American Purpose's Bookstack
161 episodes - English - Latest episode: 6 days ago - ★★★★★ - 12 ratingsWeekly conversations with authors of new and recent books.
Host Richard Aldous is a historian and professor at Bard College, New York, and the author of several books, including Schlesinger: The Imperial Historian; Reagan and Thatcher: The Difficult Relationship; The Lion and the Unicorn: Gladstone vs. Disraeli.
For more about American Purpose, visit www.americanpurpose.com.
Homepage Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Episodes
Episode 138: Seth D. Kaplan on America’s Fragile Neighborhoods
April 19, 2024 14:00 - 31 minutes - 28.9 MBIn surveying dysfunction across America, the question arises: Is the source of the trouble at the local or the national level? Seth D. Kaplan has shifted his analytical gaze from fragile nations abroad to examine the fragility of his home country. He believes America’s problems from health to politics are downstream of individuals becoming increasingly disconnected, neighborhood by neighborhood. He joins host Richard Aldous to discuss his new book, Fragile Neighborhoods: Repairing American So...
Episode 137: Leah Hunt-Hendrix on the Power of Solidarity
April 17, 2024 14:00 - 27 minutes - 24.8 MBSolidarity has been at the root of social change throughout history, bringing people together across their differences to challenge injustice within societies. In their new book, Solidarity: The Past, Present, and Future of a World-Changing Idea (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/740355/solidarity-by-leah-hunt-hendrix-and-astra-taylor/), Leah Hunt-Hendrix and Astra Taylor examine the sociological concept that is at the heart of social transformation. Hunt-Hendrix joins host Richard Ald...
Episode 136: Paul Starobin on the Russian Exiles
March 22, 2024 16:00 - 29 minutes - 26.8 MBThere are now over a million Russians living in exile, spurred on by the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Unable to safely oppose their own government at home, they often find themselves subject to harassment and disdain as immigrants. In his new book, Putin’s Exiles: Their Fight for a Better Russia (https://globalreports.columbia.edu/books/putins-exiles/), Paul Starobin joins host Richard Aldous for a look at the hopes and dreams of those Russians living abroad, and to explai...
Episode 135: Ian Buruma on the Relevance of Spinoza
March 14, 2024 13:00 - 26 minutes - 24.3 MBRejected in official circles in his day and embraced in modern times by a motley array of admirers, Spinoza was in many ways ahead of his time. His commitment to truth, universal principles, and freedom lie at the heart of Western liberal thinking. As those ideas come under attack on both the left and the right, Spinoza’s philosophical thinking is as relevant as ever. Ian Buruma joins Richard Aldous to discuss his new book, Spinoza: Freedom’s Messiah (https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/978030024...
Episode 134: Maria Popova on Ukraine and Russia’s Diverging Paths
March 01, 2024 01:00 - 27 minutes - 25.5 MBFollowing the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine and Russia not only embarked on very different political paths at home, but they viewed the future of their relationship in starkly divergent terms. In [Russia and Ukraine: Entangled Histories, Diverging States](https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?bookslug=russia-and-ukraine-entangled-histories-diverging-states--9781509557363)_, authors Maria Popova and Oxana Shevel show how Russia’s determination to control an independent Ukraine only pu...
Episode 133: Lorraine Daston on the History of Scientific Collaboration
February 23, 2024 15:45 - 28 minutes - 26.3 MBLarge threats to the well-being of humankind such as the pandemic and climate change have cemented the notion that scientists across the globe naturally work together to solve the world’s most pressing problems. In Rivals: How Scientists Learned to Cooperate (https://globalreports.columbia.edu/books/rivals/), historian of science Lorraine Daston traces the trajectory of such cooperation, noting that along the way scientists have as often been competitors as collaborators. She joins host Richa...
