Best Christopher Rausch Podcasts (2025)

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Red Pill or Blue Pill — Your Holiday Wake-Up Call 57:22

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1d ago57:22

57:22

What if The Matrix wasn’t just a movie… but a mirror? This Christmas season, I’m going solo and pulling back the curtain on a question most people are too distracted to ask: Are you living your life… or watching it happen through a screen? The news. Social media. Endless scrolling. Fear-based headlines. Comparison. Outrage. Division. What if that i…

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Douglas Morris, "Legal Sabotage: Ernst Fraenkel in Hitler's Germany" (Cambridge UP, 2020) 1:03:35

1d ago1:03:35

1:03:35

During the mid-1930s, Germans opposed to Adolf Hitler had only a limited range of options available to them for resisting the Nazi regime. One of the most creative and successful challengers in this effort was Ernst Fraenkel, who as an attorney sought to use the law as a means of opposing Nazi oppression. In Legal Sabotage: Ernst Fraenkel in Hitler…

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Marcus Willaschek, "Kant: A Revolution in Thinking" (Harvard UP, 2025) 1:05:04

2d ago1:05:04

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Immanuel Kant is undoubtedly the most important philosopher of the modern era. His Critique of Pure Reason, “categorical imperative,” and conception of perpetual peace in the global order decisively influenced both intellectual history and twentieth-century politics, shaping everything from the German Constitution to the United Nations Charter. Ren…

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The Subtle War on Freedom: Power, Fear, and Compliance 1:30:06

2d ago1:30:06

1:30:06

What if the life you think you’re choosing… isn’t fully yours anymore? This week on Raw & Unscripted, host Christopher Rausch sits down with Paul Nadeau, author of The Hostage Effect, for a conversation that is uncomfortable, eye-opening, and absolutely necessary. We’re talking about how power, money, algorithms, and influence quietly shape our bel…

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Amy Bowers Cordalis, "The Water Remembers: My Indigenous Family's Fight to Save a River and a Way of Life" (Little Brown, 2024) 1:02:51

3d ago1:02:51

1:02:51

For the members of a Northern California tribe, salmon are the lifeblood of the people—a vital source of food, income, and cultural identity. When a catastrophic fish kill devastates the river, Amy Bowers Cordalis is propelled into action, reigniting her family’s 170-year battle against the U.S. government. In a moving and engrossing blend of memoi…

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Michael Braddick, "Christopher Hill: The Life of a Radical Historian" (Verso Books, 2025) 53:52

4d ago53:52

53:52

Christopher Hill was one of the leading historians of his generation. His work across more than 15 books and dozens of articles fundamentally rewrote the way we understand the English Revolution and the development of the modern British state. While his career brought many of the trappings of establishment respectability – he was both a Fellow of t…

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Jane Eisner, "Carole King: She Made the Earth Move" (Yale UP, 2025) 42:26

4d ago42:26

42:26

Jane Eisner is a widely published journalist who held leadership positions at the Philadelphia Inquirer and The Forward. She is the author of Taking Back the Vote. Eisner lives in New York City. In our wonderful interview we discuss her new book, Carole King: She Made the Earth, (Yale UP, 2025), and her thoughts on what made Carole King the start t…

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Kwame Nkrumah and Pan-Africanism’s High Tide: A Conversation with Howard W. French 48:17

5d ago48:17

48:17

The Second Emancipation: Nkrumah, Pan-Africanism, and Global Blackness at High Tide (Liveright, 2025), the second work in a trilogy from best-selling author Howard W. French about Africa's pivotal role in shaping world history, underscores Adam Hochschild's contention that French is a "modern-day Copernicus." The title--referring to a brief period …

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Joseph Torigian, "The Party’s Interests Come First: The Life of Xi Zhongxun, Father of Xi Jinping" (Stanford UP, 2025) 47:22

