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For 34 years, Bob Woodward has been a reporter and editor at The Washington Post. His new book is about the confidential source he and reporting partner Carl Bernstein relied on in the Watergate story, The Secret Man: The Story of Watergate's Deep Throat.

Journalist and historian Martin Meredith has written extensively on Africa and its recent history. His new book is The Fate of Africa: From the Hopes of Freedom to the Heart of Despair.

Michela Wrong's new book is I Didn't Do It For You: How the World Betrayed a Small African Nation. She presents a case study of the nation of Eritrea, but the problems she writes about, including colonialism and border wars, are prevalent on the entire continent. Wrong is also the author of the PEN award-winning book, In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster in Mobutu's Congo. She has been a correspondent for Reuters news agency, the BBC and the Financial Times of London.

The ideals that have shaped what it means to be American are the subject of Neil Baldwin's latest book, The American Revelation: Ten Ideals That Shaped Our Country From the Puritans to the Cold War.

David McCullough tells Steve Inskeep about his new book 1776. The book chronicles the battles George Washington's army fought to win independence for America from Britain.

Paul Feig is the creator of the cult classic TV series Freaks and Geeks. His new book Superstud: Or How I Became a 24-Year-Old Virgin, is the follow-up to his 2002 book Kick Me: Adventures in Adolescence. Feig was an actor before moving on to writing for TV and film.

John M. Coski is author of The Confederate Battle Flag: America's Most Embattled Emblem. The book looks at the flag's history and the various meanings attached to it. Some people view it as a symbol of white supremacy and racial injustice; others think it represents a rich Southern heritage. Coski is historian and library director at the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, Va.

USA Today sports columnist Ian O'Connor followed high school hoops prodigy Sebastian Telfair to write a book called The Jump. The title is a nod to a trend that has seen many high school stars bypass college for a pro career. O'Connor tells Steve Inskeep how the NBA's new minimum age requirement — 19 — could affect players like Telfair.

In 2002, a federal judge ruled that the "under God" portion of the Pledge of Allegiance was unconstitutional because it violated the separation of church and state. An uproar ensued. But as Richard J. Ellis, author of To the Flag: The Unlikely History of the Pledge of Allegiance, points out in his book, those words were not included in the pledge when it was written in 1892 — they were added in 1950. Ellis is the Mark O. Hatfield Professor of Politics at Willamette University in Salem, Ore.

Wesley Brown graduated from the Naval Academy in 1949 — the first African American to do so. Others had tried, but were forced out by racism and even violence. Brown and author Robert J. Schneller, Jr., tell John Ydstie about efforts to integrate the Academy.