Episode 132: David Reynolds on Winston Churchill
February 16, 2024 03:00 - 34 minutes - 32 MBAmidst all the positive and negative ink dedicated to Winston Churchill, Cambridge emeritus professor of international history David Reynolds offers a new dimension. He places the leader for whom history was determined by “great men” among the other greats who both inspired and enervated him. Reynolds joins host Richard Aldous to discuss his latest book, Mirrors of Greatness: Churchill and the Leaders Who Shaped Him (https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/david-reynolds/mirrors-of-greatness...
Episode 131: Joshua Green on the Populism of the Democratic Party
February 08, 2024 23:00 - 34 minutes - 31.2 MBThe remarkable shift in the economic ideas at the heart of the Democratic Party—from the embrace of neoliberalism in the ’90s to the left-wing populism that Joe Biden accommodates today—traces its origins to the 2008 financial crisis. Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie Sanders and AOC after her, put the economic frustrations of ordinary Americans at the heart of her policies, making fashionable a populism of the left that was not unlike Donald Trump’s brand of it on the right. Journalist Joshua Gre...
Episode 130: Azam Ahmed on Mexico’s Violent Cartels
February 02, 2024 00:00 - 28 minutes - 26.4 MBFor tens of thousands of people, living in Mexico today means living in a country where criminal violence begets state-sponsored violence, and where law and justice have so failed ordinary citizens that they often take matters into their own hands. In his new book Fear Is Just a Word: A Missing Daughter, a Violent Cartel, and a Mother's Quest for Vengeance (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/690664/fear-is-just-a-word-by-azam-ahmed/), Azam Ahmed chronicles the tale of a mother whose des...
Episode 129: Raymond Arsenault on John Lewis
January 24, 2024 17:00 - 28 minutes - 26.1 MBFreedom Rider and Congressman John Lewis was widely viewed as a saint no less than a civil rights icon. How to capture the full humanity of such a legendary figure, whose life was intertwined with some of America’s lowest lows and highest highs? Civil rights historian Raymond Arsenault does just that in his new biography, John Lewis: In Search of the Beloved Community (https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300253757/john-lewis/). He joins host Richard Aldous to discuss the man he believes to be...
Episode 128: Joseph S. Nye Jr. on Postwar America
January 17, 2024 17:00 - 27 minutes - 24.9 MBJoseph Nye’s prominent dual roles as policymaker and foreign affairs academic have rendered him one of the most important observers of U.S. foreign policy since World War II. In his new book, A Life in the American Century (https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=a-life-in-the-american-century--9781509560684), the statesman-scholar looks back on the last century’s events from a personal and historical perspective. He joins host Richard Aldous to discuss, among other things, the erosi...
Episode 127: Ganesh Sitaraman on Helping Flying Soar
January 03, 2024 16:00 - 27 minutes - 25.6 MBLong gone are the days of steak dinners, piano bars, and free alcohol on flights—not to mention widely expanding markets and strong competition. Vanderbilt Law professor Ganesh Sitaraman looks to the deregulation of the airline industry in the 1970s to explain the relatively dismal state of flying today. In his new book, Why Flying Is Miserable: And How to Fix It (https://globalreports.columbia.edu/books/why-flying-is-miserable/), he points to a host of policy options left on the table that c...
Episode 126: Nikki Vargas on the Roads Taken
December 18, 2023 17:00 - 28 minutes - 26.4 MBTravel is exhilarating and enlightening, but what happens when it becomes an escape from things that really matter? For acclaimed travel writer Nikki Vargas, travel has been her work, her dreams—and also her crutch. She joins host Richard Aldous to discuss her new book Call You When I Land (https://www.harpercollins.com/products/call-you-when-i-land-nikki-vargas?variant=41011396214818), a memoir of her winding adventures that ultimately do have a destination.
Episode 125: Daniel Schulman on the Jewish Titans
December 05, 2023 17:00 - 28 minutes - 26.5 MBRockefeller, Morgan, and Carnegie are household names, yet much less known are the Jewish “money kings” who came to America in the 19th century. In his new book The Money Kings: The Epic Story of the Jewish Immigrants Who Transformed Wall Street and Shaped Modern America (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/541779/the-money-kings-by-daniel-schulman/), Daniel Shulman tells the story of the poor Jewish immigrants whose trajectories embody the American dream. He joins host Richard Aldous to...
