Stan’s guest this week is renowned historian John Ferling, who talks about his new (and perhaps final) book on the American Revolution, published just in time for the event’s 250th anniversary. Ferling reflects on his life and his remarkable 50-year career as one of America’s leading historians of the Founding era.
Will abortion be legal? Should people of the same sex be allowed to marry? Stan’s guest is UCLA law professor Stuart Banner, discussing his latest and very timely book, The Most Powerful Court in the World: A History of the Supreme Court of the United States, published in November by Oxford University Press.
Do we study the deep past only to justify our present actions toward those we deem less “civilized”? Are humans fundamentally good and altruistic or mean and self-serving? Is “human nature” warlike or peaceful? Stan’s guest this week is author and historian Stefanos Geroulanos of New York University, discussing all of these issues from his new book, The Invention of Prehistory: Empire, Violence, and Our Obsession with Human Origins, published in 2024 by Liveright.
Stan’s guest this week is renowned architect Witold Rybczynski, who discusses his new book, The Driving Machine: A Design History of the Car, published by W.W. Norton. In this wide-ranging discussion, the author reflects on why cars are reflections of our national character, from the Model T to the Range Rover, and how automotive legends like Carl Benz, Ferdinand Porsche, and Harley Earl, created the cars we love and hate, from the VW Beetle to the Mustang and the Corvette, from the SUV to the Tesla Cybertruck.
Do people prefer texting to face-to-face encounters? Will handwriting become obsolete? Have we lost the mental capacity for patience and boredom? And if we have, does it matter? Stan’s guest this week is author and historian Christine Rosen of the American Enterprise Institute, who tackles the impact of technology on what it means to be human in her new book, The Extinction of Experience: Being Human in a Disembodied World (published in 2024 by WW Norton).
