Midday on WNYC

Empress Dowager Cixi (1835–1908) is the most important woman in Chinese history. Jung Chang explains how she brought a medieval empire into the modern age. In her biography Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China, Chang looks at how Cixi achieved modern industries, railways, electricity, the telegraph and an army and navy with up-to-date weaponry. She also put an end to foot-binding and inaugurated women’s liberation.

Peter Baker, Chief White House Correspondent for The New York Times, discusses the eight years of the Bush Administration, the most consequential presidency in modern times, and the elusive and shifting alliance of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. In Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, he brings to life the drama of an era marked by devastating terror attacks, the Iraq War, Hurricane Katrina, and financial collapse, and he paints a portrait of a partnership that evolved dramatically over time.

John Durant, a proponent of the Paleo Diet, argues for an evolutionary approach to health. His new book The Paleo Manifesto: Ancient Wisdom for Lifelong Health looks at the health secrets of our ancient ancestors. He address what we eat and why we eat it, the purpose of exercise and functional movement, and how to lead a healthy, purposeful life.

Garrett Oliver, the brewmaster of The Brooklyn Brewery, editor-in-chief of The Oxford Companion to Beer and author of The Brewmaster’s Table, talks about beer—where it comes from, how it's made, and the wide varieties of brews.

Dr. Richard deShazo of the University of Mississippi Medical Center, the lead author of the article "The Autopsy of Chicken Nuggets Reads 'Chicken Little'” in the American Journal of Medicine, talks about his investigation into what, exactly, chicken nuggets contain. Surprise: it's not all chicken meat.

Edward Behr talks about the foods that every food lover should know and gives advice on buying, using, preparing, and enjoying food. 50 Foods: The Essentials of Good Tasteexplains how to how to select top quality food as well as how to prepare, serve, and eat it. He also names the most complementary foods and flavors and the wines that go with them.

James Oseland, Alan Richman, and Louisa Ermelino talk about their life-changing food experiences. They’re contributors to A Fork in the Road, a collection of  original stories from food-obsessed writers and chefs.

More than one thousand works of art stolen by the Nazi’s were discovered in a Munich apartment this week. Valued at nearly $1.35 billion, the trove includes works by Matisse, Picasso, Dix and Chagall believed to have been seized from museums and Jewish collectors. It has also been revealed that the US military may have inspected part of collection after World War II and then returned it to Nazi art dealer Hildebrand Gurlitt. Dr. Christoph Zuschlag, a professor of art history at the University of Koblenz in Landau, Germany, and David Lewis, co-chair of the Commission for Looted Art in Europe, talk about the discovery.

Neuroscientist Joshua Greene argues that our brains were designed for tribal life, for getting along with a select group of others (Us) and for fighting off everyone else (Them). But modern times have forced the world’s tribes into a shared space, resulting in epic clashes. Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them combines neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy to reveal the underlying causes of modern conflict. Dr. Greene is an award-winning teacher and scientist, and he directs Harvard University’s Moral Cognition Lab, which uses neuroscience and cognitive techniques to understand how people really make moral decisions.

Coelacanths have been around for 380 million years and are among the most enigmatic and rare fish in the ocean. Earlier this year scientists finished sequencing the coelacanth genome. The project has provided precious clues into our evolutionary tree, including the revelation that the coelacanth is more closely related to us than modern salmon. Samantha Weinberg an assistant editor at Intelligent Life magazine and the author of the article "A Fish Caught in Time"

Charles Lane talks about “Sidewalk Stories,” his black & white silent comedy filmed on Manhattan streets in the late 1980s. An homage to Chaplin’s “The Kid” (and other movies), the film captures the plight of the homeless and retains a magical sense of the fable. “Sidewalk Stories” is playing at Film Forum November 8–14.

Ann Patchett examines her deepest commitments—to writing, family, friends, dogs, books, and her husband. She creates a portrait of a life in This is the Story of a Happy Marriagethat begins with her childhood, covers disastrous early marriage, a later happy one, and examines her relationships with family and friends and the joy of writing.

Director Barbara Kopple and Mariel Hemingway discuss their documentary "Running from Crazy," which focuses on Mariel Hemingway,  granddaughter of the legendary writer Ernest, as she explores her family's long history of mental illness and suicide. Mariel advocates for suicide prevention and strives to live a rigorously healthy lifestyle. "Running from Crazy" is playing in New York at the Angelika Film Center.

John Emshwiller, the lead reporter on the Wall Street Journal’s year-long investigation on a nuclear cleanup effort, discusses the enormous job of cleaning up job of nuclear contamination that occurred during the Cold War—Waste Lands: America's Forgotten Nuclear Legacy. Residue, left by the routine processing as well as the occasional mishandling of nuclear material, exists in almost three dozen states. Emshwiller discusses how those cleanup efforts have been carried out and what the public knows about them.

Tony Award-winner Julie Taymor discusses directing Theatre for a New Audience’s inaugural production of Shakespeare’s "A Midsummer Night’s Dream." She's joined by Karthryn Hunter, who plays Puck, and Jeffrey Horowitz, the founding artistic director of the Theatre for a New Audience, which now has a new, permanent home in Brooklyn at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center. "A Midsummer Night's Dream" is playing at the Theatre for a New Audience through January 12, 2014.