Listen in: Class Dismissed August 09, 2024 Elite colleges are boasting unprecedented numbers with respect to diversity, with some schools admitting their first majority-minority classes. Read More
Listen in: Long Live Queer Nightlife August 08, 2024 In this exhilarating journey into underground parties, pulsating with life and limitless possibility, acclaimed author Amin Ghaziani unveils the unexpected revolution revitalizing urban nightlife. Read More
Listen in: The Fire Is upon Us August 02, 2024 A remarkable story of race and the American dream, The Fire Is upon Us reveals the deep roots and lasting legacy of a conflict that continues to haunt our politics. Read More
Listen in: Slouch August 02, 2024 In 1995, a scandal erupted when the New York Times revealed that the Smithsonian possessed a century’s worth of nude “posture” photos of college students. Read More
Listen in: Slow Burn July 17, 2024 It’s hard not to feel anxious about the problem of climate change, especially if we think of it as an impending planetary catastrophe. R. Jisung Park encourages us to view climate change through a different lens: one that focuses less on the possibility of mass climate extinction in a theoretical future, and more on the everyday implications of climate change here and now. Read More
Listen in: The Last Human Job July 05, 2024 With the rapid development of artificial intelligence and labor-saving technologies like self-checkouts and automated factories, the future of work has never been more uncertain, and even jobs requiring high levels of human interaction are no longer safe. Read More
Listen in: The Beauty of Falling April 16, 2024 Claudia de Rham is a world-renowned physicist seeking gravity’s true nature and who has found wisdom in embracing its force in her life. Listen to a sample chapter from the audiobook. Read More
Listen in: After 1177 B.C. April 15, 2024 Filled with lessons for today’s world about why some societies survive massive shocks while others do not, After 1177 B.C. reveals why this period, far from being the First Dark Age, was a new age with new inventions and new opportunities. Read More
Listen in: Puerto Rico April 09, 2024 Puerto Rico is a Spanish-speaking territory of the United States with a history shaped by conquest and resistance. For centuries, Puerto Ricans have crafted and negotiated complex ideas about nationhood. Read More
Listen in: Pox Romana February 27, 2024 In the middle of the second century AD, Rome was at its prosperous and powerful apex. The emperor Marcus Aurelius reigned over a vast territory that stretched from Britain to Egypt. The Roman-made peace, or Pax Romana, seemed to be permanent. Read More
Listen in: The Weirdness of the World January 22, 2024 Do we live inside a simulated reality or a pocket universe embedded in a larger structure about which we know virtually nothing? Is consciousness a purely physical matter, or might it require something extra, something nonphysical? Read More
Listen in: Free Agents November 27, 2023 Scientists are learning more and more about how brain activity controls behavior and how neural circuits weigh alternatives and initiate actions. As we probe ever deeper into the mechanics of decision making, many conclude that agency—or free will—is an illusion. Read More
Listen in: Deaths of Despair November 12, 2023 Deaths of despair from suicide, drug overdose, and alcoholism are rising dramatically in the United States, claiming hundreds of thousands of American lives. Anne Case and Angus Deaton explain the overwhelming surge in these deaths and shed light on the social and economic forces that are making life harder for the working class. Read More
Listen in: Economics in America October 17, 2023 Blending rare personal insights with illuminating perspectives on the social challenges that confront us today, Angus Deaton offers a disarmingly frank critique of his own profession while shining a light on his adopted country’s policy accomplishments and failures. Read More
Listen in: The Darkened Light of Faith September 20, 2023 Listen to a sample chapter from The Darkened Light of Faith – a powerful new account of what a group of nineteenth- and twentieth-century African American activists, intellectuals, and artists can teach us about democracy. . Read More