If you had to pick the pivotal year of the last century – a year of key happenings in science, politics and entertainment – which year would it be? We’ll talk this hour with Slate.com contributor Fred Kaplan. His new book is “1959: The Year Everything Changed” (Wiley, 2009).

Did the world really change after 9/11? Not according to Slate’s “War Stories” columnist Fred Kaplan. We’ll talk with him this hour about how the U.S. got so far off track, and what it may take to recover. His new highly-touted book is “Daydream Believers: How a Few Grand Ideas Wrecked American Power” (Wiley, 2008).