Uncommon Knowledge

Victor Davis Hanson—fifth-generation rancher in California’s San Joaquin Valley, classicist, military historian, Hoover Institution senior fellow, and author of more than two dozen books, including The Case For Trump, The Second World Wars, and The Dying Citizen—joins Peter Robinson to discuss the American founding and its critics.   Drawing on ancient Greece and Rome, Magna Carta, the French Revo...

Renowned historian and Hoover Institution senior fellow Frank Dikötter discusses his new book,  Red Dawn Over China: How Communism Conquered a Quarter of Humanity . Drawing from tightly controlled Chinese Communist Party archives and Soviet Comintern documents, Dikötter systematically dismantles decades of romanticized Western myths—originally popularized by journalist Edgar Snow—surrounding the r...

Stephen Kotkin returns to Uncommon Knowledge for another round of five questions, this time on Iran, China, Ukraine, and the future of the American republic. Kotkin argues that America still possesses unmatched strengths — economic, technological, military, and cultural — but warns that self-inflicted political dysfunction could squander them. Kotkin dissects Trump’s Iran strategy, explains why Ch...

Why is America struggling to keep pace with China? Can Silicon Valley help rebuild US military power? And what happens when artificial intelligence transforms warfare? Anduril founder Palmer Luckey joins Peter Robinson to argue that America must rethink everything from defense procurement to manufacturing, innovation, and national identity itself. Luckey explains why he founded Anduril Industries...

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis joins Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson at the Governor’s Mansion in Tallahassee to explain how Florida transformed from a razor-thin swing state into one of the fastest-growing and most politically distinct states in the country. DeSantis outlines his governing philosophy—pairing conservative policy with a focus on competence—and details the results: rapid popul...

Peter Robinson sits down with mathematician John Lennox, philosopher of science Stephen Meyer, and chemist James Tour to examine what modern science really suggests about the origin of the universe and life itself. Moving from the Big Bang and the discovery of cosmic beginnings, to the fine-tuning of the physical constants that make life possible, to the extraordinary complexity and information em...

Is conservatism losing its way? Ben Shapiro says yes—and explains why. In this candid interview, Shapiro takes aim at conspiracy culture, fractures inside the right, and the growing distrust of institutions reshaping American politics. From college campuses to foreign policy to the future of media, this is a blunt assessment of where the movement stands—and where it could be headed next. Subscribe...

Peter Robinson is joined by Zohar Palti — Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution and former head of the Intelligence Directorate in Israel’s Mossad— for a rare, inside account of how Israel thinks about war, deterrence, and survival. From the shock of October 7 to the current campaign against Iran, Palti explains why Israel sees both nuclear capability and ballistic missiles as ex...

Former US ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul returns to Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson to discuss his new book,  Autocrats vs. Democrats: China, Russia, America, and the New Global Disorder . McFaul explains why Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and today’s autocratic leaders fundamentally do not think like we do—and why that misunderstanding has shaped some of America’s most consequential fore...

In December 2025, former US Senator Ben Sasse announced that he had been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. That’s the primary topic for this far-reaching conversation about mortality, faith, and what truly matters when time is short. Sasse reflects on “redeeming the time”—holding ambition lightly, loving family more deliberately, and resisting the urge to make politics or professional succ...

Thomas Sowell delivers a sweeping critique of American education, affirmative action, and modern universities, drawing on his own life story—from Harlem classrooms to Ivy League institutions—decades of research, and hard data. Sowell argues that ideology has replaced knowledge and that well-intentioned policies often harm the very people they are meant to help. He explores intersecting issues of r...

Is math something humans invent—or something we discover? And why does it describe the universe so uncannily well? In this episode of Uncommon Knowledge, Peter Robinson sits down with mathematicians David Berlinski, Sergiu Klainerman, and Stephen Meyer to explore one of the deepest mysteries in science and philosophy: the reality of mathematics. From the simple certainty that 2 + 2 = 4 to the mind...

Pianist and conductor Ignat Solzhenitsyn reflects on growing up in exile as the son of Nobel laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, moving from Soviet persecution to a quiet childhood in rural Vermont. Ignat recounts how music, faith, and Russian culture sustained his family far from home, how cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich helped set him on a musical path, and what it meant to carry a hist...

