Julie Fenster, author of The Spirit of Invention, discusses the American faith in invention and inventors and the everyday drive to overcome inconveniences and more serious problems through experimentation and improvisation.

To listen to this podcast, scroll to "Podcast: Julie Fenster writes about the spirit of invention."

Donald L. Miller speaks with four fiction authors—Esmerelda Santiago, Arthur Golden, Charles Johnson, and Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.—about the challenge of finding narrative in history and the differences between an academic understanding of history and a novelist's understanding of history.

Donald L. Miller, along with a range of other historians and presenters, overviews contemporary U.S. history, from 1972 to 2000, briefly touching on the Cold War and its end, economic ups and downs, and the rise of AIDS and of personal computers. The presentation ends with a discussion on interpreting events as they happen, and on the difficulties of remembering history and engaging with the present in a media age.

Donald L. Miller, with Douglas Brinkley and Virginia Scharff, look at the war against Japan in the last years of World War II, including the fighting on Okinawa, the fire-bombing of Japan's main islands, and the development of the atomic bomb and the decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The presentation then examines life after the war—Bill Levitt and mass-produced housing and the growth of suburbs; Eisenhower and the beginning of the Cold War; the emergence of teenage culture; Elvis Presley's popularity; and the swelling of the civil rights movement.

Donald L. Miller looks at World War II and the United States' experience of it, on the home front; in the air; and, finally, on the ground in Europe.

Donald L. Miller and Douglas Brinkley look at the United States from 1929 to 1937—the time of the Great Depression. The presentation discusses FDR's presidency and his New Deal; the work of journalists such as photographer Dorothea Lange; the establishment of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA), and Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC); Eleanor Roosevelt; criticism of FDR; the re-invigoration of the labor movement; and the Social Security Act.

Douglas Brinkley and Donald L. Miller look at the U.S. from 1913 to 1929, focusing on the rise of the automobile. The presentation begins with the career of Henry Ford and examines mass production and the development of competition to match Ford, before continuing to Los Angeles and its growth as transportation took off; the movie industry; and the Stock Market Crash of 1929.

Douglas Brinkley, with Donald L. Miller, examines the presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, focusing on their views of the United States' place in the world. Brinkley and Meyer also look at Socialist Eugene Debs's campaigns for the Presidency from 1900 to 1920.

Donald L. Miller examines the rise of capitalism and the impulse to reform in American history from 1882 to 1901. Topics include New York as the financial capital of the U.S., Jacob Riis's photographic documentation of the Lower East Side slums, John Pierpont Morgan and his push for merging companies into corporations, the mining industry in Pennsylvania and worker abuse within it, and labor organization in response to this abuse.

Donald L. Miller, with Virginia Scharff and Louis P. Masur, looks at the settling of the American West between 1862 and 1893. Topics covered include the transcontinental railroad, conflict between Native Americans and settlers, women suffrage in the Wyoming Territory, and political and ideological conflict between farmers and industrialists.