Reading Radicals: Dissent on Book TV

Reading Radicals: Dissent on Book TV

In the last month, two Dissent editors have hosted installments of After Words, a show broadcast on C-SPAN’s Book TV. Co-editor Michael Kazin interviewed historian Peter Kuznick and director Oliver Stone about the companion book to their recent Showtime series, The Untold History of the United States, a critical history of American foreign policy since the turn of the last century. They discuss the origins of the Cold War, the lost legacy of vice president Henry Wallace, and the continuity of contemporary U.S. policy with a long history of foreign intervention.

Online editor Nick Serpe talked to veteran biographer Martin Duberman about his recent work, Howard Zinn: A Life on the Left. They explore the relation between Zinn’s scholarship and activism, his insights and blind spots, and the reasons for his persistent popularity. (Serpe also finds occasion to mention Michael Kazin’s memorable critique of Zinn, published in Dissent in 2004.)