In this special St. Valentine’s Day episode of The Learning Curve, co-hosts U-Arkansas Prof. Albert Cheng and Alisha Searcy interview renowned Shakespeare scholar Professor Sir Jonathan Bate to discuss the timeless tragedy, Romeo and Juliet. Exploring its enduring greatness, Sir Jonathan delves into Shakespeare’s classical influences, particularly Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and how Elizabethan literature shaped the portrayal of lovers. He examines the interplay of passion, violence, and fate in Verona’s warring streets and explains Romeo and Juliet’s eternal love—from Romeo’s early infatuation with Rosaline to his deep romantic connection with Juliet. Sir Jonathan highlights the poetic brilliance and intimacy of the famous window scene, Mercutio’s pivotal role in shifting the play’s tone, and the tragic consequences of miscommunication and hasty action. He also reflects on Shakespeare’s overarching themes of love and death, and the poetic depth of his love sonnets. Additionally, he shares insights into what Romeo and Juliet and Shakespeare’s works teach us about the enduring human desire for love. In closing, Sir Jonathan reads a passage from his book Mad about Shakespeare: From Classroom to Theatre to Emergency Room.

In this episode of The Learning Curve, co-hosts U-Arkansas Prof. Albert Cheng and Alisha Searcy interview historian Marcus Rediker, Distinguished Professor of Atlantic History at the University of Pittsburgh and author of The Amistad Rebellion. Prof. Rediker explores the 1839 slave revolt aboard the schooner La Amistad. He recounts the leadership of Sengbe Pieh (Joseph Cinqué) and the wider history and human toll of the transatlantic slave trade. Prof. Rediker details the Amistad Africans’ journey from Sierra Leone to Havana’s barracoons, their rebellion at sea, and their capture off Long Island. He examines the legal battle, from their defense by abolitionists to American statesman John Quincy Adams’ stirring legal argument before the U.S. Supreme Court, which helped secure their freedom. Prof. Rediker highlights the Amistad SCOTUS case’s impact on the abolitionist movement and the fate of Cinqué and his comrades upon returning to West Africa. He discusses how the Amistad revolt should be remembered and taught, ensuring that this extraordinary story of resistance and justice remains a vital part of our historical consciousness. In closing, Prof. Rediker reads a passage from his book The Amistad Rebellion.

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In the summer of 1946, the nascent CIA was given jurisdiction, if that is the word, over Latin America. The FBI, which before WWII had been given by FDR such jurisdiction, which it firmly believed was the word, grudgingly yielded such resources as it had amassed in this its once-sacred bailiwick. What those resources were, […]

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I’m particularly pleased to announce my latest audiobook: George Hearst, Silver King of the Golden Age. This one is a bit of a milestone for me, since it’s my 90th published title. More importantly, it’s one of the very best books I’ve worked on, a fascinating history filled with well-told stories. That’s no surprise, since the author, […]

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In this special Holocaust Remembrance Day episode of The Learning Curve, co-hosts U-Arkansas Prof. Albert Cheng and the Heritage Foundation’s Jason Bedrick interview Alexandra Popoff, a former Moscow journalist and acclaimed biographer. Ms. Popoff delves into the life and legacy of Vasily Grossman, a 20th-century Jewish Soviet writer and journalist. She explores Grossman’s transition from chemical engineering to writing, influenced by his Jewish heritage and the historical context of the time. Popoff discusses Grossman’s role as a war correspondent for the Red Army newspaper, covering key WWII battles and providing early reports on Nazi death camps, including Treblinka. She highlights his 1944 piece, “The Hell of Treblinka,” which was used as evidence in the Nuremberg Trials. Popoff also examines Grossman’s major literary works, including Stalingrad and Life and Fate, which were censored and “arrested” by the Soviet government for their anti-totalitarian content. She reflects on Grossman’s historic contributions to Holocaust literature and the lessons his writings offer on the political nature of Nazism and Soviet communism. In closing, she reads a passage from her book, Vasily Grossman and the Soviet Century.

