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David Commins on Saudi Arabia, Wahhabism, and the Future of the Gulf States
Episode 254
David Commins, author of the new book Saudi Arabia: A Modern History, brings decades of scholarship and firsthand experience to explain the kingdom's unlikely rise. Tyler and David discuss why Wahha…
Published on 9 hours ago
Seamus Murphy on Photographing Patterns Across Cultures
Episode 253
Seamus Murphy is an Irish photographer and filmmaker who has spent decades documenting life in some of the world's most challenging places—from Taliban-controlled Afghanistan to Nigeria's Boko Hara…
Published on 2 weeks ago
David Brooks on Audacity, AI, and the American Psyche (Live at 92NY)
Episode 252
David Brooks returns to the show with a stark diagnosis of American culture. Having evolved from a Democratic socialist to a neoconservative to what he now calls "the rightward edge of the leftward t…
Published on 4 weeks ago
Nate Silver on Life’s Mixed Strategies
Episode 251
In his third appearance on Conversations with Tyler, Nate Silver looks back at past predictions, weighs how academic ideas such as expected utility theory fare in practice, and examines the world of …
Published on 1 month ago
Annie Jacobsen on Nuclear War, Intelligence Operations, and Conspiracy Realities
Episode 250
Annie Jacobsen has a favorite word for America's nuclear doctrine: madness. It's madness that any single person has six minutes to decide the fate of civilization, madness that we've built weapons ca…
Published on 1 month, 1 week ago
Helen Castor on Medieval Power and Personalities
Episode 249
Helen Castor is a British historian and BBC broadcaster who left Cambridge because she wanted to write narrative history focused on individuals rather than the analytical style typical of academia. A…
Published on 1 month, 3 weeks ago
David Robertson on Conducting, Pierre Boulez, and Musical Interpretation
Episode 248
David Robertson is a rare conductor who unites avant-garde complexity with accessibility. After serving as music director of the Ensemble Intercontemporain, Pierre Boulez’s storied contemporary-music…
Published on 2 months, 1 week ago
Austan Goolsbee on Central Banking as a Data Dog
Episode 247
Austan Goolsbee is one of Tyler Cowen’s favorite economists—not because they always agree, but because Goolsbee embodies what it means to think like an economist. Whether he’s analyzing productivity…
Published on 2 months, 3 weeks ago
Chris Arnade on Walking Cities
Episode 246
Most people who leave Wall Street after twenty years either retire or find another way to make a lot of money. Chris Arnade chose to walk through cities most travelers never truly see. What emerged f…
Published on 2 months, 4 weeks ago
Any Austin on the Hermeneutics of Video Games
Episode 245
Any Austin has carved a unique niche for himself on YouTube: analyzing seemingly mundane or otherwise overlooked details in video games with the seriousness of an art critic examining Renaissance scu…
Published on 3 months ago