Podcasts about Amherst College

If we ever had a genuine democracy (and I would argue we never have) then it is clearly disintegrating now, along with the entire system with which it was entwined.  Everyone agrees we need something new, what we don't necessarily agree on across the board is the design of this new thing.  This week's guests are two people who spend their lives imagining how things might be different, particularly in the US, where even the pretence of democracy has been abandoned. Dr John Izzo is a friend of the podcast. Once an ordained Minister in a Presbyterian Church, he's now a bestselling author, speaker, and thought leader focused on social responsibility and intergenerational integration. He's a a Distinguished Fellow at The Stimson Center in Washington DC, and a Board Member of the Elders Action Network and the Elders Climate Action group. Most notably in terms of what we're talking about here, he's co-host of The Way Forward Regenerative Conversations Podcast on which I heard him speaking to our other guest, Suzette Brooks Masters.  Suzette describes herself as a sometime Cassandra who sees around the corner; a serial social entrepreneur, and a thought leader and strategist in the fields of democracy, governance and futures.She has degrees in Economics from Amherst College and Cambridge University, and a Law degree from Harvard. She has spent much of her working life as a strategist working on immigration, inclusion and democracy. She is currently Senior Fellow and Director of Democracy Innovation at the Democracy Funders Network and Co-Founder of the Federal Foresight Advocacy Alliance.  So listen in for a 3-way conversation on the nature of power, community and change as we move into the new year. John on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/drjohnizzo/John's showreel: https://vimeo.com/248012255?fl=pl&fe=vlJohn's website: www.drjohnizzo.comJohn's YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1adiRng-Ab3d3Wos9pFjAA The Way Forward Regenerative Podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-way-forward-regenerative-conversations/id1651941803Episode with Suzette: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-way-forward-regenerative-conversations/id1651941803?i=1000704364583The Way Forward on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@RegenerativeConversationsSuzette on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/suzette-brooks-masters-0614981bDemocracy Funders Network https://www.democracyfundersnetwork.org/Federal Foresight Advocacy Alliance  https://www.ffaa-us.org/Suzette's recent report - Becoming Futures Ready: How Philanthropy can leverage strategic foresight for democracy https://www.democracyfundersnetwork.org/resources/2024/10/3/becoming-futures-ready-how-philanthropy-can-leverage-strategic-foresight-for-democracyIf you'd like to support us, there is a Patreon page, but we're not going to link to it, because, honestly, the best way is to come and join the Accidental Gods Membership: that way you can share in the ideas, the programme that will help you connect to the Web of Life in ways that will last—and you can come to the Gatherings half price. Or if that doesn't appeal, come along to one of the Gatherings. Or buy a subscription/Gathering for a friend... do something that feels like a good exchange of energy and minimises our connection with old economic paradigm. Remember that if any of this is difficult, contact us and we'll find something that works for you. Details below: What we offer: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass If you'd like to join our next Open Gathering offered by our Accidental Gods Programme, it's 'Honouring Fear as your Mentor' on Sunday 8th February 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are here. You don't have to be a member -but if you are, all Gatherings are half price.If you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership where we endeavour to help you to connect fully with the living web of life. If you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work at Dreaming Awake, you'll find us here. If you'd like to explore the recordings from our last Thrutopia Writing Masterclass, the details are here

A new and provocative take on the formerly classified history of accelerating superpower military competition in space in the late Cold War and beyond. In March 1983, President Ronald Reagan shocked the world when he announced the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), derisively known as “Star Wars,” a space-based missile defense program aimed at protecting the US from nuclear attack. In Weapons in Space, Aaron Bateman draws on recently declassified American, European, and Soviet documents to provide an insightful account of SDI, situating it within a new phase in the militarization of space following the collapse of superpower détente in the 1970s. In doing so, Bateman reveals the largely secret role of military space technologies in late–Cold War US defense strategy and foreign relations.In contrast to existing narratives, Weapons in Space shows how tension over the role of military space technologies in American statecraft was a central source of SDI's controversy, even more so than questions of technical feasibility. By detailing the participation of Western European countries in SDI research and development, Bateman reframes the militarization of space in the 1970s and 1980s as an international phenomenon. He further reveals that even though SDI did not come to fruition, it obstructed diplomatic efforts to create new arms control limits in space. Consequently, Weapons in Space carries the legacy of SDI into the post–Cold War era and shows how this controversial program continues to shape the global discourse about instability in space—and the growing anxieties about a twenty-first-century space arms race. Our guest is Aaron Bateman, an Assistant Professor of History and International Affairs at GWU. Our host is Eleonora Mattiacci, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Amherst College. She is the author of "Volatile States in International Politics" (Oxford University Press, 2023). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

A new and provocative take on the formerly classified history of accelerating superpower military competition in space in the late Cold War and beyond. In March 1983, President Ronald Reagan shocked the world when he announced the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), derisively known as “Star Wars,” a space-based missile defense program aimed at protecting the US from nuclear attack. In Weapons in Space, Aaron Bateman draws on recently declassified American, European, and Soviet documents to provide an insightful account of SDI, situating it within a new phase in the militarization of space following the collapse of superpower détente in the 1970s. In doing so, Bateman reveals the largely secret role of military space technologies in late–Cold War US defense strategy and foreign relations.In contrast to existing narratives, Weapons in Space shows how tension over the role of military space technologies in American statecraft was a central source of SDI's controversy, even more so than questions of technical feasibility. By detailing the participation of Western European countries in SDI research and development, Bateman reframes the militarization of space in the 1970s and 1980s as an international phenomenon. He further reveals that even though SDI did not come to fruition, it obstructed diplomatic efforts to create new arms control limits in space. Consequently, Weapons in Space carries the legacy of SDI into the post–Cold War era and shows how this controversial program continues to shape the global discourse about instability in space—and the growing anxieties about a twenty-first-century space arms race. Our guest is Aaron Bateman, an Assistant Professor of History and International Affairs at GWU. Our host is Eleonora Mattiacci, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Amherst College. She is the author of "Volatile States in International Politics" (Oxford University Press, 2023). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/world-affairs

A new and provocative take on the formerly classified history of accelerating superpower military competition in space in the late Cold War and beyond. In March 1983, President Ronald Reagan shocked the world when he announced the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), derisively known as “Star Wars,” a space-based missile defense program aimed at protecting the US from nuclear attack. In Weapons in Space, Aaron Bateman draws on recently declassified American, European, and Soviet documents to provide an insightful account of SDI, situating it within a new phase in the militarization of space following the collapse of superpower détente in the 1970s. In doing so, Bateman reveals the largely secret role of military space technologies in late–Cold War US defense strategy and foreign relations.In contrast to existing narratives, Weapons in Space shows how tension over the role of military space technologies in American statecraft was a central source of SDI's controversy, even more so than questions of technical feasibility. By detailing the participation of Western European countries in SDI research and development, Bateman reframes the militarization of space in the 1970s and 1980s as an international phenomenon. He further reveals that even though SDI did not come to fruition, it obstructed diplomatic efforts to create new arms control limits in space. Consequently, Weapons in Space carries the legacy of SDI into the post–Cold War era and shows how this controversial program continues to shape the global discourse about instability in space—and the growing anxieties about a twenty-first-century space arms race. Our guest is Aaron Bateman, an Assistant Professor of History and International Affairs at GWU. Our host is Eleonora Mattiacci, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Amherst College. She is the author of "Volatile States in International Politics" (Oxford University Press, 2023). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

My conversation with Dr Emanuel begins at about 34 minutes Subscribe and Watch Interviews LIVE : On YOUTUBE.com/StandUpWithPete ON SubstackStandUpWithPete Stand Up is a daily podcast. I book,host,edit, post and promote new episodes with brilliant guests every day. This show is Ad free and fully supported by listeners like you! Please subscribe now for as little as 5$ and gain access to a community of over 750 awesome, curious, kind, funny, brilliant, generous soul In Eat Your Ice Cream, renowned health expert Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel argues that life is not a competition to live the longest, and that "wellness" shouldn't be difficult; it should be an invisible part of one's lifestyle that yields maximum health benefits with the least work Ezekiel J. Emanuel, MD, PhD, is the Vice Provost for Global Initiatives, the Co-Director of the Healthcare Transformation Institute, and the Diane v.S. Levy and Robert M. Levy University Professor at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. Emanuel is an oncologist and world leader in health policy and bioethics. He is a Special Advisor to the Director General of the World Health Organization, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, and member of the Council on Foreign Relations.  He was the founding chair of the Department of Bioethics at the National Institutes of Health and held that position until August of 2011. From 2009 to 2011, he served as a Special Advisor on Health Policy to the Director of the Office of Management and Budget and National Economic Council. In this role, he was instrumental in drafting the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Emanuel also served on the Biden-Harris Transition Covid Advisory Board. Dr. Emanuel is the most widely cited bioethicist in history.  He has over 350 publications and has authored or edited 15 books. His recent publications include the books Which Country Has the World's Best Health Care (2020), Prescription for the Future (2017), Reinventing American Health Care: How the Affordable Care Act Will Improve our Terribly Complex, Blatantly Unjust, Outrageously Expensive, Grossly Inefficient, Error Prone System (2014) and Brothers Emanuel: A Memoir of an American Family (2013). In 2008, he published Healthcare, Guaranteed: A Simple, Secure Solution for America, which included his own recommendations for health care reform. Dr. Emanuel regularly contributes to the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, and often appears on BBC, NPR, CNN, MSNBC and other media outlets. He has received numerous awards including election to the National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Association of American Physicians, and the Royal College of Medicine (UK). He has been named a Dan David Prize Laureate in Bioethics, and is a recipient of the AMA-Burroughs Wellcome Leadership Award, the Public Service Award from the American Society of Clinical Oncology, Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society of Bioethics and Humanities, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation David E. Rogers Award, President's Medal for Social Justice Roosevelt University, and the John Mendelsohn Award from the MD Anderson Cancer Center. Dr. Emanuel has received honorary degrees from Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Union Graduate College, the Medical College of Wisconsin, and Macalester College. In 2023, he became a Guggenheim Fellow. Dr. Emanuel is a graduate of Amherst College. He holds a M.Sc. from Oxford University in Biochemistry, and received his M.D. from Harvard Medical School and his Ph.D. in political philosophy from Harvard University. On YOUTUBE.com/StandUpWithPete ON SubstackStandUpWithPete   Listen rate and review on Apple Podcasts Listen rate and review on Spotify Pete On Instagram Pete on Blue Sky Pete on Threads Pete on Tik Tok Pete on Twitter Pete Personal FB page Stand Up with Pete FB page All things Jon Carroll  Gift a Subscription https://www.patreon.com/PeteDominick/gift Send Pete $ Directly on Venmo  

John M. Kennedy reads and interprets Robert Frost's "Education by Poetry". It was a talk delivered by Mr. Frost at Amherst College and subsequently revised for publication in the Amherst Graduates' Quarterly of February 1931. It is from the conclusion of this piece that Robert Frost, one of the greatest poets of the XX century, once extracted the text separately and printed under the title “The Four Beliefs.”

Seth discusses Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar’s (D) infamous past, reading from Scott Johnson’s Washington Free Beacon piece, “Yes, Ilhan Omar Married Her Brother.” Producer David Doll joins in the discussion on the upcoming 960 The Patriot holiday party. We're joined by Johnny Estes, Vice President of Operations, and Shannon Estes, President of CMI Gold & Silver. Students at Massachusetts’ elite liberal school, Amherst College, say they were forced to sit through first year orientation performances where people mimicked sex acts on stage.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

At Frost, a small liberal arts college in Massachusetts, the runners on the women's cross country team have their sights set on the 1992 New England Division Three Championships and will push themselves through every punishing workout and skipped meal to achieve their goal. But Kristin, the team's star, is hiding a secret about what happened over the summer, and her unpredictable behavior jeopardizes the girls' chance to win. Team Captain Danielle is convinced she can restore Kristin's confidence, even if it means burying her own past. As the final meet approaches, Kristin, Danielle, and the rest of the girls must transcend their individual circumstances and run the race as a team.Told from the perspective of the six fastest team members, We Loved to Run (Hogarth, 2025) deftly illuminates the intensity of female friendship and desire and the nearly impossible standards young women sometimes set for themselves. With startling honesty and boundless empathy, Stephanie Reents reveals how girls—even those in competition—find ways to love one another and turn feelings of powerlessness into shared strength and self-determination. Stephanie Reents is the author of The Kissing List, a collection of stories that was an Editors' Choice in The New York Times Book Review, and I Meant to Kill Ye, a bibliomemoir chronicling her journey into the strange void at the heart of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian. She has twice received an O. Henry Prize for her short fiction. Reents received a BA from Amherst College, where she ran on the cross country team all four years; a BA from the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar; and an MFA from the University of Arizona. She was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. Recommended Books: Marisa Crane, A Sharp Endless Need Charlotte Wood, Stone Yard Devotional Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature, is published with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At Frost, a small liberal arts college in Massachusetts, the runners on the women's cross country team have their sights set on the 1992 New England Division Three Championships and will push themselves through every punishing workout and skipped meal to achieve their goal. But Kristin, the team's star, is hiding a secret about what happened over the summer, and her unpredictable behavior jeopardizes the girls' chance to win. Team Captain Danielle is convinced she can restore Kristin's confidence, even if it means burying her own past. As the final meet approaches, Kristin, Danielle, and the rest of the girls must transcend their individual circumstances and run the race as a team.Told from the perspective of the six fastest team members, We Loved to Run (Hogarth, 2025) deftly illuminates the intensity of female friendship and desire and the nearly impossible standards young women sometimes set for themselves. With startling honesty and boundless empathy, Stephanie Reents reveals how girls—even those in competition—find ways to love one another and turn feelings of powerlessness into shared strength and self-determination. Stephanie Reents is the author of The Kissing List, a collection of stories that was an Editors' Choice in The New York Times Book Review, and I Meant to Kill Ye, a bibliomemoir chronicling her journey into the strange void at the heart of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian. She has twice received an O. Henry Prize for her short fiction. Reents received a BA from Amherst College, where she ran on the cross country team all four years; a BA from the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar; and an MFA from the University of Arizona. She was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. Recommended Books: Marisa Crane, A Sharp Endless Need Charlotte Wood, Stone Yard Devotional Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature, is published with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

At Frost, a small liberal arts college in Massachusetts, the runners on the women's cross country team have their sights set on the 1992 New England Division Three Championships and will push themselves through every punishing workout and skipped meal to achieve their goal. But Kristin, the team's star, is hiding a secret about what happened over the summer, and her unpredictable behavior jeopardizes the girls' chance to win. Team Captain Danielle is convinced she can restore Kristin's confidence, even if it means burying her own past. As the final meet approaches, Kristin, Danielle, and the rest of the girls must transcend their individual circumstances and run the race as a team.Told from the perspective of the six fastest team members, We Loved to Run (Hogarth, 2025) deftly illuminates the intensity of female friendship and desire and the nearly impossible standards young women sometimes set for themselves. With startling honesty and boundless empathy, Stephanie Reents reveals how girls—even those in competition—find ways to love one another and turn feelings of powerlessness into shared strength and self-determination. Stephanie Reents is the author of The Kissing List, a collection of stories that was an Editors' Choice in The New York Times Book Review, and I Meant to Kill Ye, a bibliomemoir chronicling her journey into the strange void at the heart of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian. She has twice received an O. Henry Prize for her short fiction. Reents received a BA from Amherst College, where she ran on the cross country team all four years; a BA from the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar; and an MFA from the University of Arizona. She was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. Recommended Books: Marisa Crane, A Sharp Endless Need Charlotte Wood, Stone Yard Devotional Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature, is published with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

It's no secret that the Paris Agreement and voluntary efforts to address climate change are failing. Governments have spent three decades crafting international rules to manage the climate crisis yet have made little progress on decarbonization. In Existential Politics: Why Global Climate Institutions Are Failing and How to Fix Them (Princeton UP, 2025), Jessica Green explains why this is unsurprising: governments have misdiagnosed the political problem of climate change, focusing relentlessly on measuring, reporting, and trading emissions. This technical approach of “managing tons” overlooks the ways in which climate change and climate policy will revalue assets, creating winners and losers. Policies such as net zero, carbon pricing, and offsets primarily benefit the losers—owners of fossil assets.Ultimately, Green contends, climate change is a political problem. Climate politics should be understood as existential—creating conflicts that arise when some actors face the prospect of the devaluation or elimination of their assets or competition from the creation of new ones. Fossil asset owners, such as oil and gas companies and electric utilities, stand to lose trillions in the energy transition. Thus, they are fighting to slow decarbonization and preserve the value of their assets. Green asset owners, who will be the basis of the decarbonized economy, are fewer in number and relatively weak politically.Green proposes using international tax, finance, and trade institutions to create new green asset owners and constrain fossil asset owners, reducing their clout. Domestic investments in green assets, facilitated by global trade rules, can build the political power of green asset owners. Our guest is Jessica Green, a Professor in the Department of Political Science and the School of the Environment at the University of Toronto. Our host is Eleonora Mattiacci, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Amherst College. She is the author of "Volatile States in International Politics" (Oxford University Press, 2023). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

It's no secret that the Paris Agreement and voluntary efforts to address climate change are failing. Governments have spent three decades crafting international rules to manage the climate crisis yet have made little progress on decarbonization. In Existential Politics: Why Global Climate Institutions Are Failing and How to Fix Them (Princeton UP, 2025), Jessica Green explains why this is unsurprising: governments have misdiagnosed the political problem of climate change, focusing relentlessly on measuring, reporting, and trading emissions. This technical approach of “managing tons” overlooks the ways in which climate change and climate policy will revalue assets, creating winners and losers. Policies such as net zero, carbon pricing, and offsets primarily benefit the losers—owners of fossil assets.Ultimately, Green contends, climate change is a political problem. Climate politics should be understood as existential—creating conflicts that arise when some actors face the prospect of the devaluation or elimination of their assets or competition from the creation of new ones. Fossil asset owners, such as oil and gas companies and electric utilities, stand to lose trillions in the energy transition. Thus, they are fighting to slow decarbonization and preserve the value of their assets. Green asset owners, who will be the basis of the decarbonized economy, are fewer in number and relatively weak politically.Green proposes using international tax, finance, and trade institutions to create new green asset owners and constrain fossil asset owners, reducing their clout. Domestic investments in green assets, facilitated by global trade rules, can build the political power of green asset owners. Our guest is Jessica Green, a Professor in the Department of Political Science and the School of the Environment at the University of Toronto. Our host is Eleonora Mattiacci, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Amherst College. She is the author of "Volatile States in International Politics" (Oxford University Press, 2023). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/world-affairs

It's no secret that the Paris Agreement and voluntary efforts to address climate change are failing. Governments have spent three decades crafting international rules to manage the climate crisis yet have made little progress on decarbonization. In Existential Politics: Why Global Climate Institutions Are Failing and How to Fix Them (Princeton UP, 2025), Jessica Green explains why this is unsurprising: governments have misdiagnosed the political problem of climate change, focusing relentlessly on measuring, reporting, and trading emissions. This technical approach of “managing tons” overlooks the ways in which climate change and climate policy will revalue assets, creating winners and losers. Policies such as net zero, carbon pricing, and offsets primarily benefit the losers—owners of fossil assets.Ultimately, Green contends, climate change is a political problem. Climate politics should be understood as existential—creating conflicts that arise when some actors face the prospect of the devaluation or elimination of their assets or competition from the creation of new ones. Fossil asset owners, such as oil and gas companies and electric utilities, stand to lose trillions in the energy transition. Thus, they are fighting to slow decarbonization and preserve the value of their assets. Green asset owners, who will be the basis of the decarbonized economy, are fewer in number and relatively weak politically.Green proposes using international tax, finance, and trade institutions to create new green asset owners and constrain fossil asset owners, reducing their clout. Domestic investments in green assets, facilitated by global trade rules, can build the political power of green asset owners. Our guest is Jessica Green, a Professor in the Department of Political Science and the School of the Environment at the University of Toronto. Our host is Eleonora Mattiacci, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Amherst College. She is the author of "Volatile States in International Politics" (Oxford University Press, 2023). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/environmental-studies

It's no secret that the Paris Agreement and voluntary efforts to address climate change are failing. Governments have spent three decades crafting international rules to manage the climate crisis yet have made little progress on decarbonization. In Existential Politics: Why Global Climate Institutions Are Failing and How to Fix Them (Princeton UP, 2025), Jessica Green explains why this is unsurprising: governments have misdiagnosed the political problem of climate change, focusing relentlessly on measuring, reporting, and trading emissions. This technical approach of “managing tons” overlooks the ways in which climate change and climate policy will revalue assets, creating winners and losers. Policies such as net zero, carbon pricing, and offsets primarily benefit the losers—owners of fossil assets.Ultimately, Green contends, climate change is a political problem. Climate politics should be understood as existential—creating conflicts that arise when some actors face the prospect of the devaluation or elimination of their assets or competition from the creation of new ones. Fossil asset owners, such as oil and gas companies and electric utilities, stand to lose trillions in the energy transition. Thus, they are fighting to slow decarbonization and preserve the value of their assets. Green asset owners, who will be the basis of the decarbonized economy, are fewer in number and relatively weak politically.Green proposes using international tax, finance, and trade institutions to create new green asset owners and constrain fossil asset owners, reducing their clout. Domestic investments in green assets, facilitated by global trade rules, can build the political power of green asset owners. Our guest is Jessica Green, a Professor in the Department of Political Science and the School of the Environment at the University of Toronto. Our host is Eleonora Mattiacci, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Amherst College. She is the author of "Volatile States in International Politics" (Oxford University Press, 2023).

