C-SPAN Bookshelf

Glenn Kirschner, our guest this week, is an attorney with 30 years of trial experience. For 24 of those years, he prosecuted 50 murder trials for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington, DC. Three years ago, he created for YouTube viewers a daily video analysis of Donald Trump's legal issues and indictments. He calls his show "Justice Matters" and records his remarks from his home in Virginia. We asked him how he puts it all together. As you'll learn, he is not a fan of Donald Trump. Our next episode of Booknotes+ will feature Jim Trusty, a former attorney for the 45th president. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"For every young kid that makes a mistake, they can look at Don Scott and say, 'I'll never give up. I can still be what I want to be in America.'" That was former Republican governor Bob McDonnell of Virginia speaking about our guest this week, the state's newly elected Democratic speaker of the House of Delegates. Don Scott talks about the hurdles he overcame, including spending almost eight years in prison, to become Virginia's first Black speaker in 405 years. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Wesleyan University professor Andrew Curran looked at how the concept of race emerged during the 18th-century Enlightenment period. George Mason University history professor Christy Pichichero interviewed him. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Author Daniel Paisner discusses his ghostwriting career and the recent National Convention of Ghostwriters. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Between 1881 and 1914, over ten million people crossed the Atlantic from Europe to America, the largest mass migration of people from one continent to another in human history." Those are the words of our guest, Steven Ujifusa, from his introduction to his book "The Last Ships from Hamburg". Over 2.5 million of these immigrants to America were Jews. A significant percentage came from Russia. Mr. Ujifusa focuses mostly on three men to tell the story: Jacob Schiff of Kuhn, Loeb & Company; Albert Ballin, managing director of the Hamburg-American Line shipping company; and J.P. Morgan, mastermind of the International Mercantile Marine trust. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Charles Scribner III, author of "Scribners: Five Generations in Publishing," talks about his family's history at the famous publishing house that was founded by his great-great-grandfather in 1846. He also shares stories about some of the authors published by Scribner over the decades, including Edith Wharton, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and Winston Churchill. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Writer and podcaster Coleman Hughes argued that the U.S. should move towards a colorblind approach to politics and race. He was interviewed by the Atlantic staff writer and author Thomas Chatterton Williams. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Henry Wallace was President Franklin Roosevelt's vice president during his third term, 1941-1945. FDR then chose Harry Truman as vice president in his fourth and last term. In author Benn Steil's book "The World That Wasn't: Henry Wallace and the Fate of the American Century," he writes, "Wallace loved humankind but was mostly vexed or bored by humans…" Steil takes us through Wallace's life, from Iowa farm boy to presidential candidate on the Progressive ticket in 1948. Wallace preached the supremacy of human rights over property rights yet excused the absence of human rights in Russia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tech entrepreneur Sebastian Thrun talks about his work in Silicon Valley and the future of artificial intelligence. Thrun, formerly a vice president at Google, is the founder or co-founder of Google X (R&D), Waymo (self-driving cars), Google Brain (AI), Kitty Hawk (flying vehicles), and Udacity (online learning). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Writer Ijeoma Oluo looked at how everyday Americans are fighting oppression in our systems and institutions to bring about change in communities. She was interviewed by author and activist Soraya Chemaly. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices