May 13th, 2005 · Most boxing fans reserve the phrase "pound for pound" -- used to describe a boxer of tremendous skill, regardless of the weight category -- for the man considered the best fighter in history: Sugar Ray Robinson. A new biography charts the fighter's rise and fall in and out of the ring.
Mar 25th, 2005 · Robinson's first novel, Housekeeping, won a PEN/Hemingway Award. Now, 23 years later, her second novel, Gilead, has won the National Book Critics Circle Award. The book is written as a letter from a 76-year-old Congregationalist preacher to his 7-year-old son. This interview originally aired Feb. 8, 2005.
Mar 2nd, 2005 · Jackie Robinson, Major League Baseball's first black player and a pioneer of the civil rights movement, will be awarded the Congressional Gold Medal Wednesday at the Capitol in Washington, D.C. We pay tribute to Robinson.
Feb 16th, 2005 · In Hollywood's infancy, African-Americans had few roles -- or jobs -- to choose from. The Oscars were out of reach for talents such as Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, Paul Robeson or Lena Horne. We look behind the scenes in Black Hollywood.
Feb 8th, 2005 · Housekeeping, the first novel from Marilynne Robinson, won a PEN/Hemingway Award. Now 23 years later, she's written a second novel, Gilead. She's written non-fiction in the interim, including Mother Country and The Death of Adam. Gilead is written as a letter from a 76-year-old Congregationalist Preacher to his seven-year-old son. Robinson is a Congregationalist, and has served as a deacon in the church.
Nov 15th, 2004 · Arthur Robinson, who died Oct. 10 at the age of 89, is best known for the "Robinson projection." It was a solution to the "Greenland problem," an age-old cartographers' bugaboo wherein Greenland looks disproportionately large on maps drawn to the most familiar Mercator projection. NPR's Melissa Block talks with Joel Morrison, one of Robinson's former students.
Oct 13th, 2004 · In the second part of his interview with Linda Robinson, NPR's Steve Inskeep discusses the role of U.S. military Special Forces in the global war on terror. Robinson is the author of Masters of Chaos: The Secret History of the Special Forces. Robinson says Special Forces have a tenuous relationship with Pakistani soldiers in the mountainous border region with Afghanistan where Osama bin Laden is believed to be hiding.
Oct 12th, 2004 · Linda Robinson talks about her new book Masters of Chaos: The Secret History of the Special Forces. Robinson has analyzed the increased use of Special Forces in Afghanistan, Iraq and the war on terror. Hear Robinson and NPR's Steve Inskeep.