Best Mitchell Bernstein Podcasts (2026)

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Shuchen Xiang, "Chinese Cosmopolitanism: The History and Philosophy of an Idea" (Princeton UP, 2023) 1:29:30

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11h ago1:29:30

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A provocative defense of a forgotten Chinese approach to identity and difference. Historically, the Western encounter with difference has been catastrophic: the extermination and displacement of aboriginal populations, the transatlantic slave trade, and colonialism. China, however, took a different historical path. In Chinese Cosmopolitanism: The H…

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Kevin J. Mitchell, "Free Agents: How Evolution Gave Us Free Will" (Princeton UP, 2023) 32:26

3d ago32:26

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Scientists are learning more and more about how brain activity controls behavior and how neural circuits weigh alternatives and initiate actions. As we probe ever deeper into the mechanics of decision making, many conclude that agency--or free will--is an illusion. In Free Agents: How Evolution Gave Us Free Will (Princeton UP, 2023), leading neuros…

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Kevin J. Mitchell, "Free Agents: How Evolution Gave Us Free Will" (Princeton UP, 2023) 32:26

3d ago32:26

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Scientists are learning more and more about how brain activity controls behavior and how neural circuits weigh alternatives and initiate actions. As we probe ever deeper into the mechanics of decision making, many conclude that agency--or free will--is an illusion. In Free Agents: How Evolution Gave Us Free Will (Princeton UP, 2023), leading neuros…

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James Welsh et al., "Weathering Space" (American Scientist 114:1 2026) 47:34

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Past human space missions were protected by Earth’s magnetic field and a measure of luck, but future missions beyond the Earth–Moon system will face far greater and longer-lasting radiation risks that cannot be managed by route planning alone. The authors argue that safe deep-space exploration will require major advances in understanding radiation,…

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Kate Clancy, "Period: The Real Story of Menstruation" (Princeton UP, 2023) 28:21

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Menstruation is something half the world does for a week at a time, for months and years on end, yet it remains largely misunderstood. Scientists once thought of an individual's period as useless, and some doctors still believe it's unsafe for a menstruating person to swim in the ocean wearing a tampon. Period: The Real Story of Menstruation (Princ…

151
Andrew Porwancher, "American Maccabee: Theodore Roosevelt and the Jews" (Princeton UP, 2025) 30:31

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A scion of the Protestant elite, Theodore Roosevelt was an unlikely ally of the waves of impoverished Jewish newcomers who crowded the docks at Ellis Island. Yet from his earliest years he forged ties with Jews never before witnessed in a president. American Maccabee traces Roosevelt’s deep connection with the Jewish people at every step of his daz…

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Andrew W. Bernstein, "Fuji: A Mountain in the Making" (Princeton UP, 2025) 1:01:37

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Fuji: A Mountain in the Making (Princeton UP, 2025) is A panoramic biography of Japan's iconic mountain from the Ice Age to the present Mount Fuji is everywhere recognized as a wonder of nature and enduring symbol of Japan. Yet behind the picture-postcard image is a history filled with conflict and upheaval. Violent eruptions across the centuries w…

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James Franklin and Jeremiah Joven Joaquin eds., "The Necessities Underlying Reality: Connecting Philosophy of Mathematics, Ethics and Probability" (Bloomsbury, 2025) 55:15

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The Necessities Underlying Reality: Connecting Philosophy of Mathematics, Ethics and Probability (Bloomsbury, 2025) is an open access book that covers four decades of work by the leading Australian philosopher, mathematician and historian of ideas, James Franklin. These interlinking essays are connected by a core theme: the necessary structures in …

251
Emanuel Deutschmann, "Mapping the Transnational World: How We Move and Communicate Across Borders, and Why It Matters" (Princeton UP, 2022) 37:17

12d ago37:17

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Increasingly, people travel and communicate across borders. Yet, we still know little about the overall structure of this transnational world. Is it really a fully globalized world in which everything is linked, as popular catchphrases like “global village” suggest? Through a sweeping comparative analysis of eight types of mobility and communicatio…

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Try to Love the Questions: From Debate to Dialogue in Classrooms and Life 1:01:07

