Inside The War Room

Links from the show:* Diplomats & Admirals: From Failed Negotiations and Tragic Misjudgments to Powerful Leaders and Heroic Deeds, the Untold Story of the Pacific War from Pearl Harbor to Midway* Connect with Dale* Rate the showAbout my guest:Dale Jenkins has had a lifelong interest in the Navy and international affairs. He is a former US Navy officer who served on a destroyer in the Pacific, and for a time was home-ported in Yokosuka, Japan. Pacific Fleet commitments took him to the Philippines, Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore. While on active duty he was awarded the Navy/Marine Corps Expeditionary Medal. His business career was primarily in international banking, and he also was a staff director at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. Dale currently serves on the Samuel Eliot Morison Committee of the Naval Order of the United States, New York, and as a Regional Director of the Naval War College Foundation. As a result of his active duty experience and new revelations, Dale provides insights into the diplomacy and strategies of the Pacific region. He has degrees in history and business from Harvard and Columbia.Having a long and affectionate relationship with Japan, Dale (on right of picture) and wife Sandra (third from right) with friends had tea at the Tokyo home of recently departed, but forever revered, artist Toko Shinoda (second from left).For outside activity Dale plays golf, and two years ago fulfilled an ambition to play in Scotland. The photo to the right is of Dale on the 18th tee of St. Andrews, a nanosecond before impact. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com

Links from the show:* Orwell: The New Life * Connect with D.J.* Rate the showAbout my guest:D. J. Taylor is the author of The Lost Girls; Derby Day (nominated for the Booker Prize); and Orwell: The Life (2003), winner of the Whitbread Biography Award. D. J. is a book critic for several British newspapers and lives in London. Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

Links from the show:* Goliath: The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy* Connect with Matt Stoller* Follow Matt on Twitter* Subscribe to Matt's newsletter* Rate the showAbout my guest:Matt Stoller is the Director of Research at the American Economic Liberties Project. He is the author of the Simon and Schuster book Goliath: The Hundred Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy, which Business Insider called “one of the year's best books on how to rethink capitalism and improve the economy.” David Cicilline, Chairman of the House Antitrust Subcommittee, has called Stoller's work “an inspiration.” Stoller is a former policy advisor to the Senate Budget Committee.He also worked for a member of the Financial Services Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives during the financial crisis. While a staffer, he wrote a provision of law mandating a third party audit of the Federal Reserve's emergency lending activities. He also helped cut part of a $20 billion subsidy to large financial institutions. His 2012 law review article on the foreclosure crisis, The Housing Crash and the End of American Citizenship, predicted the rise of autocratic political forces, and his 2016 Atlantic article, How the Democrats Killed their Populist Soul, helped inspire the new anti-monopoly movement. His writing has appeared in the Washington Post, the New York Times, Fast Company, Foreign Policy, the Guardian, Vice, The American Conservative, and the Baffler. Stoller writes the monopoly-focused newsletter Big with tens of thousands of subscribers, which you can subscribe to here. Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

Links from the show:* Fascinating True Tales from Old California* Connect with Colleen* Rate the showAbout my guest:Colleen Adair Fliedner is an award-winning author, journalist, and historian. She has written three nonfiction books, radio and t.v. commercials, screenplays, and hundreds of articles for newspapers, magazines, and online publications. She was a staff writer for the Orange County Register newspaper's online travel website and was a regular contributor for Talking Travel Radio Network based on the East Coast. In the Shadow of War: Spies, Love & the Lusitania is her first novel. Colleen began her professional career as a research historian, writer, and oral historian at California State University, Long Beach, CA.  Her job included writing newspaper articles, brochures, radio, and cable television scripts, and more.  Her first nonfiction history book was written for the County of Los Angeles, a five-year-long project which required conducting more than 100 oral history interviews and combing through historic ledgers, photographs, and dusty, long-forgotten boxes of old documents. Her next two books were a history about Park City, Utah, “Stories in Stone: Miners and Madams, Merchants and Murders,” and “Quick Escapes from Orange County, published by Globe Pequot Press. She was then hired to ghostwrite two books and numerous blog articles for an internationally famous psychologist.Her awards include Alumni of the Year (California State University, Long Beach) for her first nonfiction book commemorating the 100th anniversary of Rancho Los Amigos Medical Center, which began as the Los Angeles County Poor Farm. An article she wrote about Oklahoma City received an award from the Oklahoma Convention and Visitors Bureau. And her historical novel, In the Shadow of War: Spies, Love & the Lusitania, was the grand prize winner over 300 entries in the San Mateo Literary competition, an award which resulted in its publication by the Sand Hill Review Press. Recently, Colleen was honored by the California Writer's Club (statewide competition) for a nonfiction short story about George Freeth that appears in their annual literary magazine.In addition, she has optioned a screenplay and two teleplays, written radio and t.v. commercials, plays, and hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles. Her credits include the Los Angeles Times Travel Section, the Orange County Register; Westways, Home & Away (both Auto Club publications), France Today, BajaTRAVELER, and Native Peoples Magazines.Her latest project is a nonfiction book, “Fascinating True Stories from Old California,” a compilation of interesting accounts of some of the Golden State's most unique people, places, and things.Colleen lives in Orange, California with her husband, Rick, and two Pomeranians.  Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

Links from the show:* American Whitelash: A Changing Nation and the Cost of Progress* Connect with Wesley or follow him on Twitter* Rate the showAbout my guest:Wesley Lowery is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, best selling author, podcast host and on-air correspondent.At The Marshall Project, he is among the team members working on Testify, an unprecedented effort to examine the criminal courts in his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio. At The Washington Post he led a Pulitzer Prize winning team conducting groundbreaking investigations into law enforcement nationally. At CUNY, he runs an investigative journalism lab.He was an executive producer of In the Cold Dark Night, an Emmy-nominated documentary chronicling the effort to solve the 1983 lynching of Timothy Coggins.For GQ, he has gone deep about marriage and monogamy with Will Smith, talked politics and the press with Trevor Noah, dove into the post-scandal life of Andrew Gillum, and chronicled the last days of death row inmate Dustin Higgs. For Men's Health he wrote about opiod overdoses among black men in Milwaukee and cities across the country. And for the cover of Ebony he profiled Tessa Thompson.As an on-air correspondent for 60 Minutes+. the streaming version of CBS News' iconic newsmagazine, Lowery reported from protests in Minneapolis and Kenosha, aboard a crab boat in the Chesapeake Bay, and from the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic.Lowery has extensively chronicled police violence and the Black Lives Matter movement, and specializes in journalism that marshals data to illuminate the realities within the three branches of the American criminal legal system — police, prosecutors and prisons. Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

