Open Source with Christopher Lydon

We’re in Saratoga, New York, with the soulful American believer Marilynne Robinson, prize novelist and teacher of novelists. She’s known over the decades as the storyteller we trust to observe the troubled heart of our ... The post Occupied America appeared first on Open Source with Christopher Lydon .

We’re in the Orwellian aftermath of what President Trump has called his 12-day war in the Middle East. It’s over, he proclaimed on Monday. “Congratulations world,” he said on his Truth Social site, “it’s time ... The post Trump at War appeared first on Open Source with Christopher Lydon .

This week, it’s a conversation on the democracy question and the embattled fate of our own, beset as it is from within. Philosopher-historian Danielle Allen is our guest examiner of the cranky American condition. It ... The post Divided, Defensive Democracy appeared first on Open Source with Christopher Lydon .

We’re with the writer Paul Elie, recalling the moment when popular culture came to sound like public prayer. There was Madonna in 1989, singing her number one hit “Like a Prayer.” The song is a ... The post The Last Supper appeared first on Open Source with Christopher Lydon .

We’re staring down the several crises in our economy—and recalling the grand old joke that it’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. John Cassidy. John Cassidy of The ... The post Capitalism and Its Critics appeared first on Open Source with Christopher Lydon .

We’re staring down the global trade war with Mark Blyth at Brown University. He is the People’s Economist from Scotland, who takes us home to his village pub in Dundee every once in a while ... The post Trade, Trumped appeared first on Open Source with Christopher Lydon .

We have a key, finally, to the mystery of Donald Trump and where he came from. He was born almost exactly 100 years ago in the imagination of the novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald. What he ... The post Gatsby at 100: Fitzgerald’s Warning about Trumpism appeared first on Open Source with Christopher Lydon .

We’re considering the Jesus story with the historian Elaine Pagels. Her new book is a marvel, crowning a lifetime of bestselling scholarship, sifting the sources and retuning the narrative in and around the Christian Gospels. ... The post Miracles and Wonder appeared first on Open Source with Christopher Lydon .

We’re tracking President Trump’s squeeze on higher education, and the argument in the Ivy League: whether or not to make a fight of it. First, Columbia surrendered under a Trump threat to cut $400 million ... The post Trump vs. Harvard appeared first on Open Source with Christopher Lydon .

We’re reading our way out of a ruined time with the model reader, Patricia Lockwood. She’s the poet laureate of the internet, for starters. She’s a big-league literary critic, master of social media and the ... The post From Social to Spiritual Media appeared first on Open Source with Christopher Lydon .

We’re looking for our American place in what can feel like a new world order, with Stephen Walt, our first and favorite so-called realist in the foreign policy game—realists being the people who steer by ... The post A New World appeared first on Open Source with Christopher Lydon .

Angus King is the anti-partisan, independent United States Senator from the cranky Yankee state of Maine. He is giving us a conversational civics lesson in the tradition of James Madison and also of Schoolhouse Rock, ... The post Angus King’s Civics Lesson appeared first on Open Source with Christopher Lydon .

In the fog of Trump Two, we’re asking: what’s new? The co-presidency with Elon Musk is surely new, also the raging battle of exotic ideas among techno-optimists and libertarian anarcho-capitalists at war with the very ... The post Muskology appeared first on Open Source with Christopher Lydon .

We’re picking up the pieces of our country in the age of Trump, Part II. Is the USA still here? Is it still us? Kurt Andersen. Cue Kurt Andersen, with his finger in the wind. ... The post Trump Part II appeared first on Open Source with Christopher Lydon .

We’re with writer-world’s exotic traveller and truth-teller Pico Iyer. He’s been the Dalai Lama’s friend from boyhood, and our friend, too, in years now of reading and talk. In his new book, Aflame, subtitled Learning ... The post Aflame appeared first on Open Source with Christopher Lydon .

We’re here with a capsule of memory from late last year. It was a spark of generosity in Liz Walker’s story that lit up the Christmas season for lots of us, and maybe the path ... The post From Boston to Bethlehem appeared first on Open Source with Christopher Lydon .

We’re with the one-off diplomat, strategist, and historian Chas Freeman. Chas Freeman. Call this “Curious Citizen Meets the Most Knowledgeable Straight-Talker Anywhere Near the U.S. Government.” At a turn in the calendar, a transition in ... The post A Geopolitical Check-Up appeared first on Open Source with Christopher Lydon .

We’re with the celebrated Scots-accented people’s economist—celebrated above all when he’s home with the locals in his own old pub in Dundee, settling all the arguments there are around money and power, and populism on ... The post Blyth is Back appeared first on Open Source with Christopher Lydon .

We’re with the Nobel Prize novelist from Turkey, Orhan Pamuk. It’s not your standard book chat: closer to head-butting than conversation, as you’ll hear. But it’s polite enough and nobody gets hurt. Chris and Orhan ... The post Not Your Standard Book Chat appeared first on Open Source with Christopher Lydon .

We’re saluting one man’s century in American music. Roy Haynes was the jazz drummer from Boston who shaped the bebop sound in Harlem 80 years ago. He got nicknamed Snap Crackle for his own crisp, ... The post The Roy Haynes Century appeared first on Open Source with Christopher Lydon .

We’re with the writer’s writer Joshua Cohen—beyond category, but ever ahead of the game. He’s a realist, a fantasist, a satirist, New Jersey-born and at home in Israel. Joshua Cohen. It’s his imagination we need, ... The post Joshua Cohen’s Camp appeared first on Open Source with Christopher Lydon .

Fintan O’Toole has made a brilliant career watching Ireland (his home country) transform itself—its Catholic culture, its vanishing population, its frail economy—into something very modern and profoundly different. And he’s covered our country so well ... The post United States of Fear appeared first on Open Source with Christopher Lydon .

In the long weekend of solemn suspense before our presidential election in 2024, our guest is Amber. I met Amber on a call-in radio show almost 30 years ago, and we’ve been talking ever since. ... The post Amber’s America: Love and Outrage appeared first on Open Source with Christopher Lydon .

Richard Powers may just be the bravest big novelist out there. His new book is titled Playground, in which AI plays with the natural world. The question is whether and how the digital transformation might ... The post Playground appeared first on Open Source with Christopher Lydon .

For our shattering Age of October 7, Nathan Thrall has written a double masterpiece, in my reading. Already a Pulitzer Prize-winner for non-fiction, A Day in the Life of Abed Salama is a searching work ... The post A Jerusalem Tragedy appeared first on Open Source with Christopher Lydon .