Sinopsis
PA Books features authors of books about Pennsylvania-related topics. These hour-long conversations allow authors to discuss both their subject matter and inspiration behind the books.
Episodios
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"No Longer Subjects of the British King" with Shawn McGhee
09/06/2025 Duración: 58minWhen news reached Parliament of the Boston radicals' destruction of the Royal East India Company's tea, it passed the Coercive Acts, a collection of punitive measures designed to rein in that insubordinate seaport town. The Coercive Acts unleashed a political firestorm as communities from Massachusetts to Georgia drafted resistance resolutions condemning Parliament's perceived encroachment upon American liberty. This project was financed in part by a grant from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the Department of Community and Economic Development. pcntv.com/donate pcntv.com/membership-signup pcntv.com
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"The Year that Made America" with Tom McMillian
05/05/2025 Duración: 56minThe untold story of how America's declaration of independence hinged on seven critical months in 1776 and the courageous votes that changed the world forever. This gripping account reveals the precarious path to American independence through a series of pivotal dates that history has nearly forgotten. While July 4th claims the glory, the actual vote for independence came on July 2nd-and even that historic moment almost didn't happen. This project was financed in part by a grant from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the Department of Community and Economic Development. pcntv.com/donate pcntv.com/membership-signup pcntv.com
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"Threshold to Valley Forge" with Sheilah Vance
16/04/2025 Duración: 57minFrom December 12-19, 1777, Washington's Army encamped in the towering hills of Gulph Mills, Pennsylvania, fifteen miles from Philadelphia. Known as the Threshold to Valley Forge, the Gulph Mills Encampment is often forgotten or minimized, falling as it did between the more famous military engagements of the Philadelphia Campaign and the well-known experience of the army at Valley Forge. This project was financed in part by a grant from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the Department of Community and Economic Development. pcntv.com/donate pcntv.com/membership-signup pcntv.com
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"A Killer at the Door" with Bruce Mowday
31/03/2025 Duración: 53minIn summer 2023, Chester County, Pennsylvania, was shaken by the daring escape of convicted murderer Danilo Cavalcante. Cavalcante scaled a prison wall, sparking a gripping two-week manhunt. He traversed forests, farmlands, and neighborhoods, evading law enforcement and causing schools to close, businesses to shutter, and streets to empty. pcntv.com/donate pcntv.com/membership-signup pcntv.com
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"Life, Liberty, and Death on the Appalachian Frontier" with Robert Swift
24/03/2025 Duración: 58minLearn about the stories of the men and women who traveled across the mountain ranges and through the valleys that made up the Appalachian region, focusing on the 18th century leading to the American Revolution and events that occurred mainly in Pennsylvania and New York. pcntv.com/donate pcntv.com/membership-signup pcntv.com
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"The Soul of Pittsburgh" with Ed Simon
17/03/2025 Duración: 57minPittsburgh contains multitudes. From the decline of the steel industry and the exodus of a vast diaspora of Pittsburghers to its reinvention as a trendy mid-sized metropolis, the ethos of the Steel City remains ever-changing. This project was financed in part by a grant from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the Department of Community and Economic Development. pcntv.com/donate pcntv.com/membership-signup pcntv.com
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"Jazz in the Hill" with Colter Harper
26/02/2025 Duración: 53minFrom the 1920s through the 1960s, Pittsburgh's Hill District was the heart of the city's Black cultural life and home to a vibrant jazz scene. In Jazz in the Hill: Nightlife and Narratives of a Pittsburgh Neighborhood, Colter Harper looks at how jazz shaped the neighborhood and created a way of life. This project was financed in part by a grant from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the Department of Community and Economic Development. pcntv.com/donate pcntv.com/membership-signup pcntv.com
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"Into the Cold Blue" with John Homan
20/02/2025 Duración: 58minA born daredevil, John Homan joined the Army Air Forces after the attack on Pearl Harbor. By 1944, he was co-piloting a B-24 Liberator over Nazi Germany, raining death and destruction on the enemy. The tale will leave readers staggered by the determination and grit of World War II aviators. This project was financed in part by a grant from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the Department of Community and Economic Development. pcntv.com/donate pcntv.com/membership-signup pcntv.com
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"Cradle of Conservation" with Allen Dieterich-Ward
27/12/2024 Duración: 01h10sFrom the origins of "Penn's Woods" to the controversial practice of fracking, Cradle of Conservation provides the first comprehensive study of Pennsylvania's environmental history. The story starts with forester Ralph Brock at the dawn of the conservation era and continues through the eras of energy production using coal, oil, natural gas, and other resources. This project was financed in part by a grant from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the Department of Community and Economic Development. pcntv.com/donate pcntv.com/membership-signup pcntv.com
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"Never To Be Forgotten" with Jim McClure
27/12/2024 Duración: 57min"Never To Be Forgotten" tells the story of York County Pennsylvania residents just living their lives, building homes, raising families, making things and growing communities. The general history of this south central Pennsylvania county shows - with concise writing and more than 250 pictures - a community that is working hard at getting better - a place and people that are building on a worthy past honed with strong hands, smart minds and kind hearts and heading toward a future with a sense of its promise. This project was financed in part by a grant from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the Department of Community and Economic Development. pcntv.com/donate pcntv.com/membership-signup pcntv.com
