C-SPAN Bookshelf

This week's program is an encore presentation featuring a C-SPAN interview with Eric Sevareid that was recorded in his Georgetown home 37 years ago in 1989. Sevareid was a war correspondent with CBS Radio starting in 1939. He spent a total of 38 years with the network. When CBS News with Walter Cronkite went to 30 minutes in 1963, Eric Sevaride would end each newscast with a two-minute analysis and commentary. Some refer to him as "The Grey Eminence." The Cronkite evening news audience in those days was close to 30 million viewers a night. Today the program is watched by around 4 million people. The American population has increased by 100 million people since 1989.


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Over his six-decade career, Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer David Hume Kennerly has covered U.S. presidents and first ladies, world leaders, the Vietnam War, the 1971 Frazier-Ali fight, and much more. He joins us to discuss his work and his new book, "In the Room: Sixty Years on the Front Lines of History."
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Pulitzer Prize-winning and bestselling author Jared Diamond joins David M. Rubenstein for a fascinating conversation about the origins of life on Earth, the science of the animal kingdom, and the evolution of human behavior. Diamond also discusses his book, Why Is Sex Fun?, exploring the surprising science behind human sexuality and what sets us apart from other species.

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Ever wonder why things cost what they do? Economic expert and author Lindsay Owens argued that technology is used against consumers to determine pricing on everything from rainy Uber rides to concert tickets. She was interviewed by Journalist Jamie McGee at the 2026 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville.

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Historian Walter Stahr has written books on John Jay, William Henry Seward, Edwin Stanton, and Salmon Chase. Now comes his biography of America's 27th president, William Howard Taft, who subsequently also served as the 10th Chief Justice of the United States. Walter Stahr writes at the beginning of his book: "Taft was a modest conservative president, one who avoided foreign wars, worked closely with our allies, lowered tariff rates, and reduced the federal deficit." Stahr also writes that "Taft didn't agree with his predecessor, Theodore Roosevelt, that the president had some vague power to pursue the public good."
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