[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] when i tune in on the weekend usually it is authors sharing their new releases. Watching nonfiction authors on booktv is the best television for serious readers. They can have a longer conversation and delve into their subjects. Booktv weekends, they bring you off thereafter other after arthur, not like the work of fascinating people. I love booktv and i am a cspan fan. We are about to convene our session. I have what i presume will be the very easy task of shepherding three distinguished biographers through what im sure will be scintillating conversation because they are so practiced and accomplished. I am very proud to be among them, this moderator. Do i have to say, i am a james atlas. Two of our i was about to say contestants, two of our panelists were nominated, were finalists for the la times book award last night, terry alford for John Wilkes Booth, Charlotte Decroes jacobs for joan assault, Kirstin Downey has been nominated be
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Baby boomers remember both the fear of poliomyelitis the viral infection that attacks the nervous system, leaving some who contract it paralyzed, or dead and the relief that they felt when the rollout of Jonas Salk’s vaccine put an end to repeated midcentury summer outbreaks of the disease. In 1954, the summer before this rollout, 1.8 million kids participated in a widely publicized trial of the new vaccine. From the vantage point of 2020, when vaccine skepticism floats right below the surface of public debate, the widespread embrace of the new vaccine feels surprising. Was the March of Dimes–financed rollout of Salk’s miracle jab, conducted in a hurry as polio threatened to strike again in the summer of 1955, really as smooth as history makes it seem?