Half Jewish and a member of the Hitler Youth who saw Adolf Hitler in person, Jochen "Jack" Wurfl, author of "My Two Lives," talks about surviving in Nazi Germany and his later life and success in the United States. To hide their identities after the Nazis took over in 1933, Mr. Wurfl and his brother were baptized Catholic and later joined the Hitler Youth. His Catholic father, deemed a political enemy by the state, was sent to a concentration camp in Austria, while his Jewish mother was arrested by the Gestapo and sent to Auschwitz, where she perished. 
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Q&A: Jochen "Jack" Wurfl, "My Two Lives"

The C-SPAN Bookshelf podcast feed makes it easy for you to listen to all of the C-SPAN podcast episodes about nonfiction books. Each week we gather episodes from the different C-SPAN podcasts that feature authors talking about history, biography, current events, and culture to make it easier to discover the episodes and listen. If you like nonfiction books, follow this podcast feed so you never miss an episode!

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Glenn C. Loury is a professor of economics. He teaches at Brown University and is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. He calls his new book "Late Admissions: Confessions of a Black Conservative." His publisher, W.W. Norton, describes Prof. Loury on the flap of the cover: "[He] grew up on the south side of Chicago, earned a PhD in MIT’s economics program, and became the first Black tenured professor of economics at Harvard at the age of 33. He has been, at turns, a young father, a drug addict, an adulterer, a psychiatric patient, a born-again Christian, a lapsed born-again Christian, a Black Reaganite who has swung from the right to the left and back again." In his book, Prof. Loury attempts to explain all of this.   
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BN+: Glenn Loury, "Late Admissions"

This Memorial Day weekend, retired U.S. Senate Historian Betty Koed shares stories from her book "Scenes: People, Places and Events That Shaped the United States Senate." It's a collection of brief chronicles of Senate history that she presented to Senators during their Tuesday caucus lunches between 2009 and 2023.  Some of the stories told include the influence and power of Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson, the story of the first female senator, and when Mark Twain worked as a Senate staffer. 
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Q&A: Betty Koed, "Scenes"

Alan Taylor is the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation professor of history at the University of Virginia. He is only one of 5 history writers who have won the Pulitzer Prize twice. His 11 books focus mostly on the early years of the creation of the United States. His latest book is titled "American Civil Wars: A Continental History, 1850-1873." During these 23 years, North America's 3 largest countries – Canada, Mexico, and the U.S. – all transformed themselves into nations. Professor Taylor includes stories of Black soldiers fighting for the Union, Native Americans struggling to preserve their homelands in the United States and the West, women fortifying the homeland, and newly arrived immigrants thrust into the maelstrom of the Civil War.  
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BN+: Alan Taylor, "American Civil Wars"

Author and president emeritus of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County Freeman Hrabowski talks about the role of college presidents, the handling of campus protests over the war in Gaza, and political involvement in higher education. His new book "The Resilient University" looks at how UMBC dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic and the racial unrest that followed the killing of George Floyd by police in the summer of 2020. Freeman Hrabowski served as president of UMBC from 1992-2022.
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Q&A: Freeman Hrabowski, "The Resilient University"

Theologian Jim Wallis argued that a faith of love, healing and hope must be used to dismantle a false gospel that promotes White Christian Nationalism. He was interviewed by Daily Beast columnist and author Wajahat Ali.
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Q&A: Jochen "Jack" Wurfl, "My Two Lives"

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