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World History Interviews --
Dr. Ken Alibek
Soviet Germ Warfare
Bio-Hazard: The Chilling Story of the Largest Covert Biological Weapons Program in the World -- Told From Inside by the Man Who Ran it
Biological warfare is the use of weapons that cause death by disease. The largest and most sophisticated biological weapons program in the world, which cultivated and stockpiled anthrax virus, brucellosis, the plague and genetically altered strains of small pox, employed more than 6000 people at over 100 facilities in the former Soviet Union. For 15 years, ending in 1992, Dr. Ken Alibek, a doctor of medicine and a Ph.D. in microbiology, was the scientific leader of Bio-Preparat, the civilian branch of that secret biological weapons program, masquerading as a pharmaceutical company. In 1992, Dr. Alibek defected to the United States. Several years later, he wrote “Bio-Hazard,” a book detailing the development of biological weapons, the horrors of his former life and why he chose to defect. This is a two-part program with Dr. Ken Alibek, recorded in 1999.
Dr. Ken Alibek recommends "Prevent," by Richard Preston & "Vector," by Robin Cook.
Originally Broadcast: May 11, 1999 & May 18, 1999
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John Arquilla
Networks and Netwars
The war that the United States has invoked in what is often called the "War On Terror" is unusual in many ways. One of those ways is that this war is being fought against a network that is spread out in many unsuspecting and obscure places. It is not being fought as many wars have been in the past, directly against another county. Dr. John Arquilla, is a professor of defense analysis and co-director of the justify on Terrorism at the Naval Post-Graduate School in Monterey, California. In this program we talk with Professor Arquilla about the fighting tactics employed by networks as opposed to countries, the threats they pose, and some of the war tactics used against these networks.
John Arquilla recommends "Kim," by Rudyard Kipling.
Originally Broadcast: June 21, 2005
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Bob Blincoe
The Kurdish People
The word millet is a term from the Ottoman Empire that ruled parts of Europe Central to the Near East from 1430 to 1921 and means “a recognized people or cultural group who have no homeland.” Millet now applies to the Kurdish people, who live in the Zagros Mountains, where the borders of eastern Turkey, northern Iraq, and northwestern Iran converge. Starting with Gulf War of 1991, 25 million Kurdish people live homeless and stateless in the Zagros Mountains. They are subject to frequent attacks from the Turks and the Iraqis. Bob Blincoe, a Presbyterian minister, lived and worked as a community organizer among the Kurds in the Zagros Mountains for five and one-half years until the Fall of 1996. At first he spoke Arabic, so he wouldn’t stand out as someone working with a suspect minority. He quickly learned Kurdish and has many interesting stories to share.
Bob Blincoe recommends "A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern World," by David Fromkin.
Originally Broadcast: May 14, 1997
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Zana Briski
Ross Kauffman
Brothels of Calcutta, India
Born Into Brothels
"Born into Brothels" received the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2005. A tribute to the resiliency of childhood and the restorative power of art, "Born into Brothels" is a portrait of several unforgettable children who live in the red light district of Calcutta, where their mothers work as prostitutes. The most stigmatized people in Calcutta's red light district however are not the prostitutes, but their children. In the face of abject poverty, abuse, and despair, these kids have little possibility of escaping their mother's fate or for creating another type of life. In "Born into Brothels," directors Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman chronicle the amazing transformation of the children they come to know in the red light district. Briski, a professional photographer, gives them lessons and cameras, igniting latent sparks of artistic genius that reside in these children who live in the most sordid and seemingly hopeless world. The photographs taken by the children are not merely examples of remarkable observation and talent; they reflect something much larger, morally encouraging, and even politically volatile: art as an immensely liberating and empowering force. Devoid of sentimentality, "Born into Brothels" defies the typical tear-stained tourist snapshot of the global underbelly. Briski spends years with these kids and becomes part of their lives. Their photographs are prisms into their souls, rather than anthropological curiosities or primitive imagery, and a true testimony of the power of the indelible creative spirit. You can learn about this film and Kids with Cameras at http://www.kids-with-cameras.org. I spoke with Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman on February 2005. Beginning the conversation first with Zana Briski, I asked her to explain what drew her to India before the concept of Kids with Cameras was even a dream.
www.kids-with-cameras.org
Zana Briski recommends "Secret Life of Bees," by Sue Monk Kidd.
