Bookstack

“Bookstack” returns with renowned Oxford professor of European studies Timothy Garton Ash. In his latest book, Homelands: A Personal History of Europe ( https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300257076/homelands/ ), Ash chronicles the spread of freedom across Europe since 1945 through his personal perspective as an “English European.” He sits down with host Richard Aldous to share his thoughts about...

Could there really be a straight line between the self-made person of talent and the branded personality made famous by reality TV and the internet? In Self-Made: Creating Our Identities from Da Vinci to the Kardashians ( https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/tara-isabella-burton/self-made/9781541789012/?lens=publicaffairs ), Tara Isabella Burton shows how the curating of an “authentic” self so...

If political activism has died down in Egypt since the 2011 revolution, there is energy bubbling beneath the surface, says Yasmine El Rashidi in Laughter in the Dark: Egypt to the Tune of Change ( https://globalreports.columbia.edu/books/laughter-in-the-dark/ ). The country experiencing its harshest repression in decades is at the same time inhabited by a majority of young people, who, through a n...

Hugh Howey created a fantastical post-apocalyptic underground world in the first book of his Silo series, [Wool]( https://www.amazon.com/Silo-Saga-Omnibus-Shift-Stories-ebook/dp/B088BBLMGS?ref=astauthormpb)_ , off of which Apple TV launched its eponymous series this spring. Howey joins host Richard Aldous to discuss how he explores ideas about humanity and social order through the genre of sci-fi,...

The State of Israel engenders a wide range of emotions among onlookers, running the gamut from admiration to revulsion. In his new book Impossible Takes Longer ( https://www.harpercollins.com/products/impossible-takes-longer-daniel-gordis ), Daniel Gordis uses a wide lens to assess where the country is today in light of the goals of those who founded it. He joins host Richard Aldous for a broad lo...

Why are Americans today so hostile toward opposing political viewpoints? Ronnie Janoff-Bulman contends that the answer has a lot to do with the different ways conservatives and liberals think about morality, and the fact that Republicans and Democrats are more cleanly sorted along this divide than in the past. She joins host Richard Aldous to discuss her new book, The Two Moralities: Conservatives...

Thirty-plus years after the end of the Cold War, the United States has yet to rethink its strategic role in the world and the security architecture that supports it. In their new book, Age of Danger: Keeping America Safe in an Era of New Superpowers, New Weapons, and New Threats ( https://ageofdanger.com ), Andrew Hoehn and Thom Shanker argue that America awoke from its counterterrorism wars to a...

9/11 led the young Billy Reilly to an exploration of international affairs and world religions, and ultimately to the FBI. When he disappeared on the job in Russia in 2015, the trail went cold, in large part thanks to the very same organization Billy had served. Wall Street Journal reporter Brett Forrest took up the trail, determined to solved the mystery of Billy’s disappearance. He joins host Ri...

The aviation industry has the goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, but the development of existing technologies that can get us there is lagging far behind. In his new book Flying Green: On the Frontiers of New Aviation ( https://globalreports.columbia.edu/books/flying-green/ ), Christopher de Bellaigue explains why flight and carbon consciousness are not mutually exclusive. He joins host Ri...

George Kennan was a man of contradictions: an icon yet something of an enigma, a strategist who “used emotionally evocative language in the name of cool, calculated realism,” a bold thinker who warned of overreach. Frank Costigliola puts the architect of Cold War containment in a larger context in his new book, Kennan: A Life between Worlds ( https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/97806911654...

The legendary 007 series continues with author Kim Sherwood’s novel, authorized by Ian Fleming’s estate. Sherwood, who as a child imagined herself as Bond, lives out a lifelong dream by writing the next act for the iconic character. She joins host Richard Aldous to discuss her new book, Double or Nothing: James Bond is Missing and Time Is Running Out. ( https://www.harpercollins.com/products/doubl...

Ever fantasize about quitting your job and hitting the open road? Blythe Roberson did just that, embracing freedom and the natural beauty of America—with an agenda. She joins host Richard Aldous to speak about the fruits of her labor of love, America the Beautiful?: One Woman in a Borrowed Prius on the Road Most Traveled ( https://www.harpercollins.com/products/america-the-beautiful-blythe-roberso...

