Matto Mildenberger, "Carbon Captured: How Business and Labor Control Climate Politics" (MIT Press, 2020)
Why do some countries pass legislation regulating carbon or protecting the environment while others do not? In his new book Carbon Captured: How Business and Labor Control Climate Politics (MIT Press,...
13 Juli 202059min
Ainissa Ramirez, "The Alchemy of Us: How Humans and Matter Transformed One Another" (MIT Press, 2020)
In this interview, I talk to Dr. Ainissa Ramirez about her new book, The Alchemy of Us: How Humans and Matter Transformed One Another (MIT Press, 2020) Dr. Ramirez examines eight inventions―clocks, st...
25 Juni 202039min
Lee McIntyre, "The Scientific Attitude: Defending Science from Denial, Fraud, and Pseudoscience" (MIT Press, 2019)
What can explain the success of science as an endeavor for getting closer to truth? Does science simply represent a successful methodology, or is it something more? In The Scientific Attitude: Defendi...
24 Juni 202027min
Joshua Gans, "Economics in the Age of COVID-19" (MIT Press, 2020)
The COVID-19 pandemic has unleashed a firehose of information (much of it wrong) and an avalanche of opinions (many of them ill-founded). Most of us are so distracted by the everyday awfulness that we...
4 Juni 202036min
Simon Bowmaker, "When the President Calls: Conversations with Economic Policymakers" (MIT Press, 2019)
I spoke with Dr Simon Bowmaker, Professor of Economics at New York University, Stern School of Business. He has recently published When the President Calls: Conversations with Economic Policymakers (M...
28 Maj 202024min
Govind Gopakumar, "Installing Automobility: Emerging Politics of Mobility and Streets in Indian Cities" (MIT Press, 2020)
Automobiles and their associated infrastructures, deeply embedded in Western cities, have become a rapidly growing presence in the mega-cities of the Global South. Streets, once crowded with pedestria...
27 Maj 202053min
Jathan Sadowski, "Too Smart" (MIT Press, 2020)
The ubiquity of technology that collects massive volumes of all kinds of data lends itself to one overarching question: “What?” As in what is the purpose(s) of this collection? What are the benefits? ...
29 Apr 202046min
Wade Roush, "Extraterrestrials" (MIT Press, 2020)
Everything we know about how planets form and how life arises suggests that human civilization on Earth should not be unique. We ought to see abundant evidence of extraterrestrial activity―but we don'...
27 Apr 202054min
