Think from KERA

Our legal system has methods for punishing perpetrators of sexual assault. But prison time for the guilty doesn’t necessarily equal peace for the victim. Lacy Johnson joins us to talk about her own experience as a sexual assault survivor – and about how she considers her rapist in terms of justice, vengeance and retribution. Her new collection of essays is called “The Reckonings” (Scribner).

Logging operations are tempted by the Amazon and its vast forestland. Scott Wallace joins us to talk about how that thirst for lumber and other natural resources is threatening indigenous groups in Brazil and Peru. His story “Isolated Nomads Are Under Siege in the Amazon Jungle” appears in National Geographic magazine.

The concept of empathy is only a little more than a century old. And yet how we define empathy has changed many times and in subtle ways. Historian Susan Lanzoni joins us to talk about how we’ve wrestled with the intersection of our own experience and the realities of others, which she writes about in “Empathy: A History” (Yale University Press).

The Black Lives Matter movement began in 2012 following the death of Trayvon Martin and gained steam two years later during the Ferguson uprising. University of Illinois at Chicago professor Barbara Ransby joins host us to talk about what Black Lives Matter has accomplished – and about how it fits into the greater context of the Civil Rights movement. Her new book is called “Making All Black Lives Matter: Reimagining Freedom in the 21st Century” (University of California Press).

In the early decades of the 20th Century, Texas law enforcement and vigilantes killed Mexican citizens with little worry of legal consequences. Brown University assistant professor Monica Muñoz Martinez joins us to talk about how the families of these slain Mexicans sought justice for their loved ones – and how that process guarded against the whitewashing of these crimes. Her new book is called “The Injustice Never Leaves You: Anti-Mexican Violence in Texas” (Harvard University Press).

Termites gobble up $40 billion worth of our stuff annually. Lisa Margonelli joins host joins to talk about these largely misunderstood insects, whose collective power may one day actually be harnessed for good. Her new book is called “Underbug: An Obsessive Tale of Termites and Technology” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux).

Sarah Smarsh grew up in a long line of poor wheat farmers in rural Kansas. She joins us to talk about how working-class poverty stretches across generations – and about our troubling tendency as a nation to judge people based on their wealth. Her new book is called “Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth” (Scribner).

As part of his “America First” policy, President Trump has pushed for a reduction in our involvement in global affairs. Robert Kagan of the Brookings Institution joins us to make the case that this strategy leaves a leadership void that will likely make the world a more unstable place. His new book is called “The Jungle Grows Back: America and Our Imperiled World” (Knopf).

A report released last week by the United Nations predicts climate change could lead to worsening food shortages and a host of natural disasters as soon as 2040. Jeff Nesbit, executive director of Climate Nexus, joins host Krys Boyd to talk about the massive worldwide adjustments necessary to curb these effects – and if a carbon tax is part of the answer. His new book is called “This is the Way the World Ends: How Droughts and Die-Offs, Heat Waves and Hurricanes are Converging on America” (St. Martin’s Press).

Much of our attention to government focuses on the Senate confirmation of judges and senior officials. Michael Lewis joins us to talk about the grunts who keep the federal government machine moving — and about how that machine is in danger of grinding to a halt, which he writes about in “The Fifth Risk” (W.W. Norton & Company).