U.S. History

Ellis Island reopens to the public soon. Commentator Maureen Corrigan shares her disappointment that she'll have to pay if she wants her grandparents' names inscribed on the new American Immigrant Wall of Honor.

Chestnut earned his law degree at Washington D.C.'s Howard University, but soon returned to his hometown of Selma, Alabama, where he opened a law office -- before legal protections like the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act were passed. His new memoir is called Black in Selma.

Architect Andrés Duany (pronounced ahn-drays due-wahn-nee). Duany's specialty is taking on the American suburb. He eloquently argues that the 'burbs stifle the quality of everyday life, and he has concrete proposals on ways to make our neighborhoods livable again. (The first of a two part interview--today what's wrong with the suburbs, tomorrow how to make them better).

Critic Maureen Corrigan reviews "Homeward Bound," historian Elaine Tyler May's look at family life in the 1950s.

Pulitzer prize winning biographer Robert A. Caro on Lyndon Baines Johnson. The book focused on Johnson's early years. The Boston Sunday Globe called it, "a powerful, absorbing, at times awe-inspiring, and often deeply alarming story." In the just-published second volume, "Means of Ascent," Caro examines seven years of Johnson's life, from 1941 to 1948.

Television critic David Bianculli previews a new ABC docudrama based on the Challenger disaster. It stars Karen Allen, Peter Boyle, and Barry Bostwick. Bianculli says the movie is helped by the limits it keeps.

John F. Sears, author of "Sacred Places: American Tourist Attractions in the Nineteenth Century." Sears went back to magazines, fiction and painting of the 19th century to find out when and why tourism developed in this country. He says that natural wonders like Niagara Falls and Yellowstone were a substitute for the cathedrals of Europe, and that tourism gave Americans a way to shape their national identity. (Interview by Sedge Thomson)

Gladys Hansen is the archivist for the city of San Francisco. She's just written "Denial of Disaster," a book about the 1906 earthquake which corrects misinformation perpetuated about the quake.

Veteran arms negotiator and diplomat Paul Nitze. Nitze has spent nearly 50 years at the highest levels of this country's foreign policy, and advised every President from F. D. R. to George Bush. He helped form the Marshall Plan after World War Two, dealt with the Berlin War and Cuban Missile crises, and engaged in the famous "walk in the woods," during the U-S/Soviet INF treaty negotiations. Nitze has just written a memoir of his public life, called "From Hiroshima to Glasnost."

Ronald Takaki. He's the grandson of Japanese immigrants and a professor of Ethnic Studies at Berkeley. His book, Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans, tells the diverse stories of Asian immigrants who have come to the United States during the past century and a half. Takaki relates the personal testimonies of new immigrants and their American-born children.

Commentator Maureen Corrigan reviews The Real Thing, by Miles Orvell. Corrigan says the book is one of those works that attempts to explain just about everything in terms of one theory. Orwell's theory is that American culture has been driven by the tension between imitation and the desire for authenticity.

Joel Rosenman and John Roberts. Twenty years ago Rosenman and Roberts were in their 20s when they came into a large inheritance. They decided to take the money and promote a rock concert in upstate New York. What they ended up organizing was Woodstock, possibly the one event that best sums up an entire era of American history.

On the eve of the 20th anniversary of man's first walk on the moon, commentator Stewart Brand shares his thoughts on space exploration and how it has changed us. Brand is founder of The Whole Earth Catalog.

Language commentator Geoff Nunberg reflects on his home city, and the cultural and linguistic differences that separate the natives from the tourists.

Stanley Karnow's new book examines the United States' colonial interests in the Philippines. Karnow discusses the tension between Filipino and the imposed American culture, the enduring role of the United States after Filipino independence, and the rise of Ferdinand Marcos.

Carl Bernstein, who broke the Watergate story with his colleague Bob Woodward, has a new memoir about his parents, called Loyalties. Bernstein's mother and father were communist activists during the McCarthy era, and were monitored by the FBI.

William Whyte says that dense, urban areas foster social interaction and a sense of belonging. His bases his claim on research dating back to the 1960s. His new book, which outlines his findings, is called Cities.

Wilson received a lifetime appointment from Ronald Reagan to head the National Archives. The agency became an independent entity after being part of the General Services Administration.

Peter Nabokov cowrote a book with Robert Easton about the dwellings of American Indians, which he uses as a lens through which to learn more about their lives and traditions. For his research, Easton lived near several reservations and visited the homes of Native American families.

Robert Kaplow and performance group the Punsters give their satirical, dystopian take on how 1989 will turn out. They warn of computer viruses, financial collapse, and a rise of chocolate addiction among teenagers.