Best Peter Conti Podcasts (2025)

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Fed independence? Here’s why you should worry. With Peter Conti-Brown 31:13

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11d ago31:13

31:13

President Donald Trump's attempt to fire Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve’s interest rate-setting board, is not the first time in the Fed’s history that there has been an attempt to politicise central banking. But Peter Conti-Brown, associate professor of financial regulation at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, tells …

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Peter Conti-Brown and Sean H. Vanatta, "Private Finance, Public Power: A History of Bank Supervision in America" (Princeton UP, 2025) 53:22

23d ago53:22

53:22

What does it mean to supervise a bank? And why does it matter who holds that power? In this episode, Sean H. Vanatta joins us to explore the hidden machinery behind American finance, as told in his new book Private Finance, Public Power: A History of Bank Supervision in America (Princeton UP, 2025), co-authored with Peter Conti-Brown. Spanning near…

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Victoria Bateman, "Economica: A Global History of Women, Wealth and Power" (Seal Press, 2025) 56:43

8h ago56:43

56:43

How many female entrepreneurs, economic revolutionaries, merchants, and industrialists can you name? You would be forgiven for thinking that, until very recently, there were none at all. But what about Phryne, the richest woman in ancient Athens, who offered to pay to rebuild the walls of Thebes after the city was razed by Alexander the Great? Or w…

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Susan Erikson, "Investable! When Pandemic Risk Meets Speculative Finance" (MIT Press, 2025) 35:03

32m ago35:03

35:03

Investable! When Pandemic Risk Meets Speculative Finance (MIT Press, 2025) by Dr. Susan Erikson presents a critical and sobering look at how international bankers and investors turn pandemics into investment opportunities, and what we stand to lose when we rely on “innovative finance.” In a world increasingly defined by crisis, bankers and investor…

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The ugly truth about Trump’s ‘beautiful tariffs’. With Martha Gimbel 32:34

2h ago32:34

32:34

Customs duties on imported goods used to be a crucial part of US government funding – in fact, the customs service was among the first federal agencies set up after the constitution. Now, Trump is hoping that – among other things – tariffs could transform the US budget. But do the revenues they raise for government coffers help outweigh their negat…

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Jack Hartnell, "Wound Man: The Many Lives of a Surgical Image" (Princeton UP, 2025) 1:04:56

2d ago1:04:56

1:04:56

The Wound Man—a medical diagram depicting a figure fantastically pierced by weapons and ravaged by injuries and diseases—was reproduced widely across the medieval and early modern globe. In Wound Man: The Many Lives of a Surgical Image (Princeton University Press, 2025), Dr. Jack Hartnell charts the emergence and endurance of this striking image, u…

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Celene Reynolds, "Unlawful Advances: How Feminists Transformed Title IX" (Princeton UP, 2025) 45:20

4d ago45:20

45:20

When the US Congress enacted Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, no one expected it to become a prominent tool for confronting sexual harassment in schools. Title IX is the civil rights law that prohibits education programs from discriminating “on the basis of sex.” At the time, however, the term “sexual harassment” was not yet in use; th…

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Laura Garbes, "Listeners Like Who?: Exclusion and Resistance in the Public Radio Industry" (Princeton UP, 2025) 42:07

8d ago42:07

42:07

Why is radio so white? In Listeners Like Who? Exclusion and Resistance in the Public Radio Industry (Princeton UP, 2025) Laura Garbes, a Sociologist and Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities, explores the history of public radio, theorising it as a white institutional space. Alongside the rich history and theoretical fram…

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China and the limits of its ‘engineering state’. With Dan Wang 28:24

8d ago28:24

28:24

China has become a superpower because of its ability to build bridges, cars and electronics at an astonishing pace. But breakneck growth comes with problems. The country is grappling with overproduction and deflation, and policymakers in Beijing are attempting to jumpstart consumer demand. How can China keep building without jeopardising its econom…

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Andrea Louise Campbell, "Taxation and Resentment: Race, Party, and Class in American Tax Attitudes" (Princeton UP, 2025) 57:32

5d ago57:32

57:32

Why Americans favor progressive taxation in principle but not in practice Most Americans support progressive taxation in principle, and want the rich to pay more. But the specific tax policies that most favor are more regressive than progressive. What is behind such a disconnect? In Taxation and Resentment: Race, Party, and Class in American Tax At…