Links from the show:* Behold the Monster: Confronting America's Most Prolific Serial Killer* Connect with Jillian* Rate the showAbout my guest:Jillian Lauren is a writer, storyteller, adoption advocate, rock-wife, and lousy kickboxer. She is the New York Times bestselling author of the memoirs EVERYTHING YOU EVER WANTED, and SOME GIRLS: My Life in a Harem, and the novel PRETTY. SOME GIRLS, which recounts her time spent in the harem of the Prince of Brunei, has been translated into eighteen languages.She was the only journalist to extensively interview Samuel Little, the most prolific serial killer in American history. This experience is chronicled in Joe Berlinger's hit STARZ documentary series, CONFRONTING A SERIAL KILLER, and in Michael Connelly's podcast MURDER BOOK: The Women Who Brought Down Samuel Little. Her book BEHOLD THE MONSTER: Confronting a Killer is forthcoming.Jillian has an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University. Her writing has appeared in New York Magazine, The New York Times, Vanity Fair, The Paris Review, The Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Magazine, Elle, Flaunt Magazine, The Daily Beast, Salon, and many others. Her work has been widely anthologized, including in The Moth Anthology, and True Tales of Lust and Love.Jillian is a regular storyteller with The Moth and performs at spoken word and storytelling events across the country. She did a Tedx talk about adoption and identity at Chapman University in 2014. She has been interviewed on The View, Good Morning America and Howard Stern, to name a few.Jillian is married to Weezer bass player Scott Shriner. They live in Los Angeles with their two sons. Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

Links from the show:* The Paradox of Debt: A New Path to Prosperity Without Crisis* Connect with Richard* Rate the showAbout my guest:Following a career that has spanned fields as varied as banking, energy, credit, and the arts, Richard Vague has recently served as Secretary of Banking and Securities for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. He is author of numerous books, including An Illustrated Business History of the United States, also available from the University of Pennsylvania Press. Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

Links from the show:* Burnt: A Memoir of Fighting Fire* Connect with Clare* Rate the showAbout my guest:Clare Frank served as the State of California's first and only female Chief of Fire Protection. She began firefighting at age 17 and worked her way through the ranks, handling all types of fire and rescue emergencies and major disasters in both urban and rural settings. Along the way, she earned a spot on an elite state command team, a bachelor's in fire administration, a law degree and bar card, a master's in creative writing, and several leadership awards. Now, she brings humor and candor to her stories about first responders, lawyers, and life. She lives near Lake Tahoe with her husband and always a dog or two. Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

Links from the show:* Connect with Bishop Nathanyel* Rate the showAbout my guest:Bishop Nathanyel has been in this truth for over 20 years and has learned at the feet of the seven elders of Israel. He has seen many things in this walk. Great things, both good and bad, but each one played a part in molding him into the leader that he is today. He has seen world scholars confounded by this truth. He has seen gangs and drug dealers either change or moved out the way when the gospel was preached on the streets. He has seen men on the bottom rise and become unrecognizable to who they once were.Bishop Nathanyel has seen greed, lust, hate, and money destroy a movement, or so some thought. The movement of Israel United in Christ is according to biblical prophecy and God's Words. It can't be stopped if and when one man falls because two more will rise in his place. The Most High used Bishop Nathanyel to establish Israel United in Christ. This movement is not about any organization but rather the resurrection of a nation, the 12 Tribes of Israel. Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

Links from the show:* Self-Made: Creating Our Identities from Da Vinci to the Kardashians* Connect with Tara website or on Twitter* Rate the showAbout my guest:Tara Isabella Burton's debut novel, 2018's Social Creature, was named a "book of the year" by The New York Times, New York's Vulture, and The Guardian.  Her second novel, The World Cannot Give (Simon & Schuster), was published in March 2022. Her third novel, Here in Avalon, will be published by S&S in January 2024.Her first nonfiction book, Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World, appeared in 2020. Her fourth book, Self-Made: Curating Our Image from Da Vinci to the Kardashians, praised by Walter Russell Mead as "some of the sharpest and most insightful social commentary being written today," will be published by Public Affairs in June 2023.Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The New York Times, National Geographic, ​Granta, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and more. She also co-writes the Substack newsletter "Line of Beauty" with her husband, Dhananjay Jagannathan.​Tara received a doctorate in theology from Oxford in 2017. Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

* V Is For Victory: Franklin Roosevelt's American Revolution and the Triumph of World War II* Connect with Craig* Rate the showAbout my guest:Craig Nelson is the author of Pearl Harbor: From Infamy to Greatness and the New York Times bestseller, Rocket Men: The Epic Story of the First Men on the Moon, as well as several previous books, including The Age of Radiance (a PEN Award Finalist chosen as one of the year's best books by NBC News, the American Institute of Physics, Kirkus Reviews, and FlavorWire), The First Heroes, Thomas Paine (winner of the Henry Adams Prize), and Let's Get Lost (shortlisted for W.H. Smith's Book of the Year). His writing has appeared in Vanity Fair, The Wall Street Journal, Salon, National Geographic, The New England Review, Popular Science, Reader's Digest, and a host of other publications. Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

