Month: September 2012

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New Books in Native American Studies - Brendan C. Lindsay, “Murder State: California’s Native American Genocide, 1846-1873” (University of Nebraska Press, 2012)

Brendan C. Lindsay‘s impressive if deeply troubling new book centers on two concepts long considered anathema: democracy and genocide. One is an ideal of self-government, the other history’s most unspeakable crime. Yet as Lindsay deftly describes, Euro-American settlers in California harnessed democratic governance to expel, enslave and ultimately murder 90% of a population on their ancestral homelands in the mid-to-late 19th century.

Murder State: California’s Native Genocide, 1846-1873 (University of Nebraska Press, 2012) is difficult but vital reading for residents of any state. Culling evidence from newspapers, public records, and personal narratives, Lindsay’s lays out an ironclad case that “genocide” is precisely the word to describe to the process faced by Native people in California, despite its rarified usage in academic and public discourse.

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More or Less: Behind the Stats - How to explain infinity to a 4-year-old

?What?s the number before infinity?? asks Claudia, aged 4. We challenge Johnny Ball, legendary British TV presenter, to explain. And in celebration of the voice of Sesame Street?s Count von Count, Jerry Nelson, who?s died aged 78, there?s another chance to hear our 2009 interview with the Count, in which he revealed his favourite number: 34,969. Presented by Ruth Alexander, this programme was first broadcast on the BBC World Service.

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World Book Club - Jodi Picoult – My Sister’s Keeper

In September's edition of World Book Club superstar US novelist Jodi Picoult talks about her heart-rending novel My Sister's Keeper.

A searing examination of what it means to be a good parent, a good sister, a good person - My Sister's Keeper confronts the question of whether it is morally correct to do whatever it takes to save a child’s life.

In the programme Jodi talks with disarming openness about the near tragedy in her own life that helped to drive her to write the novel and she explains why for her writing feels like a form of schizophrenia.