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Anna Strhan and Rachael Shillitoe, "Growing Up Godless: Non-Religious Childhoods in Contemporary England" (Princeton UP, 2025) 38:05

5m ago38:05

38:05

What do children believe in? In Growing Up Godless: Non-Religious Childhoods in Contemporary England (Princeton UP, 2025) Anna Strhan, a Reader in the Department of Sociology at the University of York and Rachael Shillitoe, a senior social scientist in the UK civil service and honorary fellow in the Department of Sociology at the University of York…

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David Woodman, "The First King of England: Æthelstan and the Birth of a Kingdom" (Princeton UP, 2025) 39:15

19d ago39:15

39:15

The First King of England: Æthelstan and the Birth of a Kingdom (Princeton University Press, 2025) by Professor David Woodman is a foundational biography of Æthelstan (d. 939), the early medieval king whose territorial conquests and shrewd statesmanship united the peoples, languages, and cultures that would come to be known as the “kingdom of the E…

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David Edmonds, "Death in a Shallow Pond: A Philosopher, a Drowning Child, and Strangers in Need" (Princeton UP, 2025) 55:30

20d ago55:30

55:30

Imagine this: You’re walking past a shallow pond and spot a toddler thrashing around in the water, in obvious danger of drowning. You look around for her parents, but nobody is there. You’re the only person who can save her and you must act immediately. But as you approach the pond you remember that you’re wearing your most expensive shoes. Wading …

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After globalisation: What's next for a fractured world? With Neil Shearing 31:36

11d ago31:36

31:36

It’s a widely held assumption that US President Donald Trump has put globalisation into reverse. But Neil Shearing, group chief economist at Capital Economics and author of The Fractured Age: How the Return of Geopolitics Will Splinter the Global Economy, tells the FT’s world trade editor Peter Foster that Trump’s policies are a symptom and not the…

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Joshua Specht, "Red Meat Republic: A Hoof-to-Table History of How Beef Changed America" (Princeton UP, 2019) 30:37

21d ago30:37

30:37

Why do Americans eat so much beef? In Red Meat Republic: A Hoof-to-Table History of How Beef Changed America (Princeton University Press, 2019), the historian Joshua Specht provides a history that shows how our diets and consumer choices remain rooted in nineteenth century enterprises. A century and half ago, he writes, the colonialism and appropri…

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Margaret E. Roberts, "Censored: Distraction and Diversion Inside China’s Great Firewall" (Princeton UP, 2020) 50:55

21d ago50:55

50:55

We often think of censorship as governments removing material or harshly punishing people who spread or access information. But Margaret E. Roberts’ new book Censored: Distraction and Diversion Inside China’s Great Firewall (Princeton University Press, 2020) reveals the nuances of censorship in the age of the internet. She identifies 3 types of cen…

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Dan Davies, "The Unaccountability Machine: Why Big Systems Make Terrible Decisions—and How the World Lost Its Mind" (U of Chicago Press, 2025) 52:51

10d ago52:51

52:51

For this episode of Liminal Library, I interviewed Dan Davies about The Unaccountability Machine: Why Big Systems Make Terrible Decisions—and How the World Lost Its Mind (U Chicago Press, 2025). Davies examines how we've systematically engineered responsibility out of our institutions, creating a world where major decisions happen without clear hum…

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Peter Conti-Brown and Sean H. Vanatta, "Private Finance, Public Power: A History of Bank Supervision in America" (Princeton UP, 2025) 53:22

11d ago53:22

53:22

What does it mean to supervise a bank? And why does it matter who holds that power? In this episode, Sean H. Vanatta joins us to explore the hidden machinery behind American finance, as told in his new book Private Finance, Public Power: A History of Bank Supervision in America (Princeton UP, 2025), co-authored with Peter Conti-Brown. Spanning near…

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7 - From $5K and Bandit Signs to 8,000+ Deals with David Olds 34:07

12d ago34:07

34:07

Episode Description In this episode, Paul Thompson sits down with David Olds, co-founder of EZ REI Closings, the nation’s largest transaction coordination company. David shares his raw journey from hitting rock bottom during the 2009 crash and moving to Chattanooga with just $5,000, two kids, and three dogs to building a powerhouse business that ha…

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Tom Arnold-Forster, "Walter Lippmann: An Intellectual Biography" (Princeton UP, 2025) 42:50

