History

For the past year, veteran war correspondent Anthony Shadid has been reporting on the Arab uprisings in Egypt, Libya, Syria, Bahrain and Tunisia. Last March, he was kidnapped and beaten by security forces in Libya. "It remains one of the scariest moments of my life," he says.

For more than 20 years, puppeteer Kevin Clash has been the voice behind the lovable red monster on Sesame Street. Both Clash "and" Elmo talk with Terry Gross about performing with Jim Henson, and creating a fun, educational experience for preschool-aged children.

Set in the Cold War era, the espionage thriller Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy spotlights a retired security agent's mission to uncover a Russian spy within Britain's MI6. David Edelstein says the movie is thrilling, creepy and full of "faces you'll love to study."

Newt Gingrich made a fortune from the businesses he started after leaving Congress in 1999. Washington Post reporter Karen Tumulty explains how Gingrich "transfigured himself from a political flameout into a thriving business conglomerate."

The recent film portrays former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover as a man who had to keep his sexual orientation a secret — while collecting other people's secrets to use against them. Screenwriter Dustin Lance Black explains how he researched the film, which stars Leonardo DiCaprio.

Tim Arango, the Baghdad bureau chief for The New York Times, shares personal stories from his time covering the war, including how he tracked down the subject of a famous photograph. He also talks about what the U.S. troop withdrawal means for the future of Iraq -- and what will happen after the troops are gone.

The Roosevelts' unorthodox marriage was equitable, sexually open — and spanned four decades. Hazel Rowley profiles the uncommon union of a four-term president and his first lady in Franklin And Eleanor: An Extraordinary Marriage.

In Boomerang, writer Michael Lewis tells the stories of the countries hit hardest by the 2008 financial crisis. He also profiles some people who bet against European governments and are likely to make millions if and when they default.

In 2009, Peter Van Buren joined a team working to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure and economy. For the next year, he encountered comically misguided projects, greedy contractors and oblivious bureaucrats. In his new book, We Meant Well, he recounts the ground-level waste and corruption he saw.

Former FBI agent and interrogator Ali Soufan talks about dysfunction and rivalries inside the government's counterterrorism agencies that led to missed opportunities — as well as the ineffectiveness of enhanced interrogation techniques on collecting intelligence.

Reviewer Maureen Corrigan says Amy Waldman's debut novel might be the Sept. 11 novel — the one that finally does justice, artistically and historically, to the aftershocks of that day.

The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, linger in our thoughts, but not so much in our speech. Linguist Geoff Nunberg says "it's striking that 9/11 and its aftereffects have left almost no traces in the language of everyday life."

Firefighter Ken Haskell was off duty on Sept. 11, 2001, when his two brothers, also firefighters, died in the World Trade Center. Haskell's story of searching the rubble for his brothers' bodies is included in A Decade of Hope: Stories of Grief and Endurance from 9/11 Families and Friends.

Washington Post national security reporter Dana Priest's book Top Secret America looks at the top-secret intelligence and counterterrorism network created after Sept. 11. "No one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, [or] how many programs exist within it," she says.

The A&P changed the way Americans do their grocery shopping, but it did so at a cost -- thousands of mom-and-pop corner stores closed as the chain grew. Economic historian Marc Levinson chronicles the rise and fall of the grocery giant in The Great A&P and the Struggle for Small Business in America.

When Standard & Poor's recently lowered the U.S. government debt rating for the first time in history, it set off a firestorm of criticism, from the Obama administration to Wall Street. The downgrade raised questions about the influence of S&P and other agencies, which also faced blame in the financial crisis of 2007-'08.

America's anti-terrorism strategy has evolved in the years after the Sept. 11 attacks. New York Times reporters Thom Shanker and Eric Schmitt explain some of the tactics used by the United States over the past decade to disrupt al-Quaida both in real life and online.

Historian Adam Hochschild traces the patriotic fervor that catapulted Great Britain into war during the summer of 1914 — as well as the small, but determined British pacifist movement — in his historical narrative To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918.

The 87 new members of the House are the reason the GOP now controls the House. "Nearly 40 percent of them are self-styled 'citizen politicians' who have never held office and who rode into Washington on the Tea Party wave," says journalist Robert Draper.

CNN's national security analysts Peter Bergen just returned from Pakistan, where he just returned from Pakistan, where he visited the town where Osama bin Laden was killed. He talks about the various conspiracy theories surrounding bin Laden's death -- and how al-Qaide has changed in recent years.