Originally Broadcast: March 15, 2007
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Joseph Brodsky
A Book of Poems Next to Every Bible
A Part of Speech, Less Than One, To Urania, Marbles, & Watermark
Joseph Brodsky, a winner of the Noble Prize, was the United States National Poet Laureate in 1991. Born in what was then Leningrad, Soviet Union, he grew up in a communal apartment, and was very active in language and literary pursuits. In 1963, a Leningrad newspaper denounced Brodsky, calling his poetry pornographic and anti-Soviet. He was interrogated and twice put in mental institutions. His papers were seized. He was arrested and indicted on the charge of parasitism. In a secret trial, he was called a “pseudo-poet in velveteen trousers,” who failed to fulfill his “constitutional duty to work honestly for the good of the motherland.” Yet no fault was found in the content of his poetry. One of the more interesting comments Joseph Brodsky made as a guest was that there should be a book of poetry in every hotel room, right next to the Bible. He said that he didn’t think that the telephone book would mind. Joseph Brodsky died on January 28th of 1996, a world-class poet.
Originally Broadcast: November 18, 1991
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Clinton's Foreign Policy
New Forces, Old Forces and the Future of World Politics
The relationship of the US to Russia and the other members of the former Soviet Union is a major issue in the world today. The Clinton administration claimed one of its best foreign policy achievements was the way it handled the Russian situation and the disbanding of the former Soviet Union. Dr. Seyom Brown has, for the past 40 years, studied that relationship, as a foreign policy analyst, advisor and author. He is currently a Professor of International Relations and the former Chairman of the Department of Politics at Brandeis University, near Boston, MA. Our discussion about Clinton’s foreign policy resulted in this two-part program.
Originally Broadcast: August 28, 1995 & September 11, 1995
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Life in China Under Mao
Colors of the Mountain
The Chinese Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, led by Mao Zedong, imposed a major change to the nation where one in every four people in the world live. Da Chen was born in 1962 in southern China to a once wealthy family, by that time despised for its capitalist past. At the age of 23, after graduating with top honors and serving as an assistant professor at the Beijing Language Institute, Da Chen came to America with $30 and a bamboo flute. He won a full scholarship to Columbia University Law School, and later settled in the Hudson River Valley. His book, “Colors of the Mountain,” tells the story of his childhood, his life and experiences.
Da Chen recommends "The God of Small Things," by Arundhati Roy.
Originally Broadcast: July 18, 2000
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Terrence Cheng
Two Chinese Brothers
Sons of Heaven
In June of 1989, in Tienamin Square, in the justify of Beijing, China, one of the largest student protests ever to occur in that country took place. The “Sons of Heaven,” by Terrence Cheng, is a novel about three major players in this drama, Deng Xiao Ping, the leader of China at the time, and two brothers, one a soldier in the Red Army in Teinamin Square at the time, and the other the man who stood in front of the tanks.
Terrence Cheng recommends "Ghost Written," by David Mitchell.
Originally Broadcast: August 1, 2002
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Dr. Eva Etzioni-Halevy
Israel: The 11th Century B.C. and Now
The Song of Hannah, A Biblical Novel of Love, Temptation, and the Making of A Prophet
Eva Etzioni-Halevy, a retired professor of sociology at Bar-Ilan University Tel Aviv, Israel, is the author of “The Song of Hannah, A Biblical Novel of Love, Temptation, and the Making of A Prophet,” and the guest in this edition of Radio Curious. The story takes place in Judea in the eleventh century B.C. when few people were literate. In this interview with Eva Etzioni-Halevy recorded from her home in Tel Aviv, Israel, in late September 2006, she describes her interpretation of Hannah’s life, loves and leadership, and her impressions of Israel several weeks after the summer 2006 war with Lebanon. We began when I asked her to describe who Hannah was.
www.evaetzioni-halevy.com
Dr. Eva Etzioni-Halevy recommends "Walking the Bible," by Bruce Feiler.
