Bright Minds: from the John Adams Institute

From Amsterdam...this is the John Adams Podcast, a treasure trove of the best and the brightest of American thinking.  This week’s guest is indeed one of the brightest:  Francis Fukuyama, the writer, thinker and teacher.  You may remember him from his book: "The End of History", where he proclaimed the triumph of liberal democracy as something of a societal finish line. Well, he does NOT...

This week’s guest is Megan Twohey, whose book about Harvey Weinstein’s  sexual abuse of women in Hollywood was also, as she put it, “an X-ray into the abuse of power”.  The #metoo movement really got going after New York Times journalists Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor published their investigative articles about Harvey Weinstein.  They followed with  their  book, “She Said”, which dives deep, not j...

Seven years ago, Garry Kasparov came to Amsterdam and predicted the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He also described Vladimir Putin’s psychology and motivations in a way that you hear in every current affairs program nowadays.  Back in 2015, Obama was president, Russia was actively bombing targets in Syria, Syrian refugees were literally washing up on the shores of the Mediterannean and Garry Kaspar...

Every week we point out that we get the likes of Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz to grace an Amsterdam stage and impart his wisdom to our audiences. Well, it’s time. In this episode, Joseph Stiglitz came to the DeLaMar Theater in the Dutch capital in November of 2019, to talk about his book, People, Power, and Profits .  In People, Power, and Profits , Stiglitz states that the U.S. got three th...

Russell Shorto is an American historian, journalist and author. In 2004, he published The Island at the Center of the World: the Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony that Shaped America , for which he spent many hours in the New Netherland archives. It's an eye-opening book, and a marvelous historical retelling of the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam before it became New York. ...

As John Adams was one of the great men of his era, we thought our next episode should be with one of the great people of our time: Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Brooklyn born and raised, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the chief medical advisor to President Biden. This was an online interview conducted by Damiaan Denys , himself a Professor of Psychiatry at...

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright talks with former Dutch foreign minister and Vice President of the European Commission, Frans Timmermans, about how the current state of world leadership inspired her most recent book, the ominously titled:  Fascism: a Warning . This was recorded in front of an audience in 2018 at the Muziekgebouw aan het IJ in cooperation with the European Commission. ...

Michael Pollan’s book, How To Change Your Mind, has moved on from his research on food to delve into the world of psychedelics and their medical use. In the past decade, there has been renewed interest in psychedelic research as a form of psychiatric therapy, and to Pollan’s mind this renaissance is long overdue. In this episode, Pollan makes a strong case for researching these drugs further and d...

Democracy and the rule of law in Western societies are under threat, according to Timothy Snyder, professor of history at Yale University, due to Vladimir Putin’s efforts to destabilize neighboring governments and to stir up dissent in countries from France to the United States. The John Adams, in a collaboration with De Balie, brought Professor Timothy Snyder to Amsterdam in 2018 to discuss his n...

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