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Among the most common challenges on college campuses today is figuring out how to navigate our politically charged culture and engage productively with opposing viewpoints. In Try to Love the Questions: From Debate to Dialogue in Classrooms and Life (Princeton UP, 2024), Lara Schwartz introduces the fundamental principles of free expression, academ…

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Celina Su, "Budget Justice: On Building Grassroots Politics and Solidarities" (Princeton UP, 2025) 35:32

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Amid political repression and a deepening affordability crisis, Budget Justice: On Building Grassroots Politics and Solidarities (Princeton UP, 2025) challenges everything you thought you knew about “dull” and daunting government budgets. It shows how the latter confuse and mislead the public by design, not accident. Arguing that they are moral doc…

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Yossi Yovel, "The Genius Bat: The Secret Life of the Only Flying Mammal" (St. Martin's Press, 2025) 1:04:13

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With nearly 1500 species, bats account for more than twenty percent of mammalian species. The most successful and most diverse group of mammals, bats come in different sizes, shapes, and colors, from the tiny bumblebee bat to the giant golden-crowned flying fox. Some bats eat fruit and nectar; others eat frogs, scorpions, or fish. Vampire bats feed…

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John Tolan, "Islam: A New History from Muhammad to the Present" (Princeton UP, 2025) 51:29

20d ago51:29

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A concise new narrative history of Islam that draws on the transformative insights of recent research to emphasize the diversity and dynamism of the tradition. Today’s Muslim world has been experiencing upheaval: legalists and mystics engage in intense debates, radical groups invoke Sharia, Muslim immigrants in the West face prejudice and discrimin…

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Andrew Bernstein, "Fuji: A Mountain In The Making" (Princeton UP, 2025) 44:56

24d ago44:56

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The Great Wave is perhaps the most famous piece of Japanese artwork: a roaring blue wave and three boats on the ocean. And far in the background is Mt. Fuji. And that’s actually what Hokusai’s famous woodprint is about: Mt. Fuji, volcano and Japan’s tallest mountain. Andrew Bernstein tells the story of Mt. Fuji–from its geographic origins as a viol…

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Dan Edelstein, "The Revolution to Come: A History of an Idea from Thucydides to Lenin" (Princeton UP, 2025) 1:00:23

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Political thinkers from Plato to John Adams saw revolutions as a grave threat to society and advocated for a constitution that prevented them by balancing social interests and forms of government. The Revolution to Come: A History of an Idea from Thucydides to Lenin (Princeton UP, 2025) traces how evolving conceptions of history ushered in a faith …

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Jeremy Bernstein 11–2007 43:39

22d ago43:39

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In this episode from the Institute’s vault, we revisit an October 2007 presentation by theoretical physicist and Institute Fellow Jeremy Bernstein on J. Robert Oppenheimer, the atomic bomb, and the nuclear arms race that followed. As a physicist, Bernstein made contributions to elementary particle physics and cosmology, working at the Institute for…

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Thomas Haigh on the History of “AI” as a Brand 1:42:06

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Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Thomas Haigh, Professor and Chair of History and affiliate of the Department of Computer Science at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, about his forthcoming book on the history of artificial intelligence. The book, which has had the working title _Artificial Intelligence: The History of a Brand_ with th…

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The Backsliders: Why Leaders Undermine Their Own Democracies 53:00

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This week on Democratic Dialogues, co-hosts Rachel Beatty Riedl and Esam Boraey speak with Susan C. Stokes, Tiffany and Margaret Blake Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago and Director of the Chicago Center on Democracy. Drawing from her book The Backsliders: Why Leaders Undermine Their Own Democracies (…

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

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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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Jon Willis, "The Pale Blue Data Point: An Earth-Based Perspective on the Search for Alien Life" (U Chicago Press, 2025) 1:18:38

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A thrilling tour of Earth that shows the search for extraterrestrial life starts in our own backyard. Is there life off Earth? Bound by the limitations of spaceflight, a growing number of astrobiologists investigate the question by studying life on our planet. Astronomer and author Jon Willis shows us how it’s done, allowing readers to envision ext…