Links from the show:* A True American Patriot* Rate the showAbout my guest:Daniel J. O'Connor has spent twenty-six years in the CIA as an Executive Senior Intelligence Service (SIS) Officer and was the Chief of Security for Five Different CIA Directors of Intelligence (DCI) and their Deputy Directors (DDCI). He served both at home and overseas ensuring that the Directors were protected while they were in office. He had the distinct honor of working with outstanding DCI/DDCI team members and was responsible for their safety and security as well. Separately, he also served abroad for many years in multiple U.S. Embassies in Asia, Europe, Africa, and South America and received two medals with distinction from the CIA upon his federal retirement.Following his Agency career, he ran a small private security firm working with high level corporate executives and ultra high net worth individuals and their families. This work included extensive domestic and international travel. Close collaboration with former U.S. Special Operation Forces (SOF) personnel was essential to success, whose skill and experience are unmatched in their field. Over the last several years, he has focused his time and efforts on creating an exciting action thriller with a fictional premise. Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

Links from the show:* The Madman in the White House: Sigmund Freud, Ambassador Bullitt, and the Lost Psychobiography of Woodrow Wilson* Connect with Patrick* Rate the showAbout my guest:Patrick Weil is Oscar M. Ruebhausen Distinguished Fellow at Yale Law School and a research professor at the National Center for Scientific Research in France. The founder and president of Libraries Without Borders, he is the author of The Sovereign Citizen and How to Be French. Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

Links from the show:* Troublemaker: A Memoir of Sexism, Retaliation, and the Fight They Didn't See Coming* Connect with Lisa on Twitter or Instagram* Rate the showAbout my guest:Lisa Cornwell spent seven years as an on-air host and reporter for Golf Channel, establishing herself as a respected voice in the game. Prior to Golf Channel, she worked in similar roles for the Big Ten Network as well as local affiliates in Mississippi, Tennessee, and Ohio. Lisa is a four-time Arkansas Women's State Golf champion, a two-time AJGA first-team All-American, a two-time All-State basketball player, and in 1992 was named the Arkansas Female Athlete of the Year. She was recently inducted into the Arkansas Golf and Arkansas Sports Halls of Fame. Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

Links from the show:* The Myth of Overpunishment: A Defense of the American Justice System and a Proposal to Reduce Incarceration While Protecting the Public* Is lethal injection humane? With Dr. Austin Sarat* Rate the showAbout my guest:For over three and a half decades Barry Latzer was Professor of Criminal Justice at John Jay College, CUNY, where he was a member of the Masters' and Doctoral faculties. He taught courses on criminal justice, criminal law and procedure, state constitutional law, capital punishment, and most recently, crime history. Professor Latzer wrote and published five books and approximately 90 scholarly articles, research reports, magazine articles, book reviews and op-eds. His scholarly articles have been published in the Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, the Journal of Criminal Justice, Judicature, Judges' Journal, Criminal Law Bulletin, and major law reviews. Other writings have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the Daily Beast, National Review, the Chronicle of Higher Education, City Journal, the Law & Liberty website, the New York Post and the New York Daily News. A widely read interview with David Frum appeared in Atlantic, June 19, 2016. Professor Latzer received a Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts (1977), and a law degree from Fordham University (1985). His BA was from Brooklyn College (1966). He briefly served as an Assistant District Attorney in Brooklyn (1985-86) and as counsel to indigent criminal defendants in Manhattan (1986-87). Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

Links from the show:* The Rhetorical Road to Brown v. Board of Education: Elizabeth and Waties Waring's Campaign* About my guest:Wanda Little Fenimore is an award-winning scholar and author whose area of expertise is rhetorical history: the study of historical events through a rhetorical lens. Her research focuses on the legacy of slavery in the US South. The Rhetorical Road to Brown v. Board of Education: Elizabeth and Waties Waring's Campaign (University Press of Mississippi, 2023) examines the Warings' multifaceted campaign to dismantle Jim Crow. The book weaves the Warings' public address with local organizing, NAACP legal strategy, and national politics into a multilayered story of resistance. Dr. Fenimore received her bachelor's degree from Randolph-Macon Woman's College, master's degree from Hollins University, and doctorate from Florida State University. In 2020, Dr. Fenimore received the Mellon/American Council of Learned Societies Community College Faculty Fellowship. She has lived in South Carolina since 2015, but her connection to the Palmetto State reaches back to her childhood when she visited her grandparents every summer at their home outside of Charleston. Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

Links from the show:* MythVision Podcast* Connect with Derek* Rate the showAbout my guest:Hear more about Derek here. Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

Links from the show:* Mere Natural Law: Originalism and the Anchoring Truths of the Constitution* Connect with Hadley* Rate the showAbout my guest:Hadley Arkes is the Edward Ney Professor of Jurisprudence Emeritus at Amherst College. He joined the Faculty at Amherst in 1966 and taught for 50 years. He is the author of multiple books with Princeton University Press and Cambridge University Press, including The Philosopher in the City (1981), First Things (1986), Beyond the Constitution (1990), The Return of George Sutherland (1994), Natural Rights and the Right to Choose (2002), and Constitutional Illusions and Anchoring Truths: The Touchstone of the Natural Law (2010). His articles have appeared in professional journals, the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, National Review, and First Things, and he is one of the founders of the web journal The Catholic Thing.Arkes was the main advocate and architect of the bill that became the Born-Alive Infants' Protection Act. The account of his experience of moving the bill through Congress is contained in his book Natural Rights & the Right to Choose. Professor Arkes led the testimony on the bill before the Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives in July 2000, then again in July 2001. On August 5, 2002, President George W. Bush signed the bill into law with Professor Arkes in attendance.Professor Arkes is the founder and director of the James Wilson Institute on Natural Rights and the American Founding in Washington, D.C. Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

Links from the show:* The Failure of American Conservatism: —And the Road Not Taken* Connect with Claes* Rate the showAbout my guest:Claes G. Ryn is Emeritus Professor of Politics, Distinguished Senior Scholar, and Founding Director Emeritus of the Center for the Study of Statesmanship at the Catholic University of America, where he was also Chairman of his department. His many books include A Common Human Ground, America the Virtuous, Will, Imagination and Reason, Democracy and the Ethical Life, and the novel A Desperate Man. An internationally recognized political thinker, he has lectured widely in the United States, Europe, and Asia, especially China, where three of his books and many of his articles have been published. He was President of the Philadelphia Society, Chairman and co-founder of the National Humanities Institute, and President and co-founder of the Academy of Philosophy and Letters. Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

