Humankind on Public Radio

90 years ago this month Alcoholics Anonymous was born when a troubled drunkard realized that connecting with fellow-sufferers creates a safe zone where they can stay sober. That insight has saved mil…

A conversation with the long-time director of the UN Nobel Peace Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, who also directs the Yale Climate and Energy Institute…

In this documentary, we explore what it’s like to experience “moral injury”— when soldiers witness or participate in war-time acts that violate their conscience. The impact they undergo confirms an e…

Some people give no charity at all. But of Americans who do, the average family donation is 2-3% per year. This program examines how people arrive at the amount of their charitable contributions, whe…

After war, our veterans face a new battle: emotional and spiritual conflict that is normal to human beings who’ve experienced intense brutality.In the Civil War this condition was called “soldier’s h…

Chicago dramatist Meade Palidofsky uses theater as a therapeutic tool in her work with juvenile offenders who write and perform plays while incarcerated — and in the process see their lives through a…

Facing a personal crisis, hospital patients and their loved ones often receive needed emotional support from a quiet army of chaplains, who are skilled at empathetic listening to people gripped by di…

A veteran negotiator in world hot-spots including the Middle East, Louise Diamond practices a citizens-based diplomacy that sometimes finds cooperation at the grass roots level, even when governments…

Charlie Starbuck, an affable tax attorney, single-handedly has increased the “canopy” of San Francisco by planting more than 7,500 trees, as part of the movement known as Friends of the Urban Forest.

How does the widespread low level of literacy among American adults affect the functioning of our democracy? Are voters in this group vulnerable to political manipulation?

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About half of American adults read at or below a 6th-grade level. What challenges do they face – at work, in health care, when helping children with schoolwork? And how does the profusion of low-info…

This episode explores the very human level at which some nurses interact with patients at their most vulnerable moments. What spiritual questions about life and death arise in such encounters? We do …

In a health care setting, where serious illness may be on the line, what does it mean for a provider to listen attentively? We examine this core nursing practice in several venues.

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It’s been said that we’ve learned how to speak but not necessarily how to communicate. Rarely are we taught the art of deep listening or how to respond to someone without accusation or blame or the a…

In this documentary we explore how federal courts enforced fugitive slave laws. Historians, actors and legal scholars re-create the famous case of a young escaped slave who was sent back by a Boston …

In the second half of our documentary on the history of Alcoholics Anonymous, we examine the AA recovery principles that have promoted sobriety for millions of recovering alcoholics and have created …