Anselm of Canterbury: The Monk Who Defied Kings With Pure Logic
Anselm of Canterbury crafted the ontological argument for the existence of God, an idea philosophers still wrestle with a thousand years later. But his intellectual life was only half the story. As Ar...
17 Jun 21min
Alexandre Dumas: The Author Who Lived Wilder Than His Own Fiction
Alexandre Dumas wrote The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo, but his real life outpaced both novels. Born the grandson of a Haitian slave and a French nobleman, Dumas fought duels, ran th...
17 Jun 21min
7324: Camille Saint-Saens — The Composer Who Locked Away His Own Masterpiece | pplpod
Camille Saint-Saens composed The Carnival of the Animals and then refused to let it be published or performed during his lifetime. He considered it too frivolous for his reputation as a serious compos...
17 Jun 21min
7323: Vivien Leigh — The Secret War with Bipolar Disorder Behind Scarlett O'Hara | pplpod
Vivien Leigh won two Academy Awards — for Gone with the Wind and A Streetcar Named Desire — while fighting a bipolar disorder so severe that it destroyed her marriage to Laurence Olivier, hospitalized...
17 Jun 21min
7322: Truman Capote — The Spectacular Social Suicide of America's Most Famous Writer | pplpod
Truman Capote charmed his way into the inner circle of New York high society, befriended the richest and most powerful women in Manhattan, and then published their secrets in a magazine excerpt that d...
17 Jun 24min
7321: Titian — The Venetian Master Who Built a Ruthless Art Empire | pplpod
Titian dominated Venetian painting for over sixty years, outlived every rival, and managed his career with the business instincts of a modern CEO. He courted popes, emperors, and kings, negotiated his...
17 Jun 23min
7320: Sandro Botticelli — The Ninety-Million-Dollar Comeback of a Forgotten Master | pplpod
Sandro Botticelli painted The Birth of Venus and Primavera, two of the most recognized images in Western art, and then spent three centuries almost completely forgotten. His reputation collapsed after...
17 Jun 19min
7319: Philip Roth — The Many Masks of America's Most Controversial Novelist | pplpod
Philip Roth published Portnoy's Complaint and became the most controversial novelist in America — loved by critics, loathed by the Jewish establishment, and read by everyone. He spent the next forty y...
17 Jun 22min
