In this episode of Bookstack, host Richard Aldous sits down with Jonathan Rauch, journalist and author of Cross Purposes: Christianity's Broken Bargain with Democracy (Yale University Press).

Bookstack is now a production of American Purpose at Persuasion.

Follow Persuasion on X (Twitter), LinkedIn, and YouTube to keep up with our latest articles, podcasts, and events, as well as updates from excellent writers across our network.

And, to receive pieces like this in your inbox and support our work, subscribe below. Bookstack listeners can take advantage of a 20% offer for paid Persuasion membership, with access to special columns and bonus Good Fight with Yascha Mounk podcast content.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.persuasion.community/subscribe

In this episode of Bookstack, host Richard Aldous sits down with Nicole Karlis, award-winning journalist and author of Your Brain on Altruism: The Power of Connection and Community During Times of Crisis (University of California Press).

Bookstack is now a production of American Purpose at Persuasion.

Follow Persuasion on X (Twitter), LinkedIn, and YouTube to keep up with our latest articles, podcasts, and events, as well as updates from excellent writers across our network.

And, to receive pieces like this in your inbox and support our work, subscribe below. Bookstack listeners can take advantage of a 20% offer for paid Persuasion membership, with access to special columns and bonus Good Fight with Yascha Mounk podcast content.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.persuasion.community/subscribe

In this week’s episode of Bookstack, host Richard Aldous chats with Admiral James Stavridis, USN (Ret.), former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe, about his latest book, The Restless Wave: A Novel of the United States Navy (Penguin Random House).

Bookstack is now a production of American Purpose at Persuasion.

Follow Persuasion on X (Twitter), LinkedIn, and YouTube to keep up with our latest articles, podcasts, and events, as well as updates from excellent writers across our network.

And, to receive pieces like this in your inbox and support our work, subscribe below. Bookstack listeners can take advantage of a 20% offer for paid Persuasion membership, with access to special columns and bonus Good Fight with Yascha Mounk podcast content.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.persuasion.community/subscribe

What is the nature and value of disagreement, especially in today’s social media-infused landscape? Lee Siegel joins host Richard Aldous to talk about all this, and his new book, Why Argument Matters.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.persuasion.community/subscribe

How does modern authoritarianism work? Daniel Treisman joins host Richard Aldous to talk Putin, Xi, Lee Kwan Yew, and the tools of modern state control—all discussed in his new book, co-authored with Sergei Guriev, Spin Dictators: The Changing Face of Tyranny in the 21st Century.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.persuasion.community/subscribe

With the Ukraine War heading into its fifth week, Christopher M. Smith joins host Richard Aldous to talk about the roots of Ukraine’s turn to the West, American policymaking at the State Department, and his new book Ukraine’s Revolt, Russia’s Revenge.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.persuasion.community/subscribe

Chris Armstrong joins our host Richard Aldous to talk about how existing governing institutions are failing to address one of our most important natural resources: the oceans. Listen to the conversation, and read Armstrong’s new book, A Blue New Deal: Why We Need a New Politics for the Oceans.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.persuasion.community/subscribe

Elon Musk once said that the future cannot be predicted, it can only be discovered. This week, Sebastian Mallaby joins host Richard Aldous to talk about innovation, technology, markets, and his new book The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.persuasion.community/subscribe

What’s it like to be a part of history? With the 50th anniversary of Nixon’s famous trip to China taking place this year, Dwight Chapin joins host Richard Aldous to talk about his new book, The President’s Man: Memoirs of Nixon’s Trusted Aide.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.persuasion.community/subscribe

Walter F. White led two lives: one as a leader of the NAACP in the early twentieth century, and the other as a white newspaperman who covered lynching crimes in the Deep South. This week, A. J. Baime joins host Richard Aldous to discuss his new book, White Lies: The Double Life of Walter F. White and America's Darkest Secret.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.persuasion.community/subscribe

Happy Presidents’ Day! On the show this week, Iain Dale and Alvin Felzenberg join host Richard Aldous to talk about The Presidents: 250 Years of American Political Leadership, a collection of essays by a range of academics, historians, journalists and serving politicians, on all 45 men who have held the office over the last 250 years.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.persuasion.community/subscribe

