Oceanographer Jacques Cousteau discusses man's effect on the planet. Includes a clip with whale sounds and statements by Joan McIntyre.

Ntozake Shange discusses her play, "for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf." She goes on to discuss her advocacy for more Black authors and poets, especially in experimental artistic endeavors.*Please note: some sections have been edited out from the original recording due to copyright considerations 

Content Warning: This conversation includes racially and/or culturally derogatory language and/or negative depictions of Black and Indigenous people of color, women, and LGBTQI+ individuals. Rather than remove this content, we present it in the context of twentieth-century social history to acknowledge and learn from its impact and to inspire awareness and discussion. Almost all the characters in Robert Kotlowitz's book, "The Boardwalk" are fictitious with the exception of Teddy, a Jewish, 14-year-old boy, who Kotlowitz explains is Robert Kotlowitz.

Noted Norwegian adventurer and ethnographer Thor Heyerdahl discusses his most recent book "The Tigris Expedition: In Search of Our Beginnings" in which Heyerdahl and a crew of 10 men built a reed boat in Iraq and sailed it through the Persian Gulf, around the Horn of Africa, to Pakistan and eventually the Red Sea. Their goal was to prove that the ancient peoples of Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley could have been in contact through marine trade and migration.

Norman Wallace discusses his music career. Norman Wallace discusses his occupations as a pianist and a songwriter.

Interviewing Norman Thomas on the occasion of his 80th birthday.

According to Norman Thomas, things in life are not as great as they used to be and there's nothing wrong with dissenting. Thomas chose 5 dissenters to write about, Socrates, Galileo, Thomas Paine, Wendell Phillips and Gandhi. Of of all of them, Gandhi was the biggest dissenter of our time, said Thomas.

Socialist Party leader and Presbyterian minister Norman Thomas discusses social progress, his political views, and where society is headed with Studs Terkel. This is the final part of his interview.

Content Warning: This conversation includes racially and/or culturally derogatory language and/or negative depictions of Black and Indigenous people of color, women, and LGBTQI+ individuals. Rather than remove this content, we present it in the context of twentieth-century social history to acknowledge and learn from its impact and to inspire awareness and discussion. Lillian Smith's father taught her that we're all human beings and that no one was better than another person.

Norman Mailer discusses how recent trips to the moon fit into the American consciousness, technology and machines in modern life, individuality, and the future of space exploration. Studs and Mailer read excerpts from "Fire on the Moon."

Norman Mailer discusses his writing, literary criticism, and American life. Other topics of conversation include Mailer’s thoughts on “affirmative” literary works, apathy and a lack of passion in modern life, beat writers and their reception in the United States, and many of his contemporary writers.

Fly fishing, relationships and people Norman Maclean has met are all apart of his book, "A River Runs Through It." Maclean's father taught Maclean and his brother the art of fly fishing. Maclean's book is semi-autobiographical with three short stories.

"In the Realm of a Dying Emperor: A Portrait of Japan at Century's End," is Norma Field's story of dissenters against Emperor Hirohito. There's the story of Mr. Chibana, a supermarket owner, who was arrested for burning the flag of the Rising Sun because he learned of the mass suicides by the people of Okinawa. There were also some that believed Emperor bore some responsibility for WWII when being told it was imperative to fight the sacred war.