Bill Moyers interviews best-selling historian Thomas Cahill in a far-ranging discussion that takes viewers from the Coliseum in Rome to death row in Texas and examines what our attitudes toward cruelty can tell us about who we are as Americans.

Bill Moyers interviews best-selling historian Thomas Cahill in a far-ranging discussion that takes viewers from the Coliseum in Rome to death row in Texas and examines what our attitudes toward cruelty can tell us about who we are as Americans. Cahill, who is best known for his The Hinges of History series of books, which includes the widely read How the Irish Saved Civilization . Cahill says his books ask how we became the people we are: "It's human cruelty that is evil … We're not willing to acknowledge that this is inside of us. It's there," he says. "I'm really interested in … what's good about us."