How do we best think about the abolition movement—as a tepid first step towards righting a historic injustice or a moral breakthrough despite its flaws? Linda Hirschman joins host Richard Aldous to talk about her new book The Color of Abolition: How a Printer, a Prophet, and a Contessa Moved a Nation.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.persuasion.community/subscribe

What to do about the billionaire class? New York Times’ Global Economics Correspondent Peter S. Goodman joins host Richard Aldous to talk about inequality and wealth centralization in the 21st century, as well as his new book, Davos Man: How the Billionaires Devoured the World.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.persuasion.community/subscribe

In this week’s episode, host Richard Aldous talks to fellow Bard College historian Sean McMeekin about his new book, To Overthrow the World: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Communism (Basic Books).

Bookstack is now a production of American Purpose at Persuasion.

Follow Persuasion on Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube to keep up with our latest articles, podcasts, and events, as well as updates from excellent writers across our network.

And, to receive pieces like this in your inbox and support our work, subscribe below. Bookstack listeners can take advantage of a 20% offer for paid Persuasion membership, with access to special columns and bonus Good Fight with Yascha Mounk podcast content.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.persuasion.community/subscribe

What drove Hitler to declare war on the United States after Pearl Harbor, and what, if anything, can that fateful decision to kick off a truly world war tell us about today’s dangerous moment? Brendan Simms and Charlie Laderman join host Richard Aldous to discuss their new book, Hitler’s American Gamble: Pearl Harbor and Germany’s March to Global War.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.persuasion.community/subscribe

George Washington was a farmer, first and foremost. Bruce A. Ragsdale joins host Richard Aldous this week to talk about what new perspectives this underexamined fact sheds on Washington as a leader, the early republic, and the role of slavery in American society.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.persuasion.community/subscribe

Why study the Great Books? The question is not only out of favor these days, it is rarely even asked any more. Roosevelt Montas joins host Richard Aldous for our fiftieth episode to offer a spirited defense of the tradition, and to talk about his new book, Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life and Why They Matter For a New Generation.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.persuasion.community/subscribe

Happy New Year! Why did classical music in America become and stay white? And what could be done to change that? Joseph Horowitz joins host Richard Aldous to discuss his new book, Dvorak’s Prophecy and the Vexed Fate of Black Classical Music.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.persuasion.community/subscribe

Is intellectual integrity in today’s academia possible? Jason L. Riley joins host Richard Aldous to talk about his new book on Thomas Sowell, one of America's most influential conservative thinkers.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.persuasion.community/subscribe

As another COVID winter looms, Brendan Borrell joins host Richard Aldous to discuss his new book The First Shots, about the epic, and inspiring scientific and bureaucratic race to find a vaccine and save the world.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.persuasion.community/subscribe

The origins of the luxury hotel and of modern theater, the start of Gilbert and Sullivan’s career, the roots of Oscar Wilde celebrity—Olivia Williams joins host Richard Aldous to discuss her new book, The Secret Life of the Savoy: Glamour and Intrigue at the World’s Most Famous Hotel.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.persuasion.community/subscribe

Alfred Thayer Mahan would feel right at home in today’s geopolitical landscape: all of the great struggles of our time are playing out atop, within, and below the world’s oceans. Bruce Jones joins host Richard Aldous this week to discuss what the struggle for global supremacy might look like, as outlined in his new book, To Rule the Waves.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.persuasion.community/subscribe

What’s it really like working for Donald Trump? Fiona Hill joins host Richard Aldous to talk about her new book, There Is Nothing For You Here: Finding Opportunity in the 21st Century, her harrowing time at the White House, growing up poor in England, and the roots of our current political dysfunction.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.persuasion.community/subscribe

Just because no history is completely determined by one decision does not mean that NATO expansion in the 1990s could not have been handled better. Mary Sarotte, the Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Distinguished Professor of Historical Studies at Johns Hopkins SAIS joins host Richard Aldous to discuss her new book, Not One Inch: America, Russia, and the Making of Post-Cold War Stalemate.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.persuasion.community/subscribe

Bookstack is back with its 150th episode! On this week's show, host Richard Aldous talks to Marsha E. Barrett, assistant professor of history at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, about her new book, Nelson Rockefeller's Dilemma: The Fight to Save Moderate Republicanism (Three Hills/Cornell University Press). 

