David Skarbek – The Puzzle of Prison Order

Ideas Having Sex | 9 May 2022 | 0h 58m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with David Skarbek about his book The Puzzle of Prison Order: Why Life Behind Bars Varies Around the World. Discusses the formal and informal governance structures that emerge in different prison environments around the world.

Homo Erectus

In Our Time | 12 May 2022 | 0h 51m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of our ancestors, Homo erectus, who thrived on Earth for around two million years. Homo erectus spread from Africa to Asia and it was on the Island of Java that fossilised remains were found in 1891 in an expedition led by Dutch scientist Eugène Dubois. Homo erectus people adapted to different habitats, ate varied food, lived in groups, had stamina to outrun their prey; and discoveries have prompted many theories on the relationship between their diet and the size of their brains, on their ability as seafarers, on their creativity and on their ability to speak and otherwise communicate.

Justin Marozzi on Islamic Empires: The Cities That Shaped Civilization

Book Talk Today | 2 September 2021 | 1h 10m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Justin Marozzi about his book Islamic Empires: The Cities That Shaped Civilisation From Mecca to Dubai. Discusses the growth of Islamic Empires across over time, the impact of different sects in Islam, 14C Samarkand, how Cordoba transformed into a Muslim city, recent events in Kabul and how it relates to history, hypocrisy within Islamic history, and the dividing nature of Dubai.

The New Atlantis: Charter Cities

Beneath the Surface: An Infrastructure Podcast | 5 May 2022 | 0h 40m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Each year, tens of millions of people migrate from rural areas to cities—mostly in emerging economies, where populations are growing faster than governments can create basic infrastructure. To address the challenges of urbanization without industrialization, development experts, economists, and policymakers have proposed solutions spanning from increased immigration to better family planning.

This episode considers whether charter cities could be a path to accelerating growth in emerging economies.

This is the first episode of a new podcast from Stripe Press on infrastructure.

Richard Dawkins on Flight and Other Evolutionary Achievements

Sean Carroll’s Mindscape | 2 May 2022 | 1h 18m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Richard Dawkins about his book Flights of Fancy: Defying Gravity by Design and Evolution. Discusses the different ways that heavier-than-air objects might be made to fly, and why natural selection produces some but not others. Also discusses central issues in evolution: levels of selection, the extended phenotype, the role of adaptation, and how genes relate to organisms.

Jennifer Ackerman on ‘The Bird Way’ of Life

All Of It | 21 May 2020 | 0h 15m | Listen Later  | Spotify
Interview with Jennifer Ackerman about her book, The Bird Way: A New Look at How Birds Talk, Work, Play, Parent, and Think. Discusses recent discoveries about bird behaviour uncovered by ornithologists applying technology to the study of birds.

Twilight Struggle: Cold War Lessons for US-China Today

ChinaTalk | 7 May 2022 | 1h 24m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Hal Brands about his book The Twilight Struggle: What the Cold War Teaches Us about Great-Power Rivalry Today. Discusses how the US capitalised on Soviet heavy-handedness in the developing world; how technology impacted the broader trajectory of the Cold War; the US’s never-ending cycles of self-confidence and self-doubt; today’s Sinologists versus Cold War Sovietologists; why the only person who can stop the war in Ukraine is the one who started it.

Why Do Men Rule the World? with Dr. Alice Evans

Factually! with Adam Conover | 23 March 2022 | 1h 19m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Alice Evans about ideas from her forthcoming book The Great Gender Divergence. Explains how male governance springs from systems of inheritance, why matrilineal systems tend to convert to patrilineal ones, and why we’re seeing progress on gender equality around the world.