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I know one thing that was on Porfirio Díaz’s agenda June 16, 1909: laying the cornerstone for a building in downtown Mexico City. I know it because, at the intersection of Morelos and Baldares, a few blocks from the Alameda Central, the information is inscribed in that very stone. The building itself is apparently abandoned, […]

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As is too often the case when I receive a book as a gift, I am slow to commence reading it; but now I’ve started Voyage of the Beagle, and it moves. I did not know that Charles Darwin was very much a geologist. In the early nineteenth century, was that a really happenin’ science? […]

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This week on The Learning Curve, co-hosts Alisha Searcy of DFER and U-Arkansas Prof. Albert Cheng interview Carl Rollyson, CUNY professor, and acclaimed biographer of William Faulkner. Prof. Rollyson offers an in-depth exploration of Faulkner’s life, work, and enduring legacy. He discusses Faulkner’s formative years in early 20th-century Mississippi a region still grappling with its post-Civil War identity, and his early literary influences, including mentorship by Phil Stone and encounters with literary greats like Sherwood Anderson. Rollyson delves into Faulkner’s tumultuous personal life, his complex marriage to his wife Estelle, and his writing routine at his Oxford, Mississippi, home, Rowan Oak. Rollyson examines Faulkner’s creation of Yoknapatawpha County, the setting for masterpieces such as The Sound and the Fury and Absalom, Absalom!, as well as his Hollywood years and their impact on his craft. He also explores Faulkner’s views on race and civil rights, his Nobel Prize-winning novels, and his influence on Southern literature and writers like Flannery O’Connor and Ralph Ellison. In closing, Prof. Rollyson reads a passage from his two-volume biography, The Life of William Faulkner.

Knights With Guns

 

In 1643 Britain fielded its last regiment of fully armored cavalry.  Myke Cole describes them as knights with guns.

Steel Lobsters: Crown, Commonwealth, and the Last Knights In England relates the history and fate of that unit. It also places them in their historical context.

The regiment, known as “the Lobsters,” was raised during the English Civil War of 1642 through 1651. The unit was not made up solely of knights — men belonging to orders of knighthood — although several of its soldiers were knights.  Its members did wear the full armor that medieval knights wore, although their weapons were those of 17th-century cavalrymen, including carbines and pistols. Ironically, despite an appearance appropriate for nobility, it was a Parliamentary unit fielded by rebels in arms against King Charles I.

This week on The Learning Curve, co-hosts Alisha Searcy of DFER and Dr. Jocelyn Chadwick interview Jeffrey Meyers, acclaimed literary biographer, about his comprehensive exploration of Edgar Allan Poe’s life and work. Meyers delves into Poe’s troubled early years, his struggles with abandonment and poverty, and how these shaped his dark, Gothic style. The discussion covers the themes and influences behind Poe’s first poetry collection, Tamerlane and Other Poems, as well as his caustic literary criticism, which earned him the moniker “the man with the tomahawk.” Meyers explains Poe’s development of detective fiction through the character C. Auguste Dupin in The Murders in the Rue Morgue, as well as the lasting significance of The Tell-Tale Heart in Gothic horror. He also explores Poe’s most famous poem, The Raven, its crafting, and mythic resonance, along with The Cask of Amontillado, a revenge-driven tale that mirrors Poe’s personal struggles. Meyers discusses Poe’s essay The Philosophy of Composition and his belief in the “death of a beautiful woman” as a poetic ideal, analyzing Poe’s relationships and what young writers can learn from his methods. Meyers also reflects on what teachers and students can appreciate about Poe’s haunting genius and impact on literature. In closing, Meyers reads a passage from his book, Edgar Allan Poe: His Life and Legacy.

Mapping Texas History

 

Computers in the 21st century have pretty much made printed atlases and paper maps obsolete.  Yet pouring through a printed atlas or examining a well-printed, large paper map offers pleasure as much tactile as visual.

Landmark Maps of Texas: The Frank and Carol Holcomb Collection, by Frank H. Holcomb, exemplifies the pleasures a well-printed map collection offers.  It contains maps of Texas and the United States from 1513 to 1904. These illustrate the discovery and development of Texas over that period and put the state in context with the United States.

The book opens with three relatively short sections introducing the collection and discussing the role of maps and map-making. These sections offer chapters on six foundational maps of Texas, a discussion of its discovery and exploration, and a chapter on the shaping of modern Texas.  These occupy about 45 of the book’s 256 pages.