25d ago42:50

42:50

From the years before World War I until the late 1960s, the journalist and political theorist Walter Lippmann was one of the most influential writers in the United States of America. His words and ideas had a powerful impact on American liberalism and his writings on the media are still taught today. Lippmann is now the subject of Tom Arnold-Forste…

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Walter Scheidel, "What Is Ancient History?" (Princeton UP, 2025) 59:20

27d ago59:20

59:20

It’s easy to think that ancient history is, well, ancient history—obsolete, irrelevant, unjustifiably focused on Greece and Rome, and at risk of extinction. In What Is Ancient History?, Walter Scheidel presents a compelling case for a new kind of ancient history—a global history that captures antiquity’s pivotal role as a decisive phase in human de…

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How Asia is coping with Trump’s tariffs. With Mari Pangestu 28:36

24d ago28:36

28:36

President Donald Trump thinks that Asia's goods exports are automatically America's loss and as part of his ‘reciprocal’ tariff policy, he has imposed some of the highest import taxes on goods from south-east Asia. So what does this mean for the region? And are Trump's policies pushing those countries further into China's orbit? Alan Beattie, the F…

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Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way, "Revolution and Dictatorship: The Violent Origins of Durable Authoritarianism" (Princeton UP, 2022) 57:29

28d ago57:29

57:29

Revolution and Dictatorship: The Violent Origins of Durable Authoritarianism (Princeton UP, 2022) explores why dictatorships born of social revolution—such as those in China, Cuba, Iran, the Soviet Union, and Vietnam—are extraordinarily durable, even in the face of economic crisis, large-scale policy failure, mass discontent, and intense external p…

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Konrad H. Jarausch, "Embattled Europe: A Progressive Alternative" (Princeton UP, 2021) 31:25

29d ago31:25

31:25

A bracing corrective to predictions of the European Union’s decline, by a leading historian of modern Europe Is the European Union in decline? Recent history, from the debt and migration crises to Brexit, has led many observers to argue that the EU’s best days are behind it. Over the past decade, right-wing populists have come to power in Poland, H…

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Angela C. Tozer, "The Debt of a Nation: Land and the Financing of the Canadian Settler State, 1820-73" (U of British Columbia Press, 2025) 1:07:31

26d ago1:07:31

1:07:31

You’ve got to speculate to accumulate. We apply that notion to individuals in pursuit of wealth, but what about countries? The Debt of a Nation: Land and the Financing of the Canadian Settler State, 1820–73 (U of British Columbia Press, 2025) is the first comprehensive history of Canada’s nineteenth-century public debt. Beginning in the 1820s, loan…

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Nan Z. Da, The Chinese Tragedy of King Lear (Princeton UP, 2025) 29:38

1M ago29:38

29:38

I’m Nicholas Gordon, host of the Asian Review of Books podcast, done in partnership with the New Books Network. On this show, we interview authors writing in, around, and about the Asia-Pacific region. King Lear, one of Shakespeare’s most famous tragedies, starts with Lear dividing up his kingdom between his three daughters: Goneril, Regan and Cord…

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Bench Ansfield, "Born in Flames: The Business of Arson and the Remaking of the American City" (Norton, 2025) 48:18

1M ago48:18

48:18

“Ladies and gentlemen, the Bronx is burning!” That legendary and apocryphal phrase, allegedly uttered by announcers during the 1977 World Series as flames rose above Yankee Stadium, seemed to encapsulate an entire era in this nation’s urban history. Across that decade, a wave of arson coursed through American cities, destroying entire neighborhoods…

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Shennette Garrett-Scott, "Banking on Freedom: Black Women in U.S. Finance Before the New Deal" (Columbia UP, 2019) 41:58

20d ago41:58

41:58

Think running an insurance company or a bank is hard? Try doing it as an African-American woman in the Jim Crow South. Shennette Garrett-Scott's new book, Banking on Freedom: Black Women in U.S. Finance Before the New Deal (Columbia University Press, 2019) tells the fascinating story of just such an endeavor, first the Independent Order of St. Luke…

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Mary Bridges on US Bankers Abroad and the Making of a Global Superpower 1:08:10

22d ago1:08:10

1:08:10

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Mary Bridges, Ernest May Fellow in History and Policy at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, about her book, Dollars and Dominion: US Bankers and the Making of a Superpower. Dollars and Dominion takes an infrastructural view of ba…

