By Amy Willis

In this inspiring episode, author, poet, and lawyer Dwayne Betts describes the terrible choice he made at age 16 that left him in prison for almost a decade. Despite his tragic situation, the young Betts was determined to see his sentence more as an opportunity than a punishment. EconTalk host Russ Roberts explo...

Author and journalist Fredrik deBoer discusses his book The Cult of Smart with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. DeBoer argues that there is little that can be done to change the distribution of success in K-12 education. He argues that educational reforms like charter schools and No Child Left Behind are doomed to failure. ...

Author, lawyer, and poet Dwayne Betts talks about his time in prison and the power of reading with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Betts is the founder of the Million Book Project, which aims to put a small library of great books in 1,000 U.S. prisons. Betts discusses his plans for the project and how reading helped him tr...

Journalist and author Anne Applebaum talks about her book, Twilight of Democracy, with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Applebaum discusses the rise of populist and nationalist movements in Eastern Europe as well as in the West, and the appeal of these movements even when they begin to erode or destroy democracy.

By Amy Willis

What does "learning" mean to you? Where and when does it occur? What are its outcomes? How does it affect your status in the world, and do we accord status in the right way? These questions and more are at the heart of this provocative conversation. EconTalk host Russ Roberts welcomes Zena Hitz of St. John's College to...

Philosopher and author Zena Hitz of St. John's College talks about her book, Lost in Thought, with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Hitz defends learning for its own sake--learning that has nothing to do with passing an exam or preparing for a career. For Hitz, learning is a refuge and an essential part of what makes us hum...

Where do our deepest personal values come from? Can we choose those values? Philosopher and author Agnes Callard of the University of Chicago talks about her book, Aspiration, with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Callard explores the challenge of aspiration--who we are versus who we would like to become. How does aspiratio...

By Amy Willis

How can antebellum racial violence and intolerance in America help explain the disappearance of bankers in post-Soviet Russia??? This "mystery" is at the heart of this episode in which EconTalk host Russ Roberts welcomes economist Lisa Cook to discuss her research. Cook had a notion that violent barriers to innovati...

How much has racism held back the U.S. economy? What would the country look like today if Black entrepreneurs and inventors had been welcomed and encouraged over the past century and a half? Economist Lisa Cook of Michigan State University talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about her research into the impact of raci...

By Amy Willis

This episode is all about personal and intellectual journeys. Host Russ Roberts welcomes Bob Chitester, the man behind Milton Friedman's legendary Free to Choose PBS television series. Chitester describes how that project came to be, and both he and Roberts share many memories of Friedman and his compatriots. It's a lo...

Once upon a time, a man had an idea for a documentary on free-market ideas. Then that man was introduced to Milton Friedman. The result of their collaboration was a wildly successful book and PBS series, Free to Choose, capturing Friedman's view of the world, how markets work, and the role of individual liberty in free...

By Alice Temnick

Matt Asher, host of the podcast “The Filter”, is a self-proclaimed fan of the long-running podcast, Econtalk, and of its host, Russ Roberts. Asher’s primary goal in this multi-faceted discussion was to reveal the epistemology of Russ Roberts and what has shaped, changed, and encouraged the world view that he shar...

How do we prepare for a future that is unpredictable? That's the question at the heart of Margaret Heffernan's new book, Uncharted: How to Navigate the Future. Heffernan is a professor at the University of Bath, but she is also a serial entrepreneur, a former CEO, and the author of five books on leadership, innovation,...

By Amy Willis

What's the difference between invention and innovation, and which conributes more to our everyday lives? In this episode, EconTalk host Russ Roberts welcomes back Matt Ridley to discuss his newest book, How Innovation Works. Ridley's book vividly illustrates that "innovation is the child of freedom and the paren...

What's the difference between invention and innovation? Could it be that innovation--the process of making a breakthrough invention available, affordable, and reliable--is actually the hard part? In this week's EconTalk episode, author Matt Ridley talks about his book How Innovation Works with EconTalk host Russ Robert...

By Amy Willis

Over 1,000 people are killed by police in America each year. While some (increasingly) make headlines, most of these deaths go generally unknown. In this episode, criminologist Franklin Zimring joins host Russ Roberts to dig into this uniquely American phenomenon. Zimring begins by noting there are two ways the ...