington: The Making of the American Capital" and "Bound for Canaan," a national history of the Underground Railroad. His articles have appeared in many magazines and newspapers. He lives in San Francisco.
59 min
June 24, 2016 "Hidden History of Pittsburgh" with Len Barcousky
When Mark Twain visited in 1884, he claimed to spy a little bit of hell in Pittsburgh’s smoky appearance. Twain’s observations are among the many riveting firsthand accounts and anecdotes to be found in the archives of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The Great War hit home after the sinking of the Lusitania, which carried more than a dozen Pittsburgh residents. A few years later, cheering throngs of black and white residents lined downtown streets to welcome African American soldiers returning home from the conflict. The Ringling Brothers Circus held its last outdoor performance here in 1956 and left eight hundred show workers without jobs in the city. With these stories from the archives and more, veteran journalist Len Barcousky shines a light on the hidden corners of Pittsburgh’s history.
Until his retirement in 2015, Len Barcousky had been a longtime editor and reporter at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the oldest newspaper west of the Allegheny Mountains. He covered the city’s history in his “Eyewitness” columns, and he received his BA from Penn State and MBA from Columbia University.
59 min
June 13, 2016 "Tom Paine's Iron Brigade" with Edward G. Gray
When Paine arrived in Philadelphia from England in 1774, the city was thriving as America’s largest port. But the seasonal dangers of the rivers dividing the region were becoming an obstacle to the city’s continued growth. Philadelphia needed a practical connection between the rich grain of Pennsylvania’s backcountry farms and its port on the Delaware. The iron bridge was Paine’s solution. The bridge was part of Paine’s answer to the central political challenge of the new nation: how to sustain a republic as large and as geographically fragmented as the United States. The iron construction was Paine’s brilliant response to the age-old challenge of bridge technology: how to build a structure strong enough to withstand the constant battering of water, ice, and wind. The convergence of political and technological design in Paine’s plan was Enlightenment genius. And Paine drew other giants of the period as patrons: Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and for a time his great ideological opponent, Edmund Burke. Paine’s dream ultimately was a casualty of the vicious political crosscurrents of revolution and the American penchant for bridges of cheap, plentiful wood. But his innovative iron design became the model for bridge construction in Britain as it led the world into the industrial revolution.
Edward G. Gray is a professor of history at Florida State University and the author of several important works in early American history.
59 min
June 13, 2016 "Tom Paine's Iron Brigade" with Edward G. Gray
When Paine arrived in Philadelphia from England in 1774, the city was thriving as America’s largest port. But the seasonal dangers of the rivers dividing the region were becoming an obstacle to the city’s continued growth. Philadelphia needed a practical connection between the rich grain of Pennsylvania’s backcountry farms and its port on the Delaware. The iron bridge was Paine’s solution. The bridge was part of Paine’s answer to the central political challenge of the new nation: how to sustain a republic as large and as geographically fragmented as the United States. The iron construction was Paine’s brilliant response to the age-old challenge of bridge technology: how to build a structure strong enough to withstand the constant battering of water, ice, and wind. The convergence of political and technological design in Paine’s plan was Enlightenment genius. And Paine drew other giants of the period as patrons: Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and for a time his great ideological opponent, Edmund Burke. Paine’s dream ultimately was a casualty of the vicious political crosscurrents of revolution and the American penchant for bridges of cheap, plentiful wood. But his innovative iron design became the model for bridge construction in Britain as it led the world into the industrial revolution.
Edward G. Gray is a professor of history at Florida State University and the author of several important works in early American history.
59 min
June 08, 2016 "The Devil's Diary" with David Kinney
A groundbreaking World War II narrative wrapped in a riveting detective story, The Devil’s Diary investigates the disappearance of a private diary penned by one of Adolf Hitler’s top aides—Alfred Rosenberg, his “chief philosopher”—and mines its long-hidden pages to deliver a fresh, eye-opening account of the Nazi rise to power and the genesis of the Holocaust.
An influential figure in Adolf Hitler’s early inner circle from the start, Alfred Rosenberg made his name spreading toxic ideas about the Jews throughout Germany. By the dawn of the Third Reich, he had published a bestselling masterwork that was a touchstone of Nazi thinking. His diary was discovered hidden in a Bavarian castle at war’s end—five hundred pages providing a harrowing glimpse into the mind of a man whose ideas set the stage for the Holocaust. Prosecutors examined it during the Nuremberg war crimes trial, but after Rosenberg was convicted, sentenced, and executed, it mysteriously vanished.
Drawing on Rosenberg’s entries about his role in the seizure of priceless artwork and the brutal occupation of the Soviet Union, his conversations with Hitler and his endless rivalries with Göring, Goebbels, and Himmler, The Devil’s Diary offers vital historical insight of unprecedented scope and intimacy into the innermost workings of the Nazi regime—and into the psyche of the man whose radical vision mutated into the Final Solution.
57 min
May 31, 2016 "WWII and Chester County, Pennsylvania" with Marion Piccolomini
Author Marion Piccolomini celebrates the resilience and perseverance of Chester County residents in the midst of total war. Regiments from Chester County fought bravely in all theaters of World War II, while locals at home took extraordinary measures to support the Allies. West Chester resident G. Raymond Rettew developed a process to mass produce vitally needed penicillin while a peaceful farm transformed into the bustling Valley Forge General Hospital in 1943. Women entered labor positions at companies, including Lukens Steel, to meet production demands. The Coatesville YMCA created and distributed a newsletter to soldiers so the boys on the front had the news from back home.
Marion Piccolomini is an officer of the Downingtown Area Historical Society and a member of the West Nantmeal Township Historical Commission. She holds a master’s degree in speech language pathology from the Pennsylvania State University.
56 min
May 31, 2016 "WWII and Chester County, Pennsylvania" with Marion Piccolomini
Author Marion Piccolomini celebrates the resilience and perseverance of Chester County residents in the midst of total war. Regiments from Chester County fought bravely in all theaters of World War II, while locals at home took extraordinary measures to support the Allies. West Chester resident G. Raymond Rettew developed a process to mass produce vitally needed penicillin while a peaceful farm transformed into the bustling Valley Forge General Hospital in 1943. Women entered labor positions at companies, including Lukens Steel, to meet production demands. The Coatesville YMCA created and distributed a newsletter to soldiers so the boys on the front had the news from back home.
Marion Piccolomini is an officer of the Downingtown Area Historical Society and a member of the West Nantmeal Township Historical Commission. She holds a master’s degree in speech language pathology from the Pennsylvania State University.
56 min

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PA Books features authors of books about Pennsylvania-related topics. These hour-long conversations allow authors to discuss both their subject matter and inspiration behind the books.