Links from the show:* Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom* Connect with Ilyon* Find Ilyon on Instagram or Facebook* Rate the showAbout my guest:Ilyon Woo is the author of The Great Divorce: A Nineteenth-Century Mother's Extraordinary Fight Against Her Husband, the Shakers, and Her Times and the recipient of a Whiting Creative Nonfiction Writing Grant. Her articles have appeared in venues such as The Boston Globe and The Wall Street Journal, and she has received support for her research from the National Endowment for the Humanities, among other organizations. She holds a BA in the Humanities from Yale College and a PhD in English from Columbia University. Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

Links from the show:* Games of Greed: Excess, Hubris, Fraud, and Theft on Main Street and Wall Street* Connect with Torsten* Rate the showAbout my guest:Torsten Dennin has been a professional investment expert for more than 20 years. He is a member of the management board and the Chief Investment Officer (CIO) of Asset Management Switzerland AG. Torsten was appointed Professor of Economics in 2018 and teaches at universities in Switzerland and Germany. After the international bestseller "From Tulips to Bitcoins", "Games of Greed" is his fourth book. Torsten lives with his wife and daughter in Switzerland. Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

Links from the show:* King: A Life* Connect with JonathanAbout my guest:Jonathan Eig is the bestselling author of Ali: A Life, winner of a 2018 PEN America Literary Award and a finalist for the Mark Lynton History Prize. He also served as a senior consulting producer for the PBS series Muhammad Ali. His first book, Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig, won the CaseyAward. Eig's books have been translated into more than a dozen languages and have been listed among the best of the year by The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal. He lives in Chicago with his wife and children. Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

About my guest:* The Cultural Memory of Georgian Glasgow* Connect with Craig* Rate the showAbout my guest:Craig Lamont is a graduate of the Universities of Strathclyde and Glasgow, with a diverse background in Creative Writing, English Literature, and Scottish Literature. His AHRC-funded PhD, ‘Georgian Glasgow: the city remembered through literature, objects, and cultural memory theory' (2015), was an interdisciplinary body of work central to a collaboration between the University of Glasgow and Glasgow Life, involving the major exhibition How Glasgow Flourished: 1714-1837 at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in 2014. It won the 2016 Ross Roy Medal for the best PhD relating to Scottish Literature. His debut monograph, The Cultural Memory of Georgian Glasgow, was published in 2021 by Edinburgh University Press. Besides writing short fiction, Craig has also been commissioned as a historian by the National Trust for Scotland and Barclays Bank.Craig's postdoctoral work ranges from web development to bibliography in the realms of Allan Ramsay, bawrdy chapbooks, and Robert Burns, beginning in 2014 with the ‘Bawdry & Scottish Chapbooks' project (PI: Dr. Pauline Mackay). The following year Craig joined Prof. Murray Pittock's team in the Royal Society of Edinburgh funded project ‘Allan Ramsay and Edinburgh in the First Age of Enlightenment.' In this project, Craig co-authored an interactive map, ‘Edinburgh's Enlightenment 1680-1750' with the PI. In 2015-16 Craig worked as a Research Assistant at the Centre for Robert Burns Studies, compiling a new bibliography of Robert Burns editions from 1786 to 1802. This is part of the AHRC-funded project Editing Robert Burns for the 21st Century (PI: Prof. Gerard Carruthers), on which Craig worked as a research associate from 2017. From January 2018-August 2022, Craig became the lead research associate in another AHRC-funded project, The Collected Works of Allan Ramsay (PI: Prof. Murray Pittock). From 2017-2022, Craig served as the Secretary of the Association for Scottish Literature.As of 5 September 2022, Craig is Lecturer in Scottish Studies, based in Scottish Literature but working more widely in the Centre for Scottish and Celtic Studies. Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

Links from the show:* Rethinking Life: Embracing the Sacredness of Every Person* Connect with Shane* Follow Shane on Twitter* Red Letter Christians* Rate the showAbout my guest:Shane Claiborne is a prominent speaker, activist, and best-selling author.  Shane worked with Mother Teresa in Calcutta, and founded The Simple Way in Philadelphia.  He heads up Red Letter Christians, a movement of folks who are committed to living "as if Jesus meant the things he said." Shane is a champion for grace which has led him to jail advocating for the homeless, and to places like Iraq and Afghanistan to stand against war. Now grace fuels his passion to end the death penalty and help stop gun violence.Shane's books include Jesus for President, Red Letter Revolution, Common Prayer, Follow Me to Freedom, Jesus, Bombs and Ice Cream, Becoming the Answer to Our Prayers, Executing Grace, his classic The Irresistible Revolution, Beating Guns, and his newest book, Rethinking Life (to be released February 2023). He has been featured in a number of films including "Another World Is Possible" and "Ordinary Radicals." His books have been translated into more than a dozen languages. Shane speaks over one hundred times a year, nationally and internationally. His work has appeared in Esquire, SPIN, Christianity Today, TIME, and The Wall Street Journal, and he has been on everything from Fox News and Al Jazeera to CNN and NPR. He's given academic lectures at Harvard, Princeton, Liberty, Duke, and Notre Dame. Shane speaks regularly at denominational gatherings, festivals, and conferences around the globe.  Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

Links from the show:* Colonial Mississippi: A Borrowed Land* Connect with Christian* Follow Christian on Twitter* Rate the showAbout my guest:Christian Pinnen is associate professor of history at Mississippi College. His research and teaching focus on the history of race, slavery, and the law in the American colonial borderlands. Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

Links from the show:* The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History* Rate the showAbout my guest:Serhii Plokhy, Mykhailo S. Hrushevs'kyi Professor of Ukrainian History and director of the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University, is a leading authority on the history of the Cold War. He is the author of Atoms and Ashes: A Global History of Nuclear Disasters and Nuclear Folly: A History of the Cuban Missile Crisis, among many other works. He lives in Burlington, Massachusetts. Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