11/24/25: Dr. Xiomara Herman, Amherst School Super: the school counselor controversy, LGBTQ rts & the middle school. Megan Zinn w/ Amanda Jones, who is "That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America.” UMass Prof Amilcar Shabazz w/ Maurice "Soulfighter" Taylor: poetry, rap & comm healing. Amherst Town Mgr Paul Bockelman: the huge fire, Amherst College's $ contributions to town, lighting the Merry Maple.

11/24/25: Dr. Xiomara Herman, Amherst School Super: the school counselor controversy, LGBTQ rts & the middle school. Megan Zinn w/ Amanda Jones, who is "That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America.” UMass Prof Amilcar Shabazz w/ Maurice "Soulfighter" Taylor: poetry, rap & comm healing. Amherst Town Mgr Paul Bockelman: the huge fire, Amherst College's $ contributions to town, lighting the Merry Maple.

11/24/25: Dr. Xiomara Herman, Amherst School Super: the school counselor controversy, LGBTQ rts & the middle school. Megan Zinn w/ Amanda Jones, who is "That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America.” UMass Prof Amilcar Shabazz w/ Maurice "Soulfighter" Taylor: poetry, rap & comm healing. Amherst Town Mgr Paul Bockelman: the huge fire, Amherst College's $ contributions to town, lighting the Merry Maple.

11/24/25: Dr. Xiomara Herman, Amherst School Super: the school counselor controversy, LGBTQ rts & the middle school. Megan Zinn w/ Amanda Jones, who is "That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America.” UMass Prof Amilcar Shabazz w/ Maurice "Soulfighter" Taylor: poetry, rap & comm healing. Amherst Town Mgr Paul Bockelman: the huge fire, Amherst College's $ contributions to town, lighting the Merry Maple.

11/24/25: Dr. Xiomara Herman, Amherst School Super: the school counselor controversy, LGBTQ rts & the middle school. Megan Zinn w/ Amanda Jones, who is "That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America.” UMass Prof Amilcar Shabazz w/ Maurice "Soulfighter" Taylor: poetry, rap & comm healing. Amherst Town Mgr Paul Bockelman: the huge fire, Amherst College's $ contributions to town, lighting the Merry Maple.

My conversation with Aaron starts at about 24 minutes after headlines and clips Subscribe and Watch Interviews LIVE : On YOUTUBE.com/StandUpWithPete ON SubstackStandUpWithPete Stand Up is a daily podcast. I book,host,edit, post and promote new episodes with brilliant guests every day. This show is Ad free and fully supported by listeners like you! Please subscribe now for as little as 5$ and gain access to a community of over 750 awesome, curious, kind, funny, brilliant, generous soul Dr. Aaron E. Carroll is President & CEO of AcademyHealth. A nationally recognized thought leader, science communicator, pediatrician, and health services researcher, he is a passionate advocate for the creation and use of evidence to improve health and health care for all.  Before joining AcademyHealth, Dr. Carroll was a Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics and Chief Health Officer at Indiana University, where he also served as Associate Dean for Research Mentoring and the director of the Center for Pediatric and Adolescent Comparative Effectiveness Research at Indiana University School of Medicine. He earned a B.A. in chemistry from Amherst College, an MD from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, and an M.S. in health services from the University of Washington School of Public Health, where he was also a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar. Dr. Carroll's research focused on the study of information technology to improve pediatric care, decision analysis, and areas of health policy including cost-effectiveness of care and health care financing reform. He is the author of The Bad Food Bible and the co-author of three additional books on medical myths. In addition to having been a regular contributor to The New York Times and The Atlantic, he has written for many other major media outlets and is co-Editor-in-Chief at The Incidental Economist, an evidence-based health policy blog. He also has a popular YouTube channel and podcast called Healthcare Triage, where he talks about health research and health policy. Join us Thursday's at 8EST for our Weekly Happy Hour Hangout!  Subscribe and Watch Interviews LIVE    On YOUTUBE.com/StandUpWithPete ON SubstackStandUpWithPete   Pete on Blue Sky Pete on Threads Pete on Tik Tok Pete on YouTube  Pete on Twitter Pete On Instagram Pete Personal FB page Stand Up with Pete FB page Gift a Subscription https://www.patreon.com/PeteDominick/gift Send Pete $ Directly on Venmo All things Jon Carroll  Buy Ava's Art 

In this episode, the hosts welcome Donnie McKillop, Associate Athletic Director and Head Baseball Coach at East Coast Loomis Chaffee School. McKillop discusses his background growing up in Southern California, balancing multiple sports, and his journey through various coaching roles at institutions like Middlebury College, Springfield College, and Amherst College. He delves into the challenges and strategies of coaching multi-sport athletes in today's specialized sports environment and offers insights into the importance of building relationships, respecting team history, and fostering internal development. The episode also touches on the practicalities of managing time and embracing modern communication tools to stay connected with teams.00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome00:25 Coach Donnie McKillop's Background02:20 Journey to Loomis Chaffee03:56 Balancing Football and Baseball07:18 Coaching Philosophy and Advice11:06 Navigating Multi-Sport Coaching18:04 Coaching Journey and Professional Growth18:54 Integrating Football and Baseball Coaching Styles20:44 Unique Coaching Techniques and Philosophies23:14 Learning from Other Sports and Coaches26:27 Adapting to Modern Coaching Challenges27:00 Balancing Specialization and Multi-Sport Participation28:41 Importance of Rest and Regeneration32:36 Effective Team Communication Tools

Polarization is a defining feature of politics in the United States and many other democracies. Yet although there is much research focusing on the effects of polarization on domestic politics, little is known about how polarization influences international cooperation and conflict. Democracies are thought to have advantages over nondemocratic nations in international relations, including the ability to keep foreign policy stable across time, credibly signal information to adversaries, and maintain commitments to allies. Does domestic polarization affect these “democratic advantages”? These are the questions that Rachel Myrick tackles in her new book, “Polarization and International Politics: How Extreme Partisanship Threatens Global Stability” (Princeton UP, 2025) In this timely book, Myrick argues that polarization reshapes the nature of constraints on democratic leaders, which in turn erodes the advantages democracies have in foreign affairs. Drawing on a range of evidence, including cross-national analyses, observational and experimental public opinion research, descriptive data on the behavior of politicians, and interviews with policymakers, Myrick develops metrics that explain the effect of extreme polarization on international politics and traces the pathways by which polarization undermines each of the democratic advantages. Turning to the case of contemporary US foreign policy, Myrick shows that as its political leaders become less responsive to the public and less accountable to political opposition, the United States loses both reliability as an ally and credibility as an adversary. Myrick's account links the effects of polarization on democratic governance to theories of international relations, integrating work across the fields of international relations, comparative politics, and American politics to explore how patterns of domestic polarization shape the international system. Our guest is Rachel Myrick, the Douglas & Ellen Lowey Associate Professor of Political Science at Duke University. Our host is Eleonora Mattiacci, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Amherst College. She is the author of "Volatile States in International Politics" (Oxford University Press, 2023). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Polarization is a defining feature of politics in the United States and many other democracies. Yet although there is much research focusing on the effects of polarization on domestic politics, little is known about how polarization influences international cooperation and conflict. Democracies are thought to have advantages over nondemocratic nations in international relations, including the ability to keep foreign policy stable across time, credibly signal information to adversaries, and maintain commitments to allies. Does domestic polarization affect these “democratic advantages”? These are the questions that Rachel Myrick tackles in her new book, “Polarization and International Politics: How Extreme Partisanship Threatens Global Stability” (Princeton UP, 2025) In this timely book, Myrick argues that polarization reshapes the nature of constraints on democratic leaders, which in turn erodes the advantages democracies have in foreign affairs. Drawing on a range of evidence, including cross-national analyses, observational and experimental public opinion research, descriptive data on the behavior of politicians, and interviews with policymakers, Myrick develops metrics that explain the effect of extreme polarization on international politics and traces the pathways by which polarization undermines each of the democratic advantages. Turning to the case of contemporary US foreign policy, Myrick shows that as its political leaders become less responsive to the public and less accountable to political opposition, the United States loses both reliability as an ally and credibility as an adversary. Myrick's account links the effects of polarization on democratic governance to theories of international relations, integrating work across the fields of international relations, comparative politics, and American politics to explore how patterns of domestic polarization shape the international system. Our guest is Rachel Myrick, the Douglas & Ellen Lowey Associate Professor of Political Science at Duke University. Our host is Eleonora Mattiacci, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Amherst College. She is the author of "Volatile States in International Politics" (Oxford University Press, 2023). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

Polarization is a defining feature of politics in the United States and many other democracies. Yet although there is much research focusing on the effects of polarization on domestic politics, little is known about how polarization influences international cooperation and conflict. Democracies are thought to have advantages over nondemocratic nations in international relations, including the ability to keep foreign policy stable across time, credibly signal information to adversaries, and maintain commitments to allies. Does domestic polarization affect these “democratic advantages”? These are the questions that Rachel Myrick tackles in her new book, “Polarization and International Politics: How Extreme Partisanship Threatens Global Stability” (Princeton UP, 2025) In this timely book, Myrick argues that polarization reshapes the nature of constraints on democratic leaders, which in turn erodes the advantages democracies have in foreign affairs. Drawing on a range of evidence, including cross-national analyses, observational and experimental public opinion research, descriptive data on the behavior of politicians, and interviews with policymakers, Myrick develops metrics that explain the effect of extreme polarization on international politics and traces the pathways by which polarization undermines each of the democratic advantages. Turning to the case of contemporary US foreign policy, Myrick shows that as its political leaders become less responsive to the public and less accountable to political opposition, the United States loses both reliability as an ally and credibility as an adversary. Myrick's account links the effects of polarization on democratic governance to theories of international relations, integrating work across the fields of international relations, comparative politics, and American politics to explore how patterns of domestic polarization shape the international system. Our guest is Rachel Myrick, the Douglas & Ellen Lowey Associate Professor of Political Science at Duke University. Our host is Eleonora Mattiacci, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Amherst College. She is the author of "Volatile States in International Politics" (Oxford University Press, 2023). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/world-affairs

Polarization is a defining feature of politics in the United States and many other democracies. Yet although there is much research focusing on the effects of polarization on domestic politics, little is known about how polarization influences international cooperation and conflict. Democracies are thought to have advantages over nondemocratic nations in international relations, including the ability to keep foreign policy stable across time, credibly signal information to adversaries, and maintain commitments to allies. Does domestic polarization affect these “democratic advantages”? These are the questions that Rachel Myrick tackles in her new book, “Polarization and International Politics: How Extreme Partisanship Threatens Global Stability” (Princeton UP, 2025) In this timely book, Myrick argues that polarization reshapes the nature of constraints on democratic leaders, which in turn erodes the advantages democracies have in foreign affairs. Drawing on a range of evidence, including cross-national analyses, observational and experimental public opinion research, descriptive data on the behavior of politicians, and interviews with policymakers, Myrick develops metrics that explain the effect of extreme polarization on international politics and traces the pathways by which polarization undermines each of the democratic advantages. Turning to the case of contemporary US foreign policy, Myrick shows that as its political leaders become less responsive to the public and less accountable to political opposition, the United States loses both reliability as an ally and credibility as an adversary. Myrick's account links the effects of polarization on democratic governance to theories of international relations, integrating work across the fields of international relations, comparative politics, and American politics to explore how patterns of domestic polarization shape the international system. Our guest is Rachel Myrick, the Douglas & Ellen Lowey Associate Professor of Political Science at Duke University. Our host is Eleonora Mattiacci, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Amherst College. She is the author of "Volatile States in International Politics" (Oxford University Press, 2023).

Polarization is a defining feature of politics in the United States and many other democracies. Yet although there is much research focusing on the effects of polarization on domestic politics, little is known about how polarization influences international cooperation and conflict. Democracies are thought to have advantages over nondemocratic nations in international relations, including the ability to keep foreign policy stable across time, credibly signal information to adversaries, and maintain commitments to allies. Does domestic polarization affect these “democratic advantages”? These are the questions that Rachel Myrick tackles in her new book, “Polarization and International Politics: How Extreme Partisanship Threatens Global Stability” (Princeton UP, 2025) In this timely book, Myrick argues that polarization reshapes the nature of constraints on democratic leaders, which in turn erodes the advantages democracies have in foreign affairs. Drawing on a range of evidence, including cross-national analyses, observational and experimental public opinion research, descriptive data on the behavior of politicians, and interviews with policymakers, Myrick develops metrics that explain the effect of extreme polarization on international politics and traces the pathways by which polarization undermines each of the democratic advantages. Turning to the case of contemporary US foreign policy, Myrick shows that as its political leaders become less responsive to the public and less accountable to political opposition, the United States loses both reliability as an ally and credibility as an adversary. Myrick's account links the effects of polarization on democratic governance to theories of international relations, integrating work across the fields of international relations, comparative politics, and American politics to explore how patterns of domestic polarization shape the international system. Our guest is Rachel Myrick, the Douglas & Ellen Lowey Associate Professor of Political Science at Duke University. Our host is Eleonora Mattiacci, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Amherst College. She is the author of "Volatile States in International Politics" (Oxford University Press, 2023). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Amherst College's Ilan Stavans shares his latest book "Conversations on Dictionaries: The Universe in a Book" on the power of dictionaries in shaping culture. Plus we get his take on polling that shows Latinos in America might be turning away from Trump.Vulture podcast and TV critic Nick Quah shares the best podcasts he's heard this year. Josh Paul and Tariq Habash are co-founders of “A New Policy,” which aims to reform U.S. policy toward the Middle East. They join to discuss what they think multiple U.S. administrations have gotten wrong.The Reverends Irene Monroe & Emmett G. Price III join for “All Rev'd Up" on the pastors showing up at No Kings rallies, and a new survey that finds more U.S. adults are embracing organized religion – buying more bibles post-Charlie Kirk's assassination.