Originally Broadcast: September 27, 2006
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Mel Fiske
Radical Reporter
Radical: A Memoir of Wars, Communists & Work
Political philosophy and one’s education, both formal and informal, can lead a person on unimagined paths that are woven into stories in that person’s life. The book, “Radical: A Memoir of Wars, Communists & Work,” was written by Mel Fiske, our guest in this edition of Radio Curious. Mel was radicalized after a 15,000 mile journey across America during the Depression. That trip opened his eyes to a life he never knew existed growing up in New York City.
Mel Fiske recommends “Bayou Farewell,” by Mike Tidwell.
Originally Broadcast: January 17, 2006
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A Walk in the Costa Rican Rain Forest
On the eastern slope of the Continental Divide, about an hour’s drive east of San Jose, Costa Rica, is the Rain Forest Aerial Tram, a tramway that travels through, above and below the rain forest canopy. The rain forest canopy is home to more diverse forms of flora and fauna than anywhere else in the known universe. Rodolfo Gomez, trained as an architect, has found his calling as a tour guide in Central America and specifically Costa Rica. My daughter Molly and I met with Rodolfo in the rain forest, near the aerial tram and recorded this program in April of 1995.
Originally Broadcast: June 20, 1995
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Born into the Stone Age
A generally accepted theory about human migration tells us that people crossed the landmass that once connected Siberia to Alaska. Some of those people continued walking south and many generations later settled on the western edge of the Amazon Basin in South America in what is now eastern Peru. One of those groups is called Shapibo. Manenima Hilario, who is now 26 yeas old, was born Shapibo, into his tribe which lived in the Stone Age traditional fashion. At age 11, he went to secondary school in the Hispanic Amazon jungle town of Pucallpa. Later, from Lima, Peru he found his way to Taylor, Texas, and on to Sonoma State University, in Northern CA, where he graduated in June of 1997. Since that time he was enrolled at Stanford University to work on his Ph.D.
Manenima Hilario recommends the biography of General Colin Powell.
Originally Broadcast: January 22, 1997
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Shari Holman
Not Even the Clothes on Her Back
The Dress Lodger
In England, in the 1830s, at the time of a major cholera epidemic, a young girl, the orphaned daughter of a prostitute, finds that working in a pottery factory does not earn her enough money for herself and her child. She must work at night like her mother, as a prostitute. Having virtually no money, she rents her dress, and is followed while she walks the streets so that she will not run off with her outfit. She is called a dress lodger. Shari Holman, a native of rural Virginia, and later a resident of Brooklyn, New York, has researched the lives of girls who were dress lodgers in England in the 1830s. She is the author of a book of historical fiction about Gustine, a 15-year-old dress lodger who lived and worked in Sunderland, England in 1831, entitled “The Dress Lodger.”
Shari Holman recommends "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down," by Anne Fadiman.
Originally Broadcast: February 6, 2001
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Jewish, Muslim & Christian Understanding
In June, 2002 I overheard an American woman now living in Israel passionately describe her belief that teaching children to be suicide bombers is the worst form of child abuse imaginable. I invited Elana Radley Rosenman, an organizer of the Women’s Interfaith Encounter, a group of Muslim, Christian and Jewish women who meet regularly in Jerusalem, to be our guest on this edition of Radio Curious.
Elana Rozenman recommends "Yet a Stranger: Why Black Americans Still Don't Feel at Home," Debra Mathis.
Originally Broadcast: July 23, 2002
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Domingo Sarmiento & Daniel Lewis
An Argentine President
Domingo Sarmiento, a teacher and later President of the Republic of Argentina, spent several years traveling in Europe and the United States in the mid-19th Century. He spent six weeks in the US in the fall of 1847 and later published his account of this visit, selectively interpreting what he saw and experienced to conform to his ideas. In this archive edition of Radio Curious, I visit with Domingo Sarmiento in the person of Professor Daniel Lewis, a scholar-presenter in the 1996 Democracy in America Chautauqua. I met with Domingo Sarmiento during a break in the Chautauqua programming in Ukiah, California, and asked him what he saw the future of the American Union to be, from his perspective in 1843.
