American history

Novelist, journalist and columnist Nicholas Von Hoffman. He's the author of 10 books, including Organized Crimes and Make-Believe Presidents. He's written for The Washington Post, The Chicago Daily News, and almost every major magazine. His latest work is titled Citizen Cohn, The Life and Times of Roy Cohn.

Paul Kennedy, professor of history at Yale University and author of the new book The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000. In it, Kennedy contends that all great powers have floundered over their inability to limit foreign commitments in the face of rising domestic obligations. The book has introduced the term "imperial overstretch" to the political vocabulary. (Interview by Faith Middleton)

Book Critic John Leonard reviews two new biographies of Roy Cohn, the counsel for the Senate committee conducting the McCarthy trials, and McCarthy's aide and confidante.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nick Kotz. His new book, Wild Blue Yonder: Money, Politics and the B-1 Bomber, is an in-depth examination of how cost over-runs, politics and s basic pork barrel mentality has compromised the making of the B-1 bomber. Kotz's study of military leadership won the National Magazine Award for Public Service. He also authored the highly acclaimed book, Let Them Eat Promises.

Military historian Clay Blair. His new book is titled The Forgotten War: America In Korea. As a reporter in the Fifties, Blair was the Washington correspondent for Time and Life magazines. He later wrote for The Saturday Evening Post. For the last 23 years, Blair has been writing military histories. In The Forgotten War, he tells how warfare changed during the Korean War, and how this war, a war that the United States didn't win, affected our military strategy.

Book critic John Leonard reviews The Year of the Barricades: A Journey Through 1968 by the English journalist and historian David Caute.

Vincent Harding. He was the first director of the Martin Luther King Center in Atlanta. He worked with Dr. King during the Civil Rights Movement and he's written a history of the struggle for civil rights titled There is a River.

Writer Richard Rhodes. His book, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, is a detailed account of the origins and early development of nuclear weapons. The book won the 1987 National Book Award for non-fiction, and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Fresh Air's rock historian Ed Ward discusses the roots of his own musical tastes.

Journalist and media critic Todd Gitlin whose new book, The Sixties - Years of Hope, Days of Rage, is a social history of the culture and politics of that time from a writer who participated in the freedom and turmoil of the era.