Category: People

Victoria Houseman on American Classicist: The Life and Loves of Edith Hamilton

Princeton UP Ideas Podcast | 15 October 2023 | 0h 30m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Victoria Houseman about her book American Classicist: The Life and Loves of Edith Hamilton. Discusses Hamilton’s life and work, her writing about Ancient Greece, mythology, and Rome and its enduring impact; running a girls’ prep school; and her relationships and political influence.

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Abraham Verghese Thinks Medicine Can Do Better

People I (Mostly) Admire | 14 October 2023 | 0h 48m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Abraham Verghese about his life and work: growing up in Ethiopia and India, coming to America, working as a physician and writer. Explains the difference between curing and healing, and argues that doctors should spend more time with patients and less with electronic health records.

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The Lessons of Sam Bankman-Fried

The Gray Area with Sean Illing | 16 October 2023 | 0h 55m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Michael Lewis about his book Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon. Discusses what he learned shadowing Sam Bankman-Fried, the FTX crash, and what SBF’s rise and fall says about us and our financial systems.

Michael Lewis’ podcast, Against the Rules, is running a series covering the trial of Sam Bankman-Fried.

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Joanne Limburg on Letters to My Weird Sisters

Ben Yeoh Chats | 14 September 2023 | 1h 08m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Joanne Limburg about her book Letters to My Weird Sisters: On Autism, Feminism, and Motherhood. Discusses historical female figures, the letters she has written to them expressing the kinship she feels with them, autism and motherhood, grief, writing and more.

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Angus Deaton on Life in America

The New Bazaar | 11 September 2023 | 1h 12m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Angus Deaton about his book Economics in America: An Immigrant Economist Explores the Land of Inequality. Describes his origins in Scotland, his studies at Cambridge, and his decades as an economist. Reflects on a lifetime of practicing economics, and the good and bad of the economics profession. Shares observations about the American economy, his ambivalence towards the US, his adopted country—the many great things, including the lives that he and his family have led – and some of the devastatingly grim things about US life for so many others.

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Russ Roberts | Godfather Of Podcasting

Curious Worldview Podcast | 7 September 2023 | 1h 25m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Russ Roberts replete with wisdom. Discusses Christopher Hitchens, good communication versus good talking, whether some cultures create more good communicators than others, Nassim Taleb and randomness, the role that serendipity played in Roberts’ life, and more.

See also the EconTalk episode with Christopher Hitchens discussing George Orwell.

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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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