Booknotes+

When you read about the political history of Illinois, you often see the word "corruption." For instance, from January 1961 until January 2009 Illinois citizens elected 8 different men to be their governor. Four of those eventually went to prison, all convicted after they were out of office. Our guest this week, Robert Hartley, has written 11 books about the politicians of Illinois, including one titled "Power, Purpose & Prison." Mr. Hartley writes that these men met their downfall under different circumstances. He asks: "Where did they go wrong?" and "Were they able to recover self-respect in spite of their punishment?" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ben Stein, our guest this week, is close to 80 years old. When he was in his 20s he wrote speeches for Richard Nixon. He wants you to know that he still calls Mr. Nixon his hero. Mr. Stein also tells you in his latest book about what he's done since those early years: "I've worked as a university teacher, a columnist for the Wall Street Journal, a scriptwriter, a novelist, an investigator into financial fraud for Barron's, a columnist for the late greatly lamented Los Angeles Herald Examiner, a writer and a commentator on economics, an actor, a game show host, a talk show host, a father, and a husband." His book is called "The Peacemaker: Nixon – The Man, President, and My Friend." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

John Hancock is one of the most famous signatures in the history of the United States. Most people don’t know much more than that about him. Brooke Barbier, our guest this week, who is the founder of Ye Olde Tavern Tours of Boston, wants to change your perception of this American signer of the Declaration of Independence. Barbier's newest book is called "King Hancock." He got that moniker back in the middle of the 1700s. The author writes: "His stature eventually rose so high that he became known by both his friends and enemies by that name." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Diana Henriques is the author of 5 previous books including "The Wizard of Lies: Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust." Originally from Bryan, Texas, and Roanoke, Virginia, Ms. Henriques spent 22 years as a reporter with the New York Times. In her latest book "Taming the Street," she writes in the preface: "My mission is to describe just one of the New Deal's most significant achievements, clearing out the vicious jungle that was the nation's financial landscape in the 1920s and replacing it with a well-tended terrain where ordinary Americans could save and invest with confidence." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Historian Andrew Roberts calls this week's guest Kenneth Rendell the "manuscript whisperer." Rendell's new book is about his travelling the world during his career buying and selling significant historical letters and documents, from the Renaissance to the present day. The title of his book is "Safeguarding History: Trailblazing Adventures Inside the Worlds of Collecting and Forging History." One of the stories he tells is about his role in determining whether the Hitler diaries, published in 1983, were real or fake. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"America is deeply divided. Our politics is broken, marked by anger, contempt and distrust. We must acknowledge that reality but not lose historical perspective. It’s bad now, but it’s been worse before—and not only during the Civil War." These are the words of Fox News contributor Karl Rove, a longtime political consultant and former senior adviser to President George W. Bush. He wrote them under the headline: "America Is Often a Nation Divided," in a recent Saturday edition of the Wall Street Journal. The piece is historical and starts back when the country began. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Author Charlotte Gray, our guest this week, is a Canadian born in Great Britain who now lives in a suburb of Ottawa. Her book "Passionate Mothers, Powerful Sons" is about Jennie Jerome Churchill and Sara Delano Roosevelt. The former Jennie Jerome was born in the United States and was the mother of Winston Churchill. Sara Delano married James Roosevelt and became the mother of FDR in 1882. Charlotte Gray writes that one of the reasons to write about these two women is that: "Their reputations, so different within their lifetimes, have both suffered since their deaths." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Erec Smith, our guest this week, is an associate professor of rhetoric at York College of Pennsylvania. He is also the co-founder of Free Black Thought, a website that "seeks to represent the rich diversity of black thought beyond the relatively narrow spectrum of views promoted by mainstream outlets..." In a Newsweek article, Prof. Smith wrote: "We hear endlessly about systemic racism, white supremacy, the black/white income gap, and police brutality. So powerful an ideology has this narrative become that those of us who pose a credible counter-narrative—black anti-woke writers, for example—frequently find our words being misconstrued in an effort to stanch their impact." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lindsay Chervinsky is a presidential historian who has written what she says is the first book on the presidential cabinet. It's called "The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution." It was on November 26, 1791, that President George Washington convened his cabinet department secretaries: Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, Henry Knox, and Edmund Randolph. It was the first cabinet meeting ever held. Among other things, we asked Lindsay Chervinsky why Washington waited a full two and a half years into his presidency to call everyone together. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It has been 32 months since the attack on the U.S. Capitol that disrupted a joint session of the U.S. Congress in the process of completing the presidential election result. More than 1,100 defendants have been charged in nearly all 50 states and the District of Columbia. More than 110 individuals have been found guilty of felonies. Kyle Cheney of Politico has spent a lot of time during these past months covering the trial in the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia. We asked him to give us an overview of what these court proceedings have looked like up close. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices