University of Chicago political scientist John Mearsheimer argues that “Nationalism is the most powerful political ideology on the planet.” Nationalism is flaring across the world in the 2020s. The Russia-Ukraine War can be comprehended as a contest of competing nationalist visions. Nationalist themes are rising in the politics of the United States and United Kingdom, Poland, Hungary, Germany, Turkey, Israel, India, and China. Nationalist sentiment is surging even in Canada, in response to Presi...
Apr 24, 2025•35 min
In this episode of the Serve to Lead podcast , historian, educator, author, and activist Elisabeth Griffith discusses American Women Making History: Past, Present & Future. Dr. Griffith considers a range of issues, including: her wide-angle view of the state of women in the US today; the significance of “gender equity” in politics; the relative contributions of politics, culture, technology, science, education, and finance in evolving understandings of gender roles in the Collective West; ho...
Jan 20, 2025•56 min
Anthropology is the study of what makes us human. With memorable elan, Wade Davis applies anthropology as a platform for exploring and illuminating a range of phenomena. A polymath possessing a restless intellect and unflagging energy, Davis explores the further reaches of the planet as well as familiar, often underexamined matters closer to home. As he gets beneath the surface of things, he reveals interconnections and conjures unexpected associations. In this episode of the Serve to Lead podca...
Dec 28, 2024•1 hr 7 min
In this episode of the Serve to Lead podcast , author Ken Khachigian discusses his important, highly readable, and critically acclaimed new book, Behind Closed Doors: In the Room with Reagan and Nixon. Khachigian has achieved a storied career in American politics. He has been a participant in some of the great events of the second half of the tumultuous twentieth century, including: —the improbable comeback of Richard Nixon, reaching the White House in the world historic year, 1968; —the high an...
Dec 07, 2024•1 hr 2 min
In this episode of the Serve to Lead podcas t, author Megan Gorman illuminates a little explored aspect of our best-known political figures: their personal finances. We all know George Washington was our first president, our first of all firsts— First in War, First in Peace, First in the Hearts of His Countrymen. Was Washington also first in his financial and business acumen? Abraham Lincoln is shrouded in myth. Megan Gorman demonstrates how "The Railsplitter" may be an apt exemplar for young pe...
Oct 23, 2024•55 min
Germany sustained a political earthquake in recent elections in the eastern states of Thuringia and Saxony. The parties of the national governing coalition sustained grievous losses—and a populist surge propelled the right-wing Alliance for Germany to record votes. Some sense ominous echoes of the rise to prominence of the Nazi Party in 1924. Jürgen Resch is well suited to evaluate the historic changes underway. He leads the respected NGO, Deutsche-Umwelthilfe. He is a co-founder of the Euronatu...
Sep 13, 2024•47 min
Elliot Ackerman is a widely respected writer. His reach extends across fiction and non-fiction, from novels to essays to memoir and commentary. He is an exemplar of Theodore Roosevelt’s ideal of service combining thought and action. In this episode of the Serve to Lead podcast, Ackerman discusses his bestselling new book, 2054: A Novel. This is a successor to 2034: A Novel of the Next World War. Each is coauthored with Admiral James Stavridis. A third volume, 2084, is also planned. Ackerman shar...
Jun 02, 2024•29 min
In this episode of the Serve to Lead podcast, noted journalist Kourosh Ziabari shares his perspective on the intertwined destinies of Iran and America. Ziabari represents a rising generation in Iran and the US. Currently enrolled in the master’s program of the Columbia Journalism School , he has accrued experiences worthy of an extended career. Ziabari urges Americans to distinguish between our reactions to the authoritarian regime in Teheran and our affinities with the Iranian people. Get full ...
Mar 05, 2024•37 min
Benn Steil is an award-winning writer in the fields of finance, history, and biography. He is a senior fellow and director of international economics at the prestigious Council on Foreign Relations in New York. In this episode of the Serve to Lead podcast, Steil discusses his important new book, “The World That Wasn’t: Henry Wallace and the Fate of the American Century.' He explains the ongoing significance of Henry Wallace to our understanding of a hinge point of history, with parallels to our ...
Feb 24, 2024•43 min
Philip K Howard is a leading reformer of American law and government. He combines thought and action: A prolific, best-selling writer and frequent commentator who founded the non-partisan group, Common Good. He is the author of an eagerly awaited new book, Everyday Freedom: Designing the Framework for a Flourishing Society. In this episode of the Serve to Lead podcast, Howard discusses the urgent need and prospects for change, in time for vigorous and informed citizen engagement in the pivotal 2...