9d ago47:22

47:22

Xi Zhongxun’s career spanned the entirety of China’s modern history. Born just two years after the 1911revolution that overthrew the Qing Dynasty, Xi was an early member of the Chinese Communist Party, tookpart in the Second World War, became an early leader of the PRC, was purged, survived the CulturalRevolution, was rehabilitated, and helped jump…

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Why You Know What to Do… But Still Don’t Do It 1:15:20

16d ago1:15:20

1:15:20

This week’s Raw & Unscripted conversation hits straight at the truth you and I see every day: most people don’t change until life forces them to. Host, Christopher Rausch, the #NoExcusesCoach, invites guest, Matthew Hill to the Raw & Unscripted Show, and he brings the kind of stories that smack you awake! From losing his entire income overnight to …

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Michael Staunton, "Thomas Becket and His World" (Reaktion Books, 2025) 1:11:37

17d ago1:11:37

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Thomas Becket and His World (Reaktion Books, 2025) explores the turbulent life and violent death of Thomas Becket, one of the most controversial figures of the Middle Ages. From a London merchant’s son to royal chancellor and archbishop of Canterbury, Becket’s murder in Canterbury Cathedral on 29 December 1170 elevated him to England’s most celebra…

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Henry Rausch, "Submerged: Life on a Fast Attack Submarine in the Last Days of the Cold War" (Independently Published, 2024) 56:44

21d ago56:44

56:44

In Submerged: Life on a Fast Attack Submarine in the Last Days of the Cold War (Independently Published, 2024), the author graduates from an elite university and enters the submarine service in the mid-1980s when rhetoric between the US and USSR threatens to turn the Cold War hot. He encounters an unforgiving world where submarines hunt each other …

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Adam Silverstein, "Haman" (Princeton UP, 2025) 37:32

22d ago37:32

37:32

Haman, infamous as the antagonist in the book of Esther, appears as a villainous figure in virtually all varieties of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In this “biography” of Haman (Princeton UP, 2025), Dr. Adam Silverstein traces the evolution of this villainous character from the ancient Near East to modern times, drawing on sources in a variety …

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Ali Anooshahr, "Slavery in the Early Mughal World: The Life and Thoughts of Jawhar Aftabachi (1520s–1580s)" (Oxford UP, 2025) 54:05

22d ago54:05

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Jawhar Aftabachi was enslaved as a child by the Ottomans in the Black Sea region in the early sixteenth century. He was then sold to the Ottoman admiral Selman Reis, who took him with his fleet to Egypt and Yemen during his wars with the Portuguese; carried, after the admiral's death, by the admiral's nephew Mustafa Bayram to Gujarat on the western…

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2025 - The Promises You Kept… and The Ones You Broke 1:01:12

23d ago1:01:12

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We’ve all had moments this year we wish we could redo. This episode will show you how those moments reveal your values, your growth, and your next steps. This week on Raw & Unscripted, host Christopher Rausch, the #NoExcusesCoach is taking a fearless look in the mirror. Not to judge, not to shame— but to finally get honest about how we showed up th…

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Brooke Barbier, "King Hancock: The Radical Influence of a Moderate Founding Father" (Harvard UP, 2023) 49:32

25d ago49:32

49:32

King Hancock: The Radical Influence of a Moderate Founding Father (Harvard UP, 2023) is a rollicking portrait of the paradoxical patriot, whose measured pragmatism helped make American independence a reality. Americans are surprisingly more familiar with his famous signature than with the man himself. In this spirited account of John Hancock's life…

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Dennis Deletant, "In Search of Romania" (Hurst, 2022) 53:25

26d ago53:25

53:25

The imposition of Communist ideology was a misfortune for millions in Eastern Europe, but never for Dennis Deletant. Instead, it drew him to Romania. The renowned historian’s association with the country and its people dates back to 1965, when he first visited. Since then, Romania has made Dennis appreciate the value of shrewd dissimulation, in the…

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Sarah Ruden, "Vergil: The Poet's Life" (Yale UP, 2023) 1:05:35

29d ago1:05:35

1:05:35

The Aeneid stands as a towering work of Classical Roman literature and a gripping dramatization of the best and worst of human nature. In the process of creating this epic poem, Vergil (70–19 BCE) became a living legend. But the real Vergil is a shadowy figure; we know that he was born into a modest rural family, that he led a private and solitary …

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Chris Yogerst, "The Warner Brothers" (UP of Kentucky, 2023) 1:07:36

29d ago1:07:36

1:07:36

One of the oldest and most recognizable studios in Hollywood, Warner Bros. is considered a juggernaut of the entertainment industry. Since its formation in the early twentieth century, the studio has been a constant presence in cinema history, responsible for the creation of acclaimed films, blockbuster brands, and iconic superstars. In The Warner …

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Jonathan Eig, "King: A Life" (FSG, 2023) 39:22

30d ago39:22

39:22

Vividly written and exhaustively researched, Jonathan Eig's King: A Life (FSG, 2023) is the first major biography in decades of the civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr.--and the first to include recently declassified FBI files. In this revelatory new portrait of the preacher and activist who shook the world, the bestselling biographer gives us …

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Stop Ignoring the Gifts in Your Struggles 58:47

1M ago58:47

58:47

You’ve survived so many painful events, and you still don’t give yourself credit for the UNSTOPPABLE warrior you are! Tonight, we’re talking about why even the painful chapters deserve your gratitude. Please join Raw & Unscripted host Christopher Rausch, the #NoExcusesCoach, because this episode is as real as it gets. Thanksgiving is a season where…

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Treena Orchard, "Sticky, Sexy, Sad: Swipe Culture and the Darker Side of Dating Apps" (Aevo, U Toronto Press, 2024) 40:57

1M ago40:57

40:57

In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with Treena Orchard about her memoir, Sticky, Sexy, Sad: Swipe Culture and the Darker Side of Dating Apps (Aevo, U Toronto Press, 2024). Jane Goodall meets Carrie Bradshaw in Sticky, Sexy, Sad – an insightful, empowering memoir by an anthropologist who lays her own life bare as she explores the cultur…

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Christina Cecelia Davidson, "Dominican Crossroads: H.C.C. Astwood and the Moral Politics of Race-Making in the Age of Emancipation" (Duke UP, 2024) 40:44

1M ago40:44

40:44

H. C. C. Astwood: minister and missionary, diplomat and politician, enigma in the annals of US history. In Dominican Crossroads: H.C.C. Astwood and the Moral Politics of Race-Making in the Age of Emancipation (Duke UP, 2024), Christina Cecelia Davidson explores Astwood’s extraordinary and complicated life and career. Born in 1844 in the British Car…

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Emma Heaney, "This Watery Place: Four Essays on Gestation" (Pluto Press UK, 2025) 1:15:49

1M ago1:15:49

1:15:49

What does it feel like to experience your body cleaving into two while public discussion of reproductive healthcare centers around the viability line: the fantasized moment when a fetus could feasibly be extracted from a uterus? What happens to the psychology of parents who spend years scrolling through photographs of children crushed in war while …

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Julie Dobrow, "Love and Loss After Wounded Knee: A Biography of an Extraordinary Interracial Marriage" (NYU Press, 2025) 44:30

1M ago44:30

44:30

Like any set of star-crossed lovers, Elaine and Charles came from different worlds. Elaine, an acclaimed childhood poet from a remote corner of the Massachusetts Berkshires, traveled to the Dakota Territories to teach Native American students, undaunted by society’s admonitions. Charles, a Dakota Sioux from Minnesota, educated at Dartmouth and Bost…

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David Chanoff, "Anthony Benezet: Quaker, Abolitionist, Anti-Racist" (U Georgia Press, 2025) 46:50

