Modern History

Our guest is the award-winning British author and journalist William Atkins, whose new book -- a dense and engrossing blend of history, memoir, geography, and travel writing -- is called "The Immeasurable World: Journeys in Desert Places." It's a work that, per The Wall Street Journal, "courts comparisons with the capaciously learned nature writing of John McPhee. But there's also an open-ended spiritual quest to Mr.

Looking for a great book or three to relax with this summer? Of course you are. We've got lots of surefire suggestions on that score from Nancy Pearl, our longtime book reviewer here on StudioTulsa. A widely beloved literary critic, editor, author, and now-retired librarian -- and a former resident of Tulsa -- Nancy shares with us new and recent works of fiction, mystery, history, and more. Here, in order, are the books that she chats with us about:

1) "1947: Where Now Begins" by Elisabeth Asbrink

2) "Mozart's Starling" by Lyanda Lynn Haupt

(Note: This interview originally aired back in February.) The author and journalist Mark Whitaker is our guest on StudioTulsa. A former managing editor of CNN Worldwide, and a previous Washington bureau chief for NBC News, Whitaker has a new book out, which he tells us about.

Since the end of World War II, the Atlantic Alliance between the countries of Western Europe and the United States has been a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy. Despite various strains over the years, my guest today has said: "We've always argued about the 'means,' not the 'ends,' of policy. Now we seem to want very different end results." He was referring in this comment to the Trump Administration's decision to withdraw from the Iranian nuclear deal, despite near-unanimous European opposition.

Our guest is the California-based seismologist, Dr. Lucy Jones, whose new book is "The Big Ones." It offers a bracing look at some of the history's greatest natural disasters, world-altering events whose reverberations we continue to feel today. At Pompeii, for example, Dr. Jones explores how a volcanic eruption in the first century AD challenged prevailing views of religion. Later in the book, she examines the California floods of 1862 and how they show that memory itself can change or fade over successive generations.

Tulsa Ballet will soon offer, on May 3rd through the 6th, its season-ending Signature Series production, a gathering of three distinct yet thought-provoking works on themes cultural, social, and political. Alongside ballets by Nacho Duato and Ma Cong, the 1932 anti-war piece "The Green Table" will be staged. Our guests on ST are two internationally respected dancers who are both in town to handle the staging of "The Green Table" -- Jeanette Vondersaar and Claudio Schellino.

Our guest on this edition of StudioTulsa is Eric Schlosser, the well-regarded American journalist and filmmaker whose bestselling books include "Fast Food Nation" (2001), "Reefer Madness" (2003), "Chew on This" (2006), and "Command and Control" (2013). This last-named title reveals the details of America's ongoing efforts to prevent nuclear weapons from being stolen, sabotaged, or detonated by accident.

(Note: This show originally aired back in November.) On this edition of ST, Robert Dallek is our guest; he's a well-regarded American historian whose books include "Camelot's Court" and "Nixon and Kissinger," among several others. He joins us to talk about his latest volume, "Franklin D.

The author and journalist Mark Whitaker is our guest on StudioTulsa. A former managing editor of CNN Worldwide, and a previous Washington bureau chief for NBC News, Whitaker has a new book out, which he tells us about. It's an "expansive, prodigiously researched, and masterfully told history" (Kirkus Reviews) called "Smoketown: The Untold Story of the Other Great Black Renaissance." As was noted in an appreciation of this book in USA Today: "Pittsburgh was one of the country's citadels of black aspiration in music, sports, business, and culture.

On this edition of ST Medical Monday, we learn about "Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race," an exhibition that will be on view at The Sherwin Miller Museum of Jewish Art here in Tulsa through March 4th. As noted at the Sherwin Miller website, this traveling exhibit, presented by the U.S.

On this edition of our show, we listen back to a discussion from July with Richard Rothstein, who is a research associate of the Economic Policy Institute and a Fellow at the Thurgood Marshall Institute of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Widely seen as a leading authority on U.S.

Our guest is Leslie Berlin, who is the Project Historian for the Silicon Valley Archives at Stanford University. Originally from Tulsa, Berlin has a new book out that offers nothing less than the history of Silicon Valley. As was noted of this book by The New York Times: "[A] deeply researched and dramatic narrative of Silicon Valley's early years.... Meticulously told stories permit the reader to gain a nuanced understanding of the emergence of the broader technology ecosystem that has enabled Silicon Valley to thrive....

Our guest today on StudioTulsa is Pierre Sauvage, an Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker who's also a  child survivor of the Holocaust. He'll be speaking here in Tulsa, on Sunday the 12th, at the 79th Anniversary Kristallnacht Commemoration, beginning at 2pm in the Jewish Federation of Tulsa's Sylvan Auditorium.

On this edition of ST, we speak with Joseph Opala, an American historian who's known for his research on the so-called "Gullah Connection," i.e., the long historical thread linking the West African nation of Sierra Leone to the Gullah people of coastal South Carolina and Georgia. Opala, an Oklahoma native, first learned of the Gullah people while serving in the Peace Corps, just after college; by now, he has spent more than four decades making historical discoveries about these people, their language, their culture, their lineage, and so forth.

