Freedom 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 ...
Jan 24, 2024•29 min
Joseph 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 erosio...
Jan 17, 2024•27 min
Long 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 co...
Jan 03, 2024•28 min
Travel 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. This is a public episode. If you'd...
Dec 18, 2023•29 min
Rockefeller, 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 ...
Dec 05, 2023•29 min
The 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 .), th...
Nov 29, 2023•28 min
The 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 friends...
Nov 15, 2023•29 min
Was 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=getting...
Nov 08, 2023•28 min
The 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 Is...
Nov 01, 2023•32 min
Betty 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 ant...
Oct 25, 2023•27 min
Engaging 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 ). This is a public episode. I...
Oct 18, 2023•27 min
Does 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-era...
Oct 11, 2023•31 min
Across 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 t...
Oct 04, 2023•31 min
In 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 how...
Sep 27, 2023•29 min
“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. This is a public episode. I...
Sep 13, 2023•31 min
Could 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 ea...
Jul 27, 2023•30 min
If 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 Richard...
Jul 21, 2023•25 min
Hugh 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 c...
Jul 14, 2023•32 min
The 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 o...
Jul 06, 2023•34 min
Why 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-two...
Jun 28, 2023•27 min
Thirty-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 cyberse...
Jun 22, 2023•34 min
9/11 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 FBI’s...
Jun 14, 2023•26 min
The 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. This is a public episode. I...
May 31, 2023•28 min
George 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 int...
May 24, 2023•30 min
The 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 ) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discus...
May 17, 2023•30 min
Ever 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 ). This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subsc...
May 10, 2023•27 min
There 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 of ...
May 03, 2023•31 min
In 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/ ). T...
Apr 26, 2023•27 min
In 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 Ri...
Apr 20, 2023•27 min
The 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 o...
Apr 12, 2023•26 min
