194. Jared Diamond (Historian) – Look inward, Nation

194. Jared Diamond (Historian) – Look inward, Nation

Author: Big Think / Panoply May 11, 2019 Duration: 47:50
Imagine yourself a German citizen the day after the end of World War II. Much of your city is bombed to ruins. A good part of the population is dead. The Nazi ideology that has dominated your nation for the past decade has been repudiated as definitively as Bambi in “Bambi Meets Godzilla”. Basically, it’s the end of the world. Now consider Berlin today. It’s the biggest economy in Europe. The center of the European Union. A progressive welfare state where the old racial and nationalist resentments have been reduced to fringe movements. Still disturbingly present, but by no means mainstream. How do you get here from there? And could the pendulum ever swing back again? This is the subject of Jared Diamond’s new book, UPHEAVAL. In it, the geographer, historian and author of GUNS, GERMS, AND STEEL looks to human crisis counseling for a model of how nations deal with crises both acute and gradual. For Americans like myself, troubled in this historical moment by dreams of the late Roman Empire, its a refreshingly clear-eyed look at the many different ways these things can go. Surprise conversation starters in this episode: Timothy Snyder on partisan politics Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Imagine having just a few minutes with a brilliant thinker, but instead of asking them about their usual expertise, you steer the conversation somewhere entirely unexpected. That’s the core experience of Think Again-a Big Think Podcast. Host Jason Gots sits down with an extraordinary roster of guests-from Neil Gaiman and Margaret Atwood to Richard Dawkins and Bill Nye-and presents them with ideas and questions they aren’t prepared to discuss. The result is a series of spontaneous, revealing conversations that go far beyond typical interviews. You’ll hear authors, scientists, artists, and cultural icons like Alan Alda, Salman Rushdie, and George Takei thinking out loud, grappling with new concepts, and often surprising themselves. This podcast lives in the unscripted moments where curiosity meets expertise, covering a wide terrain of arts, culture, and societal questions. It’s about the joy of a mental detour, the kind that happens if you had ten minutes with Einstein and decided to talk about something other than physics. Each episode is an invitation to step off the well-worn path and discover what happens when great minds are asked to, well, think again.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Think Again - a Big Think Podcast
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