Here’s a special preview of the new season of Cautionary Tales from Pushkin Industries. On Cautionary Tales, bestselling author Tim Harford shares stories of human error, natural disasters, and tragic catastrophes from history that teach us important lessons for today. In this preview, you’ll hear about the 1981 Hyatt Regency Hotel collapse, a shocking desig ... Show More
Nov 3
South Africa's Underworld is Killing Itself
Cape Town’s underworld war was supposed to be about nightclub doors. Instead, it turned into a sprawling battle over drugs, extortion, government contracts, corrupt cops and control of an entire city. In part two, Danny follows the bodies as they pile up: the “Gentleman Gangster” ... Show More
52m 55s
Oct 27
Colombia’s Narco Influencer Showdown
In a city on Colombia’s Caribbean coast, a young man rose through the ranks of a violent paramilitary organization to become one of its key leaders. But that wasn’t all. Throughout, he posted his criminal exploits to social media, crafting a Robin Hood image while robbing, dealin ... Show More
1h 4m
Oct 20
Cape Town's Bloody Mob Wars: The Steroid King, Dirty Cops, and Numbers Gangs
Cape Town is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. It's also home to one of the most violent and tangled criminal underworlds on the planet, where drug lords, prison gangs, crooked cops, and millionaire businessmen wage bloody wars over everything from nightclub security ... Show More
1 h
Oct 2019
Introducing: Cautionary Tales
Coming November 15 from Tim Harford and Pushkin Industries, Cautionary Tales relates a true story of a time when something did not go according to plan. Some of these true stories are tragic, some are comic, but like the great fables and parables, each of them has a moral. Equipp ... Show More
2m 57s
Jul 2023
A Fascination with Failure: Death On The Dancefloor (Classic)
Henry Petroski is one of Tim Harford's favourite fellow nerds. His study of engineering failures has profoundly influenced Tim's own writing, including the classic Cautionary Tales episode Death on the Dance Floor. Petroski passed away in June 2023, at the age of 81. This week, i ... Show More
42m 27s
Oct 2025
The Canal, the Crash and the Ketamine - Pushkin's Reign of Error
Today, Jonathan joins his fellow Pushkin hosts for a special episode all about mistakes. Jonathan speaks with his friend, the writer Sheila Heti. Together, they muse on the cost of mistakes and whether we're really in control of how many we make. Plus, Nate Silver and Maria Konni ... Show More
44m 25s
Oct 2025
On Fire from the Inside - Lethal Injection Up Close with Malcolm Gladwell
Last week, Cautionary Tales told the tragic story of Derek Bentley, exploring Britain's troubled relationship with capital punishment. Across the Atlantic, Revisionist History has also been scrutinizing what it means for a state to try to execute a person. For this bonus episode, ... Show More
27m 4s
