American Culture

We chat with Abby Kurin, the recently named managing director of the OKPOP Foundation.

Traveling from Illinois to California, the author and his family learned about the USA via historical landmarks, quirky roadside attractions, and countless colorful characters.

This timely and important book argues that our very idea of citizenship must be revised and expanded; indeed, we as a nation need to rethink our notion of citizenship if American democracy is to survive.

"[This book] expands and often upends existing histories by locating the early culture wars not in coastal campuses and think tanks but in Hereford, a small town in the Texas Panhandle." -- Jason Mellard, author of "Progressive Country"

Museum Confidential: Season 7, Episode 10.

Here's an engrossing, foodie-friendly road trip along Route 66...with plenty of stops at diners, supper clubs, and roadside stands; this book also describes how and why such venues came and went over the years...and even offers kitchen-tested recipes from various historic eateries along the way.

"Masterful.... This book is an enduring, formidable accomplishment, a monument to the power of biography [that] now becomes the definitive work [on Hoover]." -- The Washington Post

"This layered chronicle traces how methamphetamine and fentanyl became scourges of American life.... Quinones places the narrative in a range of illuminating contexts." -- The New Yorker

Traveling the Mother Road from Illinois to California, the author and his family learn about the USA via historical landmarks, quirky roadside attractions, and countless colorful characters.

On this Veterans Day, we revisit our conversation from last May with Phil Klay, the National Book Award-winning author and U.S. Marine Corps vet.