This darkly satirical drama by Gore Vidal finds two presidential contenders seeking the endorsement of an aging ex-president, and explores how personal agendas can change the course of a nation's destiny. The political intrigues rampant in Vidal's 1960 setting are strangely similar what is going on today. Includes an interview with actors Fred Thompson and Marsha Mason.

An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance featuring Terrence Currier, Johnny

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The bastard son of Benjamin Franklin, William Franklin, is named the new Royal Governor of New Jersey, but all he has achieved is threatened when the colonies, led by influential figures including his own father, begin the fight for independence--a cause he refuses to support.

An introduction to the life and accomplishments of the champion of an independent India and global icon of peace and freedom.

"From his early career as a printer and journalist, to his scientific work and his role as a founder of a new republic, Benjamin Franklin has always seemed the inevitable embodiment of American ingenuity. But in his youth he had to make his way through a harsh colonial world where he fought many battles: with his rivals, but also with his wayward emotions. Taking Franklin to the age of forty-one, when he made his first electrical discoveries, Bunker...

"A richly illustrated portrait of the Founding Father and first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury describes his experiences as an illegitimate orphan, soldier, friend, philanderer, political firebrand and financial whiz whose groundbreaking policies continue to shape today's American government"--Publisher. Born out of wedlock on a small island in the West Indies and orphaned as a teenager, Alexander Hamilton nonetheless rose to a position of power...

Presents an introduction to the life and achievements of Alexander Hamilton, including his early years as an orphan in the West Indies, his role in the Revolutionary War and his contributions as America's first secretary of the treasury.

Ron Chernow tells the story of a man who overcame all odds to shape, inspire, and scandalize the newborn America. Few figures in American history have been more hotly debated or more grossly misunderstood than Alexander Hamilton. Chernow's biography argues that the political and economic greatness of today's America is the result of Hamilton's countless sacrifices to champion ideas that were often wildly disputed during his time. Chernow here recounts...

More than a top Soviet bureaucrat

The orthodox view of Vyacheslav Molotov is that he was no more than Stalin's faithful servant, a dogmatic communist, and a conservative hard-liner of little or no imagination.Molotov was, indeed, Stalin's right-hand man; from the 1920s to the early 1950s the two men presided over a brutal, authoritarian communist system that resulted in the deaths of millions of people. But there was far more to their partnership.

In

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"In 1934, eleven-year-old Shimon Peres emigrated to the land of Israel from his native Poland, leaving behind an extended family who would later be murdered in the Holocaust. Few back then would have predicted that this young man would eventually become one of the towering figures of the twentieth century. Peres would indeed go on to serve the new state as prime minister, president, foreign minister, and the head of several other ministries. He was...

"No one has ever described American democracy with more accurate insight or more profoundly than Alexis de Tocqueville. After meeting with Americans on extensive travels in the United States, and intense study of documents and authorities, he authored the landmark Democracy in America, publishing its two volumes in 1835 and 1840. Ever since, this book has been the best source for every serious attempt to understand America and democracy itself. Yet...