This week on From The Vault we Celebrate National Latino Heritage Month by presenting the 1981 program The Resistance of the Maya. This program examines the history of the 500 year resistance of the Maya against foreign rule, starting with the arrival of the Spanish, up to the current threat against the Lacandon-Maya, the last of the traditional Mayans. Independent radio producer John Walsh does an outstanding job surveying the Maya by presenting scholars who trace the civilization from 2500 B.C. through their contact with the Spanish Conquistadors. Then, Walsh reports on the Mayans living in the Lacandon jungle of Chiapas, Mexico – despite threats from the Mexican government and multi-national corporations seeking to exploit the natural resources.

From the Vault is presented as part of the Pacifica Radio Archives Preservation and Access Project.

PURCHASE a copy of this program or purchase copies of the archival recordings used within this episode. To purchase a CD copy of this program by phone, please call Pacifica Radio Archives at 800.735.0230 x 262.

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This week on From the Vault we pay tribute to the great Czech composer Antonín Dvorak, with a presentation of Pacifica Radio’s 1970 award-winning program They Remember Dvorak.

The idea for this program first surfaced in 1967, when then-KPFK Music Director William Malloch met a personal acquaintance Dvorak, who died in 1904. That meeting inspired William to look for others still alive who once knew him — Williams ultimately would end up recording the reminiscences of eight others, and then artfully weave these memories into a three hour radio special.   This program was recently restored to its original glory through our ongoing tape preservation project.

From the Vault is presented as part of the Pacifica Radio Archives Preservation and Access Project.

PURCHASE a copy of this program or purchase copies of the archival recordings used within this episode. To purchase a CD copy of this program by phone, please call Pacifica Radio Archives at 800.735.0230 x 262.

Click here to send an email to From the Vault.

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This week on From the Vault we look at health care in the United States by listening to the status of health care around the world in a 1976 recording called Sickening Societies. Sickening Societies serves to examine not only the cause of health problems in different regions of the world, but also to illustrate the different approaches countries employ to combat illness. A leading matter of debate in the 2009 health care reform movement is how to lower the overall cost of health care while increasing its effectiveness — reformers have proposed a shift from a curative, technical, hospital-based system to a preventative-based system. Sickening Societies gives us a real life example of the effect of the health care shift by looking at the results of this change in Chile beginning in 1970. This program integrates recordings from the First International Conference on the Political Economy of Health, held in Amsterdam in the summer of 1976.

From the Vault is presented as part of the Pacifica Radio Archives Preservation and Access Project.

PURCHASE a copy of this program or purchase copies of the archival recordings used within this episode. To purchase a CD copy of this program by phone, please call Pacifica Radio Archives at 800.735.0230 x 262.

Click here to send an email to From the Vault.

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This week on From the Vault we hear the gravely voice of the indelible writer Lillian Hellman, whose life was as dramatic as the plays she penned.  We’ll examine her life growing up in both New York City and New Orleans, and her chance meeting with mystery writer Dashiell Hammett, who helped inspire her to write — by featuring audio taken from the recently restored Pacifica Radio Archives program Sweetest Smelling Baby in New Orleans: Lillian Hellman.  Hellman’s illustrious career includes the American classic plays The Children’s Hour, The Little Foxes, Toys in the Attic, and Pentimento, which she had just completed at the time of the original Pacifica Radio broadcast in 1975.

From the Vault is presented as part of the Pacifica Radio Archives Preservation and Access Project.

Click here to purchase a copy of this program or learn more about and purchase copies of the historic archival recordings used within this episode. To purchase a CD copy of this program by phone, please call Pacifica Radio Archives at 800.735.0230 x 262.

Click here to send an email to From the Vault.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download