Links from the show:* Walking Among Pharaohs: George Reisner and the Dawn of Modern Egyptology* Connect with Peter* Rate the showAbout my guest:Peter Der Manuelian grew up locally but somehow escaped speaking with a Boston accent. He joined both the NELC and Anthropology Departments in 2010, after teaching Egyptology at Tufts University for ten years. He has also been on the curatorial staff of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, since 1987, and held the position of Giza Archives Project Director there until June 2011 (he is now Founding Director, The Giza Archives). In addition to Giza, his Egyptian archaeological and epigraphic site work includes New Kingdom temples at Luxor (Epigraphic Survey, Oriental Institute, University of Chicago), and the Predynastic site of Naqada.His primary research interests include ancient Egyptian history, archaeology, epigraphy, the development of mortuary architecture, and the (icono)graphic nature of Egyptian language and culture in general. He has published on diverse topics and periods in Egyptian history, but currently focuses on the third millennium BC, and specifically on the famous Giza Necropolis, just west of modern Cairo. The Harvard University-Boston Museum of Fine Arts Expedition excavated major portions of the site between 1905 and 1947. Since 2000, the "Giza Project" aims to collect and present online all past, present, and future archaeological activity at Giza (http://giza.fas.harvard.edu). Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

Links from the show:* The Nicene Creed: An Introduction* Never miss an episode* Rate the episodeAbout my guest:Dr. Cary is a philosopher married to a midwife (he thinks about the mysteries of life; she puts her hands on them). He and his wife have three sons and two grandchildren. His favorite theologian is Martin Luther, which means he feels quite comfortable in a high-church Anglican congregation where they love both Word and Sacrament.Dr. Cary loves Luther because he thinks we know people by hearing their words, and that's how Luther taught us to know God. He was writing a dissertation on this theme at Yale, while working on a double degree in philosophy and religious studies back in the early 90s. He was planning to write a little chapter on the Augustinian background to Luther's theology, but this grew into a whole large dissertation, which then grew over the years into three books on Augustine, who is endlessly fascinating and different from what he had expected.Dr. Cary loves learning things by reading old books, and that is essentially what he teaches. As far as he is concerned the best old book is the Bible, because it contains the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It always cheers him up to teach anything that has to do with the Gospel. Consequently, he has written a theological commentary on the presence of the Gospel in the book of Jonah, as well as a little book based largely on conversations with his students where he hopes to lure them into trusting the Gospel rather than applying a whole slew of “practical” ideas to their lives—unbiblical ideas that do little more than make them anxious. It turns out the Gospel of Christ tends to cheer them up, too. Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

Links from the show:* Nihilistic Times: Thinking with Max Weber* Connect with Wendy* Never miss an episodeAbout my guest:Wendy Brown is a political theorist who works across the history of political thought, political economy, Continental philosophy, cultural theory, and critical legal theory. Brown investigates the subterranean powers shaping contemporary Euroatlantic polities, with particular attention to the political identities, subjectivities, and expressions they spawn. She is the author or co-author of a dozen books, including States of Injury: Power and Freedom in Late Modernity; Regulating Aversion: Tolerance in the Age of Identity and Empire; Walled States, Waning Sovereignty; Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism's Stealth Revolution; and In the Ruins of Neoliberalism: The Rise of Antidemocratic Politics in the West. Across her work, Brown aims to illuminate powers unique to our era and the predicaments they generate for democratic thought and practice. Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

Links from the show:* Who Gets In: An Immigration Story* Connect with Norman* Rate the showAbout my guest:Norman Ravvin's recent novel, The Girl Who Stole Everything, is his fourth. It sets out to tell divergent stories of contemporary Poland and Vancouver, which end up crossing in a village northwest of Warsaw. In The Globe and Mail Jade Colbert called it one of the best publications of its year from independent presses (see more below). His previous novels include The Joyful Child, illustrated by Melanie Boyle and lovingly printed at Gaspereau Press, and Lola by Night, published by independent publishers Cary Fagan and Bernard Kelly and later translated into Serbian. Ravvin's early work, including his first novel, Café des Westens and his travelogue, Hidden Canada, were brought out as part of a longstanding collaborative relationship with Red Deer Press in Alberta. His fiction, non-fiction and editorial projects have won prizes in Alberta, Ontario and Quebec. A native of Calgary, his writing and interests are also formed by youthful years spent in Vancouver. For two years he taught Creative Writing at the University of New Brunswick and was fiction editor of The Fiddlehead. He lives with his family in Montreal. Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

Links from the show:* Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation* Connect with Kristen* Rate the showAbout my guest:Kristin Kobes Du Mez is a New York Times bestselling author and Professor of History and Gender Studies at Calvin University. She holds a PhD from the University of Notre Dame and her research focuses on the intersection of gender, religion, and politics. She has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Religion News Service, and Christianity Today, and has been interviewed on NPR, CBS, and the BBC, among other outlets. Her most recent book is Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation. Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

Links from the show:* Verissimus: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius* Connect with Donald Roberston* Rate the show* Never miss a showAbout my guest:Donald is a writer, cognitive-behavioural psychotherapist and trainer. He is one of the founding members of the Modern Stoicism nonprofit, and the founder and president of the Plato's Academy Centre nonprofit in Athens, Greece.Donald specializes in teaching evidence-based psychological skills, and known as an expert on the relationship between modern evidence-based psychotherapy and classical Greek and Roman philosophy. His work is highly interdisciplinary, combining philosophy, history, and psychology.He was born in Irvine, Scotland, and grew up in Ayr. He worked as a psychotherapist for about twenty years in London, England, where he had a clinic in Harley Street, and ran a training school for therapists. He emigrated to Canada in 2013 and began focusing more on writing and consultancy. He now divides his time between Greece and Canada.Donald is an experienced public speaker. His therapy practice specialised for many years in helping clients with social anxiety and self-confidence issues. His work, and that of his colleagues, has often featured in the media of different countries, including Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, the BBC, etc. Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

