Ep. 249 Alexandra Churchill, "Ring of Fire"

British historian Alexandra Churchill is no relation to the former prime minister. However, her new book is the history of the world at war in 1914, titled "Ring of Fire." Alex Churchill is quick to tell you she is not an academic but has a research master's degree in the Battle of the Somme. She's a self-starter who writes three times a week for Substack, co-hosts a podcast titled "History Hack," appears in many documentaries, and is a participant in a history touring company in Great Britain. Her book is the story of ordinary people, she says, not those stalking the corridors of power.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Most of the names are familiar to those who follow politics and government. Hunter Biden, Rudolph Giuliani, Tony Podesta, Paul Manafort, and many others. Kenneth Vogel has written a book about these figures. It's called "Devils' Advocates: The Hidden Story of Rudy Giuliani, Hunter Biden, and the Washington Insiders on the Payroll of Corrupt Foreign Interests." In the publisher Morrow's liner notes on the book, they write: "The foreign influence business comprised of shadowy operators who quietly shaped US foreign policy while producing massive paydays for themselves has existed for decades, often unnoticed by Americans." Ken Vogle is a reporter for the New York Times. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Boston-based writer Doug Most's new book is called "Launching Liberty: The Epic Race to Build the Ships That Took America to War." Most, who spent 15 years at the Boston Globe, writes: "In total, American shipyards produced 2,710 Liberty ships in essentially four years, peaking in the spring and summer of 1943, when almost 800 ships were built in seven months..." A lot of the credit is given to Henry Kaiser, who produced half of all Liberty ships – 1,490. By 1943, average time per ship was down to 42 days, the fastest month recorded. Author Doug Most is currently working at Boston University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Yale constitutional law professor Akhil Reed Amar's second book in a trilogy is titled "Born Equal: Remaking America's Constitution, 1840-1920." In Professor Amar's introduction, he writes: "Millions of Americans can recite by heart Lincoln's opening line at Gettysburg. But how many of us understand it?" "This sentence," Professor Amar continues, "sits at the very center of this book." Akhil Amar, born in 1958 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, was raised in California. After law school at Yale, he clerked for Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, and became a junior professor back at his alma mater at age 26. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kenneth Feinberg is a Washington-based attorney who served as a special master of the US government's 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund. Mr. Feinberg worked for 33 months, pro bono, deciding who should be compensated as a result of the deaths and injuries from 9/11. Kenneth Feinberg, who today is 79, was interviewed on C-SPAN's Q&A program about his book, "What is Life Worth: The Unprecedented Effort to Compensate the Victims of 9-11." Here is an encore presentation of that July 1, 2005, interview. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

William Arthur Galston has been a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution since 2006 and a columnist for the Wall Street Journal for the past 12 years. In the first paragraph of his latest 161-page book, he tells us what the book is about: "This book advances this proposition that what I call the dark passions - anger, hatred, humiliation, resentment, fear, and the drive for domination - fuels today's attacks on liberal democracy." Galston also says, "persuasive public speech is the main way demagogues mobilize these passions to pursue power." The name of the book is "Anger, Fear, Domination." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Retired George Mason University history professor, Peter Henriques, starts off his author's note writing: "If anyone had told me in the summer of 2023 that I would be writing one more book on George Washington, I would have expressed extreme skepticism." In Episode 6 of this Booknotes+ podcast series in 2021, Professor Henriques told us the same thing. But at 88 years old, he's back with another book on our first president, titled "George Washington: His Quest for Honor and Fame." In the afterward of the book, Peter Henriques puts a special emphasis on George Washington and slavery. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In September 1975, 17 days apart, two women, one in Sacramento and the other in San Francisco, attempted to assassinate President Gerald Ford. The first attempt on September the 5th came from Annette Squeaky Fromm. The Charles Manson follower spent over 30 years in prison, is out on parole, and is 76 years old. The other attempt came on the non-entrance side of St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco on September the 24th, 1975. The shooter, Sara Jane Moore, served 32 years in prison and died almost 50 years to the day on September the 24th, 2025. Author Jerry Spieler wrote the book "Housewife Assassin" in 2009. She talked to and exchanged letters with Sara Jane Moore on several occasions. Here's her up-to-date story about the woman who tried to kill President Ford. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The book is called "Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future." Author Dan Wang (WONG) was born in China in 1992. His parents moved to Canada when he was seven. In 2014, he graduated from the University of Rochester in New York. Then in 2018, Dan Wang went to live in China until he returned to the US in 2023. He then went to the offices of the Yale Law School and wrote about his comparison of China and the United States. He writes in his introduction: "A strain of materialism, often crass, runs through both countries, sometimes producing variations of successful entrepreneurs, sometimes creating displays of extraordinary tastelessness and overall contributing to a spirit of vigorous competition." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The names are almost all known nationally: Ed Koch, Rudy Giuliani, David Dinkins, Al Sharpton, Larry Kramer, and Donald Trump. These are people who were first in the news in the 1980s. Their early public lives are now featured in Jonathan Mahler's book, "The Gods of New York." The book is divided into four large chapters titled 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989. Mr. Mahler, a feature writer for the New York Times Magazine, closes his book with this last paragraph: "The existential questions that New York faced as it entered 1986 were answered. The great working-class city was gone." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices