Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Listening ideas for 31 May 2011

Ancient Rome Refocused
"Washington Wore a Toga."
A study of the Founding Fathers and how they were influenced by the classics. Mr. Cain interviews Dr. Carl J. Richard, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, who wrote the book, "Why We're All Romans."
(review, feed)

New Books In History
Adam Hochschild, “To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918?
The Great Powers fought World War I over nothing in particular. They pursued no great cause, sought to right no terrible injustice. They appear to us, therefore, to have fought for no good reason and to have been, therefore, out of their heads. But here we are wrong, for the combatants were not insane. Not at all. They simply lived in a different world and, therefore, thought differently than we do. They fought, as Adam points out, because they wanted to fight. For them, the bloody struggle of nation against nation was a necessary and salutary phenomenon. War made them who they were; if they did not fight, they were nothing. And so they fought bravely and died in droves over nothing, really, but honor.
(review, feed)

Tapestry
Forgiveness
To err is human...to forgive...is complicated. In this episode of Tapestry, host Mary Hynes explores the idea of forgiveness, confession, regret and apologies. She's in conversation with Dave Bry, who has been writing public apologies for years to those whom he has somehow wronged. And we hear the moving story of how one father, who, after eight years of anger and bitterness, came to forgive the drunk driver who killed his daughter.
(review, feed)