Mark Twain didn’t just write American classics, he lived one of the most powerful personal transformations in history. In Part 2 of this conversation, Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Ron Chernow returns to join Ryan for a deep dive into Twain’s remarkable moral evolution. They discuss how Twain’s journey mirrors those of Ulysses S. Grant and John D. Rockef ... Show More
Jan 28
Bert Kreischer Has a Stoicism Problem
Bert Kreischer wants to be Stoic. It just doesn’t come naturally. In this episode, he talks with Ryan about why Stoicism feels almost impossible for him, why criticism still gets under his skin, his hot take on why Nero may have been a good emperor, and some truly insane stories ... Show More
45m 25s
Oct 2017
120. Nancy Koehn (Historian) – Holdin' on for a Hero
What do Rachel Carson, Frederick Douglass, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ernest Shackleton, and Abraham Lincoln have in common, aside from being historical figures you’ve probably heard of? That’s the question my guest today tries to answer in her new book Forged in Crisis: The Power of C ... Show More
49m 33s
Dec 2023
Dorothea Lange portraits, William Blake
Episode No. 632 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features curators Philip Brookman and Julian Brooks. Brookman is the curator of "Dorothea Lange: Seeing People," at the National Gallery of Art, Washington. The exhibition presents Lange's decades-long portraiture practice in over 1 ... Show More
1h 7m
Aug 2025
724 The Stranger by Albert Camus (#22 Greatest Book of All Time) | Christopher Isherwood (with Jake Poller) | Postcard from a Listener in Yunnan
Put on your black turtleneck! Jacke starts the episode with a look at #22 on the list of The Greatest Books of All Time, The Stranger by Albert Camus. Then he talks to Jake Poller about British and American novelist and playwright Christopher Isherwood, whose Goodbye to Berlin wa ... Show More
1h 1m