In Depth

In Depth is a three-hour program that airs monthly on C-SPAN 2 as part of their Book TV programming, and features a different writer each month. Each interview covers the breadth of that author's writing career, and incorporates viewer calls and e-mails. The show is typically broadcast live the first Sunday of each month. The first program was on February 6, 2000, and was a discussion with historian John Lukacs.^[1] For the first several years of the show, episodes were not produced during the summer months.

There have been a few exceptions to the practice of featuring one single author, as with the programs featuring the Strand Bookstore, Frank Williams and Edna Greene Medford's discussion of writings on Lincoln, and John K. Wilson and Jonathan Karp's discussions of the writings of Barack Obama and John McCain.

Sometimes, the profile will include taped footage of the author's own home or office, so as to give further perspective on how they approach the task of writing. On occasion (as with the programs with Shelby Foote^[2] and Harold Bloom^[3]) entire three-hour interviews have been conducted live at the home or office of the featured author.

List of episodes

Note: The dates of original broadcast of each episode are listed below, along with the name of the featured guest. The name of the host is indicated in parenthesis. Each date links to a video of the full interview.

2000

2001

*Note: Richard Brookhiser's October 7 interview was cut short unexpectedly due to the beginning of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, which started during his interview. Brookhiser later appeared on In Depth for a full three hours on April 1, 2012, thus becoming the only guest to make two appearances.

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

From this point forward, all interviews were hosted by Peter Slen, unless otherwise indicated.

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

*Note: Steve Forbes was scheduled to be the guest for three hours on April 3, but on the way to Washington, D.C. that morning he was a passenger on Amtrak train #89, which derailed near Chester, Pennsylvania. Forbes was unhurt and returned to New York. Just after noon Eastern Time, he spoke via telephone with C-SPAN host Steve Scully for approximately 14 minutes about that experience. After the interview, C-SPAN 2 aired a program recorded June 18, 2014, in which Forbes discusses his book Money at a Washington, D.C. bookstore.^[4][5] Forbes eventually was an In Depth guest for a full three hours on June 5, 2016.