Humane Pursuits Podcast

Summary: The Declaration of Independence is often remembered as the document that announced America’s separation from Great Britain. But for nearly 250 years it has also served as a touchstone for debates about liberty, equality, citizenship, and national purpose. In this conversation, Tony Williams discusses his new book on the Declaration and the generations of Americans who have argued over its...

Summary : Modern economics is often presented as a product of the Enlightenment, emerging with figures such as Adam Smith and David Hume. But what if many of its central ideas have much deeper roots? In this conversation, Erik Matson and Jordan Ballor discuss their new books on the history of Christian political economy and the thinkers who wrestled with questions of trade, prices, property, inter...

In this bonus conversation, Benjamin Klutsey reflects on several projects that grew out of his work on pluralism and polarization. We discuss the origins of his podcast Pluralist Points , the lessons he drew from conversations with leading thinkers on civic life and democratic disagreement, and his experience helping to create the documentary Undivide Us . Along the way, Klutsey shares what surpri...

Before becoming executive director of the Mercatus Center, Benjamin Klutsey spent years studying a question that has become increasingly urgent in American life: how can people who disagree deeply still live, work, and govern together? In this conversation, Klutsey reflects on his work leading the Pluralism and Civil Exchange Project, explains what pluralism means beyond mere diversity, and explor...

Summary: In this bonus episode, Garrett Brown continues his conversation with historian Al Zambone, turning to film portrayals of the American Revolution. Zambone explains why the era has proven resistant to compelling cinematic treatment, critiques films such as The Patriot and Drums Along the Mohawk , and reflects on adaptations like Johnny Tremain and the musical 1776 . The discussion closes wi...

Summary: More than two centuries after the American Revolution, historians continue to return to the same events with new questions, methods, and insights. In this episode, historian Al Zambone helps us trace how some of the most important works on the Revolution have approached the subject — from early participant accounts to modern studies shaped by political ideas, social experience, and the wi...

Summary: Two hundred and fifty years after its publication, Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations remains both celebrated and misunderstood. In this episode, scholars Sandra Peart and Erik Matson help us see beyond the caricatures to discover Smith’s moral vision — one that challenges both colonial empires and modern assumptions about markets, virtue, and human equality. Why do both the Left and the...

Summary : In this episode, I interview Daniel Dreisbach about the Hebraic ideas that helped shape American political thought. We discuss his contribution to Jewish Roots of American Liberty and the powerful influence of the Hebrew Bible on the founders — from covenant and political anthropology to the Exodus story that inspired generations of Americans, from the Revolution to the civil rights move...

Summary : In this episode, I interview Daniel Dreisbach to explore one of the most contested ideas in American political life: the separation of church and state. We trace its deep roots — from biblical sources and colonial debates to Locke, Madison, and the revolution in thinking that made religious liberty a natural right rather than a privilege of toleration. Dreisbach brings to life the theolo...

Summary: What did Thomas Jefferson really mean by “the pursuit of happiness”? In this conversation, Adam Potkay reveals how 18th-century understandings of happiness differed profoundly from our modern self-help versions. Drawing on classical sources from Plato to Cicero, Jefferson and his contemporaries saw happiness not merely as subjective satisfaction but rather as an objective evaluation of a...

Summary: In this inaugural episode of Humane Pursuits , Tony Banout, the founding executive director of the University of Chicago’s Forum for Free Inquiry and Expression, explores the history and meaning of academic freedom in American higher education. The conversation traces the Chicago tradition from William Rainey Harper’s foundational 1899 principles through the landmark 1967 Kalven Report on...