NPR Podcast: Historian Kevin Boyle On The Dangers Of Seeing Detroit As A Metaphor

"On The Media," National Public Radio's weekly show, took on the way journalists and other commentators have used Detroit's bankruptcy to draw a larger picture of what is wrong with the country -- often with an ideological bent that suits their own purposes.  

"Pundits and pontificators have seized on the moment to lay blame on their favorite targets and reductively declare that what ails Detroit is a microcosm of what ails America," said co-host Bob Garfield, who interviewed Northwestern University history professor Kevin Boyle on the most recent show.

Boyle, who grew up on Detroit's East Side and attended the University of Detroit and received his master's degree and Ph.D from the University of Michigan, is the author of "Arc of Justice," the award-winning 2004 book about the Ossian Sweet case and Detroit in the 1920s, when, as he wrote, Detroit experienced explosive growth and the whole city seemed to function as one, huge, automobile-producing machine....