For the second edition of the George P. Shultz Memorial Lecture Series, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, Hoover Institution Director Condoleezza Rice, and Hoover Senior Fellow Michael Boskin assemble for a wide-ranging conversation on the economic mind and legacy of George P. Shultz. From his early career as a labor economist at MIT and the University of Chicago to his battles in the White Hou...

Peter Robinson sits down at Yale University with the “dean of Cold War historians,” John Lewis Gaddis—Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer of Long Telegram author George F. Kennan and one of America’s most influential thinkers on grand strategy. From the origins of the Cold War to the nuclear age, from Vietnam to détente, and from Ronald Reagan to Mikhail Gorbachev, Gaddis offers a masterclass in how...

How does the Supreme Court really work—and how does one of its youngest justices balance life, law, and seven children? In this in-depth conversation, Justice Amy Coney Barrett discusses her new book,  Listening to the Law: Reflections on the Court and the Constitution . Barrett explains the principles behind originalism, the Court’s reasoning in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, and h...

This special episode of Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson features our most requested guest: Hoover senior fellow and acclaimed economist and author Dr. Thomas Sowell. But rather than discussing Sowell’s many books, this conversation explores the full arc of Sowell’s life — from his childhood, along a dirt road in North Carolina, through his years in Harlem, the Marine Corps, Harvard, and ult...

Niall Ferguson, Victor Davis Hanson, and Stephen Kotkin are all senior fellows at the Hoover Institution, and this is the first time they have appeared together in a public discussion. The topic: Is the United States in decline or on the verge of renewal? Exploring topics including Donald Trump’s second term and the transformation of the Republican Party, relations between China and Taiwan, Americ...

Yale historian and memoirist Carlos Eire recounts his extraordinary journey from being an 11-year-old Cuban boy in Operation Peter Pan—sent to the United States to escape Fidel Castro’s regime—to becoming a National Book Award–winning author and chaired professor at Yale. Eire discusses the painful separation from his family, the challenges of assimilation, and the lifelong tension between his Cub...

Is humanity running out of people? Demographer and American Enterprise Institute scholar Nicholas Eberstadt joins Peter Robinson to explain why birthrates are collapsing across the globe—from China and Japan to Europe and the United States—and what this means for the future of prosperity, freedom, and global power. Can immigration save America? Will Africa remain the great exception? And is there...

August 15th, 2025 is the 80th anniversary of the surrender of the Japanese to Allied Forces in the Pacific, ending World War II . To mark the occasion, Peter Robinson sits down with Jonathan Horn and Ian Toll to examine the most contested decision of World War II: the use of atomic weapons against Japan. Building from the brutal endgame—Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and Curtis LeMay’s incendiary raids—the co...

Was Woodrow Wilson a visionary statesman—or a reactionary bigot? Peter Robinson sits down with historian and former SEC Chairman Christopher Cox to discuss his latest book,  Woodrow Wilson: The Light Withdrawn , Cox’s meticulously researched biography of the 28th president of the United States. Together, they explore Wilson’s complicated legacy: his towering achievements as a reformer and wartime...

Has the Fed lost its way? Hoover Visiting Fellow Kevin Warsh thinks it has and offers solutions on how to fix it. Kevin Warsh is the Shepard Family Distinguished Visiting Fellow in Economics at the Hoover Institution, a partner at Duquesne Family Office LLC, the investment firm of Stanley Druckenmiller, a former governor at the Federal Reserve, and on the short list of candidates to be the next ch...

In this wide-ranging conversation, Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito discusses the principles that guide his judicial philosophy. From his majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson to his views on originalism, precedent, and the role of the courts in American democracy, Alito offers a candid defense of the Constitution as a fixed and enduring document. He explores the meaning of the Equal Pr...

Peter Robinson interviews Speaker of the House Mike Johnson about the contentious passage of the “One, Big, Beautiful Bill,” a sweeping budget reconciliation measure crafted to implement core elements of the Trump agenda. Johnson defends the bill against criticism from Elon Musk and others, arguing it delivers historic tax cuts, $1.6 trillion in savings, and crucial investments in border security...