Links from the show:* Trained to Kill: The Inside Story of CIA Plots against Castro, Kennedy, and Che* Connect with Carlos* Never miss an episode* Drop a 5-star About my guest:Carlos Harrison is a former reporter for the Miami Herald, where he won the Pulitzer Prize, and has worked as a national and international correspondent for Fox News. He is the author of fourteen books in English and Spanish, and has written numerous magazine articles and award-winning television documentaries. He lives in Pembroke Pines, Florida. Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

Links from the show:* The Salem Witch Trials: A Day-by-Day Chronicle of a Community Under Siege* Connect with Marilynne* Never miss an episode* Rate the showAbout my guest:Marilynne K. Roach works as a free-lance writer, illustrator, researcher, and presenter of talks on historical subjects. She has written for publications as varied as the Boston Globe, the New England Historic Genealogical Register, and the Lizzie Borden Quarterly. She is a member of the Gallows Hill Project that verified the correct site of the 1692 hangings, a discovery listed in Archaeology Magazine's list of the world's ten most important discoveries of 2017. Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

Links from the show:* The Age of Scientific Wellness: Why the Future of Medicine Is Personalized, Predictive, Data-Rich, and in Your Hands* Connect with Nathan* More about Thorne* Never miss an episode* Rate the showAbout my guest:Dr. Nathan Price is Chief Scientific Officer of Thorne HealthTech (NASDAQ: THRN) and author of The Age of Scientific Wellness (Harvard Press/Belknap). Previously he was CEO of Onegevity, an AI health intelligence company that merged with Thorne prior to its IPO in 2021. In 2019, he was named as one of the 10 Emerging Leaders in Health and Medicine by the National Academy of Medicine, and in 2021 he was appointed to the Board on Life Sciences of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. He spent much of his earlier career as Professor and Associate Director of the Institute for Systems Biology (now on leave), co-director with biotechnology pioneer Lee Hood of the Hood-Price Lab for Systems Biomedicine, and is Affiliate Faculty at the University of Washington in Bioengineering and Computer Science & Engineering. He is a Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar, received the 2016 Grace A. Goldsmith award for his work pioneering ‘scientific wellness', was a co-founder of Arivale, received a Healthy Longevity Catalyst Award from the National Academy of Medicine in 2020, and is a Fellow of the American Institute for Biological and Medical Engineering. Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

Links from the show:* Ilse Koch on Trial: Making the “Bitch of Buchenwald”* Connect with Tomaz* Rate the show* Never miss an episodeAbout my guest:Dr. Tomaz Jardim is a historian of modern Europe who joined the Department of History in 2011. Prior to his arrival at Toronto Metropolitan University, he taught at Concordia University and was a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. Dr. Jardim has taught courses on the World Wars, modern Germany, the Holocaust, Europe in the 20th century, and surveys of Western civilization. His research areas include the Third Reich, the Holocaust, and in particular, war crimes trials. His first book, The Mauthausen Trial: American Military Justice in Germany , external link(Harvard University Press, 2012), explores the role of U.S. military commission courts in punishing concentration camp perpetrators. Dr. Jardim's second book, Ilse Koch on Trial: Making the "Bitch of Buchenwald" , external link(Harvard University Press, 2023), explores how gendered perceptions of violence and culpability drove Koch's zealous prosecution at a time when male Nazi perpetrators guilty of greater crimes often escaped punishment or received lighter sentences.  Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

Links from the show:* Watch Matt's YouTube Channel* Rate the show* Never miss an episodeAbout my guest:I'm Dr. Matt Monger - though I publish under the name Matthew P. Monger.I am Associate Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Literatures at MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion, and Society in Oslo, Norway.I earned my PhD in 2018 with a dissertation on the Dead Sea Scrolls manuscripts containing text from the Book of Jubilees.I have Bachelors and Masters degrees in Theology from MF a BA in Linguistics from the University of Oslo a an MA in Semitic Philology from the University of Oslo.I am originally from Virginia in the US, but have lived in Norway for over 20 years now. I started this website as a companion to my new Youtube channel. I want to make resources available so that people can not only hear what I have to say, but also go deeper into the texts themselves. Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

Links from the show:* The No Self, No Problem Workbook: Exercises & Practices from Neuropsychology and Buddhism to Help You Lose Your Mind* Connect with Chris* Rate the showAbout my guest:While in grad school in the early 1990s, Chris Niebauer began to notice striking parallels between the latest discoveries in psychology, neuroscience, and the teachings of Buddhism, Taoism, and other schools of Eastern thought. When he presented his findings to a professor, his ideas were quickly dismissed as “pure coincidence, nothing more.”Fast-forward 20 years later and Niebauer is a PhD and a tenured professor, and the Buddhist-neuroscience connection he found as a student is practically its own genre in the bookstore. But according to Niebauer, we are just beginning to understand the link between Eastern philosophy and the latest findings in psychology and neuroscience and what these assimilated ideas mean for the human experience.Chris Niebauer earned his Ph.D. in cognitive neuropsychology at the University of Toledo, specializing in the differences between the left and right sides of the human brain. He is currently a professor at Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania, where he teaches courses on consciousness, mindfulness, left- and right-brain differences, and artificial intelligence. Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

Links from the show:* William Levi Dawson: American Music Educator* Never miss an episode* Rate the showAbout my guest:Mark Hugh Malone has taught in Mississippi at Pearl River Community College, William Carey University, the University of Southern Mississippi, and other institutions during his forty-six-year career in education. As curriculum designer for the Mississippi Arts Commission, he has created numerous arts-integrated curricula focused on the Mississippi Blues Trail, Mississippi's bicentennial, and the Natchez Trace. Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

