David Halberstam won a Pulitzer Prize in 1964 for his reporting on the Vietnam War; his book The Best and the Brightest is considered the definitive work on that conflict. His other books, including The Powers That Be, The Reckoning, The Breaks of the Game, The Fifties, The Children, and War in a Time of Peace, have dissected the civil rights movement, U.S. foreign policy, professional and amateur sports, the power of the media and the automobile industry. What does this man, who has examined the workings of almost every aspect of American society, consider essential to his cultural survival? Let's ask him.

WNYC archives id: 26337