Mexico has a grand revolutionary tradition, a radical lineage that James Cockcroft argues lives on in current-day struggles both within Mexico and among US-based immigrants. Cockcroft discusses the radical visions of the revolutionaries of 1910-1917; the ideological roots of waves of resistance to Mexican and US elites; and the elections-related turmoil that's periodically plagued Mexico.

Was Thomas Paine anti-government? What did he mean when he argued that the US should be a republic? Historian Alan Taylor talks about Paine's life, his political convictions, and Common Sense, which Taylor calls the most powerful and pivotal pamphlet in US history. Also, Leon Rosselson and Robb Johnson have created an audio celebration of Paine's life and words.

Led by radical reform-minded rulers, Iran and Turkey embarked on a democratic trajectory in the early 1900s, and those two nation's democratic traditions suggests the basis for a future, very productive relationship with the US. So argues Stephen Kinzer in his new book, which recounts a series of turbulent and extraordinary events in the histories of Iran and Turkey.

Fifty years ago, a dictator was ousted and socialism began to took root in Cuba. How do Cubans who supported the revolution then feel about it now? And how have Cubans coped with hardships brought on by, among other things, the USSR's collapse? Robert Arellano's novel Havana Lunar is about a young, idealistic Cuban doctor. David Strug has studied older Cubans' understandings of the revolution.