This is a collection of extended interviews with 11 eminent Americans: Tom Bradley (first black Mayor of Los Angeles), David Brower (founder of Friends of the Earth), Noam Chomsky (leading figure in linguistics and radical critic of US foreign policy), J.K. Galbraith (economist), Henry Kissinger (former National Security Adviser and Secretary of State), John Lewis (civil rights leader), Walter Mosley (novelist), Arthur Schlesinger Jr (historian), Hugh Sidey (Time magazine columnist), Gloria Steinem (leading feminist) and Henry Waxman (Democratic Congressman). The interviewees have been selected both for their individual achievements and for the collective variety and range of their experiences. They are able to look back not only on their own careers but also on the events that have taken place in the US during the past five decades. The conversations interweave the private and the public, they are revelatory and also reflect on US culture and society. American Conversations was originally devised as a radio series for the OU course The US in the 20th Century.