Author: thepodcastbrowser

Elon Musk: Walter Isaacson on the World’s Most Polarizing Person

The Next Big Idea | 14 September 2023 | 1h 07m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Walter Isaacson about his book Elon Musk. Discusses Elon Musk’s formative experiences; the pluses and minuses of his personality; his role with eBay, Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter, artificial intelligence, the war in Ukraine, and more.

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Surviving Hitler and Stalin

Dan Snow’s History Hit | 9 August 2023 | 0h 37m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Daniel Finkelstein about his book Two Roads Home: Hitler, Stalin, and the Miraculous Survival of My Family. Recounts stories from his parents’ remarkable lives: his mother Mirjam Wiener survived the Nazi concentration camps, and his father Ludwik Finkelstein lived through a Soviet gulag. Discusses how they survived the horrors of both regimes and imparts some of the lessons that they learned along the way.

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Tibor Rutar: The Rise, Benefits, and Challenges of Liberal Democracies

The Dissenter | 7 August 2023 | 1h 39m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Tibor Rutar about his book Rational Choice and Democratic Government: A Sociological Approach. Discusses the rise and spread of democracy, the recent “democratic recession”, the 2008 economic crisis; rational choice theory, self-interest, and incentives; how much we should worry about average voters being uninformed; how market failure and government failure occur; where public choice analyses fail; whether democracy contributes to peace; and whether we should expect liberal-democratic capitalist societies to be more successful than authoritarian state-capitalist societies.

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The Future of Talking: A Discussion with Shane O’Mara

The Future of . . . with Owen Bennett-Jones | 26 August 2023 | 0h 41m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Shane O Mara about his book Talking Heads: the New Science of How Conversation Shapes our Worlds. Discusses the purpose of conversation, both for the individual and for society; what happens in our brains as we converse, and the role of conversation in creating communities.

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Jeremy Black on Why the Industrial Revolution Happened in Britain

New Books in Economic and Business History | 26 August 2023 | 0h 25m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Jeremy Black about his book Why the Industrial Revolution Happened in Britain. Discusses the factors behind the Industrial Revolution: coal and steam; entrepreneurs; consumerism, fashion and an ability to purchase goods; parliamentary government, the rule of law, a society open to talent, and no internal tariff boundaries; and factors combining to produce vital synergies.

See also other interviews on the Industrial Revolution.

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The City That Sold Itself To Wall Street

Cautionary Tales | 1 September 2023 | 0h 38m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
First tells the cautionary tale, from Henry Grabar’s book, Paved Paradise, of what went wrong when the Chicago City Council leased its parking meters to Morgan Stanley. Then finishes with an interview with Grabar about the wider lessons on why parking is such an emotive issue for so many people.

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Nicholas Hoover Wilson on Modernity’s Corruption

Asian Review of Books | 17 August 2023 | 0h 45m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Nicholas Hoover Wilson about his book Modernity’s Corruption: Empire and Morality in the Making of British India. Uses East India Company rule in India, and Robert Clive’s behaviour in particular, to examine how society’s view of corruption changed–from something governed by one’s situation, to a behaviour that violates a universal code of ethics.

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Ultra-Processed: What Fake Food Is Doing to Our Health

The Next Big Idea | 17 August 2023 | 1h 15m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Chris van Tulleken about his book Ultra-Processed People: The Science Behind Food That Isn’t Food. Argues that the ultra-processed food that makes up 60 percent of the American diet is an industrially produced edible substance that is not really food and is killing us. Advocates stronger government regulations to curb its consumption.

This is a hard-hitting critique of ultra-processed food. Adam Gopnik and Helen Lewis have good reviews that push back on the strongest claims and argue for a more nuanced position.

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