Links from the show:* Black Ball: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Spencer Haywood, and the Generation that Saved the Soul of the NBA* Connect with Theresa* Never miss an episode* Rate the showAbout my guest:Theresa Runstedtler is a scholar of African American history whose research examines Black popular culture, with a particular focus on the intersection of race, masculinity, labor, and sport. Her forthcoming book, Black Ball: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Spencer Haywood, and the Generation That Saved the Soul of the NBA (Bold Type Books, 2023), examines how African American players transformed the professional hoops game, both on and off the court. She is the author of Jack Johnson, Rebel Sojourner: Boxing in the Shadow of the Global Color Line (UC Press, 2012), an award-winning biography that traces the first African American world heavyweight champion's legacy as a Black sporting hero and anticolonial icon in places as far-flung as Sydney, London, Cape Town, Manila, Paris, Havana, and Mexico City. Dr. Runstedtler has also published scholarly articles in the Radical History Review, the Journal of World History, American Studies, the Journal of American Ethnic History, the Journal of Sport and Social Issues, the Journal of Women's History, and the Journal of African American History, and book chapters in City/Game: Basketball in New York, Escape from New York: The New Negro Renaissance Beyond Harlem, and In the Game: Race, Identity, and Sports in the Twentieth Century. She has written for Time.com and the LA Review of Books, and shared her expertise on the History Channel, Al Jazeera America, Vox.com, NPR, and international radio outlets including the BBC and CBC. Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

Links from the show:* The Gendered and Colonial Lives of Gurkhas in Private Security: From Military to Market* Connect with Amanda* Never miss an episode* Rate the showAbout my guest:Dr Amanda Chisholm is a Senior Lecturer researching and teaching on gender and security across both War Studies and Defence Studies. She is also the lead diversity and inclusion representative for the School of Security Studies. Her research focuses on the privatisation and decentring of global war-making.  Her work is located at the nexus of Feminist International Relations, Global Political Economy, and Security Studies. She employs ethnographic methodologies to examine the racial and gendered aspects of private military and security companies' (PMSCs) global operations. Her work is concerned with how gendered and racial logics sustain difference, assign value and reproduce hierarchies amongst these workforces and the ways in which these security market relations involve household labour. Having recently been awarded an Economic and Social Research Council Future leaders' grant, her current work looks at issues of (un)ethical recruitment practices in unarmed and armed global South security workforces and households.Dr Chisholm's research has appeared in International Feminist Journal of Politics, Security Dialogue, Globalizations, Critical Military Studies and International Political Sociology as well as numerous edited volumes on Private Military and Security Companies, Military Research Methods, Gender and the Military, and Gender and Global Political Economy. Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

Links from the show:* Rod Serling: His Life, Work, and Imagination* https://rodserling.com/* Rate the showAbout my guest:Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone was the bread and fishes of my early years and one of the major forces leading me to the fantastic as a favorite writing theme. Nick Parisi's Rod Serling is a wonderfully written and meticulously researched work about one of the premier minds in twentieth-century speculative art. A great study of a fascinating man. Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

Links from the show:* Moralities of Drone Violence* Towards an Armed Drone Code of Ethics* Love the show? Leave a review!About my guest:Christian Enemark is Professor of International Relations in the School of Economic, Social and Political Sciences at the University of Southampton. His research and teaching interests include global health politics, international security, arms control, and the ethics of war. Christian has published numerous scholarly articles and chapters, and he is the sole author of four books: Disease and Security (2007), Armed Drones and the Ethics of War (2013), Biosecurity Dilemmas (2017), and Moralities of Drone Violence (2023). Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

Links from the show:* Visions of Invasion: Alien Affects, Cinema, and Citizenship in Settler Colonies* Connect with Michael* Support the show* Drop a 5-star ratingAbout my guest:Dr. Michael Lechuga researches and teaches Latina/o/x Studies Communication Studies, Rhetoric, Migration and Settler Colonialism Studies, and Affect Studies. He graduated with an M.A. in Communication Studies from the University of Texas at El Paso in 2007 and with a Ph.D. in Communication Studies from the University of Denver in 2016. His research explores the ways migrants and migrant communities are subjected in the US by austere migration control structures and white nationalist ideologies. His current research focuses on the role that technology plays in border security assemblages and the ways alienhood is mapped onto migrant bodies through contemporary mechanisms of white-settler governance. In addition, Dr. Lechuga is interested in Latina/o/x Futurism, Surveillance Studies, and Film Studies. He is currently writing his second book, Alien Affects, which illuminates the complex relationships between Hollywood alien invasion film industries and the industries tasked with securing the México/U.S. border. Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

Links from the show:* Connect with Lee* Cronin Lab* Follow Lee on Twitter* Drop a 5-star reviewAbout my guest:Leroy (Lee) Cronin is the Regius Professor of Chemistry in Glasgow. Since the age of 9 Lee has wanted to explore chemistry using electronics to control matter. His research spans many disciplines and has four main aims: the construction of an artificial life form; the digitization of chemistry; the use of artificial intelligence in chemistry including the construction of ‘wet' chemical computers; the exploration of complexity and information in chemistry. His recent work on the digitization of chemistry has resulted in a new programming paradigm for matter and organic synthesis and discovery – chemputation – which uses the worlds first domain specific and universal programming language for chemistry – XDL, see XDL-standard.com. His team designs and builds all their own robots from the ground up and the team currently has 25 different robotic systems operating across four domains: Organic synthesis; Energy materials discovery; Nanomaterials discovery; Formulation discovery. All the systems use XDL and are easily programmable for both manufacture and discovery. His group is organised and assembled transparently around ideas, avoids hierarchy, and aims to mentor researchers using a problem-based approach. Nothing is impossible until it is tried. Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

Links from the show:* On Borrowed Fame: Money, Mysteries, and Corruption in the Entertainment World* Connect with Donald* Never miss an episodeAbout my guest:Don Jeffries was a teenage volunteer with high profile Warren Report critic Mark Lane's Citizens Committee of Inquiry in the mid-1970s. His novel The Unreals was published in 2007, and became a cult classic. His first nonfiction book, Hidden History: An Expose of Modern Crimes, Conspiracies, and Cover-Ups in American Politics, was published in 2014 and became a best-seller. The critically acclaimed Survival of the Richest: How the Corruption of the Marketplace and the Disparity of Wealth Created the Greatest Conspiracy of All, followed in 2017. Crimes and Cover-Ups in American Politics: 1776-1963 came after that in 2019, with a Foreword by Ron Paul. In 2020, Bullyocracy: How the Social Hierarchy Enables Bullying in Schools, Workplaces, and Society at Large, was published. His latest book was published in November 2021, On Borrowed Fame: Money, Mysteries, and Corruption in the Entertainment World. Jeffries writes regularly for the American Free Press, the last real newspaper in America, and at Substack. The Donald Jeffries Show airs live every Wednesday from 6-8 pm eastern on ochelli.com, and "I Protest" live streams on Fridays, from 5-7 pm eastern, at Rokfin.com. Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

