The Bob Edwards Show, February 27–March 2, 2012
Monday, February 27, 2012: The number of African American baseball players in the major leagues has plummeted by two thirds since its peak in 1975. And while it’s increasingly difficult to find black players on the field, the opposite holds true for Latinos. They are playing the game in record numbers and represent a full quarter of big-league rosters. Sports historian Rob Ruck examines why blacks, who led the fight to integrate baseball, have now largely left the game. His book is titled Raceball: How the Major Leagues colonized the Black and Latin Game. It’s now out in paperback. Next, Bob talks to renowned historian Simon Schama about his book Rough Crossing: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution. Schama asks this provocative question: If you were black in America at the start of the Revolutionary War, whom would you want to win? Then, Bob talks with writer MT Anderson about his book The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing: Traitor to the Nation. This novel follows the story of a young Revolutionary-era slave, living in Boston, who discovers that his life isn’t all that it seems.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012: Barbara Ehrenreich says of Katherine Boo’s new book, “If Bollywood ever decides to do its own version of ‘The Wire’, this would be it.” In Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity, Boo chronicles the story of people struggling to live in one of contemporary India’s most notorious slums, nestled in the shadow of the city’s luxury hotels. Katherine Boo has won both the Pulitzer Prize and a MacArthur “Genius” Award for long-form reporting on poverty in the United States for the Washington Post and The New Yorker, among other publications.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012: In Panther Baby: A Life of Rebellion & Reinvention, Jamal Joseph vividly recounts his introduction to Panther life, and his progression from a young, naïve street kid to a confident and outspoken member of an influential national movement, and later to an Oscar nominee and professor at an Ivy League college.”
Thursday, March 1, 2012: Evolution is a fact, not a debatable theory. Prehistorian and popular-science writer Cameron Smith lays out the evidence and logic in his book The Fact of Evolution. Then, award-winning English writer Edward St. Aubyn’s new novel At Last is the final installment of his acclaimed Patrick Melrose series. A master of dark comedy and difficult truths, St. Aubyn is one of contemporary literature’s finest novelists.
Friday, March 2, 2012: Doyle McManus, Washington columnist for the Los Angeles Times joins Bob to discuss the latest political news. Next, director Paul Weitz’s most recent film Being Flynn stars actors Robert De Niro, Julianne Moore, and Paul Dano. Based on writer Nick Flynn’s memoir Another Bull* Night in Suck City, the film tell the true story of Flynn (Dano), a rootless young man working in a homeless shelter, who reunites with his estranged father (De Niro) at the shelter. Then, in this week’s installment of our ongoing series This I Believe, we hear the essay of Elizabeth Onusko. Memories are important to everyone, but some of us need a little help keeping those memories fresh. Onusko is a saver. She keeps ticket stubs, playbills, birthday cards and any other tiny memento that might help her remember a point in her life. Onusko says that when she looks through all of the material she’s accumulated, she feels like she’s going back in time, visiting herself at a younger age.