“Going out and listening is one of the most enjoyable things we do—and fruitful. By paying attention, we feed our imagination, we feed our creativity, we renew ourselves. We bust out of the algorithms and the fake news into the sensory reality of the living earth.” Biologist and writer David George Haksell joins the podcast, with his new book Sound…

"In our society, you've done your job as a citizen if you've voted, done jury duty, and paid your taxes. But Athenian democracy was direct democracy, not representative democracy-- so every citizen had to hold a public office. A radically different societal make up." Historian of the ancient world Barry Strauss is here, along with his new book, The…

"How do we make the case for and understand the necessity for intact forest ecosystems in a way that will resonate with people, and in a language that's accessible to the non scientist and the non specialist? People should be concerned about what's happening-- but also marvel at what still exists. We should marvel at what exists as the energy drink…

"I listen to classical music very specifically because I need to be able to feel at the end of what I'm listening to like I'm able confront the darkest sides of what I'm experiencing as well. I feel comforted by Beethoven. I feel comforted by his ability to say something to me that cannot be said any other way. A sense of hopelessness that is not w…

“The idea of national service is to get people in urban America to live in rural America, and vice versa. I think people who get exposed to that want change. People want to be proud of what their generation does. They want to be able to look back thirty or forty years later and know they made a difference while they were in power.” David Gergen joi…

"We are going to be facing food shortages because there's less pollination and more people. We need to be able to grow food, and insects are the only ones that can do what they do." Oliver Milman, environment reporter for Guardian US is here, sounding the alarm for what might surprise many: the demise of insect populations world wide. In many cases…

"How do we create a better free speech culture? How do students learn things like the first amendment in school and in their peer groups? What if at sports events before we sing the National Anthem we recite the first amendment?" First amendment specialist Stuart Brotman joins the podcast, new book in hand. The book, called The First Amendment Live…

"Ethics is everywhere. It's in the arts, it's in entrepreneurship, it's in family, and business. No matter what walk of life, no matter your passion, ethics is the great connector both for individuals and for the larger society." Ethics expert Susan Liautaud joins the podcast. She has written a book called The Little Book of Big Ethical Questions, …

“There’s this kind of visceral dimension to art that is at the core of art. Understanding the why and how is very important too, but we all want to keep in touch with that immediate pow—that thing that art does for us.” Art critic Jed Perl is here, to talk defense of the arts and why now more than ever the arts need defending. Radical, liberal, con…

“We have a privileged position. It has always been grand in the thinking that we humans are unique and special. We must look back to see how connected we are. That we are part of a continuum.” Two neuroscientists -- Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam -- have teamed up to provide a history of the brain and thinking beings on this earth. What was the planet lik…

"A park is a green space that has many purposes. But beyond that, recent parks pay a lot of attention to environmental issues that are now extremely important in view of climate change." Renowned architectural historian Victoria Newhouse joins the podcast. After her previous books that deal with some of the most important figures and buildings in 2…

“Lincoln was wise and humble. He didn’t lecture or harangue—he was pragmatic, opportunistic. The quality we lack today was his humility.” Roger Lowenstein joins the podcast. The admired financial writer is out with the book Ways and Means: Lincoln and His Cabinet and the Financing of the Civil War. It tells the largely untold story of how the North…

“Up until recently, voting has gotten easier. But there is a wave of new laws in states across the country aiming to make it harder to vote and also new laws to change who counts the votes.” Michael Waldman, writer and expert on voting rights, joins the podcast. What is the state of voting rights as the country careens towards the 2022 midterm elec…

“Food can help with world peace. Food can bring two groups of people together who cannot see eye to eye on anything. If you just get them to the dinner table—the armor comes off.” Celebrity Chef Ming Tsai joins the podcast, talking charity, giving back, the meaning of food and community, the power of music, and the role of food across cultures. Wha…

"Lincoln's prescription was unconditional surrender followed by a magnanimous peace. He combined strength with mercy, and understood if you don't win the peace, you don't really win the war." John Avlon joins the podcast, new book in hand, called Lincoln and the Fight for Peace. What is required for real leadership? Lincoln possessed a unique blend…

"The truth is a very complicated concept, perhaps now more than ever. I would hesitate to say there is such a thing as absolute truth in most issues that arise." News personality Stephen Sackur joins the podcast. The host of HARDtalk from the BBC, he is no stranger to geopolitics, news cycles, and the rapidly changing way information is disseminate…

"There's a growing realization that great power competition is back. That Russia and China are much more serious competitors than we thought they were." Expert on American intelligence Amy Zegart joins the show, along with her new book Spies, Lies, and Algorithms: The History and Future of American Intelligence. A look at the past, present, and fut…