Robert McNamara's Encounter with an Anti-War Mob. Professor William Taubman of Amherst College discusses his new book, McNamara at War, covering an episode from 1967 or 1968. Robert McNamara traveled to Harvard Yard to speak with professors and students. There, he encountered an anti-war mob. Taubman recounts the surprising events that unfolded, noting the incident is remembered vividly.

McNamara's Path to Power: Statistical Control at Harvard Following Pearl Harbor William Taubman, Amherst College, with John Batchelor The discussion with Professor William Taubman focuses on Robert McNamara, a brilliant student his whole life who was famously known for his roles as Defense Secretary and World Bank leader, and later for apologizing for Vietnam War mistakes. The conversation traces the moment McNamara moved from being a young professor at Harvard Business School to making decisions for the U.S. Air Force. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, McNamara, wanting very much to participate in the war, rushed to discuss the conflict with his neighbors. The war came to him when Tex Thornton, who was at the Pentagon, arrived from Washington to establish a school at Harvard where officers would learn statistical control. McNamara was one of the first Harvard instructors to agree to teach the new curriculum. Thornton quickly realized that McNamara was the "pick of the litter at Harvard" and the ideal person to fit his mission of attracting brilliant Harvard professors to teach statistical control to American officers, thus beginning McNamara's influential career.

Marisa Adesman (b. 1991, Roslyn, NY) received her MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI in 2018 and her BFA from Washington University, St. Louis, MO in 2013. Adesman had her first museum solo exhibition, The Birth of Flowers, at KMAC Contemporary Art Museum, Louisville, KY in 2023. She has exhibited work widely including at the Contemporary Art Museum (CAM), St. Louis, MO; Black Mountain College Museum, Ashville, NC; Mead Art Museum, Amherst College; Amherst, MA; Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles / New York; and Mrs. Gallery, Queens, NY. Adesman's work is in public collections including Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, San Diego, CA; Deji Museum, Nanjing, China; and Museo d'Arte Moderna di Bologna (MAMbo), Bologna, Italy. Adesman lives and works in Chicago, IL.  Marisa Adesman's surreal and thought-provoking paintings often depict ordinary objects in bizarre contexts and striking states of mystical transformation. She composes tableware, candles, houseplants, flowers, linens, kitchen utensils, and furniture into strange and unusual arrangements that destabilize our notions about the proper order of a house and home. These settings are often centered around the female form and are guided by Adesman's visionary poetics of interior space. She examines the art historical meaning of the female figure as a pliable body designed for amorous desire and protection, but also sinister and capable of deception and corruption. Adesman's compositions mingle ethereal and phantasmagoric imagery of the surrealist period with Dutch still life and vanitas paintings from 16th and 17th century Europe. Likewise, she retains all the attendant technical mastery which defined those artistic styles. Smooth and luminous surfaces combined with a masterful use of chiaroscuro, the skillful contrastingof extreme light and dark, reveals the hand of a remarkably detailed painter whose work demands to be viewed in person. Marisa Adesman: Tug of War, Courtesy the artists and Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles / New York. Photos by: Marisa Adesman Marisa Adesman: Deadheading, 2025, Courtesy the artists and Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles / New York. Photos by: Marisa Adesman Marisa Adesman: The Turn, 2025, Courtesy the artists and Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles / New York. Photos by: Marisa Adesman

On New York University Week: What's in a name? Erin Morrison, clinical associate professor in liberal studies, looks at one colorful bird to find out. Dr. Erin Morrison is a Clinical Associate Professor in Liberal Studies at New York University. She holds a B.A. in Biology from Amherst College and received her Ph.D. in Ecology […]

" You can't ultimately control what happens in a race. And so you convince yourself you can, right? Or you tell yourself, well, if I control these other things, I might be able to control what happens in the race."  Stephanie Reents ran for four years on the Amherst College women's Cross Country team in the early 90s, and is the author of "We Loved to Run" her debut novel. Reents wanted there to be a novel about women's running, stories about the identities athletes hold and how those identities shape and change team dynamics, friendships, and relationships...to themselves, to their sport, and to each other. She didn't shy away from including the full spectrum of a collegiate athlete's experiences—disordered eating, body shaming, navigating trauamtic experiences, and still, continuing to compete.  In this episode, Reents shares her own experiences as both a high school and collegiate athlete, and of course, why she wrote the stories of these young women athletes from the perspective of their Cross Country team, on a quest to make Nationals.  Buy the book: "We Loved to Run" by Stephanie Reents (Lane 9 Bookshop affiliate link) Connect with Reents: @stephanie.reents on Instagram.  Follow @Lane9project on Instgram, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.  Connect with a clinician near you, and find your full team of women's health and sport providers, by going to Lane9Project.org/directory. If you don't see what you're looking for, fill out our Athlete Match Form, and we'll find someone for you!  

This episode features an interview with Dr. Derek G. Handley, author of the book Struggle for the City: Citizenship and Resistance in the Black Freedom Movement. Dr. Handley is an Associate Professor in the English Department at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. He is also affiliated faculty in the African and African Diaspora Studies Department and in the Urban Studies program. Before that, he was a Chamberlain Project Fellow in English and Black Studies at Amherst College and a Predoctoral Mellon Fellow at the James Weldon Johnson Institute for the Study of Race and Difference at Emory University. He has taught at Lehigh University, the United States Naval Academy, and the Community College of Allegheny County in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Currently, he is co-director of the digital humanities project “Mapping Racism and Resistance,” which maps racial covenants in Milwaukee County and uncovers Black resistance to such discrimination. In this interview, we discuss his concept of Black rhetorical citizenship, the role of Black women in the civil rights movement in the urban North, the plays of August Wilson, and housing covenants that prevented Black people from purchasing or renting particular properties throughout much of the twentieth century. This episode features a clip from the song "The City" by The Kyoto Connection. Episode Transcript

Why do states start conflicts that they ultimately lose? Why do leaders possess inaccurate expectations of their prospects for victory? Bureaucracies at War (Cambridge UP, 2024) examines how national security institutions shape the quality of bureaucratic information upon which leaders base their choice for conflict – which institutional designs provide the best counsel, why those institutions perform better, and why many leaders fail to adopt them. Author Tyler Jost argues that the same institutions that provide the best information also empower the bureaucracy to punish the leader. Thus, miscalculation on the road to war is often the tragic consequence of how leaders resolve the trade-off between good information and political security. Employing an original cross-national data set and detailed explorations of the origins and consequences of institutions inside China, India, Pakistan, and the United States, this book explores why bureaucracy helps to avoid disaster, how bureaucratic competition produces better information, and why institutional design is fundamentally political. Our guest is Tyler Jost, an assistant professor of political science and the Watson Institute Assistant Professor of China Studies at Brown University. Our host is Eleonora Mattiacci, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Amherst College. She is the author of "Volatile States in International Politics" (Oxford University Press, 2023). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Why do states start conflicts that they ultimately lose? Why do leaders possess inaccurate expectations of their prospects for victory? Bureaucracies at War (Cambridge UP, 2024) examines how national security institutions shape the quality of bureaucratic information upon which leaders base their choice for conflict – which institutional designs provide the best counsel, why those institutions perform better, and why many leaders fail to adopt them. Author Tyler Jost argues that the same institutions that provide the best information also empower the bureaucracy to punish the leader. Thus, miscalculation on the road to war is often the tragic consequence of how leaders resolve the trade-off between good information and political security. Employing an original cross-national data set and detailed explorations of the origins and consequences of institutions inside China, India, Pakistan, and the United States, this book explores why bureaucracy helps to avoid disaster, how bureaucratic competition produces better information, and why institutional design is fundamentally political. Our guest is Tyler Jost, an assistant professor of political science and the Watson Institute Assistant Professor of China Studies at Brown University. Our host is Eleonora Mattiacci, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Amherst College. She is the author of "Volatile States in International Politics" (Oxford University Press, 2023). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

Why do states start conflicts that they ultimately lose? Why do leaders possess inaccurate expectations of their prospects for victory? Bureaucracies at War (Cambridge UP, 2024) examines how national security institutions shape the quality of bureaucratic information upon which leaders base their choice for conflict – which institutional designs provide the best counsel, why those institutions perform better, and why many leaders fail to adopt them. Author Tyler Jost argues that the same institutions that provide the best information also empower the bureaucracy to punish the leader. Thus, miscalculation on the road to war is often the tragic consequence of how leaders resolve the trade-off between good information and political security. Employing an original cross-national data set and detailed explorations of the origins and consequences of institutions inside China, India, Pakistan, and the United States, this book explores why bureaucracy helps to avoid disaster, how bureaucratic competition produces better information, and why institutional design is fundamentally political. Our guest is Tyler Jost, an assistant professor of political science and the Watson Institute Assistant Professor of China Studies at Brown University. Our host is Eleonora Mattiacci, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Amherst College. She is the author of "Volatile States in International Politics" (Oxford University Press, 2023). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

Why do states start conflicts that they ultimately lose? Why do leaders possess inaccurate expectations of their prospects for victory? Bureaucracies at War (Cambridge UP, 2024) examines how national security institutions shape the quality of bureaucratic information upon which leaders base their choice for conflict – which institutional designs provide the best counsel, why those institutions perform better, and why many leaders fail to adopt them. Author Tyler Jost argues that the same institutions that provide the best information also empower the bureaucracy to punish the leader. Thus, miscalculation on the road to war is often the tragic consequence of how leaders resolve the trade-off between good information and political security. Employing an original cross-national data set and detailed explorations of the origins and consequences of institutions inside China, India, Pakistan, and the United States, this book explores why bureaucracy helps to avoid disaster, how bureaucratic competition produces better information, and why institutional design is fundamentally political. Our guest is Tyler Jost, an assistant professor of political science and the Watson Institute Assistant Professor of China Studies at Brown University. Our host is Eleonora Mattiacci, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Amherst College. She is the author of "Volatile States in International Politics" (Oxford University Press, 2023). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/world-affairs

Why do states start conflicts that they ultimately lose? Why do leaders possess inaccurate expectations of their prospects for victory? Bureaucracies at War (Cambridge UP, 2024) examines how national security institutions shape the quality of bureaucratic information upon which leaders base their choice for conflict – which institutional designs provide the best counsel, why those institutions perform better, and why many leaders fail to adopt them. Author Tyler Jost argues that the same institutions that provide the best information also empower the bureaucracy to punish the leader. Thus, miscalculation on the road to war is often the tragic consequence of how leaders resolve the trade-off between good information and political security. Employing an original cross-national data set and detailed explorations of the origins and consequences of institutions inside China, India, Pakistan, and the United States, this book explores why bureaucracy helps to avoid disaster, how bureaucratic competition produces better information, and why institutional design is fundamentally political. Our guest is Tyler Jost, an assistant professor of political science and the Watson Institute Assistant Professor of China Studies at Brown University. Our host is Eleonora Mattiacci, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Amherst College. She is the author of "Volatile States in International Politics" (Oxford University Press, 2023). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

Philip Taubman and his brother William have written what the publisher Norton is calling "McNamara at War: A New History." It's a full life biography of former Secretary of Defense Robert Strange McNamara. "It's a portrait of a man at war with himself," according to the authors. "It's riven with melancholy, guilt, zealous loyalty, and profound inability to admit his flawed thinking about Vietnam before it was too late." William Taubman, seven years older than his brother at 83, is an emeritus political science professor from Amherst College. Brother Phil spent 30 years with the New York Times and is an author of several books. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Host Jason Blitman talks to author Lily King about her newest novel, Heart the Lover. Conversation highlights include:

Philip Taubman and his brother William have written what the publisher Norton is calling "McNamara at War: A New History." It's a full life biography of former Secretary of Defense Robert Strange McNamara. "It's a portrait of a man at war with himself," according to the authors. "It's riven with melancholy, guilt, zealous loyalty, and profound inability to admit his flawed thinking about Vietnam before it was too late." William Taubman, seven years older than his brother at 83, is an emeritus political science professor from Amherst College. Brother Phil spent 30 years with the New York Times and is an author of several books. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

10/6/25 - On this episode, we'll discuss how we can recover the moral foundation of America with Hadley P. Arkes. Hadley P. Arkes. (born 1940) is an American political scientist and the founding director of the James Wilson Institute on Natural Rights and the American Founding. A longtime professor at Amherst College, he is known for his work on natural law, moral philosophy, and constitutional interpretation. Arkes was a key advocate for the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, signed into U.S. law in 2002. A convert to Catholicism, he integrates faith and reason in his defense of moral truth in public life. He continues to write and lecture widely on law, ethics, and the American founding tradition.

We were finally able to schedule a taping with enough lead time to get a special guest we've been wanting to have on for a long time—the great Hadley Arkes, emertus professor of jurisprudence from Amherst College and founder of the James Wilson Institute on Natural Rights and the American Founding, and co-host of his […]

We were finally able to schedule a taping with enough lead time to get a special guest we've been wanting to have on for a long time—the great Hadley Arkes, emertus professor of jurisprudence from Amherst College and founder of the James Wilson Institute on Natural Rights and the American Founding, and co-host of his own very fine podcast, the Natural Law Moment. We've abused Hadley in absentia in some of our podcasts over the last few months, so now he got hsi chance especially to attempt to sort out the very stubborn John Yoo. John was delayed a bit joining us, so since this podcast is partly anchored not only in the truths of natural law, but also libations of a scotch variety, we decided to take advantage of Hadley's advanced expertise in gin martinis. Plus some "origin story" of how he came to political philosophy and in particular natural law as the primary focus of his mature work.  And once John showed up, it was ON! We rounded off this episode with an AI-generated parody of Hadley, which begins as follows:“On the Ontological Status of the Ham Sandwich: A Moral Inquiry into the Lunchtime Crisis”By Gladly Harkness, Edward Whiskers Professor of Ontological JurisprudenceIt is a curious feature of our current jurisprudence that the simple act of consuming a ham sandwich has not yet been subject to rigorous philosophical analysis. . .For the whole thing, you'll need to head over to Steve's "Political Questions" Substack.

(SPOILER) Today's episode begins with talking about what to expect from the Dr. Catherine interview & topics from the Daily Roundup.  Then Dr. Catherine Sanderson joins me (8:35) to discuss a myriad of topics that have been on my pod for the last month or so, including the Taylor/Travis relationship, the hypocritical Taylor Frankie Paul reaction to her “Bachelorette” announcement, thoughts on the “Biggest Loser” doc, & much more. Music written by Jimmer Podrasky (B'Jingo Songs/Machia Music/Bug Music BMI) Ads: Tropical Smoothie Café - Tropical Smoothie Cafe® brings the goodness – with made-to-order smoothies, bowls and food.  You're on Tropic Time now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Amherst College's Ilan Stavans on what independence means in America in 2025. Plus, his thoughts on the chilling effect ICE raids are having on immigrant communities in New England.Brian McGrory, Boston University head and former Boston Globe editor, gives his take on the indefinite suspension of Jimmy Kimmel and larger attacks on free speech, plus the Pentagon's new media restrictions. Axios business editor Dan Primack on the AI race with China, the latest on TikTok's sale, and why the Fed's interest rate reduction might not be enough to stop a recession. The Revs, Irene Monroe and Emmett G. Price III, on how Charlie Kirk's death and evangelical roots are being received by Black Christians. Then, we open the phones lines to hear how listeners are embracing the season of flannel, pumpkin spice everything and cozy sweaters.

Mother of Courage: The True Story of an Armless Dentist and Her Triumph Over Tragedy by Dr Philip Chanin https://www.amazon.com/Mother-Courage-Armless-Dentist-Triumph/dp/B0D8RM8JSL Motherofcourage.com Mother of Courage is the inspiring true story of a young woman who loses both arms in a boating accident, yet valiantly finishes dental school, marries, raises two boys, teaches at an historically Black medical college, and becomes a nationally known advocate for people with disabilities. With grace, humor, faith, and a large dose of determination, Margaret Chanin transforms her tragic physical loss into a triumph of the human spirit-and shares her light with everyone she meets. Philip Chanin, EdD, ABPP, CGP, is a licensed clinical psychologist and consulting Buddhist psychotherapist, a nationally Certified Group Psychotherapist, and an Advanced Imago Therapist in private practice in Nashville, Tennessee. He is Board Certified through the American Board of Professional Psychology, and since 2005 he has been an Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. Bill Snyder is a Nashville-based science writer.About the author Dr. Philip Chanin is a Board Certified Clinical Psychologist. He loves writing, and there are 60 articles that he has written on his psychology practice website. He received a Bachelor's Degree from Amherst College and a Doctorate in Counseling Psychology from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is a Licensed Psychologist in Tennessee and has previously held licenses in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine. Dr. Chanin did post-doctoral training in clinical psychology in Massachusetts and in Philadelphia, at The Devereux Foundation. He opened a private practice in Ardmore, on Philadelphia's Main Line. He then relocated back to Massachusetts, living on the campus of the Northfield Mt. Hermon School, and spent five years working at an inpatient substance abuse treatment hospital in New Hampshire. He then established a private practice in Keene, New Hampshire, before moving back to Nashville, Tennessee, in 1991. Dr. Chanin is Board Certified through the American Board of Professional Psychology (ABPP), is a nationally Certified Group Psychotherapist, and is also an Advanced Imago Therapist in Nashville. He formerly served as Chair of the Board of Directors of the Nashville Psychotherapy Institute. He is an Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry of the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, for whom he sees psychiatric residents for supervision and psychotherapy. In his free time, Dr. Chanin enjoys spending time with his wife and two grown step-children. He also enjoys reading, writing, walking, yoga, playing racquet sports, spending time with friends and colleagues, and traveling in the States and internationally. The publishing of his book, Mother of Courage: The True Story of an Armless Dentist and Her Triumph Over Tragedy, represents the fulfillment of a long held dream to tell his mother's story.

In the wake of World War II, the United States leveraged its hegemonic position in the international political system to gradually build a new global order centered around democracy, the expansion of free market capitalism, and the containment of communism. Named in retrospect the "liberal international order" (LIO), the system took decades to build and is still largely with us today even as the US's relative power within it has diminished. In Great Power, Great Responsibility: How the Liberal International Order Shapes US Foreign Policy (Oxford UP, 2025), Michael Poznansky explores how the LIO has influenced US foreign policy from its founding to the present. Proponents argue that its impact has been profound, producing a system that has been more rule-bound and beneficial than any previous order. Critics charge that it has failed to prevent the US itself from consistently violating rules and norms. Poznansky contends that the answer lies in between. While rule-breaking has been a constant feature of the postwar order, the nature of violations varies in surprising and poorly understood ways. America's approach to compliance with the LIO, including whether leaders feel the need to conceal rule violations at all, is a function of two primary factors: the intensity of competition over international order, and the burden of complying with the liberal order's core tenets in a given case. Drawing on nine case studies, including the Korean War and Iraq War, Great Power, Great Responsibility sheds important light on the future of US foreign policy in an era where American unipolarity has ended and great power rivalry has returned. Our guest is Michael Poznansky, an Associate Professor in the Strategic and Operational Research Department and a core faculty member in the Cyber & Innovation Policy Institute at the U.S. Naval War College. Our host is Eleonora Mattiacci, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Amherst College. She is the author of "Volatile States in International Politics" (Oxford University Press, 2023). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

President Trump fired the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics following a weak jobs report. On this week's On the Media, how the Trump administration is threatening government data. Plus, a viral YouTube channel raises questions about the meaning of political debate. [01:00] Host Brooke Gladstone situates President Trump's recent firing of the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics within a larger effort to discount facts that aren't politically convenient. Plus, Amy O'Hara,  a professor at Georgetown's Massive Data Institute, on the importance of government data, and  Andreas Georgiou, a scholar in statistics at Amherst College, on his years-long battle to defend accurate economics data in Greece.[12:34] Brooke speaks with Angelo Carusone, the president of Media Matters, a liberal watchdog group that follows and fact-checks right-wing outlets like Fox News, NewsMax, and the Tucker Carlson Network, about the group's fight for survival as it faces a deluge of lawsuits brought by Elon Musk's X. [28:22] Host Micah Loewinger delves into the meteoric rise of the YouTube channel Jubilee with technology and online culture journalist Taylor Lorenz, and the channel's mission of fostering “radical empathy” by hosting political debates between wildly opposing groups. He speaks with Mehdi Hasan, editor-in-chief of Zeteo, about his recent Jubilee debate with far right conservatives and how the channel is transforming the meaning of political debate. Plus, Stassia Underwood, a participant of one Jubilee debate, opens up about her experience on set. Further reading:“Under Siege From Trump and Musk, a Top Liberal Group Falls Into Crisis,” by By Kenneth P. Vogel, Kate Conger, and Ryan Mac“1 Conservative vs 25 LGBTQ+ Activists (feat. Michael Knowles)” (Jubilee)“1 Progressive vs 20 Far-Right Conservatives (ft. Mehdi Hasan)” (Jubilee) On the Media is supported by listeners like you. Support OTM by donating today (https://pledge.wnyc.org/support/otm). Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing onthemedia@wnyc.org.

Dr. Catherine Sanderson (@SandersonSpeaks), Poler Family Professor, Chair of Psychology at Amherst College and the author of Why We Act: Turning Bystanders Into Moral Rebels joins host Ron Steslow (@RonSteslow) to analyze why Trump was able to exert control on the Republican party, how to recognize leaders who will stand up for what's right—and what we can do to become moral rebels . To contribute to Politicology, visit https://politicology.com/donate/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices