Focus
Interviews on global affairs and daily life
Monday thru Friday, 10 am to noon on WILL-AM 580
Interview Archives: United States history
Wednesday June 13, 2012, 11:06 AM
Showdown in the Sonoran Desert: Religion, Law, and the Immigration Controversy
Ananda Rose, Ph.D., Poet; Journalist
Host: David Inge
Categories: History • United States history • Immigration • Public Policy
Thursday June 07, 2012, 10:06 AM
Our Divided Political Heart: The Battle for the American Idea in an Age of Discontent
E. J. Dionne Jr., Columnist for the Washington Post; Sneior Fellow, Brookings Institution; and University Professor, the Foundations of Democracy and Culture, Georgetown University
Host: David Inge
Interview links:
Categories: History • United States history • Politics
Tuesday June 05, 2012, 10:06 AM
American Icon: Alan Mulally and the fight to Save Ford Motor Company
Bryce Hoffman, Award-Winning Journalist, The Detroit News
Host: David Inge
Interview links:
Categories: Automotive • Biography • History • United States history
Wednesday May 02, 2012, 11:06 AM
White House Burning: The Founding Fathers, Our National Debt, and Why It Matters to You
James Kwak, J.D., Associate Professor at the University of Connecticut School of Law; in 2011–2012, a Fellow at the Harvard Law School Program on Corporate Governance
Host: David Inge
Most Americans have no idea what the federal government does for them, which leads many to believe that it does nothing. Put that together with two parties unable to work together to solve our major problems, and are headed for a future where almost everyone will be hurt. That’s the argument of a new book "White House Burning." Co-author James Kwak, professor of law at the University of Connecticut, is our guest. The book is all about the national debt … what it means and why we should care.
Play now:
Download: mp3 file
Interview links:
Categories: Economics • Government • History • United States history • Politics • Public Policy • United Nations
Wednesday April 25, 2012, 10:06 AM
The Mark Inside: A Perfect Swindle, a Cunning Revenge, and a Small History of the Big Con
Amy Reading, Ph.D., Writer
Host: David Inge
Con men rely on one thing: victims who are ashamed of having been conned won't report the crime. But Frank Norfleet was not a man to go quietly. He was a prosperous Texas rancher who lost everything in a stock swindle. And he decided to get even. Over a four year period he traveled the country hunting down the men who had cheated him, eventually sending them to jail and becoming famous in the process. Amy Reading shares the story of Frank Norfleet and his reverse-con, the subject of her book "The Mark Inside."
Play now:
Download: mp3 file
Categories: Crime • History • United States history
Tuesday February 28, 2012, 11:06 AM
Illinois in the War of 1812
Gillum Ferguson, J.D., Attorney in Naperville, Illinois; Historian
Host: David Inge
The most important battles in the war of 1812 took place in the Atlantic, the Great lakes and the South, but the war also touched the land that would eventually become Illinois. Historian Gillum Ferguson explains the crucial importance of the war to the development of Illinois as a state, the subject of his book "Illinois in the War of 1812." He’ll tell us about some of the people who fought the war, review the events that defined it and summarize its lasting consequences.
Play now:
Download: mp3 file
Categories: History • United States history • United States • Illinois • War
Wednesday February 01, 2012, 11:06 AM
Money Well Spent? The Truth Behind the Trillion-Dollar Stimulus, the Biggest Economic Recovery Plan in History
Michael Grabell, Journalist; Reporter with ProPublica
Host: David Inge
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, commonly known as “the stimulus,” was the biggest economic recovery plan in history. It’s estimated to have created or saved millions of jobs, although it did not bring about a strong, sustainable recovery. So was it a success, or a failure? Our guest will be Michael Grabell, a reporter at ProPublica and author of the new book "Money Well Spent." The book attempts to answer the question: Was, in fact, the taxpayers' money well spent?
Play now:
Download: mp3 file
Interview links:
Categories: Economics • Finance • Government • History • United States history • Politics
Wednesday December 21, 2011, 10:06 AM
Lions of the West: Heroes and Villains of the Westward Expansion
Robert Morgan, the Kappa Alpha Professor of English, Cornell University
Host: David Inge
Play now:
Download: mp3 file
Interview links:
Categories: Biography • History • United States history
Friday October 28, 2011, 10:06 AM
Collision Course: Ronald Reagan, the Air Traffic Controllers, and the Strike That Changed America
Joseph A. McCartin, Ph.D., Associate Professor of History; Director, Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor, Georgetown University
Host: David Inge
Play now:
Download: mp3 file
Interview links:
Categories: Government • History • United States history • Labor/worker issues • Transportation • Airlines
Thursday October 27, 2011, 11:06 AM
Grant's Final Victory: Ulysses S. Grant's Heroic Last Year
Charles Bracelen Flood, Writer
Host: David Inge
Play now:
Download: mp3 file
Categories: Biography • History • United States history
