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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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  • Historian Allan R. Millett, author of a monumental trilogy about the Korean conflict, examines the “local” war that quickly entangled the military forces of both the United States and Communist China.
    Allan R. Millett - The War for Korea 1950-51: They Came From the North
    Wednesday, September 26, 2012
    Plaza Branch

    Americans view the Korean conflict as an American war in which the United States lost nearly 38,000 men. But above all else it was a war between Koreans that began years earlier, according to historian Allan R. Millett, in a discussion of his most recent book The War for Korea 1950-51: They Came from the North.

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  • Award-winning reporter Eleanor Clift joins Library Director Crosby Kemper III for a public conversation about the 2012 presidential election.
    Eleanor Clift - Forecasting the Presidential Election
    Monday, September 24, 2012
    Plaza Branch

    Reporter/pundit Eleanor Clift joins Kansas City Public Library Director Crosby Kemper III for a public conversation about 2012 presidential election.

    Today electing a president is vastly more complex an undertaking than what was envisioned by the Founding Fathers. Yet the process remains exciting and hugely important. And if it is sometimes disillusioning, it can also be inspiring.

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  • Roosevelt biographer Alan Brinkley examines the life and influence of the man who forever changed international diplomacy, the party system, and the role of government here and abroad.
    Alan Brinkley - Franklin Delano Roosevelt
    Sunday, September 23, 2012
    Plaza Branch

    No president since the founders has done more to shape American government than Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

    Alan Brinkley argues that Roosevelt’s presidency forever changed the face of international diplomacy, the American party system, and the government’s role in global and domestic policy.

    Brinkley is one of just three American historians to have been Harmsworth Professor at Oxford and Pitt Professor of American history at Cambridge.

    Co-presented with the Truman Library Institute; co-sponsored by KCUR’s UP to Date.

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  • Author Jamal Joseph discusses his life as a member of the Black Panther Party, prison inmate, activist, poet, filmmaker, and professor at Columbia University, the school he once claimed should be burned down.
    Jamal Joseph - Panther Baby
    Friday, September 21, 2012
    Plaza Branch

    As a member of the Black Panther Party, Jamal Joseph advocated burning Columbia University to the ground. Forty years later he’s a professor at Columbia. In his memoir Panther Baby Jamal takes readers from his Bronx childhood to Leavenworth prison and his current career in the arts.

    Joseph is executive artistic producer of the New Heritage Theater in Harlem. In 2008 he was nominated for an Academy Award for his contributions to the song “Raise It Up” from the film August Rush.

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  • Be a part of the studio audience as KCPT tapes the latest installment of Meet the Past when Crosby Kemper III interviews President Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Patrick Lee.
    Meet the Past - Thomas Jefferson
    Thursday, September 20, 2012
    Central Library

    Meet the Past with Crosby Kemper III returns for a conversation with Thomas Jefferson, as portrayed by Patrick Lee.

    Jefferson, America’s third president and author of the Declaration of Independence, was also a big supporter of the humanities.

    The event will be taped by KCPT for later broadcast.

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  • Political scientist Samuel Popkin, a veteran of numerous presidential campaigns, examines how challengers get to the White House, how incumbents stay there for a second term, and how successors hold power for their party.
    Samuel Popkin - The Candidate: What It Takes to Win – and Hold – the White House
    Tuesday, September 11, 2012
    Central Library

    Why doesn’t practice make perfect? Why are the same mistakes replayed in every presidential election? Political scientist Samuel Popkin looks at three campaigns – George H.W. Bush’s muddled 1992 re-election effort, Al Gore’s flawed 2000 campaign, and Hillary Clinton’s mismanaged effort to win the 2008 Democratic nomination – and uncovers lessons that future candidates should heed.

    Popkin is a professor of political science at the University of California - San Diego.

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  • How did America end up in Vietnam? Historian Fredrik Logevall explains the 40 years of political, military, and diplomatic miscalculation that led to U.S. involvement in Indochina.
    Fredrik Logevall - Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam
    Thursday, September 6, 2012
    Central Library

    Cornell University historian Fredrik Logevall discusses the origins of America’s least popular war, beginning with the 1919 Versailles Peace Conference that ended World War I, continuing through a half century of French rule, and on to America’s involvement in Vietnam. It’s a story of political, military, and diplomatic maneuvering and miscalculation.

    Logevall is John S. Knight professor of international studies at Cornell University. Among his books are America’s Cold War: The Politics of Insecurity, and Virtual JFK: Vietnam If Kennedy Had Lived.

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  • What would the proposed move of UMKC fine arts programs to a downtown campus mean culturally and economically? A panel of local experts discuss the possibilities.
    A Vision of a Downtown Arts Campus
    Wednesday, September 5, 2012
    Central Library

    Officials at the University of Missouri-Kansas City recently announced their intention to relocate many of their fine arts efforts to downtown. Planners envision an urban ecosystem of cafes, restaurants, bookstores, and shops — as well as private studios and recital rooms, additional housing and even small hotels.

    A panel of arts experts – among them Jacqueline Chanda, president of the Kansas City Art Institute, and Peter Witte, dean of the UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance discuss the possibilities and challenges of a downtown arts campus. The panel will be moderated by Mike Burke, chairman of the mayor’s Task Force on the Arts.

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  • Hoover biographer George H. Nash argues that our 31st president was a far more dynamic, accomplished, and remarkable figure than the stereotypes suggest.
    George H. Nash - Herbert Hoover
    Thursday, August 30, 2012
    Plaza Branch

    Seemingly austere and reportedly passive in the face of a national economic calamity, Herbert Hoover is somewhat of a political orphan. But biographer George H. Nash argues that Hoover was a much more dynamic, accomplished, and remarkable figure than the hoary stereotypes suggest.

    Between 1975 and 1995 Nash lived in Iowa near the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library, where he prepared three volumes of the definitive biography of the 31st president.

    Co-presented with the Truman Library Institute; co-sponsored by KCUR’s Up to Date.

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