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Is Edward Snowden a radical trouble maker or a principled rebel? In terms of the actual information the NSA whistle blower has leaked, such questions are irrelevant. But in terms of understanding what motivates ordinary people to do extraordinary things, it’s an important question. And it’s one that we can try, through recent interviews of Snowden, to attempt to answer.

Eyal Press has explored precisely what it is that motivates people to take steps that may be incredibly risky to themselves in order to take a stand for social justice. He has done so by profiling people like Edward Snowden in his new book Beautiful Souls: The Courage and Conscience of Ordinary People in Extraordinary Times.

GUEST: Eyal Press, author of BEAUTIFUL SOULS: The Courage and Conscience of Ordinary People in Extraordinary Times, His work has appeared in The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Magazine, The Nation, and Raritan, among numerous other publications.