Keen On America
2,158 episodes — Page 24 of 44
An American Gun for the age of Sandy Hook and Uvalde: Cameron McWhirter and Zusha Elinson on the history of the AR-15, an assault weapon that captures contemporary America's love affair with technology, freedom and guns
Oct 12, 202341 min
How to transform yourself from a good girl into a bad b***h: Lisa Carmen Wang's bad b***h business bible for taking charge of your body, boundaries and bank account
Oct 12, 202333 min
Why Food Stamps Work: Christopher Bosso's political history - and defense - of SNAP
Oct 11, 202331 min
Saving Bill Clinton's life and other tales from the operating theater: Craig R. Smith on his life as one of America's most celebrated heart surgeons
Oct 11, 202333 min
A New Deal to Save the Earth: John J. Berger outlines the three dimensions to solving the world's climate crisis
Oct 11, 202344 min
The Emotional Life of Populism in Israel: Eva Illouz on Netanyahu, Hamas and what the left has lost by not embracing the fear, disgust, resentment and love that determine democratic politics
Oct 11, 202335 min
The October weekend that changed the Middle East forever: Uri Kaufman compares the Yom Kippur war of October 1973 with the Simchat Torah war of October 2023
Oct 11, 202339 min
Tripping into our brave new psychedelic world: Andy Mitchell on his odyssey into the new reality of psychedelics
Oct 10, 202334 min
The Blood Years, then and now: Elana K. Arnold on book banning, book burning and what we can learn from Second World War books about good and evil
Oct 10, 202330 min
Disorder, Disorder, Disorder: Jason Pack and Alexandra Hall Hall order our disordered world
Oct 10, 202313 min
Is peace there for the taking? Jason Pack on Israel, Gaza, the Middle East and beyond
Oct 9, 202338 min
The All American B***h: Evelyn McDonnell on Joan Didion's artistic sensibility and moral clarity
Oct 9, 202335 min
Why politics needs to be relegated to its proper place: Alexandra Hudson offers timeless principles on how to heal society and ourselves
Oct 9, 202338 min
Claudia Goldin, winner of the 2023 Nobel Prize for Economics, on women's journey to close the gender gap
Oct 9, 202352 min
The Myth of Progress: Erik J. Larson on Silicon Valley's failure to change anything of any significance since the Fifties
Oct 8, 202342 min
My Bath with Hitler: Kenneth Rendell on safeguarding history at a time when fakers are much smarter and more creative than their victims
Oct 8, 202338 min
The Human Tragedy and Political Shame of America's Mass Criminal Supervision System: Vincent Schiraldi on probation, parole and the illusion of safety and freedom in contemporary America
Oct 8, 202337 min
Iron Man, Ant-Man and our relentless thirst for parasocial super heroes: Joana Robinson and Gavin Edwards on the reign of Marvel Studios
Oct 7, 202347 min
The Right Female Stuff: Loren Grush on the story of America's first six female astronauts
Oct 7, 202330 min
Should environmentalists be utopian? Dickson Despommier imagines the perfect 21st century city
Oct 7, 202340 min
From Suicide Notes to Every Star That Falls: Michael Thomas Ford on 15 years that changed the world of teen mental health and sexual identity
Oct 6, 202334 min
Artificial Intelligence or Bust: Keith Teare on why AI might be the most important development in tech since the invention of the internet
Oct 6, 202332 min
Evil colonizers, brave explorers or clueless white men? Peter Slen on the geographical and literary exploits of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
Oct 6, 202329 min
The real McElroy: Isle McElroy on what it means to be a non-binary writer and how it might feel like to be born into the wrong body
Oct 6, 202328 min
The Taylor Swift or Lady Di of the early 20th Century: Shelley Fraser Mickle on Alice Roosevelt, the White House wild child
Oct 6, 202337 min
The Repressive Power of Artificial Intelligence: Kian Vesteinsson on the crisis of freedom on the internet in 2023
Oct 5, 202338 min
All the American demons are there: Jake Tapper on how returning to the late 1970's can help us understand the America of the early 2020's
Oct 5, 202323 min
Modern Britain and all that caper: Jonathan Coe on British chocolate, the Royal Family and its decision to marry the wrong Super Power
Oct 5, 202344 min
An Old Story Told Differently: Bethanne Patrick on 8 books reimagining the experience of first generation immigrants
Oct 4, 202330 min
Against the Romance of Transformation: Leon Weiseltier on America's love affair with the promise of personal and social change
Oct 3, 202354 min
Normalizing China: Gilles Guiheux on China's very ordinary history between 1949 and today
Oct 3, 202340 min
Against Green Capitalism: Charles Derber on how big money fuels extinction and what we can do about it
Oct 3, 202345 min
No, Men aren't Angels: Peter Slen on why the Federalist Papers is one of the ten books that has most shaped America
Oct 2, 202328 min
Dumb devices, dumb bureaucrats and dumb entrepreneurs: Keith Teare on FTC chair Lina Khan, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and why the iPhone is on the brink of becoming radically more intelligent
Sep 27, 202333 min
Why Disorder may be the New Order: Jason Pack on how the global system itself has gone rogue and no longer conforms with the textbooks
Sep 27, 202330 min
Why Artificial Intelligence will make us smarter: W. Russell Neuman presents AI as a progressive moment in human evolution
Sep 26, 202330 min
An Afterword to Words Themselves? Bethanne Patrick on six speculative novels which imagine a world saturated by AI
Sep 25, 202336 min
Should we punish innovation? Keith Teare on public and private investment markets, breaking up Google and paying to use X
Sep 24, 202329 min
The 10 books that have most shaped America: Peter Slen on Thomas Paine's COMMON SENSE
Sep 22, 202328 min
The White Man's version of Democracy in America? Brook Manville on the "Civic Bargain" that defines the history of democracy in western civilization
Sep 22, 202331 min
How to think faster and talk smarter: Matt Abrahams on speaking successfully when you're put on the spot
Sep 22, 202333 min
"I want you to be more selfish": Millennial therapist Sara Kuburic on how to discover your true self and change your life
Sep 21, 202332 min
The case against forgiveness: Myisha Cherry questions a forgiving God, Christian forgiveness and happy Hollywood moral endings
Sep 21, 202334 min
The Buried History of Jerusalem: Andrew Lawler digs up the political archeology of the world's most contested city
Sep 21, 202345 min
Untangling the twin three-way relationships shaping the contemporary Middle East: Ilan Eyatar on Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United States
Sep 21, 202333 min
Nothing will ever be the same again: Hugh Eakin remembers the year when the United States bumped into Pablo Picasso and modern art arrived in America
Sep 21, 202344 min
How to ensure the survival of democracy: Josiah Ober on ancient Greece and Rome as models of self government by their citizens
Sep 20, 202341 min
There's No Them There, Only Us: Kerri Maher on the Jane Collective in the early 1970s and how to write fiction about an issue as divisive as abortion
Sep 20, 202332 min
On Power, Patriarchy and Privilege: Kemi Nekvapil offers a woman's guide to living and leading without apology
Sep 20, 202328 min
Is the American Constitution undermining American Democracy? Daniel Ziblatt on how constitutional reform can strengthen democracy in America
Sep 20, 202340 min