Editor’s note: Most well-known for his mystery fiction, Walter Mosley is also the author of numerous social commentary books, including most recently What Next. He has also published science fiction such as Futureland and Bluelight. This interview was conducted by Libero Della Piana.

Editor’s note: Robert Meeropol, executive director of the Rosenberg Fund for Children, talks about his recently published memoir An Execution in the Family, the 50th anniversary of the execution of his parents, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, and the relevance of defending civil rights and liberties. The Rosenberg Fund for Children provides for the educational and emotional needs of children of targeted progressive activists, and youth who are targeted activists themselves.

The preface of The Great Wells of Democracy sets the tone for establishing this book as a document for those who are unfamiliar with African American history and its struggles.

Close your eyes and imagine a scene from World War II. What do you see? US troops storming the beaches of Normandy? A Russian soldier placing the red flag of victory atop the German Reichstag in Berlin? The mushroom clouds over Hiroshima and Nagasaki? The grim gray dawns of the years long siege of Stalingrad? Search the awful war-torn terrain. Among the scorched steel and rubble, the twisted trees and cratered earth, between the near ruined armies arrayed against each other in that titanic struggle, do you discern any faces of color?

During the period between the first and second World Wars, two different intellectual doctrines vied for control of shaping the future of Black Americans: nationalism and Marxism. In his book Nationalism, Marxism, and African American Literature Between the Wars, Anthony Dawahare illustrates the influence of this struggle and provides an excellent and thorough examination of the two most influential ideologies of the Harlem Renaissance, historicizing the movements in their proper context.

Clyde Prestowitz’s Rogue Nation is an important book, not necessarily because of what it says but because of what it represents. Prestowitz is a former Reagan Administration official, who was catapulted to prominence during the 1980s because of his scorching critique of Japan, and what he then saw as its unfair trading practices.

Harry Potter is an annoying, conceited little brat. Anything that was likable about the character through the first four books of the Harry Potter series has been overshadowed now by his generally distasteful personality.

Robert Meeropol’s An Execution in the Family renders a fiery challenge to the family values of the right. It is a timely exposé of the violence that flows from the destruction of civil rights and liberties experienced by victims of the “McCarthy-era abuses of power.”