Radio Live - Podcasts - Keen On America - Maud Newton: How to Come to Terms With Troubling Ancestors

Maud Newton: How to Come to Terms With Troubling Ancestors

Author: Andrew Keen November 3, 2022 Duration: 44:16

Podcast episode

Keen On America

Keen On America is a sharp, fast-moving podcast hosted by author and commentator Andrew Keen. Known for asking impertinent questions, Keen cross-examines some of the world’s most thoughtful voices on politics, economics, history, culture, the environment, and technology. Each episode digs beneath headlines and hype to uncover what is really shaping America today and how those forces connect to global change. Listeners can expect challenging conversations rather than easy talking points, as Keen presses guests to explain not just what is happening, but why it matters and what might come next. Whether you are trying to make sense of polarized politics, rapid technological disruption, or shifting social norms, this show offers a bracing, critical lens. Tune in and listen episodes of Keen On America to hear Andrew Keen interrogate the ideas and assumptions that define contemporary American life.

Hosted by Andrew Keen, Keen On features conversations with some of the world’s leading thinkers and writers about the economic, political, and technological issues being discussed in the news, right now.

In this episode, Andrew is joined by Maud Newton, author of Ancestor Trouble: A Reckoning and a Reconciliation.

Maud Newton has written for The New York Times Magazine, Harper’s, The New York Times Book Review, and Oxford American. She grew up in Miami and graduated from the University of Florida with degrees in English and law.

More episodes

The Revolting Elites: How Christopher Lasch Predicted Trump and the Crisis of American Democracy

29.07.2025 Duration: 49:26

Both the American left and right are revolted by elites. But whereas the right has channeled its distaste for the powers-that-be into Trump and MAGA, the left has mostly failed to capitalize on populist hatred of America…

Episode page

Confessions of a Meme Queen: I Created an Instagram Following to Trick People Into Letting Me Write a Book

29.07.2025 Duration: 39:16

Dubbed the Meme Queen of Depression by Mashable, Aiden Arata's real goal on Instagram was to build a big enough following to convince traditional publishers to let her write a book. Thus her new collection of essays, You…

Episode page

The charming gay racist who invented modern American conservatism: Sam Tanenhaus on William F. Buckley's absurdly implausible contradictions

27.07.2025 Duration: 48:15

The troubling thing about William F. Buckley, the media savvy founder of modern American conservatism, isn’t so much his politics, but his likability. How could such an overtly reactionary racist and homophobe (even if h…

Episode page

"AI Is Too Busy to Take Your Job: The Electrifying Truth about our AIgorithmic Future

26.07.2025 Duration: 47:24

Yesterday, we focused on the death of the American way of work. But today the news on the AI front isn’t quite as dire. According to the New York based economic historian Dror Poleg, AI will be too busy to take your job.…

Episode page

The Death of the American Way of Work: How the United States Lost Its Grip on the Future

24.07.2025 Duration: 32:53

In 1963, Jessica Mitford published her remarkable account of the American funeral industry, An American Way of Death. Over sixty years later, another distinguished Englishwoman, the workplace futurist Julia Hobsbawm, is…

Episode page

How Capitalism Turned Money into God: Paul Vigna on Buying the Almighty

22.07.2025 Duration: 44:46

It’s an old thesis - that capitalism has created a religion out of money. But nobody, not even Marx, has been quite as theologically explicit as Paul Vigna, author of The Almightier: How Money Became God, Greed Became Vi…

Episode page

AI as Dumb Waiter 2.0: Douglas Rushkoff on How Smart Technology Isn't Quite as Smart as It Claims

21.07.2025 Duration: 48:14

Douglas Rushkoff has spent decades warning how each new digital technological “revolution” has promised liberation but actually only compounds social and economic injustice. Six months after describing AI to me as the "f…

Episode page

From Luther to Zuckerberg: Who killed Privacy?

19.07.2025 Duration: 53:12

So who killed privacy? It's the central question of Tiffany Jenkins' provocative new history of private life, Strangers and Intimates. The answer, according to Jenkins, is that we are all complicit—having gradually and o…

Episode page

Is Mohammed bin Salman a Tyrant or an Enlightened Despot? Karen Elliott House on MBS's Transformation of Saudi Arabia

16.07.2025 Duration: 54:11

Is Mohammed bin Salman a tyrant or an enlightened despot? According to the former Wall Street Journal publisher Karen Elliott House, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Man Who Would Be King, a new biography of MBS, he…

Episode page

Why America is Destroying Itself: Charles Derber on Sociocide and America's Social Suicide

15.07.2025 Duration: 40:05

Sociocide is a chilling word. Coined by the Norwegian sociologist Johan Galtung, it means the deliberate destruction of a society's social infrastructure and capacity to function as a cohesive unit. According to Boston C…

Episode page

A Satirist's Revenge on Wall Street: From Trading Hedge Funds to Telling Stories

13.07.2025 Duration: 28:30

It’s the fantasy of countless Wall Street analysts. Amran Gowani traded his lucrative career in hedge funds for the scarily solitary world of novel writing. His debut satirical novel Leverage draws from his insider exper…

Episode page

Living in Teddy's Shadow: How Roosevelt's Sons Found Redemption—and Regret—in Their Quest for the Giant Panda

11.07.2025 Duration: 37:46

How can anyone forget those photos of Trump’s sons celebrating over the carcasses of dead animals that they shot in Africa? Fortunately, not all sons of American Presidents behave so tastelessly in the wild. As Nathalia…

Episode page

America's Heart of Moral Darkness: Peter Wehner on Trump's Apocalyptic Assault on African AIDS Victims

10.07.2025 Duration: 49:01

The last time Peter Wehner, who I’ve always imagined as America’s conscience, appeared on the show to talk about the “ethical darkness” that has fallen upon America, I suggested that this was an “important” interview. To…

Episode page

Breaking Down America's Everyday Walls: From Swimming Pools and SUVs to White Lives Matter Rallies

09.07.2025 Duration: 45:29

From suburban swimming pools and SUVs to White Lives Matter rallies, the Johns Hopkins anthropologist Anand Pandian has been exploring the everyday walls of American life. In his new book, Something Between Us, Pandian t…

Episode page

The AI Wedge: It's as Painful as it Sounds

07.07.2025 Duration: 43:18

So what, exactly, is the AI wedge? According to Ewan Morrison, author of For Emma, an already acclaimed novel about our dystopian biotech future, it means a “V-shaped” force that starts small but gradually drives people…

Episode page