Jan 19, 2024•34 min
Richard Norton Smith is at the top tier of American presidential historians. He is the author of the highly acclaimed new biography: An Ordinary Man: The Surprising Life and Historic Presidency of Gerald R. Ford . Smith is widely recognized for his regular appearances on the PBS News Hour , as well as a historical commentator on CBS and other networks. He’s a familiar and beloved guide to history on CSPAN. In this episode of the Serve to Lead podcast, Smith discusses his new book, including its ...
Jun 08, 2023•54 min
Sasha Stone is a pioneering blogger and founder of Awards Daily, as well as a widely-read, provocative Substack, “Free Thinking Through the Fourth Turning.” She is on the vanguard of the realignment and re-sorting underway in our politics and culture. Sasha Stone’s lived experience is representative of those Bridget Phetasy calls “the politically homeless.” This refers to the rising plurality of Americans—nearing a majority of voters—who reject the enforced duopoly of the Democrats and Republica...
Mar 26, 2023•41 min
Derek Leebaert—historian, strategist, organizational leadership and management consultant, and bestselling author of a series of critically acclaimed books—has written an outstanding and timely new work: Unlikely Heroes: Franklin Roosevelt, His Four Lieutenants, and the World They Made. In this episode of the Serve to Lead podcast, Leebaert discusses the book, its genesis and its uncanny relevance in our historic moment. Publisher’s Summary Only four people served at the top echelon of President...
Mar 05, 2023•49 min
Amid the kaleidoscopic changes testing and recasting the post-1945 liberal world order, none is more significant—and consequential—than the ascent of India. India and the United States have long maintained a unique relationship. Each nation is a post-colonial power. Each achieved independence from Great Britain after protracted struggle. Each is a demographically diverse nation governed by a representative democracy. The Council on Foreign Relations has created a useful timeline for US-India Rel...
Feb 15, 2023•44 min
Brooks Newmark is co-founder of Angels for Ukraine . He is serving on the scene, organizing the safekeeping and relocation of thousands of women and children amid the devastation unleashed by the Russian invasion that began on February 24, 2022. In this episode of the Serve to Lead podcast, Newmark discusses his experiences on the scene in Ukraine. He also shares the process by which he became determined to put himself in harm’s way for others in dire circumstances. One can recognize Newmark as ...
Feb 01, 2023•50 min
Amid the uncertainty and sense of lack of leadership in American politics and government, and other sectors, there’s a burst of interest in one of our most consequential presidents: Franklin Roosevelt. In this episode of the Serve to Lead podcast, award-winning presidential historian and journalist Jonathan Darman discusses his highly readable and extensively researched new book, Becoming FDR: The Personal Crisis That Made a President. The Next Nationalism is a reader-supported publication. To r...
Nov 01, 2022•49 min
In this episode of the Serve to Lead podcast, renowned theoretical physicist Steven Koonin discusses his views on the state of the climate and alternative policy responses. He also shares thoughts about his ideals as an educator; his admiration for Richard Feynman; and examples of where he’s changed his mind on significant matters in recent years. Koonin brings a unique set of relevant, hands-on experiences to the complex and contentious public discusssion relating to climate disruption. He is a...
Oct 06, 2022•35 min
In our unsettled moment, there’s a burst of interest in one of the United States’ most consequential presidents: Franklin Roosevelt. In this episode of the Serve to Lead podcast, acclaimed presidential historian David Pietrusza discusses his highly readable, extensively researched new book, Roosevelt Sweeps Nation: FDR’s 1936 Landslide and the Triumph of the Liberal Ideal. The Next Nationalism is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free o...
Sep 28, 2022•44 min
The India-US relationship is one of the most significant and fascinating among great nations. In this episode of the Serve to Lead Podcast, historian and journalist Meenakshi Ahamed discusses her new book, A Matter of Trust: India-US Relations From Truman to Trump. Ahamed combines analytical rigor with a storyteller’s gift for narrative. The book has garnered critical acclaim, and is a finalist for the prestigious Arthur Ross Award of the Council on Foreign Relations. Seventy years of India-US r...
