Two world-renowned novelists, from different corners of the globe, talk about why they write. Orhan Pamuk, from Turkey, is the 2006 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Carlos Fuentes, who died in 2009, was one of the most celebrated Mexican authors of all time. When Pamuk was facing a prison sentence for expressing his views, Fuentes gathered a group of international literary heavyweights to intervene on his behalf. You'll hear both authors describe how they discovered the power of literatu...
Jun 29, 2020•57 min•Ep. 134
Both of these men grew up under segregation, 50 years apart, and each became an important force for truth and for justice. John Hope Franklin was a pre-eminent historian, whose scholarship focused on the central role of African-Americans in our national story. He was a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. Bryan Stevenson is a human rights lawyer who fights on behalf of death row prisoners in the deep south. He's also the author of "Just Mercy" and ...
Jun 15, 2020•34 min•Ep. 133
The United States seemed poised for a new day in 1963, when the March on Washington drew a quarter million people. And yet, throughout the intervening fifty-seven years, Martin Luther King Jr’s dream has remained elusive. George Floyd’s killing by police, two weeks ago, and the protests that have erupted in its wake, could not make that any clearer. Over the next several weeks, we will feature some of the extraordinary voices from the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s that are in the audio arc...
Jun 08, 2020•29 min•Ep. 132
He knew from the age of five that he was going to become a paleontologist, but he also became one of the most important evolutionary theorists since Darwin. As a Harvard professor, he inspired generations of students. And as a writer, he made science understandable and exciting to the general public. Stephen Jay Gould died of cancer in 2002 at the age of 60, but during his lifetime, The Library of Congress designated him a "living legend." In this interview, he explains his most famous contribut...
Jun 01, 2020•46 min•Ep. 131
In 1972, a Navy Seal named Thomas Norris carried out one of the most dangerous and daring rescue missions of the war in Vietnam. Six months later, he would be rescued himself, in an equally dramatic manner, after being shot through the head. His rescuer was fellow Seal, Michael Thornton, who had shrapnel wounds, but swam for three hours while carrying Norris, and a South Vietnamese commando. Both Norris and Thornton would go on to receive the Medal of Honor. They tell their remarkable war storie...
May 18, 2020•58 min•Ep. 130
She is best known for creating "The Lion King" on Broadway, but Julie Taymor has spent her whole career pushing the bounds of creativity - in theater, in opera and in film. She talks here about her transformation as an artist while studying puppetry in Indonesia, about her most recent movie, "The Glorias" (a biopic about feminist icon Gloria Steinem), and about the vast differences between directing movies and theater. She broaches a subject she has rarely addressed - the very public debacle of ...
May 04, 2020•49 min•Ep. 129
One of our very first episodes featured a rare interview with Dr. Jonas Salk, who developed the Polio vaccine at a time of tremendous panic. Today, as scientists around the world intensify efforts to come up with a vaccine for Covid-19, we thought you might find hope and inspiration in his story. (The episode originally posted 9/21/2015.): Before Jonas Salk developed the Polio vaccine, thousands of children died every year or were left paralyzed by the virus (adults too). In 1952 alone, there we...
Apr 27, 2020•26 min•Ep. 128
Millions of lives are saved each year with the vaccines developed by these two Nobel Prize recipients. Their discoveries were some of the greatest medical achievements of the 20th century. Gertrude Elion was a biochemist, who unraveled the mysteries and mechanisms of leukemia, herpes, gout, malaria & meningitis in order to create effective medications. She transformed kidney transplantation, by creating the first immune suppressant to prevent rejection by organ recipients. And her work led t...
Apr 20, 2020•47 min•Ep. 127
If Anthony Fauci was not on your radar before the Covid-19 pandemic, he certainly is now. Dr. Fauci is a lead member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, and a trusted daily presence in the news. Many now view him as America’s MD. We told the inspiring story of Dr. Fauci’s life and career on this podcast in July of 2018. Under the circumstances, it seemed time for an encore: This is the story of a remarkable doctor who, in 1981, became one of the first scientists to recognize that we were ...
Apr 13, 2020•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 126
He was an outspoken proponent of the free market and small government, and one of the most influential economists of all time. Milton Friedman's ideas on monetary policy, taxation, privatization and deregulation have had enormous impact on government policies in the U.S. (and around the world) for over 50 years, including the Federal Reserve’s response to the global financial crisis. He received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1976. Friedman talks here about growing up in a home with poorly-educ...
