Journalist and historian Eric Alterman traces the history of liberal ideals and discusses the politicians, intellectuals, visionaries, activists, and public personalities fighting for social justice. His book, The Cause: The Fight for American Liberalism from Franklin Roosevelt to Barack Obama, written with historian Kevin Mattson, looks at liberalism in American politics and culture.

Benjamin Busch talks about his memoir Dust to Dust, a meditation on life and loss, peace and war. He writes of his childhood in rural New York, his deployment during the worst of the war in Iraq, and acting in the HBO series “The Wire.”

Today's edition of American History XX is about Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, a freeborn African American woman who was a noted writer, abolitionist, and suffrage advocate. Historian Nell Irvin Painter fills us in on why Harper clashed with white suffragists and was written out of the history books.

Victor D. Cha, the former Director for Asian Affairs at the National Security Council discusses North Korea, the world's most controversial and isolated country. His book The Impossible State: North Korea, Past and Future documents the rise of the Kim family dynasty, and the obsessive personality cult that empowers them, and he illuminates the repressive regime's complex economy and culture.