Episode 124: John Coates on the New Concentration of Financial Power
November 29, 2023 18:00 - 28 minutes - 25.8 MBThe American economy is once again experiencing a concentration of financial power in a few hands, but this time around the actors are much less familiar. As John Coates shows in his new book, The Problem of 12: When a Few Financial Institutions Control Everything (https://globalreports.columbia.edu/books/the-problem-of-twelve/#:~:text=When%20a%20Few%20Financial%20Institutions%20Control%20Everything&text=A%20%E2%80%9Cproblem%20of%20twelve%E2%80%9D%20arises,and%20economy%20of%20a%20nation.), t...
Episode 123: Laurence Jurdem on TR and Henry Cabot Lodge
November 15, 2023 20:00 - 28 minutes - 26.2 MBThe ambitious, larger-than-life character of Theodore Roosevelt is the stuff of legend. Outside of his connection with the League of Nations, much less is known about Roosevelt’s closest friend, Henry Cabot Lodge. Equally abundant in intellectual gifts, Lodge helped launch to the presidency the man whose vision he shared of a United States divinely ordained to spread prosperity and peace throughout the globe. Laurence Jurdem joins host Richard Aldous to discuss the personal and political frie...
Episode 122: Thomas Graham on Seeing Russia Clearly
November 08, 2023 19:00 - 28 minutes - 25.8 MBWas there a moment after the Cold War when the United States “lost” Russia? Thomas Graham, senior director for Russia on the National Security Council under President George W. Bush, looks back to the period between 1991 and 2022 to grapple with what might have been—or, better, what was never meant to be. He joins host Richard Aldous to assess what the United States got wrong about Russia and to discuss his new book, [Getting Russia Right](https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?bookslug=getti...
Episode 121: Uri Kaufman on the Yom Kippur War
November 01, 2023 18:00 - 32 minutes - 29.3 MBThe October 7 terrorist attacks by Hamas on Israel were launched fifty years and a day after the last great surprise assault on the country by its Arab neighbors. At the time of the Yom Kippur War, Israel was not only much poorer and weaker than it is today, but it was completely dependent for military aid on a United States preoccupied with oil and the Soviet threat. Uri Kaufman chronicles the riveting details of this larger-than-life tale at a moment when existential threats to the State of...
Episode 120: Katherine Turk on NOW’s Lesser-Known Feminists
October 25, 2023 16:00 - 27 minutes - 24.9 MBBetty Friedan and many of her NOW co-founders have become household names, but what of the women who built on their pioneering work? In her new book, The Women of NOW: How Feminists Built an Organization That Transformed America (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374601539/thewomenofnow), Katherine Turk looks at the second-wave feminists who broadened the movement to include all women. She joins host Richard Aldous to discuss lesser-known figures of the time, along with the proponents and an...
Episode 119: Alexandra Hudson on Civility
October 18, 2023 17:00 - 26 minutes - 24.3 MBEngaging with those who are different from us is essential to democratic life and politics. Alexandra Hudson argues that in order to improve the tenor of our interactions we must cultivate civility, which unlike mere politeness entails a respect for others as our moral equals. She joins host Richard Aldous to discuss her new book, The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250277787/thesoulofcivility).
Episode 118: Joseph Horowitz on the Art-Freedom Nexus
October 11, 2023 18:00 - 30 minutes - 27.9 MBDoes the ability to produce great art depend upon living in a free country? For a time the rhetoric emanating from the United States—including from President John F. Kennedy himself—suggested it did. Classical music expert Joseph Horowitz delves into the sources of this Cold War-era hyperbole in his new book, The Propaganda of Freedom: JFK, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, and the Cultural Cold War (https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=c045271). He joins host Richard Aldous to discuss Soviet-er...
