Whose Century Is It?: Ideas, trends & twists shaping the world in the 21st century
63 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 3 years ago - ★★★★★ - 44 ratings"Whose Century Is It?" explores ideas, trends and twists shaping the 21st century, through a global lens. Host Mary Kay Magistad, a former NPR and PRI East Asia correspondent, offers interviews, stories and perspectives from around the world.
Homepage Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Episodes
On China's New Silk Road Podcast Preview
August 19, 2020 22:42 - 3 minutes - 7.1 MBIf you like Whose Century Is It?, check out this preview of my new limited series podcast with the Global Reporting Centre, On China's New Silk Road. I've teamed up with great local journalists on almost every continent to explore how China's global ambition is seen around the world, and at the impact Chinese investments in one of the biggest global infrastructure efforts ever, are having on the ground.
Modern slavery in your grocery cart
April 04, 2019 00:06 - 35 minutes - 34.1 MBNext time you sip your tea or bite into a bar of chocolate, or load up your grocery cart with other treats, spare a thought for the underpaid or unpaid workers who made it possible. Modern slavery comes in many guises, and politics professor Genevieve LeBaron of the University of Sheffield in England, who's done field studies on the subject, is here to tell you how it happens, and what you might want to look out for as you shop.
Wizards, Prophets & the Fate of the Earth
January 11, 2019 05:30 - 39 minutes - 33.8 MBWe're pretty clever, we humans, but we ignore unintended consequences at our peril -- like climate change, after a couple of centuries of fossil fuel-driven growth and innovation. Can we innovate our way out of that growing crisis, or must we cut back and conserve if we want a habitable planet? Or both? Science journalist and author Charles Mann, author of 1491, 1493 and The Wizard & the Prophet, tells the tale of these two competing approaches through the lives of the 'wizard,' Norman Borla...
Sci Fi Future
December 03, 2018 01:37 - 37 minutes - 38.3 MBIn the imagined world of novelist Eliot Peper's near-term future in such books as Bandwidth and Borderless, San Diego's burning, polar ice caps have melted, everyone's got their heads in their digital feeds, and a powerful social media company called Commonwealth controls --well, seems like just about everything. Eliot talks to host Mary Kay Magistad about writing speculative fiction, about the value of sci fi in helping us all think through current crises and possible futures, and about wha...
Why half the world's languages may disappear in this century
April 08, 2018 00:16 - 1 hour - 49.8 MBEmbedded in each language is a reflection of life as lived by its speakers, over thousands of years. And when a language disappears, that embedded knowledge is lost. As the world grows more connected, and as dominant cultures push their own languages for wider use – think English, Chinese and Arabic, for starters -- languages are disappearing. As many as half the world's 7,000 languages may be gone by the end of the century. The good news is that linguists are on it, like this episode’s gues...
Ethnic cleansing, human tragedy & the future few saw coming for Burma
March 05, 2018 23:49 - 44 minutes - 40.9 MBNot so long ago, Myanmar (Burma) was a good news story, with democratic reforms, a booming economy and falling poverty rates. Then came ugly military-led attacks on Rohingya Muslims, who killed, raped and burned houses, and forced more than 700,000 Rohingyas to flee to camps in Bangladesh, with little pushback from pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. What does this mean for Myanmar's democratic future? Khin Ohmar, an exiled Burmese human rights and democracy activist for 30 years, sha...
We'd All Love to Change the World
January 22, 2018 19:37 - 49 minutes - 39.5 MBWhat happens when you mix the efficiency and energy of the entrepreneurial world with the idealism of philanthropy? A growing number of social entrepreneurs say, you can do a world of good. But just like real entrepreneurs, more such efforts fail than succeed, and both smarts and resilience are needed for the long haul. Jonathan Lewis, author of The Unfinished Social Entrepreneur and founder of the microcredit funder MCE Social Capital and cofounder of Copia, a kind of mail-order catalogue f...
China's counterintuitive bet
December 30, 2017 05:26 - 43 minutes - 40.1 MBCan China become a global leader in innovation by protecting state-run companies from competition at home, while acquiring innovative companies abroad? Can that innovation be sustained in a society where free speech and intellectual inquiry is sharply curtailed? China's leaders are betting on it, and in this episode, journalist-turned-business analyst Jim McGregor, chairman of APCO Greater China, mulls over the odds.
Leading -- and following -- in turbulent times
November 19, 2017 21:23 - 35 minutes - 30.1 MBPopulist leaders and strongmen often rise at times of dizzying, unsettling change. But what if that's exactly the wrong kind of leadership to face the challenges and seize the opportunities of this century? Futurist Bob Johansen argues the era ahead will be one with less hierarchy, more shared and shifting leadership, and clarity and agility will be rewarded, while rigid certainty will be punished.
In the Amazon
October 17, 2017 02:13 - 1 hour - 67.6 MBBreathe in. Breathe out. The oxygen that keeps you going, that keeps life going on earth, comes in part from the vast Amazon rainforest, most of which is in Brazil. Lush, vast and rich in biodiversity, it is the lungs of the planet. But it also attracts miners, loggers, farmers and developers who, over the past 40 years, have contributed to reducing forest cover by some 20 percent. Foreign investors have played a role too -- American, European and now, Chinese. Many dams have been built. Hu...
Young China
August 27, 2017 15:56 - 46 minutes - 42.7 MBFew generations in the world face a reality as dramatically different from all that have come before, as China's one-child generation. Since the one-child policy started in the early '80s, China has gone from aspiring developing country to powerful global player. It has shifted from being majority rural to majority urban, with per capita annual GDP rising from $300 to over $8,000 now. Young Chinese are more connected with the world than previous generations, thanks to the internet, smartphone...
Rebuilding Brazil's economy requires more than BRICS and China
August 15, 2017 14:21 - 29 minutes - 26.6 MBBrazil's economy was blazing along in the first decade of this century, turbo-charged by China's appetite for commodities. And there was the added boost of being named, by a Goldman Sachs exec, one of the rising economies to watch — the BRICS, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Then China's economic growth slowed, demand for commodities dropped and Brazil fell into its worst recession in a century, intensified by its worst corruption scandal ever. Brazil is beginning to emerge now...
Bumps along South Africa's yellow BRIC road
August 02, 2017 20:02 - 39 minutes - 35.9 MBSouth Africans' hopes and expectations that their country might become a democratic and economic leader in Africa, helped by a strong relationship with China and membership in the BRICS group — a collection of big countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) expected to emerge as economic leaders in this century — haven't turned out quite as planned. South Africa dipped into recession this year, has unemployment near 30 percent, and a deeply unpopular and, many South Africans say...
Requiem for Liu Xiaobo
July 17, 2017 15:28 - 20 minutes - 18.7 MBNobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo spent much of his life advocating for basic political rights and democracy in China. For that, he spent years imprisoned by a government that feels threatened by such demands. He was in prison when he won the Nobel Prize in 2010, serving 11 years for "subversion of state power," and he was in prison as his liver cancer advanced. He was released, under guard, to a state hospital, and died there July 13, 2017. Chinese authorities have repeatedly called Liu Xi...
How China's past shapes dreams of future power
June 30, 2017 18:00 - 55 minutes - 51.1 MBChina was one of the world's great powers for most of the past couple thousand years, and back on its heels only for a couple of centuries, as the Industrial Revolution took off and European colonialism expanded. Now, China's drawing on its past and moving with deliberation to reclaim what many Chinese feel is China's rightful place in the world. The challenges are many, but with slowing economic growth, an aging population and uncertain future challenges from within and outside China's borde...
Can Chinese pragmatism help save the planet?
June 16, 2017 02:26 - 56 minutes - 45.5 MBChina's leaders may not exactly be evangelizing about the perils of climate change, but compared to Donald Trump, these days, they look downright statesmanlike on this front. And Chinese policies on renewable energy, while often driven by pragmatic self-interest more than selfless concern for the planet, may nonetheless help tip the balance in the right direction in this century.
Seeing into the future
May 29, 2017 02:37 - 29 minutes - 26.9 MBBlind seers aside, it's easier to see where you're going, on the road and in life, if you can actually see. More than half of Americans wear glasses; in poorer and more remote regions of the world, it's estimated that some two billion people need glasses but don't have access to them, cutting into their ability to learn, work and live a full life. A social entrepreneurial effort called VisionSpring has reached millions of such people in Asia and Africa, selling glasses at affordable prices to...
Radio Free(ing) Africa
May 19, 2017 18:03 - 43 minutes - 35.2 MBAn unsung weapon against terrorism that has proven successful in Africa is the power of the airwaves — shortwave radio reaching people with reliable information, and programming that helps educate them, connect them and imagine a different kind of future. The ubiquity of cellphones allows people in conflict regions to call in, challenge abuses of power and have a voice. That's worked in the Congo, with Radio Okapi. It's working now in areas where Boko Haram has been active in West Africa, and...
Soul searching in China
May 03, 2017 06:42 - 1 hour - 58.7 MBA resurgence of interest in religion in China, after more than half a century of Communism and in the midst of China's rapid economic transformation and global rise, comes as new generations search for spiritual meaning and an ethical foundation. Host Mary Kay Magistad talks with former China correspondent colleagues Ian Johnson, author of "The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao," and Jennifer Lin, author of "Shanghai Faithful: Betrayal and Faith in a Chinese Christian Family," ...
Enemies of the (Corrupt) People
April 19, 2017 02:06 - 44 minutes - 35.9 MBWith kleptocratic autocrats on the rise, good journalism that explains what's going on matters more than ever. Fresh from sharing a 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting, for coverage of the Panama Papers, Drew Sullivan, founder and editor of the Organized Crime & Corruption Project, talks corruption, authoritarian creep and the future of journalism.
Truth & reconciliation in South Africa, revisited
April 06, 2017 05:41 - 41 minutes - 38 MBHealing deep social wounds takes time, even with active effort. After decades of institutionalized racism under apartheid, South Africa's Truth & Reconciliation Commission helped a divided nation watch, weep, reflect & come together — even if imperfectly. What is its legacy now, two decades later? How much of the hope South Africans had for what their future might be together has been borne out? Host Mary Kay Magistad visited South Africa to see how South Africans from different communities ...
Atrocity amnesia
March 15, 2017 18:09 - 37 minutes - 34 MBWhat happens when neighbors kill neighbors? What happens when the perpetrators try to bury the past? The past can still both shape and haunt the present, as the villagers of the small Polish town of Jedwabne have found, decades after other villagers there rounded up and killed hundreds of their Jewish neighbors. The World's Nina Porzucki visits the village to see how that past is remembered, and who's willing to talk about it.
Women's work
March 08, 2017 17:37 - 42 minutes - 34 MBWomen around the world face varying degrees of gender discrimination in the workplace — whether they're hired, how much they're paid, whether they advance as fast as men doing the same job. In Jordan, where girls and women generally do better than their male counterparts in school, and where more women than men attend college, startlingly few women participate in the workforce. Why? Asma Khader, a Jordanian lawyer, women's rights activist and former government official, weighs in, in conversa...
Badass librarians of the Internet Archive
February 23, 2017 17:17 - 42 minutes - 34.2 MBLibrarians rock. And Internet Archive librarians, aiming to digitize and make universally available all human knowledge, including saving webpages that would otherwise disappear? They're on a whole 'nother level. In this age of alternative facts and disappearing government websites, hear how this small group of badass librarians is working to preserve knowledge, and empower investigative reporters and ordinary citizens to find webpages those with something to hide would rather you didn't find.
Keeping up with killer technology
February 08, 2017 14:00 - 36 minutes - 33.4 MBDrones have only been around for a couple of decades, but already, they're reshaping the contours of conflict and raising ethical quandaries. President Barack Obama launched more than 500 drone strikes during his tenure, 10 times more than President George W. Bush. But Obama's drones strikes killed far fewer civilians than did Bush's intervention in Iraq. Still, how much should drones and robotics be used in conflict, and when, and what unintended consequences might this unleash? Peter Singer...
Make America Kind Again
January 27, 2017 17:36 - 22 minutes - 17.6 MBAmerica became a global leader over the past century through openness, generosity, and soft power —the ability to attract, and to make others want to emulate your way of life, including inclusivity and equal rights. Donald Trump's vision of America, as voiced in his campaign and reflected in his first words and deeds as president, has caused more global dismay than attraction. Will the Trump era mark the end of the American century? Listen in to hear some early takes.
How trust eroded within America's democracy
January 12, 2017 14:19 - 46 minutes - 37.1 MBTrust in government and journalism has plummeted in recent decades, particularly among conservatives. This wasn't a coincidence, nor strictly a result of bad behavior on the part of elected officials or the press, says Thomas Mann, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and co-author of "It's Even Worse Than It Was: How the American Constitutional System Collided with the New Politics of Extremism." He argues that understanding how we got here just might help Americans move to a better ...
China, the US and the lessons of history
December 29, 2016 18:41 - 1 hour - 51.8 MBTalk about epic love/hate relationships. From the birth of the United States, China has loomed large in the American imagination, and America in China's, for better and for worse, often with surprising twists. Build a wall across the Mexican border? That was first proposed to stop Chinese immigrants in the 19th century. Mao Zedong's secret vice? American 'kissy' movies, to quote former Washington Post China correspondent John Pomfret, author of "The Beautiful Country and the MIddle Kingdom," ...
A newsroom looks at future past
December 14, 2016 16:53 - 34 minutes - 27.8 MBAs Americans wonder what changes a new year and a new President will bring, here's a case study of how much things can change, in unexpected ways, in a relatively short time. Host Mary Kay Magistad sits down with some of the early staff of PRI and BBC co-production PRI's The World to chat about what the future looked like in 1996, when The World first went to air, and how change has come in unexpected ways and uneven waves.
Black Lives Rising (in STEM)
December 02, 2016 21:49 - 42 minutes - 34.2 MBGreat ideas come from diverse minds, and efforts to get more African Americans into cutting edge fields — science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine — are gaining ground, but with considerable challenges. How might efforts to increase this kind of diversity fare under a Trump presidency and beyond? Host Mary Kay Magistad explores.
Trust, Faith & Trump
November 18, 2016 14:39 - 26 minutes - 21.4 MBTrust and faith help any relationship, including the relationship between citizens and their government. What happens when trust is at a record low, and faith seems to be in mutually incompatible beliefs in a polarized society? Garry Wills, professor emeritus at Northwestern University, and an author of many books on faith and on politics, reflects on how the challenges of democracy and faith, and how America might seek a better path.
How do US elections stack up?
November 03, 2016 20:10 - 33 minutes - 27.1 MBWhat could America learn from emerging democracies around the globe? More than you might think. David Carroll, who heads the Carter Center's Democracy Program and has worked for decades helping to monitor elections and strengthen democracies worldwide, weighs in.
Borders and belonging
October 21, 2016 12:13 - 44 minutes - 35.6 MBFew issues hit more of an emotional chord, or an emotional nerve than those around borders and belonging, immigration and identity. Bringing it home in this third of a three-episode series on these issues, host Mary Kay Magistad visits the lands of her ancestors — Ireland and Germany — and explores the ways in which they are wrestling with these issues — and have wrestled with them in the past.
Rule Britannia
October 06, 2016 18:07 - 34 minutes - 32 MBBritain long ruled the waves, and many of its citizens have now voted for it to control its own borders, and make its own decisions, free of EU control. Is this about sovereignty, or identity, or something else entirely? It's complicated, and often not in the ways you'd expect.
Who are 'we'?
September 22, 2016 13:20 - 26 minutes - 21 MBPeople have been moving around, and borders have been shifting around, for as long as there have been people. Who gets to say who belongs, and who doesn't? Chandran Kukathas, who heads the London School of Economics' department of government, argues that a free society should tolerate difference, and (relatively) open borders, and quit fearing Muslims as a group.
Propaganda primer for post-War on Terror America
September 09, 2016 06:53 - 42 minutes - 34.3 MBEmotional events are opportunities for people in power with an agenda, and Nina Khrushcheva, great-granddaughter of former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, now a US citizen and New School professor who teaches propaganda, says the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks was such a time. She talks here about what Americans need to know about propaganda, at home as well as abroad, and about her own experience, growing up in the Soviet Union.
Fab Labs, Fab Cities, & an Indian dream of becoming an Internet of Things hub
August 25, 2016 13:33 - 26 minutes - 21.5 MBAiming to help everyone make almost anything, Fab Labs have opened around the world, and Fab Cities are taking the movement big-scale. Featuring Neil Gershenfeld, director of MIT's Center of Bits and Atoms, talking about the movement he started, and a visit to Kochi, formerly Cochin, a former ancient Indian trading port turned aspiring Internet of Things hub, and the first state or region to sign on to the Fab Cities movement.
Maker Movement meets China
August 09, 2016 22:13 - 38 minutes - 30.7 MBThe Maker Movement started to reconnect Americans with the creativity and joy that comes from making things with your hands, after years of outsourcing manufacturing jobs. It's now been embraced by dozens of countries, including China. And in China, factory of the world for decades, what does the Maker Movement mean? Depends whether you're a Maker, or a government official — and therein lies the rub.
Conspiracy theories, China & the real John Birch
July 28, 2016 02:09 - 39 minutes - 31.5 MBConspiracy theories thrive amidst distrust — distrust of power, distrust of the "other," distrust of the unknown. They can limit what's possible, and create conflict when none is necessary. One story, about a young Baptist missionary-turned-US military intelligence officer in China during World War II, killed in action, spun conspiracy theories into anti-Communist activism and suspicion. Terry Lautz, author of "John Birch, A Life," talks conspiracies, China-US mutual perceptions, and the myth...
The precarious American Dream
July 11, 2016 16:44 - 39 minutes - 31.9 MBLiving the "American Dream" is getting harder, as prices rise faster than average wages, and work itself shifts toward a gig economy. How and why did this happen, and how might things change from here? Economic historian Louis Hyman, an associate professor at Cornell University, and author of "Borrow: The American Way of Debt," and "Debtor Nation: The History of America in Red Ink," talks about the emerging gig economy and what it might mean for America's future.
Virtual beer and Brexit chat with European friends
July 01, 2016 17:56 - 38 minutes - 30.5 MBWhen big things happen, there's nothing like sitting down with smart friends over a beer (or coffee, or whatever), and kicking around ideas about what it all means, and where it's all going. In this episode, host Mary Kay Magistad checks in with old friends in Dublin, London and Berlin, to see how Brexit looks from where they sit, and how it might affect their lives.
Blood Oil: Why what you put in your gas tank may be funding terrorism
June 16, 2016 05:07 - 44 minutes - 35.9 MBCan a full tank of gas be linked to terrorism? It might be, if you connect the dots. Leif Wenar, author of "Blood Oil: Tyranny, Resources & the Rules that Run the World," explains how it happens, why it affects you, and what you can do about it.
Behind the Panama Papers
June 02, 2016 03:04 - 33 minutes - 26.8 MBThe largest document leak in recent history, the Panama Papers, was facilitated by 400 journalists at 107 news organizations in some 80 countries, working for a year, in secret, without word getting out. Smari McCarthy, who helped process the Panama Papers, as chief technology officer for the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, calls it "a conspiracy to inform the public," and hopes making it harder to hide money will lead to more money being more equitably distributed. He talks...
History, memory & Hiroshima: Why President Obama's visit matters
May 20, 2016 03:35 - 49 minutes - 22.5 MBPresident Barack Obama's visit to Hiroshima in Japan will be the first ever by a sitting US president, remembering the hundreds of thousands of lives lost and scarred when the United States became the first and (thus far) only power to use nuclear weapons, dropping two in August 1945 to force Japan's surrender, ending World War II. Critics complain that Obama's visit makes the US look weak. Supporters call the visit inspired, a sign of respect for a close ally, recognition of pain and loss, a...
Prepare to be Bangalore-d: India's rising challenger to Silicon Valley
May 06, 2016 05:56 - 39 minutes - 18 MBHeads up, Silicon Valley, Bangalore's not just for outsourcing anymore. It's rising fast as a world-class hub of tech and biotech innovation, pulling successful Indian entrepreneurs back from Silicon Valley, and from around India. It's part of the story of how the other Asian giant, India, with half its population under age 25, is just getting going in seeing what it can do in this century.
Can Southeast Asia become an economic hub to rival (or at least balance) China?
April 22, 2016 12:06 - 32 minutes - 14.8 MBChina's rise has thrown new challenges at Southeast Asia — how to find strength in numbers to counter China's economic clout, and political and military muscle. One solution? The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has started a new ASEAN Economic Community, with the goal of turning it into a 10-nation, 630-million person common market. The challenges? Where to start? That's especially true if you're Thailand, once a star in the region for economic growth and stability, now, slippi...
Alive and (pretty) well after lost decades, Japan has lessons for China
April 08, 2016 16:43 - 35 minutes - 16.3 MBJapan's economic growth is anemic, its population is aging and shrinking, and some Japanese wonder if Japan will still matter, as the century moves ahead. One way it does is as an example to China of what works and what doesn't, in managing an economy at home and power projection abroad. Japan also stands as an object lesson: A rise that looks inevitable may not be.
From segregation to social change, how the Rosie the Riveter era fit into a century's arc
March 24, 2016 16:02 - 31 minutes - 14.3 MBIf the arc of history bends toward justice, the needs of the nation during World War II sped the process — not by design, but by necessity. With men off at war, US shipyards and factories started recruiting women and African Americans, who previously couldn't get such jobs. The story of how the reverberations from that era transformed America are told here by America's oldest park ranger, 94-year-old African-American Betty Soskin, who worked as a 20-year-old clerk in a segregated boiler maker...
Are authoritarians gaining ground globally? (Hint: It's complicated.)
March 11, 2016 13:26 - 43 minutes - 19.9 MBIs the world facing an ebb in democracy and a rise of authoritarianism? Seems so when you look at some countries, but it all depends on your frame and expectations. Listen in and challenge your assumptions, with two guys who study this for a living: Harvard's Steven Levitsky and Northwestern University's Bill Hurst.
American authoritarians for Trump
February 25, 2016 09:24 - 28 minutes - 13.2 MBWhat polling data best indicates whether someone will support Donald Trump? It's whether they skew authoritarian on a set of questions pollsters ask about child-rearing. (Hint: If you'd rather have an obedient, well-mannered child than a curious, independent one — you're skewing authoritarian, as some 18 to 30 percent of Americans do.) Career political consultant Matt MacWilliams talks about his research, for a mid-career PhD, on the political impact of authoritarian impulses, especially in t...