Bookstack is now a production of American Purpose at Persuasion.

Follow Persuasion on Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube to keep up with our latest articles, podcasts, and events, as well as updates from excellent writers across our network.

And, to receive pieces like this in your inbox and support our work, subscribe below. Bookstack listeners can take advantage of a 20% offer for paid Persuasion membership, with access to special columns and bonus Good Fight with Yascha Mounk podcast content.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.persuasion.community/subscribe

Climate change, pandemics, social upheaval, technological change—all these things are uprooting our modern conceptions of what a settled life can and should be. This week, Parag Khanna joins host Richard Aldous to talk about all this and his new book Move: The Forces Uprooting Us.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.persuasion.community/subscribe

What does the life of Oscar Wilde tell us about #metoo and predatory celebrity culture, in Victorian England and today? More than you might imagine, and in surprising ways at that. This week, Matthew Sturgis joins host Richard Aldous to talk about his new book, Oscar Wilde: A Life, to discuss all this and more.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.persuasion.community/subscribe

Can America bounce back in an era of crisis? Absolutely it can, says Anne-Marie Slaughter, as she joins our host Richard Aldous to discuss her new book Renewal: From Crisis to Transformation in Our Lives, Work, and Politics.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.persuasion.community/subscribe

The importance of language cannot be overstated in today’s overheated political climate. To think through how best to navigate the language wars, Professor Harold James joins host Richard Aldous to discuss his new book The War of Words: A Glossary of Globalization.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.persuasion.community/subscribe

As his most recent book Battlegrounds comes out in paperback, General H.R. McMaster joins host Richard Aldous for a whirlwind tour of the geostrategic landscape for the United States, and the challenges the country faces in sustaining its commitments abroad.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.persuasion.community/subscribe

Could it all have gone differently? Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili, author of the new book Land, The State, and War: Property Institutions and Political Order in Afghanistan, joins host Richard Aldous to talk about what the West repeatedly gets wrong in tackling the devilishly difficult problems of international development and democracy promotion.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.persuasion.community/subscribe

Welcome back, dear listeners, to Season Two of Bookstack! With the twentieth anniversary of the Al Qaeda terror attacks on New York and Washington approaching this weekend, our host Richard Aldous sat down with author Toby Harnden to discuss his new book First Casualty: The Untold Story of the CIA Mission to Avenge 9/11.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.persuasion.community/subscribe

Australia is the world’s test case for how a democratic country’s dependence on China can be turned against it. The Sydney Morning Herald’s Peter Hartcher joins Richard Aldous to discuss exactly how this has happened in his new book, Red Zone: China’s Challenge and Australia’s Future.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.persuasion.community/subscribe

Is there any hope for safeguarding privacy in the age of the internet? Firmin DeBrabander, professor of philosophy at Maryland Institute College of Art, joins Richard Aldous to discuss his book Life After Privacy: Reclaiming Democracy in a Surveillance Society.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.persuasion.community/subscribe

This week, author Shawna Kay Rodenberg joins host Richard Aldous to discuss her moving new book, Kin: A Memoir, about family, forgiveness, and growing up in Eastern Kentucky.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.persuasion.community/subscribe

On this week's episode of Bookstack, host Richard Aldous is joined by Clara Bingham to discuss her new book, The Movement: How Women's Liberation Transformed America 1963-1973.

Bookstack is now a production of American Purpose at Persuasion.

Follow Persuasion on Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube to keep up with our latest articles, podcasts, and events, as well as updates from excellent writers across our network.

