The Brian Lehrer Show's Best Interviews

On this Summer Friday, here are some of our favorite conversations from the past year:

• Hosts of The New York Times podcast "The Argument," Op-Ed columnists Michelle Goldberg, David Leonhardt and Ross Douthat, argue about national politics and take your calls;
• Henry Louis Gates Jr., professor at Harvard University, director of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research and author of Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy and the Rise of Jim Crow (Penguin Press, 2019) and Dark Sky Rising: Reconstruction and the Dawn of Jim Crow (Scholastic Nonfiction, 2019), turns his attention to the post-Civil War Reconstruction era and the backlash to emancipation in his new PBS special and books, including his first addressed to young readers;
• Eve Ensler, activist and author of “The Vagina Monologues,” In the Body of the World and now, The Apology (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019), discusses her new book, an imagined apology to her from her father for his sexual abuse;
• Michael Pollan, author of many New York Times bestselling books—including The Omnivore’s Dilemma, The Botany of Desire and, now out in paperback, How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence (Penguin Press, 2019), goes through his latest book on how psychedelics can produce profound changes in the mind.

These interviews originally aired earlier this year. Links to the unedited audio are here:

• The Argument with Ross Douthat, Michelle Goldberg and David Leonhardt (Jul 9, 2019)
• Henry Louis Gates Jr. on Reconstruction (Apr 8, 2019)
• Eve Ensler on Healing Through Apology (May 14, 2019)
• This Is Your Brain on Psychedelics (May 28, 2019)