Domingo Sarmiento recommends any book by James Fenimore Cooper. Daniel Lewis recommends "The Invention of Argentina," by Nicolas Shumway.
Originally Broadcast: July 27, 1996
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Socrates of Athens, in Conversation
Socrates' Way: Seven Masterkeys to Using Your Mind to the Utmost
Socrates of Athens, who lived before the Common Era, is respected as one of the greatest independent thinkers of all time. Socrates himself refused to be recognized as a teacher. Instead, Plato, his well-known student and reporter of Socrates’ dialogues, tells us he asked to be seen as a “midwife of ideas.” Socrates’ passion to achieve self-understanding, and the proper ways to live, continues to be studied and emulated to this day.
Socrates recommends "The Trojan Women," by Euripides. Ron Gross recommends "The Clouds," by Aristophanes.
Originally Broadcast: January 13, 2003
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Blood: A History
Blood, an Epic History of Medicine and Commerce
Human blood has been compared historically and sociologically to a river that defines human society over the millennia. That river has been charted in a recent book and television series entitled, “Blood, an Epic History of Medicine and Commerce,” by Douglas Starr. This work traces the history of blood in medical, political and economic terms, from the earliest days of bloodletting to the era of AIDS.
Douglas Starr recommends "Instance of the Finger Post," by Ian Beers.
Originally Broadcast: September 14, 2002
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Marta Morena Vega
One Religion People Forced to Migrate Brought to the Americas
The Altar of My Soul
Religious beliefs normally follow people as they migrate, including people who are forced to migrate. The people forced to migrate to the western Hemisphere during the slave-trading period carried their beliefs and belief systems to the diaspora of their new world. The Santeria religion, also know as Lucumí, is a belief system that originated in Africa later brought to the Americas and is still practiced in widely separated communities of the western hemisphere. Marta Moreno Vega, a Santeria Priestess, and university professor in New York City is the author of “The Alter of My Soul.” Her book is a story of the Santeria or Lucumí religion, its traditions, how they were brought from Africa and are practiced now. I spoke with Marta Moreno Vega by phone in November of 2000, and we began when I asked her to tell us about the Santeria religion and how it differs from other religions.
Marta Morena Vega recommends “Face of The Gods: Art and Altars of Africa and the African Americans,” by Robert F. Thompson.
Originally Broadcast: November 7, 2000
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The Peopling of the World
The Journey of Man, A Genetic Odyssey
Around 60,000 years ago, a man - identical to us in all important genetic respects - lived in Africa. Every person alive today is descended from him. This is known because the secrets of human evolution are hidden in our genetic code. In this edition of Radio Curious, we visit with geneticist Spencer Wells, author of the book and movie, “Journey of Man, A Genetic Odyssey.”
Spencer Wells recommends "No Logo," by Naomi Klein.
Originally Broadcast: February 10, 2004
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The Pogroms of Portugal, 1506
Last Kabbalist of Lisbon
In the early part of the 1500s in the Iberian Peninsula, which comprises Spain and Portugal, people who were not followers of the Roman Catholic faith were expelled, required to convert to Catholicism or killed. At that time, there was a sizeable Jewish population living in those two countries, especially in Lisbon, the capital of Portugal. The “Last Kabbalist of Lisbon,” written by Richard Zimler, an American living in Porto, Portugal, is a story about what happened to the Jews of Portugal.
Richard Zimler recommends "The Assault on Truth," by Jeffrey Masson.
Originally Broadcast: August 15, 2004
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Zoya
An Afghan Woman's Struggle for Freedom
Zoya's Story, An Afghan Woman's Struggle for Freedom
Zoya, a member of the RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan, tells the story of her childhood, her parents and her parents’ disappearance. She describes the wrath that first the Russians, then the Taliban and then the Northern Alliance have brought to her country. Along with the suffering, she describes the hope and spirit carried in the hearts of the Afghan people.
Zoya recommends the collected speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr..
Originally Broadcast: June 18, 2002
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