And, to receive pieces like this in your inbox and support our work, subscribe below. Bookstack listeners can take advantage of a 20% offer for paid Persuasion membership, with access to special columns and bonus Good Fight with Yascha Mounk podcast content.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.persuasion.community/subscribe

In times of change at breakneck speeds, we need a different lens for understanding the world. Financial journalist and anthropology PhD Gillian Tett joins host Richard Aldous to discuss how we can use an anthropological lens to cope with an increasingly kaleidoscopic reality.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.persuasion.community/subscribe

Larger-than-life figures like Edward Said often become prisoners of their own legacy. Author Timothy Brennan, a student of Said’s, joins host Richard Aldous to discuss his fascinating new biography, Places of Mind: A Life of Edward Said, a book that tries to tease out the contradictions and complications that shaped one of the most influential public intellectuals of the 20th century.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.persuasion.community/subscribe

With news getting comparatively less bizarre as 2021 rolls on, presidential historian and former White House aide Tevi Troy joins host Richard Aldous to talk about the history of White House intrigue as described in his recent book, Fight House: Rivalries in the White House from Truman to Trump.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.persuasion.community/subscribe

Richard Nixon, an almost Shakespearean character, loomed over 20th century American history in ways that prefigure Trump. Author Michael Dobbs joins host Richard Aldous to discuss this deeply flawed individual, and his new book King Richard: Nixon and Watergate, an American Tragedy.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.persuasion.community/subscribe

President Dwight D. Eisenhower was an exemplary strategic thinker. Author and policy strategist Susan Eisenhower, who happens to be one of Ike’s four grandchildren, joins host Richard Aldous to talk about her new book How Ike Led: The Principles Behind Eisenhower’s Biggest Decisions.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.persuasion.community/subscribe

Was the Second World War really the “good war”? And are we blinded to properly assessing it by unduly focusing on the German side of the conflict? Historian Sean McMeekin joins host Richard Aldous to discuss all this, as well as his new book, Stalin’s War.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.persuasion.community/subscribe

The rich history of Africans in Europe, from the third century onwards, is understudied and under-appreciated in modern society. Olivette Otele, Professor of History of Slavery and Memory of enslavement at the University of Bristol, joins host Richard Aldous to talk about her new book, African Europeans: An Untold History.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.persuasion.community/subscribe

Is Britain a part of Europe or not? And why didn’t a reluctant membership in the Common Market, the European Community, and ultimately the European Union ultimately lead it to accept a full European orientation?
Our guest Vernon Bogdanor, professor of government at Kings College, joins host Richard Aldous to talk about his new book, Britain and Europe in a Troubled World.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.persuasion.community/subscribe

As the space race heats up once again, author Stephen Walker joins our host Richard Aldous to discuss his remarkable new book Beyond: The Astonishing Story of the First Human to Leave Our Planet and Journey Into Space.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.persuasion.community/subscribe

From an early age, Jack, Bobby, and Ted Kennedy developed a deep understanding of the different peoples, cultures, and ideologies around the world, a keen appreciation for the challenges that such differences created for the United States, and a strong desire to reshape America’s response to them.
Lawrence J. Haas joins host Richard Aldous to talk about his new book, The Kennedys in the World: How Jack, Bobby, and Ted Remade America’s Empire.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.persuasion.community/subscribe

Bookstack is back! On today's episode, host Richard Aldous talks to James Graham Wilson, historian at the U.S. Department of State, about James's new book, America's Cold Warrior: Paul Nitze and National Security from Roosevelt to Reagan (Cornell University Press).

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.persuasion.community/subscribe

For generations, Americans have looked to education as the solution to economic disadvantage. Nevertheless, today the gap between rich and poor is widening.
This week, Cristina Groeger joins Richard Aldous to talk about her new book, The Education Trap: Schools and the Remaking of Inequality in Boston, and discusses how education came to be seen as a panacea even as it paved the way for deepening inequality.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.persuasion.community/subscribe

In a time of division, difference, and cancel culture, what can we learn from Shakespeare (who himself has been caught in the crossfire of today’s culture wars)?
On today’s episode, author Paula Marantz Cohen joins host Richard Aldous to discuss all this, as well as her new book Of Human Kindness: What Shakespeare Teaches Us About Empathy.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.persuasion.community/subscribe

Roya Hakakian joins host Richard Aldous to talk about her new book A Beginner’s Guide to America. Moved to write the book amid the uproar over immigration kicked off during the Trump presidency, she talks about her own experiences as a new immigrant from Iran, the challenges and rewards of adapting to a new country, and the difficulties of leaving the familiarity of home behind.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.persuasion.community/subscribe