Episode 117: Yascha Mounk on the False Promise of Identity Ideology
October 04, 2023 17:00 - 31 minutes - 28.6 MBAcross America, from college campuses to corporate boardrooms, a set of ideas has taken hold affirming race, gender, and sexual orientation as the essential prisms through which we experience life. In his new book, The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/712961/the-identity-trap-by-yascha-mounk/), academic and writer Yascha Mounk explores the personal and political dimensions of this illiberal worldview. He joins host Richard Aldous ...
Episode 116: Michael S. Roth on Loving Learning
September 27, 2023 15:30 - 28 minutes - 26.5 MBIn an era when machines are progressing from thinking for us to learning for us, it’s worth asking what exactly the purpose of learning is. Michael Roth, president of Wesleyan University, looks back to students of some of history’s great inculcators to find a more foundational understanding beyond simply the accumulation of knowledge. He sits down with host Richard Aldous to discuss his new book, The Student: A Short History (https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300250039/the-student/), and ho...
Episode 115: Timothy Garton Ash on What It Means to Be European
September 13, 2023 18:00 - 31 minutes - 28.8 MB“Bookstack” returns with renowned Oxford professor of European studies Timothy Garton Ash. In his latest book, Homelands: A Personal History of Europe (https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300257076/homelands/), Ash chronicles the spread of freedom across Europe since 1945 through his personal perspective as an “English European.” He sits down with host Richard Aldous to share his thoughts about the historical and cultural ties that bind across the diverse continent.
Episode 114: Tara Isabella Burton on Self Creation across the Ages
July 27, 2023 15:00 - 29 minutes - 27 MBCould there really be a straight line between the self-made person of talent and the branded personality made famous by reality TV and the internet? In Self-Made: Creating Our Identities from Da Vinci to the Kardashians (https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/tara-isabella-burton/self-made/9781541789012/?lens=publicaffairs), Tara Isabella Burton shows how the curating of an “authentic” self so characteristic of today is in fact rooted in a deep human instinct that values the uniqueness of ...
Episode 113: Yasmine El Rashidi on Egypt’s Fortunes
July 21, 2023 14:00 - 25 minutes - 22.9 MBIf political activism has died down in Egypt since the 2011 revolution, there is energy bubbling beneath the surface, says Yasmine El Rashidi in Laughter in the Dark: Egypt to the Tune of Change (https://globalreports.columbia.edu/books/laughter-in-the-dark/). The country experiencing its harshest repression in decades is at the same time inhabited by a majority of young people, who, through a new form of hip-hop, express a newfound taste for openness and freedom. El Rashidi joins host Richar...
Episode 112: Hugh Howey on the Silo Series
July 14, 2023 16:00 - 31 minutes - 28.9 MBHugh Howey created a fantastical post-apocalyptic underground world in the first book of his Silo series, [Wool](https://www.amazon.com/Silo-Saga-Omnibus-Shift-Stories-ebook/dp/B088BBLMGS?ref=astauthormpb)_, off of which Apple TV launched its eponymous series this spring. Howey joins host Richard Aldous to discuss how he explores ideas about humanity and social order through the genre of sci-fi, and how the translation of his ideas to a visual format has expanded upon his creation in ways he ...
Episode 111: Daniel Gordis on Israel at 75
July 06, 2023 20:00 - 34 minutes - 31.4 MBThe State of Israel engenders a wide range of emotions among onlookers, running the gamut from admiration to revulsion. In his new book Impossible Takes Longer (https://www.harpercollins.com/products/impossible-takes-longer-daniel-gordis), Daniel Gordis uses a wide lens to assess where the country is today in light of the goals of those who founded it. He joins host Richard Aldous for a broad look at Israel’s successes—and its failures. This interview was recorded before the Israeli military ...
Episode 110: Ronnie Janoff-Bulman on the Moral Divide in U.S. Politics
June 28, 2023 18:00 - 26 minutes - 24.7 MBWhy are Americans today so hostile toward opposing political viewpoints? Ronnie Janoff-Bulman contends that the answer has a lot to do with the different ways conservatives and liberals think about morality, and the fact that Republicans and Democrats are more cleanly sorted along this divide than in the past. She joins host Richard Aldous to discuss her new book, The Two Moralities: Conservatives, Liberals, and the Roots of Our Political Divide (https://yalebooks.yale.edu/9780300244083/the-t...