Links from the show:* Virtual You: How Building Your Digital Twin Will Revolutionize Medicine and Change Your Life* Connect with Roger* Never miss an episode* Rate the showAbout my guest:Roger Highfield is science director at the Science Museum Group, a member of the Medical Research Council, and visiting professor at University College London and the Dunn School, University of Oxford. Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

Links from the show:* Cyberspace and Instability* Connect with James* Never miss an episode* Rate the showAbout my guest:James Shires is Assistant Professor in Cybersecurity Governance at the Institute for Security and Global Affairs, Leiden University. He is also a nonresident fellow with the Cyber Statecraft Initiative at the Atlantic Council. Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

Links from the show:* Lethal Tides: Mary Sears and the Marine Scientists Who Helped Win World War II* Connect Catherine* Rate the show* Never miss an episodeAbout the show:Catherine “Kate” Musemeche is a graduate of the University of Texas McGovern Medical School in Houston, Texas and the University of Texas School of Law. Musemeche's first book, Small, was longlisted for the E.O. Wilson/Pen American Literary Science Award and was awarded the Texas Writer's League Discovery Prize for Nonfiction in 2015. Her second book, Hurt, was named one of the top ten EMS books of the decade. She has also contributed to Smithsonian Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, New York Times' “Motherlode” blog, KevinMD.com, Creative Nonfiction magazine and EMS World. She lives in Austin, Texas.Lethal Tides: Mary Sears and the Marine Scientists Who Helped Win World War II tells the story of how the U.S. Navy was unprepared to enact its island-hopping strategy to reach Japan when World War II began and how oceanographers came to the rescue. Anticipating tides, planning for coral reefs, and preparing for enemy fire was new ground for the navy, and with lives at stake it was ground that had to be covered quickly. They turned to Mary Sears, an overlooked oceanographer with untapped talent who, along with a team of colorful and quirky marine scientists, became instrumental in turning the tide of the war in the United States' favor. Sears and her team helped the navy “solve the ocean” by guiding them to optimal landing sites in the Pacific and by identifying thermoclines, temperature gradients in the ocean, where U.S. submarines could hide from the enemy. Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

Links from the show:* Against All Odds: A True Story of Ultimate Courage and Survival in World War II* Connect with Alex* Rate the show* Never miss an episodeAbout my guest:Educated at Oxford University, Alex Kershaw is the widely-acclaimed, prize-winning, New York Times best-selling author of twelve books, including The Longest Winter, The Bedford Boys, The First Wave, The Liberator and most recently Against All Odds. He has been a journalist for over thirty years, having written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, AARP Magazine, The Guardian and many other newspapers and magazines. Kershaw is a popular public speaker, and designs/leads history tours around the world. He is also the Resident Historian for Friends of The National WWII Memorial and chairs the Colby Award selection committee. He lives in Washington D.C. His book, Blood and Champagne, is currently being adapted into a tv series. His 2012 book, The Liberator, is now a four part series on Netflix. His books have been translated into over a dozen languages.      Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

Links from the show:* Fentanyl, Inc.: How Rogue Chemists Are Creating the Deadliest Wave of the Opioid Epidemic* Connect with Ben* Ben's substack* Never miss an episode* Rate the showAbout my guest:Ben Westhoff is a best-selling investigative journalist, speaker, and filmmaker focused on drugs, culture, and poverty. His books are taught around the country and have been translated into languages all over the world.Westhoff's Fentanyl, Inc.: How Rogue Chemists Created the Deadliest Wave of the Opioid Epidemic is the bombshell first book about fentanyl, which is causing the worst drug crisis in American history. Westhoff was interviewed about the book for Fresh Air and Joe Rogan, and has written about the fentanyl crisis for The New York Times, The Atlantic, the Los Angeles Times, and many others. Since the book's publication, Westhoff has advised top government officials on the fentanyl crisis, including from the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, the U.S. embassy in Beijing, and the U.S. State Department. He now speaks at conferences and summits around the country about the opioid crisis, and is the 2023 Norman E. Zinberg Memorial Lecture awardee from Harvard Medical School.His new book Little Brother: Love, Tragedy, and My Search for the Truth tells the story of his relationship with Jorell Cleveland, his longtime mentee in the Big Brothers Big Sisters program. When Jorell was murdered at age 19, and the case went cold, Ben used his skills as an investigative journalist to find the killer. It's a three-year investigation set in the northern suburbs of St. Louis that uncovers a heartbreaking cycle of poverty, poor education, drug trafficking, and violence. The Common Reader calls it “important and a must-read.”Westhoff's 2016 book Original Gangstas: Tupac Shakur, Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, Ice Cube, and the Birth of West Coast Rap is one of the best-selling hip-hop books of all time. It received raves from Rolling Stone and People, and a starred review in Kirkus. S. Leigh Savidge, Academy Award nominee and co-writer of Straight Outta Compton said it "may be the best book ever written about the hip hop world."Westhoff's work has appeared in The New York Times, the Library of Congress, The Atlantic, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, NPR, Rolling Stone, Daily Beast, New York, Forbes, Vice, Oxford American, Pitchfork, and others. He's been honored by the National Association of Black Journalists, the National Entertainment Journalism Awards, Religion Newswriters Association, Best Music Writing, Best of Southern Food Writing, L.A. Press Club, and the Missouri Press Association.He has been interviewed as an expert commentator for CNN, BET, A&E, and ITV, and is the former L.A. Weekly music editor and Voice Media Group Senior music editor. He's a contributor to the Smithsonian Anthology of Hip-Hop and Rap, and his 2011 book on southern hip-hop, Dirty South: OutKast, Lil Wayne, Soulja Boy, and the Southern Rappers Who Reinvented Hip-Hop continues to be a strong backlist title. Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe