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Event Audio

To listen to an audio recording of a previous Library special event, click the icon. The audio file will launch the media player on your computer.

The most recent recording displays at the top. The Library offers recordings only with the permission of the presenter. Please allow 7-10 days for the recording to be posted.

  • Historian Henry Wiencek examines how Thomas Jefferson, for all his accomplishments and advanced thinking, could not get beyond his own limited perspective in matters of race.
    Henry Wiencek - Thomas Jefferson
    Thursday, October 25, 2012
    Plaza Branch

    For all his accomplishments and advanced thinking, Thomas Jefferson could not get beyond his own limited perspective in matters of race. Drawing from new archaeological work and previously overlooked evidence, historian Henry Wiencek examines the factors that led Jefferson, once an emancipationist, to keep some of his own children as slaves.

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  • Small-business guru John Jantsch explains how you can create a successful corporate culture, one with committed, long-term customers and dedicated employees.
    John Jantsch - The Commitment Engine: Making Work Worth It
    Wednesday, October 24, 2012
    Central Library

    Why are some companies able to generate committed, long-term customers while others struggle to stay afloat? Why do the employees of some organizations fully dedicate themselves while others punch the clock without enthusiasm? Small-business guru John Jantsch looks at what makes a successful corporate culture.

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  • Author Richard V. Barbuto examines the unpopular War of 1812, during which the U.S. launched three failed invasions of Canada and British troops burned our White House.
    Richard V. Barbuto - America on the Ropes
    Tuesday, October 23, 2012
    Central Library

    The War of 1812 began with much confidence among U.S. leaders.

    Thomas Jefferson predicted that the conquest of Canada was “a mere matter of marching.” But, as historian Richard V. Barbuto points out, “Mr. Madison’s War” found the U.S. government in debt, the Royal Navy raiding our coasts and British troops burning the White House. The conflict was hugely unpopular with American citizens.

    How did we get into this war ... and how did we win it?

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  • Pretty little women? Everything up to date? Radio personality and pop culture expert Michael Lasser explores the songs inspired by Kansas City and the Midwest.
    Michael Lasser - Kansas City in Popular Song
    Sunday, October 21, 2012
    Central Library

    Peabody Award-winning radio personality Michael Lasser explores the songs inspired by our town, from “Everything’s Up To Date in Kansas City” to the rock classic “Kansas City” with its “pretty little women,” a tune recorded by artists as varied as the Beatles and Trini Lopez.

    Lasser has been called “a walking encyclopedia of American song” and is the author of America’s Songs: The Stories Behind the Songs of Broadway, Hollywood, and Tin Pan Alley.

    He hosts the weekly syndicated radio show Fascinatin’ Rhythm.

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  • Novelist Naomi Benaron (Running the Rift) and filmmaker Leah Warshawski (Film Festival: Rwanda) explain how Rwanda has recovered from the 1998 murder of approximately 800,000 people known as the Rwandan Genocide.
    Naomi Bernaron & Leah Warshawski - Literature and Film of Witness
    Wednesday, October 17, 2012
    Plaza Branch

    Novelist Naomi Benaron and filmmaker Leah Warshawski, descendants of Holocaust survivors, discuss their work about Rwandan genocide.

    Benaron’s debut novel, Running the Rift, is the story of a Rwandan athlete whose Olympic dreams collide with ethnic hatreds.

    Warshawski’s upcoming documentary Film Festival: Rwanda follows filmmakers who create a traveling film festival to restore pride in their country.

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  • Author Tanner Colby engages in a public conversation about his new book — an incisive and candid look at how America got lost on the way to Dr. King’s Promised Land — with Kansas City writer Whitney Terrell as part of the Writers at Work series.
    Tanner Colby - Some of My Best Friends Are Black: The Strange Story of Integration in America
    Wednesday, October 10, 2012
    Central Library

    Tanner Colby engages in a public conversation about his new book, Some of My Best Friends Are Black, with Kansas City writer Whitney Terrell. Colby’s book about race is anchored by four interrelated stories, one of which involves a Kansas City neighborhood.

    A child of a white-flight Southern suburb, Colby is former head writer of the National Lampoon Radio Hour and co-author of Belushi: A Biography.

    Co-sponsored by the Writers at Work Roundtable & the UMKC English Department.

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  • Photojournalist Paola Gianturco illustrates how today’s grandmothers are embracing activism to create a better world for grandchildren everywhere.
    Paola Gianturco - Grandmother Power
    Tuesday, October 9, 2012
    Central Library

    The grandmothers of today are younger, healthier, better educated, and better off than grandmothers have ever been. And, as photojournalist Paola Gianturco shows in her book Grandmother Power: A Global Phenomenon, these women have embraced activism to fight poverty, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation, and human rights abuses.

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  • Jay Angoff of the Department of Health and Human Services joins a panel of health experts to discuss the implementation and effects of the Affordable Care Act.
    Jay Angoff - The Affordable Care Act
    Monday, October 8, 2012
    Plaza Branch

    What will the Affordable Care Act mean to the lives, health, and finances of you and your family? How will it be implemented?

    Jay Angoff, Region VII director of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and a panel of health experts discuss the new law.

    Angoff was Missouri’s insurance commissioner from 1993-1998. He was the first director of the Health and Human Services Office of Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight.

    Co-sponsored by the Missouri Nurses Association.

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  • Editor Steve Paul and a panel of authors - Catherine Browder, Matthew Eck, and Andres Rodriguez - share stories about Kansas City’s seedy underbelly
    Steve Paul - Kansas City Noir
    Tuesday, October 2, 2012
    Central Library

    Steve Paul is joined by three of the area writers who contributed to Kansas City Noir, a collection of short stories that takes readers on a journey through the dark underbelly of our sunny Midwestern metropolis.

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  • Author William H. Chafe, who studies American politics through politicians’ personal lives, reveals the core complexity of William Jefferson Clinton as an individual, a husband, and as a national public figure.
    William H. Chafe - William Jefferson Clinton
    Thursday, September 27, 2012
    Plaza Branch

    Taking the White House requires a team, and America had never seen anything like the husband-and-wife team of Bill and Hillary Clinton.

    Historian William H. Chafe, a pioneer in the study of American politics through the personal lives of politicians, reveals the core complexity of the Clintons as individuals, as a couple, and as national figures.

    Chafe is the Alice Mary Baldwin Professor of History at Duke University and the author of Bill and Hillary: The Politics of the Personal.

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