This week on The Learning Curve, co-hosts Alisha Searcy of DFER and Dr. Jocelyn Chadwick interview Catherine Clinton, Denman Professor of American History at the University of Texas at San Antonio, and author of Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom. Prof. Clinton discusses her definitive biography of Harriet Tubman, the renowned abolitionist and Underground Railroad conductor. She reflects on Tubman’s early life as Araminta Ross, born into slavery in antebellum Maryland, and the formative experiences that shaped her resistance to oppression. Clinton covers a traumatic head injury Tubman suffered, her deep religious faith, and the spiritual visions that guided her. She also explores Tubman’s marriage to John Tubman, her escape to freedom in 1849, and her leadership in rescuing enslaved people. Prof. Clinton also delves into the dangers Tubman faced under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, her work with prominent abolitionists like John Brown, Frederick Douglass, and William Seward, and her service as a Union spy and military leader during the Civil War. Additionally, Clinton reflects on Tubman’s later life in upstate New York, her advocacy for women’s suffrage, and her enduring legacy in American history. In closing, Prof. Clinton reads a passage form her biography, Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom.

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And maybe Syria and Indonesia too. But Adam Clayton Powell didn’t spend much time in those places. In his salaried jobs as clergyman and Congressman, he was notionally rooted to Harlem with an office in D.C., but his true occupation may have been hanging out off the coast of Florida. If you were twelve years […]

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The Rise of Hollywood

 

Nicholas and Joseph Schenck were late-nineteenth-century immigrants to the United States. Brought over as children to escape Czarist Russia’s anti-Semitic pogroms, their parents wanted them to be something in life – doctors, pharmacists.  Instead they became film pioneers, eventually the two most powerful men in Hollywood.

Moguls: The Lives and Times of Hollywood Film Pioneers Nicholas and Joseph Schenck, by Michael Benson and Craig Singer, tells their story, and that of the film industry in the first half of the twentieth century. Largely forgotten today, the Schencks became the men who controlled Hollywood.

Benson and Singer restore their prominence in Moguls. The authors open with a multi-page list of the brothers’ firsts, significant accomplishments, and interesting facts. They created the Hollywood studio system, the Motion Picture Academy (and Oscars), and pioneered Technicolor. Some were less significant. Joe Schenck was Buster Keaton’s brother-in-law, and Joe joined the “mile-high club” early.

From Startup to Industry Standard

 

Over the last fifteen years, Elon Musk’s SpaceX has redefined the space industry. Launching rockets has changed from a stodgy plodding business mired in the 20th century to a dynamic 21st-century multiple-weekly-launch industry. It has reduced launch costs by a factor of 100.

Reentry: SpaceX, Elon Musk, and the Reusable Rockets that Launched a Second Space Age by Eric Berger tells how SpaceX accomplished it. The book follows the history of SpaceX from the start of the Falcon 9 project to the present.

Berger opens after the successful launches of Falcon 1. Berger picks up where his previous history of SpaceX, Liftoff, ended. Berger shows how and why Musk chose to abandon the successful but commercially questionable Falcon 1 and leapfrogged past the next development planned: the five-engine Falcon 5.  Instead, Musk shifted to the Falcon 9, capable of putting 23,000 pounds into orbit as compared to Falcon 1’s 1,000 pounds. He also insisted Falcon 9 was to be fully reusable and launch multiple times, a vision then mocked as unachievable.

Britannia under the Waves

 

Despite my last name being Gallagher, I’ve always been something of an Anglophile. I took two years of English History during my long-ago college days and when I graduated I took a six-week backpacking trip around England. I never ventured any farther north than Wales, but along with hanging out in pubs, I did manage to take what I called the Castle Tour. Starting with the grim fortress of Dover Castle overlooking the English Channel, I visited Arundel Castle, Carnarvon Castle, Conwy Castle, Harlech Castle, and Caerphilly Castle with its still-intact moat.

My travels weren’t just confined to castles, however. I visited the British Museum, where I viewed one of the early copies of the Magna Carta, which contains Articles 39 and 40, two of the foundation stones of our modern freedoms. I also visited the Imperial War Museum, the Tudor Palace of Hampton Court, Sir Christopher Wren’s St. Paul’s Cathedral, and Westminister Abbey with its walls covered with plaques honoring Britons both famous and obscure.

The Evil That Was Always There

 

When I was a wee bairn in the 60s, I remember seeing movies about WWII, the Holocaust, and all of that.  I could not believe that people could do the things that were done.  How could they be so evil?

My mother fixed her gaze on me when I voiced these opinions and told me that someday the evil that is hatred of the Jews would rise again, because it is an ancient evil that will never go away.  It’s just something that goes along with being God’s chosen.  Satan will always be after the Jews, and he has many allies.  When antisemitism came back in full force I would have to choose whether I would be good or evil.