This week on Q&A, our guest is author and 1997 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Jody Williams. She discusses her newly released autobiography titled “My Name Is Jody Williams: A Vermont Girl’s Winding Path to the Nobel Peace Prize.”  Williams shares details of her prize winning work on the campaign to ban the use of landmines and her career as an advocate for world peace.

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This week on Q&A, our guest is author and former Washington Post reporter Keith Richburg.  He discusses China and other countries he has lived in as a reporter for the past thirty-five years.  He recounts details of the exclusive story he reported in the Post about blind Chinese activist Chen Guangchen, and his attempts to leave the country.  Chen’s release was ultimately granted after negotiations involving then U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.  He explains the co-dependency of the U.S.-China relationship and gives his personal assessment of the future of China. Richburg also shares details of the jailing of Communist Party Chief Bo Xilai which he states exposed a lot of “corruption and shenanigans” at high levels of the Chinese Communist Party.  He talks about his time in Africa, where he gathered information for his first book, “Out Of America: A Black Man Confronts Africa,” published in 1997. He explains the difficulty of entering North Korea as a journalist and provides insight through video he was able to take, into a society which few journalists are allowed to enter.

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This week on Q&A, our guest is Bloomberg syndicated columnist and author Amity Shlaes. She discusses her newly released biography of the 30^th President of the United States, titled “Coolidge.” She traces the life of Calvin Coolidge from his early days in Plymouth Notch, Vermont through his presidency and ultimate return to New England where he died at the age of 60.

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Mark Shields, syndicated columnist & analyst on the PBS “NewsHour” discussed his early days in politics and shares stories of his role as a legislative assistant to Sen. William Proxmire (D-WI).  He also talked about his work on the presidential campaigns of Sen. Robert Kennedy (D-NY) in 1968 and Sen. Edmund Muskie (D-ME) in 1972. 

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This week on Q&A, our guest is Cathy Lanier, the Chief of the Washington, DC Metropolitan Police Department. She discusses the department’s growth in the last twenty-three years since she has been a police officer. She talks about the homicide rate in the District of Columbia being the lowest number in the past fifty-one years. She describes the reasons for this number, and looks to the future growth of the area as an opportunity to add officers to the force.

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This week on Q&A, our guest is former Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Chairman Sheila Bair. She discusses her new book titled “Bull By The Horns: Fighting to Save Main Street From Wall Street and Wall Street From Itself.” She talks about her nomination by President Bush and approval by the Senate in 2006.

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This week on Q&A, our guest is historian and author Timothy Naftali. He discusses the oral history project he conducted during his tenure as Director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, California. Between himself and his assistant, Paul Musgrave,there were over 140 interviews performed in various locations throughout the country. 

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This week on Q&A, our guest is historian and commentator Kevin Phillips to discuss his newly released historical narrative titled “1775: A Good Year for Revolution.”  Phillips suggests that the year 1775 was a critical launching point of both the Revolutionary War and American independence from Britain.  He argues that the year 1776 has incorrectly emerged as a watershed year due to historical hype and confusion.  He details American colonial successes such as importing vital cannon and gunpowder, enlisting Indian tribes as allies, and launching a trade war with Britain through the Continental Association as examples of 1775’s historical significance.  Phillips lists some of his favorite colonial leaders such as Samuel Adams, and ventures his opinions on modern day presidents as well.  He discusses portions of his fourteen other books, including bestsellers “American Theocracy” (2006) and “Bad Money” (2008).

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This week on Q&A, our guest for 90 minutes is Paul Reid, co-author, with William Manchester of the third and final volume of the historical trilogy “The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill, Defender of the Realm, 1940-1965.”  Reid tells how he met and befriended co-author William Manchester who then invited Reid to complete the third volume of the book.

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This week on Q&A, our guest is Pulitzer Prize winning author Anne Applebaum.   She discusses her new historical narrative, "Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956."  Applebaum examines the effects of communist totalitarianism in three countries from the end of World War II to the uprisings of 1956 in the years following Stalin’s death.  She focuses on East Germany, Poland and Hungary.  Applebaum explains how the Soviets began creating institutions, such as the secret police, aimed at undermining civil society and increasing party control.  She tells of how Stalin and the Eastern Bloc regimes made use of radio propaganda to shape popular opinion and reinforce communist ideology.  She contrasts this with the frustration that communist leadership expressed behind closed doors when their economic and societal reforms didn’t achieve expected positive results.  Applebaum also looks at the effects the Stalinist system had on everyday people such as shop owners and farmers.  She explains how she drew upon newly opened East European archives, interviews and personal accounts which were translated for the first time.  She talks about the legacy of the repressive communist system on each of these countries and shares her own experiences in the region, including the night she spent in Berlin in November of 1989, chipping at the Berlin wall with her future husband.

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