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Jessica F. Green, "Existential Politics: Why Global Climate Institutions Are Failing and How to Fix Them" (Princeton UP, 2025) 27:51

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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, …

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Philip Pettit, "The State" (Princeton UP, 2023) 43:12

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In The State (Princeton University Press, 2023), the prominent political philosopher Philip Pettit embarks on a massive undertaking, offering a major new account of the foundations of the state and the nature of justice. In doing so, Pettit builds a new theory of what the state is and what it ought to be, addresses the normative question of how jus…

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Marion Turner, "The Wife of Bath: A Biography" (Princeton UP, 2023) 44:57

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Ever since her triumphant debut in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, the Wife of Bath, arguably the first ordinary and recognisably real woman in English literature, has obsessed readers--from Shakespeare to James Joyce, Voltaire to Pasolini, Dryden to Zadie Smith. Few literary characters have led such colourful lives or matched her influence or capacity…

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Andrew H. Jaffe, "The Random Universe: How Models and Probability Help Us Make Sense of the Cosmos" (Yale UP, 2025) 1:29:21

1M ago1:29:21

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An award-winning astrophysicist looks at how the understanding of uncertainty and randomness has led to breakthroughs in our knowledge of the cosmos All of us understand the world around us by constructing models, comparing them to observations, and drawing conclusions. Scientists create, test, and replace these models by applying the twinned conce…

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Ludovic Orlando, "Horses: A 4,000-Year Genetic Journey Across the World" (Princeton UP, 2025) 53:11

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In 2016, Ludovic Orlando, a genetics researcher, embarked on the Pegasus Project, an ambitious endeavor to use genetics to discover the origin of the modern horse. There were plenty of theories as to who domesticated horses first–but Ludovic’s team came up with their answer: They emerged on the western Eurasian steppe around 4200 years ago. But tha…

1351
Carl Benedikt Frey, "How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation, and the Fate of Nations" (Princeton UP, 2025) 54:29

2M ago54:29

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In How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation, and the Fate of Nations (Princeton University Press, 2025), Carl Benedikt Frey challenges the conventional belief that economic and technological progress is inevitable. For most of human history, stagnation was the norm, and even today progress and prosperity in the world's largest, most advanced econo…

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Nicholas Buccola, "One Man’s Freedom: Goldwater, King, and the Struggle Over an American Ideal" (Princeton UP, 2025) 1:15:40

2M ago1:15:40

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From the acclaimed author of The Fire Is upon Us, the dramatic untold story of Barry Goldwater and Martin Luther King Jr.'s decade-long clash over the meaning of freedom--and how their conflicting visions still divide American politics In the mid-1950s, Barry Goldwater and Martin Luther King Jr. emerged as the leaders of two diametrically opposed f…

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Carl Benedikt Frey, "How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation, and the Fate of Nations" (Princeton UP, 2025) 54:29

1M ago54:29

54:29

In How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation, and the Fate of Nations (Princeton University Press, 2025), Carl Benedikt Frey challenges the conventional belief that economic and technological progress is inevitable. For most of human history, stagnation was the norm, and even today progress and prosperity in the world's largest, most advanced econo…

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On Democracy and Bullshit with Hélène Landemore 1:06:15

2M ago1:06:15

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Today I’m speaking with Hélène Landemore, Professor of Political Science at Yale University, about Democracy and Bullshit, with a special focus on her 2020 book, Open Democracy: Reinventing Popular Rule for the Twenty-First Century (Princeton University Press, 2020). Bullshit is a feature of both democracies and dictatorships alike, but it takes di…

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David Garland, "Law and Order Leviathan: America’s Extraordinary Regime of Policing and Punishment" (Princeton UP, 2025) 1:02:27

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The United States has long been an international outlier, with a powerful business class, a weak social state, and an exceptional gun culture. In Law and Order Leviathan: America’s Extraordinary Regime of Policing and Punishment (Princeton UP, 2025), David Garland shows how, after the 1960s, American-style capitalism disrupted poor communities and …

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Facing Infinity: Black Holes and Our Place on Earth 55:54

