Ep. 8 – A History of Things That Go Bump in the Night
On this special Halloween edition of the podcast, cultural historian Leo Braudy, author of Haunted, sat down with us to talk about the history of monsters and other scary creatures. Spooky!
Evading the FBI: The Weather Underground Organization
Arthur Eckstein— Weatherman—the Weather Underground Organization—was the most famous group of young people committed to revolutionary violence to emerge out of the late 1960s. In protest of American racism and the Vietnam War, they detonated more than two dozen dynamite bombs between 1970 and 1975, and hit some spectacular targets,
A Fight Over Fundamentals: Progressivism in the Current Contest
Stephen Skowronek— The rap on Hillary Clinton’s leadership is that she fails to convey any high purpose. When she tries to rally the nation to her cause, she falls back on what has long been the common sense of American government: pragmatic problem solving, social and economic amelioration, nimble adaptations
Ep. 7 – Paul V. Turner on Frank Lloyd Wright and San Francisco
Paul V. Turner, Wattis Professor Art, Emeritus, at Stanford University, interviewed by Jessica Holahan about Professor Turner’s new book, Frank Lloyd Wright and San Francisco, which delves into the entirety of Wright’s built and unbuilt projects in California’s Bay Area. YaleUniversity · Paul V. Turner on Frank Lloyd Wright and
Political Revelations and Investigations
Benjamin Ginsberg— Over the past year, America’s political waters have been roiled by a host of investigations and revelations aimed at influencing the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. Republicans fired the opening shots by launching a congressional investigation of Hillary Clinton’s role in the deaths of U.S. embassy officials
Podcast: The Founders’ Case for an Activist Government
The long-held belief that the Declaration of Independence calls for a small government may not be an accurate assessment. Historian Steve Pincus, author of The Heart of the Declaration: The Founders’ Case for an Activist Government, discusses the meaning of this seminal document as well as its continuing influence in
Who Owns Sovereign Wealth?
Angela Cummine— Last week, Alaskans received their annual dividend check from the Alaska Permanent Fund. The $53 billion savings fund was set up in 1976 to preserve and augment a share of the state’s resource revenues for future generations through prudent investment in financial markets. Every year since 1982, a
Ep. 6 – The Founders’ Case for an Activist Government
The long-held belief that the Declaration of Independence calls for a small government may not be an accurate assessment. Historian Steve Pincus discusses the meaning of this seminal document as well as its continuing influence in modern politics and American life.
The Dilemma of the Sharing Economy
Carlo Ratti and Richard Sennett— In 1899, the American sociologist Thorsten Veblen coined the phrase “conspicuous consumption” in his book The Theory of the Leisure Class. The phrase was double-edged: Veblen was critical of the wealthy flaunting their wealth, but he recognized that more ordinary people used goods and services
Defining the Bigot
Stephen Eric Bronner— Understanding the bigot calls for a phenomenological sketch that explains why prejudice appeals to him, how he chooses his targets, and what impulses are common to his worldview. Quick dabs are necessary to shade his frustrations, brushstrokes highlight his way of thinking about the world, bold lines