Apr 06, 2020•54 min•Ep. 125
There’s one person who can claim to have played harmonica with Willie Nelson AND been awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine… and that's James (Jim) Allison. Dr. Allison is the scientist who unlocked the secrets of the immune system, to develop a wildly successful treatment for melanoma and several other kinds of cancer. Immunotherapy is now considered the “fourth pillar” of cancer treatment, alongside surgery, radiation and chemo. For years, he faced the doubts and derision of the cancer establish...
Mar 23, 2020•48 min•Ep. 124
The most decorated regiment in US history was the 442nd, a segregated Japanese-American unit that fought in Europe after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. But while they were bravely risking their lives for their country, 120,000 of their fellow Japanese-Americans were languishing in internment camps, simply because of their ethnicity. U.S. Senator Daniel Inouye was in the first group. Representative Norman Mineta was in the second. Both have stories that are profoundly disturbing, but are also a tes...
Mar 09, 2020•1 hr•Ep. 123
For 50 years, he has carried the torch for the blues. Buddy Guy learned by listening to the greats that came before him, and then he made the blues his own. He is one of the greatest guitarists of all time, and an extraordinary showman, who inspired a generation of rock n' rollers, including Jimmy Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, and countless others. He talks here about his early days picking cotton in rural Louisiana, about making his first guitar with strings pulled from a window screen, an...
Feb 24, 2020•44 min•Ep. 122
Two of the most daring and celebrated playwrights working today talk about their lives, their work, and why they love writing for the stage. Both Lynn Nottage and Suzan-Lori Parks have won the Pulitzer Prize for plays that portray the struggles of African-Americans and working class people, but their approaches are quite different. Nottage talks here about the extensive research that grounds her, whether she's writing about Congolese women in wartime or laid-off workers in the Rust Belt. Parks t...
Feb 10, 2020•53 min•Ep. 121
This son of a sharecropper tells the story of how he grew up to become a legendary leader of the Civil Rights Movement and a 17-term Congressman from the state of Georgia. He describes his political and spiritual awakenings, and recounts how he learned to live fearlessly and non-violently, despite the many beatings and arrests he endured -- at lunch counter sit-ins and during the march from Selma to Montgomery. You'll hear archival sound from those events as well, and an excerpt of John Lewis sp...
Jan 27, 2020•49 min•Ep. 120
These three visionaries changed the way we live our daily lives. You'll hear remarkable archival recordings of each, when they were young successful entrepreneurs, but before history had proven the scale of their impact. Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, describes how, as a teenager, he first envisioned the potential for computers to become fixtures in our homes. Larry Page and Sergey Brin, founders of Google, talk about their accidental discovery of the algorithm that would allow us to searc...
Jan 13, 2020•49 min•Ep. 119
He has won more Grammy Awards than any other male country singer, but Vince Gill never set out to be a star. He just wanted to play guitar and sing, and you can hear his reverence for music in this intimate interview. He describes his first guitar - a Christmas gift from his father, and his early days playing music in Oklahoma. He explains why he's always been happiest collaborating with other musicians, and he shares a wonderful tale about recording with Eric Clapton. He also walks us through t...
Dec 30, 2019•52 min•Ep. 118
It’s undisputed: Andrew Lloyd Webber has written more blockbuster musicals than any composer alive. He talks here about falling in love with musical theater in the 1950’s, and about writing his first hit at the age of 19 (Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat). He also reveals fascinating behind-the-scenes stories about Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, Cats, and Broadway’s longest running show (by far): The Phantom of the Opera. (c ) American Academy of Achievement 2019...
Dec 16, 2019•46 min•Ep. 117
She is a Renaissance Person extraordinaire: a lawyer, an inventor, a biotech innovator, a futurist, a transgender activist, and one of the most successful female CEO's of all time. Martine Rothblatt talks here about founding Sirius/XM radio. She talks about how her daughter's terminal illness led her to develop a treatment, as well as a biotech company to manufacture it (saving thousands of lives so far). She describes her newest missions -- developing an endless supply of transplantable organs,...
Dec 02, 2019•49 min•Ep. 116
He is one of the most compelling storytellers of our time... a novelist who addresses broad societal themes while plumbing the depths of intimate human relationships. Ian McEwan, the author of "Atonement," "Amsterdam" and recently, "Machines Like Me," talks here about beautifully constructed sentences. He explains the "pleasure principle" of literature. And in describing how much research it takes to create his characters, he tells a delightful story about the time he was mistaken for a neurosur...
