Bookstack

In today’s episode of Bookstack, host Richard Aldous sits down with Marc Fasteau and Ian Fletcher — board members of the Coalition for a Prosperous America and co-authors of Industrial Policy for the United States: Winning the Competition for Good Jobs and High-Value Industries (Cambridge University Press). Bookstack is now a production of American Purpose at Persuasion .Host: Richard Aldous Produ...

In today’s episode of Bookstack, host Richard Aldous sits down with Edward Luce, U.S. National Editor at the Financial Times and author Zbig: The Life of Zbigniew Brzezinski, America’s Great Power Prophet (Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster). Bookstack is now a production of American Purpose at Persuasion .Host: Richard Aldous Producer: Laura Silverman Follow Persuasion on X (Twitter ), LinkedIn...

In today’s episode of Bookstack, host Richard Aldous sits down with Matthew C. Klein, economist, writer behind The Overshoot on Substack, and co-author. with Michael Pettis, of Trade Wars Are Class Wars: How Rising Inequality Distorts the Global Economy and Threatens International Peace (Yale University Press). Bookstack is now a production of American Purpose at Persuasion . Follow Persuasion on...

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...

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,...

In this episode of Bookstack, host Richard Aldous sits down with Nir Arielli, international historian and author, to discuss his new book, The Dead Sea: A 10,000 Year History (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 updat...

In this week’s episode of Bookstack, host Richard Aldous sits down with economist and financial journalist Wolfgang Münchau to discuss his new book, Kaput: The End of the German Miracle (Swift 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 upda...

In this week’s episode of Bookstack, host Richard Aldous sits down with Tevi Troy, presidential historian, former U.S. Deputy Secretary of Heath and Human Services, and prolific author to discuss Troy’s new book, The Power and the Money: The Epic Clashes Between Commanders in Chief and Titans of Industry (Skyhorse Publishing). Bookstack is now a production of American Purpose at Persuasion . Follo...

In this week’s episode of Bookstack, host Richard Aldous sits down with Katherine C. Epstein, associate professor of history at Rutgers University-Camden and author of the new book, Analog Superpowers: How Twentieth-Century Technology Theft Built the National Security State (The University of Chicago Press). Bookstack is now a production of American Purpose at Persuasion . Follow Persuasion on X (...

In this week’s episode of Bookstack, host Richard Aldous talks to presidential historian Lindsay M. Chervinsky, author of the new book, Making the Presidency: John Adams and the Precedents That Forged the Republic (Oxford University Press). Note: this episode was recorded in early January 2025. Bookstack is now a production of American Purpose at Persuasion . Follow Persuasion on X (Twitter ), Lin...

In this week's episode of Bookstack, host Richard Aldous talks to Michael Mandelbaum, author of the new book, The Titans of the Twentieth Century: How They Made History and the History They Made (Oxford 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 ev...

In this week's episode of Bookstack, host Richard Aldous talks to Johns Hopkins epidemiologist Caitlin Rivers, PhD, about her new book,  Crisis Averted: The Hidden Science of Fighting Outbreaks (Viking).  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...

In this week’s episode of Bookstack , recorded in the week post-U.S. presidential election, host Richard Aldous chats with American historian Hyrum Lewis about his latest book, co-written with his brother Verlan Lewis, The Myth of Left and Right: How the Political Spectrum Misleads and Harms America (Oxford University Press) Bookstack is now a production of American Purpose at Persuasion . Follow...

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 late...

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...

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 Pers...

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 writer...

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....

The typical Black American family has fifteen cents of wealth for every comparable dollar that a White American family holds. Exploring the historical expansion of the wealth gap, journalists Louise Story and Ebony Reed join Richard Aldous to reveal how their investigation into the U.S. financial system uncovered scores of setbacks that continue to perpetuate that gap. The result of their careful...

The global pandemic unmasked not just the many vulnerabilities in the world’s supply chain, but also its hidden innerworkings. Reporting on the world from an economic lens for over twenty-five years, award-winning New York Times journalist Peter S. Goodman joins Richard Aldous to share insights from his latest book, How the World Ran Out of Everything ( https://www.harpercollins.com/products/how-t...

How did Dwight D. Eisenhower, a man of simple Kansas-bred beginnings, inspire implicit trust by his historical peers, from FDR and Churchill, to Stalin and DeGaulle? And how did he become a shaper of a new world order, asserting America’s post-war dominance? Michel Paradis, author of The Light of Battle: Eisenhower, D-Day, and the Birth of the American Superpower ( https://www.harpercollins.com/pr...

Is there hope to be found amidst the current political climate? How to generate solidarity in an atmosphere of growing difference? Renowned sociologist James Davison Hunter tackles these questions in his new book, Democracy and Solidarity: On the Cultural Roots of America's Political Crisis ( https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300274370/democracy-and-solidarity/ ). Hunter joins Richard Aldous in...

When President Joe Biden stated in 2022 that the United States would defend Taiwan military in the event of a Chinese invasion, he crossed a line of ambiguity that had been purposefully danced around for decades. And yet, even though such a scenario would pit two nuclear powers against each another, “The United States does not know why Taiwan is important to it,” argues Sulmaan Wasif Khan. He join...

In divided times, many Americans are sealing themselves off from those who think differently. Diana McLain Smith tells a different story in her new book, Remaking the Space Between Us: How Citizens Can Work Together to Build a Better Future for All ( https://www.remakingthespace.org/book ), focusing on the tens of thousands reaching out to fellow Americans across the divides to promote understandi...

Thanks to American missionaries’ successes around the globe, the face of evangelicalism is no longer White America. In Soul by Soul: The Evangelical Mission to Spread the Gospel to Muslims ( https://globalreports.columbia.edu/books/soul-by-soul/ ), Adriana Carranca reveals an extraordinary tale that has been under the radar: Missionaries from Latin America are leading the way in spreading the Gosp...