"We should stop thinking of food as nutritional instructions-- thou shalt eat this-- and think of eating as an opportunity to enjoy food. Because that's what we were meant to do." Food writer Mark Schatzker is here, armed with his new book The End of Craving: Recovering the Lost Wisdom of Eating Well. Far from a book about diets and what we should …

“In the list of things in danger, it’s truth above all that worries me the most.” Legendary political philosopher Michael Walzer joins the podcast. Democracy is on his mind, now more than ever. In the course of a long lifetime observing the American political scene, he has never seen our system so close to the edge. Where do America’s liberal ideal…

“The single reason why the Democrats have lost rural America is because rural America doesn’t think the Democrats respect them, appreciate them, or know them.” Former United States Senator Heidi Heitkamp, Democrat of North Dakota, returns to the podcast. Since ending her career in the Senate, Heitkamp has focused on connecting to rural America and …

“I relate to the idea that music can be a kind of a home, but also the restlessness…the idea that you might want to leave home, the idea that you might want to try and chose something different from what your life, your parents have chosen for you." Kelefa Sanneh, staff writer at The New Yorker, joins the podcast. Music, now more than ever, is in. …

"In poetry there's so much flexibility to see how things come together to form one poem in the end." Poet and writer Ananda Lima is here, discussing her new poetry compilation Mother/Land. With words and phrases in her native language Portuguese mixed in with the English text, it’s a unique work from a linguistic point of view. In the poems, many t…

"As I scientist I ask-- where's the data on COVID vaccines? How many women, how many men, how many shots? Which arm? Did it cause their diabetes to get better? Did it affect their time off of work? What kind of reaction? We need to know this." Renowned physician and executive Dr. James Weinstein is here, talking public health, policy, wasteful spen…

“We all have our biases and work through them. As journalists we strive for impartiality— that is the mandate.” Veteran CNN journalist Antoine Sanfuentes is here, offering his take on the state of the American media apparatus, the twenty-four hour news cycle, truth-seeking, and much more. With a degree in anthropology and a passion for music and ph…

"We're living in a time of shrinking borders and a rise of ethnonationalism. Literature is a privileged means of accessing other parts of the world and other peoples." World literature expert David Damrosch is here, armed with his new book Around the World in 80 Books. With the lofty goal of bringing the reader on an entire world tour through 80 li…

"That's what we always thought was fun: to take a style and either lyrically or sonically update it so it ends up just a little different." American Western music icon Ray Benson is here. He is celebrating fifty years as bandleader of Asleep at the Wheel, and he and Daniel delve into a lot of issues that a musician deals with over a career. What do…

"We need confidence in our republic, confidence in our ability to strengthen our republic, and we need to apply correctives to the problems we're encountering below the threshold of revolution." General H.R. McMaster, one of the most distinguished military figures in the United States, joins the podcast. In his role post-government and post-militar…

"China wasn't trying to hack the product per se. They were trying to use products in unanticipated ways to undermine trust in democracy and in the democratic system of government." Jacob Helberg is here, with his new book in hand The Wires of War: Technology and the Global Struggle for Power. China is on our minds lately. Are we friends? Enemies? F…

"As Kennedy said at the United Nations, there is a 'sword of Damocles hanging by a thread over humanity,' and we're still in that same position today and will remain in that position unless we figure out how to get rid of nuclear weapons." This is a rebroadcast of Ep. 88, aired originally April 7th, 2021. Marty Sherwin died on October 6th, 2021. --…

"No matter where you go in the world, there has been a system of medicine that has been primarily based on plants. Billions rely on such a system still today." Ethnobotanist (we discover what that is!) Dr. Cassandra Quave joins the podcast. She is out with a book called The Plant Hunter: A Scientist's Quest for Nature's Next Medicines. The book exp…

“A huge amount of what’s going on in American society today is a blatant display of narcissism." Tom Nichols joins the podcast for round two. This time, instead of focusing on his theories of popular, growing distaste and disdain for "expertise," he and Daniel focus on American democracy. Narcissism...un-serious...lack of civic responsibility...the…

“As rational beings and moral agents, it’s incumbent on us to use our faculties to the best of our abilities.” Philosophy professors Steven Nadler and Lawrence Shapiro are here, discussing their new book When Bad Thinking Happens to Good People. In it, they show how we can more readily spot and avoid flawed arguments and unreliable information; det…

How do you get people to read about science who don't think they're interested in science? You entertain people, you fascinate them-- ultimately you make them care." Beloved nature and science writer Mary Roach is here with new book in hand called Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law. What’s to be done about a jaywalking moose? A bear caught breaking a…

"We have to remain open and empathetic when examining the past and each other or we risk siloing ourselves into a self-reinforcing of our preconceptions." Historian Nathaniel Philbrick joins the podcast, armed with his new book in hand Travels with George: In Search of Washington and His Legacy. Does George Washington still matter? Philbrick argues…