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Humanity’s relationship with black holes began in 1783 in a small English village, when clergyman John Michell posed a startling question: What if there are objects in space that are so large and heavy that not even light can escape them? Almost 250 years later, in April 2019, scientists presented the first picture of a black hole. Profoundly inspi…

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Craig Hogan, "The Unlikely Primeval Sky" (American Scientist, November-December) 30:27

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Of all the patterns that could possibly be preserved in the post–Big Bang radiation, the one we see is surprisingly smooth on large angular scales. Sitting by a campfire on a dark night, looking up at the Milky Way, a curious child asks, “What does the sky tell us? Where does it all come from? Does space go on forever?” A caring adult might share a…

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Eric H. Cline, "Love, War, and Diplomacy: The Discovery of the Amarna Letters and the Bronze Age World They Revealed" (Princeton UP, 2025) 1:07:05

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From the acclaimed author of 1177 B.C., a spellbinding account of the archaeological find that opened a window onto the vibrant diplomatic world of the ancient Near East In 1887, an Egyptian woman made an astonishing discovery among the ruins of the heretic king Akhenaten’s capital city, a site now known as Amarna. She found a cache of cuneiform ta…

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Eduardo Mercado III, "Why Whales Sing" (JHU Press, 2025) 1:05:37

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With breathtaking complexity and haunting beauty, the songs of whales have long fascinated scientists. Whales are the only mammals that can sing continuously for ten hours or more, changing the unique songs they sing every year. In Why Whales Sing (JHU Press, 2025), bioacoustician and cognitive scientist Eduardo Mercado transforms our understanding…

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Jenny C. Mann, "The Trials of Orpheus: Poetry, Science, and the Early Modern Sublime" (Princeton UP, 2021) 48:04

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Today’s guest is Jenny Mann, who has a new book titled The Trials of Orpheus: Poetry, Science, and the Early Modern Sublime (Princeton University Press, 2021). Jenny is Professor in both New York University’s English Department and the Gallatin School, and her work has been supported by the Mellon Foundation and the Folger Shakespeare Library. She …

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Marcus Chown, "A Crack in Everything: How Black Holes Came in from the Cold and Took Cosmic Centre Stage" (Apollo, 2025) 1:17:58

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What is space? What is time? Where did the universe come from? The answers to mankind's most enduring questions may lie in science's greatest enigma: black holes. A black hole is a region of space where gravity is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape. This can occur when a star approaches the end of its life. Unable to generate enough…

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James Trefil and Shobita Satyapal, "Supermassive: Black Holes at the Beginning and End of the Universe" (Smithsonian Books, 2025) 1:01:42

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Black holes, demystified: follow along the quest to understand the history and influence of one of space science's most fascinating and confounding phenomena Led by physicist James Trefil and astrophysicist Shobita Satyapal, Supermassive: Black Holes at the Beginning and End of the Universe (Smithsonian Books, 2025) traverses the incredible history…

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Liam Graham, "Physics Fixes All the Facts" (Springer Nature, 2025) 46:53

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Complex systems seem to magically emerge from the interactions of their parts. A whirlpool emerges from water molecules. A living cell from organic molecules. You emerge from the cells of your body. Not since chaos has a concept from physics spread like wildfire to other disciplines. Emergence can be found from chemistry to economics; from psycholo…

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Rachel Myrick, "Polarization and International Politics: How Extreme Partisanship Threatens Global Stability" (Princeton UP, 2025) 25:52

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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 nati…

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Vlatko Vedral, "Portals to a New Reality: Five Pathways to the Future of Physics" (Basic Books, 2025) 1:14:30

2M ago1:14:30

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For the last century, physics has been treading along the paths set by the same two theories--quantum theory and general relativity--and, let's face it, it's getting pretty boring. Most scientists are simply chasing decimal points in laboratories, unable to explore the theories at large scales, where serious discrepancies could emerge. The situatio…

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Tamar Mitts, "Safe Havens for Hate: The Challenge of Moderating Online Extremism" (Princeton UP, 2025) 45:21

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Content moderation on social media has become one of the most daunting challenges of our time. Nowhere is the need for action more urgent than in the fight against terrorism and extremism. Yet despite mass content takedowns, account suspensions, and mounting pressure on technology companies to do more, hate thrives online. Safe Havens for Hate: The…

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John Blair, "Killing the Dead: Vampire Epidemics from Mesopotamia to the New World" (Princeton UP, 2025) 51:29

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Killing the Dead: Vampire Epidemics from Mesopotamia to the New World (Princeton UP, 2025) by Professor John Blair provides the first in-depth, global account of one of the world’s most widespread yet misunderstood forms of mass hysteria—the vampire epidemic. In a spellbinding narrative, Dr. Blair takes readers from ancient Mesopotamia to present-d…

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Brian Potter, "The Origins of Efficiency" (Stripe Press, 2025) 51:26

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Efficiency is the engine that powers human civilization. It's the reason rates of famine have fallen precipitously, literacy has risen, and humans are living longer, healthier lives compared to preindustrial times. But where do improvements in production efficiency come from? In The Origins of Efficiency (Stripe Press, 2025), Brian Potter argues th…

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Rick A López, "Rooted in Place: Botany, Indigeneity, and Art in the Construction of Mexican Nature, 1570-1914" (U Arizona Press, 2025) 50:26

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Since the first moment of conquest, colonizers and the colonized alike in Mexico confronted questions about what it meant to be from this place, what natural resources it offered, and who had the right to control those resources and on what basis. Focusing on the ways people, environment, and policies have been affected by political boundaries, in …

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Joshua Clark Davis, "Police Against the Movement: The Sabotage of the Civil Rights Struggle and the Activists Who Fought Back" (Princeton UP, 2025) 1:25:36

2M ago1:25:36

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Police Against the Movement: The Sabotage of the Civil Rights Struggle and the Activists Who Fought Back (Princeton UP, 2025) shatters one of the most pernicious myths about the 1960s: thast the civil rights movement endured police violence without fighting it. Instead, as Joshua Clark Davis shows, activists from the Congress of Racial Equality and…

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Roger Moorhouse, "Wolfpack: Hitler’s U-Boat War 1939-45" (HarperCollins, 2025) 1:05:15

2M ago1:05:15

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Winston Churchill famously remarked that the threat of the German U-Boats was the only thing that had “really frightened” him during World War Two. The U-Boats certainly claimed a bitter harvest among Allied shipping: nearly 3,000 ships were sunk, for a total tonnage of over 14 million tonnes, nearly 70% of Allied shipping losses in all theatres of…

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R. Jisung Park, "Slow Burn: The Hidden Costs of a Warming World" (Princeton UP, 2025) 44:24

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R. Jisung Park is assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania, where he holds appointments in the School of Social Policy and Practice and the Wharton School of Business. It’s hard not to feel anxious about the problem of climate change, especially if we think of it as an impending planetary catastrophe. In Slow Burn: The Hidden Costs of …

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Harry Cliff, "Space Oddities: The Mysterious Anomalies Challenging Our Understanding of the Universe" (Doubleday, 2024) 1:06:13

2M ago1:06:13

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Nothing captivates the human imagination like the vast unknowns of space. Ancient petroglyphs present renderings of the heavens, proof that we have been gazing up at the stars with wonder for thousands of years. Since then, mankind has systematically expanded our cosmic possibilities. What were once flights of fancy and dreams of science fiction wr…

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What Do You Want Out of Life? A Philosophical Guide to Figuring Out What Matters 1:04:41

2M ago1:04:41

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What do you want out of life? To make a lot of money, work for justice, run marathons, sing in a choir, have children, travel the world? The things we care about in life—family, friendship, leisure activities, work, our moral ideals—often conflict, preventing us from doing what matters most to us. Even worse, we don’t always know what we really wan…

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Alice Lovejoy, "Tales of Militant Chemistry: The Film Factory in a Century of War" (U California Press, 2025) 45:50

2M ago45:50

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The history of film calls to mind unforgettable photographs, famous directors, and the glitz and hustle of the media business. But there is another tale to tell that connects film as a material to the twentieth century's history of war, destruction, and cruelty. This story comes into focus during World War II at the factories of Tennessee Eastman, …