In Goliath: The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy (Simon & Schuster, 2019), Matt Stoller explains how authoritarianism and populism have returned to American politics for the first time in eighty years, as the outcome of the 2016 election shook our faith in democratic institutions. It has brought to the fore dangerous forces that many modern ... Show More
Yesterday
Carl Benedikt Frey, "How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation, and the Fate of Nations" (Princeton UP, 2025)
In How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation, and the Fate of Nations (Princeton University Press, 2025), Carl Benedikt Frey challenges the conventional belief that economic and technological progress is inevitable. For most of human history, stagnation was the norm, and even tod ... Show More
54m 29s
Nov 18
On Democracy and Bullshit with Hélène Landemore
Today I’m speaking with Hélène Landemore, Professor of Political Science at Yale University, about Democracy and Bullshit, with a special focus on her 2020 book, Open Democracy: Reinventing Popular Rule for the Twenty-First Century (Princeton University Press, 2020).
Bullshit is ... Show More
1h 6m
Nov 2023
Charles S. Maier, "The Project-State and Its Rivals: A New History of the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries" (Harvard UP, 2023)
We thought we knew the story of the twentieth century. For many in the West, after the two world conflicts and the long cold war, the verdict was clear: democratic values had prevailed over dictatorship. But if the twentieth century meant the triumph of liberalism, as many intell ... Show More
50m 49s
Sep 2024
Matt Grossmann and David A. Hopkins, "Polarized by Degrees: How the Diploma Divide and the Culture War Transformed American Politics" (Cambridge UP, 2024)
Over the past several decades, American society has experienced fundamental changes - from shifting relations between social groups and evolving language and behavior norms to the increasing value of a college degree. These transformations have polarized the nation's political cl ... Show More
32m 33s
Mar 2025
Ep105. Neoliberalism: The Ultimate Disorderer? With George Monbiot
Forget Christianity, Judaism, New Age Spirituality, and Buddhism, a new type of religion drives 21st century Western thought. It goes by the shadowy name of Neoliberalism: the commodification of everything; Markets and the private sector ascendent; The deliberate attempt to reduc ... Show More
53m 40s
Sep 2022
Alex Williams and Jeremy Gilbert, "Hegemony Now: How Big Tech and Wall Street Won the World (And How We Win it Back)" (Verso, 2022)
Today power is in the hands of Wall Street and Silicon Valley. How do we understand this transformation in power? And what can we do about it?
We cannot change anything until we have a better understanding of how power works, who holds it, and why that matters. Through upgrading ... Show More
1h 1m
Jan 2025
The Epiphany: What Joyce, the Dead, Musk and Twitter Teach Us About Economic Power
We explore today's seismic changes in media and society, by tracing historical parallels between James Joyce’s <em>The Dead</em> (1907) and today’s digital age. Joyce’s observations on in The Dead about generational divides, the rise of newspapers, and societal shi ... Show More
33m 46s
Nov 2024
Harvey Whitehouse, "Inheritance: The Evolutionary Origins of the Modern World" (Harvard UP, 2024)
Each of us is endowed with an inheritance--a set of evolved biases and cultural tools that shape every facet of our behavior. For countless generations, this inheritance has taken us to ever greater heights: driving the rise of more sophisticated technologies, more organized reli ... Show More
44m 17s
May 2024
The Bishops, the Billionaires, and the Catholic Far-Right
NAR WATCH: a monthly episode on the New Apostolic Reformation with Dr. Matthew Taylor debuts on the SWAJ feed THIS week. Become a premium member to get full access! https://axismundi.supercast.com/
Brad speaks with Mary Jo McConahay, who tells the story of how the United States C ... Show More
37m 53s