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Forty years ago today, track and field athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos made their famous, silent gesture at the Mexico City Olympic Games. For insight, NPR's Tony Cox speaks with David Steele, co-author of The Autobiography of Tommie Smith.

As the presidential election approaches, Talk of the Nation will ask guests to make the case for the two candidates on foreign and domestic policy. John McWhorter, a linguistics professor and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, explains why Barack Obama is the right choice in 2008.

The financial crisis facing America's Big Three auto companies has spotlighted the role of the United Auto Workers Union. Many think that the wages and benefits of union workers have dragged down business and profits. Bill Fletcher disagrees with that point of view. He's co-author of the book Solidarity Divided.

When Liberia President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was an infant, her family was told she would become a great woman. But assuring words, unfortunately, were not enough to shield Africa's first woman president from a life of hardship, which included an abusive marriage.

In his book, Searching For Whitopia, Rich Benjamin lists every city in the U.S. that is "whiter than the nation, its respective region, and its state." He explains why "whitopias" are growing, and what it means for the U.S.

A new book contends that technology has enabled regular people to be free of big corporations and government agencies, allowing them to remake society for the better. The author of An Army of Davids talks about a utopian future that may have already arrived.

Where does your food really come from, and what should you have for dinner? Chances are that your food traveled hundreds of miles before it landed on your plate. But some experts say eating local might make us healthier.

Jane Leder's new book Thanks for the Memories: Love, Sex and World War II tells the story of the "wandering wives" — women who traveled from town to town to stay near their military husbands before they shipped out.

Wherever author Bonnie Tsui travels, she looks for the city's Chinatown. For her book, American Chinatown, she spoke with residents of five Chinatowns to find out what it's like to walk through their neighborhoods every day.

In the 1950s, Uncle Tom's Cabin went from being a literary phenomenon to an object of scorn, with its title character symbolizing black self-loathing. Henry Louis Gates has re-examined the book in a new annotated edition.

Jennifer Ouellette's new book is Black Bodies and Quantum Cats, subtitled "Tales from the Annals of Physics." The author tells Liane Hansen she hopes readers will see that physics is more than a cold, hard discipline: It has emotional content.

Wildlife activist and filmmaker Joan Root was murdered in 2006 at her home in Nairobi, Kenya, when invaders broke through her bedroom window and shot her with AK-47s. The crime was never solved, but her life and violent death is the subject of a new book, Wildflower: An Extraordinary Life and Untimely Death in Africa.

The words discount, half-price and final sale can get you running to the mall or reaching for your credit card. But in her book called Cheap, author Ellen Ruppel Shell explains why bargain-hunting may come at a high price.

Brian O'Dea tried marijuana and saw dollar signs. By the early 1980s, he had built a $100 million a year smuggling operation, and a cocaine addiction. High is his memoir of dealing drugs, doing time, and seeking redemption.

Few people are as familiar with the U.S. Civil Rights Commission as Mary Frances Berry. She served for 24 years, under four different presidents. Now, she's offering an historical look at the commission's work, including her own run-ins with conservative presidents.

When writer Bill Barich moved to Dublin, he set out first thing to find the local pub, which he hoped would be magically Irish. In A Pint of Plain, he reveals that that experience is getting tougher to come by in Ireland.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai believes there's much more to Africa than can be gleaned from a headline. In her book, The Challenge For Africa, she writes about her plan to tackle the many trials Africa faces.

Because of his severe obsessive compulsive disorder, it took Ed Zine 16,384 precise movements to get from his bed to the bathroom. Zine and Dr. Michael Jenike, the psychiatrist who helped Zine find his own way to heal hilmself from OCD, talk about their new book, Life in Rewind.

165 million taxpayer dollars are going to the same employees at AIG who were responsible for its downfall. A new Gallup poll shows that three-quarters of Americans want the government to block or retrieve that money. Are you, your friends and your colleagues angry?

In April 2008, Tavis Smiley took some heat for asking African Americans to eye then-candidate Barack Obama critically. In his new book, Accountable, he asks all Americans to hold officials responsible for their actions.

Before his death in June 2008, comedian George Carlin spent 10 years working on a memoir, Last Words, with his longtime friend Tony Hendra. Hendra, a writer and comedian, talks with Rebecca Roberts about Carlin's life and legacy.

Linus had his blanket. But for millions of children, it was the tattered dollies and "stuffies" that were their first true friends. Authors Cheryl and Jeffrey Katz celebrate 50 of these comforting companions in Dirty Wow Wow and Other Love Stories.

From Atkins, to The Zone, to Jenny Craig, Americans are trying to slim down. But with so many diets and dieters, why is the nation collectively getting bigger? Gina Kolata, author of the new book Rethinking Thin, talks about why the country's obsession with waistlines isn't translating into weight loss.

Author Deirdre Barrett talks about her book, Waistland: A (R)evolutionary View of Our Weight and Fitness Crisis. She explains how farming ruined our figures and our health. Barrett also offers advice on how to lose weight: eat less and exercise more.

Alan Schwarz talks about baseball's opening day and about his new collection of baseball stories called, Once Upon a Game: Baseball's Greatest Memories.