There has been plenty of ink spilled about democracies dying and populists rising. AP contributing editor Charles Dunst, deputy director of research and analytics at the Asia Group, takes the practical route. How can we shore up democracies to inoculate them against the tides of illiberalism, and remind those looking for a winning governance model that democracy can deliver? Dunst joins host Richa...

In 2015, as refugees poured into Greece from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere, the assistance delivered to desperate migrants at sea and on land was largely provided at the hand of individual volunteers. Dana Sachs joins host Richard Aldous to discuss the failure of the international aid community and heroism of those who stepped in as detailed in her new book, All Else Failed: The Unlikely...

In an era of fake news and invented personalities, it’s worth looking back to a time when deception could mean the difference between life and death. In his new book, The Collaborators: Three Stories of Deception and Survival in World War II ( https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/659322/the-collaborators-by-ian-buruma/ ), Ian Buruma delves into three World War II-era characters whose lives blu...

The American tendency in foreign affairs to think in Manichaean terms is exemplified by the Biden Administration’s democracy-versus-autocracy lens. Yet such thinking can result in a failure of imagination, says Robert D. Kaplan, which he believes explains his own regretted support for the 2003 Iraq War. Kaplan joins host Richard Aldous to discuss his new book, The Tragic Mind: Fear, Fate, and the...

When NASA accepted its first class of civilian astronauts in 1978, it welcomed a historic group marked by many firsts: the first American woman, the first African American, the first Jewish person, the first Asian American, the first gay person, and the first mother. This week, Meredith Bagby, author of The New Guys: The Historic Class of Astronauts That Broke Barriers and Changed the Face of Spac...

Such was the prestige of cabinet members during the Roosevelt Administration that a 19-gun salute accompanied their arrival to a city. Joining Richard Aldous this week is author of Unlikely Heroes: Franklin Roosevelt, His Four Lieutenants, and the World They Made ( https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250274694/unlikelyheroes ), Derek Leebaert, who shines a new light on FDR’s inner circle of four—Ha...

From climate change to the potential of artificial intelligence, there are plenty of reasons to doubt the viability of human life on Earth. Adam Kirsch, author of The Revolt Against Humanity: Imagining a Future Without Us ( https://globalreports.columbia.edu/books/the-revolt-against-humanity/ ), spoke with a diverse array of people who all agree on one thing: The future of the planet may not lie i...

American statesmen often argue that the U.S. role in Asia is indispensable to maintaining peace on the continent. Van Jackson, author of Pacific Power Paradox: American Statecraft and the Fate of the Asian Peace ( https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300257281/pacific-power-paradox/ ), counters that America has just as often been Asia’s arsonist as its savior. He joins host Richard Aldous to discus...

From the Cold War and collapse of communism to the rise of globalization and recent financial crises, James E. Cronin, author of Fragile Victory: The Making and Unmaking of Liberal Order ( https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300247855/fragile-victory/ ), posits that these events have caused a constant reinvention of a liberal order that once seemed unshakeable. Cronin joins Richard Aldous for a di...

To mask or not to mask? U.S. citizens received different messaging about the degree of the Covid-19 threat and how to respond to it depending on who they were listening to. In the end, the different choices people made largely cleaved to partisan positions. In Pandemic Politics: The Deadly Toll of Partisanship in the Age of Covid ( https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691218991/pandemic...

The transformation of the Chinese economy over the last four decades is typically thought of as near-miraculous. Yet the facts and figures that make up that picture are those that have filtered down from the Chinese Communist Party. In China After Mao: The Rise of a Superpower ( https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/china-after-mao-9781639730513/ ), Frank Dikötter’s wide-ranging research pulls back the cu...

A number of stories of individual acts of German resistance to the Nazis have come to light over the years. What is little known is that a network of individuals — from average civilians to those within the highest reaches of government and the military — coordinated efforts in a sustained attempt to undermine the Third Reich. Tom Dunkel, author of White Knights in the Black Orchestra: The Extraor...

In War by Other Means: The Pacifists of the Greatest Generation ( https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/676744/war-by-other-means-by-daniel-akst/ ) Who Revolutionized Resistance, author Daniel Akst traces the founding of the American progressive movement back to when the United States was on the brink of war. Akst joins Richard Aldous to discuss how four unlikely real-life characters in the tim...