On this edition of ST, we chat with the New York-based author and journalist Jennifer Egan, whose newest novel, the much-praised "Manhattan Beach," is just out. As was noted of this book in a starred review in Kirkus: "After stretching the boundaries of fiction in myriad ways...Egan does perhaps the only thing left that could surprise: she writes a thoroughly traditional novel. Realistically detailed, poetically charged, and utterly satisfying: apparently there's nothing Egan can't do." And further, per Dwight Garner in The New York Times: "Immensely satisfying....

On this installment of StudioTulsa, we speak with the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Frankel about his new book, "High Noon." It's a detailed history focused on the making of one of Hollywood’s most popular, and most critically acclaimed, Westerns. It's also, as we learn on today's program, a quite deliberate if veiled parable about the then-current Hollywood blacklist.

On this installment of ST, our guest is the noted author and journalist Andrea Pitzer, who tells us about her newest book, "One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps." This volume -- which Kirkus, in a starred review, has called "a chilling, well-documented history...of cruelty and dehumanization" -- begins in 1890s Cuba and ends with present-day Guantanamo, covering camps all around the world and throughout modernity.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution. What does this revolution mean to us today? How do remember it; what lessons or themes do we draw from it? And moreover, how is the revolution thought of by Russians themselves? On this edition of ST, we speak with Donald J. Raleigh, a Distinguished Professor of Russian History at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

On this installment of ST, an interesting chat with Rick Wartzman, who is the director of the Moon Center for a Functioning Society at the Drucker Institute, which is a part of Claremont Graduate University. Wartzman also writes about work and working for Fortune Magazine's website, and he joins us to discuss his new book, "The End of Loyalty: The Rise and Fall of Good Jobs in America." This book, which Forbes called "a brilliant, rogue history of American business's transformation over the past 75 years," shows us how and why four major U.S.

(Note: This interview first aired back in May.) On this edition of ST, we chat with Michael Wallis, the best-selling Tulsa-based author of "Route 66" and "David Crockett" and many other books.

(Note: This show first aired back in January.) We speak with Frances McCall Rosenbluth, a Professor of Political Science at Yale University and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is the co-author of a new book called "Forged Through Fire: War, Peace, and the Democratic Bargain," which she discusses with us. As was noted in a starred review of this book by Kirkus, this is a "sometimes-counterintuitive but always fascinating interrogation of the history and uses of war....

(Note: This interview originally aired back in May.) We speak with the New Mexico-based writer and biographer James McGrath Morris, who joins us to discuss his newest work: "The Ambulance Drivers: Hemingway, Dos Passos, and a Friendship Made and Lost in War." As was noted of this historical biography by the New York Journal of Books: "[This book] delves head-first into the mercurial relationship of these two American literary legends....

On this edition of ST, a discussion with Richard Rothstein, who is a research associate of the Economic Policy Institute and a Fellow at the Thurgood Marshall Institute of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Widely seen as a leading authority on U.S.

On this edition of ST -- with the Tour de France now in full swing -- we learn about both the origins and the development of the greatest race in all of cycling. Our guest is Peter Cossins, who's written about professional cycling since the early 1990s -- and who is a contributing editor at Procycling Magazine. His new book, just out, is called "The First Tour de France: Sixty Cyclists and Nineteen Days of Daring on the Road to Paris." As was noted of this book by a critic for Podium Cafe (a journal of cycling news, analysis, and opinion): "Essential....

What can American motion pictures tell us about the American South, and what can the South tell us about the movies? Our guest is Robert Jackson, an Associate Professor of English here at the University of Tulsa.

(Note: This interview originally aired back in March.) Our guest is Chris Cleave, the British novelist whose bestselling WWII-era yarn, "Everyone Brave Is Forgiven," is now in paperback. As was noted of this book by an Amazon critic: "We've been wondering lately: What is the secret sauce that makes novels like Anthony Doerr's 'All the Light We Cannot See' and Kristin Hannah's 'The Nightingale' so popular, stories set against the backdrop of WWII? Whatever it is, it made me approach Chris Cleave's 'Everyone Brave Is Forgiven' with a particularly wary eye.

On this installment of ST, we speak with the British author and historian Huw Lewis-Jones, who is one of the editors (along with his wife, Kari Herbert) of a striking and engaging new book, "Explorers' Sketchbooks: The Art of Discovery and Adventure." As was noted of this book in a starred review in Library Journal: "The intersection of adventure, art, and memoir doesn't get any better than this title, edited by polar guides and husband-and-wife team Lewis-Jones and ­Herbert.

On this edition of StudioTulsa, we welcome Giles Milton back to our show; he's a British historian and author whose many books include "Nathaniel's Nutmeg" and "When Hitler Took Cocaine and Lenin Lost His Brain." He joins us to discuss his latest book, which is called "Churchill's Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare: The Mavericks Who Plotted Hitler's Defeat." As was noted of this exciting work of history by Kirkus Reviews: "[This is] an elegant presentation of Winston Churchill’s special guerrilla operations force, which consistently met the dirty exigencies of war....