Episode 109: Andrew Hoehn and Thom Shanker on a New Age of Danger
June 22, 2023 20:00 - 34 minutes - 31.1 MBThirty-plus years after the end of the Cold War, the United States has yet to rethink its strategic role in the world and the security architecture that supports it. In their new book, Age of Danger: Keeping America Safe in an Era of New Superpowers, New Weapons, and New Threats (https://ageofdanger.com), Andrew Hoehn and Thom Shanker argue that America awoke from its counterterrorism wars to a uniquely dangerous era of heightened nuclear risk alongside a wide array of new threats—from cybers...
Episode 108: Brett Forrest on the Unusual Disappearance of an American FBI Source
June 14, 2023 17:00 - 26 minutes - 23.8 MB9/11 led the young Billy Reilly to an exploration of international affairs and world religions, and ultimately to the FBI. When he disappeared on the job in Russia in 2015, the trail went cold, in large part thanks to the very same organization Billy had served. Wall Street Journal reporter Brett Forrest took up the trail, determined to solved the mystery of Billy’s disappearance. He joins host Richard Aldous to discuss his thriller reportage Lost Son: An American Family Trapped Inside the FB...
Episode 107: Christopher de Bellaigue on Making Flight Carbon-Friendly
May 31, 2023 16:00 - 27 minutes - 25.4 MBThe aviation industry has the goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, but the development of existing technologies that can get us there is lagging far behind. In his new book Flying Green: On the Frontiers of New Aviation (https://globalreports.columbia.edu/books/flying-green/), Christopher de Bellaigue explains why flight and carbon consciousness are not mutually exclusive. He joins host Richard Aldous to sketch out the long slog involved in such a convergence.
Episode 106: Frank Costigliola on George Kennan
May 24, 2023 17:00 - 30 minutes - 27.9 MBGeorge Kennan was a man of contradictions: an icon yet something of an enigma, a strategist who “used emotionally evocative language in the name of cool, calculated realism,” a bold thinker who warned of overreach. Frank Costigliola puts the architect of Cold War containment in a larger context in his new book, Kennan: A Life between Worlds (https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691165400/kennan). He joins host Richard Aldous to discuss our continuing fascination with this public in...
Episode 105: Kim Sherwood on Her Double O Novel
May 17, 2023 16:00 - 29 minutes - 27.3 MBThe legendary 007 series continues with author Kim Sherwood’s novel, authorized by Ian Fleming’s estate. Sherwood, who as a child imagined herself as Bond, lives out a lifelong dream by writing the next act for the iconic character. She joins host Richard Aldous to discuss her new book, Double or Nothing: James Bond is Missing and Time Is Running Out. (https://www.harpercollins.com/products/double-or-nothing-kim-sherwood?variant=40616856944674)
Episode 104: Blythe Roberson on Embracing the Open Road
May 10, 2023 14:00 - 27 minutes - 24.9 MBEver fantasize about quitting your job and hitting the open road? Blythe Roberson did just that, embracing freedom and the natural beauty of America—with an agenda. She joins host Richard Aldous to speak about the fruits of her labor of love, America the Beautiful?: One Woman in a Borrowed Prius on the Road Most Traveled (https://www.harpercollins.com/products/america-the-beautiful-blythe-roberson?variant=40644692148258).
Episode 103: Charles Dunst on Defeating the Dictators
May 03, 2023 14:00 - 30 minutes - 28.3 MBThere has been plenty of ink spilled about democracies dying and populists rising. AP contributing editor Charles Dunst, deputy director of research and analytics at the Asia Group, takes the practical route. How can we shore up democracies to inoculate them against the tides of illiberalism, and remind those looking for a winning governance model that democracy can deliver? Dunst joins host Richard Aldous to discuss his new book, Defeating the Dictators: How Democracy Can Prevail in the Age ...
Episode 102: Dana Sachs on Our Saviors at Sea
April 26, 2023 16:00 - 26 minutes - 24.6 MBIn 2015, as refugees poured into Greece from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere, the assistance delivered to desperate migrants at sea and on land was largely provided at the hand of individual volunteers. Dana Sachs joins host Richard Aldous to discuss the failure of the international aid community and heroism of those who stepped in as detailed in her new book, All Else Failed: The Unlikely Volunteers at the Heart of the Migrant Aid Crisis (https://blpress.org/books/all-else-failed/).
Episode 101: Ian Buruma on Three Legendary Fakes
April 20, 2023 17:00 - 26 minutes - 24.5 MBIn an era of fake news and invented personalities, it’s worth looking back to a time when deception could mean the difference between life and death. In his new book, The Collaborators: Three Stories of Deception and Survival in World War II (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/659322/the-collaborators-by-ian-buruma/), Ian Buruma delves into three World War II-era characters whose lives blur the lines between good and evil. The former editor of the New York Review of Books rejoins host R...
Episode 100: Robert D. Kaplan on Inescapable Tragedy
April 12, 2023 14:00 - 25 minutes - 23.7 MBThe American tendency in foreign affairs to think in Manichaean terms is exemplified by the Biden Administration’s democracy-versus-autocracy lens. Yet such thinking can result in a failure of imagination, says Robert D. Kaplan, which he believes explains his own regretted support for the 2003 Iraq War. Kaplan joins host Richard Aldous to discuss his new book, The Tragic Mind: Fear, Fate, and the Burden of Power (https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300263862/the-tragic-mind/), an exploration ...
Episode 99: Meredith Bagby on A New Kind of Astronaut
April 06, 2023 14:30 - 24 minutes - 22.6 MBWhen NASA accepted its first class of civilian astronauts in 1978, it welcomed a historic group marked by many firsts: the first American woman, the first African American, the first Jewish person, the first Asian American, the first gay person, and the first mother. This week, Meredith Bagby, author of The New Guys: The Historic Class of Astronauts That Broke Barriers and Changed the Face of Space Trave (https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-new-guys-meredith-bagby?variant=4042402027933...
Episode 98: Derek Leebaert on FDR’s Circle of Four
March 28, 2023 22:00 - 27 minutes - 25.1 MBSuch was the prestige of cabinet members during the Roosevelt Administration that a 19-gun salute accompanied their arrival to a city. Joining Richard Aldous this week is author of Unlikely Heroes: Franklin Roosevelt, His Four Lieutenants, and the World They Made (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250274694/unlikelyheroes), Derek Leebaert, who shines a new light on FDR’s inner circle of four—Harry Hopkins, Harold Ickes, Frances Perkins, and Henry Wallace—and FDR himself, who together helped ...
Episode 97: Adam Kirsch on Imagining Earth without Humans
March 20, 2023 18:00 - 28 minutes - 26.4 MBFrom climate change to the potential of artificial intelligence, there are plenty of reasons to doubt the viability of human life on Earth. Adam Kirsch, author of The Revolt Against Humanity: Imagining a Future Without Us (https://globalreports.columbia.edu/books/the-revolt-against-humanity/), spoke with a diverse array of people who all agree on one thing: The future of the planet may not lie in the hands of humans. Kirsch joins host Richard Aldous to share the perspectives of those who beli...
Episode 96: Van Jackson on America’s Paradoxical Role in Asia
March 15, 2023 15:00 - 29 minutes - 27.5 MBAmerican statesmen often argue that the U.S. role in Asia is indispensable to maintaining peace on the continent. Van Jackson, author of Pacific Power Paradox: American Statecraft and the Fate of the Asian Peace (https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300257281/pacific-power-paradox/), counters that America has just as often been Asia’s arsonist as its savior. He joins host Richard Aldous to discuss the complex role America plays on both sides of Asian stability.