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"William Trent: Factor of Ambition" with Jason Cherry
15/12/2024 Duración: 57minTake a new definitive look through the eyes of a misunderstood backcountry merchant, Major William Trent, who not only overcame obstacles and suffered loss, but whose strong quill and rebellious interactions with future founding fathers Benjamin Franklin, and George Washington, ambitiously helped shape and form the future United States of America. This project was financed in part by a grant from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the Department of Community and Economic Development. pcntv.com/donate pcntv.com/membership-signup pcntv.com
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"Philadelphia: A Narrative History" with Paul Kahan
01/11/2024 Duración: 51minPhiladelphia is famous for its colonial and revolutionary buildings and artifacts, but Philadelphia existed long before the Liberty Bell was first rung, and its history extends well beyond the American Revolution.This book presents a comprehensive portrait of the city, from the region's original Lenape inhabitants to the myriad of residents in the twenty-first century. pcntv.com/donate pcntv.com/membership-signup pcntv.com
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"Voices from Gettysburg" with Allen Guelzo
05/07/2024 Duración: 57minGathering a treasure trove of powerful, rare, and haunting original documents, New York Times bestselling author and award-winning historian Allen C. Guelzo presents a uniquely readable and intimate oral history of the Civil War's turning point. We hear from a Union staff officer, a Confederate amputee, artilleryman, a sympathetic Northern woman, a Union prisoner-of-war, Union colonels and Confederate generals, a drummer boy, a fearful college student, those who orchestrated the Battle of Gettysburg, those who survived it, and those who would perish. pcntv.com/donate pcntv.com/membership-signup pcntv.com
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"Pennsylvania Government and Politics" with Thomas Baldino and Paula Duda Holoviak
05/06/2024 Duración: 57minThis book provides a comprehensive examination of the Keystone State's formal and informal political institutions and players, past and present, and elucidates the place each holds in governing the commonwealth today. Covering a period of more than three hundred years, this volume presents a clear and succinct overview of the commonwealth's political history, culture, and geography. pcntv.com/donate pcntv.com/membership-signup pcntv.com
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"Work, Fight, Or Play Ball" with William Ecenbarger
20/05/2024 Duración: 48minIn 1918, Bethlehem Steel started the world's greatest industrial baseball league. Appealing to Major League Baseball players looking to avoid service in the Great War, teams employed "ringers" like Babe Ruth, Rogers Hornsby, and Shoeless Joe Jackson in what became scornfully known as "safe shelter" leagues. pcntv.com/donate pcntv.com/membership-signup pcntv.com
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"Gen X Pittsburgh" with David Rullo
13/05/2024 Duración: 57minBeginning in the early 1990s, Pittsburgh's South Side neighborhood began to transform from the post-industrial morass it had been suffering for the last few decades. Artists began to rent empty apartments, what were once shot-and-a-beer bars became hip dive bars and entrepreneurs found inexpensive real estate to follow their visions. It was in this landscape that the Beehive Coffeehouse began to attract a new 90s alternative crowd. pcntv.com/donate pcntv.com/membership-signup pcntv.com
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"Harrisburg in WWI and the 1918 Pandemic" with Rodney Ross
13/05/2024 Duración: 52minIn 1917, at the start of World War I, among global war and a global pandemic, Harrisburgers stepped up and served. The city experienced tribulations as residents feared espionage, suspected foreigners and demanded loyalty. Hospitals struggled with the 1918 flu at their doorstep. Join author Rodney Ross as he charts the World War I era and the Harrisburg home front. pcntv.com/donate pcntv.com/membership-signup pcntv.com
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"George Washington in the French & Indian War" with Scott Patchan
08/04/2024 Duración: 56minGeorge Washington has frequently been criticized for his first military campaign, which sparked the French and Indian War. While his campaign failed to meet its objectives, Washington experienced his first taste of military command, dealing with situations that ultimately proved beyond his control, and learned lessons that made him into the man who led the Continental Army to victory in the Revolutionary War. pcntv.com/donate pcntv.com/membership-signup pcntv.com
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"The Game that Saved the NHL" with Ed Gruver
15/03/2024 Duración: 57minIn late 1975 and early 1976, at the height of the Cold War, two of the Soviet Union's long-dominant national hockey teams traveled to North America to play an eight-game series against the best teams in the National Hockey League. The culmination of the "Super Series" was reigning Soviet League champion HC CSKA Moscow's face-off against the defending NHL champion Flyers in Philadelphia on January 11, 1976. pcntv.com/donate pcntv.com/membership-signup pcntv.com
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"Telling of the Anthracite" with Philip Mosley
08/03/2024 Duración: 59min"Telling of the Anthracite" explores the various ways in which anthracite history has been represented and remembered since 1960, the chosen date for the start of the "posthistorical" era coinciding approximately with the Knox mine disaster (1959) and the beginning of the Centralia mine fire (1962-), two cataclysmic and fateful events that symbolize the beginning of the end for wide scale deep anthracite mining in northeastern Pennsylvania. pcntv.com/donate pcntv.com/membership-signup pcntv.com