History

Journalist Michael Weisskopf is the senior correspondent for the Washington bureau of Time magazine. In 2003, while on assignment in Baghdad, he threw a live Iraqi grenade from the back of an open Humvee. He saved himself, four soldiers and Time's photographer, but lost his hand. Weisskopf's new book is Blood Brothers: Among the Soldiers of Ward 57.

Everybody knows jazz is an American invention that mediates between African and European musical conventions. But for decades, African and European improvisers have been forging their own bonds and hybrids, without American mediation. As a case in point, here's a newly issued historical recording by the South African-born bassist Harry Miller: Harry Miller's Isipingo: Which Way Now.

Journalist Rajiv Chandrasekaran is the former Baghdad bureau chief for The Washington Post. His new book about the Green Zone in Baghdad during the first year of the U.S. occupation is Imperial Life in the Emerald City.

Filmmaker Kirby Dick's new documentary, This Film is Not Yet Rated, peers into the secretive world of the Motion Picture Association of America's film ratings system. MPAA board members are anonymous, deliberations are private, and standards are seemingly arbitrary.

Journalist T. Christian Miller of The Los Angeles Times talks about his new book, Blood Money: Wasted Billions, Lost Lives, and Corporate Greed in Iraq. Miller writes, "In almost every way, the rebuilding has fallen short."

Disaster science specialist Ivor Van Heerden is the cofounder and deputy director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center and director of the Center for the Study of Public Health Impacts of Hurricanes. His new book is The Storm: What Went Wrong and Why During Hurricane Katrina -- the Inside Story from One Louisiana Scientist.

Monsignor Doug Doussan and Sister Kathleen Pittman discuss the status of their church and the surrounding neighborhood, one year after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. Doussan is pastor and Pitman is pastoral associate at St. Gabriel the Archangel Catholic Church in New Orleans.

Middle East peace expert Sari Nusseibeh is the founder of the Palestinian Consultancy Group and the Israeli-Palestinian Science Organization, the president of Al-Quds University in Jerusalem and a professor of Islamic philosophy. He co-wrote the People's Voice Initiative to build grassroots support for a two-state solution. Until December 2002, he was the representative of the Palestinian National Authority in Jerusalem.

Peace negotiator Yossi Beilin is a member of Israel's Knesset (Parliament) and chairman of the Meretz-Yachad party. Dr. Beilin has had posts in the governments of Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Ehud Barak. Beilin held unofficial peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians in 2003, which led to the Geneva Initiative, and was one of the architects of the Oslo Accords, signed in 1993.

Anthony Shadid of The Washington Post has been reporting from Lebanon. Shadid won the Pulitzer Prize in 2004 for international reporting. His latest book, Night Draws Near: Iraq's People in the Shadow of America's War, has just come out in paperback. Shadid is of Lebanese descent and grew up in Oklahoma City, Okla.

TV critic David Bianculli previews When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, Spike Lee's two-part HBO documentary about New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Michael Gordon, chief military correspondent for The New York Times, discusses efforts to recruit Iraqis for the Iraqi army, and looks back at the invasion of Iraq. He co-authored the recent book Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq. Gordon is also a correspondent for The New York Times Magazine.

The chairman of the Sept. 11 Commission, Tom Kean, and vice-chair Lee Hamilton have written the new book, Without Precedent: the Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission. The two write about the challenges of completing their work on the commission with little money, a tight timeline, constant wrangling to gain access to classified documents, and the necessity of forging a consensus among Republican and Democratic commissioners.

Journalist Lawrence Wright is the author of the new book The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11. The book is based on more than 500 interviews, some with friends and relatives of Osama bin Laden and examines the circumstances that led to the formation of his terrorist group.

Augustus Richard Norton is a professor of international relations and anthropology at Boston University and has been writing about Lebanon for 25 years. He is an expert on the Shiite political movements, including Hezbollah. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Norton's books include Amal and the Shi'a: Struggle for the Soul of Lebanon and Civil Society in the Middle East.

Actress Maria Bello often seems to find herself playing characters involved with men in trouble -- take the films A History of Violence and The Cooler, for example. She now stars as the wife of a Port Authority officer trapped in the rubble of the Sept. 11 attacks, in Oliver Stone's upcoming film World Trade Center.

Deputy Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Ginger Cruz oversees the audit, inspection and investigation operations established to prevent waste, fraud and abuse in the U.S. reconstruction of Iraq. Cruz just returned from Iraq.

Oliver Stone's new film World Trade Center, starring Nicolas Cage and Michael Pena, follows two Port Authority policemen trapped in the rubble of the towers. Our critic says the film raises a lot of questions about how we grieve.

British diplomat and journalist Rory Stewart walked alone across Afghanistan following the fall of the Taliban. The former fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Havard's Kennedy School of Government wrote about it in the memoir The Places in Between. Stewart was later appointed a provincial governor in post-invasion Iraq, and has a memoir about that experience as well.

Palestinian author, journalist and literary critic Samir El-Youssef was born in a refugee camp in Lebanon. He now lives in London, and has collaborated with his friend, Israeli writer Etgar Keret, on a book, Gaza Blues. El-Youssef provides his views on recent events in the Middle East.