Nov 18, 2019•55 min•Ep. 115
Africa's preeminent writer, and one of its greatest advocates for democracy and justice, talks here about the activism that landed him in solitary confinement for two years during Nigeria's civil war. Wole Soyinka was the first African to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. He describes here his life growing up under British colonial rule, and explains why his favorite form of literary expression is theater. www.achievement.org #whatittakesnow (c ) American Academy of Achievement 2019...
Nov 04, 2019•51 min•Ep. 114
One of the most significant revolutions in science is underway, and yet most people haven't even heard of it. It's called CRISPR, and it is an easy, inexpensive process for cutting and pasting DNA - the code of life. It is already being used in human trials to cure genetic disease, and it promises to transform agriculture, with drought-resistant crops that will better feed the world. But it also threatens to usher in a frightening era of designer babies and unintended consequences. The two lead ...
Oct 21, 2019•53 min•Ep. 113
She was a Maori child from a working class family, who grew up by the sea in a remote New Zealand town... So how did Kiri Te Kanawa rise to become one of the greatest sopranos of all time? She tells the story here, starting with a vision her mother had of her singing at Covent Garden, a vision that became a reality. She also tells the hair-raising tale of her accidental debut at the Met; she was given just three hours notice, but it turned her into an international opera superstar, overnight. An...
Oct 07, 2019•44 min•Ep. 112
When Amy Tan wrote her first book, The Joy Luck Club, she was trying to portray the difficult relationship she had had with her mother, a Chinese immigrant to the United States, and the emotional voyage they took to understand each other. But the novel struck a universal chord, and it became a massive bestseller, launching Amy Tan’s career as a literary superstar. Tan talks here candidly about the traumas in her life (the death of both her father and her brother when she was 15), and about the u...
Sep 23, 2019•54 min•Ep. 111
This is the story of a working class son of Manchester, England, who came to change skylines around the globe, envision a future for architecture that is in harmony with the environment, and design solutions to the most pressing problems of the world’s poor. In his 50 years as an architect, Norman Foster has designed an abundance of iconic buildings & sites, including the Apple Headquarters in Cupertino, London’s “Gherkin” and City Hall, Hong Kong’s Check Lap Kok Airport, Berlin’s new Reichs...
Sep 09, 2019•54 min•Ep. 110
Toni Morrison was a novelist and Nobel Prize Winner, who carved a space for African-American women’s voices and stories. Hal Prince was a producer & director, who had a hand in shaping Broadway for over five decades. These two giants of American culture recently died, just days apart. In 2007 they shared a stage and regaled young leaders with lessons they’d learned over the course of their storied careers. On this special episode, we play their inspiring talks. (c ) American Academy of Achie...
Aug 26, 2019•32 min•Ep. 109
Peter Jackson grew up in a country without any film industry or film schools, and yet, he only ever wanted to do one thing: make movies. The story of how he came to direct The Lord of the Rings (and Heavenly Creatures, The Hobbit, King Kong, and They Shall Not Grow Old) is both improbable and inspiring. He tells the story here of how he quit school to earn enough money for a 16 millimeter camera, and then, while learning to use it, inadvertently created his first feature length film -- a gory, s...
Aug 12, 2019•50 min•Ep. 108
The ocean covers 70% of the earth. It regulates our climate and it provides most of the oxygen we breathe. And yet we still know very little about it. Well, this is the story of two people who have spent the past 60 years discovering the mysteries of the deep. Sylvia Earle is one of the world’s greatest marine scientists, and David Doubilet is one of the world’s greatest underwater photographers. Each tells the story of falling in love with life underwater. Each talks about how technology has tr...
Jul 29, 2019•1 hr•Ep. 107
Babe Ruth's home run record held for almost four decades. But then Hank Aaron came along and smashed it. On the way to making baseball history, Aaron persevered through poverty, segregation, racism, and threats on his life. He talks here about joining the Negro Leagues, about playing through a period of transformation in America, and about helping to change the world by doing what he did best - swinging that bat. (c ) American Academy of Achievement 2019
Jul 15, 2019•46 min•Ep. 106
In honor of the 4th of July, we are featuring the foremost champion of civil liberties in America, and a man who embodies the American Dream. Anthony Romero tells the inspiring story here of his path from a housing project in New York City to an Ivy League university and eventually to the head of the ACLU, where he has been Executive Director since 2001. Romero also talks about the tremendous growth of the organization during his tenure, the non-partisan philosophy that drives their work, and so...
Jul 01, 2019•53 min•Ep. 105
