Harry Kreisler welcomes Pulitzer Prize winning historian David M. Kennedy to discuss what can be learned from The Great Depression. Professor Kennedy analyzes the genius of Roosevelt's leadership, the tragedy of Herbert Hoover, the relationship between FDR's short term goals to deal with the economy and his long term goals to establish a new political coalition and create institutions to stabilize American capitalism and more equitably distribute its resources. Kennedy draws parallels with the current global economic crisis and the lessons that the Obama administration could learn from the...
Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes Charlotte DeCroes Jacobs, M.D., for a discussion of the development of a cure for Hodgkin's lymphatic cancer. Tracing her decision to become a medical oncologist, Dr. Jacobs characterizes the challenges of being both an oncologist and biographer. She then traces the history of Hodgkin's disease including the contributions of scientists who identified the cancer, its distinctive pattern of moving through the lymph system, and other clues that led to a cure. Focusing on the career of Stanford's Dr. Henry Kaplan, she describes the qualities...
Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes Charles McCurdy, Professor of History and Law, University of Virginia, for a discussion of the interactions of law and politics in the United States. Case studies discussed include: Justice Stephen Field; The Anti- Rent Era in New York Law (1830-1865); Herbert Wechsler's article on "The Political Safeguards of Federalism;" and the Sedition Acts of the 1790's.
Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes economic historian Barry Eichengreen of UC Berkeley for an analysis of the global economic crisis. He discusses its causes, evaluates government responses, and explores the implications for reform and stability of the international monetary system. Professor Eichengreen compares the present crisis to the Great Depression and discusses its implications for America's standing in the world. He also reflects on the role of history in helping us understand the interplay between economics and politics.
Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes Berkeley economic historian Barry Eichengreen for a discussion of his new book, Exorbitant Privilege. Outlining the history of the dollar's role in the international monetary system, Eichengreen begins with the function and characteristics of a reserve currency. The conversation then moves to an analysis of the institutional prerequisites for the rise of the dollar as an international currency. After describing the dollar's rise and sterling's fall, Eichengreen focuses on the factors that accounted for the dollar's...
Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes Harvard Professor Annette Gordon-Reed for a discussion of her work as a lawyer/historian focusing on the contradictions of the life of Thomas Jefferson. Recalling her intellectual odyssey. Professor Gordon-Reed elucidates her contribution to Jeffersonian scholarship including her most recent book “The Most Blessed of Patriarchs”: Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of Imagination(written with Peter S. Onuf). Topics covered in the conversation include how her training as a lawyer empowered her to overturn the conventional...
Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes Andrew J. Bacevich for a discussion of the new American militarism. Bacevich discusses his career as a military officer and as a Princeton trained historian. He traces his intellectual odyssey and offers insights into the forces shaping current high expectations about the military's role in international politics.
Swedish journalist and political scientist Anders Mellbourn is UC Berkeley's Harry Kreisler's guest for a discussion of how 911 has affected Sweden's role in international politics.
Host Harry Kreisler is joined by historian and former Politburo member Alexander Yakovlev who reflects on his role in the transformation of the Soviet Union and the fall of communism.