1M ago46:50

46:50

Wilberforce, Clarkson, Wesley. Britain’s great abolitionist activist Granville Sharp. Each of these consequential figures of the eighteenth-century Atlantic world were galvanized by the moral power of a modest Quaker teacher who never ventured more than a few miles from his home in Philadelphia: Anthony Benezet. While Benezet was buried in an unmar…

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Simon Appleford, "Drawing Liberalism: Herblock's Political Cartoons in Postwar America" (U Virginia Press, 2023) 56:44

1M ago56:44

56:44

Drawing Liberalism: Herblock's Political Cartoons in Postwar America (U Virginia Press, 2023) is the first book-length critical examination of the political and social impact of the political cartoonist Herbert Block--popularly known as Herblock. Working for the Washington Post, Herblock played a central role in shaping, propagandizing, and defendi…

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Why You're Mentally Checking Out (And How to Get Your Fire Back!) 50:43

1M ago50:43

50:43

Ever catch yourself drifting through life on autopilot? You’re showing up… but not REALLY showing up? You’re busy… but not connected? You’re doing the things… but the fire is gone? Don't worry...you're definitely not alone! On this week’s Raw & Unscripted podcast, host and #NoExcusesCoach Christopher Rausch breaks down the real reason you’ve mental…

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Dustin Condren, "An Imaginary Cinema: Sergei Eisenstein and the Unrealized Film" (Cornell UP, 2024) 1:07:57

1M ago1:07:57

1:07:57

An Imaginary Cinema: Sergei Eisenstein and the Unrealized Film (Cornell UP, 2024) explores the unfinished cinematic projects developed and abandoned by Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein between 1927 and 1937. Centred on seven major film concepts, the book examines what it means for a work of art—particularly a film—to remain unfinished or unrealis…

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Philip Nash, "Clare Boothe Luce: American Renaissance Woman" (Routledge, 2022) 1:04:56

1M ago1:04:56

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Philip Nash's book Clare Boothe Luce: American Renaissance Woman (Routledge, 2022) is a concise and highly readable political biography that examines the life of one of the most accomplished American women of the 20th century. Wife and mother, author, editor, playwright, political activist, war journalist, Congresswoman, ambassador, pundit, and fem…

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Lester D. Friedman, "Citizen Spielberg" (U of Illinois Press, 2022) 48:48

1M ago48:48

48:48

Steven Spielberg's extraordinary career redefined Hollywood, but his achievement goes far beyond shattered box office records. Rejecting the view of Spielberg as a Barnumesque purveyor of spectacle, Lester D. Friedman presents the filmmaker as a major artist who pairs an ongoing willingness to challenge himself with a widely recognized technical ma…

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Christina Lane, "Phantom Lady: Hollywood Producer Joan Harrison, the Forgotten Woman Behind Hitchcock" (Chicago Review Press, 2020) 1:01:36

1M ago1:01:36

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A platinum beauty with an ugly secret; a tall, dark, and handsome husband with murder in his eyes; starkly lit interiors that may or may not include the silhouette of a rotund British gentleman…. This may sound like a catalog of images from the films of Alfred Hitchcock, but it is just as much an encapsulation of the works of Joan Harrison, a studi…

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Aaron Magid, "The Most American King: Abdullah of Jordan" (Universal Publishers, 2025) 52:47

1M ago52:47

52:47

The Most American King: Abdullah of Jordan (Universal Publishers, 2025) is the first comprehensive biography on Jordan’s King Abdullah. Drawing on interviews with over 100 individuals, including Abdullah's classmates, former Jordanian ministers, and CIA directors, The Most American King offers a thorough account of this key Arab leader. Aaron Magid…

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Meg Groff, "Not If I Can Help It" (Rivertown Books, 2025) 38:15

1M ago38:15

38:15

Meg Groff's memoir Not If I Can Help It (Rivertown Books, 2025) recounts some of the most harrowing, infuriating, yet inspiring stories from Groff’s work as a Legal Aid attorney representing women and children whose only resource is the sheer courage they exhibit every day. Groff dedicated forty years of her life to fighting for justice for victims…

