History

As told in a new documentary, The Real Dirt on Farmer John, the story of John Peterson is an allegory for the woes of family farmers — and the triumphant return to traditional artisan farming that is giving new life to small-scale agriculture.

A debut novel by Yaa Gyasi is one of this summer's most anticipated novels.

Herman's Hermits hit the American pop charts 22 times in the 1960s and early '70s. Now, a new anthology compiles 66 of the Hermits' tracks. Rock historian Ed Ward considers how the music has held up.

TV critic David Bianculli reviews the remake of the 1977 mini series Roots. He says it deserves to be seen and talked about.

Pulitzer prize winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen says he wants to take the narrative of the Vietnam war created by Americans and retell it from the perspective of the Vietnamese. His family left Vietnam after the fall of Saigon when he was 4.

Author Bronwen Dickey says the idea of pit bulls as predators is based on myth and misinformation. In the early Hollywood era, Dickey says, the dogs were often chosen to appear in comedies.

The Pulitzer-Prize winning author of Empire Falls says his characters are inspired by his parents' working-class World War II generation. Russo's new novel is set in a small town in upstate New York.

Historian Frank Dikötter says newly opened archives offer fresh details about the chaos China experienced in the 1960s, when Chairman Mao urged students to take to the streets.

The Irish director and screenwriter talks to Fresh Air's Ann Marie Baldonado about his new film, which tells the story of a young teenager in 1980s Dublin who discovers pop music and starts a band.

Enter Me

In his new memoir, Under The Big Black Sun: A Personal History Of L.A. Punk, John Doe of the band X brings together his own essays and stories from other musicians and scene-makers of that time. A conversation with Doe, with his bandmate Exene Cervenka, and with Dave Alvin of the Blasters who played with X for a short time.

Actor Tom Hanks talks about his new film A Hologram for the King, his production company Playtone, playing courageous, tested men in Captain Phillips, Saving Private Ryan and Apollo 13, and growing up in a fractuous family.

Forget "enhanced interrogation techniques" — Eric Fair says what he did as an interrogator in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq was torture.

"The idea that there's interrogation, and then enhanced interrogation, and then torture — there is no middle ground," he tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "Torture is an enhanced interrogation."

Duke won an Academy Award for her portrayal of Helen Keller in 1962's The Miracle Worker. She died Tuesday at the age of 69. Originally broadcast in 1988.

Jacob Bernstein named his documentary about his mother after an Ephron family saying — "everything is copy," meaning that anything and everything that happens to you is fair game to write about.

Ever since Everybody Loves Raymond, the actor says he has been trying to take on more dramatic roles. In the HBO drama Vinyl, he plays a record company executive who contemplates suicide.

According to Adam Hochschild, about 2,800 Americans fought in the Spanish Civil War, and some were bombed by Nazis years before the U.S. entered World War II. His new book is Spain in Our Hearts.

Journalist Adam Hochschild tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross that "it was by far the largest number of Americans before or since who've ever joined somebody else's civil war."

Veteran foreign correspondent Anne Garrels takes us deep inside Russia, where citizens struggle with a shaky economy and widespread corruption, but seem supportive of their controversial president.

In the first half of the 20th century, American eugenicists used forced sterilization to "breed out" traits they considered undesirable. Adam Cohen tells the story in his new book, Imbeciles.

David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz chronicle America's poisonous relationship with lead in Lead Wars. "We've created a terribly toxic environment in all sorts of ways," Rosner says.