Think from KERA

As a “60 Minutes” correspondent and former anchor of the CBS Evening News, Scott Pelley has spent more than four decades talking to people during the most impactful times of their lives. He joins host Krys Boyd to talk about what he’s learned from everyone from firefighters to soldiers to sitting presidents. His new book is called“Truth Worth Telling: A Reporter’s Search for Meaning in the Stories of Our Times”(Harper).

The numbers don’t lie: We’re in the midst of a severe affordable housing crisis. Two-thirds of renters say they can’t afford to buy a home, home prices are rising at twice the rate of wages and some 11 million Americans say they spend more than half their paycheck on rent. Patrick Sisson joins host Krys Boyd to talk about how policy, shifting demographics and market forces have combined to bring us to the current situation, which he writes about for the website Curbed.

Domestic violence is difficult to understand – and prevent – because it so often happens behind closed doors. Rachel Louise Snyder joins host Krys Boyd to debunk myths about domestic violence, and to talk about what it will take to truly address the problem that the World Health Organization deems a global epidemic. Her new book is called “No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us”(Bloomsbury).

If you go back a few centuries, fat bodies were exulted in art, literature – even scientific journals. University of California, Irvine sociologist Sabrina Strings joins host Krys Boyd to talk about how societal attitudes towards fatness – particularly when it comes to black women – became increasingly negative in the years that followed. Her new book is called“Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia”(NYU Press).

Nearly 4 million married Americans live apart from their spouses. Joe Pinkser joins host Krys Boyd to talk about how technology enables people to feel close while physically apart – and to talk about how our thinking about long-distance relationships has evolved. His story“The New Long-Distance Relationship”appears in The Atlantic.

Beginning in the late 19th Century, the cattle industry connected America with animals raised in the south and west being sent north to Chicago and eventually east to big cities for consumption. Notre Dame visiting professor Joshua Specht joins host Krys Boyd to recount the complex history – filled with exploitation and innovation –  of the beef we consume, which he writes about in “Red Meat Republic: A Hoof-to-Table History of How Beef Changed America” (Princeton University Press).

The Revolutionary War serves as America’s origin story. And as such, our understanding of it and the nation it birthed deserves to be reconsidered regularly. Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Rick Atkinson joins host Krys Boyd to revisit the major players and the battles they fought from a 21stCentury perspective, which he writes about in“The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777”(Henry Holt and Co.).

Last week, the Dallas Police Department executed a warrant at the Catholic Diocese of Dallas to search for documents tied to an investigation into child sex abuse. As similar cases and alleged cover-ups across the world continue to haunt the Catholic Church, James Carroll joins host Krys Boyd to argue that the church’s clerical hierarchy is to blame. Carroll – a former priest – makes the case for abolishing the priesthood in the June issue ofThe Atlantic.

One reason it’s so hard to change anything in society is that there are always people who feel they have something to lose. Princeton sociology professor Paul Starr joins host Krys Boyd to talk about how concentrated wealth is often at the root of societal stagnation, which he writes about in “Entrenchment: Wealth, Power, and the Constitution of Democratic Societies” (Yale University Press).

Dr. Shaili Jain is a psychiatrist and PTSD specialist at one of America’s top V.A. hospitals. She joins host Krys Boyd to talk about how the condition affects many aspects of sufferers’ lives – and about cutting-edge research that’s providing hope. Her new book is called“The Unspeakable Mind: Stories of Trauma and Healing from the Frontlines of PTSD Science”(Harper).