Marcel Dirsus is a political scientist and the author of How Tyrants Fall: And How Nations Survive. As Non-Resident Fellow at the Institute for Security Policy at Kiel University, Dirsus mainly works on regime instability, political violence and German foreign policy. His new book takes us into the downfall of dictators ranging from Libya's Muammar Gaddafi t ... Show More
Jul 16
Olivia Laing on Art, Solitude, and The Lonely City at 10 (Part One)
Olivia Laing is known as one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary literature. Their work is renowned for its capacity to make abstract ideas feel precise, intimate, and beautifully thought through without ever talking down to the reader. Their books include the number o ... Show More
39m 28s
Jul 14
How Did World War II Create Modern Asia? With Professor Hans van de Ven
Is our history of World War II missing its most important chapter? For many in the West, the story of the Second World War is told through D-Day, the Blitz and the liberation of Europe. Yet some of the war's most consequential battles were fought in Asia, where the conflict claim ... Show More
34m 2s
Jul 12
An Evening with Maggie O’Farrell: Land (Part Two)
Maggie O’Farrell is the award-winning author of nine novels, including Hamnet, a breathtaking fictional retelling of the death of Shakespeare’s only son from the bubonic plague. This much-loved novel won the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2020, and this year the celebrated film ada ... Show More
37m 56s
Jul 2024
#376 — How Democracies Fail
<p dir="ltr">Sam Harris and Anne Applebaum discuss the nature of modern autocracies and how democracies fail. They discuss the power of ideas, why autocracies seek to undermine democracies, cooperation among dictators, how Western financial experts and investors have enabled auto ... Show More
1h 7m
Feb 2022
71: Taking and Keeping Power: The Dictator's Handbook
"Democracies are not lucky. They do not attract civic-minded leaders by chance. Rather, they attract survival-oriented leaders who understand that, given their dependence on many essentials, they can only come to and stay in power if they figure out the right basket of public goo ... Show More
1h 59m
Jan 2019
Stephen Greenblatt on Why Tyrants Rise
Mad, bad rulers don't rise by accident. Tina talks with Harvard's Stephen Greenblatt, author of the provocative bestseller Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics, about the uniformly infantile nature of tyrants, how they manipulate popular ignorance and how they're propelled by multiple ... Show More
27m 10s
Aug 2025
#429 — The New World Order
<p dir="ltr">Sam Harris speaks with Anne Applebaum about the erosion of democracy at home and abroad. They discuss the Sudanese civil war and the outside forces involved, America's retreat from global leadership, the impacts of USAID cuts, gerrymandering, the integrity of U.S. el ... Show More
26m 52s
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/SohrabAhmari" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Sohrab Ahmari</a>, author of <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/708057/tyranny-inc-by-sohrab-ahmari/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow"><em>Tyranny, Inc.</em></a>, talks about the dic ... Show More