Jun 15, 2022•48 min
Nationalism has become a word of opprobrium among many in polite society. It’s often associated with right-wing populists or authoritarians—with a provenance stirring unsettling memories of Hitler, Mussolini and other fascist dictators of the twenty-century, interwar period. Even the more anodyne formulation, patriot has become fraught in today’s hyper-partisan moment. John Halpin, co-editor of The Liberal Patriot, is working to expand our visions of these notions. He argues for the possibility ...
May 26, 2022•47 min
Johnson posits that a blueprint for national solidarity can be found in the exceptional citizenship long practiced in Black America. “Racism is an existential threat to America,” Theodore R. Johnson declares at the start of his profound and exhilarating book, When the Stars Begin to Fall . It is a refutation of the American Promise enshrined in our Constitution that that all men and women are inherently equal. And yet racism continues to corrode our society. If we cannot overcome it, Johnson arg...
Apr 12, 2022•49 min
A riveting narrative of Wall Street buccaneering, political intrigue, and two of American history’s most colossal characters, struggling for mastery in an era of social upheaval and rampant inequality. At the turn of a new century, the United States is in transition. Its financial and economic systems are being disrupted, amid cultural turmoil and political division. The periodic emergence of oligarchic power in the American political economy is occurring yet again. Such sentiments were front-an...
Mar 24, 2022•50 min
Philip K. Howard is a longtime leader of government and legal reform in the United States. Amid the current political turmoil, Howard has set his sights on the remorseless increase in the power of public employee unions. This is a thread linking public sector pension shortfalls; local, state, and federal government bureaucratic dysfunction; outdated public infrastructure that costs far more to improve than in comparable nations; and the struggles between parents and teachers’ unions on issues fr...
Mar 01, 2022•48 min
William K. Reilly has achieved a consequential career in environmental leadership. He has served four presidents in high positions and sensitive assignments requiring notable judgment and disciplined discretion. In this episode of the Serve to Lead Podcast, Reilly discusses the past, present and promise of environmental leadership in the United States and globally. He […] Get full access to The New Nationalist at jamesstrock.substack.com/subscribe...
Jan 11, 2022•53 min
Frank DiStefano is a Washington, D.C.-based writer who focuses on the history and future of United States politics. He is the author of The Next Realignment: Why America’s Parties Are Crumbling and What Happens Next. The book has received praise from leaders and experts across the political spectrum. On this episode of the Serve […] Get full access to The New Nationalist at jamesstrock.substack.com/subscribe...
Oct 15, 2021•46 min
Jennifer Hernandez is a widely respected practitioner and thought-leader in environmental and land-use law. In this episode of the Serve to Lead Podcast, she discusses her provocative, influential new article, published by the Breakthrough Institute: “Green Jim Crow: How California’s Climate Policies Undermine Civil Rights and Racial Equity.” She explains how environmental regulation is […] Get full access to The New Nationalist at jamesstrock.substack.com/subscribe...
Sep 30, 2021•52 min
Nationalism is back in the news. 2016 was a hinge moment. Brexit in the United Kingdom, combined with the Trump and Sanders insurgencies in the United States, focused attention on populism and evolving notions of national identity. What does nationalism mean in our time? Is American nationalism a distinct variant? Is there a meaningful […] Get full access to The New Nationalist at jamesstrock.substack.com/subscribe...
Sep 23, 2021•49 min
Richard Nixon is often recalled as a historic foreign policy president, but his consequential domestic policy initiatives have been obscured amid the wreckage of the Watergate scandals. In fact, Nixon’s policies—from health care to welfare to the environment—reverberate through subsequent administrations, into the present day. In this episode of the Serve to Lead Podcast, […] Get full access to The New Nationalist at jamesstrock.substack.com/subscribe...
Jun 16, 2021•51 min
In a turbulent, populist moment across the world, the costs and benefits of elites and meritocracy are very much contested. In this episode of the Serve to Lead Podcast, Aaron Renn discusses the American meritocracy and its discontents. Renn recently penned a provocative article relating to the customs and decline of the twentieth-century WASP (White […] Get full access to The New Nationalist at jamesstrock.substack.com/subscribe...
May 04, 2021•53 min
Stephen Wertheim is a historian of the United States in the world. He is the director of the Quincy Institute’s Grand Strategy program, and a Research Scholar at the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University. He is the author of an influential new book, Tomorrow the World: The Birth of U.S. […] Get full access to The New Nationalist at jamesstrock.substack.com/subscribe...
Mar 19, 2021•59 min
