583. Are We Living Through the Most Revolutionary Period in History?
4 April - 1 hour 2 minsFareed Zakaria says yes. But it’s not just political revolution — it’s economic, technological, even emotional. He doesn’t offer easy solutions but he does offer some hope.
SOURCES:Fareed Zakaria, journalist and author.
RESOURCES:Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present, by Fareed Zakaria (2024)."The Ultimate Election Year: All the Elections Around the World in 2024," by Koh Ewe (TIME, 2023)."The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism," by Vanessa Williamson, Theda Skocpol, and John Coggin (Perspectives on Politics, 2011).The Post-American World, by Fareed Zakaria (2008).The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad, by Fareed Za...
586. How Does the Lost World of Vienna Still Shape Our Lives?
From politics and economics to psychology and the arts, many of the modern ideas we take for granted emerged a century ago from a single European capital. In this episode of the Freakonomics Radio Book Club, the historian Richard Cockett explores all those ideas — and how the arrival of fascism can ruin in a few years what took generations to build.
57 mins
2 May Finished
Extra: Why Is 23andMe Going Under? (Update)
Five years ago, we published an episode about the boom in home DNA testing kits, focusing on the high-flying firm 23andMe and its C.E.O. Anne Wojcicki. Their flight has been extremely bumpy since then. This update includes an additional interview with the Wall Street Journal reporter who has been investigating the firm’s collapse.
1 hour 2 mins
29 April Finished
585. A Social Activist in Prime Minister’s Clothing
Justin Trudeau, facing record-low approval numbers, is doubling down on his progressive agenda. But he is so upbeat (and Canada-polite) that it’s easy to miss just how radical his vision is. Can he make it work?
52 mins
25 April Finished
584. How to Pave the Road to Hell
So you want to help people? That’s great — but beware the law of unintended consequences. Three stories from the modern workplace.
43 mins
18 April Finished
Extra: The Men Who Started a Thinking Revolution (Update)
The psychologist Daniel Kahneman — a Nobel laureate and the author of “Thinking, Fast and Slow” — recently died at age 90. Along with his collaborator Amos Tversky, he changed how we all think about decision-making. The journalist Michael Lewis told the Kahneman-Tversky story in a 2016 book called "The Undoing Project." In this episode, Lewis explains why they had such a profound influence.
34 mins
14 April Finished
Why Are There So Many Bad Bosses? (Update)
People who are good at their jobs routinely get promoted into bigger jobs they’re bad at. We explain why firms keep producing incompetent managers — and why that’s unlikely to change.
49 mins
11 April Finished