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The Lies We Tell Ourselves 1:06:57

2M ago1:06:57

1:06:57

Are you tired of holding yourself back with excuses that sound like logic? We all tell ourselves stories — but some of those stories are straight-up lies that keep us stuck! Do any of these sound painfully familiar? “I don’t have time.” “I’m not ready yet.” “It’s just who I am.” Those lies feel comfortable… but they’re comfort with a cost. In this …

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Judith L. Pearson, "Radical Sisters: Shirley Temple Black, Rose Kushner, Evelyn Lauder, and the Dawn of the Breast Cancer Movement" (Mayo Clinic Press, 2025) 1:01:56

2M ago1:01:56

1:01:56

There was a time when women's health was marginalized. There was a time when breast cancer wasn't discussed. There was a time when October wasn't pink. But three women--Shirley Temple Black, Rose Kushner, and Evelyn Lauder--refused to be silenced. Their courage ignited a movement that forever changed the way society addresses breast cancer. When th…

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Al Posamentier, "Math Makers: The Lives and Works of 50 Famous Mathematicians" (Prometheus, 2020) 56:37

2M ago56:37

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Today I talked to Alfred S. Posamentier, a co-author (with Christian Spreitzer) of Math Makers: The Lives and Works of 50 Famous Mathematicians (Prometheus, 2020). This charming book is more than just mathematics, because mathematicians are not just makers of mathematics. They are human beings whose life stories are often not just entertaining, but…

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Martha Biondi, "We Are Internationalists: Prexy Nesbitt and the Fight for African Liberation" (U California Press, 2025) 42:29

2M ago42:29

42:29

Explores forgotten solidarity with African liberation struggles through the life of Black Chicagoan Prexy Nesbitt. For many civil rights activists, the Vietnam War brought the dangers of US imperialism and the global nature of antiracist struggle into sharp relief. Martha Biondi tells the story of one such group of activists who built an internatio…

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David T. Beito, "FDR: A New Political Life" (Open Universe, 2025) 32:24

2M ago32:24

32:24

David Beito's new book brings to bear the latest historical scholarship to shed light on the life and achievements of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Professor Beito traces the irresistible political rise of Roosevelt, a scion of inherited wealth who never posed as a man of the people but was always perceived as a genial aristocrat. As well as eyebrow-r…

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House of Diggs: The Rise and Fall of America’s Most Consequential Black Congressman, Charles C. Diggs Jr. 55:13

2M ago55:13

55:13

At the height of the civil rights movement, Charles C. Diggs Jr. (1922–1998) was the consummate power broker. In a political career spanning 1951 to 1980, Diggs, Michigan’s first Black member of Congress, was the only federal official to attend the trial of Emmett Till’s killers, worked behind the scenes with Martin Luther King Jr., and founded the…

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Why You Keep Procrastinating 1:06:13

2M ago1:06:13

1:06:13

Why You Keep Procrastinating Are you tired of your own excuses? You already know what to do — so why the hell aren’t you doing it? In this week’s Raw & Unscripted Q&A episode, host Christopher Rausch, the #NoExcusesCoach, is diving headfirst into the real-life questions YOU asked (part 2 btw)— no fluff, no filters: 💥 Why do I keep procrastinating e…

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Mark L. Clifford, "The Troublemaker: How Jimmy Lai Became a Billionaire, Hong Kong's Greatest Dissident, and China's Most Feared Critic" (Free Press, 2024) 1:29:57

2M ago1:29:57

1:29:57

The extraordinary life story of the billionaire businessman Jimmy Lai, a leading Hong Kong democracy activist fighting for freedom of speech who became China’s most famous political prisoner. Jimmy Lai escaped mainland China when he was twelve years old, at the height of a famine that killed tens of millions. In Hong Kong, he hustled and often slep…