The columnist presents his reflections on everything from embryo research to entitlement reform, from Halley's Comet to border collies, from Christopher Columbus to Martin Luther King, from drone warfare to American decline. Includes an autobiographical introduction.

This program features six landmark speeches: John F. Kennedy's inaugural address; Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech; Adolf Hitler's address to the Nazi Party; Douglas MacArthur's farewell address; Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1942 State of the Union address; and Barack Obama's first inaugural address. Printable transcripts and critical essays are included on DVD only.

Recognized from an early age as a poet of remarkable ability, the writer who was to become known as Gabriela Mistral was the first Latin American woman to be awarded the prestigious Nobel Prize, in 1945. Composed of archival footage and commentary from scholars and friends who discuss the personal events that affected her life and infused her work with its themes of tragic love and unfulfilled maternal love, this program provides an in-depth portrait...

The history and social structures of Latin America's native peoples were neither simple nor peaceful before the arrival of Europeans. Wars were fought, empires were created and destroyed, and-as this program illustrates-narrative tapestries of fact and fiction were woven in the process. Underscoring the linguistic sophistication that flourished for thousands of years in the region, the program addresses the proliferation of Nahuatl and Quechua literature,...

Promoting growth and protecting the environment is a contradiction, says Chinese ambassador Chen Mingming, insisting that the opulent lifestyle of "people overseas" should figure into any assessment of his country's environmental policies. "Isn't it legitimate for the Chinese to seek the same quality of life? That means economic development." Others who support the government's approach to ecological problems also appear in this film, such as political...

In a future totalitarian state where books are banned and destroyed by the government, Guy Montag, a fireman in charge of burning books, meets a revolutionary schoolteacher who dares to read and a woman who tells him of a past when people did not live in fear.

As a tool for characterizing rational thought, logic cuts across many philosophical disciplines and lies at the core of mathematics and computer science. Drawing on Aristotle's Organon, Russell's Principia Mathematica, and other central works, this program tracks the evolution of logic, beginning with the basic syllogism. A sampling of subsequent topics includes propositional and predicate logic, Bayesian confirmation theory, Boolean logic, Frege's...

The various protest movements that together constituted the Chicano Movement of the 1960s and 1970s urged a "politics of inclusion" to bring Mexican Americans into the mainstream of United States political and social life. This volume of ten specially commissioned essays assesses the post-movement years, asking "what went wrong? what went right? and where are we now?" Collectively, the essays offer a wide-ranging portrayal of the complex situation

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"From historian and author of the popular daily newsletter Letters From An American, a vital narrative that explains how America, once a beacon of democracy, now teeters on the brink of autocracy -- and how we can turn back. In the midst of the impeachment crisis of 2019, Heather Cox Richardson launched a daily Facebook essay providing the historical background of the daily torrent of news. The essays soon turned into a newsletter and, spread by word...

Influenced by Jean Cocteau, Jules Verne, Alfred Jarry, and Jorge Luis Borges, it is not surprising that Julio Cortazar created a body of surrealist literature that depicts the world as a phantasmagoric maze. In this program, the late author reflects on his view of reality, the creative process, his sentimental nature, and other topics. In addition, he talks about several of his books, including Rayuela, a significant contribution to the novel and...