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Mary Bridges on US Bankers Abroad and the Making of a Global Superpower 1:08:10

1M ago1:08:10

1:08:10

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Mary Bridges, Ernest May Fellow in History and Policy at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, about her book, Dollars and Dominion: US Bankers and the Making of a Superpower. Dollars and Dominion takes an infrastructural view of ba…

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Why Russia’s wartime economy is starting to crack, with Elina Ribakova 28:08

25d ago28:08

28:08

When the EU and US hit Russia with fresh sanctions in 2022, many analysts expected the country’s economy to crack. Instead, Russia has shown strong GDP growth, powered in large part by a massive boost to war-related industries. Now, the effects of that boost appear to be fading. Have western sanctions finally started to bite? What would happen to R…

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Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life 56:38

1M ago56:38

56:38

In an overloaded, superficial, technological world, in which almost everything and everybody is judged by its usefulness, where can we turn for escape, lasting pleasure, contemplation, or connection to others? While many forms of leisure meet these needs, Zena Hitz writes, few experiences are so fulfilling as the inner life, whether that of a bookw…

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Audrey Truschke, "India: 5,000 Years of History on the Subcontinent" (Princeton UP, 2025) 44:10

1M ago44:10

44:10

I’m Nicholas Gordon, host of the Asian Review of Books podcast, done in partnership with the New Books Network. On this show, we interview authors writing in, around, and about the Asia-Pacific region. How do you tell the story of India–not just the modern-day country, but the whole region of South Asia, home to over two billion people? Historian A…

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Vijay Selvam, "Principles of Bitcoin: Technology, Economics, Politics, and Philosophy" (Columbia UP, 2025) 58:41

1M ago58:41

58:41

Principles of Bitcoin presents a holistic, first-principles-based framework for understanding one of the most misunderstood inventions of our time. By stripping away the hype, jargon, and superficial analysis that often surrounds the crypto industry, this book uncovers the true ingenuity behind Satoshi Nakamoto’s creation—and its profound implicati…

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Introducing the Rachman Review: Is the US heading for a debt crisis? 24:03

1M ago24:03

24:03

This week on the Economics Show, we're bringing you an interview with Ray Dalio, from our foreign affairs podcast, the Rachman Review. It originally broadcast on July 3. Gideon talks to Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund and author of a new book: How Countries Go Broke. They discuss the size of the US debt …

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Can we still trust US economic data? With Erica Groshen 30:15

1M ago30:15

30:15

After the Bureau of Labor Statistics released a worse-than-expected US jobs report, President Trump fired the agency’s head, Erika McEntarfer, claiming her numbers were ‘wrong’ and manipulated. There’s no evidence this was the case but many agree gathering reliable data on the health of the economy is getting harder. The FT’s chief data reporter, J…

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Athena Aktipis, "The Cheating Cell: How Evolution Helps Us Understand and Treat Cancer" (Princeton UP, 2020) 57:38

1M ago57:38

57:38

When we think of the forces driving cancer, we don’t necessarily think of evolution. But evolution and cancer are closely linked because the historical processes that created life also created cancer. The Cheating Cell: How Evolution Helps Us Understand and Treat Cancer (Princeton UP, 2020) delves into this extraordinary relationship, and shows tha…

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David D. Hall, "The Puritans: A Transatlantic History" (Princeton UP, 2019) 1:18:36

2M ago1:18:36

1:18:36

This book is a sweeping transatlantic history of Puritanism from its emergence out of the religious tumult of Elizabethan England to its founding role in the story of America. Shedding critical new light on the diverse forms of Puritan belief and practice in England, Scotland, and New England, David D. Hall provides a multifaceted account of a cult…

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Development funding is in crisis. What now? With Mark Suzman 36:27

2M ago36:27

36:27

The first two decades of the 21st century were a golden age for global development. International co-operation and funding drove remarkable progress in the developing world. Now, that progress threatens to stall as wealthy nations, including the US and UK, withdraw their support. A global meeting held in Spain last month ended with a new internatio…

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William Marx, "Libraries of the Mind" (Princeton UP, 2025) 1:05:38

2M ago1:05:38

1:05:38

Erich Auerbach wrote his classic work Mimesis, a history of narrative from Homer to Proust, based largely on his memory of past reading. Having left his physical library behind when he fled to Istanbul to escape the Nazis, he was forced to rely on the invisible library of his mind. Each of us has such a library—if not as extensive as Auerbach’s—eve…

