When it comes to military strategy and diplomatic negotiations, it’s easy to understand why U.S. presidents feel they can’t share everything they know with the public. Mary Graham, co-director of the Transparency Policy Project at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, joins us to talk about how presidents balance national security and the people’s right to know how they are being represented. Her new book is called “Presidents’ Secrets: The Use and Abuse of Hidden Power” (Yale University Press).

When wealthy nations craft healthcare policy, they often neglect the needs of immigrants. Northeastern University law professor Wendy Parmet joins us to talk about how a healthy immigrant population contributes to a nation’s overall health. She writes about the idea in her book “The Health of Newcomers: Immigration, Health Policy, and the Case for Global Solidarity” (NYU Press)

We'll spend this hour with veteran actor Bill Paxton. A native of Fort Worth, Paxton famously set out for Hollywood at the age of 18 to get his start. He succeeded.

During America’s domestic slave trade, the values of enslaved people changed over the course of their lives. Daina Ramey Berry, UT-Austin associate professor of history and African diaspora studies, joins us to talk about how slave owners tried to maximize the values of their slaves – and about how slaves responded to being appraised. Her new book is called “The Price for Their Pound of Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved, from Womb to Grave, in the Building of a Nation” (Beacon Press).

Millennials are now at the age when they are taking on positions of power across the country. Shauna L. Shames, who teaches political science at Rutgers University-Camden, joins us to talk about why young adults increasingly feel they can contribute to society more effectively outside of government. She writes about the idea in “Out of the Running: Why Millennials Reject Political Careers and Why It Matters” (NYU Press).

Solitary confinement in U.S. prisons was originally intended for the most extreme circumstances. Keramet Reiter of the UC-Irvine law school joins us to talk about how the practice has become more widely used – and about the effect it has on prisoners. She writes about those topics in “23/7: Pelican Bay Prison and the Rise of Long-Term Solitary Confinement” (Yale University Press).

Last year, Masha Gessen visited Tbilisi, Georgia, to attend the World Congress of Families. The conservative organization opposes gay marriage; Gesson is married to a woman with whom she shares children. She joins us to talk about trying to find common ground with people whose way of thinking she opposes. Her story “Family Values: Mapping the Spread of Antigay Ideology” appears in the March issue of Harper’s.

As the Pulitzer Prize-winning dance critic for the Washington Post, Sarah Kaufman knows what graceful movement looks like. She joins us to talk about how we can incorporate elegance into our everyday existence, which she writes about in “The Art of Grace: On Moving Well Through Life” (W.W. Norton and Co.).

One hundred years ago this month, the Russian Empire collapsed with the abdication of Emperor Nicholas II. Daniel Orlovsky, George Bouhe Research Fellow in Russian Studies at SMU, and Boris Kolonitsky, Russian Revolution History Chair at the European University in St Petersburg, Russia, join us to talk about how the Russian Revolution brought about the Soviet Union and eventually the Russia of today. They’ll speak at “The Russian Revolution of 1917: A Centennial View,” a symposium at SMU.

With the Internet, nearly any fact or figure is just a click away. That democratization of information comes with downsides, though – including everyday people thinking they understand complex concepts as well as doctors, lawyers and other experts. Tom Nichols, a professor at the Naval War College, joins us to talk about the dangers of assuming we know it all, which he writes about in “The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters” (Oxford University Press).