Episode 95: James E. Cronin on the Reinvention of the Liberal Democratic Order
March 01, 2023 17:00 - 31 minutes - 29.2 MBFrom the Cold War and collapse of communism to the rise of globalization and recent financial crises, James E. Cronin, author of Fragile Victory: The Making and Unmaking of Liberal Order (https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300247855/fragile-victory/), posits that these events have caused a constant reinvention of a liberal order that once seemed unshakeable. Cronin joins Richard Aldous for a discussion on the emergence of a new international order in the face of the election of Trump, the Ru...
Episode 94: Shana Kushner Gadarian on Politics and the Pandemic
February 21, 2023 21:00 - 28 minutes - 26.2 MBTo mask or not to mask? U.S. citizens received different messaging about the degree of the Covid-19 threat and how to respond to it depending on who they were listening to. In the end, the different choices people made largely cleaved to partisan positions. In Pandemic Politics: The Deadly Toll of Partisanship in the Age of Covid (https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691218991/pandemic-politics), lead author Shana Kushner Gadarian (with Sara Wallace Goodman and Thomas B. Pepinsky)...
Episode 93: Frank Dikötter on China’s Uneven Rise
February 13, 2023 16:45 - 29 minutes - 27 MBThe transformation of the Chinese economy over the last four decades is typically thought of as near-miraculous. Yet the facts and figures that make up that picture are those that have filtered down from the Chinese Communist Party. In China After Mao: The Rise of a Superpower (https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/china-after-mao-9781639730513/), Frank Dikötter’s wide-ranging research pulls back the curtain to reveal a much less tidy—and much more mixed—picture.
Episode 92: Tom Dunkel on the Germans Sabotaging the Third Reich
February 06, 2023 17:45 - 27 minutes - 24.9 MBA number of stories of individual acts of German resistance to the Nazis have come to light over the years. What is little known is that a network of individuals — from average civilians to those within the highest reaches of government and the military — coordinated efforts in a sustained attempt to undermine the Third Reich. Tom Dunkel, author of White Knights in the Black Orchestra: The Extraordinary Story of the Germans Who Resisted Hitler (https://www.hachettebooks.com/titles/tom-dunkel/...
Episode 91: Dan Akst on the WWII Pacifists Who Revolutionized Resistance
January 30, 2023 17:00 - 32 minutes - 30.1 MBIn War by Other Means: The Pacifists of the Greatest Generation (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/676744/war-by-other-means-by-daniel-akst/) Who Revolutionized Resistance, author Daniel Akst traces the founding of the American progressive movement back to when the United States was on the brink of war. Akst joins Richard Aldous to discuss how four unlikely real-life characters in the time of World War II—David Dellinger, Dorothy Day, Dwight MacDonald, and Bayard Rustin—created the spa...
Episode 90: John Lahr on How Arthur Miller Captured American Life
January 23, 2023 17:00 - 35 minutes - 32.2 MBCatapulted into the spotlight with his marriage to Marilyn Monroe, American playwright Arthur Miller’s life had more complexity and nuance than his claim to pop culture fame. Theatre critic and author John Lahr joins Richard Aldous to talk about Miller, the subject of his latest book—the man behind 20th century masterpieces like The Crucible, Death of a Salesman, and All My Sons. Do Miller’s plays offer an exploration of timeless themes or are they just time capsules that reflect the era in w...
Episode 89: William Inboden on How Reagan Kept the Cold War Cold
January 17, 2023 17:00 - 27 minutes - 24.9 MBBased on newly declassified material, The Peacemaker: Ronald Reagan, the Cold War, and the World on the Brink by William Inboden plunges readers into the uncertainty of the late Cold War when the Soviet Union’s fate was far from a fait accompli. In conversation with Richard Aldous, Inboden explores Reagan’s thinking in trying to achieve a negotiated surrender that saw both a nuclear drawdown and a peaceful end to the Soviet system. The Peacemaker avoids a hagiographic retelling of the Reagan ...