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Margaret C. Jacob, "The Secular Enlightenment" (Princeton UP, 2019) 1:04:36

2M ago1:04:36

1:04:36

The Secular Enlightenment by Professor Margaret C. Jacob, has been called a major new history on how the Enlightenment transformed people's everyday lives. It’s a panoramic account of the radical ways that life began to change for ordinary people in the age of Locke, Voltaire, and Rousseau. In this landmark book, familiar Enlightenment figures shar…

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Paul Vigna, "The Almightier: How Money Became God, Greed Became Virtue, and Debt Became Sin" (St. Martin's Press, 2025) 1:02:24

2M ago1:02:24

1:02:24

The pursuit of wealth is considered an essential function of human nature, and greed is an unspoken civic virtue. Many of us revere billionaires and Wall Street rain-makers, then complain about “the system” being rigged, and wonder why the country doesn’t seem to work for the little guy anymore. Some blame the Deep State for income inequality and c…

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On Bullshit in AI 18:55

2M ago18:55

18:55

Today we’re continuing our series on Harry Frankfurt’s seminal work, On Bullshit. I have the privilege to speak with Arvind Narayanan co-author of the book AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What it Can’t, and How to Tell the Difference (Princeton University Press, 2024). Arvind is the perfect guest to explore the subject of bullshi…

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Dan-el Padilla Peralta, "Classicism and Other Phobias" (Princeton UP, 2025) 49:07

2M ago49:07

49:07

Classicism and Other Phobias (Princeton University Press, 2025) shows how the concept of “classicism” lacks the capacity to affirm the aesthetic value of Black life and asks whether a different kind of classicism—one of insurgence, fugitivity, and emancipation—is possible. Engaging with the work of Sylvia Wynter and other trailblazers in Black stud…

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Has Argentina’s Milei proved his critics wrong? With Alejandro Werner 33:51

2M ago33:51

33:51

In the early 20th century Argentina was one of the world’s richest countries. For most of the past 50 years, it has been an economic disaster. But after nine debt defaults, 23 IMF programmes and two years of triple-digit annual inflation, the country’s radical libertarian president, Javier Milei, has steadied the ship. How has Milei revitalised the…

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Ünver Rüstem, "Ottoman Baroque: The Architectural Refashioning of Eighteenth-Century Istanbul" (Princeton UP, 2019) 1:12:03

2M ago1:12:03

1:12:03

In Istanbul, there is a mosque on every hill. Cruising along the Bosphorus, either for pleasure, or like the majority of Istanbul’s denizens, for transit, you cannot help but notice that the city’s landscape would be dramatically altered without the mosques of the city. In Ottoman Baroque: The Architectural Refashioning of Eighteenth-Century Istanb…

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Mark R. Rank, "Poorly Understood: What America Gets Wrong about Poverty" (Oxford UP, 2021) 40:03

2M ago40:03

40:03

Few topics have as many myths, stereotypes, and misperceptions surrounding them as that of poverty in America. The poor have been badly misunderstood since the beginnings of the country, with the rhetoric only ratcheting up in recent times. Our current era of fake news, alternative facts, and media partisanship has led to a breeding ground for all …

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The Entrepreneurial Scholar: A New Mindset for Success in Academia and Beyond 59:52

2M ago59:52

59:52

In the increasingly competitive world of academia, simply mastering your discipline is no longer enough to guarantee career success or personal fulfillment. The Entrepreneurial Scholar: A New Mindset for Success in Academia and Beyond (Princeton UP, 2025) challenges scholars at all stages—from doctoral students to tenured professors—to break free f…

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Audrey Truschke, "India: 5,000 Years of History on the Subcontinent" (Princeton UP, 2025) 1:18:56

2M ago1:18:56

1:18:56

Much of world history is Indian history. Home today to one in four people, the subcontinent has long been densely populated and deeply connected to Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas through migration and trade. In this magisterial history, Audrey Truschke tells the fascinating story of the region historically known as India--which includes tod…

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Can Europe afford to rearm itself? With Jeromin Zettelmeyer 27:11

2M ago27:11

27:11

European countries have committed to higher defence spending to face down Russian aggression. But preparing for war isn’t cheap – and in many countries, budgets are already stretched. How will European members of Nato hit their defence targets, a hefty 5% of GDP? Will EU states look beyond their own national champions, and commit to greater co-oper…