Revolution

Photographer Susan Meiselas (My-SELL-us). She went to Nicaragua in the late 70s to photograph the Sandinista Revolution. She returned to Nicaragua recently to talk to the people she photographed more than ten years ago. Only this time she made a film about it, "Pictures From a Revolution."

Linguist Geoffrey Nunberg examines the word "zeal." Nunberg has noticed that the euphemism "overzealous" has been used to explain away everything from executions during the French Revolution to the beating of Rodney King.

Poet and NPR commentator Andrei Codrescu. Codrescu's new book, "A Hole In The Flag," examines how the exuberance in his native Romania after the overthrow of Ceausescu turned to cynicism, and with the realization that Ceausescu's overthrow changed nothing.

McPherson is currently working on a new book about the aftermath of the Romanian Revolution. An excerpt of the book recently appeared in the literary magazine, "Granta."

While the Chinatown sequel The Two Jakes hasn't found much success, many agree that it's beautifully shot thanks to the work of Vilmos Zsigmond. He won an Academy Award for Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which was celebrated for balancing special effects with conventional, domestic scenes. Zsigmond fled Hungary in 1956 during the revolution.

Critic Maureen Corrigan reflects on the television show, "thirtysomething," and how the illness of one of the characters has affected the show.

Novelist Taghi Modarressi. His new novel, The Pilgrim's Rules of Etiquette, is set in Iran after the Islamic revolution. It revolves around an aging academic, well acquainted with the ways and mores of the West, and his family and friends as they deal with the fear and poverty during the Iran-Iraq War. But when his prize student is killed at the front, the academic, who until now has closeted himself away with his philosophical pursuits, must acknowledge the meaninglessness of his efforts when compared to the chaos of contemporary Iran.

Journalist Amy Wilentz. Her first book, The Rainy Season, Haiti since Duvalier, is an account of Haiti since the overthrow of President-for-Life Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, and of how the country's hope for reform gave way to despair when it was clear Haiti's new leadership couldn't, or wouldn't, reverse 40 years of chaos and stagnation. The book is also an account of how Wilentz was transformed by the story, of how the epochal change Haiti was going through, and its stunning contrast of poverty and corrupted wealth, overwhelmed her first assumptions.

Language commentator Geoffrey Nunberg examines how the changes brought about by the French Revolution extended even to the French language.

Historian and writer Simon Schama. His revisionist history of the French Revolution - Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution - has been one of the most talked-about and debated volumes of history in the last several years. Critics have lauded Schama for bringing vividly to life the characters that inspired the five-year popular uprising that changed the modern political order.