"Not only was our healthcare system failing us in its job of keeping us healthy for as little dollar and resource costs as possible, now we know it's also failing in its ability to keep us safe from pandemic." Harvard economists Edward Glaeser and David Cutler join the show for a discussion centered around their new book Survival of the City: Livin…

"The problem today that we didn't have during the Cold War or twenty years ago is that there's profound disagreement over what are the biggest threats to our national security." On the day the United States is scheduled to end its military presence in Afghanistan, two experts on counterterrorism — Bruce Hoffman and Jacob Ware— join Daniel for a spe…

"I don't have one philosophy that covers every student-- I just try to push everybody's buttons and see what happens." Mathematician Steven Strogatz is here. Known not just as a math professor to his students at Cornell University, he is a great explainer of math and why perhaps so many of us —from middle school, high school, and beyond — feel like…

“Once you’re convinced that the root of all of us living creatures is love, then you’re always looking for the redemptive solutions that we may have." Beloved singer/songwriter Noel Paul Stookey is here. Initially well-known as a member of the folk music trio Peter, Paul and Mary, he joins Daniel for a wide-ranging conversation about songwriting, m…

"If we continue to power our economy with fossil fuels, human civilization will not be able to be sustained long-term or perhaps even through the end of the century." Millennial climate organizer Daniel Sherrell is here, with a new book in tow. He and Daniel talk climate, his passion for activism, what is really happening to our world, and what the…

"Public health is not just about the care people receive in the hospital. It's about the air they breathe, the water they drink, the food they have access to, the environment in which they live-- that all can determine if they are healthy." Support Talking Beats with Daniel Lelchuk. Renowned public health official Leana Wen is here, discussing her …

"Since the 1970s the Court has been moving to the right. Bill Clinton was a centrist who appointed centrist justices, not liberals. Looking forward, the justices will be more unified around the 2nd amendment than they will around overturning Roe v. Wade." Support Talking Beats with Daniel Lelchuk. The United States Supreme Court finished its term r…

"The definition of Jewish food is so much broader than what we learned in Hebrew School. It's something so powerful, so beautiful." Star of the food world Jake Cohen is here, armed with his new cookbook. “Jew-Ish: Reinvented Recipes from a Modern Jewish Mensch” aims to bring Jewish food into the 21st century and ask some of the critical questions a…

"There is something about seashells that stretches through human time and memory. They are a wonderful way to draw people to what is happening to the ocean and our environment." Support Talking Beats with Daniel Lelchuk. Naturalist writer Cynthia Barnett is here, out with a new book that is at once history, future, and love letter to seashells and …

"Tribalism is increasing. But isn't it boring to be surrounded by people and ideas and concepts that are carbon copy of yourself? Who wouldn't get bored with that?" Support Talking Beats with Daniel Lelchuk. As a "new century" (episode 101) of Talking Beats with Daniel Lelchuk begins, on this episode, he puts himself in the hot seat and asks produc…

"We need to come to terms with the randomness and unpredictability of disaster." Support Talking Beats with Daniel Lelchuk. The great writer and historian Niall Ferguson is on the show for the 100th episode. His most recent book, Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe, seeks to bring many different catastrophes of history under one umbrella and ask ques…

"That's what's horrible about politics today-- nobody wants anybody to look good. Are people in politics amenable, available for logic anymore?" Veteran TV star and politico Chris Matthews joins Daniel for a look back and a look forward. From Chris's early passions for politics, to his time working for Jimmy Carter and Tip O'Neill, to his star turn…

"It's not the kind of job where you can show up and go through the motions and do well-- particularly at a high-roller event. There are plenty of amateurs today that would have been dominant players fifteen years ago." Star poker player Erik Seidel is here, talking poker and much more. Far from just a simple “how to” conversation about poker, Erik …

"We don't take food seriously enough. Children aren't taught what it means to grow food and what this is all about." Beloved and authoritative food writer Mark Bittman, armed with a new book: Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, from Sustainable to Suicidal. The conversation, which goes in many directions, is not the typical food discussion.…

“My own view right now is that the greatest threat to the national security of the Unites States is the division of the body politic— our own internal divisions.” Diplomat and writer Richard Haass joins the podcast. After a busy spring on Talking Beats filled with experts and luminaries on specific fields, we zoom way out in this episode and talk a…

"People may think of themselves as having no mind for geometry at all, but that's purely an illusion." Jordan Ellenberg -- mathematician, numbers guru, and explainer -- joins the podcast on the day his new book is released. The book, called Shape: The Hidden Geometry of Information, Biology, Strategy, Democracy, and Everything Else, takes that subj…