More than three years after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Alexander Vindman is out with a new book on U.S.-Ukraine relations. Vindman, who was born in Ukraine, is the retired Army lieutenant colonel who testified against President Trump in the 2019 impeachment hearings. In his new book, The Folly of Realism, Vindman argues that the United States has taken an incorrect position towards Russia and Ukraine since the collapse of the Soviet Union, a period spanning six American presidential administrations. In today's episode, he joins NPR's Mary Louise Kelly for a conversation that touches on what Vindman calls the Trump administration's "Russia First" policy, the case for investing in Ukraine and Taiwan, and when the conflict in Ukraine might end.
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Amanda Holmes reads Emily Dickinson’s “After Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes.” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you’ll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman.
This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch.
In the 18th century, a French astronomer who was a regular comet hunter kept finding things in the sky that weren’t comets, but they also weren’t stars or planets.
He created a list of these objects, not because he was trying to catalog the night sky, but rather to help other comet hunters avoid these common objects.
It turned out his list consisted of some of the most incredible objects inside and outside of our galaxy.
Learn more about Messier Objects, how they were documented and what they are on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie hasn't published a novel in more than a decade. After writing literary hits like Americanah and essays like the popular We Should All Be Feminists, the author says she went through a period of writer's block. But now, she's out with a new novel Dream Count that tells the stories of four interconnected women. In today's episode, Adichie speaks with NPR's Michel Martin about a phrase that lodged itself in the author's mind and ultimately served as the book's first line. They also talk about a loss that caused Adichie to question how well she knew herself and a real-life sexual assault case that inspired her to write one of the novel's central characters.
To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free and support NPR's book coverage, sign up for Book of the Day+ at plus.npr.org/bookoftheday